This is somewhat of a predictably tragic outcome all things considered. I remember a previous conversation on these pages when GM moved massive investment into China to build their mid-size SUV brand, Encore.
Continuing the U.S. decline of the brand, the Wall Street Journal is reporting that approximately half of all Buick dealership in the U.S. have opted to take a buyout from GM, as opposed to spending millions in retooling, restructuring and retraining their staff to accommodate the EV influx.
Most of the EV’s shoved onto the dealer lots sit idle without customers to purchase them.
Wall Street Journal – General Motors (GM) has bought out about half of its 2,000 Buick dealers nationwide, based on their decision to not sell electric vehicles, according to a company spokesman Wednesday.
Dealers who are taking the buyout would give up the Buick franchise and no longer sell the brand, he said. The dealer can continue to sell other GM models, such as Chevrolet or GMC, that often account for a higher percentage of sales.
The Wall Street Journal reported in late 2022 that the automaker planned to offer buyouts to its U.S. Buick dealer network. The move came after the Detroit automaker gave the dealers a choice: Invest at least $300,000 to sell and service electric vehicles, or exit the Buick franchise. The investments would cover EV chargers and worker training, among other initiatives. (read more)
The Joe Biden EPA mandates for Electric Vehicles are going to crush the U.S. auto industry and consumers. On the upside, regular, well-maintained gasoline powered used vehicles will hold their value longer. Overall new car prices are already ridiculous and the prices of the EV’s are substantially higher.
Along with higher entry prices, the insurance is higher, maintenance costs are higher and the replacement parts for EV’s are insanely high. In some models the replacement batteries cost more than the vehicle is worth. How the auto industry thinks these mandates are sustainable is beyond logic, then again maybe that’s the feature, not the flaw.
If the overall goal is to reduce the number of vehicles on the road and control the transportation choices of the American public, then the EV mandate policy is designed well.
It’s all madness, and only one commonsense businessman seems to understand the issue.
GM knows. How long before their woke CEO takes down the company for good or stockholders wake up to Blackrock’s schemes?
Electric cars are a barely sustainable niche market even with massive government subsidies for R&D, plant construction, price discounting, road tax exemptions and fuel tax exemptions.
GM has scuttled electric pickups after taking billions from Michigan taxpayers
Two years ago: Gov. Whitmer Secures Historic $7 Billion Investment by GM to Create Thousands of Manufacturing Jobs, Making Michigan a Home for Company’s Electric Vehicle Future
“$7 billion investment will create 4,000 and retain 1,000 jobs and is a significant portion of GM’s overall planned investment in electric and autonomous vehicles through 2025
………..includes a $4 billion investment to convert GM’s Orion Township assembly plant for the production of full-size EV pickups and up to $2.5 billion to build Ultium’s third U.S. battery cell plant in Lansing”
https://www.michigan.gov/whitmer/news/press-releases/2022/01/25/secures-historic-7-billion-investment-by-gm-to-create-thousands-of-manufacturing-jobs-
————-
December 2023: GM CEO says they are laying off 1500 workers and will put off building the plant to produce electric Chevy and GMC pickups. Something about nobody wanting to buy them. Whitmer asks “what about the 7 billion?”
Democrat Governor’s Failed Deal With GM Leaves Thousands Without A Job
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/democrat-governor-s-failedutubedeal-with-gm-leaves-thousands-without-a-job/ar-AA1lO0zu
Sadly, you can’t just say it’s a democrat thing, here in SC our brilliant guvnuh McMaster and all the Rinos in our state Congress basically payed Proterra to come with the promise of thousands of jobs and then kept lowering projections. All the while we kept giving them tax breaks. Now Proterra is bankrupt. To top it off, they obviously learned nothing, they are doing it again with Scout Motors (VW), throwing even more money and commitments at them. No voter say in the process.
Money laundering anyone ?
I’m with you. “Democrat” was in the linked article .
Here in NC our marxist governor and Republican legislature gave a communist EV company (Vinfast) $3 billion with a “B”, in cash and concessions (including infrastucuture/highway work, and environmental exemptions) to build a vehicle and battery plant. Vinfast put in nothing.
No one in the state questioned the insanity of this. E.g…. SC gave BMW $325 million and BMW pledged to put in $6 billion.
Now … about a year later, guess what?
North Carolina’s Bad Billion-Dollar Bet on a Struggling E.V. Company
https://reason.com/2023/12/11/north-carolinas-bad-billion-dollar-bet-on-a-struggling-e-v-company/
Remember Solyndra, all those billions? Or the $5B the Obamas paid thier Canadian friends to design the Ocare website, that was such a horror? The one that Amazon said it could have built for a few million?? And from which we never got our money back?m
The politicians are bought off; it doesn’t matter a wit to them what happens to the people, THEY GOT THEIRS. We are being sold out every minute of every day. Government by donor. The donors even write the laws!
And you can bet all the politicians will keep their gas powered vehicles along with their jets & lawn equipment
I remember locally, when Obama managed to force auto dealers to give ownership to people that Obama decided should be the owners. Our town had a locally, family-owned Buick dealership that was forced, without compensation, to give their dealership contract to a competing (Democrat family) car dealership.
Still waiting for the day when those auto dealers who lost their businesses in the great auto-industry bailout to be compensated for that taking.
Goodbye GM, you went along with stealing dealerships from long time family owned businesses and giving them to Democrat owned businesses. Amazing how long term mad I still am over that, and I have nothing to do with the auto business at all, but my first car was a Buick Regal bought from that dealership so knew those people, way back when.
Also remember reading in the news how one Democrat congressman laughed at a Republican congressman who’s family had made their fortune in owning auto dealerships and that Democrat laughed saying ‘guess we’ve put your family out of business’.
