Ford scales down EV battery plant in Marshall

Ford Motor Co. will restart construction on the electric vehicle battery plant it halted in Marshall two months ago, but it will be substantially smaller than originally planned, the automaker said Tuesday.

The project is now expected to create 1,700 jobs, a 32% reduction from the 2,500 announced previously. Planned capacity of the lithium iron phosphate battery plant is being slashed by more than 40% to just 20 gigawatt hours. Total investment in the plant will likely be reduced by the same measure — from $3.5 billion to roughly $2.2 billion – said Mark Truby, chief communications officer for Ford.

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Production of the LFP batteries, which the Dearborn-based automaker is manufacturing by licensing technology from Chinese giant CATL, is still anticipated to begin in 2026.“We’ve been studying this project for the past couple of months, and I think we’re all aware that EV adoption is growing, and we expect that to continue actually, but it’s not growing at the pace that I think ourselves and the industry had expected,” Truby said on a call with reporters.

The announcement comes on the heels of the United Auto Workers ratifying its contract with Ford, saddling the company with higher labor costs as it navigates the pricey transition to EVs. Ford said a month ago that it would delay construction on one of its mammoth battery plants in Kentucky as it reconsiders $12 billion in EV-related capital expenditures and looks to drive down costs generally throughout the business.

Local and state officials had expressed confidence that the project would move forward after the company emerged from a six-week strike, but Ford let on that there could be more at play than the UAW dispute. The battery plant's ties to CATL have raised not only political controversy but also questions of whether it would be eligible for lucrative federal tax credits. Truby pointed to demand as the primary factor in its decision to downsize the Marshall project. He said Ford can handle the higher wage structure should the UAW successfully organize the plant and bring it under the master agreement, and that the company expects to benefit from IRA tax credits despite political opposition to CATL’s involvement.

“We want to be really disciplined about how we allocate capital and think about matching production and future capacity based on demand,” he said, adding that the plant could eventually increase in size if demand grows.

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https://www.crainsdetroit.com/automo...attery-factory

Judging how quickly a product moves from early adopters to growth to maturity is difficult with any new product let alone something as complicated and expensive as ev's. It's clear the growth curve will be pretty flat until prices come down. The manufacturers seem to be shooting themselves in the foot for short term gain. They are building big, expensive suv's and trucks for the ev market because they're more profitable but the higher prices for ev's in general mean they would probably grow sales a lot faster focusing on entry level vehicles. The price would be a lot less and the smaller batteries would provide far more range. Then people could trade up as prices come down with improvement in technology and volume. Toyota seems to have the right idea focusing on hybrids for a transition period which could be 10 years or more.

^^^^^ That!

I found out this week that Tesla’s base models X and S have the same battery as the higher priced ones. But wait, the range and speed are lowered by a software tweak. So much for green power, ecological benefits, etc, etc…

Kinda happy Elon’s big rocket blew up in his face, again.

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Originally Posted by canuck

I found out this week that Tesla’s base models X and S have the same battery as the higher priced ones. But wait, the range and speed are lowered by a software tweak.

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Where did you learn that? According to their web site, the standard S and X have are slower but have slightly longer range than the Plaid models, as the latter have a third motor resulting in faster acceleration but lower range due to the extra weight. The 3 is available with different battery packs.

I read it in my local paper.

There is also the claims about miles per charge that don’t exceed 80 percent of the EPA standards tests.

I said it in the thread about GM stock being unloaded by Buffet, and I'll say it again... Automakers jumping past mass manufacturing of plug-in Hybrid vehicles to jump right to EV is a mistake. You need to ween people into something like EV's especially when one political party has basically made owning one a no-go for membership...

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Originally Posted by K-slice

I said it in the thread about GM stock being unloaded by Buffet, and I'll say it again... Automakers jumping past mass manufacturing of plug-in Hybrid vehicles to jump right to EV is a mistake. You need to ween people into something like EV's especially when one political party has basically made owning one a no-go for membership...

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EV's are expensive, bad for the environment, and impractical.

The pro-EV ideologues "presume" that 80% of owners will charge at home, but that only works for rich early adopters who own homes with large garages that they've installed Level 2 charges in. What happens when people who live in apartments buy them?

