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Federal loan to struggling EV automaker under fire

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All-electric automaker Rivian Automotive announced on Monday that it received a “conditional commitment” for a $6.6B loan from the U.S. Department of Energy.

If finalized, the loan would be used to aid in the construction of a $5B Rivian plant just outside Atlanta, Georgia.

Politicians from both sides of the aisle were quick to react to the announcement of additional funding going to what they’ve labeled a “failing company.”

“Biden is forking over $6.6B to EV-maker Rivian to build a Georgia plant they’ve already halted,” said Vivek Ramaswamy, who will be leading President-Elect Donald Trump’s new Department of Government Efficiency, along with Elon Musk, CEO of X and Tesla Motors. “One ‘justification’ is the 7,500 jobs it creates, but that implies a cost of $880k/job which is insane. This smells more like a political shot across the bow at Elon Musk and Tesla.”

With its first plant currently operating in Illinois, the California-based vehicle startup company officially closed on the 1,800-acre lot in Georgia in Nov. 2023.

Acquired to be the location for a second “next-generation manufacturing facility” producing upwards of 400,000 vehicles a year, the company halted construction plans earlier this year after financial troubles. Over the course of the year, shares in Rivian have dropped about 50%, while the Michigan-based Center for Economic Accountability labeled the project the “Worst Economic Development Deal of the Year” for 2022.

Georgia also promised over a billion dollars in incentives for the company, The Center Square previously reported.

Rivian said the loan will accelerate the company’s “growth and leadership of electric vehicle design” as well as benefitting the electric vehicle industry throughout the United States.

“This loan will help create thousands of new American jobs and further strengthen U.S. leadership in EV manufacturing and technology,” said Rivian founder and CEO RJ Scaringe in a statement. “This loan would enable Rivian to more aggressively scale our U.S. manufacturing footprint.”

The funding will come from the Department of Energy’s Advanced Technology Vehicle Manufacturing Loan Program, which has also historically loaned both General Motors and Tesla money.

Jo Jorgensen, the 2020 Libertarian candidate for president, called out the loan.

“Electric vehicle startup Rivian Automotive has snagged up to $6.6 billion in funding from the U.S. government to grow its production capability,” she said. “Related news-Rivian is ranked among the worst brands for reliability in 2024. Per usual, our federal government is leading the race to the bottom!”

Earlier this month, the company’s quarter three financials signaled even more financial troubles for Rivian.

In the third quarter, it had a negative gross profit of $392 million, producing only 13,157 vehicles and “delivering” only 10,018. That means the company had a loss-per-vehicle of nearly $40,000.

“They should at least be required to get to positive gross margin with existing models before being given billions for future models,” Musk said of the loan announcement.

While Rivian promises the Georgia factory “will add billions of dollars in positive economic impact for Georgia,” Georgia Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Republican, pushed back on that.

“I can tell you right now Georgians do not support Rivian and are sick and tired of seeing tax dollars handed over to this failing company, federal and state,” Greene said.

It was recently announced that Greene will be leading a congressional subcommittee dedicated to working with DOGE and rooting out “every penny of waste and abuse.”

Greene said that the Rivian loan is “the exact type of insanity that we have to stop.”

Elyse Apel is an apprentice reporter with The Center Square, covering Georgia and North Carolina. She is a 2024 graduate of Hillsdale College.

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Trudeau must repeal the EV mandate

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By Dan McTeague

Last Monday, Transport Canada released a bombshell statement, announcing that the Trudeau government’s program granting a $5,000 rebate to Canadians purchasing an Electric Vehicle (EV) had run out of money and would be discontinued, “effective immediately.” This followed a prior announcement from the government of Quebec that they would be suspending their own subsidy, which had amounted to $7,000 per EV purchased.

This is, of course, a game changer for an industry which the Trudeau government (as well as the Ford government in Ontario) has invested billions of taxpayer dollars in. That’s because, no matter the country, the EV industry is utterly dependent upon a system of carrots and sticks from the government, in the form of subsidies and mandates.

EVs have remained notably more expensive than traditional Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) vehicles, even with those government incentive programs. Without them the purchase of EVs becomes impossible for all but the wealthiest Canadians.

