Plans for battery factories in Indiana will be one step closer to reality thanks to a nearly $7 billion loan announced by the Biden administration on Monday.
The $6.85 billion loan will go to StarPlus, a joint venture between the U.S. auto manufacturer Stellantis and South Korean company Samsung SDI, The New York Times <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/02/business/stellantis-samsung-biden-loans-ev.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reported</a>. President Joe Biden, who will leave office in less than two months, has given multiple loans to car manufacturers for electric vehicle battery plants, seeking to further his climate agenda.
The Biden administration&#8217;s announcement comes after Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares suddenly resigned on Sunday, citing &#8220;different views&#8221; between him and the board of directors. The company has underperformed financial expectations this year, and its sales have struggled, according to <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2024/12/01/stellantis-ceo-carlos-tavares-resigns.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">CNBC</a>.
The Biden administration also announced last week that it is lending EV manufacturer Rivian $6 billion for a factory in Georgia. Rivian, which began producing EVs in the fall of 2021, has struggled to make money. The EV company was worth $150 billion three years ago but is now worth around $10 billion, The New York Post <a href="https://nypost.com/2024/11/27/business/biden-administration-loans-6-6b-to-struggling-tesla-rival-rivian/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reported</a>.
The StarPlus battery plants in Indiana will produce batteries for 670,000 vehicles per year and employ around 3,000 people, according to the Department of Energy. Stellantis owns major American car brands Jeep, Chrysler, Dodge, and Ram. It also owns Fiat and Peugeot. The factories “will greatly expand E.V. battery manufacturing capacity in North America and reduce America’s reliance on adversarial foreign nations like China,” the Department of Energy’s Loan Programs Office said in a statement, according to the Times.
Since taking office, Biden has pushed to ensure that half of all vehicles sold in the U.S. by 2030 are electric, offering Americans tax credits to purchase EVs. With President-elect Donald Trump taking over on January 20, 2025, however, those tax credits and EV incentives could be thrown out as Trump has <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-says-he-would-consider-ending-7500-electric-vehicle-credit-2024-08-19/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">signaled</a> his opposition to them. Tesla CEO and Trump ally Elon Musk <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trumps-cut-bidens-ev-tax-credit-impact-auto-industry-experts-say" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a> earlier this year that he also supports getting rid of the EV tax credit, saying, &#8220;Taking[ing] away the subsidies &#8230; will only help Tesla.&#8221;
The loan agreements between the federal government and Rivian and StarPlus are expected to be finalized before Trump takes office, and the contracts will be binding.
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Despite the Biden administration&#8217;s push for more EV sales, vehicle demand remains low. A report from the consulting firm McKinsey &amp; Co. published earlier this year found that 46% of Americans who bought an EV regret switching from a gas-powered car to an electric vehicle.
The Biden administration has loaned $34 billion to car companies such as Stellantis, Rivian, and Ford to produce low-emission or zero-emission vehicles.

