Essay by Eric Worrall
Who could possibly have predicted that the promises of politicians aren’t worth the paper they are written on?
Ford UK says any delay on government petrol car ban risks EV transition
Reuters
September 20, 20239:30 PM GMT+10 Updated 3 days ago
…
Ford said dropping the [British] 2030 deadline would be a mistake, and hinted it could put further investments at risk.
“The UK 2030 target is a vital catalyst to accelerate Ford into a cleaner future,” Ford UK chair Lisa Brankin said in a statement on Wednesday.
“Our business needs three things from the UK government: ambition, commitment and consistency. A relaxation of 2030 would undermine all three.”
…
Read more: https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/ford-uk-slams-potential-relaxation-plans-ban-new-petrol-diesel-car-sales-by-2030-2023-09-20/
Is anyone awake in shareholder land? Who put the fools who bet the futures of their businesses on the trustworthiness of politicians in charge of major automobile companies?
To my knowledge, only one automaker called it right, and defied the senseless EV stampede. Back in May, Ferrari announced they had no plans to phase out internal combustion vehicles.
I doubt British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s hesitant retreat will save his Conservative administration. British people are so upset at the green cost of living hikes they’ve endured in recent years, they appear to be preparing to vote out the Conservatives just to express their anger, even though the main opposition party promises even more green commitment.
I suspect British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak knows what must be done to turn the ship, and win the next election – embrace the policy positions of his short lived predecessor Prime Minister Liz Truss, to try to convince voters a real conservative is back in charge.
How will all this play out at the next British election?
I don’t think Prime Minister Rishi’s timid move to ease Net Zero pressure is convincing – it does nothing to address the day to day pain of excruciating energy and food bills, and soaring house rental and mortgage costs. Large numbers of desperate former conservative voters are completely focussed on short term issues, like how to pay their next heating bill, and how to survive the coming winter with their personal finances intact. Liberating the energy market as Prime Minister Liz Truss tried to do, permitting companies like Caudrilla to flood the domestic gas market and drive down prices, undoing green mandates which drive up the cost of electricity, could together provide massive and almost immediate relief to voters struggling with the cost of living. But no mainstream British party leader is offering such relief.
Whatever the reason for this rejection of common sense, my crystal ball tells me that in the face of bipartisan support for increasingly unpopular high cost green policies, the British people will express their frustration by flip-flopping at every election, driving a wrecking ball through the careers of less established politicians, blowing up administration after administration, until someone in power gets it right.
Meanwhile, shareholders should consider housecleaning the senior management of major auto companies. It is a commercial disgrace that Ferrari are the only major auto company which made the right call. Betting billions of dollars of shareholder capital on a political promise to coerce voters was never a sensible strategy, it was always a wild gamble – as Rishi Sunak’s hesitant retreat on EV coercion has now demonstrated. In my opinion, so long as the executives who made these questionable decisions remain in charge of their companies, shareholder capital may be at risk.
translation: The UK 2030 target is a vital catalyst to accelerate Ford into a
cleanerricher future.I think they will have trouble finding a richer future. They have decided to try to concentrate on the high end of the market for EVs at least by price. That market is small, and the competition are much better equipped to serve it. Hence the big losses. They should have moved manufacturing out of Europe and the US and into the Southern hemisphere and Asia, and tailored their models to those markets. That would have given them longer term resilience.
As long as you don’t mind the shipping losses when transporting EV over water.
2.8Bn people in China and India alone. The global south forms way more than half of the worlds population.
China has lifted 900M people from extreme poverty in the last 50 years. They all want a bit of what the west has.
The US and Europe together are less than a Billion people.
We are kidding ourselves that we are important world markets.
> The global south forms way more than half of the worlds population.
You may like to look at an atlas or globe.
The “global south” comprises, Antarctica, Australasia, Brazil and South in the Americas and about the bottom quarter of Africa.
I guess I should have included “part of Indonesia” in that 🙂
Were you politically aware you would understand I’m talking about BRICS.
Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.
There are now around 40 countries applying to join the organisation.
China may have just started erroneously calling itself part of the “Global South”,
https://apnews.com/article/un-china-global-south-general-assembly-d8620e4502757c4de9ab41543f14eccb
but Russia?
If you meant BRICS, why didn’t you say that,.
Because it’s commonly referred to in global political discussions as the global south. Like I said, were you politically aware you would know this.
Generally all of them corrupt kleptocracies, not really an arguement for a stable political movement. They’ll be too busy trying to rob one another to adopt a common agenda. There is a reason most have remained poor besides “colonialism” and “imperialism” but what ever blows your hair back.
