Tag Archive for: electric vehicles

Ford Burns Through Billions, Expects to Lose $12 Billion on Electric Vehicle Line

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Despite the losses, Ford continues to push forward and hopes to manufacture two million EVs a year by 2026 and hit an 8% profit margin for its EV division. The company is chasing Elon Musk’s Tesla for EV sales in the U.S. and remains far behind the electric car giant. Tesla, which started in 2003, lost money for ten years before finally turning a profit in 2013. Musk’s company made $12.6 billion in 2022, an impressive jump from $5.5 billion in 2021.

They don’t care. As long as the Democrats are running/ruining the economy with their environmental/climate garbage, it’s the American  taxpayer that will have to pay for this mess.

Ford Says It Will Lose $3 Billion on EVs This Year as It Touts Startup Mentality

Ford Motor Co. expects to lose about $3 billion on its electric-vehicle business this year, a reminder of how far traditional auto makers have to go in turning their EV portfolios profitable.

Ford disclosed the figure Thursday while outlining a new financial-reporting structure intended to give investors better insight into the performance of its three business units. Ford finance chief John Lawler described the EV division as a startup inside the 119-year-old company, and said it is normal for a fledgling business to rack up losses.

Ford shares were down about 1.3% in afternoon trading Thursday…

Read more.

Ford Projects Its EV Division Will Lose Billions This Year

The Ford Motor Company is going full throttle toward electric vehicle manufacturing, but that decision will cost the Michigan-based carmaker billions this year alone.

Ford said Thursday that it expects its EV division will lose $3 billion in 2023 as it pushes to produce more vehicles and build electric battery plants in Kentucky, Tennessee, and Michigan, The Financial Times reported. The carmaker wasn’t surprised by the massive loss of money as it views its EV division, known as Model e, as a “start-up.”

“Ford Model e is an EV start-up within Ford and, as everyone knows, EV start-ups lose money while they invest in capability, develop knowledge, build volume and gain share,” said John Lawler, Ford’s chief financial officer.

Despite the losses, Ford continues to push forward and hopes to manufacture two million EVs a year by 2026 and hit an 8% profit margin for its EV division. The company is chasing Elon Musk’s Tesla for EV sales in the U.S. and remains far behind the electric car giant. Tesla, which started in 2003, lost money for ten years before finally turning a profit in 2013. Musk’s company made $12.6 billion in 2022, an impressive jump from $5.5 billion in 2021.

Ford plans to explain its financials in more detail to investors and how it will stick to its goal of selling only zero-carbon emission vehicles by 2040, according to The Financial Times. Ford is relying on Ford Blue, its gas-powered vehicle production, to fund the carmaker’s transition to EVs.

Ford Blue is expected to rake in $7 billion this year, and the company’s commercial vehicles division, Ford Pro, is expected to double last year’s earnings to $6 billion this year. Lawler blamed spending on new battery plants and battery technology for the carmaker’s EV losses.

Last month, the carmaker was criticized for collaborating with a Chinese company to build a battery plant in Michigan. In its proposal, Ford said it would partner with the Chinese company Contemporary Amperex Technology on the plant that would employ 2,500 people when it begins production in 2026.

Virginia Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin withdrew his state from consideration for the new battery plant because of Ford’s partnership with the Chinese company. Michigan Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, however, has pushed for the battery plant to come to the Great Lakes State and celebrated Ford’s decision to build the plant in Michigan.

AUTHOR

Pamela Geller

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EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Why Are There No EV Charging Stations at Interstate Rest Stops? Blame the Feds!

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Joe Biden’s $5 billion funding plan for electric vehicles failed to allow rest stops to offer charging stations, an Atlanta news station discovered.

When Georgia resident Anita Jefferson pulls her Tesla out of her garage each morning, she knows it’s fully charged and ready to go. But she told a local reporter her confidence disappears when she hits the interstate. Charging stations seem few and far between, even at places where you’d expect them to be, like rest stops.

“The one place you would want to travel and stop would be a state rest stop,” Jefferson told an Atlanta news station. “I want to get an answer as to why they’re not there.”

Jefferson got her answer from WXIA-TV Atlanta’s Verify team: There are no charging stations at rest stops because they are prohibited under a federal law—one that stretches all the way back to the Eisenhower administration.

In 1956, Ike signed into law a bill—the Federal-Aid Highway Act—that paved the way (pun intended) for the interstate highway system, which included rest areas at convenient locations.

While there were numerous problems with the legislation, a relatively minor one was that it created strict limits on what could be sold at these rest stops. Today, federal law limits commercial sales to only a few items (including lottery tickets), the Verify team found. When President Joe Biden rolled out a $5 billion funding plan for states to create EV charging stations, he neglected to carve out a commercial exemption for EVs.

