Looks like ‘some’ of the car dealers are wising up to the EV boondoggle…
Ford has admitted that around 1,550 dealerships – representing half the Ford dealers in the country – have decided not to sell any electric vehicles in 2024.
Unlike Buick dealers who were told to sells EVs or die, with almost half choosing to go out of business, Ford dealers who have chosen not to invest in the infrastructure needed to sell and service EVs such as the Ford Mustang Mach-E will continue to sell ICE and hybrid vehicles.
“EV adoption rates vary across the country and we believe our dealers know their market best,” Ford spokesman Marty Gunsberg told the Detroit Free Press. “As Ford dealers have completed their own local market assessments, enrollments for 2024 are just over 50% of the network, placing 86% of the population within 20 miles of a Ford dealership that can sell and service a Ford EV.”
Full article, HERE from CarBuzz h/t to Stretch for the link!
I think the ‘reality’ of the EV debacle is percolating through the public as more and more reports get out there of the problems with charging EVs, the lack of infrastructure, and the costs of replacement batteries, among other things.
I really don’t see .gov going totally to EVs, even if it is being mandated, simply because there aren’t enough EVs to fulfill those orders! And I don’t seen the rural portions of .gov wanting one, since they might have to travel 3-400 miles a day in their jobs, which exceeds the range of any EVs build today.
Also, with winter coming on, the ranges are going to be even shorter with the battery having to be used for heating the EV’s interior since there isn’t any residual heat from the IC engines to be used. Huh…somebody did that- HERE. 18-42% less range… Wow!
Anyhoo, not getting one over here…
YMMV, etc. etc.
Hey Old NFO;
Hey anybody that uses electric golf carts could told them that, when it get cold, the electric golf carts don’t want to work and Xiden pushing mandates for EV not withstanding, people ain’t gonna get stuck for the opportunities to get stuck on the side of the road just to virtue signal.
Currently, it makes no sense to purchase a EV vehicle with so many unsolved issues present. No EV for me either.
Moving on …
Reducing people’s range of travel is a feature not a bug.
Does anyone remember the natural gas vehicles that were going to take over the gasoline/diesel powered vehicles, cars, trucks, busses,… I see a few NG busses and trucks/USPS vehicles but nothing in the private ownership arena. In 10 years this will be the EVs.
NatGas vehicles make sense. Burn clean, less ’emissions’ for those that get freaked out by them, less damage to the engine overall.
Heck of a lot better for the ‘environment’ and for the engines than Ethanol mixed gasoline.
But any electric vehicle/hybrid vehicle? Yeah, great until they aren’t.
Natural gas for pickups was popular in the north half of BC when I worked there many years ago. A lot were dual fuel, gasoline/NatGas…..as in the cold temps of winter such as -20c – -40c natural Gas would not start the vehicle so it would be started on reg gas then when warm switched to NatGas. Pros and cons but the weight factor present in hybrids etc was also present in the NatGas equipment. Plus some provinces did not charge a road tax or NatGas so it was much cheaper per mile even though it was less efficient.
Hype train is over and the word is finally getting out in the general populace about all the problems that come with this technology. See this article from December 19:
https://insideevs.com/reviews/701169/2024-blazer-ev-stranded-broken/
I live in Western PA outside of Pittsburgh, about 35 miles. No EV for me. If we get a normal cold January and February any trip into and back from the city would be a cold ride. If the battery could take the cold.
Describing the aviation electrification as a mistake may not be correct, in that mistake is not the word for deliberate malice.
I think there are some uses for electric vehicles.
Small RC vehicles for one.
The amount of energy used is proportional to the extent that efficiency matters, and to the switch to coal powered making no sense, even according to the the pretenses of the left environmentalists.
Sabotage and willful destruction, I think. The people enthusing for this were warned.
The alternative explanation to evil is that these people are so unthinking, so obstinate in refusing to listen to those engineers that happen to be conservative, that leaving them wandering the streets is a bit questionable. (At which point reasonable men have to wonder if appealing to the cult of the expert on behalf of certain engineers is perhaps a hypocritical mistake on my part.)
I’ve read two glowing (pun intended) articles in aviation magazines about EV private aircraft, one strictly for local (at airport) training, the other for longer flights. The training plane takes three hours to recharge in warm weather. Neither article addressed in-flight safety, crash-worthiness, or charging in cold weather. Many training planes fly back-to-back missions. The EV plane can’t. So the flight school has to have more of the planes, meaning more chargers, more electricity to pay for, more fire risk …
No, thank you. A hybrid perhaps, but not an EV.
In 2019 i bought a new Honda Passport and in the following 4 years it was a non stop visitor at the service dept and things were not getting fixed. Electrically it was bad news and after replacing the entire wiring harness it was still unreliable. Last April it was in the shop for a few more days and the dealer loaned me a hybrid Camry. I was blown away but the Toyota technology. Feeling that the Honda was not reliable to even take out of the city I decided to get rid of it and take the $$ hit. It had just over 30k miles on it then.