The U.S. has a lot of corruption, especially among the U.S. Congress. It’s amazing that so many Congress members enter Congress with modest means and become multimillionaires. … as ‘public servants’ earning < $200k / year.
And Nancy Pelosi amassing a multi million dollar fortune whilst having spent her entire working life as a public servant, is a shining example of democracy in action.
I won’t even bother discussing Biden.
Please. Seen one politician, seen them all. Every one of them are on the take in one fashion or another.
Mind you, I guess Britain has had 1,000 years to hone it’s political system to the appalling state it’s in right now, the USA 300 years, and Russia only 30 years.
In other words, you aren’t talking about what the rest of us are talking about.
Last I looked India and China are in the NH. 🙂
Population of just Shanghai (pop 23 million, area 3900 km²)
… is nearly the same as that of the whole of Australia (pop 25.7 million, 7.7 million km²).
Please see my comment above to StuM.
Geopolitically they are commonly referred to as the global south in discussion.
I’ve been involved in many discussions, and today is the first time I have heard such a claim.
HotScot and the people he talks with don’t use the standard definitions.
It’s your fault that you didn’t know that.
Apparently geography is less important the ideological association.
Words mean what the Red Queen says they mean.
The west played a massive role in lifting all those Chinese people out of poverty. Now Xi Jinping wants to kick the west in the teeth and has policies that will return the Chinese people to poverty. Sometimes you just can’t win. (Not that that is any excuse for the west actively playing to lose).
I didn’t know that, must admit.
Perhaps you could enlighten me as to how the west helped China lift 900m Chinese from poverty.
A lot of the stuff was made using technology stolen from the west.
For the most part, in the past, EU and US built most of the stuff they consumed locally. As did the countries in the southern hemisphere.
Your protest over nothing.
When China was full on communist, it was pushing people into poverty, and into the grave.
China didn’t start lifting anyone out of poverty until they gave up on communism.
“They have decided to try to concentrate on the high end of the market for EVs at least by price.”
Maybe they should have emulated that daft old guy Henry Ford
& gone for the low cost mass market !!!
He made the fortune they are squandering.
Lithium batteries are too bulky…too expensive…too heavy….and don’t last long enough…take too long to charge….and still have a propensity to catch fire…I said that years ago and nothing has changed except batteries are more expensive now.,
anti:
Nice summary! I would add:
1 – there is not enough grid charging infrastructure; and won’t be for another decade or so.
2 – uneconomic to recycle [ the batteries are small & dense by design]
and
3 – China is the leader in rare earth metal processing & lithium battery production, thus we are empowering and becoming dependent upon our greatest nemesis. [and “ditto” for wind & solar equipment]
Even Chinese EV makers can’t sell much to the Asian market – sales are way down, some companies are already going bankrupt and exports to other countries are the only thing keeping some makers going. Tesla have slashed their prices due to excess manufacture against lower sales and I expect others to start doing the same to compete. Ford will never survive in the somewhat hostile EV market without government bans.
Neither will governments when people finally figure out what’s cooking. The St. George de Fentanyl riots a couple years ago were nothing.
Chinese EV manufacturers are also having problems in China itself and have had to reduce prices to try and shift stock. The Chinese Government had to extend tax breaks for buying EVs earlier this year at a cost of 520bn yuan – £56.9bn, $69.4bn
I don’t think so. If forced to buy something, they really don’t want, Joe Public will opt for a cheap import over an expensive British EV. Ford and every other manufacturer in Britain betting the bank on BEVs are toast.
If Sunak had half the brains he claims to have, he’d stand at the next election on a platform of ditching net-zero, he’d return to government victorious. The half arsed approach he’s taking will cost him dear, as he’s alienating both sides of the argument.
In 2022 Ford sold 653,957 F-Series trucks of which 15,617 were F-150 Lightnings and 638,340 were internal combustion
F-150 Lightings can work great as second or third cars provided one has the finances to afford one. Their utility in comparison to an ICE pickup truck are not so good, especially for hauling and in cold or hot weather.
Yep, the perfect…”have stopped global worming and now have absolute control over the weather” vehicle
However they will never work well as a truck. Hauling anything increases the draw on the battery to the point that range rapidly disappears.
I am with you AW – I struggle to believe that the Ford top dogs have fessed up to, in effect, being gaslighted by politicians regarding EVs. What do they know “we’ don’t I wonder – time will tell but it does not add up….Sunak is a myopic politician solely focused on 2024 and he has to recoup at all costs the Red Wall vote as well as the swathes of the silent majority who don’t buy his schtick…ever.
