Tag: Stupid people

Update On Big Auto’s Duracell Drive

Corporate Fuckery, Corporate Wokism, Drive Time

Following on from yesterday’s post on VW, Mercedes and Stellantis (the bastards), there’s this:

Car makers slash EV prices, suspend production and extend petrol model availability as electric demand wanes

The global downturn in sales of EVs has been triggered by a cocktail of diverging policies on green incentives, range and charge anxiety among drivers and the fact prices haven’t come down as much as experts had forecast.

As such, 2024 has been awash with a wave of U-turns by legacy car firms in response to a lower-than-expected appetite for electric vehicles.

‘Appetite for EVs among consumers is quickly diminishing. There are many factors contributing to this, including the lack of clarity around incentives, high prices and concerns around the low residual value of EVs.’

Yeah, not to mention the paucity of charging points when your Duracell phuts out, the cost of replacing said Duracell when it becomes as worn out as Madonna’s box at a P Diddy White Party, and those pesky spontaneous combustion episodes — to name but some “consumer concerns”.

Looks like corporate obeisance to the great Global Cooling Climate Warming Change© is losing its luster, especially when that pesky cold hard cash is involved.  (Also see:  Germany restarting coal-fired electricity generating plants.)

This is especially rich:

‘The new pricing structure on Corsa Electric and Astra Electric is the latest in a number of measures we have taken to democratise access to electric vehicles.’\

“Democratize access”, my aching African-American white ass.  That’s just a fancy term for “getting rid of unwanted stock”.

But when it comes to weaselly corporate-speak, it’s hard to top this:

Volvo Cars chief executive Jim Rowan said: ‘We are resolute in our belief that our future is electric. An electric car provides a superior driving experience [nazzo fast, Guido] and increases possibilities for using advanced technologies that improve the overall customer experience [like having their every move tracked and sent to insurance companies and ad agencies].

‘However, it is clear that the transition to electrification will not be linear [ya think?], and customers and markets are moving at different speeds of adoption [or not moving at all, see above].

‘We are pragmatic and flexible [except of course when we try to coerce people into buying our Duracell cars by eliminating the ICE option completely], while retaining an industry-leading position on electrification and sustainability.’ [and I hope you’re the first to go out of business, Mr. Leader]

Wait… what’s this I’m experiencing?

Oh, and one more thing, speaking of Duracell cars:

…not that any of my Readers would be affected, of course, being Sensible Chaps.

…And Speaking Of Big Auto

Business, Drive Time, Management

From the fools who bet on EVs as being the Next Big Thing:  Volkswagen and Mercedes.

Yeah… screw you and your little Duracell cars, screw you for buying into the Big Manufactured Panic stemming from the Global Warming Climate Cooling Change© hucksters, and screw you for trying to force us into buying your shitty fad products by cutting back production of regular internal combustion-engined cars and trucks.

And while we’re on high-level fools in Big Auto, ladies and gentlemen, I give you:  Stellantis.  This is what you get, and deservedly so when you let finance people run an engineering business.  Let me count the ways:

  • Misreading your core customers
  • Forcing inferior and low-demand products onto the market
  • Reducing product offerings when your competition offers choice (and having those remaining products be simply me-too choices, which you’re always going to lose especially when your products are less reliable and more costly)
  • Making long-term decisions based on doomsday (and fallacious) predictions
  • Sacrificing long-term growth for short-term profits (see below)
  • Ignoring basic marketing principles, e.g. when faced with growing reserve stock levels, increasing prices rather than cutting them.

Stellantis has broken each and every one of those oh-so basic rules, and the people who will pay the price are their employees, who are going to be laid off as their workplaces end up being shuttered.  Now, of course, they’re scrambling… in the face of being sued by shareholders.

Sadly, the people who have made all these disastrous business decisions will be fine thanks to generous severance packages and bonuses.  (Tavares’s compensation last year was worth $40 million, for example.)

instead of facing the proper consequences of public flogging followed by hanging.

