The Daily Valet. - 12/11/23, Monday
✔️ A Record ... But Is It Enough?
Monday, December 11th Edition
By Cory Ohlendorf, Valet. Editor
I've got a good feeling about this Monday ... here's to a great week for all of us.
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Today’s Big Story
A Million EVs Were Sold in 2023
But Some experts are saying that's a problem. Are electric vehicle sales really losing their charge?
Do you want to buy an electric car? Have you already bought one? Perhaps you were one of the million who purchased an EV in 2023. Over the last 12 months, about 1 million rechargeable cars were sold in the U.S.—a new and significant milestone, but one that falls severely short of the kind of growth that the American government had been hoping to see. When President Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act into law last year, he set an ambitious goal of making half of all new cars sold in the U.S. fully electric by 2030. In real terms, that amounts to roughly 7 million electric vehicles a year, at least at today's sales figures.And despite new electric vehicle market share and sales hitting a record in the U.S. this year, growth is starting to slow and fall short of the auto industry's lofty ambitions to transition away from combustion engines. Autoblog reports that EVs accounted for 7.5% of total U.S. sales through November. Experts say that number must rise swiftly to address climate change because a large share of greenhouse gases comes from transport.Ford recently touted a 43% increase in electric vehicle sales year over year—which includes its top-selling electric Mustang Mach E SUV, as well as the F-150 Lightning pickup—in a November sales release. Hyundai's Ioniq 5 and the Kia EV6, both electric SUVs, each hit around 100% growth year over year last month. Again, this is good news, but it doesn't come close to the 90% year-over-year growth the EV industry enjoyed last summer. EVs had huge sales growth at the time, even with models averaging more than $65,000, according to Cox Automotive data. Demand was high, inventories were low, and automakers were bullish on sales prospects.This, of course, is largely because EVs were more appealing to buyers as gasoline prices flirted with $5 per gallon, said Kevin Roberts, director of industry analytics at CarGurus. Now that gas is going down, so are the prices of electric cars. A new electric car, once seen as a luxury item, can now be purchased for less than $30,000. However, the majority of electric vehicles are still significantly more expensive than their gas-powered counterparts, and it seems some industry analysts are pointing toward an overall decline in electric car sales as a result. A recent report in The Wall Street Journal noted that “automakers and dealers are slashing prices and piling on discounts to clear out unsold inventory” because “sales growth has slowed for battery-powered models.” Some automakers are also offering significant cash rebates for people who buy EVs.Intelligencer points out that it might also come down to taste. Tesla still makes up about half of the market, selling nearly half a million cars through September, according to Cox Automotive's last quarterly report. The only other vehicle besides a Tesla to crack the top-five most-sold EVs was Ford's electric Mustang. What isn't popular are electric pickups. And yet, when you look at all the cars sold in the country, including those with internal-combustion engines, pickups and SUVs make up 80% of all new passenger vehicles sold, according to the National Automobile Dealers Association.
Meanwhile:
More consumers making the jump from gasoline cars are opting instead for hybrids as they tiptoe toward electrification.
Battles Continue Raging Across Gaza
The U.S. approved $106 million in emergency arms sales to Israel amid critcism for vetoing a U.N. cease-fire resolution
Battles raged across Gaza on Sunday as Israel indicated it was prepared to fight for months or longer to defeat Hamas, reports the Associated Press. The Israel Defense Forces chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi, told a group of soldiers that Hamas was falling apart and “we need to press harder.”The U.S. approved $106 million in emergency arms sales to Israel amid widespread criticism from human rights groups, U.N. officials and many countries for vetoing a U.N. Security Council resolution for a cease-fire in Gaza. However, a key mediator told the AP that willingness to discuss a cease-fire was fading.Meanwhile, Hamas warned on Sunday that no hostage will leave the Gaza Strip alive unless demands like additional aid for Gaza are met, according to several reports. According to NBC News, conditions in Gaza are deteriorating rapidly as hostilities have made aid deliveries increasingly difficult and humanitarian zones for displaced people continue to shrink. The U.N. General Assembly scheduled an emergency meeting for tomorrow to vote on a draft resolution demanding an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza. Riyad Mansour, the Palestinian ambassador to the U.N., told the AP that it's similar to the Security Council resolution the U.S. vetoed Friday. There are no vetoes in the General Assembly but unlike the Security Council its resolutions are not legally binding. They are important nonetheless as a barometer of global opinion.
ANalysis:
Republicans have been attacking elite universities for years. After a tense congressional hearing last week, many on the left are now joining them.
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Shohei Ohtani’s $700 Million MLB Contract
His 10-year contract with the Los Angeles Dodgers is unlike any other in Baseball history
The speculation as to where baseball's current All-Star might end up next has ended. Shohei Ohtani will be staying in Los Angeles, but he'll be playing across town next season—specifically, for the Los Angeles Dodgers. On Saturday, Ohtani concluded his clandestine free agency by breaking the news himself on Instagram. “To all the fans and everyone involved in the baseball world, I apologize for taking so long to come to a decision,” the two-way phenom wrote in the post. He also stated that “the six years I spent with the Angels will remain etched in my heart forever.”Then there's the matter of his new contract, which will see Ohtani make $700 million over the next decade with the Dodgers. As ESPN points out, this deal has set multiple records, including the largest deal overall and the largest salary. To give a sense of the proportions involved, the $70 million annual salary is more than the entire 2023 payrolls of two MLB teams.The 29-year-old Ohtani is expected to spend the first season of his tenure as a Dodger as a full-time designated hitter, after undergoing an unspecified elbow procedure to repair a torn UCL, before attempting a return to the mound in 2025. Clearly, that surgery didn't prevent him from shattering every expectation in what was already the most anticipated free agency in recent MLB history.
Dig Deeper:
ESPN's Jeff Passan explains how most of the $700 million is deferred and will be paid out after Ohtani's 10-year tenure, which will make it a little less valuable.
21 Animals Went Extinct in 2023
Grim Announcement Highlights Need For More Action to Stop Extinction Crisis
Extinction sounds like something that happend long ago—like when the dodo went extinct in 1681 or when early Americans almost hunted bison to extinction. It feels like a relic of humanity's less enlightened past. But it's actually still happening now.Over the past year, scientists declared 21 species officially extinct, all in the U.S. Included on the shameful list are birds, mussels, fish, and a mammal. Destroyed habitat, pollution, climate change, exploitation and invasive species are the culprits. According to the UN's data, today's rate of extinction is “at least tens to hundreds of times higher” than extinctions that occurred over the past 10 million years. Mashable points out that conservationists are still fighting to spare the many endangered species that aren't confirmed extinct, a cause that has saved a diversity of animals and plants in recent decades: from the bald eagle and humpback whale to the American alligator and beyond.However, researchers from around the world warn that the planet is at risk of losing more than a million species in the coming decades if swift action isn't taken to protect more of the natural world, stop the exploitation of species, address climate change, reduce pollution and stop the spread of alien invasive species.
FYI:
A dog recently discovered a rare animal believed to be extinct after it wasn't seen for nearly 90 years.
In Other News
The ACLU will represent the NRA before the U.S. Supreme Court.
Have you heard about ...
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What We’re Buying
A rugged sweater jacket
What do you get when you cross a bomber jacket with a classic cardigan? This handsome zip-up ($650) from Reigning Champ's new line of hand-knit pieces. Crafted with 100% Canadian wool and produced by skilled artisans on the west coast of British Columbia, the shawl zip sweater is knitted with durable heavy gauge wool in a full-cut silhouette for a modern, relaxed fit. This is an heirloom-quality piece you'll have for years.
Want more?
The five stylish items you should be buying this week.
Morning Motto
Throw caution to the wind.
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