Ford Pauses Construction On $3.5 Billion EV Battery Plant In Michigan (detroitnews.com) 134
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Ford Motor Company on Monday halted construction of a $3.5 billion electric vehicle battery plant project in the Marshall area amid months of battles with local residents, Republicans in Congress over its use of Chinese technology and an auto industry strike in its second week. "We're pausing work, and we're going to limit spending on construction at Marshall until we're confident about our ability to competitively run the plant," Ford spokesman T.R. Reid told The Detroit News on Monday. Reid said a "number of considerations" were at play in the company's business decision, but wouldn't say whether the United Auto Workers' ongoing strike of Ford and its crosstown rivals was a factor. "We haven't made a final decision about the investment there," Reid said of the Marshall site. The pause in construction is effective Monday, Reid said.
The Dearborn-based automaker announced on Feb. 13 that it planned to invest about $3.5 billion in an electric vehicle battery plant park in Marshall. As part of the deal, Ford secured about $210 million in direct tax incentives plus a 15-year property tax abatement worth about $775 million over the life of the tax break. There was also roughly $750 million set aside for site prep at the location, with a $299 million earmark allocated for the Marshall Area Economic Development Alliance and a $330 million earmark pushed toward the Michigan Department of Transportation budget for expanding roadways and freeway connections for the presumed Ford plant's truck traffic. Another $120 million was routed to MAEDA earlier this month through the SOAR fund. [...] The 2.5-million-square-foot battery park was to be run by a wholly-owned subsidiary of Ford called "Blue Oval Battery Park Michigan." The plant would employ 2,500 people with pay ranging from $20 to $50 an hour.
The Dearborn-based automaker announced on Feb. 13 that it planned to invest about $3.5 billion in an electric vehicle battery plant park in Marshall. As part of the deal, Ford secured about $210 million in direct tax incentives plus a 15-year property tax abatement worth about $775 million over the life of the tax break. There was also roughly $750 million set aside for site prep at the location, with a $299 million earmark allocated for the Marshall Area Economic Development Alliance and a $330 million earmark pushed toward the Michigan Department of Transportation budget for expanding roadways and freeway connections for the presumed Ford plant's truck traffic. Another $120 million was routed to MAEDA earlier this month through the SOAR fund. [...] The 2.5-million-square-foot battery park was to be run by a wholly-owned subsidiary of Ford called "Blue Oval Battery Park Michigan." The plant would employ 2,500 people with pay ranging from $20 to $50 an hour.
Automate (Score:1)
Just have robots build the whole car from scratch. Manufacturability should be prioritized over feature, feature should be more important than form. If it can't be fully made by a robot don't design the product. Actually when are we going to have AI design the car itself? Is there like a midjourney-equivalent for CAD? And there should be an AI for ensuring your CAD design is fully robot-makeable.
Re:Automate (Score:5, Insightful)
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Until the AI gets better at it, a human can verify/adjust it.
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well now that's just human design with extra steps
Re: Automate (Score:2)
Iâ(TM)d drive one. I bet it would be a blast⦠/s
Re:Automate (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually when are we going to have AI design the car itself? Is there like a midjourney-equivalent for CAD?
This was already done earlier this year. (Can't remember exactly what the machine was, car or aircraft?) Anyway, the result was a completely non-functional assemblage of parts.
Generative AI has no idea what it is saying, does not have any kind of "facts" in it, and does not have any kind of "logic" or "reasoning" in it. That's just not what that technology does.
Turns out that when you ask it to design a physical device, which relies on mechanics and physics, it produces an intricate mess of random parts that can't possibly work at all.
Probabistically, those parts might appear in a working device. But unlike text/speech, it's easier to see how random the output really is.
Of course, other kinds of so-called "AI" are used to help design real useful things all the time and have been doing so for decades. Generative AI is only good for making weird pictures.
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I know one instance where a system was asked to create a schematic for a rocket engine. It was, at a glance to the casual observer, credible looking, but a review by an actual engineer quickly showed that it would fail to work in quite the catastrophic, dangerous way. The engineer was surprised by how relevant and believable the design looked yet how atrocious the design was.
