Friday, May 17, 2024

How About a Cheap Used Car? It's Only Two Years Old, but There's a Catch...

 Stephen Green – PJ Media

  "But almost immediately, there were problems. After getting a temporary title, he found the car wasn’t reading voltage correctly. Soon, a body shop found a quarter-size hole in the undercarriage he hadn’t seen before, which led to revelations of deeper issues inside. “The high-voltage battery pack is damaged and could cause extreme safety concerns,” a Tesla technician texted him. Because the hole was “exterior damage,” it wasn’t covered by the warranty, which meant a $13,078.58 repair bill."

"Hertz is unloading 30,000 used cars on the market. The mileage might not be the lowest, but they're all 2022 or newer and lovingly maintained by the company's team of professional mechanics. While most used-car prices remain sky-high, the prices on these gently used babies is shockingly low.

"There's just one catch: they're all Teslas.

"Hertz, you might have read, came out of bankruptcy a couple of years ago and placed a big bet on electric vehicles. The rental firm had originally planned to buy no fewer than 100,000 EVs for their fleet but ended up with quite a bit fewer at 30,000 — almost all of them Teslas.

"Now Hertz is selling them all for the simple reason that people didn't want to rent them. The company bought those Teslas when prices were high, and now they have to sell them at fire sale prices in a market already saturated with new EVs selling at lower prices and bigger discounts than ever.

"What an ignominious way to emerge from bankruptcy, right?" . . .

Biden’s $7.5 Billion EV Charger Plan Backfires Spectacularly – Issues & Insights  "At a Rose Garden event this week, President Joe Biden bragged that “Thanks to my Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, we’re building a network of 500,000 charging stations all across America.”

"This is about as believable as the story of his uncle’s cannibalistic demise.

"The truth is that Biden’s five-year, $7.5 billion effort to jump-start the development of electric vehicle charging stations is doing the opposite. The money has so far produced only eight new charging stations in two years. The overall growth rate in EV charging stations has slowed since he signed that bill. And earlier this month, Tesla gutted its EV charger efforts, dealing the entire scheme a huge blow.

"In other words, this is shaping up to be a massive waste of taxpayer money.

"The slow rollout of the Biden-approved EV stations is in part due to cumbersome rules and regulations required to access the money. That’s no surprise.

"But it’s actually having a broader negative impact, slowing the growth of EV stations overall." . . .  

No comments: