The Fire Sale

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Apparently, it’s not sufficient to pay people $7,500 to “buy” an electric car – using your money (as a taxpayer) to facilitate the transaction. Democrats want to increase the amount that taxpayers are forced to subsidize each purchase of an American-made electric car to $12,500.

This will “benefit” America, you see. Or rather, some Americans – at the expense of other Americans. Including Americans who pay full freight for their non-electric Toyota or Honda Japanese (or German) car and then pay more taxes to make up for the tax kickback used to “help” their neighbor buy his American-brand electric car.

That’s how you “build back better,” apparently.

To put what’s on offer in some perspective:   

$12,500 amounts to a near 40 percent “discount” off the MSRP – the sticker price – of an electric car such as the Chevy Bolt,  some 60,000 of which were recently recalled due to their tendency to auto-immolate, which is a function of their being electric cars. Which are all fire-prone because of the nature of the things – because of the inherent susceptibility of the thousands of individual cells in a single EV battery pack to damage in accident or deterioration over time or on account of a manufacturing defect.

All it takes being one damaged/defective/deteriorated cell to trigger thermal runaway – a short circuit – and a searing chemical fire that is faster spreading than a gas fire, hotter than a gas fire and – unlike a gas fire – is capable of spontaneous re-ignition after it has been put out.

Sometimes, several times.

It is why some wrecking yards have giant sarcophagi to douse and house crisped EVs in, so as to assure they do not catch fire again – and crisp the entire lot.

Electric cars are also inherently fire-prone due to the stress on the battery pack of deep discharging followed by “fast” recharging. If the charging circuitry doesn’t keep things balanced just so, if a cell within the pack is dendritically challenged, if the cooling system doesn’t work – it’s hot zig, you’re all fired up.

Or maybe just your house.

Now salt the wound with half or less the range of almost any non-electric car and rub in having to wait at least five times as long as any non-electric car takes to fully refuel to partially recharge  (the latter in order to reduce the inherent fire risk a bit).

Is it any wonder they have to bribe people to “buy” such cars?

As with the “vaccines,” too many people are – apparently – hesitant about EVs.

Actually, they want nothing to do with either, for similarly intelligent reasons. The risks outweigh the benefits. What does the buyer get for his money if he spends it on an EV? Leaving aside the subjectives – EVs are “neat” and “technologically advanced” – the objectives are that EVs cost too much time and too much money. They are less convenient and they are fundamentally (inherently) dangerous.

For some people, the flaws may be worth overlooking – and the risks worth taking. As with Joe Biden. The same as with the Jabs.

But most people only have so much money and want to get where they need to go, now – not hours from now. Or even 30 minutes from now. They reasonably shy away from getting in a car they may never get out of, alive.

Or which might burn them out of house and home.

In any other context, a vehicle that had to be discounted to the tune of 40 percent off would be considered a disaster – and no more would be made. The ones that had been made would be gotten rid of as quickly and quietly as possible. The loss would be chalked up to bad design, defective design, poor marketing or marketing mismatch. Back to the drawing board – to figure out what went wrong and why. And – most of all – steps would be taken to assure it did not happen again.

But electric cars? Let’s “discount” them even more! That’s the ticket! Maybe once they’re “free,” demand for them will really pick up.

“We want to incentivize this. It puts American manufacturers in the lead, which is where we want them, and it reduces emissions faster than any other policy that we could put in place,” Representative Dan Kildee, Michigan Democrat, told Reuters.

Actually, it does no such thing. Well, it may “incentivize” the distribution of these American-made electric loss leaders.

It’s easier to get rid of inventory when it is no  longer necessary to convince people to pay what it costs to produce it. How fast would the meat rack at the supermarket be cleared of ribeyes if they were marked down 40 percent? What an idea! It would “incentivize” people to buy more ribeyes!

Of course, the problem then becomes how to get the ranchers to produce the ribeyes – and the supermarket to stock them – and eat the loss. The incentive then becomes – to not produce them.  

Unless, of course, you can get government to make up the 40 percent markdown. Regardless someone pays. Just not the someone getting the “incentive.” It’s a nice trick, if you don’t mind others being made to pay your bills.