A video I saw last night of a cue lining up to charge their cars in CA. Was at 11 pm, and the line was hours long to get to a charger. No thanks.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jhO0LLAjwps

EV's will never be practical for most people. Hybrids are already here, and work great. They also offer around 37 x the carbon reduction that EV's do.

Attachment 42922

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Originally Posted by canuck

I read it in my local paper.

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So your local paper says that Tesla increases range and speed from the base and Plaid models, but Tesla says that range decreases while speed increases [[mainly due to the third motor.)

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There is also the claims about miles per charge that don’t exceed 80 percent of the EPA standards tests.

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I don't know what that sentence means, but your local paper seems to be getting basic facts wrong.

In any case, I have a PEV whose EV range varies by at least 20% based on temperature, how fast you're driving, how fast you accelerate, and a half dozen other factors.

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Originally Posted by Rocket

EV's are expensive, bad for the environment, and impractical.

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that is an opinion, not a fact...

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Originally Posted by Rocket

The pro-EV ideologues "presume" that 80% of owners will charge at home, but that only works for rich early adopters who own homes with large garages that they've installed Level 2 charges in. What happens when people who live in apartments buy them?

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I don't disagree with your opinion here. I myself have an EV, and yep I dropped about $2k to have a level-2 charger installed. Just a point of reference, a "full tank" of electrons [[Chevy EUV) gets me about 240 miles of range, and it costs me about $6-8 worth of electrons to "refill" that "tank" full of electrons. Depending upon how DTE chooses to generate those electrons [[coal-fired plant? natural gas? wind? solar?), the total lifecycle cost of that "tank full of electrons" is different. The cost of extracting petroleum, refining it to gasoline, transporting it to the gas station, etc., that cost is also wildly variable.
so, yes, I agree with your opinion that an EV has more environmental cost/impact than merely not burning fossil fuels while I drive around and deplete my "tank" of things that cause my car to be propelled across the pavement.

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Originally Posted by Rocket

A video I saw last night of a cue lining up to charge their cars in CA. Was at 11 pm, and the line was hours long to get to a charger. No thanks.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jhO0LLAjwps

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completely agree that the current infrastructure doesn't currently support widespread EV adoption...

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Originally Posted by Rocket

EV's will never be practical for most people. Hybrids are already here, and work great. They also offer around 37 x the carbon reduction that EV's do.

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"never" is a really long time from now. I am just gonna suggest that folks probably thought that the internal combustion engine would "never" support any reliable wide-spread modes of transit either, especially given horses. But having a horse and carriage presumed a level of land ownership that poor city folks didn't have available to them, either. So having to stand around waiting for an EV charger to become available, versus having to stand around waiting for a rented horse to be fed and rested... probably equally insurmountable for poor folks.

And just point of reference, I chose my Chevy EUV over [[for example) a hybrid because my Subaru Forester got totaled and I needed something else, and I used my collision misfortune as an opportunity to see whether it now made less bad economic sense for me to switch to something other than an internal combustion engine [[ICE in industry-speak). If I had gone hybrid, I'd still need to do all of that normal ICE maintenance [[spark plugs, oil changes, sensors, filters). Which then greatly alters the break-even cost calculations.

I completely acknowledge that my ability to choose EV over ICE was borne of my privilege. Won't and can't argue with you on that. Just as choosing a new or relatively new ICE over a much older ICE is also borne of privilege. Or, frankly, using public transit which I actually did for five months solid while my aforementioned Subaru sat at the collision shop while my insurance company twiddled their fingers over fix-versus-total. Using public transit involved me rearranging my whole daily flow, kind of like the different sort of rearranging I've found myself doing with my EV.

^ also, point of reference...
regarding public transit? If we had reliable public transit, I would have not bought a replacement car at all.
As I mentioned, I was more or less forced onto public transit for five months while my Subaru sat at the collision shop. I do not live in the city. In fact, I live out where it is certifiably called the boonies.
Luckily for me, there is a quasi-public transit agency out here that provides subsidized transit options for "seniors", "disabled" and "low income" folks. The service only runs M-F, 7am-5pm. And it has a limited range/radius. And you need to book the trip at least two working days in advance, because there aren't any fixed route "bus stops" but rather it's more like scheduling a private taxi that just so happens to be a short bus.
If I needed to go from my house to Royal Oak Beaumont hospital for a doctor visit? I'd have needed to lean on family or friends, or book an Uber for about $40 each way. Still cheaper than a car loan, plus car insurance, plus maintenance costs for which those are quite variable and harder to predict versus the loan which is the same dollar amount and the insurance which similarly is the same dollar amount each month.
If WOTA/NOTA/People's Express ran at night and on the weekends, and if they ran all the way to Farmington for my soccer and to Dearborn and Troy for my hockey? I'd have never bought another car. I could have easily gotten very good at planning my grocery store trips to coincide with transit availability. The same with doctor and dentist visits. Going to the library. You name it.

