Comments by "TeeKay" (@teekay_1) on "Velocity" channel.

  1. Mary Barra exemplifies what's wrong with GM. Her entire career is one of being underqualified and out of her depth.
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  2. Nobody really thought putting Mary Barra in the CEO seat was a good thing. She had an undistinguished career as an engineer, and no one could point to a big achievement from her or her teams that would distinguish her from anyone else at GM or beyond. They needed a change agent, and she's keeper of the status quo.
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  3.  @ThreeDogsTwoCatsAndAWife  Well, the governor in California is the biggest problem. It used to be a great state until people were foolish enough to elect him.
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  4. Well, hope Toyota can get production rolling. I live about 5 miles from one of the big Toyota dealers who normally has about 200 cars/trucks in stock. Right now, they have 10, and they're depending on selling used cars to stay in business.
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  5.  @DennisMerwood-xk8wp  Do some research. Our grid is at capacity right now. You'll be surprised at how fragile our grid is with no one investing in it. To repeat, the issue isn't just the lack of charging for on-street parking, it's the lack of back-end infrastructure to support this plan. In California the grid so fragile they had to tell electric car owners to stop charging their cars last summer with less than 5% of cars being electric.
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  6. Estimates by experts are the grid capacity has to double. Unfortunately, not one is investing in doubling the grid capacity. As as soon as they do, electric rates for EV's will increase dramatically. As it is, the 5 year cost for EVs are significantly higher than normal cars (check the latest consumer reports). The only thing making them competitive is taxpayer handouts to EV buyers.
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  7. The lies he's telling are demonstrated by all those cars that were discontinued in the US are still being made and sold in Europe.
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  8. ...and you don't think Ford will raise the price $15-50K on hot cars/trucks?
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  9. So imagine you built a business where you expect to have enough supply to sell below sticker price for every customer who walked in and wanted one, and you're moving 100 of these things a month. Which means you're making good money, customers are happy, and all is well. Then the manufacturer, lets' call them "DROF", cuts your supply by 90%. You have three choices 1) fire 90% of the people who works for you, cut operating hours, tell people they have to wait 3 weeks to get service. 2) Raise the price of what you're selling above the normal price and start charging double and triple for service. 3) Go out of business What would you do?
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  10. RIvian was a failed company the moment Ford pulled out their financial support. It's an interesting car (the front is fugly), but way too much money. On the other hand, it's a better pickup than Ford's electric offering.
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  11.  @cooganalaska3249  Rent, office staff, service writers, mechanics, parts guys, space to store the parts, electricity, holding costs on cars sitting on the lot, typical office expenses, computers, lawyers, advertising, etc. I'm no dealer either, but if you've ever run a business the overhead with a any business that complex is crazy high.
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  12. Thumbs up on most of your comment, but It will be impossible to build cheap electric cars and make a profit due to the high cost, huge carbon footprint to manufacture, and sole sourcing of batteries to China. To be successful, electric cars will require non-lithium based batteries that can be produced in the first world at scale without requiring coal to manufacture.
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  13.  @Chainyanker007  Tesla maintains them as a competitive advantage to buying a Tesla as no one but a Tesla owner can take advantage of them, so he doesn't insist they make money. I'm talking about your local gas station owning guy. Because of the inherent risk, he'll have to charge similar prices to what a gas powered car costs and perhaps more because an electric car will take 45 minutes just to get a partial charge, so that represents 9x as much "pump" time as a typical gas car. He can't just charge you the cost of the electricity and hope you buy a Slurpee to to give him 4 bits of margin.
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  14. A clear dead end. I read they take 10x the natural resources to make compared with a gas powered car, and the battery is not designed to go longer than 10-15 years.
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  15. There is consumer reports and other information services that will give you an idea of what the invoice is, and what typical dealers are getting for the car. So you're not going into a dealer unarmed (I assume). It's astonishing that you'd purchase something for $60K and not negotiate. Heck, I bought an expensive stereo, the dealer wanted full price and I offered a price 20% off list. He took it immediately. Everything in life is a negotiation.
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  16. The Focus ST is an amazing vehicle However the focus automatic transmission was a duel clutch design that was badly engineered and every single one of them broke. Ford did their best to hide it and would typically tell the consumer it was normal until the car literally wouldn't run. Then they'd string the owners along until the warranty ran out. They tried software fixes, but the issues was the design, so no software could have saved it. Even internally people were hiding the real problem from upper management. The Focus ST only came with a manual transmission.
