By Jo Nova
The EV bubble, or what’s left of it, popped this week
After carmakers invested billions into EV designs, and the EU and UK vowed to ban internal combustion engines, it’s all come undone. Donald Trump pulled the pin on subsidies for EVs and eased the strict emissions rules that punished petrol and diesel cars. US sales of electric cars promptly fell 40% in November. Ford’s fell by nearly 60%.
In response, Ford has killed off several electric cars, and will swallow a bitter pill of a $19.5 billion US dollar write down. That’s a lot of cars it will have to sell to make that money back. Gone is the fully electric F-150, the next generation electric truck, and any plan to make electric commercial vans. Instead Ford says it will shift into gas and hybrid models.
General Motors laid off 3,300 workers at EV plants in the US.
On the other side of the Pacific, shares of Korean battery makers “slumped across the board” this week after the news.
The day after the Ford announcement the European Commission let the world know it would wind back the total ban on internal combustion engines which was supposed to come into effect in 2035. Theoretically they’re only dropping the 100% ban to a 90% one. But the ideology has cracked, largely due to the uproar from European car makers who were not selling enough EV’s to make it work.
There are already calls to drop the 90% rule. It will mean that only the rich will be able to afford the few new petrol and diesel cars available for sale. Presumably the unwashed masses will just keep driving their old cars,.
The car maker takes a $19.5 billion write-down on its electric-vehicle business.
The Wall Street Journal
Not long ago, auto makers were touting electric cars as the future. Well, now they are slamming the brakes hard on that future as market reality has hit them like a 16-wheeler. See Ford Motor’s stunning announcement Monday that it will take a $19.5 billion charge on its electric-vehicle business.
“Instead of plowing billions into the future knowing these large EVs will never make money, we are pivoting,” Ford CEO Jim Farley said as he explained the company’s plan to boost its lineup of gas-powered cars and hybrids. Ford will also scrap its all-electric F-150 Lightning pickup, which has been a favorite of the EV-loving press.
Ford has lost $13 billion on its EV business since 2023, with bigger losses expected in years to come. Last year Ford lost about $50,000 for each EV sold. The truth is that the business case for EVs has always rested largely on government subsidies and mandates. Now that this combination of government favoritism and coercion is mostly going away, most car makers have much less reason to make EVs.
The same week as CSIRO decided 90% renewable was near enough, the EU did a similar thing:
EU drops 2035 combustion engine ban as global EV shift faces reset
The lesson, yet again, is that in trying to artificially make EV’s cheaper, Big Government has made all cars more expensive. Ford and everyone else will have to make up those losses somehow. And in trying to reduce emissions, the bureaucrats have almost certainly increased them. By denying the poor a chance to own a new car, they’re undoubtedly kept older, higher emission cars on the road. Not that emissions matter — the point is that whatever it was that the geniuses with the magic wand wanted, the free market would have done it better.
POST-NOTE: I meant to mention Francis Menton’s article,The Electric Vehicle Collapse: Wow, That Was Quick! which described just how fast and furious this EV Bubble has inflated and collapsed:
“It was less than three years ago — early 2023 — that I was writing about the then-universal government and industry line that electric vehicles (EVs) would soon be taking over the American car market. “
In a post in January 2023, I linked to the websites of Ford and GM, where they both touted their grand plans for rapid conversion of their companies to the manufacture of mostly or entirely EVs. At that time, Ford was claiming that it would “lead America’s shift to EVs,” and would achieve 50% of its sales in that category by 2030. GM bragged about its “path to an all-electric future” by 2035.
Let’s face it, this was always ill-conceived central planning, and it was never going to work. I went back to the links that I had included to the Ford and GM websites in my January 2022 post. Both links remain active, but the excited talk about leading the way to an all-EV future has been scrubbed from both.
That Old Chestnut can now be updated as –
A FORD EV – Found On Rubbish Dump
And –
EV = Enviromental Vandalism
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The car manufacturers needed to mass produce a low-cost skateboard first. This could have been done in China, Vietnam, India, Mexico etc. The coachwork is then added to differentiate the product. A retail A$15k EV and house battery.
