From NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT
By Paul Homewood
From the Telegraph:
Ford will take a $19.5bn (£14.5bn) hit as it tore up plans to invest significant sums into electric cars.
The US car giant cut back electric vehicle (EV) production, including the production of large battery-powered pickup trucks, because of a slump in demand from drivers.
Ford said “lower than expected” uptake of EVs had resulted in billions in losses.
Instead, the Detroit carmaker will plough more into building conventional trucks and vans and cheaper EVs, as well as launching a new battery energy storage business.
The $19.5bn writedown, announced to Wall Street on Monday, is one of the largest financial hits suffered by a carmaker to date as bets on EVs turn sour in the face of plummeting demand.
Ford’s writedown includes $6bn to close a joint venture with South Korean company SK Group. The duo had planned to build a massive battery factory in Kentucky to propel Ford’s EV vision but the plan has now been scrapped.
Full story here.
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Never mind…objective achieved…that twenty billion has been assimilated…
I noticed that Ford stock went up yesterday after the announcement
Ford has been hemorrhaging money on EV production since they started. This additional $19B may be double what was already lost but prevents further losses on a Dog Market.
Look! Ford is doing a Nokia!
doing a Nokia
How do you explain Ferrari etc?
2030 petrol ban cancelled for low-volume car manufacturers like Ferrari
So, what are Lamborghini, Ferrari, Bugatti etc etc doing? The other manufacturers are getting parity. Call it an outbreak of common sense.
Wait – you mean that the green private jet Mafia who are already exempt from jet fuel tax have also manipulated the rules in favor of the cars only they can afford?
I am so shocked to that I start to wonder who is actually making the laws 🙂
It’s not the politicians I’d guess.
I wish I could admit to being shocked, but…
Ferrari is a very big deal, as are the other top end car makers. Meloni went in to bat for Ferrari, Lamborghini, Maserati etc and got them that exemption, the sort of thing Starmer and Miliband would have done in the opposite. They would close them down.
My shocked was more of the sarcastic kind as this is the standard pattern
of classless 3 -class (the lords, the buffer /gatekeeper class(called exterminators in Zardoz),the peasants) communism.
But I actually never thought that they would go this far with their hypocrisy(I’m pretty sure she’d have saved a magnitude of atmore jobs by doing this thing for Fiat,Lancia and Alpha),
but I appreciate it somehow that they spit their believers so straight in the
“I actually never thought that they would go this far “
They have obviously read their Goebbels.
Sonehow I was naive to think that they’ll show a bit of restrain.
Most people don’t know if one owns a private jet or a beach front property , but giving themselves special treatment like that always makes the headlines.
I guess after they got caught covid partying ( they only want to protect us from everything, never themselves ) and nothing happened to them they realised that the biggest lies survive even the biggest hypocrisies.
Zardoz…now that was a strange movie. Definitely Sean Connery’s strangest role.
I love this movie since I watched it as a child – because it was so strange.(not as strange as Blade Runner was for the young me, but easier to digest and very special)
The peasant who went totally net zero and had to live in big cities and work like slaves as result of no machines.
The exterminators shooting them at gunpoint for no reason,raping the women, thinning the herd.
and an immortal decadent elite who can not be challenged
that lives far away in an isolated garden eden with massive occult knowledge.
Boorman was quite prophetic.
Very much so.
Story is that Connery was afraid he was starting to be typecast, so he went out of his way to find the weirdest most offbeat role he could.
I think he succeeded.
Bought myself a politician https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_QAKz_cxTlQ
I’m as shocked as captain louis renault was shocked to find that gambling was going on in Rick’s bar:
Renault: I’m shocked, shocked, to find that gambling is going on in here
Croupier: Your winnings, sir.
Renault: Oh, thank you very much.
You should change your name to MyUsernameRetarded.
When I see these weird user names, I have concluded the commentor thinks he is being clever, but most of these names are ridiculous and just plain stupid.
Don’t know if you will see this but, yeah, I agree. the one commenter, Thefinalnail, apparently thinks his comments are so pithy that it’s Thefinalnail in the coffin. He just doesn’t realize it’s his coffin, metaphorically speaking, of course.
Ford were forced into doing a Nokia by clueless politicians.
Even the EU have seen the error of “doing a Nokia” and are banning the ban on ICE cars
They would have taken a MUCH bigger hit if they had stuck with EVs !