Wagoneer S

Biden Admin To Loan Billions For Stellantis-Samsung Battery Factories

Biden Administration

Business

Donald Trump

electric vehicles

Environment

Executive

Jeep

Tesla

On Monday night, speaking at the Democratic National Convention, President Joe Biden insisted that as part of his effort, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers was installing 500,000 charging stations for electric cars across America.
But recent reports show that <a href="https://www.autoweek.com/news/a60702457/federal-funds-yield-only-8-ev-charging-stations/">fewer than twenty</a> have been put in place so far.
“Remember we were told we couldn’t get anything done,” Biden declared. “We couldn&#8217;t get anything done in the Congress. Well with your support, we passed the most significant climate law in the history of mankind. For $370 billion dollars, cutting carbon emissions in half by 2030, launching a climate corps, similar to AmeriCorps or Peace Corps creating tens of thousands of jobs for young people in the future who are going to make sure this continues.”
“Creating hundreds of thousands of jobs in clean energy for American workers including the IBEW installing 500,000 charging stations all across America,” he claimed.
<a href="https://www.amiracist.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.amiracist.com/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1723848169620000&amp;usg=AOvVaw3E3OUC3roIcb5fjwk-l_Ct">Tickets for “Am I Racist?” are on sale NOW! Buy here for a theater near you.</a>
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Joe Biden brags about building 500,000 electric vehicle charging stations.
As of May, $7.5 billion has been spent — and only SEVEN chargers have been built. <a href="https://t.co/nd83euSDZ4">pic.twitter.com/nd83euSDZ4</a>
&mdash; Townhall.com (@townhallcom) <a href="https://twitter.com/townhallcom/status/1825742680942350523?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 20, 2024</a></blockquote>
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“The Biden Administration’s $7.5 billion effort to jump-start <a href="https://www.autoweek.com/ev/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-vars-ga-outbound-link="https://www.autoweek.com/ev/" data-vars-ga-ux-element="Hyperlink" data-vars-ga-call-to-action="the electric-vehicle charging landscape">the electric-vehicle charging landscape</a> is moving very, very slowly. Now more than two years after the program was signed into law in late 2021, only eight chargers have been put in place,” Autoweek <a href="https://www.autoweek.com/news/a60702457/federal-funds-yield-only-8-ev-charging-stations/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reported</a> in May, adding, “The allocated dollars are $5 billion through the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) program and $2.5 billion in Charging and Fueling Infrastructure (CFI) discretionary grant funding via the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.”
As far back as December 2023, POLITICO<a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2023/12/05/congress-ev-chargers-billions-00129996" target="_blank" rel="noopener"> reported</a>, “Congress at the urging of the Biden administration agreed in 2021 to spend $7.5 billion to build tens of thousands of electric vehicle chargers across the country, aiming to appease anxious drivers while tackling climate change. Two years later, the program has yet to install a single charger.”
<a href="http://www.amiracist.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://www.amiracist.com/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1724211156439000&amp;usg=AOvVaw2xQ8bdTcpfdrPBAzczIuck">WATCH THE TRAILER FOR ‘AM I RACIST?’ — A MATT WALSH COMEDY ON DEI</a>
“The vast majority of chargers added in the US last year were bets by for-profit companies on the future of battery-powered driving,” Bloomberg <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-01-31/the-us-installed-more-than-1-000-ev-charging-stations-since-summer" target="_blank" rel="noopener">noted</a> in January.
In contrast to Biden’s supposed effort, Elon Musk’s Tesla has been quite successful in its undertaking; as Reason Magazine <a href="https://reason.com/2024/05/30/7-5-billion-in-government-cash-only-built-8-e-v-chargers-in-2-5-years/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">pointed out</a> at the end of May, stating that Musk’s company had a “network of Superchargers” that included “over 57,000 DCFC chargers around the world and generated an estimated $1.74 billion of revenue in 2023 alone. Just in the <a href="https://insideevs.com/news/705972/tesla-supercharging-network-roughly-6000-stations/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">fourth quarter of 2023</a>, the company built 357 new stations, accounting for 3,783 charging ports. &#8230; Around <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-01-31/the-us-installed-more-than-1-000-ev-charging-stations-since-summer" target="_blank" rel="noopener">two-thirds</a> of all public chargers in the U.S. are manufactured for Teslas.”

MixCollage-20-Aug-2024-11-21-AM-4410

Biden Claims Labor Union ‘Installing 500,000 Charging Stations’ For EVs. Fewer Than 20 Put In Place So Far.

Democratic National Convention

Electric cars

Energy

Joe Biden

Politics

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump discussed his relationship with Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk on Thursday, saying that the two have a &#8220;very good&#8221; connection.
Musk &#8220;fully&#8221; endorsed Trump shortly after a would-be assassin hit the former president in the right ear at his Butler County, Pennsylvania, rally on July 13.
&#8220;Elon and I have a very good relationship. As you know, he endorsed me very strongly,&#8221; Trump said during an interview with &#8220;Fox &amp; Friends&#8221; on Thursday morning. &#8220;Somebody told me he was going to give me $45 million a month. I said that sounds like a lot, and even for Elon, that&#8217;s a lot. &#8230; There was a reporter that wrote it, but he never told me he was giving me $45 million, but he did say, &#8216;I strongly endorse you,&#8217; despite the fact that I&#8217;m against the electric car mandate.”
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Donald Trump responded to questions about his relationship with Elon Musk and addressed the WSJ hoax claiming that Musk was giving him $45 million a month:
“Elon and I have a very good relationship. He endorsed me very strongly.
Somebody told me he was going to give me $45… <a href="https://t.co/PMmzQXJTau">pic.twitter.com/PMmzQXJTau</a>
— Ian Miles Cheong (@stillgray) <a href="https://twitter.com/stillgray/status/1816483245128589344?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 25, 2024</a></blockquote>
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After Trump said at the Republican National Convention that he would &#8220;end the electric vehicle mandate on day one,&#8221; Musk <a href="https://x.com/teslaownersSV/status/1814163685021229436?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1814165239602012523%7Ctwgr%5Eddbdadd00b74d86c63c98afc766adedfc5bf6638%7Ctwcon%5Es2_&amp;ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.teslarati.com%2Felon-musk-trump-promise-end-ev-mandate-day-one%2F" target="_blank" rel="noopener">wrote</a> on his social media platform X, &#8220;A surprising number of people think that Tesla survives on subsidies. That is true of our competitors, but not of Tesla.&#8221; Asked to comment specifically on Trump&#8217;s proposal to end EV mandates, Musk <a href="https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1814664480044748999?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1814664480044748999%7Ctwgr%5Eddbdadd00b74d86c63c98afc766adedfc5bf6638%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&amp;ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.teslarati.com%2Felon-musk-trump-promise-end-ev-mandate-day-one%2F" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a>, &#8220;It will be fine.&#8221;
The Wall Street Journal reported earlier this week that Musk was planning on donating $45 million a month to help elect Trump, but Musk <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/musk-denies-that-hes-donating-45m-per-month-to-elect-trump-says-hes-making-donations-at-a-much-lower-level" target="_blank" rel="noopener">denied</a> that report during a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/dr-peterson-x-elon-musk" target="_blank" rel="noopener">DailyWire+ interview</a> on Monday with psychologist Dr. Jordan B. Peterson.
“What’s been reported in the media is simply not true. I’m not donating $45 million a month to Trump,” Musk told Peterson. “What I have done is created a PAC [political action committee] or Super PAC … the America PAC.”
In a follow-up tweet on Tuesday, Musk <a href="https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1815911188024225967">wrote</a>, “I am making some donations to America PAC, but at a much lower level and the key values of the PAC are supporting a meritocracy &amp; individual freedom. Republicans are mostly, but not entirely, on the side of merit &amp; freedom.”
Musk, who supported Democratic candidates Hillary Clinton in 2016 and Joe Biden in 2020, has become increasingly critical of the Left and the Democratic Party.
&#8220;Years ago, I think probably the Democratic Party was the party of meritocracy and of personal freedom,&#8221; Musk <a href="https://x.com/VigilantFox/status/1815768540097495385" target="_blank" rel="noopener">told</a> Peterson. &#8220;They used to be the free speech party, and these days, they seem to be the censorship party under the guise of hate speech. &#8230; The Democrats are also promoting DEI, which is really just another form of racism and sexism.”

