GM has just announced it will be unemploying more than 3,400 people who were employed at GM’s Factory Zero, where Ultium (the word reeks of etymological jujitsu) battery packs and battery powered devices were being made.
The problem is that they’re not selling. It is a general problem for battery-powered vehicles now that the truth about them is widely known – and also because the government is no longer effectively paying people (using their own kicked-back tax dollars, admittedly) to buy them.
This is the problem with manufactured as opposed to market demand.
Before there was a Factory Zero, there was GM’s Hamtramck Assembly plant – which was previously a Dodge plant, where vehicles for which there was a market were assembled. GM bought the plant and converted it over to battery and EV production, on the assumption of manufactured demand for the things. It was assumed that the federal government would continue using regs to systematically increase demand for battery-powered vehicles by (effectively) forcing vehicles that aren’t powered by batteries off the new car market, leaving no alternative, other than battery-powered vehicles. GM – and not just GM – expected this manufactured market to expand and invested accordingly, devoting much R&D dollars as well as the dollars spent on converting entire plants over to manufacturing batteries and battery powered devices.
That was – literally – a billion dollar (and then some) assumption that has suddenly proved to have been false. And now thousands of GM employees are going to pay for it, with their jobs.
Many of these workers used to be employed at plants that manufactured vehicles; they were re-employed at plants such as the old Hamtramck facility that were converted to manufacture batteries and battery powered devices. Now that the demand for these is wilting like a normal’s man’s libido when viewing Hillary Clinton in a bikini, these workers are out of work.
It’s worth a pause here to point out that the people responsible for this malinvestment – for instance, GM’s CEO Mary Barra, will not lose their jobs. Not only that, she – and it’s not just her – are being (effectively) rewarded for all this malinvestment, to the tune of double-digit millions in earnings for just one year of “work,” if you want to call it that.
Well, in a way, it is.
It certainly took work to lose billions, as by building the Factory Zero. Lots of meetings were no doubt held. Many memos sent and read. But – in the end – it was all work for nothing, except insofar as the people responsible are concerned. They continue to be paid – and paid very well.
This is arguably the worst aspect of this whole shady – and dangerous – business. By which I mean there are no consequences to speak of for those responsible. Meanwhile, the people who were just trying to do an honest day’s work – and only earning a fraction in a year of what a CEO such as Mary Barra is paid in a couple of weeks or even less than that – will have to figure out how to pay next month’s mortgage.
This is obscene.
Let’s say a well-paid line assembly line worker earns $70,000 annually. One hundred times that sum would be $7 million. That’s not even half Barra’s annual compensation, which is reportedly around $30 million, all told.
But she won’t lose a cent of that. The workers lose everything.
This is politically-socially explosive stuff. There is legitimate resentment out there amongst people who work for a living who are obliged to pay when they screw up. And even when they don’t – as in the case of the just-unemployed 3,400. It is of a piece with you and I being expected to pay what are styled “our” taxes – and to pay for such things as insurance and are punished if we don’t, even though we have caused no harm – while certain other categories of people are not expected to pay, by dint of their being few if any consequences if they do not.
Write large, ordinary Americans are becoming aware they’re being screwed in every orifice (and at once) while a small handful of Americans are effectively immunized from any meaningful consequence for anything they do, no matter the harm caused. Dr. Fauci is a free man. But lookout if a cop sees you or I not “buckled up.”
The car company CEOs who bought into the EV grift aren’t paying for what they did, either. Those 3,400 unemployed average Americans are – with many more to come.
. . .
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GM: The same company taxpayers bailed out back in what…2008, and they never paid us back for that. So yeah, this sounds about right.
Andrew Cuomo resigned the governorship as a sex harasser and murderer in 2021. Instead of going to jail, the relatives of those he murdered are voting for him: “The following day, the same super PAC sent out a text which began with a tweet that said “Cuomo murdered my husband and I am voting for him. That’s how bad things are in New York”—one of two messages on which a combined million dollars was spent by Defend NYC. The message went on to say, “We know what she means… And if she can do it, you can do it too. If you do, we will defeat Mamdani together.””
https://www.dropsitenews.com/p/campaign-spending-mamdani-cuomo-billionaires-bill-ackman-new-york-city-mayoral-race
“Amazon Plans to Replace More Than Half a Million Jobs With Robots”
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/21/technology/inside-amazons-plans-to-replace-workers-with-robots.html
Amen, AJC –
I just published the following in re what you’ve written: https://www.ericpetersautos.com/2025/11/03/communism-tomorrow/
With EeeVees dead in the water, Elon needs a new pitch. Here it is:
‘Tesla CEO Elon Musk appeared on Joe Rogan’s podcast on Friday for a three-hour conversation covering a wide range of topics, including the upcoming unveiling of the second-generation Tesla Roadster, which he said “will have crazy tech.”
“Look, I think it has a shot at being the most memorable product unveil ever. This is some crazy, crazy technology we got in this car. Crazy technology. Crazy crazy. Let’s just put it this way. It’s crazier than anything James Bond. If you took all the James Bond cars and combined them, it’s crazier than that,” Musk told Rogan.
