Welcome to The Morning Dump, bite-sized stories corralled into a single article for your morning perusal. If your morning coffee’s working a little too well, pull up a throne and have a gander at the best of the rest of yesterday.
One (Point Two) Trillion Dollars!
Reuters put out an analysis this weekend that says automakers are going to spend $1.2 trillion dollars by 2030 on electric vehicles, which makes sense when you consider all the plants they’re building. From the news site’s analysis: Automotive News points out that the International Energy Agency determined that this means roughly 50 more lithium mines, 60 more nickel mines, and 17 more cobalt mines just to meet the 2030 EV projections.
We Don’t Have Raw Earth Materials For The Above Yet
The last century, in many ways, was shaped by the search for fossil fuels. It’s what has powered the world, and the possession of these resources (or access to them) was and is key for governments. The coming century will see a shift towards the raw materials necessary to make all the batteries for all the cars that all the governments say companies will have to make. And here’s some more cold water from the Automotive News report: The “Earth” part of that quote kind of answers the “where” part in that great quote. In our hopeful and reasonable yearning for a future powered by relatively cleaner fuels we’re going to end up doing some more damage to it. On balance, maybe it’ll work out. The alternative is reducing demand by creating greater density in cities, improving transit, and adjusting our behaviors. “The big hurdle to meeting these goals,” Martins said, “is where on Earth are all the materials going to come from?” Over the past year and a half, the Biden administration has been attempting to answer that question by spurring more domestic mining and processing of critical battery materials, both of which are dominated by China and other nations. This year, the administration invoked the 1950 Defense Production Act to encourage companies to mine lithium, nickel, graphite, cobalt and manganese domestically, allowing companies access to federal funding to do so. Since that’s not gonna happen, let’s dig some more mines to make more Teslas! One of the debate’s during Friday’s TMD was whether or not Elon Musk was being entirely truthful when he said that logistics had more to do with smaller numbers of deliveries than demand, especially in China. There’s probably some truth to both perspective and a coming price war isn’t just indicative of softer demand, it also reflects an increase in supply as more and more companies enter the fray. Again from Reuters this weekend: Tesla is the most valuable car brand in the world, but it isn’t the only one. If I’m going out for ice cream and they have Pecan Praline for $6 and Mint Chocolate Chip for $5, well, I think I’d be happier with the Mint Chocolate Chip and the dollar. “The price cuts underscore the possible price war which we have been emphasising since August,” said Shi Ji, an analyst with CMBI. CMBI analysts warned last week that 2023 would bring more competition to the EV sector, saying it expected to see sales growth for EVs and hybrids on a combined basis to drop below 50%.
A Major Bogey
Let’s take a break from all the EV talk for a fun one from Fox 5 NY in my favorite category of golf stories: The Prize That Wasn’t A Prize. Here’s the report from Fox 5: LOLOL. Little did he know, the hole-in-one would launch a legal battle. The car wasn’t awarded to him after all, and he filed a lawsuit against the country club and the dealership. “When it was Austin Clagett’s turn to try to get a hole-in-one, Austin Clagett hit the ball and it went in the hole on the first attempt,” a news release from the law firm of Denton & Zachary said, via KATV. “ It seems that the dealer is now claiming that the truck was only there for “advertising purposes” because they couldn’t get insurance for the truck fast enough (I’m assuming prize insurance in the off chance someone does what Clagett did). Per the Fox 5 article, the dealership also claims they didn’t know that the country club involved posted the prize on Facebook. LOOOOOOOOOOL I think we all know how this is going to end.
The Flush
I’m tired this morning because I stayed up late celebrating the Astros victory. With the World Series coming up someone is going to walk away with a brand new car for being the MVP of the series. For instance, Stephen Strasburg got a C8 Corvette. I believe GM is a sponsor again this year so, assuming you were the MVP of the series (let’s assume Jeremy Pena) what vehicle from the GM lineup would you want?
Photo credits: Top GM, GM, Tesla, Faulkner County Courts
However, I only ordered it because C8 Z06 orders are a shitshow like nothing I’ve ever seen before, so given the choice of a free car, I’d rather have the Vette.
An Escalade V would be awesome too.
But I can’t lie, I’m loving the Kona N more and more every day and she’s cheap date to boot. I think I’ll be sticking with it for several years at this point and continuing to save up. I got a big promotion and 20% raise recently, and the jalop in me instantly went to MOAR CAR, but I’d rather wait for a greater reward and continue to beat the snot out of my car that I bought two raises ago.
Obviously I love the N and would recommend going that route because of what a raucous good time it is…I think both the Kona and Elantra N punch way above their weight as far as fun and driver engagement go. But as a package in general the wife, dog, and myself have enjoyed the Kona experience a lot.
