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Electric Car Sales Plunge To 4 Year Lows
But low oil prices are supposed to be unequivocally good? On the day when Ford lays off 700 Michigan plant workers in small cars and hybrids manufacturing, The Detroit News reports that, according to Edmunds.com, sales of electric cars and hybrids are at the lowest level since 2011. What is even more worrisome, motorists who leased those first-generation cars, and have decided not to buy them, are turning them in, leaving dealer lots full of low mileage cars at huge discounts to new ones. As Edmunds concludes, while "the government's going to keep pushing it, there is time to pause right now."
Low oil prices have not been unequivocally good for these workers... (as Detroit Free Press reports)
Ford said today that it is planning to cut a shift at its Michigan Assembly Plant where it makes the Ford Focus compact car and C-Max crossover because of declining sales of small cars, hybrids and electric vehicles.
The automaker told workers and notified the state of Michigan that it will lay off 700 workers, starting June 22. The decision affects 675 hourly workers and 25 salaried employees who make the Focus, Focus ST, Focus Electric, C-Max hybrid and C-Max Energi plug-in hybrid at the Wayne plant.
The first 200 workers will be laid off in June, another 200 at the end of July and the remainder at the end of September.
But it is the burgeoning electric car market that is seeing desparate times (as The Detroit news reports)...
Sales of new electric cars and hybrids, according to automotive research and shopping site Edmunds.com, are at their lowest level since 2011 — the first full year of sales for the groundbreaking Chevrolet Volt plug-in hybrid and Nissan's all-electric Leaf. So carmakers are paring prices in an effort to get them moving.
Furthermore, motorists who leased those first-generation cars, and have decided not to buy them, are turning them in. They're on dealer lots with still relatively low mileage, and at prices considerably cheaper than the new ones.
Even with $7,500 federal tax credits and other incentives, automakers such as General Motors Co., Ford Motor Co. and Nissan have dropped prices in an attempt to move their new hybrids and electrics. Cadillac became the most recent to reduce the sticker on an electric car, when it whacked $9,000 off its ELR plug-in hybrid last week.
"EVs are just not selling; even hybrids and plug-ins are slow," said Caldwell. "There's some concern."
"That's the reality of the situation," said Jessica Caldwell, senior analyst for Edmunds.com. "They have to push them out at those levels for people to be interested. It really seems like the cachet of EVs and hybrids has faded away."
...
New mainstream plug-in hybrid electrics can sell for more than $30,000 with up to $7,500 in federal tax credits. But used models are selling for less than half of their original amount.
Used plug-in car values have been lower than comparable vehicles with traditional combustion engines since launching, due to the heavy federal tax credit and inflated pricing, according to Kelley Blue Book director of residual value consulting Eric Ibara.
"All along, we had a very strong suspicion that they wouldn't hold the same (residual value) percentage with traditional vehicles," he said.
* * *
It appears we are going to need more government "incentives"...
We levae it to Ford UAW President Jimmy Settles (ironic name?) to summarize:
"We are reminded from time to time that our industry is cyclical and volatile to market conditions."
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Let's see, spend 50k-60k on an electric vehilce with shakey track record and expensive battery replacements, or spend 20k-30k on proven gas-powered vehicles that get 35-40 mpg and don't have expensive repair costs.
Add up all your oil changes, mufflers and mandated dealer servicing (expensive) if you want to keep warranty. Let me know what you come up with.
Something unsubsidized!
California alone burps up 140 million tax subisidy to Tesla and by the way "you make the best lemonade".
My sainted granny used to say that a limited vocabulary is a sign of limited intelligence. So whos with me on saying "fuck the dutch"?
(Using his crippled vernacular so he'll understand)
Wissen und Weisheid. Learn the difference. There are not enough vile expletives in the universe to describe the knuckle dragging yahoos in America that don't know anything about tech.
Americans couldn't do the Delta project (lousy engineers), They couldn't build the Channel Tunnel and they certainly couldn't build hi speed rail that we enjoy. All they talk about is ROI and yet spend trillions destroying other peoples countries while the USA continues to crumble to 2nd world status.
Actually it was an American (Jack Lemley) who built the Channel Tunnel. He was brought in to kick ass and get shit done after TPTB realized that European leadership of the TML was more interested was talking themselves and everyone else to death and the project into bankruptcy.
I live in michigan, it was below 30 last night. The efficiency of these batteries decreases exponentially in the cold, another reason why electric fucking cars fucking suck and are dumb.
and when you use the battery powered heater to keep warm, the mileage suffers yet again
Yeah but when the fire starts it gets lots warmer!
What happened Dumbo? Your DieHard starting battery catch fire? Ever hear of exploding gas tanks? Sheeeesh you are STuPID beyond belief as are lots of the other trolls here.
Tesla vs Bentley drag race
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_5Nt9337RE
Sounds like a dutch gay pride parade event to me!
Says the faggot who proudly supports LGBT Nazis who push homosexuality on children in the USA.,
I thought that you said that it needs a sprocket!
Now that the government has forced the car industry into the boom and bust cycles of the oil industry...... yet still want peeps to plug into their gov controlled expensive as always utilities. They are going to need to subsidize more war to keep up the price of oil and refined gasoline to push their fascist inventions. Especially in California for those plugging into hydro power for those nice expensive home utility costs associated with housing now. And for all those where natural disasters occur and no one can evacuate because they can't plug in during a black out... Or stuck in the highway for hours waiting to run from the hurricane!