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  17.  @gregkelmis2435  She's probably smart, but that doesn't make her a good engineer, nor does it make her a good chief executive.
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  18.  @rollienewton2192  Absolutely. What we're looking at now from all the EV makers is first generation battery technology, and by and large most of them wasting space in the designs to make them look like traditional cars.
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  19. It did seem like a excuse video for bad decisions by Ford's senior management.
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  20. Well, it is true the packages for long-time workers will be far more lucrative than for newer employees which is what the bean counters want. Generally these packages are based on years of service and current salary, which would mean they're targeting workers 50 and over.
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  21. The car makers today are basically flipping off the working man with their high-prices.
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  22.  @tommccoy6708  that doesn't really help you when the battery replacement cost is $10,000-$15,000. At that point you have to buy a new car because the replacement cost is more than the value of the car. At least if you buy a Honda Accord, it will last 20-25 years with only normal maintenance.
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  23. And yet people can't get enough of the Honda Accord and Toyota Camry. Henry Ford is rolling over in his grave.
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  24. lol
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  25.  @desertdan100  In 2009, GM should have been allowed to go bankrupt. They could have restructured the company to be more nimble and improve their labor costs. But the US government as a favor to the unions propped it up, and actually made it less competitive.
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  26.  @TKevinBlanc  By contrast, no. The reality is that the world will depend on hydrocarbons for at least the next 50 years.
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  27.  @thomosburn8740  "You can only burn that petrol once. " Your analogy of comparing gas cars is a bit backwards since most petrol powered cars have a range in excess of 600 km on a single "charge" of energy and can be refueled in five minutes. Further range does not decrease markedly if you decide to go down the freeway at 120 km/h with AC on. Thus you're giving up range, convenience and paying a higher initial cost. The bulk of the world's electricity is made by burning coal. And between electricity made by burning coal and the very dirty way EV batteries are produced, the break-even point for EV's to "pay" for their carbon debt is 10 years. So far, it's not clear many electric cars will last 10 years. Finally, if you read the fine print on Tesla's recycling program, you're responsible for getting the battery back to them to recycle. At 400+ kilos, it's a good bet people will simply opt out.
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  28.  @damham5689  Exactly. The cheapest Tesla is low $50K. Which means that it's only affordable by someone making a salary of about $150K a year.
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  29.  @dzerres  But that is what capitalism is. You raise prices when shortages exist. The alternative could be a 3 year waiting list. The issue is the factory not producing enough cars (or purposely creating shortages), not the dealer.
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  30.  @bobjohnson4512  Don't see how that could pay for itself, unless customers are willing to pay $60-100/hour to use them.
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  31.  @chriskelly509  How much would you be willing to pay per hour to use it?
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  32.  @bobjohnson4512  Well, the Casinos are doing it for the tax break and to bring the suckers in the door. But if you're talking about stand-alone electrification stations along the interstate, they'll need to pay for the high-voltage lines to be brought to a place, building a mini-mart, and then pay for the electricity they sell to you. And they need to maintain the pumps and upgrade them as standards change. Then you need a few clerks to man the register... the consumer has to pay for all that overhead. You'll find the cost will be more expensive than paying for an equivalent amount of gas. So for your 300 mile range EV, a gas car could do that in 10 gallons, assume $4/gallon, and you're looking at a $40 cost to charge your EV. If you're not willing to pay that, don't expect these stations to spring up as a convenience.
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  33.  @johnanthony6141  The thing is, as much as people hate to "negotiate", it's so simple, I'm sorry their father's didn't teach them how to do it. I'm astonished that on a purchase that is $50K-60K they're not even willing to try to get it down to a more realistic price (obviously not possible on models that are commanding a premium) and it makes me wonder why they don't value a few thousand enough to counter offer. I wouldn't buy from a one-price dealer, and I wouldn't buy direct from factory because dealers have always treated me fairly, and I return the favor. Very often they've gone to bat to get things out of warranty covered even when the factory said "no". When dealers are gone, the same people will be complaining that Ford corporate won't budge off the high price, and they need to put 20% down to be put on the waiting list for next year's model.
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  34.  @abrahammc2125  That remark is offensive but I won't flag it because it makes you look ignorant for the entire world to see, which is a perfect reward for you. But any rational person will negotiate over a $50K purchase. You have the cash seller wants, you can only cheat yourself in the end.