Once you figure in the loan, the insurance, the fuel and the wear-and-tear maintenance, us suburban Detroiters easily spend $500/month for the privilege of having our own private car sitting in our driveway. A car that actually gets driven/used probably about one hour out of any given typical 24-hour span of time. Ridiculously inefficient, if you think of it that way.

Like I said in the opening to this post, if it was possible, I wouldn't have bought a replacement car at all. I'd be using public transportation.

Det. News has a paywall article that GM intends to increase their hybrid offerings. Also, an article today that dealerships are pressing the Fed. gov't to reduce EV mandates. Plug-ins apparently receive half a credit and regular hybrids nothing. The Federal gov't should up the credits on both.

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Originally Posted by SHAARI

"never" is a really long time from now. I am just gonna suggest that folks probably thought that the internal combustion engine would "never" support any reliable wide-spread modes of transit either, If I had gone hybrid, I'd still need to do all of that normal ICE maintenance [[spark plugs, oil changes, sensors, filters). Which then greatly alters the break-even cost calculations.

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Although it should be mentioned that my current ICE vehicle has over 100k on the clock, and I have never changed any sensors, and it still has it's original spark-plugs installed. And I do oil changes and filters myself. The only maintenance has been tires, brakes, shocks recently, and a leak fixed in the A/C. All of those except the brakes are identical issues for EV's.

One cost people seem to leave out of EV ownership is time spent at charging stations. I fill my car in 6 minutes every 9 days roughly. To do the same 500 miles would take 2 charges would take 2 hours at a fast charger. Does one count that time siting at a fast charger into account? Let's say you make $40 an hour. Does one ad that $1,600. into their annual costs?


One other thing to consider is that insurance may soon get VERY expensive for EV's. In Europe the costs are going up 3-4 x. A tesla that was $1,800 per year to insure 2 years ago is often $5,000 - $6,000 now in places. And many insurance companies are starting to decline to even quote EV's.

This is for a few reasons. One is repair costs after a minor accident. There isn't any way to know for sure if one of those little battery cells got damaged slightly in a fender bender. And if it did, that may lead to a run away fire that burns like a road-flare at 2,500F. And this could happen days, weeks or even months later. That's a disaster for an insurance company trying to decide if a car can safely be returned to service. If they're wrong, they could be liable for the car, the house / apartment building, and even the people that die in those buildings.

Repair shops / storage yards are also having to build much larger storage yards, ones where damaged EV's can be parked 30' away from any other car, instead of 3'. This quadruples the storage costs after an accident.

Many high-rise buildings are starting to ban EV's from using the underground parking.

It will be a few years yet before we begin to have a true sense of the costs of owning an EV will be. England is starting to find out as we speak.

In a year or two, will one's homeowners insurance be void if they park an EV in the garage and the car catches fire?

These are just some of the unknowns being worked out currently.

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Originally Posted by SHAARI

completely agree that the current infrastructure doesn't currently support widespread EV adoption...

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One problem is,. there's really no way to do the infrastructure. It's not JUST about building 6 million new charging stations, OR installing hundreds of billions of dollars worth of power lines, OR installing hundreds of billions worth of transformers to power each of the charging sites, OR building 15,000 power plants to generate the electricity. The bigger issue is that unlike gas/diesel, electricity needs to be consumed at the exact same instant as it's generated. And if 1/3 of the drivers in the nation decide to plug into a fast charger on the way to work, or at 6 pm tonight, no grid yet imagined can handle that sort of swing in load. Hydro can't do it, nor can nuclear, nor solar, nor wind. What we're talking about is building 15,000 - 30,000 natural gas fired power plants. And what will that do to home heating costs? If we double the consumption of nat gas, how long until we run out? We really need to use the various fuel sources evenly, and not just switch from one to another.