Plus u know with all those wars we get to kill all those horrible peeps who apparently didn't want to date u in highschool in order to save the world from their devastating effects which war is so effective at curing ..... approved by the EPA!
Renewable energy 'simply won't work': Top Google engineers
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/11/21/renewable_energy_simply_wont_work_google_renewables_engineers/
http://techcrunch.com/2011/11/23/google-gives-up-on-green-tech-investment-initiative-rec/
Two highly qualified Google engineers who have spent years studying and trying to improve renewable energy technology have stated quite bluntly that whatever the future holds, it is not a renewables-powered civilisation: such a thing is impossible.
Both men are Stanford PhDs, Ross Koningstein having trained in aerospace engineering and David Fork in applied physics. These aren't guys who fiddle about with websites or data analytics or "technology" of that sort: they are real engineers who understand difficult maths and physics, and top-bracket even among that distinguished company. The duo were employed at Google on the RE<C project, which sought to enhance renewable technology to the point where it could produce energy more cheaply than coal.
Even if one were to electrify all of transport, industry, heating and so on, so much renewable generation and balancing/storage equipment would be needed to power it that astronomical new requirements for steel, concrete, copper, glass, carbon fibre, neodymium, shipping and haulage etc etc would appear.
All these things are made using mammoth amounts of energy: far from achieving massive energy savings, which most plans for a renewables future rely on implicitly, we would wind up needing far more energy, which would mean even more vast renewables farms – and even more materials and energy to make and maintain them and so on. The scale of the building would be like nothing ever attempted by the human race.
In reality, well before any such stage was reached, energy would become horrifyingly expensive – which means that everything would become horrifyingly expensive (even the present well-under-one-per-cent renewables level in the UK has pushed up utility bills very considerably).
Perhaps those clowns should watch THIS
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nr-grdspEWQ
Solar Revolution a great documentary. Warning . only people with attention spans longer than a gnat and IQ over 100 should watch this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nr-grdspEWQ
#1 cause of melanoma!
The government needs to print more dollars out of thin air ro subsidize their purchase. Never mind the debt cliff straight up ahead.
Isn't cobalt oxide used to coat the positive anode and isn't it incredibly carcinogenic ? So some dumb poor bastard in Africa dies of cancer
at age 35 or 40 so some precious snowflake can drive their electric.
Plus I do a lot of fun shit up in the mountains. Is anyone going to drive a Prius on 40 or 50 miles on washboard roads to get to a trailhead ? The POS would fall apart half way there.
Moron!!
DB, is that for douchebag ? You do get that Holland is around 2,200 sq. kms at or below sea level and very flat. A Midwest flyover state such as Nebraska is well over 200,000 sq. kms. ? Texas is almost 700,000 sq. kms.
EV is fantastic for dense urban city centers, but the US is a giant country and if you have to drive EV simply does not work. I drove a Tesla few months ago, great styling and really fast, but at best a fancy toy for running local errands or short commutes - a glorified golf cart.
My family is from Holland and Flanders. I've stopped visiting Amsterdam, my first trip of many was in 1980. Back then it was all blue eyed blonde hotties. My last trip a few years ago, your glorious Amsterdam was covered with grafitti and full of dark eyed dark haired arabs. Don't even get me started on Antwerp, dirty gypsies trying to pinch my pocket although I think Ghent is still quite lovely.
Whatever the case why don't sit your messy bum on one of your EV scooter handlebars and get back to me when you grow up to be a DutchMan.
AND THE WINNER, KNOCKING OUT DUTCHBOY IN TWO POSTS, IS SENSELESS URINAL CAKE...
The dutchman don't have a problem because of that. They have mowed down Africa a few times already!
Hmmm, i certainly didnt make any comments about current american intelligence. But i will draw attention to how quickly the dutch lost their country to Germany in WWII. Couple weeks wasn't it? My how the dutch women willing opened their legs for the German soldiers!!!! And prince Bernhard was an officer in the s.s. prior to founding the bilderbergers. American men and material was what liberated the Netherlands during marketgarden. Though those always willing dutch women were sad to see the Germans go, they wasted no time opening their legs again for the american "saviors"
Edited to cover multiple generations...
So DutchBoy, there's a good chance that your Father, and/or your Grandfathers could have been either from Germany or from the USA - or at least you may have shared your Womb with the "ManSeed" from either or both Countrymen.
Perhaps if you started off with, "I'm grateful to what the USA has done for my Country in the Past; but...", you would have garnered a few less downvotes.
Guess we don't have too many Elon/TSLA Fanbois here, as compared to FB, where so many osmolagnial "Musk-Sniffers" would repeat/share/fawn over every press comment and opinion about their "Tribe Run Cult" (e.g., Treehugger, Mother Jones, etc.).
For some reason, I don't see the "enthusiasm" given to TSLA given to Pioneers of PHEVs, FCVs, and other EV/Hybrids.
Shame we don't see anything run by the ORIGINAL FOUNDER and CEO of T-Zero...
Beware of Vulture Capital, Folks.
Oh, BTW (by the way),
This is a Cascading/Secondary WIN for KSA's Petrol Dumping Strategy.
Riding the Downtrend of OilPx and Utilization Curves...
While they're rolling in dough, many are just "Staying Alive"...
buy your hyrid now!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Electric car is the future of current transportation system. Though it's not applied full-fedgedly but they will be in future and it will give a better fuel-efficiency and save some bucks also emits low CO2 that will give a good environment. These Fuel efficient Future Cars are will be the on road and give a zero accident feature.