You might even call it a fire sale.

And “reduce emissions”? That’s a fatuity in need of multi-tiered deconstruction. 

First, definitions – corrected.

Emissions until recently referred to the combustion byproducts that affected air quality; i.e., which caused or contributed to the formation of smog and exacerbated asthma and so on in people. Then an oily redefinition of emissions was proffered that expanded the definition to include carbon dioxide, which has nothing whatsoever to do do with smog or making people’s asthma worse.

This was a propaganda move, intended to make people equate C02 with the things that once upon a time did cause smog and worsened asthma – but which have been reduced to such a degree that if they still do, they hardly do.

And in any event, C02 does not. – at all.

It is asserted that carbon dioxide resulting from combustion of gasoline in non-electric car engines is causing “climate change.” If so – and how much – can be debated, based on facts. But it is deliberately misleading to conflate the emissions that create or worsen smog and breathing difficulties – as emissions have been defined for decades – and the entirely different “emissions” of carbon dioxide.

Second, it is doubtful whether government-mandated electric cars “emit” less carbon dioxide, on the whole.

They emit none at the tailpipe, of course – since EVs haven’t got one. But it is – once again – oilily misleading to not factor into the calculation the totality of carbon dioxide emitted in the course of the manufacture of EVs and their 1,000-plus pounds of battery pack and the carbon dioxide emitted by the sources of electrical generation that power these battery packs, most of which are not “carbon neutral.”

Finally, EVs are energy hogs.

It takes the just-mentioned 1,000-plus pounds of battery pack to give them about half the highway-range capability of almost any non-electric car and it takes 400-800 volts of electricity to charge them up in anything less than several hours. The wastage here is staggering, if unreported.

But even so, people know a bad deal when they see it. Which is why it’s necessary to pay them off in order to get them to see it differently.

. . .

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44 COMMENTS

  1. Off topic, but this is a big initial win for our side:

    ‘A federal judge on Tuesday granted an emergency injunction blocking the state of New York from enforcing a virus vaccine mandate for healthcare workers.

    ‘The health care employees argued that the vaccine mandate would nullify protections for sincere religious beliefs under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Specifically, the plaintiffs argued that the mandate violated the First and Fourteenth Amendments, the Supremacy Clause, and the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution.’ — the epoch times

    Wish I could say the same about Arizona’s filing against Biden’s federal mandate. It reads like an editorial for a high school newspaper, not even citing the text of Biden’s executive order:

    https://www.azag.gov/sites/default/files/docs/press-releases/2021/complaints/Vaccine_Equal_Protection_Complaint_FINAL.pdf

    This sorry joke of a legal brief is designed to fail, and almost surely will.

  2. Just like the toxic covid shanks and doublemasks, most people buy an electric car because it’s a cool way to virtue signal.

    Check out this company called Terrapass… I ran into this steaming pile through an article in Scientific American a few years ago prior to that once fine publication self immolating in woke colored flames.

    http://terrapass.com

    Eric, you’d have a field day with this company…

    They can absolve you of your carbon sins for a fee! At the time we hooted and hollered that nobody would be that stupid… This was prior to the Covidian cult… Now we know.

    • This is the 21st century equivalent of selling indulgences by the Catholic church in medieval times. And why not since globull warming is as much of a religion to the left as Christianity was to the people of the middle ages. Just like a Christian could murder, rape, & pillage in 1100 Europe and for the right price, paid happily to the church, their sins would be forgiven. Now left wing woke companies can rape and pillage the environment and all their”environmental sins” will be forgiven for the right price paid to the woke crowd of terrapass. SMFH

      • Prior to the Covid Mass Psychosis I was hitting a indoor climbing gym 2x a week. There are many, many crunchy types there who immediately and zealously adopted the Covidian methods.

        A quick tour around the parking lot a few weeks ago revealed not one, not two, but five Terrapass bumper stickers…

        Sigh… I really liked that place.

      • Ant, I know what you mean. somehow im on the mailing list for a private jet charter company (i guess they think im rich) – the other day they sent out an email – “rest assured now all our private flights are 100% carbon offset”!! Joy…. not only that – you can pay extra to have it 200% carbon offset and do good!!! I guess why not aim for the higher heaven if you can….

