Electric vehicle

The, the overall aim is not intended really [chuckles] primarily to lock us out, it's to boost European growth, which is also very, uh, sluggish, but it does have this backwash effect.

And, and I hear that Andy Burnham raised concerns particularly over UK car production and EVs, you know, that sector where everyone wants to, to try and get in on and make sure that China is not the only, uh, player o- on the field here.

And the EU's new flagship industrial policy is precisely aimed, uh, at kind of shoring up the European side of that.

Well, what happens then if you're outside the EU? And, uh, there are all these sort of complex bits that then come into play about, well, where does the vehicle have to be assembled in order to receive support or, you know, to, to basically to kind of get some sort of, uh, industrial support package, uh, which you kind of you would need to compete with China.

I absolutely love that track.

Ev- ironically in the gym as it fucking came on.

So aye, it's a, another good mate, good shouts.

Good shouts for last week.

I'm so bad.

Like, honestly, a video of elephants, like, stumbling over a EV charging station.

I'm like, "Aw." Oh, God, no.

And I, like, made a joke, and then some fucking nerds came for me in the comments of this National Geographic video of elephants stumbling over an electric vehicle charging station and started, like, fucking coming for, like, all my, all this bullshit.

So, you know, we're talking five-wise deep and all this other stuff.

But that said, Hummer H1, or whatever the hell it's called, the electric one, Hummer EV, I guess.

Yeah, EV.

And we talked about it.

I said, you know, Warren and I, we sat in them, we checked them out and like, they're like actually pretty cool.

like lyric.

Negative.

It can't be the gigantic Cadillac EV Escalade thing.

know, so there are a lot of reasons to think we are going backwards on climate, but that's in the United States.

You know, China is roaring past us in EV technology, battery technology, solar panel technology, you know, and the U.S. is firmly planting its face in the sand.

And we are just going to be overtaken.

And sure, maybe our fossil fuel industry will last a little bit longer as a result.

And largely because we are quite complimentary to each other in terms of economic structure.

Most of the stuff that China produces, they don't produce and they need our stuff, right? Of course, China, would like to invest more in this developing country and relocating part of supply chain, whether it's EV or it's other manufacturing processes, so that we can not only lower the cost, because you're producing locally and also creating jobs and building skills and building a long lasting, you know, mutually benefiting relationship between China and the global south.

I think overall, this is doing well.

But there's a way for China to enter the US and the European market by relocating production to some emerging market developing countries.

There are a couple of examples which can show how massive the technology can save the journey towards net zero.

In China, in the last seven years, the cost of battery went down by 70%.

The cost of solar panel came down close to 70%, and the cost of EV came down by 50%.

If countries can engineer this kind of reduction in cost, you don't need government subsidies, because these green goods and services become competitive by themselves.

And opinions.

I mean, you know, there are a lot of reasons that you hear out there, you know, some of the EV companies don't want it because they see it as a threat.

EVs are not going to work, by the way, if there's a natural disaster, especially if it's raining.

But then you go past that, and then you look at just the different opinions that you get on AM radio, the talk, the kind of, you know, Free speech.

I mean, there's so many things.

Indeed, many of our friends are busy doing the same, including the Germans, who are watching their once mighty automotive sector die a slow death.

News last week said Volkswagen were poised to cull yet another 50,000 jobs, with Chinese EVs cutting their lunch.

And like here, the same fundamentals are undermining Volkswagen's viability in what is an open, competitive marketplace.

Higher energy prices, high wages, intrusive unions, tariff reductions, and reams and reams of dense regulation.

Indeed, many of our friends are busy doing the same, including the Germans, who are watching their once mighty automotive sector die a slow death.

News last week said Volkswagen were poised to cull yet another 50,000 jobs, with Chinese EVs cutting their lunch.

And like here, the same fundamentals are undermining Volkswagen's viability in what is an open, competitive marketplace.

Higher energy prices, high wages, intrusive unions, tariff reductions, and reams and reams of dense regulation.