This is what the engineers told management to make.
None of this happened.
Capital was wasted because upper managment saw an opportunity to line their pockets with silver.
Now we reap the whirlwind.
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That is what VW. Did for their EV range .
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Yes, but that applies to ICE vehicles roo. Minimise the tare weight to maximise efficiency.
I am told they already do from India to China.
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It’s only started. Soon there will be a different price for electricity for different applications. EVs, domestic, factories. Supply and demand, ability to pay, cross subsidies. Factories are essential. Domestic energy supply expected. But EVs are elective, indulgent and without endless subsidies, far too expensive. The end of the subsidies will kill pure EVs.
Elective EVs are parasitic on the generation and distribution and road system, a fact hidden by stealing from non EV users to subsidize every aspect of purchase and operation. Charged properly according to the recurring capital investment by society required to make them a convenient and affordable reality is not socially or economically justifiable. It’s robbery.
However hybrid systems, like all hybrid systems, allow optimization. These solve the one real problem addressed, regenerative braking which alone could half energy consumption in city transit. And this doubles resources.
At the same time moves to dramatically improve energy output from fundamentally free and plentiful fossil fuels have been incredibly valuable.
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“Charged properly according to the recurring capital investment by society required to make them a convenient and affordable reality is not socially or economically justifiable. It’s robbery.”
But, but ‘socialism’ is a synonym for ‘robbery’ …
Auto
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What Climate Change? Where?
It is amusing to see the Climate Change press chasing world wide to find evidence. A flood here, a summer fire, a landslide, a tsunami, anything to support world wide catastrophe when most of the world’s population has no problem with the weather, except that it changes. Sometimes every day. The idea that humans control the weather will soon be recognized as the greatest hoax in human history.
And without Climate Change cash and politics there never would have been fully electric cars. Now the world has to deal with the fallout of the failure. And those people who bought electric cars will have to deal with zero resale value. Which for many is fine.
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TdeF,
That very much depends on what you define as a hoax because there is certainly plenty of competition for greatest;
– Communism is the savior of the masses;
– Islam is the religion of peace;
– COVID19 vaccines are safe and effective;
– Wind and solar are the cheapest form of electricity;
And that’s only SOME of the recent ones!!
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War is peace
Freedom is slavery
Ignorance is strength
and one of my own
Pretending is reality
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Agreed. Then scientific hoax.
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To TfeF,
It’s not just a hoax, it’s a FRAUD because some grifters are making lots of money out of it!
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Hybrids in the UK might end up getting double-slugged by the government: firstly for fuel and emissions taxes, and secondly for EV mileage taxes. And who knows, there’s every chance that once the government starts raking in EV mileage, ICEs will also get taxed for mileage.
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It will be framed as a tax on CO2, not petrol. And you will have to pay it when you buy your petrol.
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None of this will happen under a reform government. Won’t be necessary when there are no subsidies, tax credits etc to finance!! Taxes will fund repairs to a badly damaged & despondent Once Great Britain. Simple really. Climate Change only causes poverty, disinvestment, unemployment, general unrest!
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Graham, I think you omitted a word. Should that final sentence read, “Climate Change Policies only cause poverty………!
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That situation already exists in effect….
. most significant industrial consumers negotiate a contract or wholesale supply price ,
. public EV charger systems are notoriously expensive
..even domestic supply varies widely depending on location , contract details, and retail supplier
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It is worthy of note that the first road going EV offered to us, Toyota’s Prius, a hybrid system, seems to be the pattern that everybody is turning to. I imagine with a bit smaller battery.
Just look at all the trouble we could have saved if we just followed Toyota from the start
The latest model Nissan X-Trail has so far as I know no mechanical connection between the motor and the wheels
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The latest model Nissan X-Trail has so far as I know no mechanical connection between the motor and the wheels
Though I so suspect that the wheels are connected to motors of an electrical nature. Which are computer controlled with connections to the battery and generation system (which is the ICE motor)
Engineering concepts need to be described “correctly” or they will be turned into political conversations.
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Only in theory can regenerative braking achieve 40% efficiency (10% losses during acceleration, 10% losses during energy recuperation).
