Thought for Today

[T1 Terry]

Here's a scary one:

Is Trumps tariffs on Mexico and Canada a smoke screen for increasing border defence? .... not to keep people out, who would want to move there at the moment, but to stop American citizens leaving ..... Are they actually rounding up all these "illegal immigrants" or are they being flooded by people wanting out but can't afford to leave ..... a lot of those that could afford to leave were packing their bags after the election, it might be too late for those who thought it couldn't be as bad as everyone said ..... he is only into 2 weeks of a 2 yr term .....
Major manufacturers are not lining up to open factories in the USA, they are shutting shop and heading out .... Stamped "made in the USA" might be items destined for the rare collectable's shops .......

T1 Terry

[Greynomad]

News item tonight:
Since The Donald’s election, with the enthusiastic (and VERY expensive) assistance of one Elon Musk, sales of Tesla EVs have plummeted.
The drop in Australia is 30-odd percent. Much more in Europe: 60%!!
Anecdotal evidence that some Tesla owners are trading theirs for other brands of EV, and competitive dealers are hearing customers say they want to buy an EV, but definitely NOT a Tesla, even though the Tesla is better equipped and priced comparably.


I wonder what has motivated this shift in attitude?

[T1 Terry]

News item tonight:
Since The Donald’s election, with the enthusiastic (and VERY expensive) assistance of one Elon Musk, sales of Tesla EVs have plummeted.
The drop in Australia is 30-odd percent. Much more in Europe: 60%!!
Anecdotal evidence that some Tesla owners are trading theirs for other brands of EV, and competitive dealers are hearing customers say they want to buy an EV, but definitely NOT a Tesla, even though the Tesla is better equipped and priced comparably.


I wonder what has motivated this shift in attitude?

No longer true. A number of recently released Chinese luxury level EV are better priced and much better equipped. There are a lot of very unhappy Tesla owners, many who are not happy with their vehicle, many who are not happy with being associated with President Musk.
There is a popular bumper stickers doing the rounds on Tesla's, "I bought it before Elon went crazy", "Elon ate my cat", and an image of ET's finger pointing at Mars with the caption "Elon go home"

I see in the news, Elon and co (kids) have been locked out of Treasury systems by Senior U.S. District Judge Colleen Kottar-Kotelly, no doubt he has built back door access, but he can only read, not actually cut payments .... but time will tell just how strong that ruling will be ....

T1 Terry

[Riverlander]

News item tonight:
Since The Donald’s election, with the enthusiastic (and VERY expensive) assistance of one Elon Musk, sales of Tesla EVs have plummeted.
The drop in Australia is 30-odd percent. Much more in Europe: 60%!!
Anecdotal evidence that some Tesla owners are trading theirs for other brands of EV, and competitive dealers are hearing customers say they want to buy an EV, but definitely NOT a Tesla, even though the Tesla is better equipped and priced comparably.


I wonder what has motivated this shift in attitude?

I see the total EV sales is down quite a bit this month and agree with T1 that the Chinese EV's are cheaper and better equipped. I think people that want an EV have probably already purchased one and a lot of people are put off with the cost of charging unless you have off street parking and the massive depreciation.

[T1 Terry]

And solar charging so you can get free fuel, don't forget that part. There will be a sudden surge in EV sales as the next price hike cycle starts, we are already seeing it here in Mannum, so it won't take long to spread across the country ......
It wasn't a drop in EV sales as compared to vehicle sales over all, it was a drop in big purchases and vehicles are one of the big ticket items that get the squeeze when the $$ start to get tight .... for some reason the general public seem to want to eat and have roof over their head rather than buying a new car.
During the late 80's and 90's, my mechanical business was swamped with work, they were fixing the old car rather than buying a new one. These days, the mechanical people who could actually diagnose and fix a vehicle are gone, read a code and bolt new parts on till the customer either runs out of money or patience ....
They are reducing their vehicle fleet at the moment to cut costs, I can see that in the not too distant future, people will opt for an EV that has V2L as a standard feature and start using the battery in their vehicle to power part of the load in their house. The saving in electricity bills, if they are smart, will go into second life ex EV battery packs to store their own solar generated power rather than giving it to the grid for next to nothing, then buying it back at crazy prices during peak demand .... better to use the energy generated by that solar system you had installed, combine it with the EV battery storage, and avoid the electricity bills altogether .... with the bonus of no more blackouts opps, I mean power outages

T1 Terry

[T1 Terry]

Story of my life.jpg

[Newcastle George]

You need to measure twice, cut once.

George

[T1 Terry]

You need to measure twice, cut once.

George

If you had worked at Favco Favelle building the big site cranes, you very quickly learnt, no matter how well you made it and how well it worked, if you finished it early, an engineer wouldn't be able to help himself and want to mess with it ... and when the hair brained ideas went to sh*tte, they would just head back to their office and leave you sorting out how to fix what they did .... but now, there is no time remaining and it needed to be stripped down into its main components so it could be transported to the customer .... the actual report on how well your build went was when it was commissioned and how happy the client was with the finished product ... oil leaks and unpainted parts went badly for you, didn't matter it wasn't your fault.

There is no time for measuring twice, you are being watched like a hawk waiting to strike, but you can cut twice because the hawk doesn't actually have the skill set to understand what you're doing, but you look busy doing it

T1 Terry

[T1 Terry]

career_choice.jpg

[Greynomad]

In the current Trump era, that’s a reasonable and logical response from Dad…
Sadly.