It’s called Fascism. The government wants something done and the companies figure out how to do it, no specific laws required.
Ford ain’t the only game in town. Whilst dominant in the US there are numerous European manufacturers supporting Rishi Sunak.
The EU relaxed their ICE ban some months ago with an offer that ICE cars using ‘environmentally friendly’ fuels will be allowed.
The Le Mans 24 hours race was run this year on those fuels, made from the discarded skins of grapes used in the wine industry.
I’m prepared to bet that tailpipe CO2 emissions were little, to no less than fossil fuel powered cars, but accounting sleight of hand will include the ‘bio’ credentials of grape skins thereby reducing ’emissions’ in a paperwork exercise.
Instead of covering good farmland with solar panels it will be grape vines. Theres’ only so much wine one man can drink. Even me!
Massive con, like everything else ‘green’.
Isn’t the French government destroying a large “excess” wine inventory? To keep prices up, I suppose.
Thereby handing the advantage to Antipodean/SA/South America wine sales which, in my opinion, are superior wines anyway.
Mind you, the eternal ‘conservative’ Sunak recently slapped 20% tax on wine. Now he’s talking about making cigarette’s impossible to buy for the next generation.
Don’t let’s kid ourselves. Sunak is no more on the side of the public than any other slimy politician.
The French govt. aren’t destroying the excess wine – they’re spending $215 million to distill it into ethanol for industrial cleaners. Hell of a thing.
Ah.. back-woods American liquor !
Many uses for “pomace”
What do vintners do with the grape skins after crush? | Wine Spectator
I have no problem with no wasting anything that can be used.
But remember, if you use it for one purpose, it may not be available for another purpose.
The current UAW strike relates to the electric vehicle mandates, with much of the added value of EVs being the batteries, which are not produced in unionized plants. Biden et al are being transparent liars, in claiming to support the autoworkers unions, and simultaneously backing EV mandates, which transfer value to nonunion plants and China.
Remember that the very first document President Biden signed destroyed 14,000 union jobs at the Keystone XL pipeline.
Maybe their membership should tell the union bosses to stop giving their wages to politicians that are destroying their jobs.
As long as unions are “safe” Democrat voters, the Democrats will treat them like dirt.
The same has been true for minorities for decades.
Ford has not made cars in the UK since about 2002. It shipped its Transit van factory from Southampton to Turkey in 2012, on the back of an EU subsidy. Its remaining factories make diesel engines (Dagenham) and gearboxes (Halewood). Halewood was supposed to be converted to making electric motors.
It has lost large sums on EVs so far, and plainly needs a rigged market to try to recover. Otherwise Ford will soon be history. Someone will carry on making spares for surviving ICE vehicles, which will remain a good market in the light of their historic sales: the Fiesta was for many years the most popular new car in the UK, with the Focus being not too far behind. Mondeo Man was legendary as a demographic that politicians used to court – but no longer.
Ahhhhhhh.
Mondeo man.
Cheap, well maintained, high mileage company cars available on the second hand market for the family man who appreciated straightforward, reliable, Ford design and engineering.
Ford should stick to their principles instead of coveting ‘high tech’ EV’s that Henry pounded into obsolescence with his production line Model T.
History is the past master at educating the over ambitious to stay in their lane.
Lisa Brankin has been with Ford about 18 years. Most of that time has been spent in Sales. None of that time has been spent in manufacturing and design. I would guess that Dagenham and Halewood are managed as part of the Europe manufacturing operations. Still, she has been CEO of Ford UK since 2020, so she qualifies as their mouthpiece.
As the head of the customer facing department at Ford, Lisa Brankin is uniquely placed to understand the wants and needs of her customers.
Her job is to sell that to her board members, not sell useless EV’s to people who don’t want them.
Get sales right and you don’t need aggressive salesmen, the product sells itself.
Toyota has also tried to tap the brakes on the EV transition making it clear hybrids more efficiently use available resources. And since Toyota sells nearly 10 million cars annually, they matter a lot more than Ferrari.
Hybrids, or even more mild “e-assist” vehicles make much more sense. The electric motor can provide torque needed to start from a stand-still, going up hills, or passing, while the ICE engine provides long range cruising and heat for the cabin. When done correctly, hybrids can produce a good driving experience, good range, quick fill-ups, excellent mileage, and don’t require massive upgrades to the electric grid.
100%.
The catalytic converter was condemned as a performance restricting, unnecessary and unwanted addition to ICE’s.