You only sell EV to inner city greentards, adding unsustainable incentives or crippling fines on ICE cars.
and the ceo was fired and the board resigned due to their incompetence? Oh wait that’s right in our no one is accountable society only the workers got laid off.
And the government bailouts commence.
“lower than expected” uptake of EVs had resulted in billions in losses.
Now, that’s what I call getting your fingers burned. The automotive industry in Europe is beginning to get through to the EU at long last as it looks set to dump the ice car ban; and it will if Europe is truly serious about defending the continent, as it claims.
Strangely enough, it isn’t just horseless carriages. It seems to be catching on in some unexpected quarters:
Morrisons becomes first UK supermarket to delay net zero targets
The question is: Will mad Ed see sense and follow suit, or will he remain true to the faith and his deranged idea of global climate leadership? I think we know the answer; he’ll have to be dragged, kicking and screaming…
Despite the EU’s radical shift in position, the UK Government told us that it has no plans to change its approach to sales of non-zero emission cars and vans. A government spokesperson said: “We remain committed to phasing out all new non-zero emission car and van sales by 2035. More drivers than ever are choosing electric, and November saw another month of increased sales with EV’s accounting for one in four cars sold.” – What Car
Thus far he remains impervious to rhyme and reason.
So if 1 out of 4 new cars is EV and ICE cars last 10 years, how do you achieve a net-zero auto profile?
I agree.
“Thus far he remains impervious to rhyme and reason.”
Priests of a fanatic religious cult never admit they were wrong. The best that can happen is that they are removed from office and thereafter ignored.
Miliband … “he’ll have to be dragged, kicking and screaming…”
Not that long ago, traitors were hung, drawn & quartered & the body parts sent to the 4 corners of the realm, a tradition that could be revived.!!
These days they get a large pension, a knighthood & close armed protection for life.
The issue is: how to make a better combustion engine that is affordable and still remain profitable.
Because what we have now are complicated , computerised vehicles that break down and where whole units have to be replaced instead of individual parts, making diagnostics problematic and everything super expensive. I would NOT trust the car industry with solving this. They are not even trying. It just gets worse year on year.
I have noticed that the 2nd hand, relatively simple 10+ old ICE cars are getting more expensive.
So, to me it’s not about EV vs ICE per se, just what works best according to my needs. At the moment that is my 2007 Suzuki Swift. IF i was in for a van or a truck i would also go w that. There are too many relatively new cars showing up at car repair shops.
I wouldnt want to be a big company and having to decide on a lease system for my employers.
I much preferred it when you stood a chance of getting it going again with a screwdriver, spanner etc. Years ago I had an old Citroen 2CV. Once I used the starting handle. But most of the time, living on a hill, in the damp when it would not start I bum-started it downhill – 2nd, clutch, ignition.
You can’t do that now.
Get rid of the mileage standards and cars get simpler and cheaper immediately.
And the endless “safety” mandates.
A ton of the complex, complicated, computerized junk under the hoot is there purely to comply with federal regulations.
Putting it “under the hoot” is a hoot.
It is true that current ICE cars are way over complicated and unreliable. Pretty sure this is the result of government mandated standards. The cars actually might be well made but have too many systems that counter reliability for imaginary mileage and emissions gains. Modern diesels are burdened with nonsense systems.
I think it has been a deliberate policy to make conventional autos non viable.
General tenor is that older cars are more reliable because they were simpler. Beware the survivorship bias here. Yesterday’s least reliable cars are gone from the roads and the factories. Today’s least reliable cars will be gone too, but “not yet”.
Reliable cars have been around for decades. How long ago do you remember
Honda: Accord and Civic
Toyota: Camry and Corolla
What were the American brands that started around the same time?
Ford: Taurus and Pinto
Chevy: Impala?
Oldsmobile: Cutlas
It gets hard to remember the brands that disappear. I’d need to Google the American standard products from before USA sharpened its focus to pickup trucks and muscle cars.
We have a Honda Civic with 187,000 miles on it, and bought a 2002 Toyota Corolla last year with 95,000 miles. Also have a 2003 Toyoata 4Runner with over 350,000 miles. Just sayin…
“The Toyota Corolla, first produced by Toyota in 1966, is one of the longest-running production vehicles in automotive history.”
