Very outdated cars that kept getting produced despite significantly improved technology being available due to a refusal or inability to invest into it is a symbol associated with the collapse of the pro-Soviet bloc.
lol i wish, then they’d be making cars with physical buttons and tape decks
Ur car wont have any actually useful (woke) modern tech but it will have full ai integration
The big 3 make shitty cars that compete with Honda and Toyota, so they have shifted all production to trucks and SUVs that have much higher margins rather than try and make quality cars for cheaper. This has been going on for the past 50 years, but they keep choosing the losing strategy because it offers short term profits that appease share holders.
It is actually shocking how much worse the cheapest American cars are than Japanese, or even Korean, counterparts. And the American ones are often ~$3,000 more for the same type of car in the first place. Every Chevy I’ve been in felt like it was trying to torture me in the most subtle way it could get away with. Jeeps are even worse.
Well Chevy is the lowest tier of GM’s offerings. So yes. They torture you in whatever small ways will get you to buy the same car from a more expensive brand that they also own and has all the same features standardized because, either they’re safety features that it would look really bad to not offer, or they don’t actually cost so much to implement that a competitor couldn’t offer the same package for less.
I have the same theory (if you can even call it a theory, a capitalist would call it “just business”) about affordable apartments being intentionally shitty not for real cost reasons but just to punish people for choosing the less costly option. It also makes the expensive option look artificially better while not actually being that much more expensive to the capital owner, but we all know that advertising something as “luxury” isn’t actually about providing “luxury”.
Put more bluntly, it’s class warfare.
In 2060, Americans are gonna be driving everywhere in gigantic $350,000 gas pickup trucks, while Chinese are going to get everywhere on ubiquitous no-cost 1000km/h maglev trains.
50-year mortgage
30-year car loan
FREEDOM
minimum wage will still be $7.25
My car is 20 years old this year and I will not stop driving it until it breaks. I have already put more maintenance into it than it’s worth because the alternative is unaffordable. In 2060 a lot of people are going to be driving 50+ year old cars and just dealing with the maintenance. The government will step in and prop up automakers by buying overpriced gas-guzzlers for police and the military. Tesla will still be doing the same shit, except their new Cybertruck will be a sphere and called the dank synthwave gobot or something soy Elon comes up with in a few years. Rivian might have some cars that hardly anyone can afford. Then there will be Uber being larger than ever because people in urban areas simply give up on cars due to expense and parking.
China will have public teleportation technology.
in 2060 a lot of people are going to be driving 50+ year old cars and just dealing with the maintenance.
like Cuba, but instead of out of necessity from the blockade it’s because capitalism is so efficient
You don’t think they will switch to coal at some point?
I kind of despise all the tech coverage of US anti-green pivots as part of a race with China.
the US admin/warplanners perspective on China’s marketshares in green tech are that it makes the Chinese woke/weak and they’ll shut it down through trade or hot warfare anyway. Biden leaned into trying to buoy US firms on that front but Trump is outright punishing it so obviously the move for Ford is to get in line.
Besides electricity in the US is getting more expensive so the private EV market is going to slouch even if Trump wasn’t leaning on the scales
have they tried frying it in beef tallow?
ford is the only car manufacturer innovative enough to make an external combustion vehicle
well actually… there is another
really sequestering themselves off, the rest of the world is doing an EV boom
shit there are even a ton of smaller EV american companies that are seeing decent success, like rivian
I don’t understand why none of the US automakers have partnered with xiaomi or byd or any of the other Chinese EV makers to do licensed production or just import and rebadge for the American market. It seems like that’s been a winning play for a few years now, you just set up a middleman in vietnam or mexico or wherever else to dodge import duties and badda bing you’re selling better EVs than Tesla at a lower price.
The government needs to pull a lot of levers before a capital solution is viable. But there is just no threat that gas prices will go up within the lifespan of the car (next 8 years), and gas prices are low relative to US income. Couple that with poor infrastructure for EVs and it’s a non-starter for the majority of americans, regardless of price.
I think there’s an induced demand that can happen if the prices get low enough, where you get a critical mass on EVs and the charging infrastructure follows. They’re just so beneficial to consumers in terms of operating costs that if you can get that initial buy in low enough you’ll find a lot of buyers are interested but who just can’t afford what’s on offer right now.
The economics make a ton more sense in Shanghi where electricty cost $0.07/kwh vs my city (san francisco) which is $0.60, almost 10x more. There’s only 2 charging stations with 8 spots each in my neighborhood of 60,000 people(!), neither of which you can park your car overnight.
Anyone got that “US shooting itself in the face while China watches” meme?
no reason
By popular demand.
I would also appreciate the map of the US stabbing itself repeatedly
You can tell this one was made by a lib, because it implies the EU is doing fine and isn’t committing suicide, while Russia is the one bleeding somehow.
Oof, yeah. Forgot about that bit
Remembering the time a renowned lib writer posted an article saying that democracy is incompatible with climate action because 97% of Americans buy gas cars
Democracy is when there’s only one choice for the poors and policy definitely didn’t kill every alternative
JFC I hate liberals I hate liberals I hate liberals I hate liberals
Their stock ticker is literally F
Well yeah they are about 10 years behind on the technology so it makes sense that they can’t compete
While Ford’s own CEO drives a Chinese EV, no less.
Ford CEO Jim Farley says he doesn’t want to give up the Xiaomi Speed Ultra 7 he’s been driving for the past half year.
“I don’t like talking about the competition so much, but I drive the Xiaomi,” Farley said while speaking to the British presenter Robert Llewellyn on “The Fully Charged Podcast.” The podcast, which Llewellyn hosts, aired on Monday.
“We flew one from Shanghai to Chicago, and I’ve been driving it for six months now, and I don’t want to give it up,” Farley continued.
And it’s not even street legal for us plebs
It’s because of woke no doubt
BUILT FORD TOUGH
SMDH, they can’t even
properly. At least run it out until the AI-ssholes subsidize you for not making EVs to keep electricity available for Grokkk