The challenge is 100x more complicated than most EV proponents understand. Yes in the early 1900's we didn't know how much oil we would be able to find in the ground to power ICE cars, but we've been working on this battery / power plant thing for 100+ years now. The challenges are well known by the industry.

As such, most car companies are starting to scale back their plans.

The reality is, an EV has no advantage on the freeway over an ICE car. A disadvantage really. The big advantage for EV's occurs in city driving. Start, stop, slow, and making use of regen braking. But all that can be accomplished with MUCH smaller battery packs in a hybrid. Get to about 10KWH, and the pack is big enough to take the charge from regen braking, and also to supplement acceleration, so that you can now install a tiny and very efficient ICE engine. Now all those trillions of dollars worth of problems mentioned above just disappear.

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Originally Posted by 401don

Det. News has a paywall article that GM intends to increase their hybrid offerings. Also, an article today that dealerships are pressing the Fed. gov't to reduce EV mandates. Plug-ins apparently receive half a credit and regular hybrids nothing. The Federal gov't should up the credits on both.

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You see it is all based on pandering and election cycles.

Look at the path solar and wind took,it follows the path of incentives world wide,the U.S. has the biggest Green Energy incentives now só world wide The companies are going to follow that,just like with solar,it only takes seconds for it all to come crashing down once the incentives are removed.

We are going into another election cycle,who even wins that can pull the rug out of everything.

I agree,the push should have been with hybrids,because simply trying to reverse an automotive industry that has been ingrained for over a hundred years directly into EVs in a short amount of time will destroy economies.

In the meantime taxpayers are going to be stuck with billions of not more in wasted debt.

Because like everything else,at the end of the day the whole green energy aspect is really about moving large amounts of money in order to stimulate the economy,but using that concept to totally re-write the automotive industry as we know it today with the short goals that they have is a recipe for disaster.

The smart ones are Alberta because they are invoking the sovereignty act when it comes to energy production,at this rate they are probably going to be the only ones left in North America with lights and heating.

Between the two countries,they seem to be the only governmental agency that is approaching this with any sort of common sense.

The amount of debt being acquired by countries during this chase for a goal that everybody already knows is not achievable in that time frame is mind blowing.

They spent hundreds of millions building a massive new solar and battery factory,then they discovered that the region could not produce enough electricity to run it so they idled it.

They knew that the amount of electricity that was needed to run it did not exist,but it did not matter because it was about moving money.

What Americans on the east coast fail to understand is Canada is the one supplying a majority of the electricity needed to power these factories so even more demand is being placed on Canada to supply even more power to even charge all of these EVs.

A country that is looking to remove itself of the very methods used to produce that power in the first place.

Crains is also reporting that the newly opened Next Energy EV battery factory in Van Buren is already laying off 128 people or 1/4 of their staff weeks after opening.

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Originally Posted by Rocket

One cost people seem to leave out of EV ownership is time spent at charging stations. I fill my car in 6 minutes every 9 days roughly. To do the same 500 miles would take 2 charges would take 2 hours at a fast charger. Does one count that time siting at a fast charger into account? Let's say you make $40 an hour. Does one ad that $1,600. into their annual costs?

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I spend zero amount of time sitting waiting to charge. My car charges overnight at home, when the whole house and neighborhood are sleeping anyway

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Originally Posted by SHAARI

I spend zero amount of time sitting waiting to charge. My car charges overnight at home, when the whole house and neighborhood are sleeping anyway

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also, FYI, that video about people waiting in line doesn't say what KIND of charger they were waiting for. Like, for example, a free-to-use DC-fast charger. There are only a few here in the area, mostly at car dealerships, and in that case there is literally a single spot available at any given car dealership.
There are supposedly a pair of free-to-use DC-fast charging stations at the Meijer near Great Lakes Crossing and at the Nissan Tech Center in Farmington Hills.
But otherwise all of the DC-fast charging stations around Detroit require you to pay to use them.
As to level-2 charging stations that are free-to-use, there are quite a few more of them. But honestly, unless the level-2 is at your own home, using someone else's level-2 is pretty pointless because it takes hours to charge, not minutes.
Just point of reference, it takes about 30-60 minutes on a DC-fast charger to get enough of a charge to go 100+ miles. Whereas, on a level-2, 30-60 minutes worth of charge will get me about 10 miles more worth of range. So a free level-2 is basically a limp-home solution.
Again, the infrastructure isn't built out.
There certainly weren't hundreds of thousands of corner gas stations when ICE cars first hit the scene.
so, anyway, back to that YouTube video. I can find all manner of things on the internet to support whatever point-of-view I care to have. Without that supposedly supporting "proof" having any meaningful context.
There's a free level-2 [[not DC-fast) at the cell phone waiting lot off Eureka Rd at DTW. It's enough juice to let you run your heater and listen to the radio while waiting for your arriving passenger to tell you that they've landed and they're at the luggage carosel and can you come get them. But if you didn't have enough of a charge to get back home before getting to the cell lot? Plugging in and waiting for your arriving passenger isn't really going to fill your empty tank. Just like driving up on vapors is your own pre-made problem with an ICE.