“You would be paying for that energy,” Natalie Dale of the Georgia Department of Transportation told WXIA-TV Atlanta. “That would count as commercialized use of the right-of-way and therefore not allowed under current federal regulations.”

If you think this sounds like an inauspicious roll out to the massive federal EV program, you’re not wrong.

Allowing drivers to charge their EVs at convenient, familiar locations that already exist along interstate highways is a no-brainer—yet this simple idea eluded lawmakers in Washington, DC.

Unfortunately, it illustrates a much larger problem with the top-down blueprint central planners are using to create their EV charging station network.

“We have approved plans for all 50 States, Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia to help ensure that Americans in every part of the country…can be positioned to unlock the savings and benefits of electric vehicles,” Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said in a 2022 statement.

While it’s good the DOT isn’t trying to single-handedly map out the locations of thousands of EV charging stations across the country, there’s little reason to believe that state bureaucrats will be much more efficient. A review of state plans reveals a labyrinth of rules, regulations, and stakeholders dictating everything from the maximum distance of EV stations from highways and interstates to the types of charging equipment stations can use to the types of power capabilities charging stations must have.

The primary reason drivers enjoy the great convenience of gasoline stations across the country—there are some 145,000 of them today—is that they rely on market forces, not central planning. Each year hundreds of new filling stations are created, not because a bureaucrat identified the right location but because an entrepreneur saw an opportunity for profit.

Bureaucracy will never be able to match the efficiency of markets, which use millions of signals to reach decisions, and are constantly being corrected by market changes, all in the pursuit of serving customers and making a profit.

This, the economist Ludwig von Mises pointed out, is precisely the opposite of what bureaucrats do.

“A bureaucrat differs from a nonbureaucrat precisely because he is working in a field in which it is impossible to appraise the result of a man’s effort in terms of money,” Mises wrote in his seminal work Bureaucracy.

Just how burdensome these regulations will prove remains to be seen.

While some states will develop EV charging plans more amenable to market forces than others, all of them are likely to suffer to some extent because the push toward EVs itself has been top-down, driven by politicians trying to push consumers off of gas-powered vehicles.

What’s clear is that the bureaucratic structure of DOT’s charging station blueprint does not bode well for consumers. Charging technology and transportation are constantly evolving, and politicians and bureaucrats simply can’t respond to these changes as efficiently as markets.

So while there is much talk today that EV charging stations will soon outnumber gas stations, there’s reason to be skeptical of this claim—even with the government’s $5 billion spending spree.

There’s little reason to believe that state planners will create a framework with the proper incentive structure to meet the market’s needs. Bureaucrats and politicians lack both the knowledge and proper incentives to create a functional EV market.

If you doubt this, just ask Anita Jefferson, who can’t even charge her Tesla at rest stops—because of a federal law passed in 1956.

AUTHOR

Jon Miltimore

Jonathan Miltimore is the Managing Editor of FEE.org. (Follow him on Substack.) His writing/reporting has been the subject of articles in TIME magazine, The Wall Street Journal, CNN, Forbes, Fox News, and the Star Tribune. Bylines: Newsweek, The Washington Times, MSN.com, The Washington Examiner, The Daily Caller, The Federalist, the Epoch Times.

EDITORS NOTE: This FEE column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

As Other Automakers Push EVs, This Luxury Brand Drove Laps Around Them In 2022

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While electric vehicle (EV) startups that once seemed promising saw their stock prices plummet far faster than the rest of the market, Ferrari managed to stay ahead of other automakers as the industry retracted, and is poised to post the smallest decline amongst major automakers in 2022, CNBC reported Wednesday.

The FactSet Automotive Index, a measure of the economic health of the auto industry, is down nearly 39% year-to-date at time of writing, whereas Ferrari’s stock is only down about 19% trading at roughly $210 per share, according to Google Finance. With just a few days left in the year, Ferrari was well ahead of traditional automakers such as General Motors and Ford, who were each down more than 45% this year, and left EV-focused startups in the dust, according to CNBC.

EV startups Rivian, Lucid and Canoo all posted losses of more than 80% year-to-date, while competitor Nikola saw shares fall nearly 78%, according to Google Finance. Other mainstream brands, such as Dodge-maker Stellantis, and Toyota saw declines of nearly 30% year-to-date, weathering 2022 without the production and liquidity issues that startups struggled with this year, according to CNBC.