Besides, the *design* phase of a mass produced product isn't the sore spot anyway that would really *need* labor reduction. Manufact
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Just like when AI was asked to create recipes from lists of items people had in the kitchen. It had no problem incorporating cleaning products and other poisons. The recipes looked legit on the surface, of course, it's just that the tiniest bit of common sense makes it clear that it was poison.
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> Manufacturability should be prioritized over feature
The second tends to be more profitable in the US. The upper middle class buy for features, and the rest buy used trucks anyhow.
> Just have robots build the whole car from scratch
That's proven tricky at Tesla. They are not as flexible to adjust as humans, and bot glitches need a lot of tech babysitting.
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That would be "form." I'd wager that the majority of pickup trucks seldom see much more than a cooler or groceries put in the bed "feature." And that's because there's not enough room in the cab.
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With the wide spread use of SUVs, I feel like trucks are used as much for work as anything else. I'd say half the trucks I see are work trucks full of work related items, typically construction or gardening. Others are clearly weekend warrior stuff and then of course some are exactly as you say, just people that like to drive trucks.
Of course, now a lot of consumer non-work trucks have a bigger cab with 4 doors and a smaller bed, which to mean just seems odd and kind of pointless.
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Current AI is nothing like up to that task. The current AI is more analogous to small sections of brain (that doesn't include ant of the frontal lobe) somehow kept alive. ChatGPT's output is more akin to a brain injured person with fluent aphasia than anything else. It writes great ad copy (since ads typically don't concern themselves with accuracy or even truth).
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"Manufacturability should be prioritized over feature" - How Henry Ford of you. What if enough people are willing to pay for features that are hard to manufacture? They end up buying from someone else.
"feature should be more important than form" - Again, what if the people PAYING are more interested in form that feature? People aren't always logical and don't make the best choices. But in the end, people choose what they choose and when they are paying they often get what they want.
"If it can't be fully mad
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AI can't vote. Though, I suppose I can use it to help me decide who to vote for -- which should be an AI/human combo. AI can automate most of the mundane political tasks.
Re:Automate (Score:5, Funny)
I'm sorry, have you seen our Supreme Court? If Citizens United can classify corporations as people, we're just one billionaire-sponsored lux vacation away from AI personhood and a Futurama-style election [youtube.com].
Polls closing in one minute. And the AI vote begins. And the AI vote is in. Polls close. Richard Nixon has been elected in a landslide!
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Technically, corporations are run by people and therefore they have free speech. That's the essence of the argument. So same rights as groups of two or more people, including unions, sports clubs, etc. Only when corporations are run by robots can we claw back their rights. Now Citizens United may have taken it further than common sense would dictate, but unfortunately the constitution doesn't have a "common sense" clause.
Congress and the states could fix things, but the idea appeals to them that they can
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Just because Obama was in office does not make the court liberal, but if anything it was a more balanced court for CU than it is today. Citizens United was Kennedy, Roberts, Scalia, Alito; Thomas with dissent by Stevens, joined by Ginsburg, Breyer, Sotomayor, so a pretty "conservative/liberal" split with Kennedy playing his role as mr-in-the-middle.
That said as a left-leaning person I think CU was decided correctly but it has unfortunate outcomes I don't think anyone likes that Congress has basically never
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CU was poorly decided. Corporations are artificial legal constructs, there is no right to form a corporation, and the same laws which enable their creation should be able to limit the uses to which they can be put. That in no way restricts speech, it only means that when groups band together to "speak", they do so without the liability and tax benef
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Sure but it's not just corporations
The majority ruled that the Freedom of the Press clause of the First Amendment protects associations of individuals in addition to individual speakers, and further that the First Amendment does not allow prohibitions of speech based on the identity of the speaker. Corporations, as associations of individuals, therefore have free speech rights under the First Amendment.
So it would affect everything more than an individual, which is a restriction I could get behind but that'
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It's worth noting that in "The Wealth of Nations", Smith warned that corporate charters must be granted exceedingly sparingly and that the created entities would need to be held strictly to their charters and watched carefully.
Re: Automate (Score:2)
Once upon a time you had to justify the need for a corporation. Now you just pay a fee...
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Over time, this allows for balancing out...and actually does allow for bad case law to be re-visited, but not overnight...over decades which keeps things a more even keel.
