Possible Bankruptcy for EV Maker Fisker as Industry Hit with Declining Consumer Interest

Fisker electric vehicle on beach with people playing

Electric-vehicle startup Fisker may file for bankruptcy as the declining pace of consumer demand weighs upon the struggling company.

In a March 15 8-K filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the company warned investors that “Fisker did not make a required interest payment of approximately $8.4 million payable in cash on March 15, 2024 (the “Interest Payment”) with respect to Fisker’s unsecured 2.50% convertible notes” and that “the Company has a 30-day grace period to make the Interest Payment.”

Read More

Senators Raise Questions about EV Mandates and Subsidies Going to China

The Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources has been scrutinizing the intersection of electric vehicle mandates and supply chains to meet them, and how EV subsidies could empower China, which controls a lot of those supply chains.

Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., chair of the committee, said he doesn’t have any problem with electric vehicles.

Read More

Democrats Support Efforts to Unionize More Auto Plants as EVs Are Projected to Cause Job Losses

Democrats are supporting the United Auto Workers (UAW) labor union’s efforts to unionize more auto plants as electric vehicles are projected to result in job loss across the industry within the next 10 years.

Democrats in Congress passed the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, which included tax incentives for the purchase of certain electric vehicles as well as funding to expand the EV charging network in the U.S.

Read More

4,000 Auto Dealers Say Electric Vehicles Are ‘Stacking Up’ on Lots

About 4,000 auto dealers from all 50 states have signed a letter to President Joe Biden saying electric vehicles are “stacking up on our lots” as the demand for electric cars has “stalled.”

“BEVs [battery electric vehicles] are stacking up on our lots,” the auto dealers stated in the letter. “Last year, there was a lot of hope and hype about EVs. Early adopters formed an initial line and were ready to buy these vehicles as soon as we had them to sell. But that enthusiasm has stalled. Today, the supply of unsold BEVs is surging, as they are not selling nearly as fast as they are arriving at our dealerships – even with deep price cuts, manufacturer incentives, and generous government incentives.”

Read More

New IRS Guidelines for Electric Car Tax Credit ‘Recipe for Fraud,’ Tax Watchdog Warns

EV Charging Station

New Internal Revenue Service (IRS) guidelines for the federal electric vehicle (EV) tax credit are a “recipe for fraud,” warns the head of the Tax Foundation.

Consumers will now be able to automatically claim the tax credit at the point of sale on new or used EV purchases, rather than wait to claim it on their tax return, according to the latest Treasury Department guidance.

Read More

Biden Admin Gives Ford, Foreign Company Whopping $9 Billion Loan for EV Plants

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) on Thursday announced a conditional loan of up to $9.2 billion to a joint electric vehicle venture between Ford and Korean battery maker SK On.

When combined with state subsidies offered to the joint venture, known as BlueOval SK, the record-breaking loan means that taxpayers will be financing nearly the entire $11.4 billion investment by Ford and SK, according to Blomberg. The loan is the latest in a series of increasingly large offers from the DOE’s Loan Program Office (LPO), which had its lending authority surge to $400 billion — more than 10 times the $33 billion it has issued since 2009 —following the passage of President Joe Biden’s signature climate law, the Inflation Reduction Act.

Read More

Kemp Says $4.3 Billion EV Battery Plant in Georgia Touted by Ossoff Was ‘Previously Announced’

LG Energy Solution and Hyundai Motor Group plan to jointly build a $4.3 billion electric vehicle battery plant in Georgia, an investment U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff, D-Georgia, said was possible because of incentives included in the Inflation Reduction Act.

However, a spokesman for Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp disputed that assertion saying it’s part of a previously announced investment that predates the federal legislation.

Read More

EPA Proposes New Standards to Require Two-Thirds of New Car Sales by 2032 Be EVs

The Environmental Protection Agency on Wednesday announced what is being considered its strongest-ever proposed pollution standards for gas-powered vehicles – which if enacted would effectively mandate that 67 percent of new passenger vehicles sold in the U.S. in 2032 must be zero-emission ones.

The rule has been expected for weeks and is a dramatic, proposed increase from President Biden’s stated goal of 50 percent zero-emission passenger car sales – including battery-powered electric vehicles, plug-in hybrids and fuel-cell vehicles – by 2030. It would also likely and dramatically increase EV sales, which accounted for just 5.6 percent of new car sales in the U.S. last year, according to Road & Track.com.

Read More

‘Sustainable’ Electric Cars Are Getting Junked Over Minor Damage

Insurers are being forced to write off many electric vehicles with only minor damage to battery packs, sending the batteries to scrap yards and hindering the climate benefits of going electric, Reuters reported.

Battery packs typically represent roughly half the cost of an electric vehicle, sometimes costing tens of thousands of dollars, often making it more economical for insurers to consider a car as totalled than replace a battery pack, according to Reuters. While many carmakers, including Ford and GM, told Reuters that their battery packs were repairable, many are unwilling to share key data with third-party insurers to help assess damage.

Read More

Georgia’s US Senators Vote for Bill Stripping One of State’s Largest Employers of EV Tax Credits

Georgia’s two senators voted for the Democrats’ recently enacted Inflation Reduction Act, even though it strips South Korean automaker Kia — one of the state’s largest employers — of eligibility for the law’s electric vehicle tax credits.

Kia, which employs thousands in Georgia, is planning to build another automobile factory in the state and hire 8,500 people, according to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Due to domestic assembly requirements in the new law, however, the automaker’s EV and plug-in fleet will lose their current eligibility for $7,500 tax credits on the purchase of new electric vehicles.

Read More

Commentary: Electric Vehicles Are a Tool of Tyranny

First, don’t blame the vehicle. It is a tool that might be just what Los Angeles needs to cope with inversions. Electric vehicles are also very good as airport shuttles and for other locations where short, repetitive routes are the primary use. Some may even be fun to drive (except when they catch on fire).

Read More

Hyundai’s New EV Plant in Georgia Will Produce Gas Cars: REPORT

South Korea-based automaker Hyundai is set to announce a new $7 billion manufacturing electric vehicle (EV) plant in the U.S. that will also make gas-powered cars, according to several media reports.

“We are excited to announce a new EV plant plan in the United States soon, but we do not have details to share at this stage,” Hyundai told Reuters in a statement on Monday.

Read More

Commentary: Joe Biden’s Electric Car Plans Support the World’s Worst Humanitarian Abuses

Joe Biden

In his State of the Union Address on Tuesday, President Joe Biden promoted electric vehicles (EVs), trumpeting his plans to establish “a national network of 500,000 electric vehicle charging stations.” In so doing, Biden is unwittingly supporting the worst humanitarian abuses in the world. This is because of the way in which the materials used in manufacturing the batteries that power today’s EVs are obtained.

To obtain a reasonable amount of power per pound of battery weight, EV manufacturers generally use various forms of lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries, so named because the battery’s positive electrode, called the cathode, is largely made up of the highly reactive metal lithium (Li). To keep the cathode stable when a battery is not in use, the lithium is combined in a metal oxide matrix, with different manufacturers using different combinations of metals.

Most EV manufacturers combine lithium with nickel, cobalt and manganese to create a Li-Ni-Mn-Co oxide matrix to form the cathode. Tesla substitutes aluminum (Al) for the manganese, yielding a Li-Ni-Co-Al oxide matrix for the cathode on their batteries. Tesla maintains that their formulae is more cost-effective as less cobalt is required.

Read More