Since it was local it looks like you remembered something I’d almost forgotten and there aren’t many things I’ve forgotten about the Obama years. I sure hope every horror the Obama administration did to this country and people is being recorded in it’s entirety for posterity. This is what I want to see taught in our Universities as required reading.
The unelected Biden regime horrors are just a continuation (on steroids) of what Obama and others started. That should be a separate volume, also required reading.
^^^^^This^^^^^
I’ll never forget the idiocy of “Cash for Clunkers”. It virtually put every teenager on a 10-speed bicycle.
I read it here on the Treehouse from one of our fellow Treepers that after all those parts were taken out of the market, lo and behold, there were “new” parts for old cars available in your local auto parts store – made in China!
My Mom and Dad were “poor as church mice” they used to say, when they were first married – part of the household budget included keeping the tank filled for Dad’s acetylene torch so he would have that on hand whenever he had to make any repairs on the family autos – plus there were visits to the local pick-a-part places as well as keeping a sharp eye out for ads in the paper for cars that could be bought for parts.
I sure hope every horror the Obama administration did to this country and people is being recorded in it’s entirety for
posterityrevenge upon those from that administration, and their followers, that were responsible for the destruction they deliberately caused.We are going to need special courts and judges to handle the volume of traitorous criminals we should be punished. None of it should be forgotten.
“that administration” is continuing in “this administration”… don’t be fooled.
Going to need more knitters.
Well, You have spelled unelected obumber regime wrong. Be Blessed and Merry Christmas. Politics is dead to me.
I remember that, with bitterness. Didn’t directly affect me, but I saw the dealerships closed down in medium sized towns around….just SHUT DOWN within a matter of weeks.
The bailout of GM and Chrysler cost me (We The Taxpayer) 17 billion dollars, give or take. Had the poorly managed companies been allowed to go bankrupt, they would have survived in some form and scale. That’s the law of the jungle and the way the cookie crumbles for companies that are managed into the ground.
Those who represent We The Taxpayer decided to throw money at the problem. That wasn’t my preferred remedy, but it is what it is. Had the bankrupt companies then made an effort to repay me as they got back on their feet, my feelings toward them would be considerably different than what they are today.
Ford had been well managed and asked for nothing from me. Every automobile I have purchased since then – seven or eight, I believe – has been a Ford. I have been more than satisfied. I have not so much as stepped foot on a GM or Chrysler lot since the gifting. Yes, I do hold grudges – LOL.
Same thing happened where I live. A family-owned Chrysler dealership who had been around as long as I could remember was forced to close down in the- Obama/Biden era of -there are too many car dealerships in the area-.
I remember our driving education class in high school (combined with health education) where the teacher happened to ask how many jobs in America did we think were associated with the auto industry – the answer was (back then, in 1968), 1 of out of 7 jobs.
I don’t know what the figures are today but Detroit is surely a sorry sight . . .
from the exciting days of seeing new models rolling out on Woodward Avenue . . .
it was so horrific to think of all those companies connected to the auto industry that got badly hurt by Obama . . . I guess the Dingell Dynasty of Detroit was not overly concerned about their constituents.
Not to mention all the architectural wonders in Detroit … Library, opera house, train station, etc.
We have become Potterville.
I was a solid GM fanatic from my earliest days. Bought seven new GM vehicles, one every five years or so. The Obama bailouts did it for me; haven’t bought one since. And I told the local dealership “why” when they asked.
I remember that BRAZEN BREAKING OF CONTRACT LAW, a milestone event, screwed the bondholders, too. UNHEARD OF BEFORE THEN!
We are dealing on every level with Bolshvik barbarians.
Let me see.. I can’t go as far in an EV as I can with my gasoline vehicle, It takes 100 times longer to fill up, It doesn’t work as well in high and low temperatures, recharging stations are few and far between, the vehicle price is astronomical. Why would I want to buy one?
You forgot floods. If it floods they ignite and burn into a chemical calamitous mess
Especially saltwater storm surges.
Mucho Explodo!!
When these EVs burn, reminds me of my Air Force days, watching F-15s taking off with full after burners blazing.
but.. but… but… don’t you want to save the planet?
From sanity?
Burning “Fossil Fuels” IS saving the planet.
In the geological sense of time, earth has been a heartbeat away from the very extinction of life as a result of carbon starvation.
Carbon has been sequestered in the oceans so much for so long that we have limestone mountains made of it, our atmosphere now has only a tiny fraction of the carbon it used to.
Only humanity’s use of hydrocarbons has stemmed this irreversible march of death, and only EnviroCommies want to thwart that in their quest for domination of all life and reduction of said life to the most miserable existences possible.
AND perhaps delaying or even preventing an ice age!
It will be ironic as some postulate once the air is “clean” it will be a steep plunge into frozen heck.
That plunge is already beginning, according to some recent claims…
I know Maquis.
I was using in jest the one and only “argument” they have for EVs.
The problem is – some people buy into that. I had a manager a few years ago, a lovely old lady, who was very smart and even conservative in many of her views, but she ordered Tesla model 3 as soon as they opened pre-orders in Australia. She waited for it for close to two years. And the main reason she bought it is exactly that – “helping the environment”/ “doing her part in stopping the climate change”. I tried to reason with her using facts, but to no avail.
I think a lot of people can’t comprehend that lies can be so big and pervasive.
Indeed.
My 91 year old neighbor only drives 60 miles a week to decrease her carbon footprint. sheesh. I have to travel 7 hrs with her the day after tmrw. The whole time will be CO2 ad naseum. She is an old hippie. Who remembers “plant a tree?”. Love her to death but 7 hours is a long time. Her carbon footprint doesn’t count if she’s in my car I guess.
