This doesn’t look good: https://www.nwahomepage.com/news/can...edium=news_tab
I think all these state/local governments, legacy auto manufacturers, and investors are going feel real stupid in about 3 more years. Ford lost $2 billion on the electric car dreams and are expecting to lose $3 billion next year. Wall Street is already pressuring them to sell off their EV development, but who would buy it knowing it is losing that much money.
^
It's called sunk costs and investment in the future.
Absolutely every auto manufacturer is moving very strongly to EVs and there are loads of new start-ups as well.
I still don't know what to think of Canoo and some of the new companies but the established automakers are all-in on EVs which in itself will keep driving the entire industry in that direction.
Yep, they are all in, which is why they are going to feel stupid. Anyhow, I can wait. It's not my money.
Read a story the other day that was humorous. Don't know if I was a joke or a true anecdote from someone's life.
Parent stops to get gas, tries to teach 10 year old how to pump it.
10 year old says: "Jeez, Dad, appreciate the life lesson but I'm never going to have to do this as an adult. Reminds me of the time you talked to me about pay phones."
Lucky for you that you know the auto industry better than car executives.
https://www.bls.gov/opub/btn/volume-...c-vehicles.htm
"Although forecasts for the rate of EV adoption over the next decade vary widely given rapid changes in both government policies and the auto manufacturing industry in recent years—many forecasts expect a strong acceleration in EV adoption. S&P Global Mobility forecasts electric vehicle sales in the United States could reach 40 percent of total passenger car sales by 2030, and more optimistic projections foresee electric vehicle sales surpassing 50 percent by 2030."
About 15 years ago I was visiting OKC and rented a car. It had crank windows! I had not seen those in a long time and I'm not sure you can even find them on any car now sold in this country (there is a handful of base trucks, I believe).
My friend's 14-year-old son was riding with me and I asked him if he knew what the funny-looking lever was for. He guessed it had to do with air conditioning.
Regarding EVs, anyone working in the auto industry today either directly witnessed or knows in great detail how the American companies used a combination of protectionist laws and head-in-the-sand hubris to completely miss out on the fact the Japanese makers had been building a far better product for some time.
And even when Honda and Toyota were finally allowed to import decent numbers, the best the scrambling Americans could do was to quickly come up with abortions like the Vega and Pinto (and many other cringy models that were worse still).
In many ways, the American companies never caught up and are now getting kicked around by the Koreans and certainly out-engineered by the Europeans. Their lack of competitiveness has been largely masked by the astonishing popularity of massive trucks and SUVs, which was much more a product of luck rather than vision.
And so they sit today making almost all their profit from huge ICE vehicles but this time can see the train coming down the tracks. They can either miss out yet again and fade into nothingness (which would have happened a long time ago if not for incredible tax-payer bailouts) or for the first time since the middle of last century, try to at least keep up.
On the EV front (i.e. the future) Ford has done a great job with the new Mustang and the Lightning truck. Should help pave the way to where this industry is heading and help them remain competitive when companies not currently on anyone's radar start producing fantastic new products seemingly out of nowhere.
In my defense, I have never bankrupted an auto company or needed a government bailout to stay afloat. How many auto executives can say that?
Auto executives are tied for last with airline executives. Not to be out-done though are Tech and Banking executives. Crap, we have a lot of sucky corporate leaders.
I have a '22 Jeep Gladiator with crank windows
yep. there was actually a video that JEEP had out for awhile on it (couldn't find it now with a quick search), where they talked about the design decisions on it, and the ability to take the doors off was listed as the reason for the hand crank windows. it was saying that they met with hundreds of JEEP owners about what they would want with the Gladiator, and said that the ability to easily remove doors and top were still very high on the list of almost every owner.
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