UAW and Ford Reach Tentative Agreement

[ssjx7squall]

How do these workers make more than a journeyman electrician or any other skilled trade? Seems ridiculous tbh.

Unions. Another reason they’re good

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[goalieThreeOne]

How do these workers make more than a journeyman electrician or any other skilled trade? Seems ridiculous tbh.

Where I’m at, union trade wages for electricians are much higher than this. The per hour wages given are for the most senior workers as well. Starting pay is $20 at UAW I think and starting apprentice wages for my local IBEW are around $22 but escalate rapidly.

Local COL is also a huge factor. That’s why Toyota and MB built plants in rural parts of the south where wages are lower and anti-union sentiment is higher.

 

[1986YellowRanger]

In 10 years, I bet a lot of these people won't have jobs. They are just going to go with more automation or move the plants.

The same thing plays out every few years, and the union’s membership numbers go down by the tens of thousands every time. In 1979 the UAW had 1.5 million members. Today that number is 370k... The one thing the UAW is good at is eliminating their own jobs. Ford has exponentially grown their global operations in the past 30 years, so they have people in place to execute work transfers as fast as they would like to move. That 370k will be down to 250k before the next contract negotiation starts.

 

[rwolfcastle]

Here's the latest deal Ford has made:

https://news.yahoo.com/uaw-strike-whats-inside-fords-110939644.html

Interesting, I don't see anything that mentions their EV plants. Maybe they didn't have to give that away since the wage increases were so high.

 

[coldconfession13]

Good now that guy can get his scan for the mats!

 

[Ranger#5?]

Here's the latest deal Ford has made:

https://news.yahoo.com/uaw-strike-whats-inside-fords-110939644.html

Interesting, I don't see anything that mentions their EV plants. Maybe they didn't have to give that away since the wage increases were so high.

The bottom has basically fallen out of the EV adoption house of cards over the last couple weeks. Everybody cancelling, postponing or scaling back commitments for the all EV future by a fixed date. I said at the time Ford was covering their bases for this when they split the company into 2 main parts with Ford Blue and Ford E. It's going to be proven a very shrewd move in a couple of years when they can simply close the E division and write off huge losses while keeping the cash cow truck and SUV divisions humming along profitably.

 

[goalieThreeOne]

The bottom has basically fallen out of the EV adoption house of cards over the last couple weeks. Everybody cancelling, postponing or scaling back commitments for the all EV future by a fixed date. I said at the time Ford was covering their bases for this when they split the company into 2 main parts with Ford Blue and Ford E. It's going to be proven a very shrewd move in a couple of years when they can simply close the E division and write off huge losses while keeping the cash cow truck and SUV divisions humming along profitably.

EV’s aren’t going away. Investing in EV is a good business move but they may have reached for the stars too hard and too fast. The market is fickle. Issue is new car spending is down across the board and interest rates are high so demand is naturally down. The case for EV’s is still there, but the use case has been widely overblown for what technology and infrastructure allow right now. Give it time.

Edit: even the oil companies know the time is coming:

https://www.theverge.com/2023/10/26...ty-supercharger-electric-car-charging-network

 

[jdlapointe]

EV's require better battery tech, as well as the electrical grid to support them. Most places in the U.S. don't have the capability to support charging a ton of EV's at the moment.

It is the epitome of putting the cart before the horse.

 

[goalieThreeOne]

EV's require better battery tech, as well as the electrical grid to support them. Most places in the U.S. don't have the capability to support charging a ton of EV's at the moment.

It is the epitome of putting the cart before the horse.

We don’t have to do things in sequential order. The current fuel infrastructure wasn’t built overnight either. But until legislation is passed with more comprehensive funds for improving the electrical grid, the pace with definitely be slowed. They did just pass an infrastructure bill but it was very paltry in comparison to needs.

 

[ssjx7squall]

Looks like a tentative gem deal was reached as well. And they talked almost as much crap as ford did

 

[jdlapointe]

We don’t have to do things in sequential order. The current fuel infrastructure wasn’t built overnight either. But until legislation is passed with more comprehensive funds for improving the electrical grid, the pace with definitely be slowed. They did just pass an infrastructure bill but it was very paltry in comparison to needs.

Yes, but they are already passing legislation to reduce ICE engine use, and promote EV's. Typical of government they do things backwards most of the time.

Also, I like your attempt, but they didn't restrict/outlaw steam engines or horses and carriages while ICE vehicles were becoming a thing. Honestly, I find it hard to see your point on that one.

 

[goalieThreeOne]

Yes, but they are already passing legislation to reduce ICE engine use, and promote EV's. Typical of government they do things backwards most of the time.

