Comment on Bye biiiittttchhhh
bob_wiley@lemmy.world 8 months agoFord has plans to build a battery plant in the US which will bring about 2,500 jobs with it. Not doing anything and letting the rest of the world make an deliver the cars to the US would be much worse for the economy than doing nothing at all.
gayhitler420@lemm.ee 8 months ago
They’re planning on building four, and they paused construction recently as a power play in negotiations when the uaw said battery workers should get the same pay as the machinists.
I saw that those plants will be making batteries for the new f150, not the much smaller evs that everyone else drives.
Battery manufacture is part of its own can of worms though, and one that doesn’t make evs look great either.
I wanna also say that I’m not against spinning down the ice auto industry, but no one who’s suggesting doing that or making fun of people who recognize that it’s the consequence of things that are already happening has a real plan for it.
bob_wiley@lemmy.world 8 months ago
To be fair, the F150 has been the best selling vehicle in America for something like 40 years. If the Lightning can hold on to that market, that will be a lot of vehicles, even if all it does is that one.
That being said, I’d rather we invest in better infrastructure and transit that reduces the dependance on cars. I don’t know exactly how many jobs that would create vs the auto industry. But across infrastructure, bikes, trains, potentially getting people back into retail shops and out of online everything… It’d image it would be a lot of jobs.
gayhitler420@lemm.ee 8 months ago
i’m skeptical about electric trucks.
they’re gonna be a hit with the people who’ve been buying them instead of sedans lately, but the fleet and rural markets are gonna be less inclined to use em and needing a big battery service periodically is gonna change the long term value proposition of a full size truck for a lot of people.
Cryophilia@lemmy.world 8 months ago
I guess we’ll NEVER FUCKING KNOW because they insist on only making MINIVANS FOR INSECURE DADS.
bob_wiley@lemmy.world 8 months ago
It’ll be interesting to see how it plays out. They do have some interesting utility. They can be used of power tools directly off the battery. The front trunk can allow for tool storage when the bed is full of whatever. They can be hooked up to your home to provide power during a grid outage. These are all pretty cool, but there will still be a lot of anxiety around running out of power, and the things you mention.