I do, however, prefer a more constructionist approach, I do not thing the US Constitution is a "living document".....if we don't like things and need to change, that's what the amendment process is there for....and THAT needs to be difficult since it has drastic implications on US life for ages
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Considering the Supreme Court doesn't even acknowledge the 9th Amendment exists, they can't even be called "originalists", let alone "constructionists".
And let's not get into how the 1st Amendment's freedom of religion has been contorted into the very thing the Founding Fathers didn't want.
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Well, the courts have LONG seemed to overlook this and paired with the overreach of the extra broad definitions of "interstate commerce" the feds have been overstepping their enumerated powers for quite awhile.
I must say, that this court seems to be fighting against federal overreach a bit tho...they've slapped the EPA in the pee pee for overreach and it
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The only intent, if we're being originalists, of the freedom of religion is to prevent the government from interfering in a person's chosen method of worship, or not worship, nor compelling anyone into any one religion (thus no national religion). That's it.
Instead, we have, "I can't serve you because my religion says so." Your religion does not say that. Nowhere in your little book does it say anything remotel
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Sure but nowhere in the Constitution does it specify an approach to the constitution the court should take. There have been reams and reams of discussion about living document styles versus strict interpretive style. Scalia, the considered godfather of strict interpretation has a lot of talks about this and even he acknowledges it's really up just the people seated at the court. There is no right answer.
I still think we need to move away from lifetime appointments though, I can't find any real problems wi
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This matter of lifetime appointments to SCOTUS really got going when Ginsburg died and left Trump able to appoint three justices. It sounds like Ginsburg was convinced to stay on the court as long as she could since she was something of a reliable advocate for Democrat policies. If people want to play games with the composition of SCOTUS then they need only convince older justices to step down when a like minded POTUS is in office to appoint a like minded younger replacement. Ginsburg had some health pro
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It doesn't have to be perfect but in every way imaginable a long, fixed single term is better than a lifetime appointment. It doesn't exacerbate any of those issues even if it doesn't solve all of them.
What really also helps is expanding the court so the power is distributed more evenly and you can get a wider range of views on the court. I love the concept of an 18 judge court where you can have 6 liberal, 6 conservative and 6 other members that also have to approved by the other 12.
If we think the court
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My man, the court hasn't leaned liberal since what, the 70s and really this issue never really came up until Bork as everyone in the Senate and the President treated the process with some degree of decorum but in today's environment it's something of a shitshow and McConnel took up about 10 notches with how Garland was handled.
You *should* be concerned about that if you really give a damn about the politicization of the court. So much of how these operate is on norms and if members just start breaking thos
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A single term job is just going to massively magnify the politics. Potential SCOTUS candidates will show their stripes early in an attempt to get noticed by powers, possibly even unofficially campaign. And they will be much more beholden to whatever president or congressional majority approved them. It could also lead to frequent see-saw decisions as each new court overturns the previous courts rules. I could even imagine that leading to discarding the convention of having legal experience in the nominees
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Ever proposal I have seen for single term appointments has been over 15 years. There is a House bill by Rho Khanna I believe that has them at I think 18 years? The idea being that if you make it to the SC you are basically set for life or if they want they can move back to the federal appellate.
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Yup, 18 years, here is the bill of you are interested.
https://khanna.house.gov/media... [house.gov].
Re: Automate (Score:2)
"I do not thing the US Constitution is a "living document""
Found the guy who slept through civics class. The Constitution has changed several times. The process is literally built in.
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I think you misunderstand what the concept of "living document" means in current conversation.
Yes, I will argue with anyone that the PROPER way to change the constitution is to amend it.
As you stated that is the prescribed way to change it if you want.
In modern conversations, the concept of the constitution being " living document" is that it is able to be "changed" by how the judg
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By your own logic of it was so critical to view the document in that they should have written that in there to begin with.
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It seems that CU should have been a much narrower ruling. If an organization exists solely for the purpose of a political agenda, it is reasonable to believe that it's members (actual people) support that agenda.
