The COVID drop in demand was basically overnight. It happened quicker than refineries could feasibly shut down. A structural decline in demand over a decade plus is a very different situation. “Some income” is not necessarily better than no income if that “some income” is below cost. Refineries have minimum throughput…

My point is that it’s not a case of that. Each additional car sold likely reduces their loss, meaning they do actually make money when they sell a car. They are just digging out of a big hole. 

It’s not really accurate to say Rivian has a $39k loss on “every” car sold. Rather, it has a $39k loss per car sold. They don’t lose an extra $39k every time they sell another car. Their losses divided by the number of cars sold equal $39k.

The premium likely depends on how underwater you are about to be. Big difference in GAP risk between rolling in negative equity on a 7 year note for a BMW 7 series and putting a 10k down payment on a 3-year note on a Camry. You’ll be deep underwater for nearly the whole note on the 7 series but probably never under…

Didn’t work for my mom in her Subaru Outback. She got stranded at a stop light. 

One exception: if your car has a stop-start feature and fails to restart. Cars with stop-start and a failing battery may just die in traffic when the battery finally gets too weak to restart the motor. A jump start may get the motor started so you can get it off the side of the road (especially if you can manually…

There are actually oilfield uses for batteries. Remote well sites need power, and solar/battery storage can be cheaper/more efficient than field gas generators.

Yes, but to be clear, those oil producers will almost certainly be foreign state-controlled entities like Saudi Aramco. Because the Saudis have the lowest cost of production in the world (and will probably always have the lowest cost), they are going to be the last man standing in the oil patch. 

It’s not clear that a low oil demand world will make for cheap gas. Economies of scale (especially on gasoline distribution) will be reduced as fewer people buy gas. Think of how expensive 100 octane race gas is (often double what 93 costs). It doesn’t inherently cost twice as much to manufacture as 93 Octane. It’s…

They are being sold for 50% off. You aren’t finding another mid-size performance electric SUV for $25k (seems to be current going rate at the moment). Obviously, it’s a huge long-term risk, but there’s a price where people will bite despite all the flaws. The software never got fully resolved, but the hardware is by…

I really lusted after these when they were new. A cool and unique design. They were not the most reliable, but for $6k it could be a fun beater as long as you are willing to do a bit of wrenching. 

I’m skeptical of the narrative they really bought up NiMh patents simply to kill electric cars. NiMh was never going to end demand for oil and gas and even then was understood as having no real prospect for doing so. NiMh-based electric cars were DOA (including the Rav 4 EV) because they were never going to have…

The statistic “100 companies are responsible for 70% of the emissions” is circular when you are comparing the relative impact of users and the companies itself. That statistic uses Scope 3 emissions estimates (i.e. the impact from burning fossil fuels)- not just the emissions directly from the company.

From an economic perspective, Taylor Swift is basically equivalent to a Fortune 500 CEO. 

So we own gas cars (or electric cars made with petrochemicals), the grid is dependent on hydrocarbons, and we can’t grow enough crops to feed the world without hydrocarbon-based fertilizer. The world population could never have reached anything like its present 8-9 billion without the use of oil and gas. The idea that…

How many Chapter 7 bankruptcies have their been of EV makers who actually shipped product? 

Chapter 7 is relatively uncommon in corporate bankruptcies, especially when the debtor isn’t insolvent. Most of the cash they burned was from equity holders, who will probably be left with next to nothing but aren’t legally owed anything. 

The Lucid Gravity could be tempting if I were in the market for a luxury SUV. At least the Air is a very solid product (if you are willing to take a long-term risk on the company itself). 

It seems like they actually did pretty well with the hardware. It was the software that was their downfall. Given their cash burn, they couldn’t afford to wait to ship cars until the software was fixed. But this only delayed the reckoning because it caused all of the initial reviews to be terrible. Now, despite one…

This is an “it depends.” Depending on your downpayment, the car you buy, and loan terms, you may never be meaningfully underwater and GAP is a waste. Plus, being underwater is not necessarily a big deal if you always have sufficient liquidity to make up for it should it be necessary. If you do need it, GAP is usually…