And if you brake gently, almost nothing can be recuperated. Remember, a vehicle without propulsion is also slowed down by its own resistance – the road doesn’t provide any energy recuperation.
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This old farmer’s rule of thumb was that when converting one type of energy to another, the best you can expect is about 80%. I would not have expected this application to achieve anything like that.
But I don’t know how my son’s dainty little “Inverter” welder works. But it does.
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Best you can expect from regerative braking in an EV is less than 10-15 % of the energy input.
Non plug in Hybrids are best suited to urban/city use with lots of stop start driving for max regen oportunity. They are pointless for highway use with infrequent stopping.
The current trend is towards PLUG IN HYBRID tech with larger batteries (10-30 kWh) to allow local trips on electric drive only. or the IC for longer trips.
The Xtrail is a series hybrid which means it has to use the IC engine all the time , AND the electric motors , hence suffering the inefficiencies of both.
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The Xtrail is a series hybrid which means it has to use the IC engine all the time , AND the electric motors , hence suffering the inefficiencies of both.
How are diesel/electric railroad engines explained?
I suspect because there is better transfer of energy/torque to the driving wheels…. And the engine is run at a more optimal speed power rating most of the time
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The power in Watts returned to the battery depends, unsurprisingly, on the size of the hybrid motor. Having a bigger, more powerful motor increases the power on tap when accelerating briskly and recovers more power in Watts when slowing down.
If taking a hybrid for a test drive go onto the highway. When slowing down reentering the 60k zone, if retardation is similar to a conventional ICE, that sounds good. My 15 yr old Camry is less than ideal but I haven’t driven a later model for comparison.
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There goes the Ford CEO’s Annual Bonus. I wonder whether the CEO will keep his job.
It’s the Ford Shareholders that will feel the pain.
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The Ford shareholders will decide the CEO’s future. He’s obviously a Democrat flunkey so if they’re a pissed off this could be messy!
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The $19.5 billion number is just the write down. The total figure Ford has lost on EV’s is closer to $35.1 billion once you add up all the losses over the last four years. Lots of manufacturers took a haircut on bad EV investments, but Ford is the only one that went full retard and bet everything on EVs. It reminds of when BP changed their name from British Petroleum to Beyond Petroleum and went all-in on renewable energy rather than focusing on the core competency that built the company, then watched their profit margins and market share wither before finally reversing course.
https://robertbryce.substack.com/p/fords-351-billion-ev-fiasco
The question every stockholder should be asking is … why does CEO Jim Farley still have a job? His decision to go all in on EVs turned what should have been a $46 billion profit over the last four years, a number that would have led to rising stock price, and turned it into an $11 billion profit that saw the stock price nearly cut in half over the past three years.
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Why does the CEO still have a job?
and a few more
Why is the existing board of directors still in place?
Why do the existing stockholders still hold the stock?
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Success was always just around the corner.
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It’s never a good business model to rely on taxpayer subsidies or forced purchase arrangements.
Yiu never know when a non-woke Government like TRUMP’s might come along and cancel.everyhing.
It ought to be a warning sign for shareholders.
Get woke, go broke.
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The scams still work in Australia though, because the alternative Government, the fake conservative Liberals, believe in all the same scams as Labor, Greens and Teals.
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How long for?
Our PM is pretending that he is in charge.
I can’t see any conclusion that does not terminate his career very soon.
There will be a dramatic change in priorities.
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Like socialism relying on taxpayer subsidies or forced purchase arrangements must be done right.
Exhibit A: Elon Musk
Exhibit B: Warren Buffet
Exhibit C: Every other damned self made billionaire.
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Warren Buffet, when asked why he’d started investing in renewables, said that because the government was guaranteeing a profit with its subsidies that he would be derelict not to take the opportunity.
This year he has sold out of renewables.
Which when you consider what the task of Berkshire Hathaway is, which is to make money for people who have invested in it, is perfectly reasonable. What he didn’t do is sell out of his petroleum and coal interests at the same time.
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That’ll learn ’em!
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Just more laughable lunacy from the left wing extremists and we’re still waiting for the evidence about their so called CC emergency.