Turn up the tunes!! Rolling Stones!! Can’t Always Get What You Want!
All in God’s plan. The Earth makes Oil and Gas. no ‘fossils’ are involved!
All in God’s Plan, the earth is made up in part of oil and gas.
Hydrocarbons accreted to form the earth along with the other materials.
We’ve a millenium of such fuels to see us into a future where fission and fusion provide near unlimited power, and even then, the most efficient fuels for vehicles will be boutique hydrocarbons created using electricity, carbon from the air, and hydrogen from water.
Fossil Fuel was a lie created to promote the idea of scarcity, first for maximizing profit, nowadays for maximizing misery in the minds of fools, to gain power and profit.
It’s for the children
I think it’s for the “Village” instead 😐
Nope
I take it you not the kinda guy who likes to sip martinis and eat sushi while staring out at your $100K government subsidized Tesla charging in the mall parking lot.
Charging station sushi? Dunno about that….
Even being able to recharge them will be a pipe dream, as the NWO want gas, oil and coal outlawed.
They want us unable to travel. It’s about control.
You forgot that it might burn your house down if you park it in the garage and something goes amiss with the volatile batteries that are in these cars. Once ablaze it is a Haz Mat situation and the fires are almost impossible to put out. Often times firemen just let them burn out when these are in vehicles stranded along the roadside.
For anyone who still wants one of these EV’s it may be helpful to park it in the driveway, and not in your garage. Hope you don’t live in a Blue area, where it is pretty much legal to steal cars now. (They won’t prosecute car thieves)
Maybe this is the secret plan to curtail grand theft auto: Tesla or Rivian parked outside, stolen, burns down before it’s resold or stripped.
Remember the mock ad in that Robocop movie, where the car electrocutes a thief?
Now they can incinerate the thief after electrocuting him.
Haha! Even the criminals won’t take them.
Maybe for the fireworks!? They’re replacing safe internal combustion with terrorist ied grade external combustion vehicles. Bad ju ju.
Of course the radicals want to leave you with no choice besides “public transportation”. No matter how nonsensical, that is the agenda.
yup. EVs are not the future of free travel -they are the transition out of it.
they get their way we want even be able to ride a cow to work.
Or even have a cow to ride. They sure don’t want us to use them for food anymore.
Well, as long as the cow doesn’t fart on the ride. 🤣🤣
These people are insane if they think Americans are going to put up with their bull shit (pun intended).
We are putting up with their bull shit.
We’ll be lucky if we have bicycles and can still walk. What they want not what I believe.
Exactly, the only personal transportation permitted for the stinking peasants will be bicycles. Other than that take the bus if your social credit score is at acceptable levels.
You’ll eventually need an ownership permit and valid QR code in your state-owned personal identification device (previously a cell phone) in order to even get one. Your carbon credit score will have to offset the rubber in the tires. I’m probably not even kidding at this point.
Yes this is the agenda, and they are very well aware that there is very little public transportation infrastructure in the US. You will stay trapped in your home except when the government vehicle comes to collect you for your day of work in the gulag, and you will like it. If your social score is good enough, you will be one of the ones fortunate to have a job. You will be thrilled that this means you can buy extra rations of insects for your family.
I pull a large travel trailer, so I could never consider an EV! I presently have a very well maintained 2010 Expedition King Ranch with just over 200,000 miles. It has a great tow package, so I would hate to lose it. I have been looking at F-250’s as I know it’s probably just a matter of time, but I am seriously considering a new drive train and updates rather than a new vehicle. Anyone here have an informed opinion on that option? Thanks! (hope this is considered on topic. If not, Admin, please punt me)!
If the 5.4 has enough power for your use, I’d look at picking up and storing a good used engine or engine/trans for future use.
Chassis is solid body on frame and is otherwise a very durable combination IMO, as good as any light duty truck of that era.
Keep up with the maintenance and monitor the timing chain and VVT systems and it should be good to go for a long time. Since the engine has 200K on it, IMO learn the early warning signs on the valve timing systems and don’t ignore signs indicating repair. AFAIK the engine is an interference engine and a failure in the timing area can cause a catastrophic failure.
As a comparison, the 2.3L Lima in my T-bird is non-interference, did have an in-service timing belt failure and the engine simply stopped, without damage. That’s the difference. Why did it fail? My mom was demented and forgot to have the belt replaced at the recommended interval. It failed at twice that interval. She owned the car at that time; I took it over after her death and it still operates to this day.
Good luck!
As an addendum, if one lives in a non-smog controlled area, engine swaps are an option. I lived for about sixty years in CA, a leader in restrictive smog controls and dealt with their bureaucracy related to my personal vehicles since the mid-70’s so often forget that a large part of America isn’t subject to that tyranny. Where I live now is like that. No smog, cheap registration. Engine swappers paradise 🙂
That reminds me of a Ford Escort I once owned back when they had interference engines. I really liked that little car but money was tight and I kept putting off timing belt replacement. You can guess what happened. Yep, one day it self-destructed. I learned my lesson.
As long as the Car manufactures are putting computers in cars that can make you just STOP if something goes wrong I would say NEW will be even worse.
Consider the upgrades.
I went through this about two years ago looking to replace our 2011 F-250 XLT gas tow vheicle with a diesel and a more comfortable interior package. It was gonna take about $60K to upgrade and I was far from impressed with the new trucks: way too much flashy tech in the dash, insanely complex engine/transmission packages, complicated emission systems and/or DEF fluid required.