forgot to add: the above discussion about DC-fast and level-2 stations that are publicly-accessible *AND* that are completely free to use? Go ahead - give me the address of a petroleum station that lets you pump for free.

I'll wait for free, sure.

If I can't afford, time-wise, to wait for free, then I guess my time dictates that I need to pay for a DC-fast charge while I'm on the road and while I can't go home to my own charger and charge my car overnight.

As to for-pay DC-fast stations, on average, it will cost you $4-15 for that "tank full of electrons" depending upon who runs/owns that station. Just like fueling up with petroleum varies depending on what the gas station wants to charge. The fuel line at Costco for me is always about ten minutes' worth of wait, because the gas at Costco is typically about 0.20/gal cheaper than the local Speedway. Don't even get me started on what Shell charges for petroleum...

All of what I said ^up there^ is based upon my own personal lived real experience. Not just based upon what I have gleaned from reading what someone else wrote on the internet. If your local Costco doesn't have those kind of fill-up waits? Good for you! It could be, however, that there's not really a wait line because your local Costco doesn't have noticably cheaper fuel. The Costcos in Madison Heights and Commerce Twp consistently have lower fuel prices than the Costcos in Ann Arbor and Brighton [[Green Oaks Twp), for example. Still cheaper than the Speedway down the road, sure, but the price differential isn't quite as wait-worthy apparently.

There is no free charging,somebody has to pay for it and maybe at this point in time where an individual charges at home off peak where there are maybe 1 in 5000 driving EVs,when the time comes and the entire neighborhood is plugging in overnight,it will no longer be off peak because of the demand.

For example, based on gas prices in Michigan, where AEG is based, the study says the "direct monetary cost to drive 100 miles in an internal-combustion [[ICE) vehicle is between $8 and $12, and in an EV is between $12 and $15." That sounds alarming, and the results show that in all of their three scenarios, it costs more to refuel using electricity than gasoline.

https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a38043667/study-electric-cars-higher-cost-questions/

Most EV owners are not basing it on true costs,because at this time everything around it is based on subsidies.

I am kinda confused because you are saying level 2 costs between $4-$15 but everywhere else level 2 costs are described as follows

For example, if you owned a Hyundai Ioniq 5 with the long-range 77.4-kWh battery, it would cost $33.28 for a full charge at the $0.48/kWh rate. The per-minute pricing turns out to be a better deal, as the same Ioniq 5, which takes about nine hours to charge fully, would run up a tab of $16.20 at $0.03/minute.

https://www.edmunds.com/electric-car...ctric-car.html

But even charging at home is not free

Depending on your KW rates but in California a Chev Bolt comes in at $28 per night or if you have a Humvee it becomes $57 empty to full.

The charts are in the link.

But once again people are basing it on the few amount of people that currently own EVs in a heavily incentivized bubble but when it becomes mainstream and you have few other options,highly unlikely it’s going to become cheaper.

In the current state,but because of rapid changing technology that makes current EVs pretty much obsolete 5 years after purchase, unlike ICE in the future,it’s not going to be where you can buy an EV and drive it for 10 years,I kinda think they are going to be like everything else,you buy it and drive it for 5 years and then you just throw it away and buy another.

Even with the batteries,a battery built today may be obsolete 6 months from now because of advancing technology,it will not be like with manufacturers in the past where they were able to milk new technology in order to recoup design and tooling costs,the technology 2 years from now may dictate a totally different charging system infrastructure then what is being put in place.

To me it’s like strapping a set of wheels onto an IPhone where by design they can make things obsolete every two years or simply by uploading an update to your car’s systems.

