Just The News;

An electric emergency vehicle belonging to a fire department in Germany caught fire and burnt down the new fire station.

The fire, which occurred on Oct. 16, according to Euro News, started from a vehicle that “contained lithium-ion batteries and an external power connection.” The blaze destroyed nearly a dozen emergency vehicles and caused between $21.5 million and $25.9 million in damage. No one was injured.

The stations, which opened a year ago, didn’t have a fire alarm system, Euro News reported because “experts considered it not necessary.”

NY Post;

The auto industry is big business in Michigan, and a major round of layoffs is revving the election into high gear for industry workers in the critical swing state — who blame the Biden-Harris administration’s heavy-handed electric-vehicle mandates for the painful job losses.

Stellantis, which manufactures Chrysler, Jeep and Dodge vehicles, announced last month it will lay off 2,450 workers at its Warren plant. While industry jobs in the state have been declining since 1990, Michigan autoworkers explained to The Post why Team Biden’s green-energy rules are at fault this time.[…]

“Listen, you wanna buy an EV car? Great,” she continued. “But the autoworkers, the automakers know that we can’t survive because the infrastructure isn’t there on EVs. Nobody wants to buy them.”

Ford slashed more than 1,000 jobs at its Rouge Electric Vehicle Center in Dearborn after drastically scaling back its production of the F-150 Lightning, an all-electric pickup truck.

“It’s the way that the government now wants to go,” Gordon said of the transition to EVs. “And they completely made the wrong decisions on it because if you look, Ford has lost a lot of money.”

Ford reported a $132,000 loss in the year’s first quarter on each of the 10,000 electric vehicles it sold — which was 20% fewer EVs than sold in the same period last year.

Zerohedge;

As discussed earlier today, Germany’s economy is slowly but surely sinking, whether or not Mario Draghi’s proposal to flood Europe in new debt is eventually accepted, and nowhere is the pain more tangible than Germany’s iconic carmaker, Volkswagen, which we reported last week was considering its first-ever factory closure amid a dire economic backdrop, and which today took the shocking – for Germany – decision to end job protections for German auto workers as part of its cost-cutting push, setting up a calamitous showdown with unions as the country’s most important industry fights for its future.

This morning, the world’s largest automaker by sales canceled several agreements linked to a three-decades-old pact that was supposed to safeguard employment until 2029, V. […]

VW’s main target is its underperforming namesake passenger car brand, whose profit margins are getting squeezed amid a sputtering transition to EVs and a consumer spending slowdown. Carmakers in Europe are also struggling to compete with Tesla and new entrants from China led by BYDl, which have been selling cars at dumping prices, infuriating Brussels.

Cutbacks at VW are harder to push through than at other companies, especially since half the seats on the company’s supervisory board are held by labor representatives, and the German state of Lower Saxony — which owns a 20% stake — often sides with trade union bodies. The automaker, which employs almost 300,000 Germans, last week defended its plant closure plans, saying flagging car sales have left it with about two factories too many.

h/t MelindaPrevious.

H/T to Melinda, “I think this is a really big deal. If you read between the lines, a tipping point of union power vs ongoing Corporate viability has been passed, and he’s doing something about it. Come hell or high water.”

Volkswagen boss Oliver Blume, already battling slowing demand for electric cars and Chinese rivals, must now put aside his mantle as team player to tackle yet another tough opponent, Germany’s powerful labour unions.

The pressure on Europe’s top carmaker was laid bare this week when Volkswagen disclosed it was not only planning to scrap a 30-year old job security scheme but weighing the closure of plants in Germany.

Moritz Kronenberger, portfolio manager at Volkswagen shareholder Union Investment, dubs these the company’s “two holy cows”.

By taking them on, Blume sets a collision course with one of Germany’s mightiest stakeholder groups, the IG Metall union, whose main goal is to protect jobs and sites and safeguard the favourable working conditions in Europe’s biggest economy.

