THE MORNING RANT: Was the EV Charging Nightmare in Chicago the “Exploding Pinto” Moment for the Electric Vehicle Transition; plus Other Bad News for EVs

For those of us who follow the electric vehicle industry closely, the dangerous failures of EVs and their charging infrastructure during a deep freeze is not unexpected. But the story about the nightmare scenario that played out in Chicago last week, with desperate EV owners unable to charge their cars in the midst of a harsh - but not unusual - cold snap, broke out across all media, with widespread coverage in print, television, and social media outlets.

This may have been the “exploding Ford Pinto” moment for the EV industry, from which there is no recovery. In 1974 the Pinto was America’s best-selling car, with sales exceeding 500,000 units. In 1976 there started to be media coverage of the vehicle’s risk of exploding from gas leaks during rear-end collisions. By 1978 Ford issued a recall and 60 Minutes did a feature story on the Pinto’s gas tank issue. Sales dropped below 200,000 that year and the Pinto was discontinued in 1980.

A few things stand out in the media coverage of the Chicago EV disaster, not only did the media report on the travails of the people who were the victims of EV ownership, but the media also did some reporting on why EVs and their chargers are so ineffective in cold temperatures.

Before we dive a little deeper into the desperate situation that EV owners went through, here are a few examples of the breadth of the coverage of the Chicago EV charging debacle. For people who get their news only from the mainstream media, this may have been the first time they were presented negative stories about operating an EV.

“Tesla owners say EV batteries won't charge as brutally cold temperatures hit Chicago“ [USA Today – 01/17/2024]

“Electric vehicle drivers stranded because of cold-weather charging problems“ [CBS News – 01/15/2024]

“Electric Car Owners Confront a Harsh Foe: Cold Weather; In freezing temperatures, the batteries of electric vehicles can be less efficient and have shorter range, a lesson many Tesla drivers in Chicago learned this week.“ [NY Times – 01/18/2024]

“Tesla Disaster As Cars Won't Charge in Freezing Cold“ [Newsweek – 01/17/2024]

“Here’s why electric cars don’t go as far in the cold“ [CNN – 01/16/2024]

Being stranded in dangerously cold weather is simply terrifying, and there are an abundance of anecdotes and quotes about the EV graveyards that were found in Chicago and other frozen cities. Here is an example:

“Chicago-area Tesla charging stations lined with dead cars in freezing cold: 'A bunch of dead robots out here'” [MSN / Fox Business – 01/16/2024]

"Nothing. No juice. Still on zero percent," Tyler Beard, who had been trying to recharge his Tesla at an Oak Brook, Illinois Tesla supercharging station since Sunday afternoon, told the news outlet. "And this is like three hours being out here after being out here three hours yesterday."

Beard and several other Tesla owners were trying to charge their cars amid long lines and abandoned cars at other Tesla charging stations in the Chicago area, the news station reported.

"This is crazy. It’s a disaster. Seriously," said Tesla owner Chalis Mizelle.

Mizelle said she abandoned her car and got a ride from a friend after hers would not charge.

The hassles of maintaining a charge are so ubiquitous that even the simple act of parking a “fueled up” vehicle at the airport and expecting it to be available to drive when you return is not applicable to electric vehicles.

Kevin Sumrak told the Fox station that he landed Sunday night at Chicago O'Hare International Airport and found his Tesla dead and unable to start. He was forced to hire a flatbed tow truck to haul the vehicle to a working charging station.

As Mark Twain is alleged to have said, “There is nothing to be learned from the second kick from a mule.” A great many EV owners have received a very painful “first kick,” and this lesson will likely cause a significant number of them to forego the desire to ever again experience the exclusive eco-virtue of trying to charge a dead EV in winter.

As CBD and JJ Sefton have kindly mentioned on these pages, I have been extended the opportunity to share my passion regarding electric vehicles and related topics at The Pipeline (the-pipeline.org), which is run by Michael Walsh, a friend to the Ace of Spades HQ blog, and a periodic guest on the Cut Jib Newsletter podcast (which can be accessed on the sidebar.)