I decided keep the F250 for construction towing and spent $20K for a 2000 Ford Excursion with Limited package and 7.3L diesel. It had 160K miles, is super comfortable long distance, in great condition and no mechanical issues. No surveillance tracking, telematics or flashy gauges- just simple and reliable. This truck’s motor can easily go 300K+ miles.
It tows 7000 – 10,000 lbs in the mountains, remote camping and off grid construction sites so I have been putting pre-emptive upgrades in. New HPOP and injectors, wheel bearings, steering linkages, and I’ve set aside money for a new tranny.
Regarding your drive train option…..I was talking about the insanely high cost of getting into a new tow vehicle with the owner of the diesel shop that did the work on mine. He told he just had a customer come in with a Dodge 2500 diesel, in the same dilemma. The guy decided to put in an upgraded motor, and tow tranny, bigger radiator and oil cooler for a fraction of what it would take to get into a new truck.
If you decide to go that route, do a lot of homework on the rebuilders/remanufactures. There are many Ford truck forums- a lot to wade through but good info and experience.
My Ford 7.3L Diesel has 683,000 miles on it…Enough said…
Wow! I am impressed!
Is your Expedition a Power Stroke diesel?
It is an Excursion (not Expedition) 7.3L with turbo, high pressure oil pump injection system and no emissions gadgets. The 7.3L was the first in the Powerstroke line. Unrealistic Federal diesel emissions standards forced Ford abandon it and rush out the 6.0L Powerstroke which led many major failures due to the emission system.
POWER STROKE HISTORY, LESSON 1: 7.3L
https://www.drivingline.com/articles/power-stroke-history-lesson-1-73l/
5.4 Gas.
We intend to put new engines and transmissions in our vehicles.
New spare parts may be the stopper to your plan. Recommend you get on some car blogs and query about parts availability – the items that are unique to your SUV like suspension pieces et al.
I’ve got an 2003 Dodge 6 speed with a Cummins, it has just shy of 380k. I just keep patching it together, I will never buy a new truck unless it’s stolen or demolished. I would probably freshen the drivetrain and keep the Expedition. We also have a Saab with 190k and a Volvo SW with 260k. There is not a new car we really like.
You can see my truck on fire and roll it down a hill
And I still wouldn’t trade it for a Coupe de Ville!
It’s very exciting to keep old things going with good care.
If I could, I would have a storehouse with rebuilt truck engines in crates, along with extra parts . . . and a winch for lifting the old engine out and dropping (very carefully) the rebuilt engine in. Example, a 1963 Dodge truck, with a rebuilt engine put in there in 1985 (family project).
I actually do not know how to do any of this myself but I think it would be a great thing to be able to help facilitate that!
Wow! Thank you ALL so much for your thoughts and input! I’m certainly in the “Keep on keepin’ on” side for now! Many thanks my friends! 😉
I CAN think of one other POSSIBLE “upside” to file away.
There IS a valuable use for SOLAR, for preppers, off gid living OR SHTF.
Solar, set up NOT with the “grid tied” but as a stand alone system, along with generators CAN be a viable, and affordable or doable in a mad max scenario way.
In that event, if there is a dirth of these EV’s that don’t sell and get used, its possible its a decent battery bank for an off-grid solar system, and its already mobile.
Just sayin,…
Thomas Massey has a vid online of his conversion of a used Tesla battery to this very purpose.
Keep the fire hose, well maybe not a water fire hose, SOMETHING that works on hand, to put out the occasional battery fire.
Agree. Provided you keep the Lithium-ion battery bank away from the main domicile and within a fireproof enclosure. I would suggest an underground chamber that remains fairly cool / temperature-constant but with ventilation.
If the solar storage battery bank from an EV is a proven-stable type, then OK to keep near the house but still in a well-ventilated space not sharing the same air as living spaces.
My first experiment was with a 48 volt forklift battery, the two ton flooded type. That was in the early 90’s. Tech had improved markedly since then 🙂 It lived out in the shop, the same place as the diesel genset and the machine shop, little different from where I got it, except at those dealers/customers there were racks of chargers and a wall of such batteries always being charged for the dozens of electric forklifts that depended on them.
Whole plants, especially cold-storage plants, ran on electric material handling equipment. That was 40-50 years ago. Of course, coal and natural gas and, where I lived, hydro, charged those batteries. Solar/wind was in its infancy back then. I remember working on equipment for PG&E’s experimental solar farm back in the 80’s. When I left CA all that was left was a bare 4o acre parcel and a concrete loading dock.
Oh yes. And those batteries were mostly lead-acid or later, gel-cell batteries. They had to be “deep cycle” style batteries, same kind that I used on my 29 ft. sailboat. Of course my boat used only single 12V (13.6VDC) automobile-sized deep cycle batteries. They didn’t weight but about 20 lbs each.
Those forklift batts are still available refurbished….4.450 lbs.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/285091639622
Better off just buying a solar generator that uses LiFePO (Lithium Iron Phosphate) batteries. Not nearly as liable to ignite. They make a good back-up to your gasoline and/or propane invertor generator back-up power. Longer working life span, as well.
Lithium Ion batteries are fantastic for small tools. However, as others have stated here, scaling up for transportation has definitive drawbacks.
yes, this is true. My outlaw cousins discussed this during thanksgiving at our deep camp. Buy a salvage tesla or prius, or leaf and then trailer it to the camp. If the miles are low, you can expect the life of the battery to be at least 5 years. (or more, because unlike vehicle power where high temps are involved, powering a nominal load demand in a home doesn’t produce a massive inrush of power on “startup”. this small technical reality is what causes li-ion battery death by heat deterioration more than any. Another reason not to put them in autos. An elaborate cooling system that adds to weight of vehicle with dubious effects to mitigate heat cycling. In addition, the power charging cycle also introduces parasitic heat cycling. But in powering a home, the power charging and the power demand are normalized in a much lower rate of current. There is no acceleration from start, and not sudden rapid charging requirements. This is why solar chargers and li-on batteries are such a great innovation for blue ocean sail boats. The batteries can last for up to 10-15 years with proper maintenance. That isn ‘t something you can do with auto EV’s. It all seems to be related to how much energy is input/output over time. If one can keep the load and the charging factors normalized and steady, the heat factor can be mitigated.