VW works council head Daniela Cavallo said unions would “fiercely resist” the plans, ruling out any factory closures on her watch. She said a staff meeting on Wednesday, where management will face workers, would be “very uncomfortable”.

Volkswagen has not closed a plant since 1988 when it shut its Westmoreland site in Pennsylvania. In July it said it might close an Audi factory in Brussels citing a sharp drop in demand for high-end electric cars.

But others disagree.

Firefighters said they received a call about a fire at an unoccupied home on Monday, but upon arriving at the scene, they found that a Tesla was the cause of the fire. They then realized that the Tesla was hooked directly to the nearby powerlines. The illegal connections are a significant problem in the area. People connect directly to the power line or splice into electrical meter wiring to get free electricity, but the resulting power flow is unpredictable and largely unsafe.

No injuries were reported, but EV fires are a big problem for first responders. The firefighters in Tijuana had to build dirt berms around the car to hold enough water to keep it submerged. They estimated that the car could take a few days to completely burn out and said that it couldn’t be moved until they were certain the flames were out.

@LasVegasLocally;

A crisis situation is unfolding in the California desert. Thousands of people headed to Las Vegas have been stuck on the I-40 for many hours, running out of gas and water. This is all due to the lithium battery truck fire that closed down I-15 yesterday.

@SLCScanner 5:04 PM

#Baker #California I-15 closed near #Baker after a semi-truck carrying lithium batteries caught fire Friday morning. The fire was reported at approx 6:30am. I-15 was closed in both directions by 8:30am.

#CaliforniaHighwayPatrol and the #SanBernadinoFireDept advised the semi-truck overturned while hauling a “connex of lithium ion batteries.”

As of this moment the freeway remains #closed and thousands of people are stuck between #California and #LasVegas. With the current temperature at 108° and all vehicles stopped, people have their pets, elderly family members and they are running out of fuel, battery charge, food, water, medications etc. Some have been stuck since the 0830 closure yesterday morning. They have no update on when it will reopen. I-15 closure and I-40 is at a stand still. The last pic is a screenshot of traffic minutes ago.

Video: KTNV Channel 13

Battery maker to review growth plan;

Northvolt is examining its long-term strategy “both from a capital allocation point of view” as well as working out “realistic time plans for these projects between the customers,” Carlsson said in an interview.

Slower-than-expected demand for electric cars has prompted automakers to tweak model rollout plans and walk back ambitious goals for electrification. The ripple effect from these changes is starting to spread, with battery projects being pushed out and material suppliers Umicore SA and BASF SE cancelling projects.

Additional hurdles have also gone up for Northvolt, Europe’s most advanced homegrown battery maker. Long-standing battery rivals in Asia, such as China’s BYD Co., have made strides on improving cheaper lithium-iron-phosphate batteries, broadening the types of vehicles they can be used for, undermining Europe’s own battery industry efforts.

Northvolt is also dealing with internal problems in the transition to full-scale production. Customers like Volkswagen AG’s Scania have complained of delivery delays, while BMW AG has backed out of a €2 billion (US$2.1 billion) battery order because of quality concerns, dealing a blow to the region’s efforts to establish an independent EV supply chain.

The manufacturer’s operating loss more than tripled to US$1.03 billion last year, Northvolt said, as the company dealt with “multiple challenges and setbacks” while seeking to scale up output at its Ett battery gigafactory, Carlsson said in a statement.

They probably just need more of our money.

Update: The Canada Pension Plan Investment Board put more than $600 million in China’s electric vehicle sector accused by cabinet of unfair trade practices.

More: Ford suspends new EV models after losing $1.3B from its EV division.

AP News;

Thieves have been targeting EV charging stations, intent on stealing the cables, which contain copper wiring. The price of copper is near a record high on global markets, which means criminals stand to collect rising sums of cash from selling the material.

The stolen cables often disable entire stations, forcing EV owners on the road to search desperately for a working charger. For the owners, the predicament can be exasperating and stressful.