    • Today I found out that Canoo exists. Yep, yet another electric car startup. I cannot tell you where they are planning to buy their airbags or whether longtime readers might guess accurately. But it looks like they are going into some level of production.

      When the bubble pops I will be surprised to see any electric not-car manufacturer survive. This includes GM. I just hope there’s something salvageable left when they finally go under for good.

    • “….Your carbon footprint is 4,315 lbs of CO2e. That’s equivalent to planting 50 urban trees…”

      2018 Toyota 4Runner TRD ORP. I stopped after putting my vehicle info into the calculator since it seemed they were just gathering data to sell at that point. ‘Urban Trees’? I live rural, not sure urban trees would grow here unless bombarded by outdoor speakers playing Rap or something….lol j/k. Seriously, this company wants me to pay $1.79 a month to save the planet? and people actually do this?
      smh.

    • David – talking of the decline of once great western publications, ive been reading popular science since I was a child in the 80s, when I first learnt to read (yes im a nerd). Had the subscription till the mid 90s when I left the USs…. joined their email group when they first launched it back in the 90s…. they used to be a good interesting publication at one point…. the subject from their weekly email this week “how to send nudes safely” !! Apparently this is science now !!

  3. Eric,

    Just think of auto-immolation as a “feature” you can’t “decontent”. A little like blood clots with the Holy Jab.

    $12,500 is an absurd amount of theft, or “wealth transfer”, but why not? No holds barred, anymore.

    At least it’s better than schemes such as the light-rail in Phoenix, undergoing an expansion at this time. It has been calculated that every regular rider of the light-rail could be bought a Tesla for the cost of the expansion, and yet they build it anyway. Luckily, I’m moving out of this shit city as soon as I finish a few projects.

  4. Where is all this magic electricity going to come from? As it is this summer with ev’s making up about 6% of commiefornia’s cars on the road you had utility companies telling people not to charge their ev’s over night because of the strain on the grid. The grid right now couldn’t handle 10 or 15% ev’s let alone the numbers pedo and his handlers are demanding.

    • I’ve said this probably a thousand times now to people. The electricity is not coming. The idea is that people won’t be driving.

      The UK has now decided it will turn car chargers off to reduce load on the grid when needed. Guess they are really going to use the HAN in the smart meters after all.

      Imagine you need to get somewhere in the morning and your car charger got turned off so now you don’t have the range to get where you need to be. Yeah. That’s going to work out well.

      • It’s not. Politics isn’t pragmatic or realistic, what it has become is institutionalized wishful thinking and virtue signaling. These people don’t care that the grid can’t sustain their mandates, or that EV’s aren’t ready for many duty cycles, all they care about is being seen as “doing something” towards an appropriate goal of the day.

        The stuff that matters; infrastructure, roads, plumbing is being neglected, because in their magical thinking, it will somehow just appear.

        I can see one upside to this. At some point, people will stop listening. While it’s going to get a lot worse, the transition to where it gets better is not far off. I may live to see secession, nullification, and outright rebellion.

        • Move up higher on the pyramid. The AOC’s and other idiots have the wishful thinking. The self proclaimed managers of society up on top have determined to take motoring away from most everyone the rest to be well tracked and told where they can go and when. That’s the plan best I can tell.

          Magical thinking is that the infrastructure will come from somewhere magically, but there is no intent to have electric generation to do it. If we read the other side of the plan we find it is to reduce generation capacity. To turn off the reliable hydrocarbon fueled plants and have unreliable wind and solar for a net decrease in capacity. Then comes the rationing through the smart meters using the HAN. Of course us Luddites have stuff that doesn’t talk to the meters over the HAN so they’ll have to either ban our old machines or just turn off our power. But that will take more work and difficult sales pitch.

          • I live in the land of fruits and nuts in CA, so I’ve spent a bunch of money to ensure I have my own electricity (solar + battery, works offline), and water (illegal deep well, powered by my offline capable electric system). As a refugee from Soviet communism, it blows my mind that I have to be making these provisions in the USA, the country that accepted me as a political refugee.

