It’s Friday! And Crowdstrike and Microsoft have likely given you the gift of not being able to work. Let’s enjoy it a bit by having a Morning Dump that has some politics and Tesla in it. Uh oh. Why work when you can get in an internet flame war? Just kidding, please don’t do that.
Tesla sales are down in California for the third straight quarter, which is an interesting outcome given that California is the place that made Tesla. It’s not just Tesla, as BEV growth is stalling out a bit in the state as hybrid sales surge.
Oh man, politics? Really? Here we go: Republican nominee Donald Trump said the UAW should fire its president Shawn Fain because of the threat of Chinese cars from Mexico. What?
Oh boy, let’s keep going. Did the Inflation Reduction Act do anything? An analysis shows that it probably has.
And, finally, car repossessions are surging.
Happy Friday!
Tesla Sales Are Crashing In California
Everything is relative, and I feel like all the stories you’re going to potentially read today about Tesla’s performance in California should be heavily caveated with the fact that three of the four best-selling EVs in California are all Teslas.
Even with falling sales, Tesla is still lapping the rest of the field. Or, to use another sports metaphor: Tesla is still the Harlem Globetrotters and everyone else is still the Washington Generals.
All of this data comes from the California New Car Dealers Association, which put together this great quarterly report on sales in the state. Tesla sales have fallen for the third quarter and, through the first half of the year Tesla sales are down 17% in the state, whereas the overall EV market is slightly up year-to-date.
In particular, Toyota, Cadillac, Lexus, Rivian, and a bunch of other automakers are up a lot. Polestar, Volkswagen, Volvo, and Chevrolet (RIP Bolt) are down more than Tesla.
What’s the deal? I think a few things are going on here. First, the EV market in California has been strong for years and, with higher interest rates, it was bound to slow down eventually. There’s also increased competition, meaning that more people are looking to good alternatives like the Ioniq 5 (the best-selling non-Tesla) and Mach-E.
There’s probably some Elon Musk Effect here as California trends liberal, though it’s hard to say for sure and I’d love to see some good data on this.
Finally, hybrids are becoming more competitive and you can see it in the data:
Electric car growth is stalling out but hybrids are marching along. In fact, both the Toyota RAV4 PHEV and Jeep Wrangler PHEV cracked into the top ten of BEV/PHEVs this year, ahead of the ID.4, F-150 Lightning, and other historically popular vehicles.
Year of the Hybrid, et cetera.
Ok, Let’s Talk About What Donald Trump Said Last Night
It’s news! It’s news! It’s news! I scream as the keyboard tries to jump out of my window and sacrifice its life before I attempt to do this.
The former President mentioned, in a speech where he was nominated to be the presidential candidate of one of our country’s two major parties, that the President of the United Auto Workers should be fired. He also said some other things. Would it surprise you if I said I don’t think most of these things are true?
You can see in the video above what he said (do not, under any circumstances, watch any other videos link on that channel if you enjoy your sanity).
Here’s the transcript of the speech as written:
I will END the Electric Vehicle Mandate on Day One — thereby saving the U.S. auto industry from complete obliteration, and saving U.S. customers thousands of dollars per car.
I will bring auto jobs back to our country, through the proper use of taxes, tariffs, and incentives, and will not allow massive auto manufacturing plants to be built in Mexico, China, or other countries, where they send the product back to the United States, and steal our jobs, creating a hopeless situation for our companies and autoworkers.
Trump went a little off script and added:
The United Auto Workers ought to be ashamed for allowing this to happen. And the leader of the United Auto Workers should be fired immediately. And every single auto worker, union and non-union, should be voting for Donald Trump.
Oh boy. Let’s start with: There is no federal Electric Vehicle Mandate. There’s one in California and other states might follow it, but technically the new federal regulations on cars do not mandate any specific technology and leave it up to automakers to decide what they want to make (with a lot of leeway given to hybrids).