That’s the biggest problem is in spending trillions in a technology based system and forcing manufacturers to leap instead of phasing in.

GM is not going to take a loss so you or I can drive an EV cheaply,we are in theory not only paying for the development as taxpayers but when we purchase an EV the costs are also passed down to the consumer,that’s the hidden costs,not when you plug it in but the extra taxes and increased purchase cost of the vehicle also have to be factored in,this country or no country can afford to permanently subsidize millions of EV owners in the future.

So when the real costs kick in,it’s going to be a totally different picture in the future then today.

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Originally Posted by SHAARI

I spend zero amount of time sitting waiting to charge. My car charges overnight at home, when the whole house and neighborhood are sleeping anyway

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Of course. As mentioned before, the proponents in government like to quote that 80% of users will charge from home. But the reality is, that's just early adopters that own homes, with garages, and that can afford to install $1,500 - $2,000 level-2 chargers.

What happens when people in apartments are forced to buy them?

Fast charge is brutal on the grid. And wastes tons of worker's time sitting in their cars waiting. It's fine when 2% of cars on the road are EV's, but totally impossible to do if 80% were EV's.

Which goes back to the topic of this thread. Dealers and manufacturers are realizing [[like people 'in the know' did 3 years ago) that this is headed to disaster, and so manufacturers are scaling back their battery / EV plans. A few large manufacturers are abandoning EV's all together.

GM stated 3 years ago when the whole 2030 push started that it was not economically feasible to produce EVs unless the government subsidized not only the building of them but the sales of them.

We are a first world country with printing presses that have the ability to spit out free money.

But when you look at the bigger picture and in the entire world,very few countries can afford that and many have walked back those expectations and goals as unrealistic.

[QUOTE=Richard;638625]There is no free charging,somebody has to pay for it and maybe at this point in time where an individual charges at home off peak where there are maybe 1 in 5000 driving EVs,when the time comes and the entire neighborhood is plugging in overnight,it will no longer be off peak because of the demand.[quote]

well, Richard, I can see that you like cutting and pasting stuff from the internet to dispute my own personal lived experiences. If I go to Infineon near Haggerty/Seven Mile, I can charge FREE TO ME using the Level-2 charger that they have available 24/7/365 with no restrictions.
I never said that using electricity was "free" of impact to the whole global planet. Crimeny, pal...

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I am kinda confused because you are saying level 2 costs between $4-$15 but everywhere else level 2 costs are described as follows...

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agree that you are confused, because you're conflating.


If you'd like to continue talking to yourself, feel free. But I am kind of "over" trying to have a civil conversation with someone who chooses to cut paste stuff without having any real life experience about what he appears to be so deeply opinionated about

[QUOTE=SHAARI;638630][QUOTE=Richard;638625]There is no free charging,somebody has to pay for it and maybe at this point in time where an individual charges at home off peak where there are maybe 1 in 5000 driving EVs,when the time comes and the entire neighborhood is plugging in overnight,it will no longer be off peak because of the demand.

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[COLOR=#000000][FONT=Charter]well, Richard, I can see that you like cutting and pasting stuff from the internet to dispute my own personal lived experiences. If I go to Infineon near Haggerty/Seven Mile, I can charge FREE TO ME using the Level-2 charger that they have available 24/7/365 with no restrictions.
I never said that using electricity was "free" of impact to the whole global planet. Crimeny, pal...




agree that you are confused, because you're conflating.


If you'd like to continue talking to yourself, feel free. But I am kind of "over" trying to have a civil conversation with someone who chooses to cut paste stuff without having any real life experience about what he appears to be so deeply opinionated about

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Honestly, just don't read Richard's stuff and you will be a lot happier and also less misinformed. Sounds like you are leaving, which is too bad, but that's certainly one way to avoid it.

[QUOTE=mwilbert;638632][QUOTE=SHAARI;638630]

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Originally Posted by Richard

There is no free charging,somebody has to pay for it and maybe at this point in time where an individual charges at home off peak where there are maybe 1 in 5000 driving EVs,when the time comes and the entire neighborhood is plugging in overnight,it will no longer be off peak because of the demand.

Honestly, just don't read Richard's stuff and you will be a lot happier and also less misinformed. Sounds like you are leaving, which is too bad, but that's certainly one way to avoid it.