Tesla, perhaps the most high-profile EV maker in the U.S., is down roughly 70% year-to-date, losing nearly 20% in the week ending Dec. 23 after CEO Elon Musk spooked investors by selling around $3.5 billion worth of shares. While some investors are concerned that Musk is spending too much time managing Twitter, the social media platform he acquired in October, Musk blames heightened interest rates set by the Federal Reserve to combat inflation for weakening the stock market.

Elevated interest rates have also made car loans more expensive, helping push demand for new vehicles down as 2023 approaches, S&P Global Mobility reported. To spur demand, companies may be forced to cut prices, hurting profits and further damaging their value in the eyes of shareholders.

Ferrari, meanwhile, expects demand will continue to be strong, including for its first-ever SUV, the Purosangue, which will be launched next year, CNBC reported. Although the car starts at $400,000 in the U.S. — well above Ferrari’s average selling price of $322,000 — the company was forced to pause new orders after it received orders for two years’ worth of production.

“[Ferrari’s] focus on the unique quality and performance of its vehicles is unwavering, and has driven a track record of resilient financial performance, as well as significant intangible brand value and a true luxury status,” wrote John Murphy, a Bank of America securities analyst in a Dec. 13 note to investors, according to CNBC. Murphy recommended that investors buy Ferrari, estimating that the stock would be fairly valued at $285 per share.

Ferrari is set to produce its first EV in 2025, and anticipates 40% of its cars will be fully electric by 2030, while 80% will be electrified in some capacity by the same time, according to Forbes. Despite this, Ferrari still intends to improve upon its combustion engine models.

“I believe that the internal combustion engine has a lot to give,” CEO Bendetto Vigna told investors in June, Forbes reported.

Ferrari did not immediately respond to a Daily Caller News Foundation request for comment.

AUTHOR

JOHN HUGH DEMASTRI

Contributor.

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Gavin Newsom Shells Out $1.6 Million To Stop Climate Measure That Would Raise Taxes On The Rich

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Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s reelection campaign spent over $1.6 million to oppose a climate initiative that would raise taxes on millionaires to help low-income Californians buy electric cars. Despite this, Newsom, who is a multimillionaire, has previously touted his administration’s efforts to rapidly cut carbon emissions and get more electric vehicles (EVs) on the road.

Newsom, who boasts an estimated net worth of around $20 million, signed a bill in September to codify ambitious emissions reduction targets and praised the California Air Resources Board’s decision to ban all gasoline-powered car sales by 2035. However, Newsom’s campaign gave $1,617,216 to the “No on 30” committee, which opposes Proposition 30, a ballot measure that institutes an additional 1.75% tax on individuals that make over $2 million a year to help disadvantaged Californians buy EVs, according to campaign finance disclosures filed Tuesday.

Newsom aims to make his state’s auto industry “all-electric” by 2035 and will spend $10 billion of taxpayers’ money to “aggressively fight the climate crisis” by phasing out gas cars and building EV infrastructure. The Democrat called Proposition 30 an irresponsible “special interest carve-out” and argued that the proposed law was designed to “funnel” state income tax to Lyft, a large rideshare company, according to a statement Newsom’s campaign provided to the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Newsom aims to make his state’s auto industry “all-electric” by 2035 and will spend $10 billion of taxpayers’ money to “aggressively fight the climate crisis” by phasing out gas cars and building EV infrastructure. The Democrat called Proposition 30 an irresponsible “special interest carve-out” and argued that the proposed law was designed to “funnel” state income tax to Lyft, a large rideshare company, according to a statement Newsom’s campaign provided to the Daily Caller News Foundation.

“California’s tax revenues are famously volatile, and this measure would make our state’s finances more unstable − all so that special interests can benefit,” Newsom said in the statement. “Californians should know that just this year our state committed $10 billion for electric vehicles and their infrastructure, part of a $54 billion nation-leading package to fight climate change and build a zero-emission future.”

A small percentage of California taxpayers would fund Proposition 30’s EV initiatives as only 35,000 of the state’s residents reported adjusted gross incomes greater than $2 million, according to 2019 statistics published by the state’s Franchise Tax Board.

Although the measure could help Lyft by raising money to help the company’s drivers buy electric cars, environmentalists began drafting the measure before the company became involved, CEO of California Environmental Voters Mary Creasman told CBS News. A Lyft spokeswoman previously told the Daily Caller News Foundation that none of the $3.5 billion to $5 billion in tax revenue generated by the law was “earmarked” for the rideshare industry.

Californians will vote to implement or reject Proposition 30 on Nov. 8.

