OMG the dumbest line in this story: people who buy trucks often use them to haul things

 Well no shit, Sherlock.

The Electric Pickup Truck Boom Turned Into a Big Bust

... many electric versions just aren’t up for the task. ... 

Pickup sales, first half of 2025:

EVs 35,000

Internal Combustion: 1,600,000 

EV sales achieve record high 9.1% of total sales of passenger vehicles in July, 90.9% sold still internal combustion lol

 

EV sales soar as Trump axes $7,500 tax credit: ‘People are rushing out’ to buy, analyst says

Consumers are racing to buy electric vehicles before a fast-approaching deadline to claim tax credits worth up to $7,500, according to auto analysts.

Legislation championed by Republicans on Capitol Hill and signed by President Donald Trump in July eliminates the tax breaks — available for new, used and leased EVs — after Sept. 30.

The Biden-era Inflation Reduction Act had originally offered the tax breaks to consumers through 2032.

“We’re expecting Q3 may be [a] record for EV sales because of the tax incentives going away,” said Stephanie Valdez Streaty, a senior analyst at Cox Automotive.

“People are rushing out” to buy, she said.

Consumers purchased nearly 130,100 new EVs in July, the second-highest monthly sales tally on record, behind roughly 136,000 sold in December, according to Cox Automotive data. The July figures represent a 26.4% increase from June and nearly 20% increase year-over-year, Streaty said.

The share of EV sales in July also accounted for about 9.1% of total sales of passenger vehicles that month, the largest monthly share on record, according to Cox.

“We’re seeing significant volume in new EVs,” said Liz Najman, director of market insights at Recurrent, an EV marketplace and data provider. ...

 

Trend for Oceanic Nino Index, revised, 1951-2024

 This revision incorporates data revisions since the 2004-05 season, now to two decimal places instead of one starting in season 2005-06.

Conclusions remain unchanged from previously: overall anomaly trend is slightly cooler, forecasting a drier West Coast and wetter Great Lakes region; cool anomaly seasons are trending slightly less severe, and the trend of warm anomaly seasons trending higher may have been broken, but only time will tell.

 

 

The EU spent more on anti-carbon lunacy in 2024 than on defense

... the EU is now promising to cut carbon emissions by 90% in just 15 years. This goes even further than its already foolhardy promise of a 55% cut by 2030. ...

The EU splurged $381 billion just in 2024 on solar panels, wind turbines, electric cars and the like — more than its entire spending on defense. This is delivering skyrocketing electricity bills — last year they were two times higher than in the US. ...

... the climate impact from the EU’s policies will be next-to-nothing. Run the promised 90% by 2040 and net-zero by 2050 in the United Nations’ own climate model and compare the temperature outcome with the current policy. Because the EU matters little in global emissions and because it has already cut emissions significantly, it will only reduce global emissions through the 21^st century by a small 3%. The temperature difference in 2050 is a vanishing 0.02°F and even by 2100 the impact will be impossible to measure at 0.07°F.

All while models show that the cost for the EU by mid-century could be more than $3 trillion every year — more than all current public spending in the EU. ...

More. 

A new climatology graph not previously shown here: Trend for total seasonal annual snowfall for Grand Rapids, Michigan

 Seasonal measurements run from July to June.

Like the precipitation graph for Grand Rapids (recently updated), this one shows the same wetter trend over the last century plus, which makes sense given the cooler Pacific ocean trend shown by the Oceanic Nino Index (update forthcoming), and given the moderating winter heating demand shown by declining trend for heating degree days (also recently updated):

 

Six climatology charts for Grand Rapids, Michigan, updated today continue to show little evidence of global warming, but plenty of winter moderation

 

average temperature trending up about only 1 degree F in 132 years; could be heat island effect

winter lows trending slightly lower

summer highs trending slightly lower

winter heating demand trending lower

summer cooling demand effectively flat

and much much wetter

Spain and Portugal achieve net zero way ahead of schedule

 

In the age of everything that is good is awesome, everything bad must be an emergency

 The Zeitgeist is epitomized by a general hysteria, incapable of proportional thinking and hostile to reason, and so it should come as no surprise that our new leadership is exploiting that for its own ends, mostly to distract you while they make money hand over fist.

Everything is awesome. Everyone is great.

But everything is also a disaster, and the worst ever.

COVID was going to kill us all. The vaccines were going to save us all.

Biden was going to cure cancer. RFK Jr is going to solve the mystery of autism by September.

All those people streaming across the border during the Biden administration were seeking asylum. Now under Trump they were an invading enemy army.

The recession of 2008 had to be The Great Recession, or The Great Financial Crisis, as if 10.7% unemployment in 4Q1982 was the golden age of Ronald Reagan, and over 3,000 savings and loans didn't go belly up during that decade and part of the next.

Heat waves and cold waves are unprecedented, unless you talk to an old person. We have 12 years left before global warming kills us all.

Putin is going to launch a thermonuclear WWIII, same as Saddam Hussein.

So of course trade deficits are suddenly an emergency.

U.S. businesses sue to block Trump tariffs, say trade deficits are not an emergency

 

Coldest US winter in a decade ends, most of the country had below-average snowfall

... March 1 ... ended the coldest three month period in the United States since the winter of 2013 to 2014. It was about 1.1 degrees below average as a whole in the contiguous United States ...  Despite the frigid temperatures, 67 percent of the country experienced below-average snowfall. ...

More. 

Average temperature in Grand Rapids, MI was 46.5 degrees F in 2014, indeed the lowest of the last eleven years.

"Meteorological winter" here Dec-Feb was above the mean for temperature by 1.1 degrees. And snowfall was 3 inches above the mean for the period. So GR, being warmer and snowier, ran completely counter-trend in the current winter season.

 

RFK Jr is a warmist who hates coal power