            • OL,

              As much as I want to say I can’t understand your situation, living in new jersiatan we are only a few years behind you. I keep planning my escape only to be driven back by the wife who refuses to leave. A jab mandate for the kids will be my breaking point.

            • Let’s hope the invisible hand smacks a few people upside the head, before it’s too late.

              Adam Smith is rolling over in his grave so fast, Elon Musk attached a magnet to him to power one of his cars.

      • Plus every car then becomes permanently lodged in the IOT and has a unique MAC address on it’s tcpip adapter that can be turned off/blocked/killed at any time.

      • I saw recently that the UK was in a jam power wise because the wind wasn’t blowing so no wind power ….duh. So now they have to crank up those evil natural gas powered turbines and pay top dollar (pound?) for it as well. These effing greenies are pushing civilization backwards.

  5. This $12,500 subsidy is double-evil. It’s not yet legal to play favorites and give a handout only to the big three, so how did Biden structure it? He said the subsidy only applies to electric cars built in unionized factories! He’s paying back his union lobbyists with this one. Many other US market cars are built in the US, but in non-union plants, which is why they’re better built.

  6. “When a self-governing people confer upon their government the power to take money from some and give it to others, the process will not stop until the last bone of the last taxpayer is picked bare.”

    – Howard E. Kershner

  7. The solution is so obvious.
    Every company with 100 or more employees must require them to show proof of ZEV ownership.
    Problem solved.

  8. You asked what does the buyer get for his money? Nothing except an oversized piece of plastic yard art. The big payoff comes in the form of the feelzz. Everyone of the buyers so called friends can tell them what a fantastic person they are for caring about Mother Earth and the children. Cant forget the children in a nation ruled by women and children, A nation that bases policy off feelings and virtue signaling, not reason and common sense.

    I have to admit if they gave them out free I would take one. I might park it in a lot full of Government worker drones cars and let it self immolate. parked between a bunch of other fire starters, under the solar covered awnings it might create a funeral pyre worthy of such a failed state.

    • ‘let it self immolate … it might create a funeral pyre worthy of such a failed state.’ — Norman Franklin

      What a lovely dark image: Fahrenheit 451 … burn, baby, burn.

      Or one could crack up like ol’ Humbert Humbert did, after leisurely murdering the dissolute Quilty who stole his Lolita:

      The road now stretched across open country, and it occurred to me that since I had disregarded all laws of humanity, I might as well disregard the rules of traffic.

      So I crossed to the left side of the highway and checked the feeling, and the feeling was good.

      Gently, dreamily, not exceeding twenty miles an hour, I drove on that queer mirror side. Traffic was light. Cars that now and then passed me on the side I had abandoned to them, honked at me brutally. Cars coming towards me wobbled, swerved, and cried out in fear.

      Presently I found myself approaching populated places. Passing through a red light was like a sip of forbidden Burgundy when I was a child.

      Meanwhile complications were arising. I was being followed and escorted. Then in front of me I saw two cars placing themselves in such a manner as to completely block my way.

      With a graceful movement I turned off the road, and after two or three big bounces, rode up a grassy slope, among surprised cows, and there I came to a gentle rocking stop.

      I was soon to be taken out of the car (Hi, Melmoth, thanks a lot, old fellow)–and was, indeed, looking forward to surrender myself to many hands, without doing anything to cooperate, while they moved and carried me, relaxed, comfortable, surrendering myself lazily, like a patient, and deriving an eerie enjoyment from my limpness and the absolutely reliable support given to me by the police and the ambulance people.

  9. Here’s the problem in a nutshell. A little girl with autism says she wants to be governor when she grows up, and everybody in Linkedinland gushes their praise.

    Parents are teaching their kids that the way to make the world better is not to produce stuff that people want, but to force people to do what they don’t want to do and prohibit them from doing what they do want to do. Ava once wanted to be a popcorn eater; now he aspires to be a tax eater. Isn’t that precious!

    https://www.linkedin.com/posts/anna-bullard-0b58b871_womeninpolitics-womenleaders-leadership-activity-6841162557441523712-BkXS

      • As I commented when this started it will become primarily focused on harassing people with vehicles in storage, under restoration, etc and so forth. The odds of doing it anything with regards to the irresponsible is practically nil. They’ll find some fly-by-night company with lots of daytime TV ads to “insure” them. The insurance of course will be worthless to anyone they cause harm to. I wonder what the current manifestation is called. I haven’t seen weekday TV in years.