In contrast, for an organization such as Ford Motors, any political agenda it promotes will likely be supported only by the largest stockholders and quite frequently is in opposition to what the rank and file might support. If the major stockholders in Ford Motors want to promote an agenda, they sho
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The problem isn't the "Citizens United is a person" aspect. It's the "money is speech" aspect. Money is certainly a form of expression, but not all expression is speech. I'm pretty sure the first amendment is intended to prevent government censorship of speech content - not the way the dissemination of speech is paid for. Money is "speech" in an abstract sense, but it's also bribery in a very real, literal sense. CU goes off the rails in striking down limits on the amount of money groups are allowed to
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"Just because Obama was in office does not make the court liberal...."
especially since he himself is NOT liberal, more center-right
Re:Automate (Score:4, Insightful)
Let me understand this logic. You're blaming Obama for the ruling of the supreme court? What didn't this Kenyan national have control over? Could it have anything to do with George Bush who appointed Roberts and Alito to the court? Nah.
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And here everybody's worried about China and Russia and Iran and North Korea (the evil CRINK axis), when it's the Kenyans that we really need to worry about. They must be the ones populating that "Deep State" that I keep hearing about.
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"You're blaming Obama for the ruling of the supreme court? What didn't this Kenyan national have control over?"
As Ann Coulter reiterated ad nauseum at the time, he's to be addressed as Barack HUSSEIN Obama.
Also he's a Kenyan MUSLIM national, not merely a foreigner of the wro....er, an alternative complexion
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The lawmakers have abrogated their responsibilities. They have the power to initiate constitutional amendments, they have the power to clarify the laws so that the courts are constrained, but instead the lawmakers treat the capitol building like a kindergarten playground. The courts end up having to decide issues that congress refuses to do. Their "legislating from the bench" is because the laws are vague or contradict each other. Especially in the states you see lawmakers deliberately pass laws that ar
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Are you sure? Have you seen the last say, 20 years of elections?
Re: Automate (Score:2)
While I agree with the sentiment about Walmart's wage change, I'm not sure it would translate well to automakers. They employ 57,000 autoworkers, and last year they sold 1,850,000 cars. Assuming a car lasts 10 years, that's 18,500,000 consumers. So if those workers didn't buy Fords, that's only 0.3% of their consumers over 10 years.
That said, I have been inside the Ford Dearborn plant, and almost every single car in their employee parking garage is a Ford. They get big discounts as Ford employees. I don't t
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I'd be shocked if Walmart employees don't get 10% off the whole store. Target employees get 15%. As a grocery worker, I get 10% off store brands and 5% on everything else.
As for people that work for Ford owning Ford, yeah I imagine they get a nice discount plus, would you really want to be THAT person that didn't drive a Ford? I kind of doubt it.
Re: Automate (Score:2)
I was onsite and had the Ford Dearborn head of environmental health next to me, and I asked exactly that question. She said yeah, it's kind of frowned upon to pull up in a Chevy.
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It's interesting to look at the economics of it though. Let's take GM as an example. Getting numbers is a bit tricky. GM has about 167,000 workers worldwide. Apparently they have about 46,000 workers who are members of UAW. What I really need is the number of workers who actually perform the labor to manufacture the cars. Those would be the ones who would be replaced by automation. Sure, the ones in sales and marketing and the designers might be at risk of being replaced by AI too, and the managers and HR p
The Cybertruck better be a flop (Score:2, Interesting)
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It doesn't help that all the competitor EV designs except maybe Mercedes suck. Furthermore Tesla has better CPU and sensor coverage than any other car and at least has the aura/illusion of being much closer to full self-driving. None of the other EVs seem like they're the future of vehicles.
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It doesn't help that all the competitor EV designs except maybe Mercedes suck. Furthermore Tesla has better CPU and sensor coverage than any other car and at least has the aura/illusion of being much closer to full self-driving. None of the other EVs seem like they're the future of vehicles.
All of Elon's competitors suck except Mercedes?? Now that's giving Elon Musk far too much credit. Teslas are overpiced, when you buy a Tesla you get worse than Lada build quality at Audi prices with a driver interface full of touch screens that multiply your chances of ending up in a car crash and a battery pack that can't stand up to more than a few centimetres of water. There are plenty of other luxury brands with cars that beat Tesla. There are even some non-luxury brands that are as good or better than
Re:The Cybertruck better be a flop (Score:5, Insightful)
I can't stand Musk and wish Tesla's competitors would be better, but this is just denying reality. Worse than a Lada? Tesla build quality certainly has a history of uneveness, but the vast majority of Teslas are fine (if not spectacular). Just about every manufacturer has larded up interiors with touchscreens, but at least Tesla's software mostly works (same cannot be said for manufacturers like VW).
