Chevy Volt a Failure - GM to Layoff 1,300

Their own CEO called his company "uncompetitive" when it had to do massive layoffs in December.

Volkswagen to reduce headcount at 'no longer competitive' VW brand

The problem with EVs is still the same as it has always been:

They are different, and arguably they "save the planet." But it's not like when the TV or the cell phone was invented. EVs are trying to replace cars that already existed and functionally do the same thing. In order to do that successfully, they needed to offer some kind of value proposition. Instead they have offered two main limitations: 1) They are more expensive, 2) They have range limitations that can impact how you can use it.

The reason any have sold is. ... 1) heavy subsidization (as we, and other countries run up debt subsidizing them). 2) A low-interest rate consumer bubble economy that allowed people to live beyond what they actually are producing -- making the cars into a vanity purchase for some people. It was cool to buy a Tesla 2, 3 years ago and we were producing young, stock market millionaires.

I don't think it's a coincidence that sales are hitting a wall. ... just as interest rates rose and that subsidization on the consumer end was being yanked in certain cases. Ford did sell some of those Electric Mach E Mustangs, even though it didn't sell as well as they had hoped. But things really dropped off a cliff in January when the $7,500 government subsidy went away.

I don't see how Volkswagen is going to solve what nobody else can. ... especially Volkswagen. They can't produce any car in a cost effective way. How are they going to take the intractable. ... cars that are already more expensive than comparable internal combustion engine cars, which tamps demand, and produce them any better than the cars they already haven't been able to market that well in the U.S.?

The only reason any car company has tried to gain a foothold in EVs is to hedge their bets on gas-powered cars getting outlawed, a la the edict from the Biden administration about 2030 that will fine / tax the cars to make them more expensive.

But with demand flagging for EVs right now -- and labor unions seeing how this is going to cost people jobs -- they are already walking that back.

Biden Administration Is Said to Slow Early Stage of Shift to Electric Cars

 

How are oil companies subsidized? Seriously. ... I know what you are going to find if you google and find the nonsense some progressive group has come up with that redefines the word subsidy. First .... there are places in the world that subsidize their oil industries. But that isn't happening in the U.S.

You need to redefine the word "subsidy," to make that claim. A subsidy means you are given money you didn't earn. Oil companies are not handed money from Americans without actually selling them something via voluntary exchange. What those claims usually do is selectively parse the tax code somehow (without looking at other industries). ... and turn their "analysis" into a subsidy. They do this with "banks" and "oil companies," when they want to demonize them. Except nearly every industry has a jumbled mess of deductions in the tax code. And a tax deduction, for example, is not a subsidy. ... it means you get to keep the money you earned rather than handing it over to someone else. That isn't being subsidized.

Contrast it to Tesla, which for years wasn't earning a penny and wouldn't have been able to exist without being handed billions of dollars in a variety of subsidization schemes, from loans (that none of us could get -- one that it technically defaulted on!) to collecting billions of dollars from its competitors in emissions credits to state governments paying the company to build factories in their state.

Contrast it to those $7,500 payments if you buy an EV. You are forcing other Americans to pay for part of the cost of a stranger's car. That is an actual subsidy.

None of that applies to any oil company I know of. Oil companies aren't subsidized. They have a product for which there is a huge demand and they profit by meeting that demand. Do you have an instance of an oil company being given money it didn't actually earn? (i.e. -- a subsidy?)

During the pandemic the exact opposite happened in a convoluted way. ... Our government emptied the strategic petroleum reserve to depress the price of what those oil companies sell.