      • Looks like a major pain in the ass. Anytime government requires me to do something for its convenience, it ends up being a shitshow that takes up way too much of my time. Example: doing my taxes every year.
        It reminds me of an incident in my state (Indiana.) About 10 years ago, I got a letter from the BMV asking me to verify my insurance coverage due to my recent accident. I was racking my brain: “What accident? I haven’t been in an accident!” Finally, I took time to read the letter more closely and realized the letter was referencing an accident I got into SEVEN years prior! I was rear-ended, so my insurance company did not owe anybody anything. It seemed like a moot point since I didn’t “skip out” on paying anybody for their damages because I didn’t cause any and was not liable for any.
        The only acceptable way to verify coverage was to have my insurance company contact the BMV and tell them that, yes, I was covered by them on that date seven years ago. This meant figuring out which company I was using back then. I didn’t even have that car anymore. Fortunately, when I contacted the company, they were familiar with the process and agreed to take care of it.
        I got rear ended again five years ago. It was minor damage from a person I actually knew. I was not inclined to make a fuss about it and just let him pay me cash for the damages. We didn’t really need a police report, but a cop happened to witness it and came over. So I guess this means I can expect a BMV letter in a couple of years demanding I prove I had insurance because I got in an accident that was not my fault.

        • I had the same thing after I was rear-ended by an inattentive (texting) driver. Not my fault. Less lag time in my case.

          I don’t remember if the cop asked for my insurance or not at the time. I had it anyway & my ins company took care of it.

          What really ground my gears was, if my insurance company didn’t pull through (for any reason) then I would have received an automatic fine & license suspension for not having insurance & for driving without it.

          It effectively flips the presumption of innocence completely around into presumption of guilt.

        • Just FYI, if you ever hit a deer, etc… and your car requires insurance to fix it, you must prove you hit the deer or you won’t be covered. The insurance company said to me “how do we know you just didn’t self-inflict the damage (fraud), and therefore is not covered?” Not sure if this was just my ‘blue’ state or because of my insurance company. But luckily for me, there was a cop that happened to be driving by, and he stopped to help, cause my care looked bad, even though I was able to drive home not far away. He must have known about the ‘insurance proof’ issue, cause he insisted on doing a report even though I said I didn’t need one.

    • Everything is politics now.
      So that is what is taught.

      What isn’t taught is that eventually the productive, the intended slave class simply goes away. Nobody bothers to go into and the older people quit, are murdered, or slow their work down. Then if you’re lucky you have Cuba. But Cuban communists are comparatively kind. They let people keep their old stuff. Most communists come and confiscate stuff as conditions worsen.

  10. Economics magic! A 40% state funded discount makes US EVs “competitive”? I wonder, who’s going to subsidize doubling the capacity of the power grid to accommodate them? I wonder who’s going to subsidize the increase in fire department’s capacity? And the increase in homeowner’s insurance. This omelet hasn’t even begun to cook.

  11. EV owners need a place to charge their vehicle overnight if it will be even close to useful. This eliminates 99% of apartment dwellers, students in dorms, most townhomes, and many houses with cross-sidewalk parking. In other words, only those rich enough to have houses can use an EV. This means the poor(er) are supporting tax breaks for the rich(er). Way to go Congress.

    • Indeed, PGA –

      This is a facet of the EV fiasco rarely discussed; i.e., that people who haven’t got a dedicated place to park (and charge) will be out of luck. Gasoline is liberating – for everyone. Which is why the elites hate it so.

    • In other words, large swaths of urban/suburban areas. Which is where an electric not-car would be most practical to use, otherwise (assuming a sufficiently short commute).

  12. At $14,395 (per Car and Driver) the Chevy Spark is the least expensive car on the market. For less than 2 grand more, GovCo could give a Spark to every poor person driving an old, inefficient 90’s Buick Century. Imagine the pollution and fuel savings!

    But, as you say Eric, it ain’t about that. It’s about control and pushing The Green New Deal World Order.

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