Why Europe’s Electric Car Movement Is an Actual Nightmare
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EVs and economic masochism. I wish I thought of that phrase, economic masochism. I can’t take credit. That was the editorial board today in the Wall Street Journal highlighting points that we’ve been making here on this show for a very, very long time. Ken?
everything here. It is not black swan things. These were things that we told you were going to happen. And it’s getting worse instead of better. yes, we’ve got in Germany, Volkswagen, Volkswagen is going looking to close three vehicle factories cut 10,000 jobs, impose across the board pay reductions.
This is Germany. Volkswagen, what, it’s been around, what, 79, 80 years, something like that? They’ve never closed a factory. Did you understand how difficult it is to lay people off in Europe? Not an easy thing to do. Anyway, anyway, they employ, Volkswagen employs around 300,000 in Germany. They also own Skoda, which is a Czech car.
Spain’s seat and we all know this is, you know, basically cars, owner manufacturing. It’s a major, it’s more than one spoke in the German economy. If Germany’s auto sector is falling apart, then there’s obviously issues with Germany, which is Europe’s largest economy and also Europe as well. Now,
the politicians in Germany began like here in the United States where they like to blame, you know, grocery stores for higher food prices. they’re blaming management on this. One of the funny things that Volkswagen did do, they had to pay a massive fine, which was stupid. Was stupid. And again, it was dumb. they got caught. You remember diesel gate. They were messing around with the, software and the cars.
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to so they could pass or they could show a better letter grade, whatever it may be and how they grade their emissions tests. Okay, great, you caught them. They were breaking the rules. Why fine the company? Why not put the people that were in charge of the policy behind that? Why not put them, get them in trouble? Why don’t they bear the brunt of this rather than the company? But anyway, not just that, you higher labor costs.
there. Again, various different governments in Germany, they also have ownership in manufacturing companies. Now, again, this is the problem that I had with, you people talking about having a sovereign wealth fund here in the United States. government if the government was to do that, or if states were to start doing that, we need to make sure that there’s a rule that you do not governments are not allowed to vote politicians are not do not allow they’re not allowed to have voting rights.
on the shares that they own. Lower Saxony owns 20 % of the voting shares of Volkswagen. So again, when, hey, their constituents wanna raise, well, guess what? We own 20 % of the voting shares. You better give it to them. How’s that working out? Again, the biggest problem of course is Germany and the EU’s stupid ass net zero climate.
policies first and foremost Germany had nuclear power plants that they shut down they decided to shut down all their coal-fired plants and they decided to go all in renewables meaning their electric prices are some of the highest in Europe. How is that good for a manufacturing economy? It’s not. Germany’s prices are well above the European Union average well above what it costs in the United States China or Japan again
They did it to themselves. And again, what are they doing? They’re forcing these car companies to make electric vehicles telling them that they must sell them to people.
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The EU requires that EVs constitute a higher share of vehicle sales each year, with internal combustion engines phased out by 2035. So they have to continue to make these things that are not selling. Not to mention the fact China makes them cheaper, and now they had to put tariffs on China from China. So China’s not selling their cars in Europe. It’s not just there. Stellantis warned that they’re gonna be scaling back.
their car production, not just in Europe, but they just announced today the United States as well, shutting down, I think for the past week, slowing down the production of Durangos and Jeep Grand Cherokees. Again, this is economic masochism. This is what governments do. They get involved in the private sector and they wreck it. Europe, talked a little bit about
it yesterday and their situation. I again, I don’t know how they’re going to work their way out of this. I really don’t. They need to have a fundamental change, a rethink, a come to Jesus moment at some point in time or it’s going to get worse instead of better. Watchdogonwallstreet.com