AUTHOR

JACK MCEVOY

Energy & environment reporter.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved. Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

Biden Admin Handed California The Power To Mandate EVs Nationwide

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  • California instituted a new regulation on Thursday that will ban the sale of gas-powered vehicles by 2035; the rule, which was permitted by the Biden administration, could accelerate the nationwide transition to electric cars.
  • “I don’t think Congress gave that authority to California, specifically to set their own standards for greenhouse gases,” former Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Andrew Wheeler told the Daily Caller News Foundation.
  • “Blue states will follow California’s lead and hand manufacturers a mandate to make only EVs, regardless of what is economically or physically possible,” Steve Milloy, a member of former President Donald Trump’s EPA transition team, told the DCNF.

California has passed a new regulation that will ban the sale of gas-powered vehicles; the new emissions rule, which was permitted by the Biden administration, will have wide-ranging effects beyond California and could accelerate the nationwide transition to electric cars.

California’s Air Resources Board (CARB) finalized a rule Thursday that will outlaw the sale of gas-fueled cars by 2035. The law may push an increasing number of states to adopt similar rules and force Americans to exclusively buy electric vehicles (EVs) as numerous Democrat-run states such as New York, Massachusetts and Maryland routinely adopt California’s “clean car” standards, according to data from the Maryland Department of the Environment.

President Joe Biden’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) restored California’s Clean Air Act waiver in March, which gave the state legal authority to set its strict vehicle emissions standards, according to a press release. The Trump administration formally revoked the waiver in September 2019, stating that California did not need specific emissions standards as the environmental problems caused by emissions were not unique to the state.

“During the Trump administration, we tried to codify and articulate that California did not have the authority to set greenhouse gas standards,” former EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “I don’t think Congress gave that authority to California, specifically to set their own standards for greenhouse gases.”

Furthermore, 17 Republican attorneys general filed a lawsuit in May against the EPA after it reinstated California’s waiver, according to legal filings.

“This leaves California with a slice of its sovereign authority that Congress withdraws from every other state,” West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey told the DCNF about the EPA’s ruling. “The EPA cannot selectively waive the Act’s preemption for California alone because that favoritism violates the states’ equal sovereignty.”

Moreover, the attorneys general argue that California’s waiver puts a “burden of compliance on auto-manufacturers” as automakers will have to cater to both California’s new rules and the mainline federal regulations, according to legal documents.

The state’s ban will require 100% of new cars sold in California, the country’s largest auto market, to be free of fossil fuel emissions by 2035. Interim targets also require 35% of vehicles sold in the state by 2026 to produce zero emissions, rising to 68% by 2030.

“It’s 100% by 2035, but it’s 35% by 2026, California has between 11% and 13% EVs as its total share of cars,” Wheeler said. “It’s unrealistic … they can’t get to 35% EVs by 2026 let alone 68% by 2030.”

California hopes to enforce this rule through a mandate which could penalize automakers up to $20,000 per vehicle if they fail to meet the state’s sales quotas, a CARB spokesman told the DCNF.

“The California ban represents an irresponsible and likely illegal approach to rulemaking, given the highly integrated interstate nature of the auto industry, one national standard is extremely important,” Mandy Gunasekara, former chief of staff of the EPA, told the DCNF. “California is attempting to create a legally dubious workaround where vehicle standards are set by liberal politics instead of technical realities.”

The 14 Democrat-led states, including California, make up roughly a third of the U.S. auto market, according to NPR.

“Blue states will follow California’s lead and hand manufacturers a mandate to make only EVs, regardless of what is economically or physically possible,” Steve Milloy, a member of former President Donald Trump’s EPA transition team, told the DCNF. “You’re going to force people to buy a more expensive car that will last half the time.”

The average price of a new electric car is approximately $66,000, according to Kelley Blue Book.

“If automakers are only making electric cars because of the rule and government subsidies, then there won’t be any gas cars on the market,” Milloy stated.

The EPA also reinstated and enhanced an Obama-era federal fuel regulation in December 2021 that is less strict than California’s proposed standards, stating that passenger cars must have a fuel economy of 55 mpg by 2026, up from the current 40 mpg, according to an EPA regulatory update. Both the California and government regulations will support the Biden administration’s aggressive climate agenda, which seeks to phase out fossil fuels and promote “clean energy” technologies.

“It’s being done for PR purposes … the electricity infrastructure isn’t there and it’s not anticipated to be there,” Wheeler stated. “Nobody in the electricity industry will tell you that they will be able to power a state fleet consisting of only EVs by 2035.”

The average number of EVs sold in the U.S. was roughly 607,000 in 2021 while the total number of cars purchased was about 3.34 million, according to Statista.

Newsom’s office and the EPA did not immediately respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.

AUTHOR

JACK MCEVOY

Energy and environmental reporter.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved. Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.