EVs are an environmental disaster and are about the same as the unreliable toxic W & S idiocy that have to be replaced every 15 to 20 years and they destroy thousands of klms of our pristine wilderness areas as well.
We should cut the subsidies and waste from these toxic EVs and unreliable W & S disasters and only build reliable BASE-LOAD energy today and forever.
Base-load energy security is critical for our future freedom and prosperity and this is the only way we can ensure we have national security.
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Ah. If only the “we” you mention had their hands on the levers of power.
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Time to look to Trumpism to jolt the real polluters of the world. China , India, Vietnam, and others polluting the oceans & the atmosphere.
Let TARIFFS reflect the type & volume of pollutants they produce & the western industrial nations finance. Maybe the “ islands of garbage will disappear over the next 25 years!!
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Remove the Obama era Fleet vehicle emissions And most of the EV sales will evaporate. EV’s are vitally important for reducing urban particulate pollution, and this point needs to be emphasised. We just need a cleaner production program and adequate energy infrastructure. The lungs of somebody who lives in the city are grey to black, not pink. That isn’t a good thing.
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You are right but your cleaner production program just transfers environmental damage beyond the city boundaries.
I’d advocate for cities living entirely within their own boundaries. Make their own food. Make their own power. Produce their own water. Dispose of their own waste. Live in their own bubble.
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Tony Dique,
That’s not clear to me. EVs can even make things worse if, like Sydney Buses, you do your day’s driving around and then charge the fleet up overnight with large diesel generators.
I wonder if there’s any non-politically-motivated numbers attributing urban particulate sources. With how clean car engines run these days, it’d be interesting to know how much from engines, how much from brakes, from tyres and then there are other sources. How much comes from construction sites?
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Each burning electric vehicle does it so cleanly – NOT!
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Guess where we had a lithium-ion battery fire today? Why, just near where I live,in Yass NSW! How would have thunk it?
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It’s worth having a close look at how the PM 2.5 regulation came into being, primarily from a Harvard report that the university has refused to publicly release. From my viewpoint, it’s right that this low PM level should be challenged, and certainly shouldn’t be quoted as something to aim for.
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On a like for like basis EVs increase urban particulate pollution because they are heavier, and the greatest contribution to urban particular pollution in the present day is from tire wear, and EVs have a lot greater tire wear than ICE vehicles of the same class and capacity.
Another major contributor to UPP is diesel exhaust fumes, which all the warmenistas jumped on because “they use less fuel”.
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“We just need a cleaner production program and adequate energy infrastructure”
Sounds so simple
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There is a downside to the decline in EV sales in the US.
Even today, there are minimum fuel economy standards in the US. EV sales purchased fuel economy credits for a manufacturer’s fleet so that vehicles could be below the standard but boosted by EV credits.
TRUMP needs to also remove the mandatory fuel economy limits because, if for no other reason, there is nothing quite like a V8.
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Must be my imagination, its seems like only yesterday old mate Farley was telling us how wonderful all the new Ford EV’s were.
Amazing what a flood of cheap imports will do. Almost every week I see details of a new brand of small truck ( ute ) – all Chinese. Most are either hybrid or full EV.
I get the feeling the vehicles are being dumped on Australia and it would be interesting to see whether the same is happening in other RHD markets. I would imagine the Chinese would be targeting India, but they are very protective of their industries.
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Interesting thought that. China dumping manufactured products on India.
Heck, I’m old enough to remember Jap Crap which was supposed to lead to world domination by Japan.
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Get real Ross, we should ALL know that the Albozo government is financing subsidies for Chinese EVs. One day we’ll find out how much those subsidies are worth when all the unmentionable carbon taxes are revealed & the accounts are audited!
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At the moment China is dumping cars all around the world, both EV and fuel engines.
‘Thousands of new Chinese electric vehicles have been left stranded at one of Australia’s best known amusement parks after being stored there without council approval.’ (News.com)
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I’d just ask the silly loonies that still believe “we must do something” about their delusional CC emergency to check the co2 Coalition Scientist’s etc facts and Quiz archive and then tell us where they are wrong?
Also SLR just 1.5 mm a year since 1850. See 2025 Dutch study.
