Get ready Detroit for the General Motors electric Cadillac

[CassTechGrad]

Mary Barra said 40% of the vehicles GM will offer in the United States will be battery electric vehicles by the end of 2025. This is not due to customer demand, it’s saying “weather you want them or not.” What if Little Caesars said that 40% of the pizzas they sell will have mushrooms and that’s how it's gonna be so get over it. What am I missing here? How can you run a business like that!

[401don]

Mary Barra said 40% of the vehicles GM will offer in the United States will be battery electric vehicles by the end of 2025. This is not due to customer demand, it’s saying “weather you want them or not.” What if Little Caesars said that 40% of the pizzas they sell will have mushrooms and that’s how it's gonna be so get over it. What am I missing here? How can you run a business like that!

I don't see it as an issue. All of the automakers are doing the same. It doesn't mean 40% of sales are expected to come from those vehicles for several years. You need to offer a vehicle in every market niche - subcompact, compact, mid, full size, etc., cars/suvs/trucks, even though half your sales come from full size trucks. You can't expect to compete in the electric market if potential buyers can go elsewhere for the size/style they want.

[JonWylie]

What makes you say demand is there, or won't be there in 5 years? Still more than half their vehicles will be ICE, so it doesn't seem like they are forcing anyone to buy electric. An article or a relevant photo would probably be helpful to answer some of these questions.

[Richard]

Setting the stage in order to collect billions in taxpayer money in order to make it look like they are going green.

All it will do is increase import buyers who will always have a choice of not doing what they are forced to do,even more so by a corporation that make those demands.

[DetroiterOnTheWestCoast]

I’m going to stay with my horse and buggy! Trying to force this newfangled auto-mobile down our throats! I can buy hay anywhere. There will never an infrastructure to buy that gasoline stuff when you need it.

[Richard]

When Eisenhower was a young lieutenant,he was in the first military convoy in the United States to travel a non existent highway system coast to coast,after serving in WW2 and admiring Germany’s autobahn system,he felt that was the best system.

So when he became president he established the federal highway act that slammed highways through the center of every city with zero thought of unintended consequences.

So while we are hell bent on saving the planet at any cost,we also need to be paying attention to what that cost really is and the ramifications of,just do it.

The UK just upped their deadline of eliminating all diesel powered vehicles by 2025,it is already 2021 and everybody seems obsessed with that 2025 deadline,anybody figured out yet where the trillions of dollars is coming from,let alone the rare earth materials that China will have a majority control over by then,and will be dictating as to the supply and cost.

Just sidelining trillions of dollars of fossil fuel infrastructure at 40% world wide in the goal of 4 years is going to throw the world into a tizzy,entire countries that are oil dependent on their base revenue will collapse throwing hundreds of millions into poverty.

What happens to GM or any automaker for that matter that takes a 40% loss,at the very least what about the current purchases of $75,000 trucks on 7 year payment plans that by the automakers own design will at that time be obsolete.

If this build it and they will come,if not we will force them to,attitude can very well backfire.

Lets face it,how many electric car companies does one really need anyways?

Cars already look the same no matter who the manufacturer is,bet cha China can produce and export electric cars here at a 1/4 of the cost of a GM or Ford,o wait they already are.

Hell for $1000 you can already mail order a drivable Chinese electric car,order 6,if one breaks just throw it away and assemble another.

Little junk boxes,but they look good and for the urban dwellers,what more do you need to get from point A to B,beats a bicycle.

[Henry Whalley]

... highways through the center of every city with zero thought of unintended consequences.

Not to mention that GM killed off our streetcar system.

[bust]

Have the naysayers ever driven an electric car?
Battery tech has come a long way and will only get better.
AFAIK it's pretty much plug-in technology too, so installing a smaller and more powerful battery shouldn't be an issue as they continue to improve.
The main things impeding widespread adoption [[range, cost, shortage of charging stations, nostalgia) are all falling away.
They perform better than ICE motors already.
With GM [[and many others) betting on it, the future will only happen faster.

Yeah, I know, schmucks, but smart ones: Here's what Deloitte and Boston Consulting Group predicted, before the announcement:

Electric vehicles Setting a course for 2030
https://www2.deloitte.com/us/en/insi...ends-2030.html

Who Will Drive Electric Cars to the Tipping Point?
https://www.bcg.com/publications/202...-tipping-point

[Richard]

Not to mention that GM killed off our streetcar system.

Watch they will use lessons learned from that and do the same thing,they are all about mass production and market share,it’s the only way they survive.

See how it plays out.

Gas goes back up to $5 per gallon or more.

EPA restrictions make any car over 5 years old costly to upgrade,like California did with the “clunker” program.

States will implement strict emission standards on top of the EPA with testing sites.

Those still left driving fossil fuel cars will be taxed a green energy tax that will be more then the value of the car.

The insurance companies will jump on the bandwagon and charge an extra fee for gasoline powered cars.

So sure you will have a choice but not really,even more so those in fixed income or low income who will not be able to buy a $30,000 EC. So they can walk,but on broken roads because the base is fossil fuel.

The most interesting part is GM itself can cut its workforce by 3/4 because they will follow the path of Germany and use the new technology to where it only takes a couple of hundred to run a factory.

No more union,Michigan also looses billions a year because they also supply the rest of the country with replacement parts for all of those cars they are wanting to eliminate.

Just because you can does not mean you should,that was the whole purpose of the bailouts,they were not to save the companies they were to keep people employed.

Now that everything is hunky dory making record profit it is time to take control and workers be damned.

Not to sidestep into politics in this thread but the next four years is going to be the realm of large corporation control,look what is already happening,large corporations are considered essential businesses and the mom n pop are not and the more that happens the more record profit the majors see.

When we look at the trillions of dollars that are going to be pumped into all of this,who is going to pay for it and how,it will not be the large corporations,they will be the ones collecting the grants etc.

If a shoe shop changes the way shoes are made and now needs less employees to make the same amount of shoes,is that better for the country as a whole when you have now created a force of people that with no job cannot afford to buy the product?

I am not buying it that GM says we are going to make 40% of EV cars,they cannot because it is not enough to offset the competition that will jump in,they will have to either eat the losses or get more taxpayer offsets to cover it.

Then it will be not only will people be forced to drive EVs it will be much more expensive to do so,because on the back end they are having to pay more taxes to the manufacturer so they can build them in order to sell them to you.

So you end up paying them to build a car,that they will then sell to you.

[softailrider]

Electric vehicles are fine for a drive back and forth to work or an around town grocery getter. If you want to take any type of a road trip, even from the Detroit area to Traverse City, give me a gasoline car [[or SUV) At this juncture I’m supposed to go hunting around for a charging station while away from my house? And gas is two dollars a gallon anyway? No thanks I’ll pass on that.

[Wheels]

Can anyone explain the “Green” aspect? To charge all these batteries isn’t most of our electricity still generated by coal? Isn’t lithium mining extremely caustic and use an abundance of water? What about the disposal of mass amounts of used batteries? Is this really a better trade off? Also the notion we are going to eliminate coal won’t happen in this century!

[CassTechGrad]

I’m going to stay with my horse and buggy! Trying to force this newfangled auto-mobile down our throats! I can buy hay anywhere. There will never an infrastructure to buy that gasoline stuff when you need it.

You make a good point and I understand what you’re saying but I think in this case what GM is trying to do is keep the buggy but replace the horse with a zebra. And we would have to import the zebras from China and get special feed for the zebra’s and the zebras can’t pull the buggy as far as the horse and the zebras cost more. So that’s why many people don’t want the zebras.

[Richard]

Can anyone explain the “Green” aspect? To charge all these batteries isn’t most of our electricity still generated by coal? Isn’t lithium mining extremely caustic and use an abundance of water? What about the disposal of mass amounts of used batteries? Is this really a better trade off? Also the notion we are going to eliminate coal won’t happen in this century!

Kinda makes one wonder how many of those wanting to save the planet are actually ready to send their 6 year old kids into the mines for the rare earth materials,for a bag of rice ,that is happening now.

[Richard]

You make a good point and I understand what you’re saying but I think in this case what GM is trying to do is keep the buggy but replace the horse with a zebra. And we would have to import the zebras from China and get special feed for the zebra’s and the zebras can’t pull the buggy as far as the horse and the zebras cost more. So that’s why many people don’t want the zebras.

Morocco or India ? A zebra 2 French cars and an American car in the background,the zebra was probably more reliable.

[Jimaz]

That's India.

[mkd]

I’m going to stay with my horse and buggy! Trying to force this newfangled auto-mobile down our throats! I can buy hay anywhere. There will never an infrastructure to buy that gasoline stuff when you need it.