…oh wait, we are. Don’t get me wrong-I’m not some sort of EV hater and I think the advancement of the technology is going to play a sizable role in reducing emissions. But I think all of this corporate and political grandstanding over them is ridiculous when we really have no idea what the long term environmental consequences will be.
The car may emit nothing once it’s purchased-but the process it’s made by sure isn’t carbon neutral. For the billionth time-we’d make much more progress in our fight against climate change if we actually decided to hold corporations and governments accountable. The majority of carbon emissions are produced by a few companies and the air travel industry…and the US military’s carbon footprint is absolutely unreal. You also have many countries that basically say “f it” when it comes to green energy and will pollute recklessly if it helps them advance.
But nope…why hold any of them accountable when we can guilt trip individuals into switching to EVs even though people driving ICE cars are tiny drops in the proverbial bucket. At the end of the day it’s all for show.
3: Tesla may be a juggernaut right now but they’re going to have to adapt. The biggest reasons they’ve been as successful as they are is that they’ve been the only game in town and they’ve positioned their cars as status symbols. Other manufacturers are quickly catching up, and they haven’t updated their products in years…not to mention ole dollar store Tony Stark/apartheid emerald mine lucky sperm cartoon villain come to life Elon is way too high on the smell of his own farts to consider improving his cars.
People will move on if the products don’t adapt to stay relevant. As of right now Tesla’s entire lineup is dated in pretty much every way other than range…and they’ll even be dated on that front in the next 18 months or so…not to mention the conspicuous consumption/clout chasing crowd can easily be wooed by the next fad…and I think the shiny, blinged out new range of Mercedes EVs will prove to be pretty enticing to them.
We’ll see what happens…either way it’s going to be interesting.
4). Give this guy his truck you cowards. Dealerships needed to go the way of the dodo 20 years ago. They’re just not necessary anymore.
Le Flush: for me it’s the Z06 by a landslide but either of the Blackwings are acceptable answers as well.
Switching to EVs doesn’t mean we also can’t hold other large entities like the gov’t and corporations accountable, and we absolutely positively should.
None of this shit is simple, and none of it is perfect. The question to ask is, when stacked up against the legacy of climate change, pollution, exploitation, and war that fossil fuels have given us, are renewable energy systems an improvement? I would argue that they are a massive improvement, despite the very real problems that they do have.
In other shocking news, water is wet, the surface of the sun is hot, and so on and so forth.
“whether or not Elon Musk was being entirely truthful when he said that logistics had more to do with smaller numbers of deliveries than demand”
Is he speaking? Then he’s lying. It’s that simple.
“CMBI analysts warned last week that 2023 would bring more competition to the EV sector, saying it expected to see sales growth for EVs and hybrids on a combined basis to drop below 50%.”
Where by ‘competition’ they mean ‘dictator Winnie the Pooh is putting his thumb on the scales.’ Please pay no attention to the Renmibi and all RMB-denominated bonds crashing through the floor (below 2008 crash levels even) less than 24 hours after Winnie the Pooh cemented his position as dictator for life. Oh yeah. Shit is about to get real.
I am so fucking exhausted of living in ‘unprecedented times’ when every single one is a bad copy of recent fucking history.
“It seems that the dealer is now claiming that the truck was only there for “advertising purposes” because they couldn’t get insurance for the truck fast enough (I’m assuming prize insurance in the off chance someone does what Clagett did).”
The shop I worked at did a not totally dissimilar marketing stunt once. If the local sports team went to the finals, there was some big prize. I forget what – either a free car or something like that. To run that promo, they literally had to get a bunch of bookmakers to give them odds on the team making the finals, and then they had to take out a supplemental policy based on the value of the car and the ‘risk’ of the team going to the finals. But at the same time, you don’t have to take insurance on it. You can choose to just eat the loss. Your partner can handle the costs. It’s not an absolute requirement. And when you partner with someone to do that, you accept that they have an obligation to promote it unless you put in the contract that they aren’t allowed to.
So yeah. Fuck this dealership. Congratulations to Mr. Clagett on his hole in one, and I look forward to them having to give him a brand new F150. (Please pick one in a color, not grayscale.)
I went in thinking “another GM for boomers with money to burn” and left realizing that the C8 is a 100% legitimately desirable car.
If offered a C8 or Porsche 911 of equal MSRP that I had to keep for life, I’m not sure which I’d choose. Probably the Corvette! (If resale was an option, the Porsche is the easy choice.)
Flush: gimme a Hummer. It’s the current hotness. Plus, someone else will want it when I get tired of it being giant and hard to live with daily.
Also, I think people will be shocked at how low demand will be at the lower end. EVs are synonymous with luxury vehicles right now. The entry level ones aren’t in demand. When’s the last time you saw an article about how Ford can’t make enough Lightnings or how long the line is for an R1T.
