This Woman Turned Her Tesla Model 3 Into a Pickup Truck

[K-Dog]

If you want an electric pickup truck, you sort of don't have any options right now because none currently exist for the public to buy, at least here in the U.S. There's the Rivian R1T, of course, but it isn't available yet. And there's the Tesla pickup truck which we're told might happen this summer. So, if you want one now, you kind of have to build it yourself.

She and her team decided early on that they were just going to wing it, which is honestly how the best plans are conceived. They used a Tesla Model 3, which has a steel chassis and is easiest to wrench on. Plus, it's the cheapest Tesla you can buy new.

That's not a problem if you are amateur robot builder and YouTuber Simone Giertz, also known as "The Queen of Shitty Robots." She's no stranger to using angle grinders and welders, so there's really no stopping her otherwise. This project will yield, as Giertz claims, the first functional Tesla pickup truck ever. I'm so onboard.

[RE]

Looks like a Lose-Lose investment for everyone except the repair shops at the end of this technologically innovative supply chain for the rent-a-car biz.  On paper, EV carz do seem a perfect application of this technology, combined with the web based Ridehail system it seemed a marriage made in heaven for everyone buying stock in Tesla, Hertz and Uber.  Sadly, something seems to have gone south on the way from manufacturing the batteries to selling off the used hardware.  Real life has a way of throwing a few monkey wrenches into these bright ideas.

https://www.theverge.com/2023/10/27/23934691/hertz-tesla-uber-ev-plans-damage-repair-price-cuts

Hertz is scaling back its EV ambitions because its Teslas keep getting damaged



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[RE]

Study funded primarily by FF friendly Koch brothers, but reality is true that hidden costs and logistical difficulties are major obstacles to further expansion of EV replacement of ICE transportation in the J6P market.

Mentioned in this article is something we don't often discuss, which is that most of the early adopters of EVs were people who had a GARAGE attached to their PRIVATE McMansion, allowing said owner to easily and conveniently plug in and recharge his wheels nightly after returning from work to swill beer in the backyard bbqing or watching the NFL on Fox on his 60" OLED TV with Dolby surround sound.

Sadly, even many of the fairly rich people who own their own Brownstone in Brooklyn Heights don't have a garage, and they park their cars on the alternate side of the street system forcing them to move spots every day for street sweeping.  This actually created a whole job class of people who move the cars across the street to double park for 4 hours until the sweeper goes through, then move them back.  Many people who own a car don't have their own garage to plug it in every night, and running an extension cord out the window to your car is pretty impractical.

Then you have Homeless people who live in their cars, obviously they have nowwhere to plug it in except a charging station, or if they can find somebody who has an outdoor outlet and they have a long enough extension cord maybe they can pirate the electricity.  Or pirate off of street lamps.  I wonder how many EV owners do that

So anyhow, to own an EV in practical terms, not only do you need to be able to afford the already higher cost of the vehicle, but the even higher cost of housing space big enough to house not just you but your vehicle also.  Minimum would be a Carport in an apartment complex with an AC outlet on your account meter circuit.  I had such an arrangement at my old place prior to losing my leg.  This construction is reasonably common in AK so you can plug in a block heater, but not in the lower 48.  Even here, I would say fewer than 20% of apt complexes wire their carports right now.

So, inevitably, once the small-ish market of people who live the full Amerikan Dream of a McMansion with a white picket fence and a 2 car garage was saturated, the larger market of car owners who live in more compact housing arrangements has been slow to follow EV adoption, leading to lower than hoped for demand, lower profits and less investment.

Question is, how low can Elon cut his profit margin on the Teslas before the yield on his corporate paper skyrocket?  A few percentage points, and all those Billions in debt becomes a problem.

https://www.thestreet.com/electric-vehicles/electric-vehicle-tesla-adoption-curve-cost

Study determines the astronomical true cost of electric vehicle ownership

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[RE]

File this under unforseen blowback.

