Mandates and massive taxpayer subsidies have forced a giant move into electric vehicles for all facets of the automobile industry, from car manufacturers, to dealers, and to even rental fleets. But this compulsion results in huge financial losses and frustrated EV owners, proving that the Biden-Harris administration and its allies place “Green New Deal” narrative and unhinged climate alarmism over the realities of EVs in 2024.
Ford Motor becomes the latest casualty of this politicized, massive investment into EVs. Ford stock gets smoked today in volatile trade after it announced dreadful results from its EV unit. Specifically, it lost a staggering $132,000 per vehicle on each of the 10,000 EVs it sold in the first quarter of this year.
Total EV sales, once projected to climb skyward for years, declined for Ford by 20% over the same time last year. Even worse, EV revenue plunged by 84%, because of the steep discounts required by dealers to move the EVs into the hands of wary consumers.
If Ford had read my EV article from January warning about exactly this issue, perhaps they could have better weathered this EV storm. On January 18th, I posted the comments of a Ford dealer, right after EVs across the northern US became unusable during a severe cold snap:
In chilly Eau Claire, Wisconsin, a local Ford dealer explained that he only sells one EV for every 100 gasoline cars, in large part because “battery-powered vehicles lose up to 40% of their range in the cold.” Notably, EVs show similar performance problems in severe heat, as well.
But instead of respecting consumer sentiment and economic reality, Ford plunges headfirst into mammoth EV investments that bring misery to Ford shareholders. For the last 2 years, once Biden’s EV agenda really took got instituted, Ford’s stock is down -14%, even though the overall stock market has rallied well during that time. For example, S&P 500 has increased by a stout +17% during the same period.
My populist right labor organization, the League of American Workers, regularly polls the battleground states that will determine the outcome of the 2024 elections. Using survey samples that are evenly split between Trump and Biden 2020 voters, we find widespread and consistent resistance to being forced into EVs.
For instance, in battleground Georgia, a whopping 78% of likely voters voiced opposition to Biden’s shift of Medicare funds over to EV subsidies. We also surveyed Michigan, a key swing state politically, and the home of the US auto industry. Undecided presidential voters in states like Michigan are the “holy grail” of politics in 2024 – those undecided citizens of the Great Lakes State hate these Biden shifts to EV subsidies, by a ratio of 80-8%.
So, time for America to end this nonsense. Electric vehicles may, in fact, be the standard cars of the future. But giant subsidies and forced conversions now only waste resources and cause unnecessary aggravation.
Time to stop these exorbitantly expensive boondoggles that have nothing to do with the environment and everything to do with cronyism and lefty narrative.
Steve Cortes is a political advisor and commentator. He previously traded global currencies and interest rates for 25 years for large international hedge funds. He has been an on-air broadcaster for CNBC, Fox News, and CNN. Cortes founded the League of American Workers in 2022 to conduct research and develops proposals on public policies impacting American workers and the economy.