Best selling USA car by year:
1962: Lincoln Continental
1963: Buick Riviera
1964: Ford Mustang
1965: Chevrolet Impala
1966: Volkswagen Type 2 Camper Bus
1967: Chevy Camaro
1968: Chevy El Camino
1969: Plymouth Roadrunner
1970: Dodge Challenger
1971: Chrysler New Yorker
When I drive on the highway I see an occasional Continental, Mustang or Impala. If I add up all years of all ten vehicles I see one of them for abot every 10 Corollas.
“The 1972 Honda Civic marked the debut of Honda’s iconic Civic line, which quickly gained recognition as a compact, economical, and reliable car.”
2025-1972 = over 50 years ago.
I could have told them not to invest in EV’s. Thank you, that will be $5 million. Ford could have saved $19,995,000,000 if they had just asked me.
There were at least 3 of us offering that advice, so it would have cost Ford 15M. 🙂
I’ll undercut you all – my advice costs nothing.
Well, I guess we get to foot the bill for the coffee.
From the article: “Instead, the Detroit carmaker will plough more into building conventional trucks and vans and cheaper EVs, as well as launching a new battery energy storage business.”
Well, I guess someone at Ford still thinks windmills and industrial solar have a future if they are launching a new battery storage business.
Wrong!
They will be taking a loss on this, too, in the not-too-distant future.
Maybe Ford is planning on supplying these battery storage units to Mad Ed in the UK. He’ll be the only one using them in a few years.
If Mad Ed is the only one using them in a few years, he will only need one. The rest of the UK will wake up and go in a more comfortable direction.
Not so. Promises are cheap. It will be easy for Ford or any other company to avoid investments in the future when they become inconvenient. But promises of future intentions mean nothing.
“as well as launching a new battery energy storage business”
A hopeful story to distract the EV workforce until they finish building the last model year.
I guess they couldn’t af-Ford it..!
This is why government needs to stay out of the market. If Ford had invested in EV’s in proportion to demand from customers, rather than goals and targets set by state and national governments, they wouldn’t have ended up in this situation.
Toyota did the right thing, built hybrids for fuel economy and one tick-box EV car. That’s one reason, IMHO, they’re the best-selling car brand. Apparently there are more EV’s incoming for their lineup, but I’d be surprised if more than one or two ended up on showroom floors.
Yep.
Toyota president Toyoda-san stated the company’s position a while ago –
“we will build what people want to buy”.
Inferring that government edicts would not direct the company’s manufacturing choices.
Markets would.
I believe he also said they would never stop building ICE vehicles, since they still intended to sell in their huge South American and African markets.
Story tip:
Shell Oil Sued Over “Causing Typhoon” in Philippines
A massive ‘lawfare’ claim backed by Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth has been filed in the UK’s Royal Courts of Justice claiming that Shell Oil played a part in a devastating typhoon in the Philippines in 2021. At the centre of the case is a Green Blob-funded weather ‘attribution’ study that claims Typhoon Rai, also known as Odette, was made significantly worse due to human caused climate change. The study has been recently published and is heavily linked to academic institutions funded by the green billionaire investor Jeremy Grantham. – Daily Sceptic
Friederike the Climate Oracle is very busy. The article continues…
If the Shell case ever gets to court, it will be interesting to see how weather attribution claims stand up to forensic cross examination. Shell could call on the services of the distinguished science writer Roger Pielke Jr., who has noted that he can think of no other area of research “where the relaxing of rigour and standards has been encouraged by research in order to generate claims more friendly to headlines, political advocacy and even lawsuits”.
This could well be the litmus test for the mad German.
I saw that.
I still wonder how the plaintiffs are going to identify the specific CO2 molecules produce by Shell and consumer use of its products that were involved in the hurricane.
Scrap CEO Jim Farley. Appalling how Ford could allow such disastrous decision-making given the competitiveness of the auto and truck market. As an aside, I would have ZERO interest in an EV to include Tesla. In my mind, simply not useful nor practical at all, unless of course I am seeking to impress.
at the 2019 LA auto show, electric vehicles are back in the driver’s seat. On the Sunday before show week started, Ford rocked the house with the reveal of its much anticipated Mustang Mach-E electric crossover. Numerous other carmakers are expected to follow Ford’s lead. – Business Insider
“It’s always darkest just before the dawn” – Batman
It’s always darkest right before it gets pitch black.
No, it’s darkest when it is pitch black, not before.
Pitch black is no light.
The absence of light is not darkness.
Darkness is a scale of light seen.
🙂 Semantics R US.
A Mustang without that balls-throbbing V8 surround-sound rumble is a pretend Mustang.
Ford needs to re-name the electric version Puss Pony or the like.