Engineers overcame every objection and there are 1,000bhp supercars running them now.
Mild “e-assist” with the usual large 48v battery would also be adapted likewise, given the opportunity, and be a benefit to society.
There was a study done in the UK of plug in hybrids. Most were never plugged in by their users.
Mild e-assist (or hybrid lite) where the battery is continually charged by the ICE engine for use when battery only power is appropriate, is a sensible progression of personal transport, made possible by sophisticate ECU’s developed over the last 30 years.
But the objective isn’t to improve personal transport, it’s to abolish it altogether.
Your thesis would explain the resistance against hybrids.
That’s why the UK government is punishing manufacturers by fining them £15,000 per ICE car sold which violates their BEV quota.
Part of the problem is that the leaders of many large companies come from the same corrupted schools as do the politicians.
They are also fully committed to the climate change insanity and are wealthy enough that all the new costs don’t impact their lifestyles. As a result they also are caught flat footed when they discover that the left wing policies they are pushing aren’t popular with the masses.
And it’s not as if nobody warned that all these foreseeable effects were going to hit hard –
GROUPTHINK
https://www.thegwpf.org/new-study-climate-groupthink-leads-to-a-dead-end/
Part of the problem is that the leaders of many large companies come from the same corrupted schools as do the politicians.
In a short time those leaders, and their massive salaries, will no longer be needed. Artificial intelligence will be far better at business decision-making than some psychopathic Harvard grad or the expensive consultant company feeding him advice. Expect major faculty layoffs at Ivy League universities in the years to come. Get your teen-age son lined up for a plumbing apprenticeship.
“Get your teen-age son lined up for a plumbing apprenticeship.”
Or any job that actually DOES or MAKES something.
Ford’s all in EV push makes no sense except in terms of Tesla valuation envy.
Toyota has it right with hybrids, maybe right with plug in hybrids. Depends on the plug in battery life.
The Net Zero fantasy has been that we just substitute EVs for ICE and carry on as normal. But if you only look at the prices, this is not going to happen. Used UK prices have fallen, but are still over 30k pounds.
They are not usable for the same purposes, because of refuel times, shortage of chargers, range. But even if they were, at that price point they are not going to fit the same market segment.
Basically the UK is going to have to choose between two alternatives. One is, they drop the EV requirement and keep car ownership and use pretty much like now. Two is, they keep on with it, in which case the car market shrinks hugely, like 50% or more, and car ownership and use becomes much more limited.
And the corresponding large social and economic changes happen that follow from all that. Don’t underestimate them. They will be very big.
What is not going to happen is moving everyone to EVs and being happy and carrying on as normal.
Because of all the disadvantages I wouldn’t pay as much for an EV as for an ICE one (and I’d have to be pretty desparate to do that!).
My thoughts exactly.
The Leftists plan on making us all desperate to achieve a decent standard of living on our own terms. You will own nothing and live a cramped and constrained life and you will be happy; your social credit is everything in life.
I’ll keep saying this as long as I’m alive. People who want to lower your standard of living are not your friends. Why this simple idea is such a mystery to leftists is a mystery to me.
Because leftists don’t believe that they are lowering your standard of living.
In their minds they are preventing you from buying stuff that you don’t need.
They believe that once they have forced you into the lifestyle of their choice, they actually believe that you will come to realize that they were right all along.
It may all depend on how many of “everyone” the Elites are planning on carrying forward…
It looks like we may be watching a s-l-o-o-o-w return from Bizarro World to normal humanity. One would hope. It depends on how many half-boiled frogs in the pot still have the political will to grab back the reigns of power. I admit to feeling slightly, very cautiously, hopeful.
What dishy Rishy isn’t telling the public is that the UK government has imposed manufacturer quotas for EV sales. Set at 22%, if EV sales don’t meet that threshold, manufacturers are ‘fined’ £15,000 for every ICE car that violates the quota.
The quota will be 80% by 2030.
Subsidies for EV’s became an obvious political hot potato. So the UK government, in their usual deceptive manner decided punitive, non quantifiable fines against ‘Big Car’ would be much more acceptable to the public.
The fact that these fines are only designed to drive ICE prices up to the level of EV prices goes largely unnoticed by the general public.
All stick, no carrot as far as the UK government is concerned.
What do the UK politicians plan on doing when the electrical grid comes to a slamming halt one day due to people wanting to charge their EVs? Most winters it seems like the UK is basically hanging on by a thread just keeping the heat on.
That’s where smart meters come in
Politicians don’t plan.