That's not the same. Automobiles were a drastic improvement over horse-and-buggies, for everyone. Many people don't see how an electric car is any better for themselves than a gas car. Thus, if environmental concerns weren't en vogue, electric cars would not be under development [[unless gas prices shot up perhaps).

[ABetterDetroit]

Mary Barra said 40% of the vehicles GM will offer in the United States will be battery electric vehicles by the end of 2025. This is not due to customer demand, it’s saying “weather you want them or not.” What if Little Caesars said that 40% of the pizzas they sell will have mushrooms and that’s how it's gonna be so get over it. What am I missing here? How can you run a business like that!

uhh.... The most valuable car company in the world by a large margin only makes electric cars.

https://companiesmarketcap.com/autom...by-market-cap/

[Zacha341]

I dunno when all is said and done I'll miss the sound and feel of the Northstar combustion engine.

Not that I've driven a caddy often, but it was north-worthy as GM prods. go.

[DetroiterOnTheWestCoast]

Kinda makes one wonder how many of those wanting to save the planet are actually ready to send their 6 year old kids into the mines for the rare earth materials,for a bag of rice ,that is happening now.

Kind of makes one wonder how many of those not caring to save the planet are ready to maintain perpetual military intervention in the Mideast for oil. Oh, wait....

[DetroiterOnTheWestCoast]

Electric vehicles are fine for a drive back and forth to work or an around town grocery getter. If you want to take any type of a road trip, even from the Detroit area to Traverse City, give me a gasoline car [[or SUV) At this juncture I’m supposed to go hunting around for a charging station while away from my house? And gas is two dollars a gallon anyway? No thanks I’ll pass on that.

It’s simply not the case that the charging availability and time won’t be vastly improved rapidly. As well as driving range.

[Wheels]

Kind of makes one wonder how many of those not caring to save the planet are ready to maintain perpetual military intervention in the Mideast for oil. Oh, wait....

Is the left coast really another planet? Do you really think we are still depend on mideast oil?
https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/...nd-exports.php

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[Gistok]

Kinda makes one wonder how many of those wanting to save the planet are actually ready to send their 6 year old kids into the mines for the rare earth materials,for a bag of rice ,that is happening now.

Common Richard... you are slipping up in your old age... you forgot to mention all of those birds that are sacrificing themselves for those wind turbines for clean energy...

And kids have no business being in mines... they should be in cages where they belong!

You should have been a drama coach...

[Wheels]

Common Richard... you are slipping up in your old age... you forgot to mention all of those birds that are sacrificing themselves for those wind turbines for clean energy...

And kids have no business being in mines... they should be in cages where they belong!

You should have been a drama coach...

So don’t bother to mention that like the electric cars that require huge subsidies to exist wind turbines require substantial subsidies and are noisy and dangerous. As far as being green the environmental impact and construction devastation with removing trees does not bode well. We don’t even need to talk about maintenance!

[Richard]

Common Richard... you are slipping up in your old age... you forgot to mention all of those birds that are sacrificing themselves for those wind turbines for clean energy...

And kids have no business being in mines... they should be in cages where they belong!

You should have been a drama coach...

Here you go Gov ,and I even picked links that are kosher with your brand of news.

A CBS News investigation has found child labor being used in the dangerous mining of cobalt in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The mineral cobalt is used in virtually all batteries in common devices, including cellphones, laptops and even electric vehicles.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/cobalt-children-mining-democratic-republic-congo-cbs-news-investigation/#app

The shocking state of child labourers mining for cobalt in Africa has been thrust into the global spotlight after tech giants Apple, Google, Microsoft, Tesla and Dell were sued this week for their role in how this essential element ended up in their products.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/tobyshapshak/2019/12/18/cobalt-lawsuit-against-tech-giants-over-child-labour-a-global-flashpoint-of-corporate-social-responsibility/?sh=25df34bad706

There is plenty of links out there if you really even care.

People boycotted and raised a fuss about blood diamonds but not this,what is the difference?

People find it easy to forgo diamonds but when it comes to saving the planet,it’s okay as long as it is not my kid,and who really is ready to give that up over some kid in a shithole country that they will never meet anyways.

Like I said,green is very expensive and it comes at a cost.

Talk about stolen childhoods,those kids actually have a legitimate claim.

[EGrant]

This is not due to customer demand, it’s saying “weather you want them or not.”

Source?