Mary Barra Living in Cloud Cuckoo Land

[Crissa]

I think totally agree. No subsidy is better than giving PHEVs $4,500 or $8,500 if union built.

I don't think it does that, but yeah, fair.

-Crissa

 

[CyberGus]

I think Biden is closing the barn door thinking the cows are still inside to be honest.

I’d love to find out otherwise, but I’m a cynical SOB.

No matter how cynical I get, I can’t keep up

 

[MEDICALJMP]

We could just leave out the EV subsidies entirely as far as I’m concerned. I can think of a lot of better ways to spend the money.

But I wasn’t trying to poke at Biden at all. I was just referring to the fact that the foot dragging and executional incompetence from US auto makers has put them in a position where recovery is going to be exceptionally difficult. Subsidies won’t make people buy a car that these guys can’t produce.

Agreed. Corporate welfare is not needed in general, but we are already at the tipping point of EV adoption without it. People are buying EVs at higher and higher prices. I suspect that part of the increases in Tesla’s recently is because of the expected tax breaks. Charging more with the customer getting a break sounds win-win, but the consumer still loses out.

 

[Ogre]

I just don’t see these subsidies doing much.

We’ve had subsidies for 10 years already and Tesla is the only company who has really leveraged them to build out their EV infrastructure and production.

Ford has barely tapped them and GM squandered the money. The only reason car companies are going to transition is because of competition and that is here already.

At this point, it’s essentially corporate welfare to help out the incompetent and lazy builders who are likely to fail or need another government bailout in less than 10 years even with the subsidies.

We pretend to be a free market country, but the only way the free market actually works is if you let companies fail. That’s part of the cycle. Letting companies get increasingly bloated and inefficient decade after decade and bailing them out every time they screw up results in increasingly fragile companies.

 

[Ogre]

Agreed. Corporate welfare is not needed in general, but we are already at the tipping point of EV adoption without it. People are buying EVs at higher and higher prices. I suspect that part of the increases in Tesla’s recently is because of the expected tax breaks. Charging more with the customer getting a break sounds win-win, but the consumer still loses out.

Tesla is charging more to slow down demand. Now we get subsidies and demand increases so Tesla is likely to charge even more.

Same story with the Mustang and any other good EV. This is a fantastic hand-out for shareholders, does little to nothing for consumers.

 

[HaulingAss]

EVs are only 2% of the market right now.

So how can we be past it?

Every dollar spent on the EV tax credit is at least a dollar saved in medical expenses from air pollution.

-Crissa

That would be true if EV subsidies would increase battery supply more quickly but it's not clear that it would. There are numerous new battery production facilities being built right now with more added all the time and EV production is still going to be constrained by batteries (as it is now). EV tax credits, even if they were limited to BEVs and not PHEVs would not cause more EVs to be built because they would still be constrained by batteries.

You could argue EV tax credits would cause more battery factories to be built but I don't really see that happening and, even if it did, the new batteries would come on line for 4 years. But I think planned battery capacity will grow as quickly as battery manufacturers can ramp production anyway so I don't see EV tax credits as helpful for much of anything but lining pockets of auto buyers with tax money.

 

[Crissa]

EV subsidies are essential to displace the ICE market. Yes, every BEV is being sold, but this is about migrating every car to BEV... And if prices aren't stable, then you're rewarding the companies that didn't invest.

And we need room to ramp up the Apteras and Rivians and others who need this headroom.

200,000 was never enough, not in a market that sells 17 million a year.

-Crissa

The people who are buying next year are those who couldn't jump and buy electric cars when they were expensive.

 

[Ogre]

The Rivians and Apteras have 200,000 credits under existing legislation.

Not passing new legislation largely impacts existing makers like GM and Tesla who have already either benefitted greatly or squandered the money.

Perhaps I’d be a lot less cynical about this if it weren’t an all you can eat type benefit. A reset increasing the benefits to half a million units per company would be more palatable because then they could make reasonable estimates of the cost of this measure. Another thought. Cap it at 5 million EVs sold. Then we at least have a hard upper limit on the amount.

 

[Crissa]

The prior credits don't apply to Aptera. Too few wheels.

And it gives out long before they're established.

-Crissa

 

[Dids]

Agreed. Corporate welfare is not needed in general, but we are already at the tipping point of EV adoption without it. People are buying EVs at higher and higher prices. I suspect that part of the increases in Tesla’s recently is because of the expected tax breaks. Charging more with the customer getting a break sounds win-win, but the consumer still loses out.

Yes I also have qualms about subsidies. But climate action is imperative according to climate scientists. What action do you propose? BEV is low hanging fruit at this point. No need to invent anything and can make significant dent in emmisions.... Your proposed action has to be politically possible, technologically possible and ideally more efficient replacement of a carbon emitting process all inside the governments tax and spend mechanisms.