But for this to work in the economic math, we would have to see break even in the first 5 years over the natural gas generator (with a two year supply of fuel). That’s hard to beat. So it really becomes shopping for a super cheap salvage EV plus the solar charger, infrastructure and the solar panels/wind to provide power. Doable, but actually finding one that is inexpensive is quite difficult. Seems the salvage industry has difficulty with regulations selling EV cars that are not deemed safe to drive. WHO KNEW! LOL /S
The batteries in our Chevy Volt hybrid have 117k miles in ten yr old car and are still delivering rated output. If you are going to use a car bank the first gen Volts were very well built because they couldn’t risk killing the car bygoing cheap. Then the harridan running GM killed the car anyway.
that is impressive. I am curious to know how you determine “rated power”…are you reading the ECM/computer developed by GM to give you that number, or are you actually performing a load test on the battery ..you know, real science.
anecdote: VW was caught cheating on emissions with a very popular turbo diesel. The US and european regulatory agencies did not catch it! It was a phd writing a thesis paper about how the EPA emissions tests are not an accurate demonstration of what actually comes out of the tail pipe. His simple experiment discovered not only was VW lying about emissions, but that it had created cheat code that would detect canbus/obdII diagnostic connections and provide fake data. It was at that moment when VW realized it fukked up.
I would be interested in knowing if you would like to see a demonstration of the “vw” test performed on a wide variety of EV batteries in a wide variety of use cases sold in the US?
I am just simply saying, I would be careful trusting what the “dash meter” indicates.
this is another example of complexity in ev cars. there is no way the average person can possibly understand how to verify if what they are experiencing is valid, broken, or intentionally pwned.
I have a group at LSU who I follow and they are about to demonstrate a verification of ev vehicles…and not just the batteries, but also the parking lot chargers. There is alot of fraud going on. predicted.
God Bless America
I know how many BE miles it did new and I know how many BE miles it does now. Very close.
We do get fewer BE miles now. When new we tried to maximize the BE miles with the OEM low rolling resistance tires and most trips were 100% BE. Now we drive the heck out of it and have sticky rain tires on it as a good Midwest snow tire compromise .
Wife since covidiousy works from home so fewer all BE trips. Frequent trips to Florida has move the combine BE/gas mileage from 105 to 85. We are in an all electric house so charging the Volt is almost irrelevant.
The first Volts were over engineered as I commented. Look up a Volt named “Sparkie” with about 400k miles for an interesting read. 😉
This is pretty much what I said when Sundance published the article the other day about China moving into Mexico to make EVs. Why? There is literally no market for them.
Forced markets, yes. But that won’t matter for long. I do not see municipalities sticking with these “vehicles” long, especially when they have to start repairing them, replacing parts, batteries, etc. No townspeople will go for these repair costs.
Underground mechanics will be the new job of the future.
Personally, I think China doesn’t really give a damn about EV’s per se, or “the climate” – these operations in Mexico are just another entre for access and in the future, control.
That, and wealth transfer.
Just a prediction but given all the other failures of government, when our country has spent billions on building charging stations, there will be no EV’s to charge.
That’s OK. When China and Russia take over our country they will be happy to put them to good use.
Someone will turn them into cell phone charging stations and make a mint.
Who killed the electric car?
The Free Marketplace killed the electric car … because they’re NOT cheaper to operate … and they aren’t good for anything more than an occasional trip to the grocery store.
The electric car suicided itself
And the governments that used our money to bring them into existence doesn’t care.
Lynching is making a come back! Soon the biggest militia ever in the U.S. will take shape and these so called leaders will be arrested and tried quick and hung all by the People. Lets make this happen, its bloody time…
Give our best to Director Wray.
Nailed it, Maquis.!!!
What are you? An FBI agent trying to get The Treehouse shut down?
Militia types constantly say “it’s bloody time…”
EV creation takes 6yrs of driving before it is clean, FJB crew trying to drive public view to change industry for government employee stock investment, cheating in the stock market. Cheating the key.
Our used car market may soon rival that of CUBA.
A good time to invest in baling wire and duct tape futures.
Don’t forget crazy glue…if there’s any still being made.
I used various epoxies in my machine shop for repairs and can report that industrial epoxies, the multi-part kind, can retain their properties for years if not decades. Lay in a selection and use as needed.
I used a gel ‘superglue’ as a quick and dirty sealant for sterilized cuts I got in the shop from metal and other problems. Disinfect, seal, dress, back to work. I had a suture kit but rarely used it. I think your suggestion is a sound all around option for bad times in general, or emergencies. It keeps. 🙂
Oh, also, meds. I’ve been experimenting with storing and using those for a couple decades now. Never know when battle or other injuries will occur. Covid proved up how sideways the medical industry could go. Be prepared 🙂
Always.
Red Green. Classic.
Man, I sure would love to have my old ’56 Chevy tank of a pickup back.
Yea, were I younger…. I would start searching out junk yards for GM W body’s (Buick Regal, Chevy Lumina’s and Pontiac Gran Prix with 2.8 class engines). Body is mostly plastic too.
Rebuild them & sell… just enough electronics on them to be efficient but before they went crazy with electronics everywhere & body computers that are way to nosy & fault prone due to that and bonus …. no government ki!! switch… as I am guessing that has been present for at least the last 5 years in testing it for the 2025 mandate to have them.