Donald Trump/Elon Musk

Trump Says He Has ‘Very Good Relationship’ With Elon Musk ‘Despite The Fact That I’m Against The Electric Car Mandate’

Trump Says He Has 'Very Good Relationship' With Elon Musk 'Despite The Fact That I'm Against The Electric Car Mandate'

2024 Election

Elections

Elon Musk

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg was confronted over the weekend about President Joe Biden&#8217;s attempt to push Americans to buy electric vehicles and his administration&#8217;s failure to turn billions of dollars in federal investment into a network of charging stations.
Buttigieg faced the questions during a Sunday CBS News interview on &#8220;Face The Nation&#8221; with host Margaret Brennan when asked about former President Donald Trump hammering Biden over the issue on the campaign trail.
Brennan played a video clip of Trump saying: &#8220;Do you notice [Biden]&#8217;s trying to save the electrical vehicle but not the gas-powered, which is the vehicle that everybody wants. They&#8217;re going crazy with the electric car, costing us a fortune. We&#8217;re spending hundreds of billions of dollars subsidizing a car that nobody wants and nobody&#8217;s ever gonna buy.&#8221;
Brennan responded to the clip of Trump&#8217;s remarks by stating: &#8220;He&#8217;s not wrong.&#8221;
Buttigieg insisted that Trump was wrong, to which Brennan responded: &#8220;On the purchasing, he&#8217;s not. Of the 4 million vehicles purchased, you know what- 269,000 electric vehicles were sold in the US market. It&#8217;s up like 2%.&#8221;
Later in the interview, Brennan pressed Buttigieg about the $7.5 billion investment that taxpayers made back in 2021 for a charging network for electric vehicles that has produced only seven or eight charging stations total, a job that Buttigieg is supposed to be overseeing, Brennan said.
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Buttigieg claimed that they were really hard to build and that 500,000 would be built in the next six years after the administration had built less than ten after three years.
WATCH:
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SiriusXM’s Julie Mason Hosts A Town Hall With Sec. Pete Buttigieg, Presented With The Institute Of Politics

Buttigieg Grilled Over Biden Admin’s Push For Electric Vehicles, Failure To Build Charging Network

