Stellantis laying off engineers, programmers

[Hootbro]

Somebody has to stop the insanity. You don't just float on the river when you see Niagra Falls up ahead.

Not trying to make it a political discussion but they and all the other legacy ICE makers have a compliance problem meeting future govt. regulations for EPA and emissions reductions that is forcing their hand.

Unless their is a political change to stop it, Stellantis and everybody else is being pigeon holed to make decisions that go against market realities to meet govt. mandates.

It will get worse before it ever gets better if at all.

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[texanjeeper]

Not trying to make it a political discussion but they and all the other legacy ICE makers have a compliance problem meeting future govt. regulations for EPA and emissions reductions that is forcing their hand.

Unless their is a political change to stop it, Stellantis and everybody else is being pigeon holed to make decisions that go against market realities to meet govt. mandates.

It will get worse before it ever gets better if at all.

Not for me. I won't be trading or selling my Gladiator unless something really dire happens. Luckily, I love my Gladiator and I'll be perfectly happy with it.

 

[Fortus]

I've been saying this for awhile now. The people that are adamant about being able to work from home are basically begging to have their job outsourced, for the reason you just stated. If it can be done remotely, then there's a good chance it can be done very remotely. Careful what you wish for.

Tech jobs have been outsourced/off-shored by the thousands since decades before COVID. The people making these decisions have historically never been physically located anywhere near the vicinity of the people being outsourced. E.g. showing up in person or not, makes no difference to the decision makers. Stellantis is simply going on survival mode.

 

[Redfour5]

Not trying to make it a political discussion but they and all the other legacy ICE makers have a compliance problem meeting future govt. regulations for EPA and emissions reductions that is forcing their hand.

Unless their is a political change to stop it, Stellantis and everybody else is being pigeon holed to make decisions that go against market realities to meet govt. mandates.

It will get worse before it ever gets better if at all.

I'm with Toyota that feels hydrogen based energy is the long term solution. The problem with battery tech is that its logistical tail is just as long and bad as carbon with all kinds of areas for the development of political interests and international machinations. It's worse in some ways and has ALL the socio-political economic, logistical issues that carbon based has and more. Carbon's easy, suck it out of the ground. EV is complex and just as environmentally intensive at an international level. Hydrogen once studied can be created onsite almost with a short international logistical tail.

AND, we are JUST BEGINNING to see the first generation batteries die and need to either be disposed of or recycled. Wait till you have a a major percentage of vehicles on the road needing replacements. AND, no infrastructure in place to even do it. So, that's a part of the logistical tail not even dealt with yet.

Carbon based - greatest thing since sliced bread. Well here we are over a hundred years later. Too expensive? Let's use corn and add ethanol. Carbon based tech is now integral and woven into our world at all levels, hard to extricate. Even an attempt to reduce costs (Ethanol) became ensconced into the socio-economic framework and infrastructure to the point where it apparently cannot be extricated as it has political clout even though it's really not needed any longer within the context of a Peak Consumption world vs the old false peak oil world...

IS EV next? Sure we need it, in general but at what cost? If people can get their emotions out of it, bottom line is that the world has to move away from carbon based energy. The ONLY real question is HOW fast and how do we go about it. There is no strategy, just old human tactical implementation becoming a part of the fabric of our weaknesses and feeding them. We may be clever apes, but I"m not too sure how smart we are.

The only real impact will be IF humanity can get fusion going at the smallest scale possible. It ain't happenin in my lifetime. AND, this is NOT political. It is just an observation of reality staring you in the face. Heck, I own a Ram 2500 Hemi, for towing my trailer. I like my creature comforts. I'm not a tree hugger just an observer of human nature. I don't really care.

 

[Redfour5]

I'm with Toyota that feels hydrogen based energy is the long term solution. The problem with battery tech is that its logistical tail is just as long and bad as carbon with all kinds of areas for the development of political interests and international machinations. It's worse in some ways and has ALL the socio-political economic, logistical issues that carbon based has and more. Carbon's easy, suck it out of the ground spew it in the air. EV is complex and just as environmentally intensive at an international level. Hydrogen once studied can be created onsite almost with a short international logistical tail.

AND, we are JUST BEGINNING to see the first generation batteries die and need to either be disposed of or recycled. Wait till you have a a major percentage of vehicles on the road needing replacements. AND, no infrastructure in place to even do it. So, that's a part of the logistical tail not even dealt with yet. Heck, they can't figure out what to do with all the first generation wind turbine blades at this point.

Carbon based - greatest thing since sliced bread. Well here we are over a hundred years later. Too expensive? Let's use corn and add ethanol. Carbon based tech is now integral and woven into our world at all levels, hard to extricate. Even an attempt to reduce costs (Ethanol) became ensconced into the socio-economic framework and infrastructure to the point where it apparently cannot be extricated as it has political clout even though it's really not needed any longer within the context of a Peak Consumption world vs the old false peak oil world...

IS EV next? Sure we need it, in general but at what cost? If people can get their emotions out of it, bottom line is that the world has to move away from carbon based energy. Notice I said move away, don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. The ONLY real question is HOW fast and how do we go about it. There is no strategy, just old human tactical implementation becoming a part of the fabric of our weaknesses and feeding them. We may be clever apes, but I"m not too sure how smart we are.

