[SteveinArizona]

Originally Posted by allinon72

I'm glad you brought up China - they get free reign to pollute while the rest of the world has to adapt. Seems fair.

Much of the world feels, on the other hand, that the US got free rein for much of the last century to pollute and destroy the environment. China is at least trying to force more electric cars while our government is trying to do the reverse.

So...at least in this regard and IMHO, China is looking better than we are.

[clee1982]

Originally Posted by allinon72

The world "controls" each other via various climate accords and pacts. China is the world's top polluter by far and never has stringent mandates the way the rest of the western world has. Of course we should try to be cleaner, but strong-arm bureaucracy has shown to be the least effective way to get things done and has untold unintended consequences economically.

China has 4x US population, on average every Chinese is about 1/2 as populating as US, though fast catching up though...

Most Asia country improved a lot, when I was young (in Taiwan) poullation is a lot worse than in the US , now Taiwan recycle a ton more than the US, and it's not the ship to some other country kind of recycle that a low west does...

If you look at Shanghai today, I would think it's recycling requirement is probably more so than say NYC, at least for household/consumer

Most tier one Chinese city had about as much smog as the US major city did in the 60s, how long did it take the US to clean up, China is probably doing it 10 years faster

[sethwas]

Originally Posted by allinon72

I like how the entire industry is shoveling huge investments toward EVs not because the customer is demanding it

Except the customer is demanding it.

Tesla's a brand with only 3 models yet they still outsell BMW, Mercedes, Audi, Lexus, Cadillac, etc.

What the manufactures are doing is gaming the system. They see what sells, like pickup trucks, and charge up the wazoo. High end pickup? $70k. High end electric car, you're lucky if you can find for under $70k.

You can NOT get an inexpensive electric car - they have no incentive to since its considered a premium and if they sold for regular prices it would kill their profitable premium market (why there's no $17k F-150 - it certainly doesn't cost any more to build than a corolla but they can't price that cheap because it would hurt sales of the profitable ones)

I mean, you can get a cheap one - see Bolt/Leaf, but those are the only two on the market, and when 'typically equipped' cost more than the average car sold in the US (average car is $34k, average bolt/leaf is $40k) so cheap, but not inexpensive. You may see other electric cars, i3, or ipace, but those are niche vehicles and also sell for over $50k which is beyond the means of the majority of buyers.

'If' you could get a well equipped electric car, that looks like a normal car, that costs the average price of a normal car, they wouldn't be able to keep them on the lot (and of course would mark them up to slow down sales). But, at the moment, they can't, because it costs like $10k to assemble a car, but the batteries cost 3-4 times as much as a gas setup, so there's no business case for it. Marketing then pushes electrics into high end car so they can command high prices which allows them to hold their profit margin which makes wall street happy.

Right now all the manufacturers are not investing in "EV"s, they already know how to build an electric car and have for decades. They are investing in figuring out how to manufacture a 300 mile drive train for the same price as a gas model.

The cosmic joke in all this, is according to the EPA (on their website, you can verify), new car sales each year, despite growth in units, make up a smaller and smaller percentage of this nations emissions. So much so that all the combined emissions of cars sold this year constitute a rounding error. It's been like that for many years. Transportation related emissions are mostly shipping, trucking, heavy duty machines. Not personal vehicles. And even then, the transportation sector continues to be part of a declining % of emissions.
After all, a single school bus pollutes way way more than a dieselgate jetta, but no one minds putting 50 kids inside, and yet the jettas were all recalled. (I understand, they broke the rules, and this was just being pedantic to set an example because we are a country of laws, and the laws are not applied evenly).

The real emitters are industry and power generation. So it's wonderful that new cars hardly emit at all, and we are all better off for it, but as we accelerate using electric cars, which is also a good thing, we need to accelerate the removal of power stations because they have been and continue to be the true source of harmful emissions.
For places like Europe which are Nuclear/wind, it's great, for places in the US which have some solar, some wind, some nuclear, and natural gas, it's also ok, but for places like China which is coal, it's going to get worse before it gets better.

Seth

[FuriouslyFast]

Entire US market, not just auto, is going to crash soon...

[Miko M]

Originally Posted by FuriouslyFast

Entire US market, not just auto, is going to crash soon...

It's just the matter of time.

[Dog Face Pony Soldier]

Three facts mentioned in the article that stood out to me:
A: Sales down but profits up.

B: People moving to SUVs.

C: The sales and profit situation is primarily cyclical.

A- is this even a problem?

B- not exactly what the direction the environmental extremists and the environmental-industrial complex were hoping consumers would choose. Seems like consumers overall aren't believing their bullshit. Makes me proud!

C- seems like this analysis in the second paragraph should temper the alarm. This is just a cycle according to EY.

[chassis]

Shift to SUVs is old news, I'm not sure what the significance is for reporting it in 2019. Is there a new insight that should be noted on this topic?

Vehicle sales in the US are flatlined at 17m units, this is also old news. Vehicle ownership (drivers or vehicles per capita) is changing for a several reasons. Very predictable and not surprising. Carmakers are playing in a market where the pie is not getting bigger from a unit volume point of view. This means the market participants need to each either other's pie if they want more unit volume. An alternative way to compete, is to add features and content, and to raise price either strategically or across the board. This allows total revenue in the market to increase, and profits along with it. Note that commodities (glass, plastic, steel, aluminum) are generally flat to slightly declining (favorable) now, so profit expansion is normal and expected at this time.

Premium pricing of desirable vehicles (pickup trucks, electric vehicles) is also not new. As an example, there hasn't been a business case for a consumer to buy a diesel passenger car in the US for 20 years, because car companies pocket the money in the higher purchase price of a diesel model, that the consumer would otherwise enjoy through reduced fuel consumption and overall longevity/durability. Carmakers and car dealerships generally extract all of the money out of the consumers' pockets.

[F32Fleet]

Originally Posted by chassis

None of the safety or environmental systems on vehicles were demanded by consumers. All of them were mandated by legislation. I see electrification as being no different than seat belts, airbags, ABS, catalytic converters, EGR, and the list goes on.

Regarding debt, please share links of data showing debt in context with total consumer debt burden. Total dollars (or pounds sterling, or euros, or yen, etc.) of debt is a meaningless statistic. Debt as a ratio of some meaningful denominator is relevant.

The consumer is healthy by nearly any measure.

The 90+ day rate is slightly higher than this data from The Fed (Kansas City) but you'll get the point.

https://www.kansascityfed.org/en/pub...y-rates-rising

The other thing to look at is the average loan term. This is even older but the trajectory has not changed.

https://www.marketwatch.com/amp/stor...5-58CA03FA40BD

Basically it's a combination of longer loan terms coupled with increased delinquencies.

That's a problem.

[chassis]

F32Fleet, thanks, here is the latest data: https://www.newyorkfed.org/microeconomics/hhdc.html

- delinquencies are down for mortgages, the largest component of consumer debt
- delinquencies are up for subprime borrowers, from the link you provided

Total debt burden and delinquencies are not an issue for the greater economy.

Subprime borrowers should set a course to exit subprime status, using the best of their abilities. Generally this means living below one's means.

More data: https://www.newyorkfed.org/medialibr...HDC_2019Q2.pdf

- bankruptcies are down
- foreclosures are down

Nothing scary, in fact, some favorable trends in the data.