In 1914 Sir Edward Grey, the British Foreign Secretary, commented to a friend as Britain was about to enter the First World War that “The lamps are going out all over Europe, we shall not see them lit again in our lifetime”.
He was being metaphorical but now, little over a century later, that prediction is coming to pass for real. We are indeed poised to see Europe plunged into blackouts, sacrificed on the altar of inadequate new technology for the sake of a fantasy of imminent Armageddon. That is going hand-in-hand with the prospect of cars stopping all over Europe.
Matthew Lynn in the Telegraph is convinced that the UK and Europe’s EV nightmare is only just beginning:
President Trump is determined to go back to something that until recently would have been considered completely normal: a free market in cars. Under President Biden, a tax credit – in effect a subsidy – of up to $7,500 was awarded for every EV sold. And environmental rules were blamed for effectively forcing auto makers to make a larger proportion of their new vehicles electric.
Instead of simply making the cars that people wanted at prices they could afford – something that the pioneers of the American industry such as Henry Ford were once very good at – the industry was distorted by a mixture of subsidies and standards that had more in common with Soviet planning than free market capitalism.
With all that ditched, Ford and GM can get back to serving their customers, with a mix of petrol autos for long journeys, EVs for city runarounds and hybrids for everything in between. It is likely to be a very successful mix, and one that will enable them to push back against the looming wave of Chinese imports, especially if those cars face tariffs.
It will, however, pose a huge challenge to countries that choose to persist with EV mandates – the UK and the EU bloc chief among them. While America frees itself from a rushed transition to electric vehicles that has proved poorly planned, and badly executed, London and Brussels will continue to tie themselves to a technology that is far from fool-proof.
Lynn foresees only more expensive cars for private motorists and costlier vans for companies. Worse:
This has the makings of an industrial tragedy. Autos were one of the few industries where Europe had a clear lead. After all, no one ever lusted after a Chrysler or a Chevrolet, or even a Cadillac or a Lincoln, in the same way they did over a Mercedes, a BMW or a Land Rover, or, at least until recently, a Jaguar. The European companies were bigger, and often better, and the US accounted for 20 per cent of their exports.
As the US auto industry now looks forward to liberation, UK and European manufacturers are about to be “crushed”.
Worth reading in full.
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I wonder what will happen if in 4 years time the Democrats are voted back in and they bring back their central planning, climate doom policies?
That in itself will continue to wreck plenty of industry as it will be impossible to do any long term planning.
I am sure that those businesses and industries which fight to survive the coming maelstrom will out of necessity build in to future plans the possibility that whatever plans they make all could be undone in less than five years. Three years hence will probably be considered long term and planning will not go beyond this. Hardly the way multinationals can expect to operate profitably.
Indeed. The key, of course, is for the whole climate hoax to be thoroughly debunked, by which I mean that enough of the public sees it as a hoax that the establishment gives up on pushing its disastrous policies.
There may be a glimmer of hope for that in the US, but here in the UK and Europe the vast majority of the public are still climate zombies.
Once the dirt starts to be exposed about the Dems and there is literally mountains of it , then the Dems are not going near government for a very, very long time and by then the lunacy of Nut Zero , will also have been fully exposed.
Under what leadership?. When you eat and drink Democrat excreta , you don’t go back for a second helping. JD Vance by another landslide
Speaking of Elon, just seen him do a zeig heil last night. He was probably trolling all those Leftists who called the election of Trump Hitlers second coming.
I am loathe to play the Grammar Nazi, but it’s “Sieg Heil”.
You are the first to remind me.
I detect your sarcasm
Calm down Adolf, it’s only a commercial
https://x.com/avilos27/status/1881467219244470609?s=61&t=OzlarmcOdhxkNvpNtquCBw
Sometimes it’s just a hand sign. Amazing how a clip out of context gets attention.
It wasn’t a Nazi salute. He twice put his hand over his heart and waved it away into the crowd.
If anyone had tried that in 1933, they would have got a thrashing for taking the piss.
The desperation to pin anything on Musk is everywhere in the MSM
Europe’s nightmare is the Fourth Reich* – operating name EU – from which all ills come.
“… the industry was distorted by a mixture of subsidies and standards that had more in common with Soviet planning…”
And the technocratic, Fascist economic model (*see first sentence) of State direction of industry to serve the interests of the State.
Odd that the EU is the creation of Italy, Germany, France – who developed Fascism during the 1930s/40s and we are to believe all their bureaucrats converted to free market capitalism and democracy in May 1945.
Beautiful, another con, another scam ended.
EV’s are ecologically destructive. Useless. A toy. Expensive.
The cult of ‘climate’ nonsense.
If you converted the 38 million UK combustion engines to EVs we would eat up about 50% of the world’s known lithium deposit.
Plus all the other issues re battery life, disposal, slaves mining cobalt etc.
The most interesting I heard about electric cars is that they are much less energy efficient than combustion engines because transporting electricity actually requires a lot of energy. It’s not immediately obvious to people because it’s invisible, but pushing electricity along electrical cables over long distances requires a lot of energy.
Transporting gasoline is relatively cheap for the energy that you get from the transported mass.
Make oil great again
Energy density of liquid fuel about 10-15 times higher than battery fuel
“After all, no one ever lusted after a Chrysler or a Chevrolet, or even a Cadillac or a Lincoln…”
Oh yes we did! 1950s, 1960s into the 1970s – T-Birds, Chevvies – beautiful monsters, with tons of gleaming chrome, bright, brash paintwork, curves, huge tail fins, automatic, aircon, radios all as standard.
In Europe drab little boxes where windscreen wiper – if fitted – drivers side only were the only luxury.
Some folk think history started when they were born.
Have you seen the C8 Corvette, more than a match for anything built in Europe and half the price.
We had a few nice cars of our own large in size like the Rover Vitesse 3.5 V8 or the Jaguar series 3 XJ40 X300/308 and remember the Opel Monza. Rover P6 V8. Vauxhall Senator. Lotus Carlton. Bentley Mulsanne to name a few.
The V8 engine design came from America though; it was a modified version of a Buick engine.
Ford, GM etc. will just stop making cars in UK/EU, or maybe just offload all the US EV’s that no American’s want! That might help them hit their targets.
Perhaps made in Mexico as well: https://www.autoguide.com/auto-news/2015/04/which-cars-are-made-in-mexico.html Not advertising that mag, but US firms and others have moved jobs across the border. Maybe Trump will do something about that, but money talks.
And once they’re gone they’re never coming back.
We are being sold to China.
I wonder if the betting companies have odds on which European car manufacturer/Europe-based will collapse first?
Macron and Meloni will do everything they possibly can to protect their car manufacturers. The Germans aren’t going to let VW, BMW and Mercedes collapse.
Only our lunatic Eco-obsessed Establishment will sacrifice a whole industry to promote the climate change SCAM. So my money’s on Nissan in Sunderland – and what remains of Labour’s working class voter base in the NE will completely abandon them.
Germany does appear to ok with letting their car industry collapse from what I can see so far though…