‘Musk said that this product unveiling will be “unforgettable” and even hinted at a flying car.
‘He continued, “My friend Peter Thiel once reflected that the future was supposed to have flying cars, but we don’t have flying cars. If Peter wants a flying car we should should be able to buy one.”‘
https://www.zerohedge.com/technology/secret-spacex-backed-flying-car-musk-just-hinted
Meet the new grift; same as the old grift! 🙂
Made it halfway thru Joes Musk diatribe.
“I made a fucking mistake about Trump, a total fail and traitor to humanity” apparently goes right over the stoned grifters head ?
Now we see the real Elon.
I’m ready to buy this new James Bond Tesla. I’m really looking forward to the bullet proof glass, the sub machine guns, the missiles, and the car being quickly convertable into either a helicopter or a boat.
I wonder how much this car is going to cost…
Very small aside but the Whole Food reinstalled brand new EV chargers to replace the old bank of 6 that were always empty. The new ones now sit empty and unused.
To me this represents John Q. Public saying no thanks. And this is California.
Hi RS!
Same happened here at my local Earth Fare. A bank of six “fast” chargers was put up like five years ago; I never saw more than one EV charging – and that was a rare sight. They removed/replaced all the chargers with new ones about six months ago… still usually free of customers.
I smell tax deduction/credit.
Publius just beat me with the exact words I was about to type.
I also met a local electrical contractor who became a millionaire since he somehow got in on this charger installation grift. Laughing all the way to the bank in his decked-out F150 King Ranch edition.
The Big Grift generates a lot of secondary grifts which creates a whole class of people interested in keeping it running in perpetuity
Empty and unused. Should perhaps become the epitaph of EeeVees everywhere.
Stopped in Quartzite recently on a trip to LA. Just a stretch of the legs, have a smoke, let the dog do her business. Next to the Carls Jr sits what used to be a giant empty lot. Now, still empty except for about 20 new Charging stations and a bunch of unfinished trailer pads. Water stubbed up and little else. The streets are still dirt with weeds sprouting up and it looks like they ran out of other peoples money. Like some surreal ghost trailer park.
Teslas and trailer parks, not two things I’d put together. Cant remember ever seeing a Tesla towed behind a fifth wheel. At least my dog did her part, dropping a huge steaming pile in front of one of the Tesla ‘filling stations.’ I normally pick up after her. Just couldn’t bring my self to do it this time.
Copper thieves of the future might want to take note.
Morning, Norman!
This made my day: “At least my dog did her part, dropping a huge steaming pile in front of one of the Tesla ‘filling stations.’ I normally pick up after her. Just couldn’t bring my self to do it this time.”
Thats good to hear, Eric. If you could please remove my last comment from the Communism article. I thought the first one didn’t pass the capture and went away, thanks amigo.
‘The car company CEOs who bought into the EV grift aren’t paying for what they did.’ — eric
All this, because a senile scarecrow spent four years under the delusion that he was ‘president,’ and mumbled some stuff about all cars being EeeVees by 2035. Who in their right mind would base their business model on the rantings of this human wreck?
Not only are the car company CEOs not paying, they don’t even have the decency to rescue so-called ‘Joe’ off the filthy street corner in Wilmington where he holds up a hand-lettered cardboard sign and rattles a tin cup.
Sitting on a park bench
Eying little girls with bad intent
Snot running down his nose
Greasy fingers smearing shabby clothes
Drying in the cold sun
Watching as the frilly panties run
Feeling like a dead duck
Spitting out pieces of his broken luck
— Jethro Tull, Aqualung
“ This is politically-socially explosive stuff. There is legitimate resentment out there amongst people who work for a living who are obliged to pay when they screw up. And even when they don’t – as in the case of the just-unemployed 3,400. It is of a piece with you and I being expected to pay what are styled “our” taxes – and to pay for such things as insurance and are punished if we don’t, even though we have caused no harm – while certain other categories of people are not expected to pay, by dint of their being few if any consequences if they do not.
Write large, ordinary Americans are becoming aware they’re being screwed in every orifice (and at once) while a small handful of Americans are effectively immunized from any meaningful consequence for anything they do, no matter the harm caused. Dr. Fauci is a free man. But lookout if a cop sees you or I not “buckled up.”
The car company CEOs who bought into the EV grift aren’t paying for what they did, either. Those 3,400 unemployed average Americans are – with many more to come.”
King Louis XVI, Marie Antoinette, Czar Nicholas II, and Shah Reza Pahlavi were not available for comment.
At least Il Duce made the trains run on time, Trussolini et. al. apparently can’t even manage that.
GENERAL Motors ceased to exist on 6/1/09.
Whatever outfit now exists under the same name and logo operates as a subsidiary of the criminal organization that gifted it all the IP from GM.
Government Motors wasn’t a joke.
This is now what we have…a business model that bends to the will of, and is fully protected by, FedGov.
Ford and Government Motors will just get bailed out (DOE loans are little different from a bailout) AGAIN when this EV thing collapses.
