MGUY Australia

Transcript

Well, the initial slow drip of auto manufacturers walking away from their foolish EV promises has now turned into a flood. Almost every week, you read of yet another automaker desperately backtracking on their electrification plans as the market dries up and sales plummet. The latest car makers to cave and back away from these mad electrification plans are Volkswagen and Mercedes, who have hedged their bets with more hybrids, allowing production of internal combustion engines to continue. There’s also more good news from Mercedes, which we’ll get to later in the video.

This isn’t rocket science. There’s a simple principle which these manufacturers should follow if they want to be successful: build the cars people want and to hell with what the government says. Welcome back to M-Guy, British engineer and lawyer, now Sydney-based YouTuber. Be sure to follow me on the usual socials for more content, links in the description, and there’s a code on screen; scan that with your phone if you want to sign up for an occasional M-Guy email. It’d be great to have you on board.

Bloomberg reports on how Volkswagen’s EV fantasy has just collided with reality. Volkswagen walks back EV or bus strategy that rankled rivals. CEO Oliver Blumer is turning to hybrids and striking partnerships as EV sales slow. Volkswagen AG’s all-in on electric vehicle plan is no more. The namesake VW brand, which pitched its ID family of electric cars as central to its future, admitted last week it will need more plug-in hybrids as EV sales decelerate. This marks just the latest adjustment VW has made to its electrification strategy after the company botched several model releases and fell behind in China, where local brands now dominate. The manufacturer has also shelved efforts to seek outside investors for its battery unit and scrapped plans for a 2 billion Euro ($2.2 billion) EV factory in Germany. In fact, the automaker is selling so many cars still running on combustion engines that it’s on track to overshoot its emissions allowance next year, leading Chief Executive Officer Oliver Blumer to ask European regulators for leniency.

It’s a sharp turnabout from only 3 years ago when VW’s aggressive lobbying for EVs in the European Union opened up rifts between the company and some of its peers in the region. Yep, give the punters what they want; works every time. But this is a far cry from VW’s posturing on electrification barely years ago. “Electric mobility has won the race,” D said when presenting VW’s battery strategy in 2021. Many in the industry questioned our approach; today they are following suit while we are reaping the fruit. Well, that fruit must be tasting pretty sour by now, if it isn’t completely rotten.

And Mercedes has dumped an entire EV platform after a woeful sale of its larger EV models. As Top Gear reports, Mercedes has reportedly cancelled an entire EV platform, and apparently, slow EV sales are to blame. Farewell, MBEA; we hardly knew you. Mercedes is putting the kibosh on the development of its MBEA large electric vehicle platform, having apparently been put off by the EQE and EQS’s slower than expected sales. OD Deia first reported by Handelsblut, the move will supposedly save billions in development costs as Mercedes rethinks its future luxury car strategy.

This is a big shift because the MBEA platform, which was due to be ready for 2028, was meant to bring several of the technologies previewed on the ultra-long range Vision EQXX to the table. Don’t expect 750 mi from a single charge anytime soon then. And Bloomberg again dives into why the EQS has been such a disaster for Mercedes. Why Mercedes’ $100,000 electric jelly bean flopped: The German automaker’s limousine customers care as much about comfort and status as saving the planet. Now they should worry about residual values too. When Mercedes-Benz Group unveiled a luxury electric sedan called the EQS in 2021, managers boasted about the radical aerodynamic design, billing it as the German automaker’s most significant launch in decades. Film director James Cameron and singer Alicia Keys were on hand to add their own superlatives for a vehicle that cost in excess of $100,000. “This concept car was inspired by the values of Avatar’s indigenous people, the Na’vi, who believe that we must not only limit what we take from nature but find ways to replenish what we use.” The all-new EQS is not just an impressive vehicle; it’s a commitment to a more balanced world.

Three years later, the electric version of the flagship S-Class risks becoming one of the biggest flops in Mercedes’ storied history, and its shortcomings have contributed to the company’s decision to ditch a goal of selling only electric vehicles by 2030. Sales of the luxury electric sedan declined 40% to just 14,100 units last year, according to Mercedes’ annual report. Price cuts in China and heavily discounted U.S. lease deals failed to revive demand while undermining the company’s strategy of prioritizing high values over sales volumes. Combustion engine S-Class deliveries were more than six times higher.

And the final piece of good news from Mercedes is that the ignominious slide of its once legendary AMG brand into abject mediocrity has been halted, at least for the time being. AMG started going downhill when Mercedes started applying the badge to ghastly little hatchbacks like the A45, and worst of all, applied the legendary C63 badge, which used to stand for a glorious 6.2 L naturally aspirated V8, on a pissy little 4-cylinder car with an electric motor—sacrilege. But the market has spoken, and for the upcoming CLLE 63 AMG is going back to the next best thing to the 6.2 L, the venerable 4 L twin turbo, which is about the best we can hope for in this mad net-zero climate. Mercedes AMG CL63 switches four-pot PH for 585 BHP V8. AMG lines up twin-turbo V8 power for upcoming super coupe amid slow sales for four-cylinder hybrid C63 H. Wonder why that would be?

The upcoming Mercedes AMG CL63 will receive a twin-turbocharged 4 L V8 petrol engine, developing up to 585 BHP, senior officials at the division’s Mercedes-Benz parent company have confirmed. The decision reverses an earlier plan to give the hot new coupe and cabriolet the same 670 BHP plug-in hybrid drivetrain as the latest C63 and GLC63, due to slow sales of the saloon, estate, and SUV, despite its class-leading performance. Traditional AMG buyers haven’t taken to the E Performance PHV drivetrain, which combines a turbocharged 2 L 4-cylinder petrol engine and a rear axle mounted electric motor—ghastly. I wouldn’t drive one if they paid me. I’d go and find a nice C63 Edition 507 coupe from 2012 or 2013, one of the most fun cars you could ever imagine when the 63 on the badge actually meant something.

