All that petroleum-based hair gel has apparently crossed Gavin Newsom’s blood/brain barrier and done some real damage:

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Ah yes, California the state that continues to try to mandate electric vehicles while simultaneously chasing gasoline refineries out of the state and telling EV owners not to charge their vehicles overnight because California doesn’t have the electric generation capacity and must buy electricity from out of state.

Notice that last bit of wonder? Having 94% of Californians living within 10 minutes of an EV charger might be a good thing considering California’s highest in the nation    average gas price of $4.565 per gallon, compared with the $3.012 national average. It might be a good thing if the EV market was strong. It’s not.

Since the federal $7500 EV tax credit expired in September, and later, Donald Trump’s reelection sent EV and Climate Change fortunes plummeting. Even Newsom has had to cancel some EV pipe dreams:

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To be fair, things were looking bad for the EV industry long before that. Pretty much every American who really wanted an EV and could afford one already bought one. The rest of the vehicle-buying public that had been paying attention already understood EVs cost far more than a conventionally powered vehicle in the same category. Most couldn’t afford them.

As more EVs hit the roads the word got around: they’re not ready for prime time. Their enormous weight wears out tires at warp speed. Their range isn’t remotely what manufacturers and government promised, and charge times are excessive and for only an 80% charge. Winter dramatically reduces range and increases charging times and repair costs are astronomical. There has never been any real used EV market. Who is going to buy a used EV knowing a battery replacement will run around $30,000? Installing a home charger runs around $11,000—if the local electric infrastructure will allow it—and charging for apartment and city dwellers is a nightmare.

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Then there’s that whole spontaneous combustion thing.

For nearly a half century, Ford’s conventionally powered F-150 pickup has been the top selling vehicle in America. Ford introduced its EV version, the F-150 Lightning, touting it as the future of EV trucks and the leading light of EVs generally. Ford’s CEO Jim Farley couldn’t praise it enough and predicated EVs would be a substantial part of Ford’s output in the very near future. Alas, it was not to be.

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The Lightning looked good, but when owners asked their wonder trucks to do truck things like towing or hauling heavy loads, the Lightning couldn’t make the grade. Cold weather performance was abysmal, which wasn’t helped by Ford recommending Lightning owners only use their seat and steering wheel heaters in winter.  

Soon, Ford was losing billions, $132,000 on every EV sold in a single quarter of 2024. Ford was losing more—a lot more—than the already astronomically high MSRP of Lightnings. It’s rather hard to make a profit that way, and even Ford has had to revert to the free market and making products people want to buy at a price they can afford rather than making the unicorn farts and fairy dust government wants.

Even the EV cheerleaders at Motor Trend have had to report the sad news:

While the Ford F-150 Lightning electric pickup was hailed as an inflection point for the brand, it's also a loss leader versus the non-electric F-150. Now, according to a new report from the Wall Street Journal, it seems the Blue Oval is considering whether it should bring production back online at all after assembly stopped due to a fire at an aluminum supplier. In contrast, Ford added a third shift to F-150 and Super Duty production. As it stands, no decision has been made, but it wouldn’t be the first high-visibility product ended under the watch of CEO Jim Farley.

Translation: Buh-bye Lightning.

According to the WSJ, Ford is pondering replacing the F-150 Lightning at the Rouge Electric Vehicle Center in Dearborn, Michigan, with a vehicle or vehicles spun from the Universal Electric Vehicle (UEV) platform that Farley announced in August. The UEV is intended to deliver more affordable EVs (including a $30,000 electric truck) through engineering “cleverness” and streamlined development that will reduce parts count, complexity, and weight.

Considering Ford is losing billions every quarter, they’re going to have to find conventionally powered truckloads of “cleverness” and unimaginable “streamlined development” if they’re going to be profitable again. EVs and profitability aren’t inhabiting the same physical universe.

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Mike McDaniel is a USAF veteran, classically trained musician, Japanese and European fencer, life-long athlete, firearm instructor, retired police officer and high school and college English teacher. He is a published author and blogger. His home blog is Stately McDaniel Manor.