The house of cards seems to be collapsing while Canada, the Province of Ontario and the rest of the developed world is busy throwing our tax dollars at EV companies of various stripes, but recent events suggest the conversion of fossil fuelled transportation to full on electrification may be falling apart.
Recent happenings in Europe and California seem to confirm politicians have trouble picking winners when they hand out our tax dollars! Let’s track down just one of those, with politicians, supported by bureaucratic appointments, in at least three countries having demonstrated their incompetence!
Volta Trucks
Volta Trucks is a Swedish company established to produce electric delivery trucks and appears to have been created initially with private capital from Ahlstrom Holding AB a publicly traded investment company in Sweden. Part of Volta’s initial history and it’s planning can be found in a lengthy article titled “Zero to Hero” from October 2020. In early 2022 Volta announced they had raised “230 million euros ($260 million) in Series C funding round, which will finance it through the launch of series production of its Volta Zero electric truck in late 2022.“
Then in March 2023 they announced they had “secured investment of €40 million (around $A65 million) from the European Investment Bank designed to help support the company’s rollout of its Truck as a Service (TaaS) infrastructure“. The European Investment Bank is owned by the members of the EU so is a taxpayer funded institution. One month later it was announced they “received €24.6m (£21.5m) in funding from the German Federal Ministry of Transport, which will be used to subsidise vehicle costs for 151 all-electric Volta Zero trucks.“ We should assume the latter was a German bureaucracy simply handing out taxpayer money.
Based on the foregoing it sure appeared Volta were potentially on the path to success until just a few months after receiving those taxpayer dollars; the house of cards suddenly collapsed as: “Volta Trucks said Tuesday it would file for bankruptcy in Sweden after its manufacturing plans were hit by problems at its electric battery supplier“ which happens to be US based electric bus maker Proterra Inc.
Proterra Inc. recently filed for bankruptcy protection under Chapter 11 and in their press release announcing the filing stated: “We have faced various market and macroeconomic headwinds, that have impacted our ability to efficiently scale all of our opportunities simultaneously”. They had previously noted having experienced “supply chain disruptions” and “pandemic-related labour absenteeism.”
Needless to say Proterra Inc. were also the beneficiaries of government largess although it was difficult to find out how much they have received over the years other than “a $10 million “loan from the Paycheck Protection Program by the Trump administration in 2020 that was forgiven in May 2022“. In their SEC Chapter 11 press release filing they noted: “Proterra said it expected the billions of dollars in funding for electric buses would “remain an important factor in our company’s growth prospects,” but didn’t note receiving any funding from either the infrastructure or climate laws directly.“ The Washington Post article in respect to the foregoing also had an interesting tidbit about President Biden’s Energy Secretary noting; “Jennifer Granholm served on Proterra’s board from 2017 until she became secretary and sold her stock in the company in May 2021, providing her with a net capital gain of $1.6 million following criticism from the GOP.“
Needless to say the shares of Proterra have fallen 90% since the Chapter 11 filing so Biden’s Energy Secretary, Jennifer Granholm should be delighted the GOP forced her to sell her stock!
The House of Cards
There is much more going on around the world associated with the “house of cards” affecting the push to eliminate fossil fuels and their reliability to power our transportation sector. Those include, insurance costs, uncontrollable fire outbreaks, limited range and reliability of EV as major issues and are associated with all forms of electric battery powered transportation.
Along with the foregoing the big question on the bankruptcies cascading in the above examples which wasn’t mentioned in any of the articles relates to those; “supply chain disruptions”! Were they fully or partially caused by dependence on Chinese supply of certain materials/components etc. involved in the manufacture of those trucks by Volta or those buses by Proterra?
If China were or are the cause of those “supply chain disruptions” we should hope our politicians have noted that fact and accordingly, stop the fast push aimed at eliminating all vehicles using diesel or gasoline by ambitions future dates. Their push, if maintained, will benefit China and we in the developed countries will see many more bankruptcies utilizing our tax dollars while increasing energy poverty and severely damaging our economies.
Parker Gallant Energy Perspectives 
Hope springs eternal. But, I must say that I am starting to see the reasons for hope; hope that common sense will kick in. Looks like New York has rejected off shore wind power. Just too expensive. Even rich Westerners (white liberals) run out of money once in a while. Globalization, open immigration, man made climate change, lockdowns and social justice nonsense have all proven to be political failures. And now, inflation and the threat of world war, have got normal people asking WTF?, we’re supposed to be afraid of the weather? Are you kidding?
Thanks Parker for being one of the brave ones to point out the fallacy of “green” energy and the costs associated with it. Very little benefit and humongous costs. No doubt your advocacy has cost you and your family.
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Canadians are about to find out about the high costs of insuring EV’s as insurance companies gain more data on the costs of repairs to EV’s that are involved in collisions. Europe is a few years ahead of us. The costs of repairs to damaged EVs are prohibitive while the resale value of repaired EV’s is very low.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/neilwinton/2023/10/10/insurance-costs-could-cripple-european-electric-car-sales/?sh=19394b9fae68
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The Federal Government thinks it’s viable to make hydrogen to ship to Germany as a fuel source. If that’s the case you could make hydrogen anywhere you have electricity and water. There would be no need to cut down forests to build roads to open mines to get the minerals you need to make batteries. You wouldn’t have to rely on foreign suppliers for cobalt and lithium and copper etc. There would be no need to recycle batteries. Toyota makes a hydrogen powered car and you could make hydrogen anywhere to fill tanks at every existing gas station. Nothing to recycle and water vapour out the tailpipe.
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I’m pretty sure the Federal Government say they want to make hydrogen by using windmills in NFLD to generate the huge amounts of electricity needed to produce it. Another fantasy. But appropriate for a PM who thinks he is Peter Pan and Canada is a land where you never have to grow up.
The only thing that might save taxpayers from a wind > hydrogen boondoggle is that the project is proposed by the billionaire, John Risely. Apparently Risely hates Dominic LeBlanc and the Liberal Party in general. I understand the feelings are mutual. So, no grants for you Johnny boy.
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To add to the government policy dis-connect/contradictions on EVs and increased electricity use in general to replace fossil fuels, one has only to look at the latest Ontario electricity annoucements – a general 20 per cent increase (2 cents per kWh) under the Regulated Price Plan and an increase in the offsetting Ontario Energy Rebate that will cover some, but not all of the rate increase. The way the two measures interplay in calculating bills, the more electricity you use the greater the bill increase. The kicker is it is not a linear increase, but an exponential one. A 1,000 kWh a month customer will pay about $4 more after the new measures take effect, but a 4,000 kWh customer – think electric heat and/or a nightly home charged EV, – won’t pay 4x$4 or $16 more, their increase will be in – $40-$50 depending on their local utility, as their monthly usage climbs to the 5,000 or 6,000 range the increase nears $75/$80.
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