The latest economic problem for EVs is their poor resale value on the used market.  It's particularly nasty for the rental car companies which always have to use late model vehicles if they want to charge the market rates for bizness and vacation travelers.  Nobody on a Hawaii vacation wants to Rent-a-Wreck.  They want a nicer, NEWER car than the 7 year old Toyota they commute to work in every day.  So rental car companies lease vehicles for 3 years, then resell them.  Personally, when I rented a car I was disappointed if it was more than a year old.

A 3 year old Tesla probably has a battery pack with a lot of charge-discharge cycles on it if it was used in the rental bizness.  It's going to have diminished range on a charge, and probably will need a full battery replacement in 2-3 more years of use by the new owner.  Factoring that future cost in, the new owner is not going to pay the same resale price as an equivalent ICE vehicle, which still will be getting pretty much the same gas mileage as when it was new and goes just as far on a tank of gas.

Besides that, the majority of individuals who bought new EVs were high income people.  They don't buy used cars of any type.  If you're rich, you buy a new car every year, or every 2 at the most.  So these folks keep dropping their 2 year old Teslas off at the dealership to trade for the newest model.  Now the dealers have to try and sell the 2 year old Tesla, and there aren't enough buyers for those.

Result: a lot of vehicles with a HUGE embedded energy manufacture cost are sitting in lots with weeds growing around them.  add in the fact that charging stations are slow in being built, particularly in smaller markets, its making it hard to sell new Teslas except to rich people who live in major markets.  That's a pretty small market.

What this means is that until gas prices either really skyrocket or gas gets rationed, most people are not going to transition to EVs.  With ongoing demand destruction and fewer miles being driven, gas prices aren't rising very much.  So even as less oil gets extracted, it's still enough to supply the core market in the FSoA.  Happy motoring here can continue for the folks with ICE vehicles for quite a while longer, just based on Oil supply-demand numbers.

The bigger problem is economics, because low prices for gas makes expensive tight oil and shale oil extraction uneconomic.  That will eventually cause that production to stop, at which point supply will really drop, to just the cheap legacu oil left in conventional fields.  Simmering in the background is another looming financial crisis from the bond market and falling money supply.  A crash in 2024 seems likely to me, although cheerleaders in the MSM tell us falling inflation and low unemployment numbers reflect a robust and healthy economy.  I don't buy it, but my timelines on calling crashes isn't perfect.  Nevertheless, I'll go out on a limb and predict a recession starting in the 2nd or 3rd quarter of 2024.

https://fortune.com/2023/12/22/no-one-wants-to-buy-used-ev-piling-weed-infested-graveyards-tesla-bmw-vw

No one wants to buy used EVs and they're piling up in weed-infested graveyards

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[RE]

More problems for EVs in the rental market.  It's not looking like the transition away from ICE vehicles is going to move forward smoothly, until the fuel prices take another upward jump.  There also needs to be a further build out in charging stations, which needs further grid improvements.

On the upside however, Amerikans continue to drive less, and although it's tough to find global data on this, my guess is that the drop in driving is even bigger outside the home of Happy Motoring.



https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-01-11/hertz-to-sell-20-000-evs-in-shift-back-to-gas-powered-cars?utm_source=newsshowcase&utm_medium=gnews&utm_campaign=CDAqEAgAKgcICjDi7PAKMIXduwIwgvntAQ&utm_content=rundown&gaa_at=g&gaa_n=AZsHK_kN47Zjx1utkC1Zl39SUrt5yt-7WMEj9rbwhLWSCifbQ5r9x2CLVEli4BC7rrTFrwGdHJ7Noz5tsAmYaY85UhNNIcZcPZQELlM%3D&gaa_ts=65a06ad8&gaa_sig=hnEd8mcoliJKVN5Yu_IvBhwYv1KNMO81tsBbIlkD2wPGhsG1vXlZTCitfEA5ZZry0ExwSklJNY1Ci5NDDpFwSg%3D%3D

