“Ford will drastically cut the number of hourly workers at its factory that builds the Ford F-150 Lightning as sales of electric vehicles slow,” a local media outlet reported.
“While EV sales are growing in the U.S.,” the report adds, “the pace is falling well short of the industry’s ambitious timetable, and many consumers are turning to hybrid vehicles instead.”
“Of the 2,100 workers who make up three work crews at the Dearborn facility, a third will remain. … Ford will transfer 700 workers to” to another Michigan plant while the remaining 700 will “either take a retirement package offered during last year’s contract talks with the United Auto Workers or will take a reassignment in southeast Michigan.”
How does a multi-billion dollar corporation in a trillion-dollar industry get caught with its pants down like this?
Well, this is what happens when you run your business as a social justice outreach program instead of, you know, a business.
President Joe Biden stops to talk to the media as he drives a Ford F-150 Lightning truck at Ford Dearborn Development Center, Tuesday, May 18, 2021, in Dearborn, Mich. (Evan Vucci/AP)
Had Ford called me and asked, Should we hire 2,100 guys to operate a plant to make all these electric cars? this would have been my answer…
Sure, at first… but Normal People are not going to buy electric cars. These things are too expensive and not reliable enough. During those first few months, you will sell a bundle to the early adapters and virtue signalers. But after that, Normal People will hesitate over their legitimate concerns about reliable and easy recharging.
How could Ford not know that?
And it’s not like I’m some kind of genius. Nevertheless, this is not 20/20 hindsight at work. I’ve been writing about these obvious hurdles to mass-adapting to EVs for years. This stuff is just common sense, and when you’re talking about a $50,000 ticket, this is not a world where If Detroit builds it, they will come.
No amount of corporate media propaganda, no amount of government propaganda, and no amount of environmental propaganda can influence Normal People to spend tens of thousands of hard-earned dollars on something this unreliable. You might be able to fool people into changing toothpaste brands or purchasing a ticket for a lousy movie, but a car? A freakin’ CAR?
No.
Celebrities, movie stars, and multi-millionaires can afford to drop that kind of cash on what amounts to a status symbol. Normal people, however, actually need a car for practical purposes: to get to work, run errands, and take the occasional vacation. Battery-powered cars might someday make sense, but right now, there is too much uncertainty and stress about recharging on the road. Can I find a charger? Will the charger work? How long will it take? What if there’s a line?
People just want to get in their cars and drive. No muss. No fuss. No mess. No stress. Until electric vehicles offer that, sales will always be limited.
Another move that failed here was Ford and the other car companies hoping to fabricate an artificial bandwagon effect. Don’t you want to be like everyone else in America and own an electric car?!?!?! Don’t be a chump! Don’t be left out!
Who’s the chump now?
John Nolte’s debut novel Borrowed Time (Bombardier Books) is available today. You can read an exclusive excerpt here and a review of the novel here.
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