GM Printing Money Now, Maybe A Little Less Next Year
General Motors just revealed that it ended the year with fourth quarter revenue of $43.1 billion and a net income of $3.8 billion (EBIT-adjusted). For the year, the company banked a record adjusted net income of $14.6 billion on $156.7 billion of revenue. If you’re one of GM’s approximately 42,300 eligible workers then GM’s good year equates to roughly $12,750 in profit sharing, a record according to this story from The Detroit News: And next year? In its letter to shareholders, GM predicted a range of adjusted net income in the $10.5 to $12.5 billion range. That’s down, slightly, but next year is a big year for investments. For instance, GM and Lithium Americas Corp. announced today that the two companies would work together to develop the Thackler Pass mine in Nevada, which is claimed to be the third largest lithium source in the world and the largest in the Untied States. A working lithium mine in the U.S. could provide a huge boost to GM as it tries to keep costs down while also qualifying for the full tax rebate from the federal government.
VW Will Have None Of Your Price War
First, Tesla dropped its prices in an attempt to get Inflation Reduction Act tax credits. Yesterday, Ford followed suit and dropped Mach E prices to make more vehicles qualify. Who will be next? Not Volkswagen, according to VW CEO Oliver Blume in an interview with German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung (as translated by Automotive News this morning): Sure! Don’t let Tesla squeeze you out of the market. Plus, it’s not like Ford and Volkswagen are sitting on Tesla-level inventories or have Tesla-like production capacity for their EVs yet. VW wants to be a global leader in EVs but this should be achieved through profitable growth, Blume said.
Autopian Member Doug DeMuro Gets $37 Million Investment
I have yet to buy a car on auction site Cars and Bids, but I have bid on at least one. The site’s co-founder, Doug DeMuro, turned a Jalopnik column into an incredibly popular YouTube channel into a real business [Ed Note: Not that YouTube isn’t a business! -DT] and, according to Forbes, that business is doing well enough that C&B is taking on a big investment in the form of $37 million from The Chernin Group: The company’s new CEO will be Ro Choy, who started out at eBayMotors.
Did I Mention Skoda Will Be In The Running For More UK Government Vehicles?
If you’ve ever bid for government work in the United Kingdom you know it’s a detailed and lengthy bureaucratic process involving tenders (similar to RFPs) and reviews. The good news for fans of Skoda police cars is that Skoda UK has successfully completed a tender with the Crown Commercial Service, which is the body responsible for helping public sector organizations acquire vehicles. From the company’s press release: Is this an excuse for me to just post some Skoda emergency vehicles? Absolutely. Škoda UK’s emergency services sales have increased 40% since 2018. The brand expects to deliver around 6,000 + cars to government bodies under the new agreement thanks to its reliability, value and aftersales service.”
Biden Is Investing In Infrastructure And… It’s Mostly Roads
The longstanding joke about President Biden is that he was the “Senator from Amtrak,” largely because he often took the train to Washington, D.C. (and partially because it’s difficult to make jokes up about Delaware). Some have viewed his election as a great boon for both intra- and inter-city rail. Just this morning the Department of Transportation unveiled new projects from the discretionary grant program totaling $1.2 billion. You can read all about there from the DOT release here, but here’s a quick summary of grants being made this year:
$250 million to improve the Brent Spence Bridge between Ohio and Kentucky, one of the “worst truck bottlenecks” in the nation. $292 million for Hudson Yards Concrete Casing, Section 3: American’s spend way more to build trains than European countries, and this is merely a step in improving train service into and out of New York City. $78 million to improve 12 miles of Roosevelt Boulevard in Philadelphia: A terrible, crash-tastic road gets fixed. $150 million to improve the I-10 Calcasieu River Bridge (pictured): A bridge that’s almost as old as Joe Biden gets fixed. $110 million for NC’s Alligator River Bridge: Another bridge that looks like it’s gonna fall into a river gets fixed. $60 million to help widen I-10 west of Diamondhead, Mississippi: We’re going to keep going until I-10 is 900 lanes wide.