My first column was published this past week: “Electric Vehicles: Running on Empty”

In it I wrote the following:

This past year was the year that “the EV transition” stalled. The coming year of 2024 will be a year for legacy auto manufacturers to address the financial reality that their EV investments are an unrecoverable sunk cost. Their survival and future profitability will require them to re-focus on being profitable manufacturers of ICE vehicles (which include “hybrids”) rather than being failed mass-market EV manufacturers, a niche for which there is no “mass market.”

I wrote that piece before the story broke about the total breakdown in the ability to charge EVs in Chicago during winter.

2023 was a year in which it became evident that the mass market of automobile consumers had rejected electric vehicles, and that there would not be an “EV transition.” After the Chicago incident, 2024 is now shaping up as the year in which consumer rejection of EVs turns to outright consumer revulsion.

Don’t be surprised if 2020s-era electric vehicles are someday remembered as fondly as 1970s-era Ford Pintos.

I usually try to space a little more time between my periodic roundups of EV stories, but the EV industry is imploding so fast that I’m already falling behind. Here are some other stories that have recently broken:

“Hertz is selling 20,000 EVs so it can buy more gas guzzlers” [The Verge – 01/11/2024]

The rental car agency said in a regulatory filing today that it will sell 20,000 vehicles, or roughly one-third of its global EV fleet, and use that money to buy gas guzzlers. The decision was made after Hertz reported higher depreciation and damage than expected to its EVs, amounting to $245 million in costs for the company.

The higher damage costs that Hertz incurred relate to how even small fender benders can cause catastrophically expensive repairs, especially if the battery needs to be replaced, which is often required in even the smallest of fender benders.

As for the additional depreciation charge, the rental car business model does not include taking an additional write-down against balance sheet value when selling vehicles being retired from rental status. Hertz badly misjudged the re-sale value of these vehicles when purchasing them.

In addition, the consumer rejection of EVs is so thorough that people don’t even want to drive an EV when they rent a car…

Also, Hertz apparently couldn’t find enough customers for the EVs in its fleet, so selling a huge chunk of them will “better balance supply against expected demand of EVs,” the company said. The company had previously set a target for 25 percent of its fleet to be electric by the end of 2024.

Also, it is apparently deleterious to an electric vehicle if it is actually driven in the manner in which gasoline vehicles are routinely driven.

Hertz’s problem is a bit unique. Of the 100,000 Teslas acquired by Hertz, half were to be allocated to Uber drivers as part of a deal with the ridehail company. And while drivers said they loved the Teslas, they also tend to drive their vehicles into the ground. This higher rate of utilization can lead to a lot of damage — certainly more than Hertz was anticipating.

Hertz has apparently learned quite a bit in its first kick from the mule, and is seeking to avoid a second kick.

Ford’s flagship EV is failing so spectacularly that it is hard to keep up with all the announcements about production cuts. Barely a month after announcing it was halving the scheduled production of Ford F150 Conflagrations Lightnings, Ford is already being forced to cut production further.

“Ford is cutting F-150 Lightning production again amid ‘slower than expected’ demand” [Electrek – 01/19/2024]

Ford is cutting Lightning production (again) as demand slips. Ford announced plans Friday to reduce F-150 Lightning output to “achieve the optimal balance of production, sales growth and profitability.”

Bill Ford and his CEO Jim Farley had drunk the EV Kool-Aid from their globalist, eco-communist friends, so they radically overcommitted to this boutique, dead-end technology. Now they are desperately trying to adjust EV production from their original goals to align with actual consumer demand, or to be more specific, the lack thereof.

The news comes after Ford already cut production at its Rouge EV plant in mid-October. Ford spokesperson Martin Gunsberg confirmed to Electrek that the facility has been running with three crews working two shifts. It will now go down to one crew working one shift. The changes go into effect April 1, 2024.

The dramatic cuts in EV production still probably won’t be enough. When Ford previously announced that it was halving its production of the unpopular electric truck, unit assembly was cut from 3,200 unit per week (approximately 150,000 units per year including down time) to 1,600 units per week (approximately 75,000 units per year.) But based on total 2023 sales of just 24,165 Lightings, this is still triple the actual demand. With early adopters having already bought their EV pickups, and dealer inventories of these limited purpose vehicles growing, Ford still hasn’t cut enough.