The truth is that Tesla is still offering more performance, more range, and a vastly better charging network for a lower price. An AWD Ioniq 5 starts at $49k, and you have to deal with Hyundai dealers who still tend to focus on selling to people with 500 credit scores while pushing the "truecoat" and 7 year loans at double digit interest rates. The Model Y AWD gets 276 of real world range (third party testing)
https://insideevs.com/reviews/... [insideevs.com]
The Ioniq 5 gets 225 on the same test cycle. And Hyundai/Kia are probably the best non-Tesla EVs out there in the mass market price space. There's a reason why Tesla still sells the majority of EVs in the U.S. Only a tiny fraction of those are foaming at the mouth Elon fanboys.
My point is not that "Tesla is so great", but that the pre-EV automakers need to get better. Rivian and Lucid are also light years ahead of the established automakers, but they don't currently compete in the mass market.
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The truth is that Tesla is still offering more performance, more range,...
Real-world tests have shown Teslas to have the same range as its competitors. The range that Tesla lists for their vehicles is pure fantasy.
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I was literally citing range numbers from independent testing.
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Right, but that's not relevant if we are comparing the range two independently-tested vehicles.
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a vastly better charging network
A vastly better charging network that's soon to be open to owners of competitor's EVs.
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...pre-EV automakers need to get better. Rivian and Lucid are also light years ahead of the established automakers, but they don't currently compete in the mass market.
Rivian and Lucid (much like Tesla) charge damn near six figures or more for their products. The "base" models are $70K+.
Really not sure how we're still selling the idea this pre-product is 'affordable' for 90% of the not-so-mass-market when it's still just a luxury toy, which about as much support on an interstate system. Prices would need to drop by at least 50% in order for any 'mass' market to be included.
And no. Forcing gas to $10/gallon in the US isn't going to magically make a $70K EV 'affordable'
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The base Tesla Model 3 is selling at $36k for in-inventory models in my market. With the tax credit, it's at $29k. Keep in mind that the average new car (of any propulsion type) is at around $50k now. Car affordability is a much bigger problem than EVs.
Weird straw man on the $10 a gallon. Nobody is talking about that. I think everyone recognizes that there needs to be more affordable EV options. There are some additional ones coming down the pike. GM is slated to release the EV Equinox next year, which is s
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There's a reason why Tesla still sells the majority of EVs in the U.S.
That reason is... EVs are still a luxury vehicle. The average US salary is $53,490, at a maximum recommend 15% of the average US salary of 8023.50, that makes any 3 year loan over $24,070.50 a luxury car (don't get me started on 5+ year loans). I don't care to speculate what the EV market will be in 10 years, I will only say that it's still in its infancy. Maybe Tesla will be a top auto dealer in the US when new ICE vehicles are prohibited, I don't know. I can only say that I wouldn't buy a car that the manufacturer can remotely remove features. https://www.motortrend.com/news/tesla-removes-autopilot-software-used-model-s/ [motortrend.com]
Sure, Tesla is a luxury brand just like Apple is. Tesla will be displaced and restricted to that luxury market slot by a flood of cheaper, more reliable, rugged and cheaply repaired EVs just like Apple was when the mobile device market was flooded with cheap Android phones. Musk can talk of 'giga-presses' and 'giga-factories' all he wants but the Chinese can build 'giga' facilties too and undercut him on price. Any dreams the Muskrats have of Tesla gaining some kind of world hegemony in the automotive marke
Re: The Cybertruck better be a flop (Score:2)
I wouldn't buy a Hyundai, they have an atrocious recall rate on their gassers. I don't trust they will do EVs right either.
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I'd say that Tesla is the one that sucks, at least at the 'boring' parts of being a car.
You want to have a physical control for your vents? Tough luck, that's not 'futuristic enough', you'll have to use the touchscreen to somehow try to steer it.
My colleague had to use his NFC card, as phone as key was horribly unreliable. Fine, I can see how that can be fickle, but the fact that Tesla *exclusively* banked on that as the wireless technology and failed to do keyfobs was madness.
As of their next iteration, y
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None of the other EVs seem like they're the future of vehicles.