Hertz to Sell 20,000 EVs in Shift Back to Gas-Powered Cars

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[RE]

Similar to my "Chinese are Toast" declarations I have been making since I got into the collapse game in 2008, I have been adamant that Tesla was Doomed practically from the day Elon first rolled an EV off his production line.  Between the huge amount of debt to finance the company and the complete lack of an infrastructure to support EVs when the company was founded,  I never could see how there was any chance it could succeed.  Good thing I don't play the market though, because the adage that stocks can defy logic longer than you can stay solvent has been true, and Tesla is still producing carz while Elon keeps producing babies with his A-list Vagina girlfriends.

The cracks are starting to appear though, particularly with Hertz dumping 20,000 used rental EVs and shifting back to ICE vehicles.  Poor resale value and high maintenance costs have soured buyers, and  numerous articles in the auto magazines lately have featured horror stories about the lack of charging stations outside of major markets.  So I may finally be proved correct here in the end.

There are few Billionaires I would enjoy seeing go belly up more than Elon Musk.  I think only seeing Trumpovetsky in bankruptcy court would be more gratifying.     

...and the Chinese are STILL Toast!   

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https://futurism.com/the-byte/tesla-trouble-2024

Tesla Is in Trouble

[K-Dog]

Tesla loses legal action in Sweden as dispute with Nordic unions escalates

Court decides postal service does not have to deliver licence plates, for now, in latest twist in row over collective bargaining

Tesla has lost a legal action against Sweden's postal service as a dispute with Nordic trade unions escalates.

A Swedish court said on Thursday that PostNord did not, for the time being, need to deliver licence plates to the electric carmaker that were being blocked by the postal service's workers, in the latest twist in a battle over collective bargaining agreements.

Tesla, which is run by the billionaire Elon Musk, is facing growing pressure in Sweden, Norway and Denmark from unions backing IF Metall mechanics in Sweden who went on strike on 27 October, demanding a collective agreement with the company.

A large Danish pension fund on Wednesday said it would sell its holdings in Tesla because of the carmaker's refusal to enter into such deals, while Denmark's largest trade union has joined strike action by the company's workers in Sweden...

Read more here: Guardian source article.

There are few Billionaires I would enjoy seeing go belly up more than Elon Musk.

The Swedish union trouble is good reason to second your motion.

[RE]

EV critics are piling on today, in this article EVs are characterized as a "fad" like breadmakers in the 1990s.  So in addition to the repair costs and low resale value, you can add bad press as a major headwind for EVs.

Of course what this also means is that those targets for having an all-electric transportation fleet by 2030 and carbon free travel are out the window.  What will be interesting to see is if building the necessary infrastructure of charging stations and upgrading the grid to handle bigger loads moves ahead or if it stalls.  If it stalls, you can pretty much kiss EVs goodbye as a replacement for Happy Motoring, although they still could help in major markets with commuting.  Long as you can charge at home and your trips are within the range of the vehicle, that works.

A different system will be needed to make a full transition to electric power though.  Flow batteries?

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/tesla-gm-and-ford-price-cuts-suggest-that-electric-cars-may-be-at-a-dead-end-1091aa16

Evidence EVs are a fading fad is 'rolling in fast' as Tesla, GM and Ford slash prices

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[K-Dog]

Only the richest 10% of Americans could ever afford these.  Teslas were not built to fulfill a social need. 

Vehicles using 1970's technology and conventional batteries would have been better at fulfilling social needs.  Here is an old school S-10 pickup truck after conversion.  It could only get you a hundred miles between charges, but that is enough for most people to get to work and run errands.  And it would have been affordable.

What could have been.  Before Musk stole the future.

I have this book.  I once wanted to do a conversion. 

I took the picture myself.  The book was published in 1980.  It did not introduce anything new.  It documented what others had learned to do.

