One issue of the Wall Street Journal proves, in two articles, that RushBabe49 is one smart cookie.

My readers will know that I am totally against the governments of the world basically requiring car-makers to build and sell electric cars, deeming them “zero-emission” and the only way to stop “global warming”, or “climate change”, or whatever the phrase of the day is.  Car makers all over the world have enthusiastically embraced the electric car movement, both to abide by the governments’ increasingly stringent emission reduction regulations, and to “virtue-signal” to the younger generation that they have excellent “green credentials”.  No one seems to be increasing the reliability of world electric grids to handle all this new demand from electric cars.  And no pollster seems to be asking the public whether they want to buy all the electric cars that the automakers are being required by government to build.

The WSJ story that just made me roar with delight is entitled “GM Recall of Bolt Clouds EV Push”.  It turns out that General Motors has recalled all of its Chevy Bolt electric cars, from its 2017 model to the latest ones.  The reason is battery fires, which have destroyed a number of its cars while they were charging in peoples’ garages, or just sitting in their driveways.  The story is behind a paywall, so here’s a quote:

GM this month expanded the Bolt safety recall for the second time, calling back the roughly 142,000 models built since it went on sale five years ago. The Detroit auto maker also paused production of all new Bolts. The safety action on its lone U.S. electric car will cost GM an estimated $1.8 billion, or around $12,700 per car, among its costliest recalls.

The other story that confirms my beliefs, is a story about the problems of world-spanning supply chains being disrupted by Covid infections in many countries which have caused crowded sea lanes and shortages of many components, and labor.  It seems that many companies who ship time-sensitive cargo around the world, are using air freight rather than sea freight, even though it is more expensive.  I have said for years that the future of aviation is air cargo, as supply lines stretch ever-further, and sea freight gets more crowded and expensive.  Another WSJ article, entitled “Snarled Supply Chains Send Goods to Air”, describes how more cargo is flying than ever before.  Air freight costs more, but gets goods much faster, and closer, to their destinations.  So, how many shipping managers, after going with more-expensive air freight for a few months, will be willing to go back to an 8-week transit time, from the 5-day transit time that they can get with air freight?  My guess is that, even with the higher costs (that they can pass along to their customers), many companies will decide that they like the shorter lead-times that air freight affords them.  And how many airplane builders will start designing and building purpose-built freighters, instead of reworked passenger aircraft? I wonder if the big air-cargo companies will go to their plane suppliers, and ask for a purpose-designed freighter, so they can appeal to many more shippers.

So, the demise of electric cars as a cure-all for climate change, and the increasing use of air to ship all kinds of cargo, would make me very happy.