That entirely depends on how many customers actually want a vehicle that is trying to be the future of vehicles, rather than an otherwise normal vehicle which just happens to run on electrons rather than dead dinosaur juice.
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I just don't know how many people will want a pure EV truck though, with the limited range, especially for towing. And then there's the looks.
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Re: The Cybertruck better be a flop (Score:2)
Hybrids are fairly useless for towing. The benefit of a hybrid is Regen. The trailer has its own brakes that don't do Regen, and the trailer will tend to try to precede you if you do all the braking with the vehicle.
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This is where Tesla was like 5 years ago. Except Tesla didn't h
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the smartest thing the federal government could do is BAN yes BAN new BEVs on federal roads after 2030 or something.
Um, wouldn't banning SALES of BEVs be better? I can't even imagine that banning certain cars made after a certain time from certain roads is even feasible or legal.
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First-quarter sales totaled about 4,300 units and a few hundred more units in the second quarter. Last year was about 2000 units per quarter, and they sold 15,617 throughout the entire year, including pre-orders.
They were hoping to hit 60,000 units last year and they revamped the factory to pump out 150,000 units per year, a huge investment. They're clearly not hitting that mark, with the factory frequently stopping work due to lack of work, so I wouldn't say they are a hit.
I just checked my local dealer, t
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I think every guy wants a Ferrari, just because everyone wants one, doesn't make for a huge market. On paper, EVs are great, in practice not so much and the market reflects that.
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Tesla on the other hand makes EVs into a truck. What I'm getting at is the classic companies designed their utility EVs by using an existing ICE design and converted them into an EV. They are heavy and not aerodynamic and little effort was put into improving either of those and therefore they consume large amounts of energy to move down the road. Tesla engineers
Re:The Cybertruck better be a flop (Score:4, Insightful)
It's not a setback for EVs or Ford. It's typical corporate posturing to try to get concessions from the union and/or tax breaks from local government. "Well gee, we'd *planned* to build this big plant with lots of jobs, but given our current expenses we just can't do it. Now, if someone could maybe find a way to lower our expenses a little, we could build this plant so you can all benefit..."
Step 3 isn't so mysterious in this one.
1. Start building a plant with lots of hype for jobs and taxes.
2. Stop building and claim economic hardship.
3. Alter the terms of the deal.
4. PROFIT!
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It can also go the other way around. Company project gets to where it's made too much investment to easily back out, and the union says, "By the way, now it's going to cost you THIS MUCH MORE to finish the project."
Of course, there's no rule that both can't be doing this, simultaneously.
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https://www.coxautoinc.com/mar... [coxautoinc.com]
But I think Tesla and anybody else who wants to keep that growth coming will need to release more affordable models. The US market for luxury sedans is only so big. But, that's happening.
I also think PHEV makes a lot of sense for the American market - big vehicles that go long distances on occasion. Having enough battery range for your daily driving, but still being able to refuel when y
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48% of what number exactly? You sell 1000 widgets, selling 500 more the next year is 50% growth, sure, but that still dwarves in comparison with the millions of widgets sold across the world by your competitors.
Ford has been subsidizing its EV sales with gas engine powered cars and turned off a lot of customers as a result, the F150 without any options skyrocketed to well over $50k at many dealerships this year, in 2018 this was $28k, $50k would've netted you an extended supercab version.
We're going to hit
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Wow, 300,000 new EVs sold in the USA last year.
Oh, but what was the total number of automobiles produced? Something like 80 million.
https://www.statista.com/stati... [statista.com]
That's not exactly a fair comparison because that's USA EV sales to global automobile production. Even if the USA sales were some small fraction of the global EV sales that still leaves the 48% growth looking rather pathetic. It's easy to make big gains like that when the initial market share is small, but that can't keep going because of thi
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Not me...
No one is offering a 2-seater sports car version of an EV.....performance, and good looks in a price range of a low end Corvette.
Do that and we'll talk.
Everything out today is pretty much a "family truckster".....
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I hear ya.
I dunno why the car companies don't look back in history and take a page out of Datsun's (later Nissan) playbook...where they put out the 240Z and later the 280Z (ignoring the abomination of the brief 260Z)....