Being that this is the SF Bay Area I’m sure we’re an outlier but I am guessing the number of EV’s I see around here are pushing 10% of all vehicles. Tons of Teslas but also more and more Mustang Mach-E’s, Chevy Bolts, BMW i4’s and iX’s, Benz EQ series, VW ID.4’s, and a few of niche brands such as Polestar, Rivian, and Lucid.
Rivian styling: The illegitimate spawn of a Tesla and an Edsel.
True dat. Fuggly!
The overall goal has been to pay affirmative action engineers big paychecks on the federal dime. Ever wonder where the 7.5 billion dollars GM got to build a charger Network went to? They didn’t build a single charger. Everyone’s just going to use the Tesla one. But nobody asked where the money went. Tesla has 250 engineers. GM has 25,000.
GM is operating on the NASA model. NASA is spending a billion dollars in 10 years and still can’t be the deadline to create two spacesuits. Playtex design and built the ones that took us to the moon in 2 weeks
Everything is designed to imprison us permanently.
Spread the word
I noted a few weeks ago there is an electric plane manufacturing in Covington, GA.
And a separate story notes an electric plane fight in 2022 was at 3,500 feet for 8 minutes. Some money laundering going on I think.
https://www.ajc.com/news/atlanta-airport-blog/electric-aircraft-developer-plans-covington-factory-with-1000-jobs/6GVLMIZH2NHJXCTGHOX5JUTRKU/
Kemp always sells every county to the highest bidder.
Who won that 8-minute fight?
Snoopy….in two rounds?
No wonder Joe is reshaping the auto industry, look how hard he is working…
Nyuk, nyuk, nyuk, nyuk, nyuk, nyuk.
Hey Moe! Hey Larry!!
Ol, Joe’s just a victim of soicumstance.
very good!
Ooh, wise guy!
Remember, this is 21ST CENTURY fascism, not your grandpa’s fascism. Under Modern Fascism, the government is not in charge. This time around the oligarchs and multinational corporatons control a bought-and-paid-for government. It is not insanity. It is not contradictions (no such thing). If GM didn’t want the EPA’s EV mandates, they wouldn’t be there.
So – what’s the scam? Use the mandates to drive out their weaker competitors? Did GM want to dump Buick like they did Oldsmobile, but couldn’t stand the heat they would get from the dealers? (“Hey – don’t look at US! It’s the EPA’s doing” [wink wink]). Is the entire EV push just a gigantic scam to force consolidation into 2 worldwide auto manufacturers. Certainly cheaper if you don’t have to compete or advertise. “Here is the car. Buy it if you want a car. If you don’t like it, walk.”
Yep, and offshore the formerly middle class jobs, assisting in the widening of the gap between haves and have nots. Blue collar manufacturing jobs historically were a mainstay of various segments of what we call ‘the middle class’.
I know, having had a machine shop for 35 years. We built things, mostly to help feed America and to some extent the world. Small cog in a very big wheel. Now it’s ‘globalized’ and customers get stuff in containers from China. Progress 🙂
I call it Neo-Fascism.
In 2012 Bloomberg, on behalf of the CFR, coined it “Innovative State Capitalism”, letting the cat out of the bag.
This was the actual picture published in Bloomberg Business Week.
The Rise of Innovative State Capitalism
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2012-06-28/the-rise-of-innovative-state-capitalism
Also known as a ‘Great Leap Forward.’ Who needs a real technical breakthrough, when government coercion gets that funding to the right people?
Meet the new boss, same as the old (Party) boss.
I just bought a Buick ENVISTA today ..I like it ….Price style..
they did this to cadillac a few years back too
GM brought in a former head of Audi to lead Cadillac and he ran the uniquely American product into the ground.
Bought a new ATS-V in 2016. The factory ended up buying it back after 4 months. Spent more time in the shop than in my garage.
EVs are a toy for wealthy people and those with too much disposable income they don’t properly manage. Complete waste for the rest of us. The head of Toyota was smart about this.
I have a 2003 Buick LeSabre outside with 318,000+ miles on it that still carry’s me from my home in AL to my project in KY.
Its 3.8 V6 gets 30 mpg on the interstate, and nearly 20 mpg around town
The Buick v6 has been in every kind of race car from Indy cars to Grand Prix to turbo dragsters. They are about indestructable.
Buick has moved in the last several years to Obama gas mandate cars, highly stressed tiny 3 and 4 cylinder motors with turbo chargers that force even more stress into the overstressed little engine
I am sorry to see regulation drive under another fine marque with over a 100 years of history in the US auto market.
But I won’t buy a Obama mandate cat. No one can prove to me they will last the 250k miles I demand before I put that kind of money on the table.
There are are only a few makes I’ll consider now and then ill be rebuilding wrecks from my teen years.
Yep, I grew up racing in the Buddy Ingersol era of drag racing so know the Buick V-6 well. Beast. It foreshadowed the current era of small displacement turbocharged engines in passenger cars.
I drive a distant competitor from that era, the 2.3L Lima Ford. Turbocharged and fuel injected from the factory, it resides in a one-owner T-bird we bought new. Though not nearly as refined as the Buick, it’s served me well.
One trend I’ve found disturbing in recent times, related to batteries, is the noticeable decline in performance and reliability of traditional flooded cell starting batteries for ICE engines. I really have to stay on top of maintenance to get any decent life out of them.
I noticed, with lithium batteries in electronics, they’ve changed the charging regime in recent years. Now such devices don’t charge completely and even when plugged in constantly maintain 80-85% maximum. I’ll be that’s mostly a thermal runaway/ fire prevention method. I still run older lithium powered electronics so have altered those charging schemes as an experiment.