Which is fine. Let the rich people have their toys, if they want them. Though if they justify the expense by saying that they’re saving the planet by it, I may be tempted to deflate them a bit by pointing out that EVs are in no way appreciably better for the environment than ICE vehicles, how all the lithium, nickel, cobalt, manganese, aluminum, copper, etc, contained in just one single EV battery requires displacing about 500,000 lbs of earth. Mining these materials often takes place in poorer countries with substandard environmental regulations.

Moreover, the weight of those batteries means that EVs burn through tires more quickly than gas-and-diesel driven vehicles, and wear down roads faster as well, which among other issues leads to an increase in particulate matter in the air, what in the old days we referred to as “pollution.”

That is a potential issue, but one that is mitigated by the fact that EVs make up a small minority of cars on the road. Regular people have proved unwilling to drive them, and that will be even more true now that the consumer subsidies have disappeared.

Of course, it will be an issue if the Trudeau Liberals get their way. You see, Electric Vehicles are one of the main arenas in their ongoing battle with reality. And so even with the end of their consumer subsidies, they remain committed to their mandates requiring every new vehicle purchased in Canada to be electric by 2035, now just a decade away!

They’ve done away with the carrots, and they’re hoping to keep this plan moving with sticks alone.

This is, in a word, madness.

As I’ve said before, the Electric Vehicle mandate is a terrible policy, and one which should be repealed immediately. Canada is about the worst place to attempt this particular experiment with social engineering. It is famously cold, and EVs are famously bad in the cold, charging much slower in frigid temperatures and struggling to hold a charge. Which itself is a major issue, because our country is also enormous and spread out, meaning that most Canadians have to do a great deal of driving to get from “Point A” to “Point B.”

Canada is sorely lacking in the infrastructure which would be required to keep EVs on the road. We currently have less than 30,000 public charging stations nationwide, which is more than 400,000 short of Natural Resources Canada’s projection of what we will need to support the mandated total EV transition.

Our electrical grid is already stressed, without the addition of tens of millions of battery powered vehicles being plugged in every night over a very short time. And of course, irony of ironies, this transition is supposed to take place while our activist government is pushing us on to less reliable energy sources, like wind and solar!

Plus, as I’ve pointed out before, the economic case for EVs, such as it was, has been completely upended by the recent U.S. election. Donald Trump’s victory means that our neighbors to the south are in no immediate danger of being forced to ditch gas-and-diesel driven cars. Consequently, the pitch by the Trudeau and Ford governments that Canada was putting itself at the center of an evolving auto market has fallen flat. In reality, they’ve shackled us to a corpse.

So on behalf of my fellow Canadians I say, “Thank you,” to the government for no longer burning our tax dollars on this particular subsidy. But that isn’t even half the battle. It must be followed through with an even bigger next step.

They must repeal the EV mandate.

Dan McTeague is President of Canadians for Affordable Energy.

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Liberals Have Cut Canada’s Electric Vehicle Subsidies, Now It’s Time to Kill the 2035 Mandate

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By Dan McTeague

Former Liberal MP Dan McTeague calls on Mark Carney and all other leadership candidates to kill Trudeau’s electric car mandate.

President of Canadians for Affordable Energy (CAE) and former Liberal MP Dan McTeague says, “It’s good that the Trudeau government are ending their taxpayer funded electric vehicle subsidy, but it’s time to take the most important step of all and kill the government’s mandate that all vehicles bought in Canada be battery powered by 2035.”

As of January 10th, Transport Canada announced that it “paused” its financial incentive to purchase electric vehicles which had provided up to $5,000 of taxpayers money to anyone who purchases an electric vehicle. Quebec ended its $7,000 subsidy last February. However, the government policy requiring that every car sold in Canada after 2035 be electric remains in force.

“Even with these giveaways in place, it was a stretch for hard working Canadians to afford an EV,” said McTeague. “We at CAE are happy for Canadian taxpayers that the program is coming to an end. But this move must be followed up by abolishing the mandates on unaffordable electric vehicles once and for all.”

“My hope is that each and every Liberal Leadership candidate stands up and acknowledges that mandating that all new cars in Canada be electric by 2035 is wrong and that that policy needs to be scrapped,” added McTeague.

Dan McTeague served in Parliament as a Liberal MP for 18 years, and is now Executive Director of Canadians for Affordable Energy. CAE counts on it’s 60,000 supporters nationwide, you can find more information here: https://www.affordableenergy.ca/

For more information contact: 

Dan McTeague
647-220-0114
[email protected]

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