Pete Buttigieg

President Joe Biden has made green energy a cornerstone of his policy agenda, investing tens of billions to promote renewable energy and electric cars.
In April, the administration <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2024/04/04/biden-harris-administration-announces-historic-20-billion-in-awards-to-expand-access-to-clean-energy-and-climate-solutions-and-lower-energy-costs-for-communities-across-the-nation/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">unveiled</a> a plan for $20 billion in awards to foster clean energy in lower-income communities, <a href="https://www.doi.gov/pressreleases/biden-harris-administration-approves-eighth-offshore-wind-project" target="_blank" rel="noopener">announced</a> a new offshore wind turbine project, and <a href="https://www.epa.gov/newsreleases/biden-harris-administration-announces-7-billion-solar-all-grants-deliver-residential" target="_blank" rel="noopener">revealed</a> $7 billion in new grants to develop solar power.
However, there are some major reservations behind Biden&#8217;s full-steam-ahead approach to renewable energy — principally the concern about the fact that China almost totally controls the production of clean energy components.
According to <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2024-04-16/china-extends-clean-tech-dominance-over-us-despite-biden-s-ira-blueprint" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Bloomberg</a>, China possesses more than 80% of the global manufacturing capacity for 11 clean energy components, including parts necessary for the building of solar panels and electric car batteries. It also holds a majority of the manufacturing capacity for parts necessary for the production of wind turbines.
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🇨🇳 &#8211; China’s share of global production capacity is now above 80% for 11 clean technologies • Massive Chinese investments mean that China&#39;s clean tech rise may not be over • Beijing also invested US$546bn in its own energy transition in 2022, around half of global financing <a href="https://t.co/XWUd08RyKG">pic.twitter.com/XWUd08RyKG</a>
&mdash; Agathe Demarais (@AgatheDemarais) <a href="https://twitter.com/AgatheDemarais/status/1785202424908828998?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 30, 2024</a></blockquote>
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By contrast, the United States controls 0% of the global manufacturing capacity for more than half of the components, and its highest capacity share is only 10% for hydrogen electrolyzers. U.S. allies like Japan, South Korea, and others in Europe also woefully lag behind China in clean tech production.
China dominates the green energy supply chain, from raw materials to components to finished products. It <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/03/29/china-clean-green-energy-technology-trade/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">produces</a> 80% of the world&#8217;s solar panels, while the U.S. makes only 2%, and two-thirds of the wind turbines. Additionally, Chinese-made electric vehicles (EVs) <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2024/4/20/are-chinese-evs-taking-over-the-car-market#:~:text=Chinese%20EVs%20already%20make%20up,the%20last%20couple%20of%20years." target="_blank" rel="noopener">comprise</a> 60% of global sales. China exported $146 billion worth of EVs, lithium-ion batteries, and solar components in 2023.
A single Chinese solar company, Tongwei Group, plans on expanding its facilities and aims by the end of the year to produce four times the amount of solar cells installed by the entire United States last year, The Washington Post reported.
China will be the “main force leading the global energy transition,” Tongwei Chairman Liu Hanyuan told WaPo.
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China&#8217;s effort to become the preeminent manufacturer of green tech comes as the Chinese Communist Party searches for new ways to expand the nation&#8217;s economy as it remains comparatively sluggish in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, The Wall Street Journal <a href="https://www.wsj.com/world/china/china-goes-all-in-on-green-industry-to-jolt-ailing-economy-2f836395" target="_blank" rel="noopener">noted</a>. It has provided massive subsidies to green tech-related companies to stimulate the growth of the sector.
China is also poised to control the raw materials that are used to build those green energy technologies, largely through its growing influence in Africa.
As of 2022, African nations barely produced any of the world’s supply of lithium, but according to experts, Africa is sitting on a potential lithium bonanza. While Australia mined 55,000 metric tons of lithium in 2021, Zimbabwe, a landlocked nation in southern Africa, is projected to extract over 100,000 tons of lithium by 2031, <a href="https://archive.is/0v90F" target="_blank" rel="noopener">according</a> to the Financial Times. Mali, in West Africa, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), in Central Africa, are also expected to become major producers of lithium while Namibia, Ghana, and Ethiopia will become moderate producers.
The problem for the U.S. stems from the fact that China has been investing in these countries for years, and China owns or partially owns many of the companies that are poised to exploit the coming lithium boom. The top lithium-producing companies in both Mali and the DRC are partially owned by China, while 3 out of the 4 major lithium mining companies in Zimbabwe are entirely owned by the communist nation.
Just one lithium mine in Zimbabwe, owned by a Chinese company, is estimated to hold up to 11 million metric tons of the mineral, <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2023/03/09/is-the-us-falling-behind-china-in-africas-lithium-industry-.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">according</a> to CNBC. Zimbabwe banned the export of raw lithium in December 2022 to encourage domestic processing, but the three Chinese-owned companies, which have invested $678 million into lithium projects in the country and have announced plans for development projects that reach into the billions, are exempt from the regulation. Indeed, Zimbabwe has been a major <a href="https://global.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202301/17/WS63c5fbf3a31057c47ebaa050.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">beneficiary</a> of China’s Belt and Road Initiative, a foreign investment and infrastructure policy that critics have argued is a debt trap for poorer nations. As of 2023, China has invested tens of billions in African nations, including Zimbabwe, the DRC, Mali, and Ghana — all places where mining is projected to spike in the coming years.
Additionally, the DRC has a stranglehold on the mining of cobalt, another crucial mineral in the production of EV batteries, producing an <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/International/cobalt-mining-transforms-city-democratic-republic-congo-satellite/story?id=96795773#:~:text=The%20Democratic%20Republic%20of%20the%20Congo%20produces%20an%20estimated%2070,those%20more%20in%2Ddemand%20minerals." target="_blank" rel="noopener">estimated</a> 70% of the world’s supply. Chinese companies also have significant <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/28/world/congo-cobalt-mining-china.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">control</a> over those mines in the DRC and ones in Zambia. In 2020, China held complete or partial ownership in 15 of the 19 operating cobalt mines in the DRC, The Economist <a href="https://www.economist.com/middle-east-and-africa/2023/02/28/how-america-plans-to-break-chinas-grip-on-african-minerals" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reported</a>.
Biden&#8217;s zeal to transition the U.S. away from fossil fuels has left it vulnerable to China&#8217;s control of the supply chain for green technologies. Though China&#8217;s monopoly, at least on components and finished products, is unlikely to last forever, it currently possesses a decisive advantage over every other nation on Earth that it will certainly use to its economic and strategic advantage. To compete with China&#8217;s state-sponsored green revolution, the Biden administration would have to vastly increase government subsidies for green tech initiatives and support private efforts to gain an innovation advantage over the CCP.