Living like we had the mobility of a previous age would have been better than death.  Instead we have the cult of Musk who cooperated with conventional mythology and showed that an electric car built to rival the performance of fossil fuel costs too much for an average person.  He cooperates with the status-quo gaming it to his advantage.  The end result will be no car for most people.  We do not have sufficient lithium.

The cult of Musk.  The Alpha and Omega of doom.  He is called an innovator and I am not.  All hail the innovator, who has advanced inequality like few men have, spreading inappropriate complacency and unfounded optimism while clouds of ruin gather.

[RE]

These are the sort of EVs that should be being promoted and marketed, which actually make economic sense and would go a long way toward reducing congestion in the large cities with traffic problems.  However, here in Happy Motoring FSoA, you hear nothing about them, they are sold mainly in Europe and China.  I don't know if there are even any dealerships here that sell any of them.  Definitely not in Alaska.

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[RE]

Elon's trying to give himself the biggest Golden Parachute of all time.  Once he gets the package and cooks the books, he leaves the company to eventually go BK and be bailed out by Da Goobermint as TBTF.  I mean, come on, really?  A $53B paycheck? 

Capitalism.  We make money the old fashioned way.  We STEAL it.

https://www.cnbc.com/2024/01/30/tesla-shares-slide-after-judge-voids-elon-musks-56-billion-compensation.html

Elon Musk's $56 billion Tesla compensation voided by judge, shares slide

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[RE]

Too bad they're not TBTF with a no limit credit card like Tesla. 

https://electrek.co/2024/01/31/this-ev-startup-once-valued-at-13b-is-on-the-verge-of-total-collapse/

This EV startup, once valued at $13b, is on the verge of total collapse

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[K-Dog]

A thought.

An electric vehicle is transitioning to a lower EROEI means of transportation.  A deliberate choice.  A choice capitalism can not support.



The end result of lower EROEI vehicle MUST be a more expensive vehicle. 

If a billionaire does not have their own space program to make sure they get the guvmint sweet deals, how the hell is capitalism supposed to get a company like Arrival off the ground?  Arrival competes in a capitalist marketplace that only rewards low cost and high EROEI.  Without a planned economy, any company that tries to do what Arrival is doing is DOOMED TO FAIL. 

A basic knowledge about how the world works seems to be missing.

Arrival might as well be based in Argentina if the cost of delivery battery tech is not subsidized.  Making battery powered vehicles large enough to move freight is a huge technical problem and no battery powered delivery vehicle has a chance in hell of competing against a diesel or gas powered equivalent.

In the 'market' as it is.

* this is an EROEI problem.  Energy Invested is not hard to quantify.  EI is what it takes to build the thing and what it uses.  Easy enough.  We do not have to worry about how to ER is calculated because we are comparing two vehicles that would do exactly the same thing.  However Energy Returned is calculated it is calculated the same way for both vehicles, and mathematically the ER term cancels out.  Nice.

The wisdom of the market also does not know about Jevon's Paradox.

[monsta666]

Electric vehicles have their pluses, but their benefits are overstated. Ultimately, transporting a person (or two) in a metal box weighing a ton or more is just not an efficient means of transportation. We need to adopt a less car centric lifestyle and have more walkable communities with public transport and bikes taking more of a centre stage.

Reducing car ownership in favour of the above also means people will move more resulting in less obesity which is plaguing many countries. Not saying this will stave off the inevitable but if you had your business-as-usual hat this is a far better solution than changing our car paradigm from oil to electricity. We got to remember that battery production leaves a significant ecological footprint and creates a lot of pollution. The issue here is all that mining pollution happens in distant lands that nobody really acknowledged. Out of sight out of mind. The car centric model is flawed no matter the energy system you use. It leads to worse outcomes for the planet, our physical health, and our general wellbeing.

[RE]

The car centric model is flawed no matter the energy system you use. It leads to worse outcomes for the planet, our physical health, and our general wellbeing.

Well, we need some form of transportation.  Horses won't work, there aren't enough of them and we couldn't feed them all.

Bicycles and bike-cars?

RE