Precisely. Look at a stupid fatass 2010 camaro fr instance.
hillary and her layered blubber! reeks from 1000 miles. same goes for the orange baboon!
Government pays people to build cars government wants.
Government pays people to buy cars government wants.
Government promotes cars government wants, some people shill for government cars in exchange for access to government officials.
Government power shits, government stops paying people to build and buy the cars.
Government pays unemployment to people who used to build cars.
Eric you ought to build an anthology of your EV blog posts into a book. Maybe get Bob Murphy to write a chapter or two to cover the basic economic fallacy. I’d bet Mises Institute or someone of that bent would publish it.
I’ve previously mentioned the 15K or so powertrain engineers let go in 2022 because of electrification in the ‘big 3’ in Michigan. The company I worked for has been targeted for poor quality for many years and they continue to set records for recalls. They put out a recent press release on how they are ‘focusing ‘ on quality again, for about the 50th time. My point is that these were great jobs lost, they are never coming back, and the problems that these 1000’s of engineers worked on, have nobody working on them, probably ever. Management will continue to lie to customers and investors, and get handsomely rewarded for dumb decisions.
Spot on I work for the lower case car company and the fact that MTB and the other POS on the Senior Leadership Team have no accountability at all has many within the engineering ranks livid. Mother Mary has also brought in a horrible human being to run HR. It’s beyond comprehension to attempt to describe how bad the work environment is there now. Lets just say its perverted at best. Myself I’m done in a few months.
Morning, Rob!
I feel for you, man. I know a number of people within the Beast and they tell me essentially the same as you have. It has changed so much for the worse since I began my career writing about the biz some 30 years ago.
Thanks for that. Be careful and grateful you arent at boeing.
Forgot to note the name of the factory: ZERO.
As in zero jobs….
Zero emissions, zero cars…
…or “Year Zero:”
https://the-man-in-the-high-castle.fandom.com/wiki/Jahr_Null_(Initiative)
Even the CEO of GM in the 1960’s made a fraction of what Bloody Mary makes now. When Chevy by itself had more market share than all of GM today.
She needs to be fired, and no golden parachute or CEO job somewhere else either. She shouldn’t even be an assistant manager at a McDonalds because she would run that out of business too. That’s what you get when you make someone from personnel (the proper name for HR) the boss (I realize she does have an engineering degree).
Hillary in a bikini. The stuff that nightmares are made of.
and you had to bring it up again, didn’t you?
An image even Bill doesn’t want to see.
It’s never noted that Bill (and also Barry) are rarely seen with their “wives” anymore. Must be nice having the many houses around the country to avoid those “family” moments……
That image would be the anti-viagra 😆
There was a guest on CNBC recently who was warning about a coming “Economic Civil War”, which would likely benefit the self-proclaimed “World Improvers”, as the masses would be fighting each other instead of the establishment & billionaire sociopaths who’ve become quite wealthy at the expense of ordinary citizens…..
https://rumble.com/v712q6a-cnbc-warns-about-upcoming-economic-civil-war.html?e9s=src_v1_s%2Csrc_v1_s_o&sci=be2d3319-8b95-476c-a17d-a2fbd4687dae
Same as ’08. Tea Party rises and Occupy Wall St. emerges. The 80% overlap in grievances is ignored in favor of creating “existential” threats out of the 20% difference.
When will the “let them eat cake” moment arrive when enough is enough?
Hi Mark,
Perhaps that moment will arrive when people on the political left stop buying BS narratives from those billionaires, such as those involving “Gender affirming care”, “Climate change”, “Democracy”, “DEI”, etc.
guess we never learned a thing from the managed economies of communism
Not related to the article, but I thought some might find this interesting, oops, I mean disgusting.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hi_qUh0BifY
3,400 tossed aside? Perhaps she’s earned the title of “Bloody” Mary Barra.
In other news…
“The Vietnamese company VinFast is building an electric vehicle (EV) plant in Moncure, Chatham County, North Carolina, but production has been delayed to 2028”
It seems Atlas is Shrugging.
Let’s not forget this runs deeper than jobs.
That factory sits on land previously known as Poletown which was a community of largely Polish immigrants dating back to the turn of the century. The land was taken via GM and the city of Detroit conspiring to use eminent domain to force poor residents out of their community around 1981 to make way for the plant GM wanted to build there.
You are correct. Land for the GM Poletown plant was seized through eminent domain, a questionable practice in that case. However, the article mistakenly states that the GM Poletown plant was a former Dodge plant. Not true. The Dodge Main plant which was shuttered was approximately two miles north of the present-day GM Poletown plant. As to Dodge Main (as the Chrysler plant was named), it took quite some time to raze the facility which had to be taken down, brick by brick
Like the Hemi. Brick by brick.
“However, the article mistakenly states that the GM Poletown plant was a former Dodge plant.”
Nope Doge main was on the Zero site between Joseph Campeau and Conant streets.
You must be thinking of other plants in the area perhaps Lynch Road Assemby.