Chinese National Flag

China Has Complete Stranglehold On Essential Components For Biden’s Vaunted ‘Green Revolution’

China Has Complete Stranglehold On Essential Components For Biden's Vaunted 'Green Revolution'

China

Green New Deal

Solar Power

World

Ford Motor Company revealed this week that it lost more than a hundred thousand dollars for every electric vehicle that it sold during the first quarter.
Ford&#8217;s electric vehicle unit reported a $1.3 billion loss, amounting to a $132,000 loss per electric vehicle sold during the first three months of the year, CNN <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/24/business/ford-earnings-ev-losses/index.html">reported</a>.
The company saw a 20% decrease in sales volume and, because of low demand for electric vehicles across the industry, was forced to slash the prices of its electric vehicle offerings.
Ford said that it expects its electric vehicle division to lose $5 billion this year, an increase of $300 million from the $4.7 billion loss that it suffered last year.
&#8220;Americans don’t want EVs at levels Biden’s climate hysteria require,&#8221; businessman Andrew Puzder posted on X. &#8220;Ford’s EV Q1 losses soared to $1.3 billion — a ridiculous $132,000 per EV sold. All Ford’s profits came from combustion engine vehicle sales. Collectivist policies destroy prosperity.&#8221;
The company announced earlier this month that it was delaying the production of two new electric vehicles and that it will instead focus on making more hybrid vehicles as consumer demand for electric vehicles continues to plummet.
“Many companies rushed in too fast with E.V.s that were too expensive and there was not as much of a market for them as they thought,” Sam Abuelsamid, principal analyst for transportation and mobility at the research firm Guidehouse Insights, told the The New York Times. “That’s made it a lot tougher to sell those vehicles.”
Numerous companies have been forced to <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/apple-ends-multi-billion-dollar-effort-to-build-electric-cars" target="_blank" rel="noopener">scrap their plans</a> to build electric cars, <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/mercedes-scraps-plan-to-only-sell-electric-vehicles" target="_blank" rel="noopener">cancel their plans</a> to go all electric, or in some cases are <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/ev-startup-fisker-halts-production-to-raise-emergency-funds-amid-cash-crunch-from-low-demand" target="_blank" rel="noopener">struggling</a> just to stay in business.
Consumers regularly have complained about the high prices of electric vehicles, their quality and reliability, the lack of charging stations, the time it takes to charge them, how inconvenient they can be, and their significantly decreased performance during cold weather conditions.
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/watch-buttigieg-mocks-people-who-dont-want-electric-vehicles" target="_blank" rel="noopener">WATCH: Buttigieg Mocks People Who Don’t Want Electric Vehicles</a>

2023 North American International Auto Show Held In Detroit, Michigan

Ford Reports Staggering Loss On Every Electric Vehicle It Sold

Automobiles

Economy

Ford Motor Co.

Sulfur hexafluoride, a gas 24,300 times more potent at creating the greenhouse effect than carbon dioxide, is being released into the atmosphere at an alarming rate as China seeks to expand its electric power grid.
The findings were from a new <a href="https://eaps.mit.edu/news-impact/atmospheric-observations-in-china-show-rise-in-emissions-of-a-potent-greenhouse-gas/">study</a> conducted by researchers at the MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change, Fudan University, Peking University, University of Bristol, and Meteorological Observation Center of China Meteorological Administration.
&#8220;Greenhouse gases differ widely in their global warming potential (GWP), or ability to absorb radiative energy and thereby warm the Earth’s surface,&#8221; MIT said. &#8220;For example, measured over a 100-year period, the GWP of methane is about 28 times that of carbon dioxide (CO2), and the GWP of sulfur hexafluoride (SF6) is 24,300 times that of CO2.&#8221;
Sulfur hexafluoride, SF6, is used &#8220;primarily in high-voltage electrical switchgear in electric power grids,&#8221; the report said, adding that atmospheric concentrations of the greenhouse gas have skyrocketed as the global demand for electric power increases.
The report said that the increase in SF6 in the atmosphere, which communist China is largely responsible for, threatens the world’s efforts to combat so-called &#8220;climate change.&#8221;
&#8220;The researchers found that SF6 emissions in China almost doubled from 2.6 gigagrams (Gg) per year in 2011, when they accounted for 34 percent of global SF6 emissions, to 5.1 Gg per year in 2021, when they accounted for 57 percent of global total SF6 emissions,&#8221; the report said. &#8220;This increase from China over the 10-year period — some of it emerging from the country’s less-populated western regions — was larger than the global total SF6 emissions rise, highlighting the importance of lowering SF6 emissions from China in the future.&#8221;
SF6 gasses that escape in the atmosphere last for more than a thousand years and with a negative impact 24,300 times greater than CO2, the stakes could not be higher as officials seek to force consumers to abandon gas powered vehicles and switch to electric vehicles which requires having a robust power grid.
“Any increase in SF6 emissions this century will effectively alter our planet’s radiative budget — the balance between incoming energy from the sun and outgoing energy from the Earth — far beyond the multi-decadal time frame of current climate policies,” says MIT Joint Program and CGCS Director Ronald Prinn, a coauthor of the study. “So it’s imperative that China and all other nations take immediate action to reduce, and ultimately eliminate, their SF6 emissions.”

