Yeah, Rob, just as my friend the car sales rep told me today. See my last post. I had remembered this figure as something like 400,000 EVs for Ford and when I saw the 600,000 EV target I sent this article to my friend.
If Tesla can actually hit their productions targets in four factories during 2023, I’ll be surprised.
My friend at this car dealership told me their service department is sending people home with “loaners” (unheard of for most his years selling cars in Key West) for ICE cars where they cannot get chip parts for onboard basics running things like Onstar, audio/entertainment MCUs, etc.
He told me, point blank, “You could not pay me twice what I make now to be the service manager here handling complaints of customers who are waiting - with us - for parts to arrive. It’s a smack in the face to give a consumer a loaner of an entry level car while their luxury car is on our lot awaiting parts and cannot be driven. If I could find parts, I’d open a repair shop in Key West, no doubt.”
Oh, one more thing he mentioned: Tire prices are up 20% in the past 8 months at this dealership. He said, “I am watching what happens when some of the heavier SUV and pickup owners (who go through tires more often) come in here for their next swap of tires. And if you think of us making dollars off EV owners who will change tires more often - good luck. They will go to cheaper tire mechanics - two of which have recently opened shops down here in Key West and who have bang up business.”
One more observation in Key West today: electric bicycles with big fat beach tires outnumber regular bicycles and scooters. I don’t know who sells or services these things, nor could I read the names of the manufacturers printed on the cross tubes. One thing I foresee: more deaths from EV bicycles. People are riding these things on sidewalk bike lanes at 30 MPH, going faster than bumper to bumper traffic on North Roosevelt highway. If a pedestrian with headphones walking on the sidewalk happens to step out in front of one of these speedsters flying up from behind, it’s goodbye to that pedestrian.
I saw numerous of these new EV bike riders coming at me from the wrong way on two one-way streets downtown. Un-nerving to see something moving faster than I was driving, and, riding the wrong way.
Key West is not a place to spend a relaxing vacation any longer. The town has gone to hell with traffic and trash. The bridge leading from Stock Island (next island up from Key West) to Boca Chica airbase (3rd Island up) is strewn with trash, I mean, at least a ton of crap lying on the shoulders of roads going East and West. It looked like a 3rd World bridge. There must have been at least 40 or 50 single use plastic bags in the one-half mile length of that bridge, all sitting precariously on the emergency shoulder. No wind today. But the next stiff breeze, all those single use bags go over the railings and directly into the waters to entrap sea life and choke anything which gets flippers and fins caught in them, or, worse, which think its some kind of jellyfish to eat.
Key West is now a drinking town for degenerates. To enjoy nature, you must, absolutely, get the hell off that island and Stock Island, and it’s looking like the next two Keys up, Rockland Key and Big Coppitt are turning into mondo condo hell as well.
This was my first trip down there in two-years. I am 21 miles away from that madness. I’m good if I never visit it again for another two-years.
Ford plans to increase its production capacity of electric vehicles to 600,000 units globally by 2023, according to CEO Jim Farley.