Unfortunately, lack of investment has led to roads and bridges in this country that are in pretty rough shape and it’s not like the United States is suddenly going to build trains everywhere all at once. The word “jobs” shows up six times in the press release because, as much as this is about fixing things, it’s also about putting people to work.
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Photos: GM, Skoda, LA DOT, VW
VW. Reliability. Hang on, let me laugh louder.
“creator-owned and creator-led businesses, like MeatEater and Barstool Sports,” says Doug.”
And this is where you nope the hell out. Barstool is below scum of the earth, and it is not even remotely inaccurate to state that anyone supporting them financially is a supporter of stochastic terrorism, racism, stealing from contractors, rape culture, violent threats, COVID denialism, and explicit Nazism. And guess what? You absolutely can choose your investors. You don’t have to take their money. ProTip for Doug: if that’s the kind of investor you want to get in bed with? Don’t be surprised when you wake up with fleas.
“$250 million to improve the Brent Spence Bridge between Ohio and Kentucky, one of the “worst truck bottlenecks” in the nation.”
That improvement had better be ‘total replacement and offset costs by selling tickets to watch the damn thing get blown sky high. Literal sky high.’
Unfortunately, lack of investment has led to roads and bridges in this country that are in pretty rough shape and it’s not like the United States is suddenly going to build trains everywhere all at once.
“Rough shape”? That would be an incalculable improvement over what we actually have. To put it mildly. Thanks to years of outright theft, fraud, and malfeasance we get to enjoy such things as bridges rated ‘structurally sound’ – with huge steel nets to catch deadly chunks of concrete falling onto roads and trails beneath. Huh. Pretty sure rebar exposed to open air and salt isn’t getting any gold stars from ASCE. Or how about the surface road pavement everywhere that makes the surface of the moon look glass smooth? Nevermind the millions wasted in just dumping asphalt into chasms, followed by a ‘repave’ that’s just laying asphalt overtop of that. Or the freshly constructed ‘concrete’ interstates that turned to gravel in just 2-3 years. Or a federally owned and administered passenger train system that’s made subordinate to private railroads actively trying to bankrupt it. And on and on and on and on. “Rough shape” means ‘oh, wow, that bridge needs paint.’ Or ‘the shoulder’s eroded a lot, let’s fix that.’ Not ‘this bridge is unsafe, but we’re going to pass inspection anyways because we don’t want to shut down traffic.’ (See: the I-35W collapse that killed 13 people and injured 145.)
“Where would you put $1.2 billion in infrastructure spending?”
Honest answer? I don’t know. I know that I would put at least $50M of it into a comprehensive, thorough, survey and analysis of every federal roadway and right of way (railroads) to figure out where the traffic is and what the state of things really are. And no ‘structurally deficient but ok’ bullshit. Straight truth, no polishing of turds. Past that? Depends on the findings. But given the rampant corruption and beyond abysmal state of things, I already know $1.2B isn’t even going to put a dent in it. Just fixing a single tunnel that hasn’t been fixed or upgraded in the past 150 years is going to cost $6B. It took over 9 years to get approval to start fixing tunnels damaged and destroyed by Sandy, and that’s going to be $12B+. The Big Dig was supposed to be $2.8B and instead ended up costing well over $21.5B.
$1.2B isn’t going to make a dent in infrastructure with anywhere from 50 to 150 years of neglect.
As far as infrastructure goes, that’s great that they are trying to “create” jobs. It really is. But, as someone who has seen firsthand how Federal Contracts work out, it most likely is not gonna accomplish as much as promised. Crap, they just opened up the East Side Access tunnel into Grand Central Terminal in NYC. It was only $10B over budget and 10 years late for what amounts to a shuttle service from Queens to Midtown. It actually increases commuter time (even the escalator to the street takes 9 minutes) and decreases service for many people that use the LIRR.
Now that is something to get pissy about!
IMHO, VW should have fought back with 0% financing. Don’t get into a price war with a company that is rumored to have (per Sandy Munro) significant margin in their products. Tesla also has zero issues adjusting their MSRP at any time. Larger, established auto manufacturers don’t appear to be as nimble with pricing.