Maybe I’m being pedantic? Maybe. The bit about whether EVs will cause some kind of automotive apocalypse is also an opinion and maybe you agree or not.
The bit about Chinese companies building factories in Mexico to bring cars over here being UAW President Shawn Fain’s fault is interesting, mostly because it makes no sense.
First, as background: Chinese automakers sell cars in Mexico and have made noise about building cars there, albeit with the stated reason of selling to Latin America and not America America. No one really believed them and everyone freaked out. Mexico itself balked and said it wouldn’t provide incentives for these factories to get built.
President Trump, already concerned about this, pushed forward a 25% tariff on Chinese EVs when he was in office. President Biden doubled down on this after the most recent dustup and made it a 100% tariff.
The reason why China might be able to sneak cars in via Mexico without extra trade duties is because of the United States Mexico Canada Agreement (USMCA), which is an update of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). The USMCA was supposed to fix some shortcomings in NAFTA related to job losses in the US, but it didn’t quite work and ultimately created an opening for Chinese automakers.
Don’t believe me? Here’s a report from the Alliance for American Manufacturing explaining how this happened:
Under the NAFTA framework, Mexican auto industry employment grew by 620,000 between 1999 and 2016, while the U.S. lost 360,000 auto jobs during the same period, according to the Economic Policy Institute. Mexican workers, meanwhile, made an estimated 12% of the wages of their U.S. counterparts.
The USMCA was meant to help correct this imbalance that weighed heavily on U.S. autoworkers by including rules of origin designed to guarantee that products qualifying for duty-free status would be produced regionally, as well as average wage thresholds meant to raise pay for workers across the trading bloc. So far there are strong indications that it has not rebalanced trade, but rather has created disproportionate investments into Mexico including from Chinese entities. Indeed, between 2018 and the first 11 months of 2023, the automotive trade imbalance between the U.S. and Mexico increased by $12 billion, and the auto parts trade imbalance increased by $9 billion.
Should we blame the UAW for the USMCA? In the most abstract way, the existence of unionized workers makes cheaper non-union workers more attractive, but the leakage effect of the USMCA is really the fault of the administration that negotiated and signed the treaty.
Would it surprise anyone to find out that the USMCA was the suggestion of then-President Donald Trump and that it was President Trump who signed it into law?
He did. Here’s video of him calling it a “colossal victory” for America.
So what’s the deal here? I think it’s quite simple. Fain called Trump a “Scab” in his endorsement of Biden and is therefore one of the former President’s enemies. No one listening to that speech will care that the unscripted aside doesn’t make any sense.
The Inflation Reduction Act Probably Saved/Created A Lot Of Jobs In Republican Districts
Whether you think it’s smart or dumb, the Inflation Reduction Act is likely the most important industrial policy initiative since NAFTA and there are now some numbers to back that up.
This is from a thread on the platform X, which I’m embedding below:
Inflation Reduction Act + 23 months
My students at @Wellesley and I are tracking investments in the US electric vehicle supply chain.
Here is our post-I.R.A. tally for the US since 8/16/22:
121 new projects
$94.2B in planned investments
60,597 new jobsA short???? 1/9 pic.twitter.com/8lnDNFWw9y
— Jay Turner (@_jay_turner) July 17, 2024
If you don’t like to read the news that way, the highlight is that in the 23 months since the passage of the IRA, there have been about $94 billion worth of new projects announced. These are likely to produce about 60,597 new jobs just in the EV supply chain (total jobs are about 375k by the current calculations).
As you can see, most of these projects are in Republican-led districts. Some of this is just a result of these investments being focused in places where cars are already made which, in general, tend to be less urban and thus more Republican.
Literally every Republican in the House of Representatives voted against the legislation, if you were curious. Now that it’s law, though, many of them seem to be quite happy to crow about the new jobs.
Repos Will Likely Continue To Climb
About a year ago I did a story on loan vintages and how, over the next few years, the loans that were given out during the pandemic are likely to become a problem.
As you can see in this graphic from Cox Automotive, they’re seeing the same thing. Repossessions are up more than 20% compared to last year and Cox thanks the numbers will continue to grow.
It’s been a bit of whiplash lately as interest rates dropped but cars got super expensive during the pandemic. Now cars are getting cheaper, but interest rates are up.
Buying a car now puts you at a little less risk as you’re likely buying something that will follow a normal depreciation curve. Cars sold during the pandemic were priced so high above normal that buyers who have held onto their cars are more likely to be upside down on their loans, thus more repos.
What I’m Listening To While Writing The Morning Dump
Let’s inject a little happiness into today with The Troggs. Gotta love The Troggs. “Love is all around” if you look for it.
The Big Question
Are you going to ignore what I ask and just talk about politics? Almost certainly, but lemme give it a shot anyway: What’s the longest you’ve gone without getting into a fender-bender?
Ugh… should I reveal this information? Am I about to jinx myself into oblivion?
Never. I got my permit in 2004, and I’ve never hit anything or been hit. Soooooo yeah, gonna just pretend I didn’t put that out into the universe.
Just make sure you knock on wood and throw salt over your shoulder.
Yeah, a Hail Mary or Praise Allah might not hurt either.
Pretty sure I’m going to have to go outside to find wood. This place is full of formica glued to particle board for the most part.
Plenty of salt in the lunchroom though.
My last accident was in 2014. Car was t-boned in a construction zone by a company delivery van. Before that I was used as a hockey puck by a big rig that charged blindly out of an alley, around 2005. I think I’ve been doing pretty good.
Look, I live in Colorado not CA, but I am 100% not buying anything Tesla sells specifically because of Musk. I don’t want anything to do with him, his politics, his optics, his fanbois, and his wealth. Not to mention I think the interiors of their cars are absolute turd-riffic. So yeah, I think you can point to Musk as a reason sales are tanking in CA. Plus he’s already said he’s moving every other company he owns out of CA, so I can bet you there’s some animosity among the people that will be affected by his capricious and juvenile behavior.
I’m in the same boat. Although I’d be tempted to buy the Boring Flamethrower if it was ever available again.
Why by a boring flame thrower when you can buy an actual flame thrower? Hah
Or just make one with a pressure washer. Muhaha!
(Don’t actually do that)
Do not tempt me haha (my fiance thinks a flamethrower would be cool to have not sure how safe I would feel having one though haha)
Because it’s a glorified lighter, not a napalm flamethrower. You know, ’cause the kid.
Sort of like Tesla FSD is compared to full self driving.
You can get gas/diesel ones for like 500-600 bucks (if allowed by your state) which would be much more fun if you have the location/land to use it hah
Why bother when a can of hair spray and a lighter are right there?
But if you really can’t do without a flamethrower you can buy one of these now, today* for about the same price but with three times the range:
https://www.firequest.com/XM420.html
* not legal for sale in California or Maryland and the city of Warren MI without proof of a pyrotechnics licence.
I’m in Texas, so probably can mount several to the car. You know the site is good when it’s firewalled from work!
Musk’s managed to alienate everyone but libertarian tech-bros, and their passion is fleeting at best.
But I think Tesla’s problems began in 2019 when Consumer Reports pulled their recommendation for the Model 3. And a year later, when Tesla pulled the radar sensors and started the phantom braking scandal.
Tesla’s ruthless corner-cutting has lost them the endorsements of institutional reviewers like CR, C&D, USN, and Edmunds. Those endorsements matter to the average consumer, and losing them would be enough to ruin Tesla’s sales trajectory even without Musk’s help.
Just acquired an EV. Wasn’t specifically looking for one. I was looking for a good deal on anything. My only real guidance was ‘no Teslas.’
Operation is too touch-screeny to me. Regardless of his politics, I just think he’s irrational and there are no checks on his whims. If he thinks it’s funny to limit everyone to 11 miles of range, he can. If I bought a Tesla after he’s shown himself I feel like it’d be my own fault to be stuck on that ride.
Knock on wood, I’ve been driving for ~12 years now and have never hit another car or anything that wasn’t stationary and able to take the hit. So I’m pretty happy about that.
I suppose I had the advantage of driving a vehicle no one could miss (visually speaking; a big red van) for the first seven of those years.
How I’ve kept it up in a road-grey Prius…well, maybe always driving with my lights on makes up the difference or something.
Do I have to be in the car for it to count? About 20 yrs ago, my neighbor backed out of her garage and straight into my street parked car. In broad daylight and it was a wide street. Her insurance paid to fix it.
Same thing happened to my “Elise” many years ago. The funny thing is the next year the driver at fault pulled her daughter from Elise’s classroom assignment – the principal calls her in and says he doesn’t know what is going on, she just laughed and said “I know why”
I believe my last fender bender was 10-12 years ago. I was an odd case though. I pulled into a parking lot and went in to be store while my wife stayed in the passenger seat. While I’m in the store my wife texted me that someone just hit the car; it was a pickup truck and the driver actually stayed around to swap insurance information. The insurance companies had a difficult time trying to figure out how our car was hit with someone inside the vehicle but without a driver.
If I’m remembering all of them, I’ve been in 6 fender-benders, maybe a couple were a *bit* more than that. 2008, 2010, 2013, 2018, 2018, and 2020. I started driving in 2005, so I guess… 5 years-ish? If I can make it through next year accident-free, I’ll tie my record!
Not-so-fun-fact, both 2018 incidents were in one vehicle, and it didn’t survive the second one, at least not in a legally roadworthy state.
That sounds excessive.
Yeah I guess I should stop letting people crash into me, mostly when I’m stationary? Definitely something I can control.
I hit 2 Nissan Rogue’s in the same exact spot with the same exact spot (on my car) in nearly identical circumstances in two different locations in the same year, 2017.
They had it coming. I appreciate your single mindedness, but your crusade has kinda fallen off, no?
No, I continue to loath the Nissan Rogue, and take any and every chance to shit on them, as they are full, complete, garbage.
I am a bit biased.
Never Nissan!
I’ve only just now thought about it and my last at fault fender-bender or worse was some 20 yrs ago! a guy slammed on his brakes in front of me and my trucks brakes weren’t as good as his.
it was literally just cosmetic damage, I never even bothered to fix my truck which only looked like it was giving a little smirk afterward, but months later the guy tried to sue for some lingering neck/spine injury, but he signed the insurance check, and apparently had continued to play pick-up basketball afterwards, so that didn’t go well for him.
My last fender bender was 11+ years ago, ironically on my way to test drive a (then fairly new) Tesla Model S.
Wait…so you’re telling me that Republicans nominated an aging reality TV star/serial grifter to be their presidential candidate again, and he said some dumb and nonsensical shit that’s detached from reality? And that red states benefited significantly from progressive legislation but will still line up to vote against their own best interests in droves to own the libs? No way dude. I don’t believe it.
Something like that cannot logically, rationally happen. Your just talking about fantasies.
Precisely. People could never be THAT ignorant.
When is this
dreamnightmaregoing to end? I’m spending the next 2 days at Limerock, maybe I’ll forget about this a while.I have literally been spending most of my sessions every week venting about political horror/existential dread to my therapist. She says that pretty much everyone has been. It’s an absolute nightmare and I’m already exhausted in July.
I think I’m just going to check out soon. I’m sure if the Dems pick a nominee other than Biden I’ll be dragged back in but I doubt that actually happens…and if it does it’ll just be Harris anyway and she’s no friend of mine.
After the debate I decided to just quit paying attention to the news. No social media, no websites except local news, InsideEVs, and Autopian. I haven’t slept this well all of 2024. I highly recommend it.
My therapist has said the same. She is also feeling her own share of horror and existential dread, particularly because she, like me, is gay. She’s 68 and has seen a lot, but she said she’s never been as worried about anything as she is about the current political climate in the US.
I’ve been doing my best to stay checked out of it all. I was doing pretty good before the debate but then I got sucked back in. My goal is to check back out again, what happens will happen regardless of whether or not I’m paying attention.
I don’t have a therapist anymore, but my wife does. Her therapist does some Jedi mind trick or whatever and she’s somehow isolated herself from everything going on in the world. Like, she knows Biden is president but that’s it. She isn’t aware of any local news, state news, national news, or global news. She has no idea what’s been happening at the Supreme Court and she knows nothing about what’s happening in Congress. Heck, I’m not even sure she knows who the mayor of her city is.
On one hand, I’d love to give so few damns about the world that I could ignore everything. On the other, maybe it’s good to know something every now and then??
Here’s the thing: I checked out during Trump’s first term and I can’t recommend it enough. Here are some things that are good for mental health I’ve learned:
After checking out, it seemed my focus on my personal life was more… focused. Everything was fine during Trump V1.0. I mean there was Covid and that sucked. As much as we all likely want to, I can’t blame him for that. Many people suffered but I ignored him and mostly it was fine.
Biden V1.0; I continued to be checked out and everything has been… fine. Really rocky start with my retirement savings but recovered ok and it’s fine.
Whoever wins I will continue to be checked out and I’m pretty sure it will be fine.
The point is, regardless of who wins you likely won’t notice much change for you. The stressful things are the noise around it all. Sure, we all know someone who was personally affected by a policy change and I don’t want to minimize that. It really sucks for a lot of people on both sides when that happens. I’m talking about, “Most of Us.” Most of us will be fine either way.
Try your best to ignore it. Focus on family, hobbies or whatever gets you happy and realize that none of our lives needs to be defined by who has political power. One side wins and there may be some fights in the courts to keep our rights or not be bulldozed by government thugs. The other side wins and we might pay more or less in taxes. Yes this is important but most of the time it doesn’t affect you directly and everything will be fine.
Things are temporary. Life is, sadly, also temporary. Focus inward on your inner circle of influence and your mental health will thank you.
Excellent advice.
I am in a deep blue state so we don’t get many advertisements. But omg you cannot listen or watch the news without hearing this crap – almost all of it referencing Trump one way or another – I almost didn’t turn on NPR this morning for the fun weekend shows because I just can’t take anymore of the presidential race crap. One story I heard the other night was they went and interviewed the workers building the new Ford TN battery plant and none of them knew that the reason they have good jobs is due to the government backing (& EV incentives), it’s kinda depressing.
Does it count as a fender bender if the cops/insurance don’t get involved? If so, then 12 years.
Had a few low speed oopsies where both parties agree it’s not worth the hassle to wait for a cop.
I think my last “normal” fender bender was in 2010 when a high school kid in a truck turned in front of me and I couldn’t quite stop in time.
I did bust out a taillight in the old Jeep and dent the plastic bumper cap over memorial day weekend, backing into an icy snow wall while lining up to take another run at a snowdrift on a 4wd pass, does that count? The taillight was already cracked previously, so $30 for a used housing off ebay, a few dollars for a new brake light bulb, and a few minutes with a high lift jack to push the dent out of the bumper cap and it’s all fixed. I wish minor damage on new cars was that easy to fix .
When Musk came out as a Trump supporter and donated money to the RNC, I firmly believe that spelled the end of Tesla. Musk and Tesla will now come under constant attack from the media. This will cost them too many sales to last very long.
Michael Jordan once wisely said “Republicans buy sneakers too” and stayed out of whatever politics he was being asked to comment on. Musk should have followed his lead.
Feels like we’ve been so heavily bombarded since that we’ve forgotten his batshitcrazy unprompted beef with a cave diver trying to save a group of school children being only the tip of what’s going on.
That guy was a Pedo. Elon knows his stuff, especially Pedos. /s
I think Musk coming out as a dumbass who attacked his own customer base was the actual issue
Man, I’m so glad you didn’t ask for the longest stretch between totaling cars.
Last fender bender was around 20 years ago when I got rear-ended at a red light.
Nice graphic!
The last time I was in an accident of any sort or severity was… quite a bit longer than 5 years ago. It was so minor that I’m having a hard time pinning down when during my lifetime it exactly happened. More than 5 years ago, less than 14 years ago. That’s the most I can say with any certainty. A lady wasn’t paying attention and ran into my ball hitch at a stop sign. No damage to my car, and she just so happened to hit the ball hitch with her front license plate, which turned said license plate into a salad bowl-shaped thing. We pulled over and talked, she apologized profusely, we both drove away.
I can’t keep up with what virtue signaling Tesla or owning a Tesla means *shakes fist, yells at cloud*
In the beginning Tesla appealed to coastal liberals and elites since they were a sign you cared about the environment. Like you said, sales in California are largely what made Tesla. Back then lots of more conservative and rural folks railed against Tesla and EVs in general.
Then Elon turned all weird and is now aligning himself with Trump and I’m seeing a turning of the tide. I’ve seen a few Teslas in the wild with stickers saying “Bought this before I knew he was insane” or something similar. On the recent news that Elon wants to relocated Tesla and Space-X to Texas, the comments I saw from tons of Californians were basically “Bye, Felicia” (which my kneejerk reaction is to agree with, but it ignores economic impacts).
But then I saw a video recently of a bunch brodozer trucks basically taking over a new Tesla dealership in Idaho or somewhere similar, which seems to suggest there is still Tesla hate from that demographic.
I’m glad that my automotive choices only tell others that I’m a nerd who likes oddball stuff.
My automotive choices I think makes people think I am a redneck which I mean I do get sunburn at work from flashing semi’s that are outside so maybe I am? Haha. I need to get a Auztozam or some other type of Kei car then that would really confuse people haha.
Thanks for getting the stupid song from the stupid British Christmas movie where Rick from walking dead can only communicate with que cards stuck in my head.
I woke up to the news about the Microsoft issue thinking, “oh wow, maybe I’ll get some of the day off” since I’m fully remote and depend on Microsoft products to get my work done. But it didn’t impact anything I use, so here I am.
Regarding the question, it’s been almost nine years since I was in any kind of car accident, fender bender or otherwise.
4 which means this year I’m fucked.
“Are you going to ignore what I ask and just talk about politics?”
No, I am not.
Are you going to talk about the fact that you’re not talking about politics?
That approach can be at least as annoying, if not more so, which means I’m tempted to go with yes.
No, though.
To answer what you asked. It depends on if the fender bender was my fault or someone else’s. 100% Someone else’s… 3 years. Mine: 27.
Good thing The Autopian runs on “an IBM PCjr floating in a kiddie pool of rust-water in David Tracy’s crawlspace”, eh?
I’ve been told the rust water helps it run faster.
Maybe it needed some extra spaghetti this morning.
I thought it was an Apple IIE
Come on, its a Commodore 64 bought from KMart w/ the optional tape drive!
It actually runs off 8 inch floppies. He has to load 4 of them sequentially in the morning just to boot the OS.
And now we complain if it take 5 secs to download a fat file.
My daughter will be grumbling ‘cuz she works at the airport and this will probably make their job harder today. They’ll have to use the ‘backup’ program, which requires lots of manual input.
I picture this website just runs from off a monkey using an old telephone style panel to patch things through that is in a old rusty ass RV being pulled by a Willy’s.
Maybe AI could generate that picture! Dont forget the autopian logo on the RV.
Cassettes/tape drives!
A New Yorker friend sent me an article about the MTA. Apparently everything worked fine because the equipment is ancient. And there’s plenty of rust water too.