Also, I like your attempt, but they didn't restrict/outlaw steam engines or horses and carriages while ICE vehicles were becoming a thing. Honestly, I find it hard to see your point on that one.

They haven’t outlawed ICE engines. There’s just a nationwide goal to move to EV over a certain number of years. Which, like I said for Ford, may be moving too far too fast for the technology. And my point was simply to say that we’re taking a 100 year old industry and a 100 year old infrastructure and attempting to mold it into something new, and that will take time. It’s not been done before so there will likely be stumbling blocks. But that also doesn’t mean throwing the baby out with the bath water.

I’m actually not pro-EV. I think their use case is more limited than some not admit. Until there’s a fundamental shift in technology, I think there are certain use cases where it works and cases where it won’t. But EV isn’t the answer to everything.

 

[craigc]

I’m actually not pro-EV. I think their use case is more limited than some not admit. Until there’s a fundamental shift in technology, I think there are certain use cases where it works and cases where it won’t. But EV isn’t the answer to everything.

I'm not pro EV until the technology somehow resolves a very real problem with them: I have been in Colorado on I70 in the winter and know that storms often leave people stranded in snow for hours with engines running to stay warm. Gas engines keep those heaters running a lot longer since heat is a byproduct of ICE. Heat has to get produced with EV, so EV's drain down even faster with no regeneration charging (stationary vehicle) and the heater running.

 

[Ranger#5?]

We don’t have to do things in sequential order. The current fuel infrastructure wasn’t built overnight either. But until legislation is passed with more comprehensive funds for improving the electrical grid, the pace with definitely be slowed. They did just pass an infrastructure bill but it was very paltry in comparison to needs.

actually, we do. It's called proof of concept. As an engineer you should know this. I spent decades in hi tech sector engineering and many project proposals get shot down after honest analysis says it can't be done as was proposed. What we have here is an ideology masking as critical government policy with tons of evidence a wholesale shift to EVs replacing combustion motors can't be done- and flat out isn't warranted here or even needed. If they are so sure it's a sure-fire seamless changeover- let them PROVE IT with a smaller trial and unbiased results reported after the trial period. There was talk of converting the Postal Service to 100% electric, that would be the perfect controlled environment test case to prove viability, but... crickets. We simple can't allow government mandates to make sweeping changes like this with artificial deadlines when there is no need for it or proven testing and analysis showing beyond a doubt it will work as advertised.

I was born in CA and spent 50+ years of my life there and can give you real life examples of this folly. CA mandated Solar panels on all new construction homes years ago and all their analysis and justifications claimed it was needed "for the environment" and would actually lower costs for us customers. NONE of this was true and they actually reversed themselves about 1 year ago and now are discouraging private installation of home solar and refusing to give any rate relief for power sent back to the grid during the day as before. The grid can't handle all the added power during peak times and they were warned of this from the start but pushed ahead anyways. It was a big FAIL.

They also outlawed construction of new gas fired power plants and started cancelling operating permits of our 100% safe nuclear plants to put them out of business. Then they had consecutive summers of rolling black outs and had to stop deactivation of the last nuke plant and repermit the gas plants as "peaker plants" to fill in the gaps when no solar or wind generation takes place. There's also the bullet train they lied about from day 1 to get bond issues passed that still hasn't had even 1 segment built and a test run yet- but reorganized multiple times and made unions extremely happy with all the cash flowing to them without producing anything.

I could go on but won't. I think our transportation choices need to be left up to us as individuals and not mandated by government at any level based on their lies, misrepresentations and faulty ideology trumping technology and common sense at every turn with us taxpayers footing the bill for the failures and resulting lower quality of life that is completely unnecessary.

 

[goalieThreeOne]

actually, we do. It's called proof of concept. As an engineer you should know this. I spent decades in hi tech sector engineering and many project proposals get shot down after honest analysis says it can't be done as was proposed. What we have here is an ideology masking as critical government policy with tons of evidence a wholesale shift to EVs replacing combustion motors can't be done- and flat out isn't warranted here or even needed. If they are so sure it's a sure-fire seamless changeover- let them PROVE IT with a smaller trial and unbiased results reported after the trial period. There was talk of converting the Postal Service to 100% electric, that would be the perfect controlled environment test case to prove viability, but... crickets. We simple can't allow government mandates to make sweeping changes like this with artificial deadlines when there is no need for it or proven testing and analysis showing beyond a doubt it will work as advertised.

I was born in CA and spent 50+ years of my life there and can give you real life examples of this folly. CA mandated Solar panels on all new construction homes years ago and all their analysis and justifications claimed it was needed "for the environment" and would actually lower costs for us customers. NONE of this was true and they actually reversed themselves about 1 year ago and now are discouraging private installation of home solar and refusing to give any rate relief for power sent back to the grid during the day as before. The grid can't handle all the added power during peak times and they were warned of this from the start but pushed ahead anyways. It was a big FAIL.

