The UAW strike that began September 14th by 146,000 UAW union members seeking a 46 percent pay raise, and a 32-hour week with 40 hours of pay, and restoration of traditional pensions, will most likely have one of two outcomes, both of which may perpetuate the death spiral for the automobile industry.
- Increased cost of American manufacturing which will further increase the cost of EV’s that are already unaffordable to most, and/or,
- Increasing the cost of U.S. manufacturing, may result in more offshore manufacturing needed which may decimate U.S. stateside manufacturing.
The UAW members are not fazed by death spiral already mandated for the automobile industry. The few healthy and wealthy countries of the United States of America, Germany, the UK, and Australia representing 6 percent of the world’s population (505 million vs 7.8 billion) are mandating social changes to achieve zero emissions via EV’s that may be fueling (no pun intended) a death spiral for the automobile industry.
Simply put, in those healthy and wealthy countries, every person, animal, or anything that causes emissions to harmfully rise could vanish off the face of the earth; or even die off, and global emissions will still explode in the coming years and decades ahead over the population and economic growth of China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Vietnam, and Africa.
The UAW wants a more lucrative package and are not concerned with the “pieces of the EV puzzle” that may be the formula for an automobile industry death spiral:
- Extremely limited supply chain for the lithium to make current technology EV batteries.
- Lack of sufficient number of buyers, outside the elite profile of existing EV owners
- Shortage and inflation for all the material supplies to make vehicles.
- Due to EV battery fire potentials, questionable means of transporting EV’s from foreign manufacturers to the USA consumers.
- Concern about renewable electricity being able to charge EV batteries.
- The Governments’ lack of ethical, moral, and social responsibilities, by encouraging the exploitations of people with yellow, brown, and black skin that are mining for exotic minerals and metals in poorer developing countries to support the green movement in wealthy countries.
Where are the batteries?
The UAW race is on for a better contract, while the race is on to produce more lithium in the United States as the supply chain for the major component of EV batteries, lithium, is already being compromised internationally. The following international dark clouds on the lithium supply chain may be a prelude to an American rejection of strip mining in the most environmentally regulated and controlled communities in the world:
The Chilean Supreme Court stopped the mining of lithium in Salar de Atacama, Chile – a huge chunk of terrain that holds 55 percent of the world’s known deposits of lithium.
- Initiatives around the world to open mines and ore processing plants have caused a public uproar as environmentalists and the local population are fearful about the impact on nature and people’s livelihoods.
- The European Chemicals Agency’s (ECHA) risk assessment committee is aiming at labelling three lithium compounds as dangerous for human health.
Where are the buyers?
Fair wages are number one to UAW, while EV’s are already unaffordable to most. The current EV ownership profiles are reflected in the oligarchic elite that are highly educated, highly compensated, multi-car families, with low mileage requirements for the families second car, are dramatically different from most vehicle owners that are single-car owners, not highly educated, nor highly compensated. Mandating a change to EV ownership and further austerity may face a rebellion from those that need transportation.
Read the rest of this piece at Heartland Institute.
Ronald Stein is an engineer, senior policy advisor on energy literacy for CFACT, and co-author of the Pulitzer Prize nominated book "Clean Energy Exploitations."
Photo: courtesy Heartland Institute.
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