Hopefully your VW dealers are properly EV trained. I only have one VW dealer within 100 miles of me and they don’t sell many ID.4s (or any vehicles for that matter). Apparently in situations like mine, the dealership techs aren’t well trained due to a low demand for EV skills. I also have a Tesla service center in my town.
Agree completely. He’s been very publicly becoming dumber and more obnoxious for years. I stayed on the waiting list to buy a Cybertruck until Elon walked into Twitter headquarters carrying a porcelain sink. I cancelled the next morning.
A Model S was an aspirational car, and I was hoping to buy a Model 3 right about now. Instead, almost entirely because of Elon Musk, I bought a used Honda Clarity PHEV, while I wait to see what the other manufacturers come up with.
Now I’ll never even consider a Tesla as long as Elon Musk is a prominent figure in the company.
Let’s be honest. The only image that would fix the fuckery down there is a nuclear bomb. A big one.
Cool to see Doug getting the recognition he deserves.
I’ve lived in Europe. The US isn’t like Europe, for better or worse. It isn’t ever going to be like Europe. Political solutions for this country need to be tailored for its unique nature.
America should invest in passenger rail, but only in the highest traffic corridors, and only to connect cities that are already committed to public transportation as evidenced by robust local and regional public transportation services.
There’s no compelling reason to connect Columbus, Ohio with Indianapolis, Indiana, because you’re going to need a rental car when you get to either destination. But we should have the best possible connections between New York and DC.
Start to pair off cities for rail link grants based on existing public transportation and you’ll see enormous improvements in regional systems as they compete to get the links.
You’ve succinctly stated what should be so obvious to anyone.
It might be worth mentioning that Europe dreams of a freight rail system as efficient as ours.
Have you sent a reminder that The Autopian Wrenching/Road Tripping Experience is a mere $6000 and includes all of the benefits of the Autopian Rich Corinthian Leather membership level?
Otherwise, to remove all the left exits in CT. It just sucks.
OR, install high speed rail across Montana (easily the best use of the money).
A lot of our major roads were built fast and cheap, which has cost us in the long run. Every time we tear up a section, we should fix that.
That said, I think a lot more could be done at the local level for infrastructure improvement. As mentioned in yesterday’s comments, reducing the number of roads within cities and planning parking near those areas would reduce the amount of maintenance required and the interactions between vehicles and pedestrians. It also gives you room to build out more wheelchair accessibility than narrow sidewalks allow and could include other accessible features. Perhaps trolleys to take people to and from the parking areas. Maybe other mobility solutions that I’m not considering right now. Cities/counties/states could also invest in EV infrastructure, rail where it is likely to have the most impact (and not just the biggest headlines), and the like. We hear so much about big federal spending and the flashiest state projects, but local spending plays a huge role.
And Vegas could build a subway in their Tesla tunnel to make that far more efficient (or repurpose it in other ways). But I think most of us here know that whole thing is pretty dumb.
I’m sure we can all think of many examples of interchanges in our areas that are the cause of bottlenecks due to crappy design.
The highway will be free flowing until it gets to the ramp that dumps traffic out at 15mph since the entrance ramp is too tight of a loop, or the exit ramp is a cross over merge with an entrance ramp so the exiting traffic brake checks the entering traffic.
In my area, I can think of a dozen interchanges that if fixed would greatly improve traffic flow without adding lanes.
It’s interesting how small changes can have big impacts, but the way jurisdictions are drawn, the systemic impacts are never measured or the group that sees it can’t effect change to mitigate it.
The auction sites should charge a fee just for having the reserve, whether it’s met or not. Charge 5% of the reserve price as the fee, with the amount credited towards the seller fees if the reserve is met.
If they really want a reserve, they should just make that the starting bid amount. If you list something for sale, even an auction, you should do so with the intent to sell. Otherwise, you’re just wasting people’s time.
There should always be notice of a reserve, and further notice once it has been met.
Then you start looking into trains, which to be honest can expensive as we do not have the support for them. For example taking the Autotrain from VA to FL round trip can easily hit 2 to 3 k. I could fly down and rent a car or just take a grueling drive.