They have mandated that power companies build enough wind and solar to completely power the grid. In their “minds” they have already solved the grid problem. Implementing their plan is someone else’s problem.
I have never seen anything like this in modern times. To much to to go into again and has already been said anyway. But the boiling frog analogy really nails it.
Inflation now from all causes is really taking it’s toll on people after 3 years of insanity. It has finally caught up with me personally this year as the amount of money I had set aside for major maintenance and improvements in personal property and business back in 2000 and teens does ‘ nt even come close to completing the projects now. Add the increase’s in monthly living expenses have wittled discretionary income to peanuts. And I was in a little better shape financially than most(but by no means wealthy, basically just middle middle class)
And now our dark overlords want to pile on more costs in every way you can think of. Free stuff for “ migrants” , more insane government debt with ever increasing interest rates. Oh let’s not for get the fun of paying for other nations war time economies. No economy no matter how strong it was can sustain this. That means it it is just a matter of time before all hell breaks loose because none of these people will admit what they have done.
And what about lorries? And aviation? Oh so boring
“If you like your ICE vehicle, you can keep your ICE vehicle.”
JoeBama
There is only one thing Ford UK needs and that is to fire Lisa Brankin and her top ten or fifteen lieutenants. The only other thing is to tell their replacements that we have plenty of pink slips and we are prepared to use them on anyone who isn’t looking out for Ford’s shareholders and customers.
Story tip!
Keep fueling your car up with ethanol free gasoline. Biofuels barely reduce CO2 emissions.
– – – – – – – – –
Ethanol groups slam US EPA advisors for report on fuel’s ‘minimal’ climate benefit
The ethanol and corn industries on Thursday slammed an advisory board to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for a draft report that found there could be little climate benefit to using corn-starch ethanol as a fuel, compared with gasoline.
https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/climate-energy/ethanol-groups-slam-us-epa-advisors-report-fuels-minimal-climate-benefit-2023-09-21/
Checkout https://www.pure-gas.org/
No but it does keep the price of corn up despite increased harvests.
Nothing stopping Ford from selling only EV’s by 2030. Its a free market.
If EV’s are so good surely the public will be queuing up to buy them?
Ford should repeat their history, & develop the best vehicle for the best price as they did with the T.
To my knowledge, only one automaker called it right, and defied the senseless EV stampede.
You forgot about hybrid leader Toyota against a backdrop of rising oil prices-
Electric Vehicles | Hybrid & Hydrogen | Toyota AU
I doubt Toyota believe hydrogen will be a serious threat to petrol hybrid technology anytime soon but with their profitability and long factory order books they can afford to dabble in hydrogen fuelled technology to humour the Greenies. Besides they have the electric wherewithal to jump into BEV car production anytime they feel the need.
Shareholder capital is at risk either way because even without the full mandate, the watermelons will make it impossible to make a profit selling the cars people would like to buy.
So what will Ford (and other automakers who have climbed into bed with governments that push these EV mandates) do if the vast majority of potential buyers go full Cuba? As in sales of new cars (that by fiat would be EVs) plummet and people do whatever they can to keep and restore old vehicles? I know for sure that if I could buy a fully restored car or truck that is a couple of decades old (or simply one of some vintage that was kept by the little old lady who only went to church on Sunday in it) for the same price (or even a bit more) than a brand new EV I’d do it. This assuming I could no longer get a brand new ICE car…
That said, if Ford goes belly up, it gets what it deserves. It chose to roll over and submit to US and EU governments (and UK) rather than fight back. And fight back the automakers could have done – huge corporations have lots of power, including the power to lobby politicians. Plus, in the US the unions have a lot of power and they also could have goaded the big Three into telling the US gov’t and EPA to stuff it. But they didn’t, and now look where they are….
Simple, ban gas stations. You know it’s coming.
I have stored half a dozen designs for WW11 wood gas converters. One of these would drive our old ute quite happily, & drive a couple of old fashioned car engines driving pumps.
Where would all the HGV drivers get their fuel from? There are small HGVs that are electric and used for within city distribution. But Battery HGVs are not suitable for anything long range and even in the UK there is quite a lot of long range HGV transport.
I sold F and bought NVDA quite awhile ago.
“Our business needs three things from the UK government…”
Taxpayer cash, taxpayer cash, taxpayer cash.
story tip
Even with $1.7billion slushfunding for half of it Ford has second thoughts on an EV battery plant-
Ford Pauses Construction Of $3.5 Billion Michigan LFP Battery Plant (msn.com)