So Much For Paradise

Anti-Gun Nannies, Righteous Shootings

I know, I know:  Hawaii is anything but Paradise, that’s just PR.  In fact, when it comes to the mucky business of everydqy life — e.g. protecting your family from scumbag neighbors, it’s closer to Hell.  So we’ve all heard about this sorry little tale:

Only in Hawaii* would prosecutors arrest an armed homeowner who stopped a violent neighbor who had just rammed several cars with a front-end loader, shot and killed three women, wounded two others, and posed an immediate threat to shoot more. Yet, that’s exactly what law enforcement officials did…

Until some vestige of common sense (not to say to protect their asses from a lynch mob) set in:

…before ultimately deciding not to pursue charges, citing “issues related to self-defense and defense of others.” Even anti-gun officials, as much as they might have wanted to prosecute the man, had to acknowledge this was a clear case of justifiable self-defense.

When you read the details, it’s not only “a clear case of justifiable self-defense”, but also a confirmation of the old “he needed killing” saying.

The good part of all this?

Local lawmakers are now discussing the possibility of strengthening the state’s self-defense laws in response to the incident. Democratic state representative Darius Kila (that’s right, a Democrat!), whose district is near the scene, is among those pushing for changes. Kila has expressed interest in making Hawaii’s laws more clear-cut by shifting toward a “stand your ground” framework, rather than the current “duty to retreat” standard. He believes residents should be assured that they can defend themselves and their loved ones without fear of legal repercussions, especially in situations as dire as the one that unfolded in Waianae.

Yeah, forgive me for being skeptical, but I’m going to wait until actual laws have been passed before singing hallelujahs.

This is Hawaii, after all.

*not just Hawaii;  I can think of at least three states where the hero homeowner would have been arrested if not prosecuted for his perfectly-justifiable actions.

No Place For Children

Entertainment, Food & Drink, Two-Minute Hate

It seems like only yesterday (actually, a month ago) when I made this comment about bars and pubs:

The business of a pub is to serve booze to grownups. End of.

You can imagine my irritation, therefore, when I saw this little bit of nonsense:

Two fuming mums have criticised a historic pub for not catering properly for their kids — and claim their youngsters were told to “turn the iPads down” while they were dining.

The angry mothers took to Tripadvisor to deliver two bruising one-star reviews of Victorian pub Sam’s Chop House after having Sunday lunch there.

They say that no children’s menus were offered, not enough high chairs were available and that they were left appalled when asked by staff to turn down the iPads their brood were watching in the restaurant.

The mums said they were told they were not allowed to take their prams into the restaurant, “which was fine”.

Big of them.  Then:

“I’d rather have gone to Toby Carvery for half the price and a much more decent roast dinner than atrocious meal they call Sunday roast.”

I bet the staff, and all the other patrons, wished they had.  All of which begs the question:  why didn’t they go to Toby’s instead of a basement pub?

Okay, I have no plans to visit Manchester in the future (Mr. Free Market:  “Never venture north of the M4, dear heart” ) but if I ever do, I’ll be heading to Sam’s Chop House, you betcha.  It sounds like my kinda place.  I don’t consult any of the so-called “ratings” websites like TripAdvisor much anyway, but if I were to do so and found a one-star rating like the above, I’d be more likely to go there because it means that Management has the right idea about how to run a drinking establishment.

Kids have no place in a pub.  It’s not as though there aren’t enough fucking eating establishments everywhere that cater to the rugrats, that parents have to take their precious brood into a booze palace and disturb the serious drinkers.

Fach.

About Those Hurricanes

Science!, Watermelons, Weather

…it turns out that this year is not going to see a “supercharged” hurricane season in the Caribbean and southeastern United States, and it’s a worrying prospect to all the Climate Alarmist Assholes like that “Hockey Stick” charlatan:

Penn State celebrity climate scientist Michael Mann announced in April that his research group’s 2024 North Atlantic season forecast was expecting an “unprecedented” 33 named storms, with a range between 27 and 39. That prediction has turned out to be a dud.

With Hurricane Francine hitting the coasts Thursday, the total number of named storms only comes to six, making it one of the quietest hurricane seasons to date.

I’m not going to bother to point out, yet again, that using “climate models” to predict short-term weather patterns is a waste of time, and not just because almost all climate models suck green donkey dicks, statistically speaking.

What needs pointing out is that the great Global Warming Climate Cooling Change© movement is a load of bullshit, not the least for the reasons stated above, but also because fanatical adherence to its so-called “prophecies” is leading towards societal collapse as our power needs are increasingly constrained in pursuit of the movement’s largely-unattainable goals.