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  35.  @RahulJha-mc6nz  I bought a car about 9 months ago.
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  36. And Toyota has something called the new Corolla which has a lower 5-year operating cost than the Bolt.
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  37.  @JohnSmith-ux3tt  What I mean is, the electric company will have a different metering system if you install a charger for an EV. It will done under auspices of "EV drivers aren't paying their fair share to maintain roads". Yes, I get you can go around it, but it will be like the guys who use fuel oil in their diesel trucks. Essentially the same fuel, but if you're caught using it there's going to be large fine.
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  38.  @jjohur  " We have two EVs and haven’t paid for gas for three years" How many miles a year do you drive? And what the furthest you've driven away from your home in three years?
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  39. Folks, this was the plan all along. Ford wants to become effectively government subsidized; the federal government does not choose products based on "best" or "most competitive", rather it is meant to promote an agenda. Clearly Ford does not have a car that competes effectively with class leaders like Tesla, but Tesla is not unionized so this shouldn't be a surprise to anyone.
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  40.  @olivertaylor4779  I wasn't comparing US to Europe. I've spent significant time in the low countries, Germany and France, and some time in England and Ireland. And I get the difference, on the continent, train service is good enough that if you may not even need a car. And when people say things like "Well 80% of all drives are within 100 miles of home!"... I think "great. So what do I do for the other 20% of my drives?" I'll give you my final thoughts on the matter. I don't care if you want to buy an EV, buy the heck out of it, the problem is EV people want to stop me from buying the car that suits my driving needs, and justifies it with vague thoughts on how they're saving the planet; which is jejune if I'm being charitable.
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  41. So first, all shares of everything are trending lower. It's a sign of inept government. That aside, Ford EVs are so awful, that you'd think that instead of just producing a broader set of bad EV's that are uniformly bad, they'd focus on one EV that they can excel at both the engineering and production side. The only explanation is Ford has been promised privately they'll be subsidized by the Federal Government if they produce a certain number of EV models. Ford would be better making low-cost version of their pickup trucks to keep up volume and then convert to EVs when they can make one competent EV.
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  42. "You actually buy the vehicle at a fixed price online" You can do that now. Just go into the dealer and pay what they want for the car. If you did that at your local Ford dealer, the salesman may be so startled that he'll agree to cut your lawn for a summer.
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  43.  @chriskelly509  That's what the station will have to pay. They'll need to mark that up by a factor of 5-6. You've got to be willing to pay the owner for the risk of building and maintaining the pump. Many EV owners expect charges to be free or very inexpensive. But the reality is if there's no profit, no one will build it.
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  44.  @johnanthony6141  Unless it was an emergency, I'd just wait them out or buy something used from a private party in that case. For people who live in a tri-state area, they get the benefit of being able to do business with multiple dealers quickly.
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  45.  @blamtagious  And I don't blame you for asking for as much as you can get. I am fair with dealers (I'm not trying to beat someone down for $100), but if a dealer 10 miles away will sell it to me $2K cheaper for the same exact car, that's a pretty easy choice. No hard feelings on anybody's part. I may buy from you next time.
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  46.  @ianbrown5955  Ford's unionized workers don't get more money when prices go up from the factory. In reality, what you're saying is you'd prefer the Ford shareholders make the money rather than the dealer. And you do realize that markups are a result of Ford not being able to supply enough cars to the dealer right?
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  47.  @RahulJha-mc6nz  Yes indeed. I did it by calling around to about 10 dealers, told them the model I was interested in, said I would be buying that week and I was calling around to see who wanted to do business with me. I had a sale price in writing via email by the end of the day. And I drove over the next day to pick up the car. 30 minutes at the dealership and I was done. It's fascinating to see people struggle so much buying a car.
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  48. ​ @RahulJha-mc6nz  Not even a little. I found a nice dealer out of the way from the metro area who had two cars that were on the lot for 6 weeks that he wanted to clear out because of the holding costs. Do research, and stop making yourself a victim.
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  49.  @ggletsplay5041  If you are locked in on a specific make and model, and worse, if you are focused on the payment instead of the cost, you're ripe for the picking regardless of the item.
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  50.  @ianbrown5955  Maybe, but when's the last time a US Big 3 automaker built a new plant in the US?
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