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It’s not Richard’s stuff,I posted the links to back up my discussion,so instead of a counter discussion people with a agenda revert to whining about Richard,you can debate the information provided,I did not make it up and I did not create it.

Thats just as bad as claiming that they are not real world numbers,like they just pulled numbers out of the air and published them because they were bored.

They had to come up with those numbers somewhere and considering EVs have been around since the 1820s they have had over 100 years of “real world “ numbers to base it on.

Geee I bought an EV and plugged it in so my personal experience is the law of the land and the only examples to follow .

I presented facts and the discussion reverts to whining about Richard in the absence of the ability to counter those facts,and the problem is Richard,lol

Even worse is basing one’s discussion on “free charging” like all of the infrastructure and electricity just materialized out of thin air,I guess it may be plausible in some peoples minds that an advance civilization just beams all of that stuff millions of miles across space so it just materialized out of thin air.

Its not free charging,you are providing your government food stamp card that was issued with your EV so you personally can charge for free at the taxpayers expense,a simple thank you would suffice.

At this point in time individual ownership and the true cost when an individual purchases an EV is irrelevant and has zero bearing on true costs.

Because the whole process happened due to government incentives and based on the manufactures losing money on each EV built.

If an EV owner actually had to pay true costs of design and production and the infrastructure like the ICE world does,they would not be buying them in the first place because nobody is going to pay $300k for an Chevy Bolt.

Ford was losing $36,000 on every EV sold,GM is losing over $6000 on every Bolt sold ,but it is Richard’s fault .

Back in 2021 Tesla was generating over $350 million a year for selling their emission tax credits to other auto manufacturers.

So the government,the taxpayers, were giving Tesla $350 million a year in order to comply with emission standards while producing EVs that omitted zero emissions.

That gave Tesla the ability to sell those credits to other manufacturers in order to meet their emission standards on EVs that produce no emissions.

Back door subsidies só while individual EV owners can claim they are saving the planet or reducing costs by owning an EV they cannot claim any numbers based on true costs,because you do not even know what those true costs are as a base to begin with .

There is nothing wrong with owning an EV if it works for you,but the argument of it is cheaper to operate then an ICE is a non starter in the first place because most do not even realize the losses that incurred before even they plugged it in that also have to be factored in.

It all becomes irrelevant because China has already dominated the world market when it comes to EVs,thanks to Americans filling their coffers,nobody in the world can compete with them in price or production capabilities.

Pay $10,000 or less for the Chinese equivalent of a Chevy bolt then you can say yea okay,I live in the city and drive less then 10 miles a day this works for me and it is economically feasible. Which it will be.

Right now you can buy a Chinese version for $6000 that gives you 60 miles a day and plugs into a standard 120 volt outlet and charges overnight,90% of the urban population does not drive 60 miles per day.

As it stands the American taxpayers are going trillions of dollars into debt in order to support an industry that is equivalent to being a horse drawn buggy manufacturer in 2023.

It not the EV itself that is the debate,as it has been mentioned before by others,it is the destructive way it is being implemented.

Outside of that point in time the American EV industry was dead the day they first hit the market and instead of giving the U.S. manufacturers the ability to phase into it them and all of those employed by them their fate has already sealed competitively by literally putting the horse before the cart.

What we are going to experience is what happens when the government dictates the free market.

I do not have anything to lose,outside of higher taxes,but the state of Michigan and the people that that are employed in the current automotive industry are the ones that are going to have the rug pulled out from under them,which in turn lowers the amount of revenue that would be flowing into the city and states coffers and the amount of people that will be forced to move to another state to find employment.

It’s kind of hard to understand how a state that is so dependent on the automotive industry for its own existence is so hell bent on destroying the very thing that supports it.

As much as some of you would like to,you cannot blame that on Richard.

Back to Ford's idea of building a giant battery factory in the middle of what was a cornfield as of last year. My guess is Ford waits until late next year sometime and then backs out entirely. This will force the hands of the free spending idjiots in Lansing and they will save face at all costs. That means buying the partially developed land, and then giving it along with some slightly less gargantuan tax subsidies to some other company. Most likely one with zero track record of doing anything on this scale, even loftier promises and no hopes whatsoever of ever fulfilling them.

It’s also the end of the year tax season for corporations,for all we know they may be shutting down to take the write off in order to counter the years profits and will re-visit in the spring.

The real reasoning behind it we may never know.