Commissioning of the Nordring Berlin high-voltage line

MIT Study: Gas 24,000x More Powerful Than CO2 Being Released From Power Grid

Climate Change

Communist China

Power

Billionaire Tesla owner Elon Musk accused Reuters of lying after the outlet <a href="https://finance.yahoo.com/news/exclusive-tesla-scraps-low-cost-150726195.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reported</a> on Friday that Tesla scrapped its plans to make low-cost electric vehicles and will focus on developing robo-taxis.
Reuters, which cited multiple anonymous sources and “company messages,” wrote that Tesla was abandoning its promise to begin producing cheaper EVs as soon as 2025. After the report was published, Tesla’s stock <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-04-05/tesla-plans-to-cancel-low-cost-ev-reuters-report-says?srnd=all" target="_blank" rel="noopener">dropped</a> by as much as 6.2% before it began to make a small climb back toward where it opened on Friday just shy of $170 per share.
“Reuters is lying (again),” Musk said in reply to a post on his social media platform X.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Reuters is lying (again)
&mdash; Elon Musk (@elonmusk) <a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1776272471324606778?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 5, 2024</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Later, Musk reposted a chart showing the decrease in Reuters&#8217; monthly and yearly website traffic.
“Reuters is dying,” the Tesla owner <a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1776275139010904525" target="_blank" rel="noopener">wrote</a>.
Since as far back as 2018, billionaire Tesla owner Elon Musk has <a href="https://www.theverge.com/24054854/tesla-next-generation-vehicle-ev-elon-musk" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a> the company would move into making “a $25,000 car,” which has been called the Model 2. In January, the billionaire entrepreneur added that his company was “very far along” in making an affordable car, Bloomberg <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-04-05/tesla-plans-to-cancel-low-cost-ev-reuters-report-says?srnd=all" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reported</a>. Currently, Tesla’s cheapest vehicle, the Model 3, retails for nearly $40,000 in the U.S. while other EVs in its lineup can cost up to $150,000.
Reuters wrote that “Two sources said they learned of Tesla&#8217;s decision to scrap the Model 2 in a meeting attended by scores of employees, with one of them saying the gathering happened in late February.”
“Elon’s directive is to go all in on robotaxi,” one person said, according to the outlet.
<a href="https://onelink.to/dwapp" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" aria-describedby="sk-tooltip-9096" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://onelink.to/dwapp&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1700760801843000&amp;usg=AOvVaw2PQrVSrJfhxNb4LcARqniG">CLICK HERE TO GET THE DAILYWIRE+ APP</a>
Other car companies, such as <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/ford-delays-production-of-new-electric-vehicles-by-years-as-consumers-sour-on-evs" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Ford</a> and <a href="https://www.wsj.com/business/autos/general-motors-gm-q3-earnings-report-2023-5064f4c2" target="_blank" rel="noopener">GM</a>, have recently <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/ford-to-slash-planned-production-of-its-all-electric-f-150-in-half-citing-changing-market-demand" target="_blank" rel="noopener">scaled back</a> or delayed their plans to produce more EVs as consumer demand has failed to meet expectations while the Biden administration <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/watch-buttigieg-mocks-people-who-dont-want-electric-vehicles" target="_blank" rel="noopener">continues to push</a> Americans to move away from gas-powered cars.
After the Reuters report, Musk also responded with the eyes emoji — often used to draw attention to something — under a post that laid out a potential explanation for the story.
“Elon just said Reuters was lying. However, here is my general thinking. Tesla&#8217;s low-cost $25k car and the Robotaxi were always going to be based on the same platform. They were going to be very similar, but the $25k version was going to have a steering wheel,” wrote Sawyer Merritt, a co-founder of an apparel company.
“Maybe Elon and the team have been so impressed with how good FSD 12 has performed and were maybe thinking they should be shifting even more resources to the Robotaxi/FSD effort,” Merritt added. “This doesn&#8217;t mean the $25k car is canceled. Again, they share the same platform.”
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
👀
&mdash; Elon Musk (@elonmusk) <a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1776278140333281332?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 5, 2024</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

‘Reuters Is Lying’: Musk Hits Back At Report Claiming Tesla Is Canceling Plans To Make Low-Cost EVs

'Reuters Is Lying': Musk Hits Back At Report Claiming Tesla Is Canceling Plans To Make Low-Cost EVs

Reuters

U.S.