Volkswagen and Mercedes aren’t the first automakers to get cold feet over their earlier ludicrous electrification promises in the face of clear market apathy, but we can be 100% sure of one thing: they won’t be the last.

HT/observa

From the MANHATTAN CONTRARIAN

Francis Menton

“Misinformation” — It has been one of the most-used buzzwords of the past few years. The “misinformation” label has been applied by advocates on both sides of the political divide in the attempt to discredit their opponents. Numerous assertions that have dominated the news cycle for months or even years have ultimately proven to be completely false, that is, “misinformation.” Examples of such assertions that have been established as “misinformation” include the assertion that Trump colluded with Russia to steal the 2016 election; the assertion that the Hunter Biden laptop was a Russian plant; and the assertion that the Covid virus originated in a wet market in Wuhan.

After the thorough discrediting of so many false narratives during these years, there remain plenty of narratives still out there that richly deserve the “misinformation” label. But of those, which is the very worst, the very most pernicious? Here is my candidate: the assertion that the cheapest way to generate electricity today is with wind and solar generators.

I recognize that there are many candidates for the title of the worst of all misinformation, and we are dealing here with a very crowded field. Numerous other endlessly-repeated false assertions contend for the title, many of them having very large real-world consequences. For example, other serious contenders for the title of “most pernicious misinformation” could include the assertion that emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases constitute a danger to human health and welfare; or the assertion that Israel is conducting a “genocide” against Palestinians. Undoubtedly, you have other candidates to add to the list.

So why do I say that the assertion of wind and solar being the cheapest ways to generate electricity is the very most pernicious of misinformation currently out there? Here are my three reasons: (1) the assertion is repeated endlessly and ubiquitously, (2) it is the basis for the misallocation of trillions of dollars of resources and for great impoverishment of billions of people around the world, and (3) it is false to the point of being preposterous, an insult to everyone’s intelligence, yet rarely challenged.

How ubiquitous is the assertion that wind and solar are the cheapest ways to generate electricity? Try Googling the question “What is the cheapest way to produce electricity?” You will get multiple pages of results advocating for wind and solar electricity, with almost no mention of the problems or costs of intermittency. A few examples of what turns up:

• The top result from Galooli.com, March 13, 2022, “Which Renewable Energy is Cheapest? A Guide to Cost and Efficiency”: “According to the IEA’s World Energy Outlook and other research projects, solar and wind energy have continued to occupy the top spots in terms of the cheapest renewable energy sources. Both energy sources cost significantly less than fossil fuel alternatives and continue to become more affordable every year.”
• Next up, decarbonization.com, August 2, 2023, “Ranked: The Cheapest Sources of Electricity in the U.S.”: “According to Lazard’s 2023 analysis of unsubsidized LCOE in the U.S., both onshore wind and utility-scale solar photovoltaic (PV) technologies are more cost-effective than combined cycle natural gas power plants. In the case of onshore wind, this has been true since 2015.”
• Next, carbonbrief.com, October 13, 2020, “Solar is now ‘cheapest electricity in history’, confirms IEA.”: “The world’s best solar power schemes now offer the “cheapest…electricity in history” with the technology cheaper than coal and gas in most major countries. That is according to the International Energy Agency. . . .”

Keep going for dozens of these for page after page. Try to find in any of them a serious discussion of the costs of backup, storage, or transmission upgrades to try to make an electrical grid work with these intermittent generators. You won’t. And don’t think that the high-brow mainstream sources can be trusted for anything better. Here is the New York Times from August 17, 2023: “The cost of generating electricity from the sun and wind is falling fast and in many areas is now cheaper than gas, oil or coal.”

In the face of hundreds of different journalism outlets endlessly repeating in unison the mantra of cheap “renewable” electricity, it becomes difficult to blame the voters or the politicians for just nodding along with the crowd. Why do any mentally taxing independent thinking when everybody seems to be saying the same thing?

The problem is that the idea that wind and solar make the cheapest electricity is plain wrong. At least, it is plain wrong if the electricity you are talking about is the reliable sort that works whenever you want to turn on the switch. The idea that wind and solar are cheapest fails to take account of any of the ancillary costs necessary to make a fully-functioning grid: the entire system of backup facilities to provide the power when the wind is not blowing and the sun not shining; the transmission facilities to take the power from wherever is windy or sunny to anywhere else it may be needed on a moment’s notice; the batteries or other storage facilities to save up energy in anticipation of inevitable wind and solar droughts; and so forth. In short, the idea that wind and solar generation of electricity are the “cheapest” is classic misinformation, the endless repetition of an assertion that is clearly false and known to be false.

Meanwhile, among the people incapable of seeing through the fog of misinformation on this subject are our current President, and the Governors of New York and California. In the case of the states, they throw tens of billions of dollars of handouts and subsidies to develop wind and solar facilities (hundreds of billions of dollars in the case of the feds), never having the presence of mind to realize that none of that would be necessary of this method of generation were actually cheaper as claimed.

Between the vast mis-allocation of resources and the sheer preposterousness of the proposition in question, I think that this assertion of wind and solar electricity generation being “cheapest” definitely has the claim for the number one spot.