 

[A.W.Jelfs]

Hi all i think subsidies should be handed out to all American EV makers if the car is being built in America, union and non union. The reason is to speed up the process of converting the cars being used in America to EV's.
This will save the environment and save money which will be used in mitigating the damage to infrastructure and environment.
The spend on mitigating damage will be in the trillions.
Have a nice day all.

 

[TruckElectric]

Mary Barra, claiming GM is the “US Leader in EVs” immediately after the interviewer pointed out Tesla had much greater market share.

Musk’s reply here is A+. Genuinely laughed out loud.

Can you imagine if Herbert Diess said this(what Mary Barra said, not Elon)? He's be gone faster than he could change his lederhosen!

 

[GnarlyDudeLive]

Yes I also have qualms about subsidies. But climate action is imperative according to climate scientists. What action do you propose? BEV is low hanging fruit at this point. No need to invent anything and can make significant dent in emmisions.... Your proposed action has to be politically possible, technologically possible and ideally more efficient replacement of a carbon emitting process all inside the governments tax and spend mechanisms.

How about better/more solar installation credits, something that benefits for a longer duration and is not tied to a depreciating asset? EV's are being gobbled up as fast as they are produced without incentives *regardless* of EV's upfront higher costs. Tesla's pricing alone is a great example of why EV credits are moot at this point. The demand is so high that they have raised prices to lower demand thus effectively canceling out the potential credits value *AND* this is the largest and most capable of the EV manufacturers. The world is already transitioning at a rate as fast as production allows. While EV's may appear to be a low hanging fruit for reducing carbon missions I just don't see it at this time as being THE solution. There has to be a better solution or different road to take to reach the same goal of lowering carbon footprint using the same tax dollars. Examples (not vetted): Carbon capture, more efficient rails to reduce OTR hauling, investments in cleaner mining that could open up more localized mining, etc. Short deeper dive: Banning mining in the US because it is dirty solves ZERO solutions to the global issue as its simply going to be done somewhere else with less restrictive regulations and then creates a secondary dependency as well as additional transit carbon costs making it even worse.

While I am at it, lol, I might as well mention that I think the specific provision of spending countless billions of dollars to expand broadband in the infrastructure bill is also late to the game. Elon already is spending billions of dollars to provide the same via the StarLink product unless the Gov plans to just subsidize the product which I am not a fan of but would be far more $ efficient than politicians devising technology. . I even find it a bit of an insult to Elon that after he invested billions to provide the same expansion of broadband to rural area's in need that the gov wants to come in and neuter his efforts and investments.....

 

[Dids]

Can you imagine if Herbert Diess said this(what Mary Barra said, not Elon)? He's be gone faster than he could change his lederhosen!

To be fair GM has produced tons of EVs and has been doing it for a long time. Many of them are partnership EV in the China market. TESLA is definitely outselling them now but that is different thing than being out in front during the early years of 2010s. Everyone can agree that Tesla made the first Lithium ion car but the Roadster was hardly a huge impact outside of proving that it can be done.
The Nissan leaf was the global best selling plug in until 2019.

 

[Dids]

How about better/more solar installation credits, something that benefits for a longer duration and is not tied to a depreciating asset? EV's are being gobbled up as fast as they are produced without incentives *regardless* of EV's upfront higher costs. Tesla's pricing alone is a great example of why EV credits are moot at this point. The demand is so high that they have raised prices to lower demand thus effectively canceling out the potential credits value *AND* this is the largest and most capable of the EV manufacturers. The world is already transitioning at a rate as fast as production allows. While EV's may appear to be a low hanging fruit for reducing carbon missions I just don't see it at this time as being THE solution. There has to be a better solution or different road to take to reach the same goal of lowering carbon footprint using the same tax dollars. Examples (not vetted): Carbon capture, more efficient rails to reduce OTR hauling, investments in cleaner mining that could open up more localized mining, etc. Short deeper dive: Banning mining in the US because it is dirty solves ZERO solutions to the global issue as its simply going to be done somewhere else with less restrictive regulations and then creates a secondary dependency as well as additional transit carbon costs making it even worse.

While I am at it, lol, I might as well mention that I think the specific provision of spending countless billions of dollars to expand broadband in the infrastructure bill is also late to the game. Elon already is spending billions of dollars to provide the same via the StarLink product unless the Gov plans to just subsidize the product which I am not a fan of but would be far more $ efficient than politicians devising technology. . I even find it a bit of an insult to Elon that after he invested billions to provide the same expansion of broadband to rural area's in need that the gov wants to come in and neuter his efforts and investments.....

Aren't most solar panels produced in China? Hmm I don't think you can sell that politically...
"EV's are being gobbled up as fast as they are produced" "the subsidies just go to the manufacturer" etc etc... wouldn't subsidies if they only go to the manufacturer who produces evs as fast as they can be the goal to speed rapid change over? Isn't the argument that OEM aren't transitioning fast enough?