Transportation Secretary <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/pete-buttigieg" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Pete Buttigieg</a> mocked Americans this week who do not wish to purchase electric vehicles, comparing them to people who thought in the 2000s that there would only be landline phones.
Buttigieg made the remarks during a Tuesday Fox News interview on &#8220;America&#8217;s Newsroom&#8221; when asked about the struggling electric vehicle market.
&#8220;Tesla sales fell 8.5% the first quarter of this year,&#8221; said co-host John Roberts. &#8220;Ford this week is laying off two thirds of its workforce at the F-150 electric lightning plant. It&#8217;s also scaling back a battery production facility because of sagging sales.&#8221;
&#8220;EV sales are nowhere near what this president wanted or expected, yet the administration continues to shove them down consumers throats,&#8221; he continued. &#8220;Why?&#8221;
Buttigieg claimed that it was &#8220;clear&#8221; that consumers want to purchase EVs as he proceeded to dismiss Tesla&#8217;s slowing numbers.
&#8220;Let&#8217;s be clear that the automotive sector is moving toward EVs, and we can&#8217;t pretend otherwise,&#8221; he claimed. &#8220;Sometimes when these debates happen, I feel like it&#8217;s the early 2000s and I&#8217;m talking to some people who think that we can just have landline phones forever.&#8221;
<a href="https://onelink.to/dwapp" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" aria-describedby="sk-tooltip-9096" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://onelink.to/dwapp&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1700760801843000&amp;usg=AOvVaw2PQrVSrJfhxNb4LcARqniG">CLICK HERE TO GET THE DAILYWIRE+ APP</a>
WATCH:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
WATCH: Pete Buttigieg mocks Americans who don&#39;t want to be forced into buying electric vehicles:
&quot;I feel like it&#39;s the early 2000s and I&#39;m talking to some people who think that we can just have landline phones forever.&quot; <a href="https://t.co/Pz28FEmfVQ">pic.twitter.com/Pz28FEmfVQ</a>
&mdash; Steve Guest (@SteveGuest) <a href="https://twitter.com/SteveGuest/status/1775288540382847396?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 2, 2024</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Republican strategist Matt Whitlock responded to the segment by noting the flaw in Buttigieg&#8217;s argument.
&#8220;This is the problem &#8211; Democrats think EV&#8217;s are to gas-powered cars what cell phones were to landlines,&#8221; Whitlock posted on X. &#8220;In reality, EV&#8217;s are to gas powered cars what Fyre Fest was to music festivals. Sounded cool, had potential, but was built on false promises and artificial market forces.&#8221;
Political commentator Noam Blum posted: &#8220;Ok but you actually had reasons why cellphones were better than landlines. What’s your argument in favor of EVs other than &#8216;they’re newer&#8217;?&#8221;
&#8220;Having a landline costs a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of what an electric vehicle costs on average,&#8221; said Fox News contributor Joe Concha.
&#8220;Otherwise, great analogy from the smartest guy in the administration,&#8221; Concha mocked.

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg Holds News Conference To Discuss Impacts Of A Government Shutdown

WATCH: Buttigieg Mocks People Who Don’t Want Electric Vehicles

Oakland, California

Biden Plans To Destroy What’s Left Of The Economy With Ban On Gas Powered Vehicles

Biden Plans To Destroy What's Left Of The Economy With Ban On Gas Powered Vehicles