Did you ever have a problem with the intake manifold on your 2003? We bought a 2004 because of prior years having that particular problem.
All flavors of the 3.8 after the new design release in ???? 1992 ish (LeSabre/Park ave new body design) to the multipoint fuel injection system had issues.
Originally had the asbestos based traditional gasket material but that had a aluminum intake and had thermal cycle issues causing the corners to tear and leak after some number of thermal cycles.
Then they went to hard plastic gaskets with silicone gasket material embedded in them with plastic intake manifolds but they still had issues with the silicone gaskets leaking from I assume thermal cycles as well.
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They could not even make it outta warranty… same goes for the oil pan gaskets leaking on them.
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Still… they were rather bulletproof other than a few issues that IMHO really were not that expensive to fix.
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The 2.8’s (eventually to 3.3 then 3.5) were more bulletproof than the 3.8’s IMHO, didn’t have issues leaking coolant… from the engine anyway… the heater core lines sucked at leaking tho.
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The bonus for the 3.8 was it could be gotten as Supercharged in place of just an intake manifold, never saw one of the superchargers fail either & they must have stayed hot enough that the intake gaskets didn’t fail … at least not under warranty time/miles.
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Not sure if they ever found a longer lasting fix for intakes, since the Pontiac dealer bought us out at the direction of GM (4/01) as they wanted to consolidate Buick, Pontiac & GMC together in 1 dealership … as well as Chevrolet & Cadillac into that category.
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Never went back into a dealership after that, went to forklifts full time, which mostly used either a Continental engine 4cyl or GM’s stationary version V-6 vortex engine for the bigger capacity forklifts.
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Old Buick/GMC (Pontiac went the way of Olds in 2010) dealer is now a Kia dealer, guess they took the buyout (whenever that started) this is the first I heard of it tho.
And we knew this was coming. No one wants them, and let’s gut the dealerships while we’re at it besides US manufacturing.. disaster.
noting: 100 percent of all grants made to GMC to develop ev and to fund an resource new manufacturing to support it.
CAME FROM YOUR MONEY.
as obama would say: GMC didn’t build that. YOU DID!
God Bless America
“The Joe Biden EPA mandates for Electric Vehicles are going to crush the U.S. auto industry and consumers. ”
That’s only part of it.
Imagine the overall crippling effect to the U.S. when there is a forced replacement of gasoline vehicles with EVs.
That’s what the current regime is pushing, with EPA regs and other pushes.
The entire public road transportation system crippled with short-range between recharges and lengthy recharging, including heavy trucks.
Which will cripple the entire economy.
And the up-front cost – prohibitive for many – plus the cost to replace batteries every 5-10 years – also prohibitively expensive. Which will force many to simply do without personal transportation – which means even more economic crippling.
Some suggest that this is yet one more ploy to undermine the U.S., in the group of ploys based on the false climate change pretext.
And now, the propaganda has created a critical mass of useful idiots who believe it and are supporting EVs, apparently unstoppable.
Along with everything else being done to sink the U.S. (Check out today’s news about illegal immigrants being bused to airports, passed through security without proper ID, and flown all over the nation.)
Merry Christmas. We’re done for. Down we go.
GM doesn’t exist. It went bankrupt and now is “new” GM, better referred to as Obama Motors. CEO Mary Barra bet the farm on going EV, probably forced to by Obama’s people. Come 2035 the gov’t can just bail them out again.
I miss America.
EV’s are what liberals use to earn their righteousness. Just the other day, I was watching a local Unitarian Universalist lay minister say how “every molecule” of carbon we don’t emit, we are serving our neighbors. We all know leftism is a religion, but the UU openly states on their website, “we live our faith by promoting progressive causes”. They even have website tabs for solar and trannies. “These people are sick.” DJT. The UU is 84% Democrat, 16% independent, and is the local watering hole for our herd of leftist college professors.
Lots of friends and family retired from GM around here, and our glory days of local GM factories are long gone. It’s really stunning for Trump to take up this banner for our “forgotten men”, our auto makers, who made our high school days magical with their creations. I’ve not heard anyone else speak about this as he has, and God bless him for it. It doesn’t have to be like this!
“Carbon: Bad!” Probably big fans of so-called organic foods…until they learn the scientific definition of organic. Too funny.
The company my husband works for uses the EV vans to shuttle people around. The charge lasts about 4 hours, and then the vans are useless. If the “Danger Will Robinson Alarm” is not heeded, they have to put chains on them and get them back to the “docking station.” What a shit show!
Do they pull the crippled EV van back to the docking station with another EV van?
At 15 I got my first car for $100. Chrysler Windsor with fluid drive. gas was 28cents/gallon. did not have car insurance nor did I know it was available. next car was a DeSoto two toned pink and salmon big fins. $100 fluid drive. then I wanted an alfa Romeo but got married. next was a blue and white VW microbus $1,500 new. Learned to drive stick shift going down Broadway jerk jerk jerk. cab drivers kept giving me hand signals under their chins. it was really slow going uphill. We then went through a bunch of used American made cars. Last was a new ford country squire V8. Press the gas peddal and you’re in the next county. All those cars needed a lot of maintenance. When the Ford died we got a Toyota. That is all we drive now. very boring cars. go from point A to point B with no drama. have a 4Runner trail last 11 years and other than a few dents from skidding in the pasture into a fence we have no complaints. I see a few electric cars in town and think they are good for virtue signalling and if you just need to drive a mile to the grocery store or work. don’t think they would work for us out in the boon docks. I’m glad folks who want them can have them. just hope I’m allowed to keep my 4Runner.