Now when’s the last time you saw somebody complaining about the wait for a Bolt “EUV”? Answer: Never. In fact they’ll pay you to take one. https://www.autoguide.com/auto-news/2022/06/no-need-to-wait-until-2023-2022-chevy-bolt-euv-and-bolt-ev-are-already-discounted.html
The MVP this year will be getting a Corvette Z06….. NFT.
Also, I used to like Matt, but now I know he’s an Astros fan.
Since that’s not gonna happen,
I live somewhere that is (slowly) doing all those things. My commute is 5 miles. My wife almost exclusively WFH. I hope my next will be BEV. I love driving, love the roar, when I smell race fuel burning on the street I usually follow it because it makes me happy and I’m stupid? I would also like to leave my child a world where climate isn’t changing so fast we can’t adapt agriculture quickly enough to feed almost everyone. Why am I wrong?
But has anyone considered what those automakers would have spent anyway doing routine updates and redesigns… and then subtracted that from that $1.2 trillion guestimate?
And at least after they spend that money, they’ll have vehicle tech that will be around for a long time… and is likely to provide a lot of payback for a long time into the future.
And that makes me think of bad investments automakers have made and will never get a payback on… such as the money GM wasted on the Blackwing V8 and the Zeta platform.
Or all the money so many car makers wasted (and some continue to waste) on the dead-end that is hydrogen.
Or all the money Mazda and others spent on rotary engines… that were also a technological dead end.
Or the money FCA wasted on the ‘Georgio’ platform… as well as trying to make Fiat succeed in North America.
In this particular case the situation got weirder because the insurer under priced the coverage. The payout was something like 3 million from a $50000 cost! Prices have quadrupled since then
What disturbs me is that insurance is a category that is associated by most people with stability. You buy protection from instability, you buy disaster recovery, etc. Yet here are these companies also just running a casino.
Something, something, speculation and betting couldn’t possibly do any macro economic damage, EVER!!
You pay a relatively small (yet almost always negative EV) premium to avoid a small chance of a catastrophic loss.
Capping your downside is worth paying something for, even if most end up losing in the long run.
Think of insurance as a way for us policy holders to share risk between ourselves.The companies take fee (their profits) for running the whole arrangement, and everyone is happy.
If you like cars that’s fine, but let’s not pretend that motor vehicles are affordable, rational, or sustainable transportation for the majority of people.
Huh? Some 90% of American adults own cars. One hardly needs to be a rabid car enthusiast to dispute who is “pretending” here.
If cars aren’t rational or affordable for the majority of people, one wonders why 90% of adults own cars, and why the pro mass transit position is typically a minority one.
And it would help those of us who enjoy cars, not just with traffic reduction, but with flexibility. If you didn’t need a true daily driver, how might your vehicle buying habits change? I know that I would look at things differently if my primary vehicle didn’t have to cover my commute and my travel. I’d probably take trips over to see my parents via train, if that were an option. I could have something far less efficient and more fun.
You’re welcome to put yourself at the mercy of urban infrastructure that our government (of any stripe) has a disturbing ability to not maintain. Not interested personally.
The problem with that idea is that in the U.S. you have (at least) 100 years worth of housing built around a decentralized model. Most of today’s public transit (outside NYC et al) require you to use some other form of transport to get to the train station. Thus the train stations must be built (as say here in Dallas) with lots of parking around them, or alternately have outlier parking lots like Airports where you shuttle bus to the train station. Then, at least in Atlanta (where I’m familiar with the story) Major malls (Lenox Mall in Atlanta) successfully lobbied to keep the train station a mile distant from them. It’ll take at least another 100 years to change that. Americans like their backyards and won’t surrendercthem for apartment life quickly.
“But – Japan!”, you say. Well the infrastructure built up very differently in Japan. It was built around the train stations because people didn’t have cars. So the stations became commercial hubs and growth points because people HAD to take the trains. This pattern is self-reinforcing so even today, Housing prices increase directly with proximity to a station. Further many stations have department stores and clusters of restaurants built atop them making them desirable destinations. This works because most of Japan’s population is clustered in urban areas. Yet, even with this incredible population density trains are only barely profitable. My friends who live in Yokohama just bought a car…that they really don’t “need” because it is so much more convenient.
Finally the train-station-centric model is only true in Japan’s major cities (the Tokyo Metroplex, Kobe, Nagoya, etc). In the city where my in-laws live (about 250,000 people) a commuter train system does not exist. Everyone drives cars or if they must, takes buses or taxi’s.
So in summary, I think that the “get rid of cars and have everyone trains everywhere in America” dream is simply that a dream.
My dad also won a car (Chrysler Crossfire) at a casino in Las Vegas.
I’ve never won anything. sad trombone
I hope Mr. Clagett enjoys the coupon for a $5,000 discount off of the $15,000 ADM that the Ford dealership will offer him. And that his ambulance chaser enjoys the legal fee settlement he gets in the suit that he took on contingency.
Congrats on the hole in one though. You’ll remember that for the rest of your life!