Polar Bears 5,000 in 1950 to 30,000 today.
GBR recently the highest and best since 1985. See Dr Ridd, Marine Science data.
Aussie cyclones lower trend today since 1969. See BOM graph. Also much lower today than previous 6,000 years, see Dr Notts’ studies recently.
Death rates from extreme weather events 98% lower today since 1900. Population in 1900 just 1.6 billion and 8.2 billion at risk today. Think about that evidence. See OWI Data or Lomborg, Dr Koonin, Dr Christy etc.
Big drop in global fires and burns death rates since 1980. See OWI Data.
Much higher Human global calories intake over the last 100 years, YET over 6 billion MORE people to feed since 1925. See OWI Data I’ve linked to many times.
Previous Eemian interglacial 8 C warmer than our Holocene today and SLs then were up to 6 metres higher than today in 2025. Co2 levels then were only 280 ppm and 424 ppm today.
So when will our delusional fools wake up?
https://co2coalition.org/facts/
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Ahhh – but the BBC is revisiting tipping points, and a 6000mm rise in MSL by Tuesday-week or whenever, [obviously after some tipping point or other].
Now it looks like this lunacy is deliberate.
Not like Trump’s speech editing on Panorama [to be renamed Pravdorama] which was ‘accidental’.
Not like Trump’s speech editing on Newsnight which was ‘inadvertent’.
… Note: the two adjectives came from the quitting BBC Director General, Tim Davie.
Deliberate.
Yet they have access to the internet – as we do – and, even, ‘BBC Verify’ an astonishingly ‘Stalinist’ organisation that reflects increasing tractor manufacture statistics mercilessly, but accuracy . . . ahh well …
I suppose I need to prepare for prison for pointing this out.
So be it.
Auto
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I have no desrire to own a new car. EV or not. As far as I’m concerned they are overpriced crap. You can’t work on them. They are designed to be disposable. But dispoable at that cost is frod. Then there are all the digital Orwellian stuff. I will just keep on rebuilding the classic cars I love.
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Wha …?!
They let you know immediately when tire pressure is slightly less than perfect.
You barely have to look around or ever know where you are.
Once you move they will even lock you in.
Many have automatic doors and if you even touch the door while it’s moving it will cease functioning, requiring an expensive repair.
Almost like a second wife, including continuing payments after it no longer functions as advertised.
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Don’t think for a moment that Ford won’t try (and succeed) to recover their $20 billion losses on EVs from future customers of conventional cars.
We will all pay extra for their products so Ford can square their accounting.
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JoNova – I am very curious about how the system actually operated. Did EV producers not receive massive grants, tax breaks and other benefits to aid in their production of EVs? Or in other words, they profited nicely in advance so technically should have the funds available to mop up the ‘losses’? Nor is Tesla related to – what’s the story there?
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Yes. Ford received a US$9.6bn loan for the development of EVs and the establishment of EV battery factories, which never eventuated. Plus other U.S. govt tax incentives. There were other U.S state incentives. U.S. buyers also received tax incentives to purchase Ford EVs. Australia even pitched in with some money.
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I wonder if subsidy addicted Twiggy knows!!
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FWIW
“The Electric Vehicle Collapse: Wow, That Was Quick!”
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2025/12/18/the-electric-vehicle-collapse-wow-that-was-quick/
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I sent that one to Jo. Thanks for posting that URL👍🇺🇸👍🇺🇸
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That applies to much, some would say most, of what governments do.
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Ford et al are not innocent victims here, they were complicit in the forced change to EVs for their own profit. ICEs are old technology and the US is falling behind. Now that it has blown up in their collective faces they have no right to beg the feds for bailouts, even though the feds, and Cali., herded them in that direction.
Toyota was subject to the same pressure but were smart enough just to blow a couple of bill(?) on hydrogen research, an expense that could be written off immediately with no hangover, besides I suspect outside unis and research institutes helped in the funding.
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Can’t they go and find some of the journalists who promoted this stuff, and make them pay a share of the loss based on endless misleading articles?
Misinformation, responsibility to the public, integrity … those type of words.
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