Essay On EVs, Part 4 -- A Snowball Rolling Downhill -- February 28, 2024

Locator: 46932EVS.

Part 4 of continuing series on EVs. Part 3 here. 

This week has been simply amazing -- how fast everything changed. Literally "every" auto manufacturer has delayed plans -- some perhaps permanently, like Apple, Inc.,  -- to develop EVs. Those who say they are still committed to EVs have indicated they will either slow development / production or "pause" for an unspecified amount of time, but probably best measured in years. But, if imagine, with the amount of cash Apple had on hand, and the technology lead they had, and they can't make EVs work financially, what hope is there for everyone else? [By the way, I just heard that firsthand earlier today from an executive with a self-driving truck company here in the DFW area. Her exact quote: "if Apple can't make it work, what hope is there for us?"]

A guest essay in yesterday's on-line edition of The New York Times addressed this issue.

At first I thought it was a news story but by the third paragraph I realized it was an op-ed.

The writer was so far off base I quit reading after the fifth or sixth paragraph and, instead, read the comments. EVs? It's become a religion or a cult. The science no longer matters. It doesn't even matter if environmentally EVs are worse than ICE vehicles. None of that matters. It's not even political any more. Most will disagree me on that, but that's fine. They will say its political; it's not. It's a religious argument. Neither political party has a monopoly on "stupid."

The good news: Ford has a secret team working on an inexpensive car. Apple had a secret team working on its EV also.

Cash on hand:

Back to the op-ed:

The fact that Robinson Meyer put that in his op-ed tells me all I need to know about Robinson Meyer. He has no clue about free market capitalism. He knows nothing about margins.

An inexpensive car won't make money for the auto manufacturer. Even Apple said it quit its EV plans when they realized the margins weren't there even on a $100K car. An inexpensive car simply means Ford will lose less money on each EV it sells.

The best niche for EVs of the future. Buc-ee's Land Cruisers, Inc. Buc-ee's will transport cars to  vacation destinations, let's say south Florida or southern California and folks will drive their EVs in and around those vacation destination. Buc-ee's will have a 40-acre charging lot next to their Buc-ee's Hotel/Motel and Emporium.