The only real impact will be IF humanity can get fusion going at the smallest scale possible. It ain't happenin in my lifetime. AND, this is NOT political. It is just an observation of reality staring you in the face. Heck, I own a Ram 2500 Hemi, for towing my trailer. I like my creature comforts. I'm not a tree hugger just an observer of human nature. I don't really care.

 

[johnchabin]

Hydrogen once studied can be created onsite almost with a short international logistical tail.

Using an electrolyzer/water or stripping it from natural gas?

 

[Redfour5]

Using an electrolyzer/water or stripping it from natural gas?

I'm speaking to MACRO issues regarding energy. I don't really care, but obviously within a market based environment, cost effective and efficiency should be key factors... There's a hydrogen atom in every molecule of the air we breathe. I'd keep that in mind.

Economies of scale can help you get there but you have to have a viable core tech that you can use to achieve the desired outcome that can compete at scale economically/practically.

There has been a lot of research and discoveries around this very thing in the last five to 10 years. And in fact some appear to have potential but it takes time from the science to economies of scale. One of the approaches will eventually pan out but the nat gas one just takes you back to carbon doesn't it. I hate the trees of problems and am more "forest" centric. Focusing in on the how is necessary but it can be a false trail and in fact most of them are. We have used up most of the "easy" solutions in the world. They are artifacts of our analog past. And we are paying the price for them. I had a career living with those so focused on the trees they couldn't see or seemingly even comprehend the forest thinking all the answers were in the bark.

They had so many letters after their names. I used to tell them, "Don't make me do the math." I'd have to do the math every year or so just so they knew I could do it and not assume but I asked the macro questions and then oriented teams around solving larger more multi-faceted problems by focusing in. Then I'd put the parts and pieces together to see if a solution resided within the parts and pieces selected. It's great having a bunch of young people who love doing the math... It took a long time getting there though... I tended to be the one that headed straight to a solution, likely an artifact of my Marine past and that too has its issues. That was a tough one to learn, but all of this is NOT mutually exclusive.

Now, I just do whatever I feel like doing including commenting here as I have a new Gladiator and am having fun with it. I'm very well off by using my particular approach to squeezing dollar bills from the systems that produce it at a macro level. I dive into things in detail until I sense a resonance with a larger whole, act on it and move on.

 

[johnchabin]

I'm speaking to MACRO issues regarding energy. I don't really care, but obviously within a market based environment, cost effective and efficiency should be key factors... There's a hydrogen atom in every molecule of the air we breathe. I'd keep that in mind.

Economies of scale can help you get there but you have to have a viable core tech that you can use to achieve the desired outcome that can compete at scale economically/practically.

There has been a lot of research and discoveries around this very thing in the last five to 10 years. And in fact some appear to have potential but it takes time from the science to economies of scale. One of the approaches will eventually pan out but the nat gas one just takes you back to carbon doesn't it. I hate the trees of problems and am more "forest" centric. Focusing in on the how is necessary but it can be a false trail and in fact most of them are. We have used up most of the "easy" solutions in the world. They are artifacts of our analog past. And we are paying the price for them.

I’m an engineer with years of experience in the hydrogen industry. I’m a “tree” guy.

 

[Redfour5]

I’m an engineer with years of experience in the hydrogen industry. I’m a “tree” guy.

I fully understand and we are simply different one is not better than another. I couldn't do what I used to do without that part. I was the guy often who sat with the programmers as I could grasp what they were doing, but if you simply told them what you wanted God only knows what would happen and it did. So, I'd get into the weeds with them in their area and knew just enough to see key areas and then ask them what this did and relate it to other areas to find bugs... I could NEVER do what they did...

I have a friend who retired from Boeing. He was a top level engineer 25 years who could do some of what I do in synthesizing and extrapolating outcomes accurately. He said a major problem with Boeing was that they had lost the ability to extrapolate outcomes and would invest in solutions that he would know would not work when he first looked at them. He would tell them they wouldn't work and tell them why and then after huge expenditures with focused teams run by inexperienced people. He retired when they had this problem, identified it but instead of going back to square one, he said they just poured more money into it KNOWING it was a failure. His big problem was he documented these things and then they would come looking for scapegoats and he would simply provide his documentation and they would have to go find another scapegoat. They hated that. It's interesting that one of their old school long time engineers recently died of a purported "suicide", just before he testified to some government oversight agency and told his relatives that if they said he killed himself it wasn't true.

My friend and I laughed at there being only one thing worse than making a mistake with superiors and that was advising them of a problem and them not following your advice and failing. It becomes a dance of your intrinsic value vs your PITA quotient. I used to move on whereas Boeing was big enough to move him around. It really is something to aspire to...

Step back or fly up every so often and take a look at the forest and then look at what you do within it. It can be rewarding in many ways.

 

[johnchabin]

I hear you… I have to deal with reality. Technologies that are an economic reality either exist or don’t. That’s my jam.

 

[ecidiego]

I wonder how many people understand that hydrogen fuel cell vehicles are not propelled by hydrogen they are propelled by electric motors using batteries.... they have fairly large hybrid style battery packs. Except now you need to locate a hyrdogen filling station instead of charge at home. lol.

 

[johnchabin]

Exactly. Hydrogen through a fuel cell to release electrons.

The vehicle is fueled to 700 bar. Not a typo. Over 10,000 psi.

I’ve had several projects at those filling stations. ?

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