George Ghazzoul is warning other drivers about the new Smart Summon feature on Tesla vehicles after his self-driving vehicle side-swiped another in a parking lot.
When Ghazzoul bought a Tesla two years ago, he admitted it wasn’t just the car’s style that drove him; it was his love of technology.
“Really, the selling point for me is the fact you get software updates and you always get new features on the car,” he said.
WTF!
There was a time when it seemed Tesla could do no wrong.
In little more than a decade, it went from technology upstart to mass-market carmaker, invested billions in its clean energy business, and saw its value rocket.
But now the company is struggling with falling car sales and intense competition from Chinese brands, as well as problems with its much-hyped Cybertruck.
Lower sales have hit its revenues, and hurt its profits. Its share price has fallen by more than a quarter since the start of the year.
Mandated EV adoption has proven both boon and bane for Tesla.
Communist style Five Year Plans like that favoured by Wacko Trudeau distorted the market attracting rent seekers rather than competitors responding to consumer demand.
The Biden administration’s stringent environmental regulations and prioritization of electric vehicles are both deeply unpopular among swing-state voters, according to new polling shared exclusively with National Review.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was told Monday by a top union leader that grave concerns remain about the hiring of foreign workers at a flagship EV battery plant in Windsor, Ont., when skilled Canadians are available to do the jobs.
In a keynote discussion with the Prime Minister at the annual conference of Canada’s Building Trades Unions in Gatineau, union leader Sean Strickland told Mr. Trudeau that the concerns that emerged last year about the hiring of hundreds of Korean and Japanese workers at the EV factory have yet to be resolved.
There is a long-running debate about whether Tesla is a car or a technology company. For a while this was largely an academic question related to future potential and therefore valuation. But now Elon Musk’s baby has reached a crunch point and the search for an answer has become existential.
There are no prizes for guessing which side Musk comes down on. “If you value Tesla just as an auto company, you fundamentally have the wrong framework,” he said last week. “If someone doesn’t believe Tesla is going to solve autonomy, they should not be an investor in the company.”
It will be satisfying to witness Tesla — perhaps the greatest grift ever — go the way of WorldCom and Enron.
Elon’s big grift is in trouble.
His electric vehicle (EV) operation — which allowed car manufacturers to “offset” their carbon footprints by purchasing “credits” from Elon in lieu of making EVs themselves — had been priced with the expectation that the government would make a “market” for battery powered vehicles. But Tesla’s stock just lost about 40 percent of its value.
The reason why is both ironic and delicious.
Parties to the massive Honda EV investment deal reached this week have tacitly acknowledged that foreign workers will be involved in setting up the proposed auto plants, while attempting to downplay an issue already seized upon by the federal Conservatives.
In response to questions throughout the week, federal officials, their provincial counterparts and executives for the automaker have talked about “optimizing” or “maximizing” the number of Canadian jobs — leaving the door open for foreign workers to work on facilities resulting from the historic $15-billion deal.
The saga of Bombardier, once a symbol of Canadian pride, is a sobering one. Joseph-Armand Bombardier, who founded the company in 1942, was a great Canadian inventor and entrepreneur. But over time, the company that bears his name morphed into the poster child for corporate welfare in Canada, becoming utterly dependent on using its outsized political clout to browbeat successive governments into funneling them perpetual taxpayer largesse. The results have cost Canadians more than $4 billion in direct costs alone; distorted and disfigured our economy at the expense of other sectors not so favoured; and sowed unhelpful regional divisions to boot.
On Thursday, the federal and Ontario governments announced that they will be doling out an estimated $5 billion in corporate welfare to Honda, so the auto giant can build an electric vehicle (EV) battery plant and manufacture EVs in Ontario.
This is the third such deal in Ontario, following similar corporate welfare handouts to Volkswagen ($13 billion) and Stellantis ($15 billion). Like the previous two deals, the Honda deal comes at a significant cost to taxpayers and will almost certainly fail to create widespread economic benefits for Ontarians.
Enormous investments in EV technology shook the automotive industry in both Canada and the U.S. this week. Honda promised to spend $15 billion in Ontario on Thursday morning. Toyota unveiled new investments in Indiana that afternoon, bringing its total spending on EVs in that state to $8 billion US.
“In Canada, our target is that 100 per cent of all light duty cars and passenger truck sales be zero emission by 2035,” said Prime Minister Justin Trudeau at the Honda announcement in Alliston, Ont. “As a great Canadian once said, that is where the puck is going and that is where we’re going to be.”
But the surge in investment comes as the underlying EV industry remains at a crossroads. Growth forecasts have plateaued, charging infrastructure has not kept pace and electric vehicle prices have pushed the cars out of reach of many consumers.
This is a CBC PROPAGANDA piece for the Liberals.
In certain urban neighbourhoods, it can seem like Tesla Model 3s, Volkswagen ID.4s and Chevy Bolts occupy every third driveway.
Zero-emissions vehicles accounted for nearly 11 per cent of all new motor vehicles registered last year, according to Statistics Canada – the first time they’ve topped one in 10. That’s more than double the 5-per-cent sales threshold after which some experts believe consumer preferences shift and mass-adoption ensues
Charging a single EV draws as much energy as two average households combined, according to Toronto Hydro. Many observers have warned that rapid EV adoption will cause demand for electricity to surge.
The Conservatives and the New Democrats have both called on the Liberal government to assure local Canadian workers that their jobs will be protected at new electric vehicle plants, as Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced a $15 billion deal with Honda on April 25.
Tory MP and industry critic Rick Perkins commented earlier this week on foreign workers being employed in EV plants that have been heavily subsidized by Canadian taxpayers, citing a report from Canada’s Building Trades Union (CBTU) that claimed foreign replacement workers were being employed at electric battery plants in southern Ontario.
The largest deal in Canadian history. That’s how Premier Doug Ford has described a recently inked agreement between Ontario, Ottawa and auto giant Honda, officially announced Thursday.
Under the terms of the agreement, Honda will pump billions into building an electric vehicle assembly plant. For the automaker, the plant would be the first of its kind in Ontario; for the province, the third after automakers Stellantis and Volkswagen inked similar agreements last year. In touting the virtues of the agreement with Honda, the Premier said, “everyone’s going to benefit.”
But that’s not true. Not everyone. The move saddles Canadians with a product for which enthusiasm is tepid at best.
Honda is set to build an electric vehicle battery plant next to its Alliston, Ont., assembly plant, which it is retooling to produce fully electric vehicles, all part of a $15-billion project that is expected to include up to $5 billion in public money.
The two plants are expected to create 1,000 jobs on top of retaining the existing 4,200 jobs at the assembly plant.
…The deal, expected to be announced within a week, involves a multibillion-dollar commitment by Honda for new facilities to process cathode active materials, build batteries, and assemble battery-powered vehicles — making southern Ontario a key hub of company’s EV manufacturing plans in North America. The Canadian government would subsidize a portion of the capital cost.
…The Honda investment comes at an anxious moment for the auto sector, with consumer adoption of electric vehicles playing out slowly in some regions because of high prices and a shortage of charging stations. Tesla Inc. is cutting more than 10% of its global workforce, Chinese producer BYD Co. reported a sharp drop in deliveries of electric vehicles in the first quarter, and other automakers have delayed EV investments.
Count on the Trudeau government to be wrong and wasteful.
h/t Mauser
