Tag: Stupid people

Piling On The Misery

Bad News, Drive Time, Eco-Crap

Continuing the saga of electric vehicles (EVs), we learn about the fire risk.  An excerpt from the catalogue of catastrophes:

It is now, or should be, common knowledge that electric vehicles—cars, trucks, buses, bikes, scooters—under conditions of even low humidity or water damage, are prone to catching fire, owing to the unstable nature of the lithium-ion battery. As Chris Morrison writes at The Daily Skeptic, EVs are known to explode “with the force of a bomb blasting super-heated jets of flame, melting and decomposing nearby structural materials including metal and concrete, and sending vast amounts of toxic fumes into any enclosed atmosphere.”

Jammed into underground parking garages or packed in ferries, EVs are harbingers of almost unimaginable disaster—ecological and safety menaces to which the Net Zero fanatics among our political leadership are comatosely indifferent.

  “Willfully indifferent” is the more appropriate term, because as with all faith-based belief systems, danger is set aside as an acceptable risk provided that the goal thereof (in this case, Net Zero) is laudable.

My solution, which is that every time one of these EV things catches fire spontaneously we should toss a Greenie into the flames, would no doubt strike some as excessive.  Nevertheless, even the threat of such an action should shut these assholes up.

California Dreaming

Marxists, Politics

Here’s a little more news from California, this time over a ballot measure that will install rent control.

The only honest assertion that proponents of a rent control initiative make in their campaign ads is the fact that rent is too high in California. But rent control will make things even worse. As it is, most developers will not do business in California. Why try to build a subdivision in Silicon Valley, where the permits may take 10-20 years to get approved, when they can go to Texas and get plans approved in 10-20 weeks? Why build anything in a state where at any moment another environmentalist organization can file a lawsuit that will take millions of dollars and several years to resolve?

I have a clear and simple philosophy in terms of anything to do with the Golden Shower State and its doings:  California’s example in the “laboratory of the states” is where we learn precisely what not to do — i.e. when California does some thing or other, the best policy is to do the polar opposite.

Rent control is just the latest in a long, long line of stupid policies from the Left.

And yes, we all know (or should) that rent control eventually causes a shortage of housing — we’ve already seen that on Planet Manhattan — but hey;  if California wants to compound their stupidity (e.g. as in the above, of making new home builds almost impossible) with still further stupidity (rent control of existing homes), why should the rest of the states with a cumulative IQ above room temperature not just sit back, point and giggle when the whole state blows up?

Sorry, I just had a vision of California blowing up cataclysmically.  So please forgive me while I go off to that warm, wonderful place created by the prospect.

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.