These were FUN and good looking cars. Speedy enough to be fun....and...the price was kept at a reasonable level, where the average middle class shmoe could affo
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It's got almost 2 million pre-order so I guess some people do like it. Me personally I can kinda appreciate the design language they are going after but something about it just feels off. I think it's nice that someone is moving beyond the standard 3-box design envelope cars have been in for a long time but the Cybertruck feels a bit half assed from that perspective. Like they wanted to move away from that but not too far and ended up in an uncanny valley of automotive design. Maybe I was just expectin
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It's got almost 2 million pre-order so I guess some people do like it.
Two million is around how many current Teslas on the road in the US today. I doubt there is actually a 2mil MORE demand for a truck. I think a big chunk of these pre-orders are on the fence about this purchase, or are hoping to turn around and sell to make a quick buck.
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Not disagreeing but that's the number apparently of people that put i think $100 to hold an order?
When the piper calls for their $60k or whatever it costs we will see what the real demand is.
cooked (Score:2, Troll)
Face it, Michiganders' goose is cooked, and has been for quite a while. All hail UAW, hero of the unemployed.
Not casting blame here. (Score:2)
But... (and yes, that's a dickish way to start this)... if you insist on keeping your relationship with the company adversarial and combative, expect some fallout. From the summary it seems like a lot of things got done, and a lot of costs are sunk. For them to walk away there has to have been significant gaps. Large, successful companies don't generally walk away from something significant just because there are disagreements.
"...until we're confident about our ability to competitively run the plant."
That
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Large, successful companies don't generally walk away from something significant just because there are disagreements.
Don't fall for the sunk cost fallacy. Companies walk away from large projects all the time. I can't count the number of times I've seen companies I've worked for cancel projects they've spend many millions on. It doesn't matter how much you've spent, it's what you still need to spend (and how much you think it will earn) that counts.
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Not falling for it. In fact, pointing out that they're (probably correctly) willing to walk away from them. They aren't falling for it.
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I think the assumption made was that battery plants on US soil can't be overall competitive due to factory labor costs*,.
I get it. It's quite an assumption and most likely unwarranted.
We manufacture tons of stuff in the US despite higher labor costs because we also have more capital and higher productivity. In other words, a US battery factory will use more robots and fewer people than a factory in Thailand. The other thing to consider is if we can't economically produce something in the US, that's because those people and that equipment has higher value uses. Are you sure you want to give that up to make batteries?
No Surprise, given the overwhelming FUD (Score:2)
However,
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However, I understand this is not the case in the deep South and some midwestern states.
How do you define "deep south"? Does that include Texas? I recall seeing plenty of BEVs on the road in Texas. Talking with a BEV owner about dealing with range loss from cabin heating his response was. "This is Texas." I followed up with a question on air conditioning and he mentioned that with some experimentation he has some idea on when opening windows is more energy efficient than running the air conditioner.
I've seen a few BEVs on the road in the Midwest USA, which is where I live now. Some Tesla
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I imagine.
Oddly, I saw my first F150 Lightning today on the road and it wore Texas plates. I figure places like Austin or Dallas are less anti-EV than places like Lubbock or Odessa. My step-mother-in-law is from a small town in Kansas. I just looked on PlugShare and found not one public EV charging station in town. The nearest one is about five miles outside of town
USA: The build-nothing country (Score:2)
As happens so often, the US actively discourages industry. Then we whine about how all the blue collar jobs are leaving the country.
Good essay/rant: https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/... [noahpinion.blog]
Chinese tech? (Score:2)
Of course they're using tech from China (Score:2)
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Ford gets a tax break and the peasants still have to pay.
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I was trying to add up the numbers and had to break out a calculator.
Adding up all the subsidy-sounding numbers in the summary, that's $3.5 billion from Ford, $2.5 billion from taxpayers. At least I assume all those multi-hundred-million dollar numbers were ultimately taxpayer money. I'm not actually sure about things like the $750 site prep.
Dang, that's a sweet deal. Where can I get a 35% subsidy on my next project?
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The right to "enjoy" property probably does and should be stronger than it currently is.
However not all NIMBY-ism is totally illegitimate and we should want things like zoning laws. Would you really be happy if someone decided to put up a 10 story tower on the lot next to your suburban home?
Suddenly instead of being able to see the sky past your neighbor's roof ALL you could see out your windows was an unbroken wall of concrete?
Same thing would you like if someone put in a 3-shift manufacturing facility ri