“Business Insider”
The start of Ford’s EV push precedes Farley’s stint as CEO. I think Jim Hackett was probably the responsible CEO.
Yes please.
lol
I love the EV I drove. A golf cart running on a lead acid battery. Quiet. Non polluting. Worked very well.
Cheap EV. Yes.
The rest can go blow bubbles as far as I am concerned.
I do not wish to be in a vehicle with a known toxic fire hazard.
I used to love my EV.
Sadly, it had to go when I grew up and quit the milk round.
Here’s one, designed just for you…
Works well in your 15 minute enclave.
If it took me 14 minutes to drive to your house from my house, would your 15min zone differ from mine?
So the grand plan shoved down their throat and promoted by the media and politicians didn’t pan out? Who’d have thunk?
Mary Bara CEO of General Motors not long ago stated that GM would be moving to all electric lineup. This woman makes 20 million/year. The evidence has been for many years that the market was a niche market. How could she be so dense?
10% for the big gal?
The difference between commercial spending versus government spending is that commercial spending must result in profits in order to continue to exist, while government spending has no such requirement and can always continue to exist by increasing taxes.
Technically speaking not always a profit, but loss avoidance is mandatory.
In LARGE letters in all school classrooms, please!
No problemo, just raise prices a couple of grand or so. No one will notice.
Ford had plenty of technically trained scientists and engineers, who could have figured out and helped management understand two things in 2009:
1) The “climate” agenda pushed by the first Obama administration was bogus all along.
2) The “electrification” push was ill-conceived all along for plainly understood physical reasons.
Sad to see such a collapse. But it was inevitable from the start.
Thank you for listening.
Too many people who should know better keep their heads down so they can keep their jobs.
Sad, isn’t it?
I don’t know if scientists and engineers could have figured it out. I worked at McDonnell Douglas/Boeing for 35 years. When I left, it was hard to find any non-management engineers/scientists who didn’t buy the CAGW story – many of them with religious fervor.
Strangely, middle-management (typically older men) did not share their feelings. Upper management had to placate our US Government customer, so I don’t know what their true feelings were. I know we designed, built, and flew the Delta IV, which was hydrogen fueled, because management believed the customer would prefer a ‘clean’ booster. McDonD also did a study of a hydrogen fueled aircraft. It was basically an MD-10 with most of the fuselage converted to hydrogen fuel tanks. Result was limited range and a little over 50 passengers, and an infrastructure nightmare. If hydrogen had been free, it still would not be economically feasible.
Resistances is futile. You will be assimilated.
The insanity will continue until sufficient damage has accumulated.
So, what part of basic business practice and economics101 did the Ford execs not understand?
The title.
The crazy part is that all “Big 3” auto companies have laidoff most of their ICE engineers.
In some ways the auto manufacturers have themselves to blame by subscribing to the push by a number of governments to promote EV sales and by EV mandates themselves. Neither bureaucrats, politicians, producers, environmentalists, nor academics conducted proper extensive studies to determine whether consumers were that enthusiastic about paying the inflated prices common to EVs. They figured that a combination of rebates and liberally distributed BS about helping to save the planet would be convincing enough. Except they soon found that EV shortcomings related to reliability, resale value, inadequate cruising ranges, and limited charging infrastructure made EVs not so great a deal after all. Then when the rebates were ended, the bottom fell out of the glass entirely so that the manufacturers have to swallow their losses and in many cases consumers are helping to pay for them because governments tossed money at the producers to help with start-up costs at the outset.
They did not wish to be in court defending against “Chevron Knew” type lawfare.
Wind doesn’t work, solar doesn’t work, storage doesn’t work and EVs don’t work. Stop pretending they do.
Not enough buyers for the Mustang Mockery.
“The first year for the Ford Model T was 1908, with the first production car built on September 27, 1908, at Ford’s Piquette Avenue Plant in Detroit.”
2025-1908 = 117 years. After more than 100 years someone though they had ideas that nobody else thought of yet.
If someone wanted a sudden new way of making cars, they needed a whole new company, not ones with 100 years of capital and intellectual investment. Bell labs did not become the biggest phone maker. Poloroid did not become the biggest digita camera maker. My flatscreen tv was not made by Zenith, RCA, Motorola, Crosley, Emerson, Magnavox, General Electric, or Silvertone.
Recent Ex. Tesla and Space-X.
Older Ex. Apple
The result of decades upon decades of public school “education”.