Ranger Rick: About Tesla, Ford and electric vehicles

Tesla:

I keep a close eye on economics and government boondoggles. My favorite cash squandering government supported business is Tesla and the con-man genius Elon Musk.

Last Wednesday Tesla reported a net loss of $785 million ($785,000,000). I added the number to show readers the vast amounts of cash this electric car manufacturer has blown in one quarter. Poor Elon was having a hard time answering financial analysts on Tesla’s performance, or lack thereof last week.

Tesla is a fine example why the federal government should never, ever get involved in an idea and help support with tax revenue when private enterprise always does a more efficient, effective way to address a sprouting industry that is trying to grow from the ground up. If it was such a good idea, private investors would have invested to make the profits. However, they saw what a huge risk it was to back Mr. Musk’s dream because being a great thinker and inventor doesn’t always transform into a growing, prosperous company.

If his ideas and plans were so exciting he should have many willing and excited investors. Instead, he took his magic act to Washington D.C. and our fate was sealed. The Obama Administration, as in so many boondoggles they bequeathed upon us, sucked it up hook, line, and sinker. Thus Tesla expanded.

Now with withering support, more competition, and huge mounting losses, Tesla is on the ropes playing rope-a-dope, an Ali against Frazier and Frazier is pounding. By summer’s end, Tesla may be bankrupt. Tesla executives are fleeing, factory workers are attempting to organize, and Musk adds more projects when his Model 3 is hobbled by problems that haven’t been solved.

Ford:

It was reported last week Ford would be jettisoning sedans for SUVs and trucks, keeping only the Mustang and one model of Focus. Ford, and a few other manufacturers, have migrated toward the larger vehicles for the demand and resulting profit margins. While now it makes sense with somewhat stable gas prices, a few years may make the decision a poor one indeed – time will tell.

However, the CEO of Ford, James Hackett (former interim AD at Michigan and Steelcase CEO) made the decision and will be the goat if it was a bad one. With his stint at Michigan, hiring a successful football coach and no huge controversy over player behavior (unlike other programs at other colleges) he was considered a good A.D. At Steelcase he had mixed performance results. The introductory Steelcase stock price went up to the mid-30s and plummeted down to the mid-teens or below and stayed there during his reign. Some product introductions were poorly executed. Overall, he was a respected thinker and futurist, but not so much on the day-to-day operations of the company.

Ford never took a federal loan to bail them out during the GM/Chrysler bail out period. They saw the writing on the wall, sold poor performing divisions, and watched the budget closely. Their fiscal management was exemplary.

Now there is James Hackett, with no experience as an auto executive, making monumental decisions on the company’s future. Let’s hope he made the right decision, as Ford employs thousands worldwide and their future careers are possibly being jeopardized on this decision.

Electric Vehicles:

Other companies are steadily going full electric and planning abandoning the internal combustion engine soon. This is certainly a good idea with respect to air pollution. However, delivery and long haul trucking need to be addressed as well as positioning recreational vehicles for pulling and trailering. If that can be successfully accomplished by electric vehicles, it will be an overwhelming success. However, there is always a flip-side of any coin.

In establishing electrical battery storage sources for vehicles, how much pollution is going to be generated in the manufacture, re-charging and maintaining, and disposing of electrical batteries? I remember seeing something some time ago about the Toyota Prius and the battery production required for the vehicle.

A Canadian source manufactured the battery core and found manufacturing was polluting the area. The nickel in the battery mined and smelted in Ontario pollutes the area with acid rain and nickel dust, killing plants and making the area uninhabitable. It is then sent to Europe, then to China, then to the United States, at every stop in the process there is by-product pollution. Before a Prius even has one mile on the odometer, it has eaten up 1,000+ gallons of fuel in the process of making battery and vehicle. I guess the idea of the Prius being “Green” is a misnomer!

Now with all the manufacturers transitioning to battery power, how much is being sacrificed in pollution and environment? When we think we are making a good change, sometimes it is doesn’t totally work out the way we figured. But just the attempt to make the change makes people feel good about themselves. Liberals are inflicted with a feel-good mindset.

Liberals always feel, but hardly think. Conservatives think. Liberals feel.

Would you rather be led by people with feelings and good intentions or people who are thinkers and gets things accomplished?

The rotting of America from within continues…