I started researching hybrids. Had zero interest in a electric only vehicle but a plug in hybrid was interesting in case our china loving idiot in charge, Trudeau, one day decided to restrict gasoline availability. Also, Manitoba is to electricity what TX might be to oil and rates are very good here and will quite possibly stay that way. Fingers & testicals crossed.
Anyway, last April no PHEV were available so I looked at a hybrid. Also re-evaluated what I really needed for a vehicle. No Toyotas available so I went to Lexus looking to get a 450h. I’d written other manufacturers off. Again, nothing available but they had one ux250h in a dark green that turned my crank. Thought it was too small initially but reviews over its 4 year history were excellent so I bought.
Impressed beyond measure with it based on 8 months. Your mileage may vary of course. I still wouldn’t touch a pure EV but the advantage of two fuel source types for a phev attracted me then and still does. That said not any buyers remorse for going down the Lexus hybrid road.
One final note: All hybrids are not created equal and research needs to be done. For example the Honda hybrid is more complicated and does not get the mileage of a Toyota hybrid. CVTs are not created equal and deserve research. They are not all like a snowmobile these days. As someone who before had zero time for a cvt I am fine with mine and really like the instant torque off the line.
As to gov’t pushing us toward pure EV vehicles well I simply wish they’d go find a quiet place and go have solo sex.
As long as you remember to charge/fuel it. I watched a YouTuber lament the problems he had in the big Texas winter power outages a few years back, because he forgot to charge before the storm hit, and hadn’t refueled in a while because he was just doing local driving on the battery.
Mine is a straight hybrid with no requirement for external charging. Totally self contained. The battery assists the engine. Be easy on the throttle and the gas engine kicks in at about 15-20 mph on a level surface. Slowing coasting down the regenerative brakes recharge the 1.4kw hybrid battery ( separate from the car 12v battery). Brakes can last twice as long as brakes in a gas powered only car.starting is almost non detectable and as the starter and gen/alternator are part of the hybrid system they usually last very well. Hybride parts are warranteed by Lexus for 8 years/100000 miles and the hybrid battery for 10 years/150000 miles.
You know, years of Hybrids and failures of their battery packs and the expensive replacements thereof couldn’t have any foretelling of issues with actual battery-only vehicles. No….
Issues of excessive weight, limited EV-only range, internal cabin heating, firefighting issues, charging issues on plug-in options and so much more.
All the issues that EV only have are/were issues that Hybrids have.
Nobody could have seen this coming, right?
All excellent points! Emily, I hadn’t thought about that, but it makes sense…sadly. David, I understand your choice, but I wonder how much extra weight you’re hauling around.
Good question. Being a very small car the battery required is only 1.4kw so comparatively speaking it can’t be all that heavy but I admot i don’t have a igure. That said even with its all wheel drive it allegedly weighs 3600#. With that weight in the real world in town it achieves better than 40mpg (US). As a retired pilot of 40 years worth and having the privilege in the late 1970s of running a helicopter out of fuel* with a lying fuel gauge I am pretty anal about tracking my car stats. Highway it burns 5+% more.
* I’d just relieved another guy who didn’t put snags in the book and neglected to tell me the gauge read 20 US Gallons high. When you’re by yourself and with no fuel it autorotates like a dream. No damage, a lucky day. He bought a lot of beer down the road.
Reality is irrelevant to the criminals in power. ICE technology and infrastructure is marked for death. Therefore it will die. The goal was never to replace it with EVs. The goal was and is to completely end private vehicle ownership and make us totally dependant on public transportation. We won’t pose much of a threat to their hold on power if we can’t travel without their permission.
EVs are fine as a second car for errands around town. Or at least they would be fine for that if they were cheap enough, as it is a 2nd or 4th hand beater car works just as well for that usecase and costs 10% of the EV. Even if charging the EV is cheaper than refueling the beater, which it probably is, you need a LOT of miles (as in 100,000 or more) for the total cost of the EV to approach that of the beater and the errands around town usecase sees the vehicle do maybe 1000 miles / month max. So that’s 100 months. Or 8 years and change. Minimum.
And that ignores all the issues of battery fires and how you restart a snowed in EV (hint a jerry can of fuel is not the answer).
A recent article stated that the actual cost to charge an EV is calculated to be approx $17/equivalent gal of gas.
I would expect that, as the number of EVs increases, without an increase in the electrical infrastructure (that is not really being planned or budgeted for) the cost will continue to escalate for everyone.
Dave- Wow!!! Much better than the ‘option’ there!
Dan- TRue.
Francis- Not for us, since ‘town’ is a 20 mile round trip. And I can pick up a LOT of used cars/trucks for a lot less than a used EV.
So? How many people in the Dept. of Transportation, heck, the entire administration can explain E=IR?
Much less P=IE, or how voltage varies with temperature.