Another way to write the headline immediately below might be ”Half of Ford Dealers Have Declined to Opt-In on EV Sales, Service”

“Ford says half its dealers are waiting to opt in on EV sales, service” [Detroit Free Press – 12/21/2023]

Half the Ford dealers in the nation, or some 1,550, have chosen to stick with selling hybrid and internal combustion engine vehicles only in 2024, waiting to decide whether to make the investments needed to sell and service electric vehicles, the Detroit Free Press has learned.

The cost to a Ford dealer to be EV certified is up to $1,200,000. A lot of dealers who previously committed to the EV boondoggle are backing out.

The latest data provided by Ford indicates a cooling-off period with dealers. A year ago, the Free Press reported that Ford CEO Jim Farley had "secured commitments" from 2 out of every 3 dealers to go all-in on selling EVs.

There were originally 1,920 dealers signed up to be EV certified, so the math would indicate that 370 Ford dealers have since decided to call it off before putting a million-dollar ring on their EV engagement.

At that time, Ford said it had enrolled 1,920 dealers in the voluntary Model e Program for the initial 2024 to 2026 periods. Some dealers later withdrew, Gunsberg confirmed.

Most of the critical correspondence I receive from EV fans will start with something like “Buck, you really need to educate yourself about EVs.” I generally reply, politely, that because EVs require taxpayer subsidies to entice consumers to buy them at all, and because EV advocates are pressuring legislative bodies to ban gas-powered cars so as to eliminate consumer choice, that is all I need to know about how atrocious EVs are. They clearly cannot compete in the real world without government incentives and the removal of competition.

This development isn’t going to help the death spiral that has descended on the EV transition…

“More EVs lose US tax credits including Tesla, Nissan, GM vehicles” [Reuters – 01/02/2024]

Many electric vehicles lost eligibility for tax credits of up to $7,500 after new battery sourcing rules took effect on Monday, including the Nissan Leaf, Tesla Cybertruck All-Wheel Drive, some Tesla Model 3s and Chevrolet Blazer EV, the U.S. Treasury said.

The Treasury issued guidelines in December detailing new battery sourcing requirements aimed at weaning the U.S. electric vehicle supply chain away from China. They took effect on Monday.

Of the 43 all-electric vehicles on the market, only 19 remain eligible for the tax credit. Other EVs no longer eligible include the Volkswagen ID.4, BMW X5 xDrive 50e, Cadillac Lyriq, Ford E-Transit, and Audi Q5 PHEV 55.

Where there are government mandates and tax credits, corruption will follow.

“The Electric-Vehicle Cheating Scandal; A government rule makes them look nearly seven times as efficient as they are” [WSJ – 01/16/2024]

When carmakers test gasoline-powered vehicles for compliance with the Transportation Department’s fuel-efficiency rules, they must use real values measured in a laboratory. By contrast, under an Energy Department rule, carmakers can arbitrarily multiply the efficiency of electric cars by 6.67. This means that although a 2022 Tesla.

Model Y tests at the equivalent of about 65 miles per gallon in a laboratory (roughly the same as a hybrid), it is counted as having an absurdly high compliance value of 430 mpg. That number has no basis in reality or law. For exaggerating electric-car efficiency, the government rewards carmakers with compliance credits they can trade for cash. Economists estimate these credits could be worth billions: a vast cross-subsidy invented by bureaucrats and paid for by every person who buys a new gasoline-powered car.

I took a dive into some of these tax credits a few months ago, and documented how Tesla is receiving up to $12,350 per unit in tax credits that it can then sell to other car manufacturers who need to purchase EV tax credits in order to sell the gasoline powered cars that their customers desire.

“Distorted Markets - Tesla’s Amazing Revenue Stream from EV Credits” [Buck Throckmorton – Ace of Spades HQ – 6/16/2023]

By being all-electric, Tesla earns various government credits for exceeding arbitrary thresholds on carbon emissions and EV sales. These arbitrary thresholds are set by the climate communists that control California and other left-wing governments. Other auto manufacturers who don’t sell many EVs can be fined or prohibited from doing business in those locales for not meeting those thresholds. So instead, they are paying Tesla for its excess credits to remain compliant with the laws of those states.

There is so much more going on in the failing world of EVs, but this is enough for one day.

Have a great week.

[buck.throckmorton at protonmail dot com]

posted by Buck Throckmorton at 11:00 AM

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