They also outlawed construction of new gas fired power plants and started cancelling operating permits of our 100% safe nuclear plants to put them out of business. Then they had consecutive summers of rolling black outs and had to stop deactivation of the last nuke plant and repermit the gas plants as "peaker plants" to fill in the gaps when no solar or wind generation takes place. There's also the bullet train they lied about from day 1 to get bond issues passed that still hasn't had even 1 segment built and a test run yet- but reorganized multiple times and made unions extremely happy with all the cash flowing to them without producing anything.

I could go on but won't. I think our transportation choices need to be left up to us as individuals and not mandated by government at any level based on their lies, misrepresentations and faulty ideology trumping technology and common sense at every turn with us taxpayers footing the bill for the failures and resulting lower quality of life that is completely unnecessary.

Oh I’m very familiar with proof of concept and its next step prototyping. But in proof of concept, my results are only useful if I can control the variables. Basic scientific method, right? You keep all variables the same and change one thing to see the result.

Here’s the issue with applying that on a Macro scale: we can’t control the variables. EV’s are an economic issue just as much as they are a technological issue. No one can control all of society. We have entire fields of study on how market forces work. Really smart people make their whole lives about this concept. If we were able to predict markets, then there wouldn’t be thousands of different economists all disagreeing with one another.

But here’s what I will say. We tried it back in the early twentieth century and it didn’t work. GM tried it in the 90’s and it didn’t work (although there was some shady stuff going on that was not quite fair to the concept). Tesla came on the scene about, what, 10 years ago? Hate to say it but they kind of proved that the market exists for EV’s. And that for some use cases, EV’s do make sense. So what I do know is that it isn’t a dead end technology. We’re past the proof of concept stage. The market has been created. And we know that solving the range, towing, and charging drawbacks is a billion dollar question that thousands of engineers and scientists are trying to answer. I don’t necessarily view a drop in EV sales over the last two quarters as indicating a long term trend especially when market conditions are absolutely terrible for buying new vehicles.

And so we have lots of unknowns and no real way to predict how things will go. Maybe Ford will be proven right by investing big time. Maybe Toyota will be proven right by going all in on Hydrogen. Maybe it will all be a waste for them. But I can tell you that if Ferrari, Maclaren, Lamborghini, and Porsche are putting battery technology in their halo hyper cars, they obviously see the engineering benefit and battery technology in cars isn’t going away. No the market can’t support a shift to EV’s if the only EV’s available are $90k+. That will have to change or we’ll have to adjust our targets on adoption. The battery mining, disposal, and refurbishment situation has to improve dramatically before I’ll even sniff at an EV (or hybrid for that matter)

What I will say is that there’s a giant misstep in the infrastructure. Here where I live the charging situation is pretty pathetic. But I also see investment like the BP article I linked above where even an oil company is trying to get in on the game proving that a market exists, even if it means pivoting from your base business model. What I’m not personally in favor of is tax credits and government spending on chargers. Why should my tax dollars go to rebate some Tesla bro in California who thinks I’m a dumb hick for driving a truck and being from the South. I digress. But my point is that subsidies need to go so we can really truly see what the market will bear. I will also say that government intervention when it comes to vehicles shouldn’t be painted with a broad brush as evil either. Without government intervention, we’d be driving cars without seatbelts, airbags, rollover testing, or reverse cameras.

Finally I’ll somewhat address your paragraph on California energy. California and Texas had one thing in common that caused their grid failures. And that’s private utility service. In California’s case, PG&E refused to invest in conductor replacement after heavy use and natural disasters. So when those lines failed they shifted transmission to working lines and caused overloads and brownouts. Had they invested in the infrastructure, instead of paying fat dividends to investors, they would have had better uptime. In Texas, ERCOT utilities refused to invest in winterizing their lines causing the blackouts during the power crisis of 2021 leading to several deaths. They still have not done this. (By the way this power storm killed the Resin and Plastic industry in Texas which contributed greatly to the supply chain problems and price hikes of the last 2-3 years, something that became a problem in my industry). Meanwhile I’m over here enjoying the reliability of TVA who just shut off an old fossil fuel plant to replace it with Hydro and hopefully nuclear in the future. Solar isn’t a failed prospect either, but we need better storage solutions for off peak before it can be the only generation method. Like I always say, the truth is in the middle and the future will look like a composite of different technologies, not a single one acting independently.

All that being said, I expect you and I are on different sides of the spectrum when it comes to economics. That’s okay, I don’t expect you to agree with my conclusions completely. I’m just glad both of us gets the ability to vote for our future.

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