I’m a little younger and paid 600 for my first car, a ’39 Dodge. That was paper route money back then. I saved it up. Surprisingly reliable car. Most frustrating part to get was the sector shift cable for the column shift manual trans. Finally had to have a local machine shop make it. However, it steered me to a career for the rest of my life, machining.
My parents would probably buy an EV if they were alive today. They were always buying what was new and different. We had a new car in the garage every couple years when I was young. Me, I was the opposite. Restored old cars and have hung on to nearly everything I bought over the decades.
Worst problem car for the family was a ’65 Olds. It had the 425 ‘high performance’ engine in it. Always in the shop. It really had only one problem, the infamous Quadrajet carb. I was too young to figure them out at the time so the mechanic loved us. My dad knew enough about cars to put a key in the ignition. I learned zero from him. Taught myself.
I’ll keep everything I own. The Communists will have to pry them from my cold, dead corpse. We don’t pay any mind to stuff going down the road here in the forest. Buggies, forest harvesters, hot rods, race cars, motorcycles, whatever.
Latest craze is hot rodded side by sides plying the roads between the dune accesses. Man those things are fast. Funnily, all of them are ICE and most I’ve seen are Rotax, like they put in snowmobiles and small airplanes. No electrics, not that I’ve seen anyway. When busy, all one hears is a distant roar in the dunes. Sounds of freedom 🙂
First was a 1935 Nash LaFayette for $115. back about 1954… took me some time to save up for it.
I wouldn’t’ve purchased an EV until they were on the mass market for ten years or more. Being an experienced “shade tree mechanic” I would never want to be “married” to a dealership for service or parts. I drive a 13 year old Toyota with 250’000 miles on it and I can buy parts anywhere including a junk yard. And I do do it for fun. My wife drives a BMW.
https://x.com/suejeanne/status/1737989615049667049?s=20
EV = eunuch’s vehicle.
Lol….. Gonna steal that one!
One of PDJT’s many areas of expertise, is in branding, a significant part of which is NAMING.
Somewhere out there is his “dorian gray” or flip side, people who are REALLY LOUSY at it.
They name GM’s EV “Encore” RDS’s PAC “Never back down” and Hillarys book “What the F happened?!!”
Bet these idiots got letters after their name, sheepskins to hangcon the wall, and big paychecks,..
Overeducated AND overpaid,…idiots!
My 1992 Buick Regal 3.8 is still going strong with 455,000 miles on it…
Nuff said.
Nice!
We will be like Cuba driving 70-year old cars.
My 1992 Buick Regal is going strong at 455,000 miles. I’m going for a million just like Al Bundy!
Wouldn’t you really rather have a Buick?
Turns out not really.
Prior to these times… Yes!
Maybe the dealers just don’t want their livelihood to go up in flames.
“ How the auto industry thinks these mandates are sustainable is beyond logic, then again maybe that’s the feature, not the flaw. “
Bingo!
Fun, Fun, Fun ‘Til Biden Took Our T-Birds Away
July 2023: “Here’s a call for President Trump and to add some fun, fun, fun tangible steps to Agenda 47; not just to Make America Great Again, but to grind “The Great Reset” into the dust.”
“President Trump could declare that as part of Agenda 47, automakers will be allowed to start new production of previous classics. They would “comply” with DOT / EPA etc. by virtue of the fact that the manufacturers will be able to continue the serial numbers of certain models from where they left off for particular model years, and so those would be considered compliant with that year’s regulations.
“How might this work?
“Well, take a 1955 T-Bird. In order to make it worthwhile to bring old tooling out of storage, or to recreate it, there would have to be sufficient volume. So, just picking a number, the serial number sequence for that year could be expanded by 25% from where Ford left off in 1955 (this 25% would not necessarily have to be produced in a single calendar year, but perhaps over five or ten years).”
Full piece here: https://tomwigand.substack.com/p/fun-fun-fun-til-biden-took-our-t
Someone could make a killing by bringing back Pontiac and Olds without the terrible GM management that held them back. Time and again, Pontiac engineers and stylists bested Chevy performance and their work stolen, redirected to Corvette and Camaro, while Firebird etc got detuned, restricted power plants. Oh, and F the “external combustion” lithium battery cars.
External Combustion!
😂😂😂
I laughed
First the iconic Oldsmobile and now Buick…
Pontiac too.
“Gee our old LaSalle ran great….
Those were the days!”
Remember all the buzz about 3D Television a decade ago? EVs are the new version of that fad:
They have been overhyped. There were huge forecasts about how they were going to dominate the market. All the early-adopters rushed in to spend big bucks so they could be the first in their neighborhood to have one. In a couple of years they will be gone from the marketplace as if they never existed.
EVs cannot even make it out of the factory without setting off a huge fire.
https://www.firefighternation.com/news/battery-fires-at-detroit-ev-factory-have-firefighters-hopping-eight-calls-since-august/
I’ve driven Buicks most of my life. I would have loved to have bought a new Buick if they made a car I wanted. Buick has abandoned their customers as badly as Bud Light has. They’ll be going the way of Pontiac and Oldsmobile. Making a woman CEO was as bad an idea as when they made an accountant the CEO in the ’70s.
When will the government realize it can’t mandate consumer demand?
What these idiots really want is to control the consumer/proles. Look up ‘behavioral economics’ and you will see the usual list of suspects in that orbit.
I’m old enough to remember the old TV jingle “Wouldn’t you rather have a Buick?”⛽😁
So, half the dealerships end Buick sales. That equates to less sales, less production line units, and ultimately less jobs. That means more unemployment. Given millions of illegal invaders competing for fewer jobs, what happens to citizens w/o jobs.
Buick has been married to China for quite some time.
Flush them.