California

Gavin Newsom

Opinion

Readers Pass

The Biden administration will likely complete regulations this week designed to punish gas-powered vehicles and pave the way for electric vehicles, whose average cost is roughly more than twice as expensive as average subcompact car.
In its <a href="https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2023-05-05/pdf/2023-07974.pdf">proposed rules</a> published in May 2023, the Environmental Protection Agency wrote that it wanted to target vehicles that would phase-in over model years 2027 through 2032, stating, “EPA finds it appropriate to set new standards for model years after 2026 for both criteria pollutants and GHG at this time, rather than continuing its prior approach of coordinating the standards but setting them in separate regulatory actions.
“It certainly won&#8217;t do anything to improve human health. It won&#8217;t do anything to reduce pollution,” American Energy Institute president and CEO Jason Isaac, <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/biden-admin-finalize-major-gas-car-crackdown-warnings-from-automakers-energy-industry?intcmp=tw_fnc">told</a> Fox News Digital. “We&#8217;ve proven in this country that we&#8217;re already a world leader in clean air. All it&#8217;s going to continue to do is push the costs of electric vehicles on to purchasers of internal combustion engine vehicles. This is purely being done for campaign reasons — to really appease the leftist large donor base that are the climate alarmists that are driving this movement towards really what is a forced energy transition, which is just increasing the cost of everything.”
“President Biden has been clear since 2020 that he intends to use his federal agencies, and the State of California, to eliminate sales of new gas cars,” American Fuel &amp; Petrochemical Manufacturers president and CEO Chet Thompson added. “While multiple administration policies push us toward this end, the EPA&#8217;s passenger vehicle standards will do most of the damage on their own — requiring approximately 70% of new car sales to be electric in less than eight years. This policy is bad for consumers, the economy and national security. It will sacrifice our hard-won U.S. energy strength for even greater dependence on China and the EV battery and mineral supply chain China controls.”
“In 2022, California finalized the Advanced Clean Cars II rule that will require, by 2035, all new light-duty vehicles sold in the state to be zero-emission vehicles, with New York, Massachusetts, and Washington state following suit, likely to be followed by Oregon and Vermont as well,” the EPA wrote. “Several other states may adopt similar provisions as members of the International Zero-Emission Vehicle Alliance.”
“For light-duty vehicles, EPA is proposing standards that would increase in stringency each year over a six-year period, from MYs 2027–2032,” the EPA stated. “The proposed standards are projected to result in an industry-wide average target for the light-duty fleet of 82 grams/mile (g/mile) of CO2 in MY 2032, representing a 56 percent reduction in projected fleet average GHG emissions target levels from the existing MY 2026 standards.”
“EPA is proposing more stringent emissions standards for criteria pollutants for both light-duty and medium-duty vehicles for MYs 2027– 2032,” the agency wrote, adding:
<blockquote>
For light-duty vehicles, EPA is proposing non-methane organic gases (NMOG) plus nitrogen oxides (NOX) standards that would phase-down to a fleet average level of 12 mg/mi by MY 2032, representing a 60 percent reduction from the existing 30 mg/mi standards for MY 2025 established in the Tier 3 rule in 2014. For medium- duty vehicles, EPA is proposing NMOG+NOX standards that would require a fleet average level of 60 mg/ mi by MY 2032, representing a 66 percent to 76 percent reduction from the Tier 3 standards of 178 mg/mi for Class 2b vehicles and 247 mg/mi for Class 3 vehicles. EPA is proposing cold temperature (¥7 °C) NMOG+NOX standards for light- and medium-duty vehicles to ensure robust emissions control over a broad range of operating conditions. For both light-duty and all medium- duty vehicles, EPA is proposing a particulate matter (PM) standard of 0.5 mg/mi and a requirement that the standard be met across three test cycles, including a cold temperature (¥7 °C) test.
</blockquote>

President Joe Biden

Biden Administration Set To Complete Regulations Targeting Gas-Powered Vehicles

Oil and Gas

Transportation

President Joe Biden is reportedly preparing to ease its push to force electric vehicles onto American consumers as <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hertz-dumping-tens-of-thousands-of-electric-vehicles-replacing-them-with-gas-vehicles">consumer demand for the vehicles remains low</a>, dealerships have <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/3700-u-s-auto-dealers-push-biden-to-scrap-unrealistic-ev-mandate-low-demand-even-with-incentives">expressed serious concerns</a>, and automakers have had to <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/ford-cuts-production-of-electric-truck-they-touted-as-the-future-hiring-hundreds-to-build-more-gas-vehicles">cut production and revamp production of gas vehicles</a>.
The New York Times <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/17/climate/biden-epa-auto-emissions.html?smtyp=cur&amp;smid=tw-nytimes">reported</a> that the move was a &#8220;concession to automakers and labor unions&#8221; from the administration as it was forcing &#8220;limits on tailpipe emissions&#8221; to force Americans to switch from gas-powered cars to more expensive electric vehicles — which often have performance issues in adverse weather conditions. The serious lack of charging stations, and the time it takes to recharge electric vehicles, are among other top complaints from consumers.
&#8220;Instead of essentially requiring automakers to rapidly ramp up sales of electric vehicles over the next few years, the administration would give car manufacturers more time, with a sharp increase in sales not required until after 2030,&#8221; the report said, noting that the change will likely be officially rolled out in the next few months.
Former President Donald Trump has slammed Biden&#8217;s &#8220;ridiculous all Electric Car Hoax,&#8221; saying that communists in the Biden administration were the ones who were behind Biden&#8217;s green agenda. &#8220;Within 3 years, all of these cars will be made in China,&#8221; Trump added
In a separate post, Trump said that Michigan would lose the auto industry if Biden&#8217;s &#8220;crazed concept of ‘all Electric Cars’ goes into effect.&#8221;
Trump said that if Biden&#8217;s mandate continues to that the auto industry in the U.S. will &#8220;cease to exist&#8221; with China taking over all manufacturing of electric vehicles.
“Vote for TRUMP, and I will stop this Madness, IMMEDIATELY!” he said. “Mexico &amp; Canada LOVE Biden’s idiotic policy. SAVE MICHIGAN and the other Auto States. SAVE THE AMERICAN CONSUMER!!!”
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/ford-cuts-production-of-electric-truck-they-touted-as-the-future-hiring-hundreds-to-build-more-gas-vehicles">Ford Cuts Production Of Electric Truck They Touted As The Future; Hiring Hundreds To Build More Gas Vehicles</a>

New Cars Showcased At L.A. Auto Show

Biden Admin Backing Away From Aggressive Push For Electric Vehicles As Consumer Demand Remains Low

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