Alternative energy and the Automobile Industry

[Jamougha]

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Mark,

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The profit motive works, if the electric car has a viable market someone will direct capital towards that cause.

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It does, as proven by the Rav 4 EV. Electric cars would be in production if the patents on the battery technology required to make them practical were not controlled by Chevron. Market failure.

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Uh, how does the fact that PATENTS - which are a GOVERNMENT-GRANTED MONOPOLY - are preventing an outcome that you believe would occur without them constitute a MARKET failure???

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By the technical definition of the term 'market failure'.

I didn't say that the market is 'to blame', whatever that would mean about such an abstract entity.

[Moseley]

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You need not worry about "harming" the automobile or oil industries. There are over 100 kinds of autos (available throughout the world) that get over 40 MPG on the highway, and only two are available in the U.S., and they are the expensive ones.

The Kia Rio gets 38MPG under perfect conditions and its base price is 10.5K

Does that give you an indication of who is running the show?

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why doesn't detroit put out loads of these types of cars then?

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Have you been to detroit lately? It's almost a ghost town.

Did you see the documentary on HBO about the electric car they tried to push in L.A.? According to the sales reps they interviewed, they had long waiting lists for the cars.
They were, however, using a poor design of battery, and not using the battery invented by ....I forget his name, but bought his company. Later an oil company bought the battery company and the cars were taken back from the customers who were leasing them ( you could only lease them) and crushed, so that any memory of them would be forgotten.

Those cars were expensive, however, they were not being mass produced, as GM was testing the waters. In the documentary, they interviewed a guy who had a cute sports car, that he claims runs like a sports car and gets 300 miles to a charge.

Why has there been no federal raise in the required MPG on cars in over 25 years?

It's like I've been saying for years, just as Eisenhower warned us of the Military Industrial Complex, I have been advocating that the U.S. is run by the Big Business Machine.

Bottom line: There is a lot of oil left. It's there and it has a value and the oil companies are all setup to profit from it. They don't want to retool until they have no other choice.

Have you notice how last year, when oil went from $55 a barrel to $65 a barrel, gas prices shot up, but this year, they are pushing $100 a barrel and I still get gas at the price I was paying when it was $65 a barrel.

Whazzup with that?.... Because they know a corresponding price increase at the pump will have deflationary effects on the economy, which will have a more negative effect than them making X more dimes per gallon. In addition, with the subprime market and the Bush Deficit screaming : U.S. economy in trouble! They don't want to add fuel to the fire.

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American people own the companies you refer to. You can too, buy their stocks if you think they control the world.

If you think the electric car can be produced profitably raise the money from all the Liberal conspiracy kooks and do it yourself. Moveon.org would be a good start, Soros has billions.

Why do liberal conspiracy kooks think "The Man" is holding them down? This is a land of enormous capital and opportunity, go do something yourself and don't wait for people you think are crooks to do it for you.

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I give...........I'll start my own Enron II.

[Moseley]

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http://www.whokilledtheelectriccar.com/
A great documentary that was mentioned earlier in this thread. The GM debacle was absolutely insane to watch play out. They took back all of these cars and destroyed them even though people were pleading with them to buy them. Heh, they have an interview with Mel Gibson where he talks about how he was confused as hell about how he could not get purchase one of these cars outright for any price.

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mmmmm, because GM would lose a fortune on keeping parts and service available for them, and have their reputation hit hard if they didnt provide that kind of support for cars they sell?

Its the free market in action, not another idiotic conspiracy.

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Actually, with a totally electric car, you have fewer parts breaking down. Just think of all the oil used to change the oil every 5k miles.

Carter put solar panels on top of the White House, Bush I and Reagan quickly took them down.
Clinton gave the auto industries billions in fed funds to develop alternative fuel cars. Bush II did away with that and instead gave a big tax credit for vehicles above a certain weight, allowing even a friend of mine, who owns a construction co., to go out and buy a Hummer, as 100k of it was tax deductible. In other words 100% of it. Chrysler, who must have read the tea leaves bought the company that made the Hummer before the tax break became law.

[Jamougha]

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You believe a corporations property belongs to the public? I don't. That patent was available to anyone with the know how to develop it.

If Chevron has a patent on an electric battery that will obsolete oil I think they would run with the idea as it would be very profitable. Their aim is making money not saving oil.

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I have never said that corporate property should be public. I was making the point that the profit motive doesn't always deliver the best possible solution.

[Case Closed]

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As someone who has their dad actually working on hybrids in the automobile industry, I find this argument hilarious. Ford, GM and Chrysler are scrambling to make more efficient and economical cars, if an viable electric car (or whatever kind of alt fuel car) existed, they'd be slitting throats for it.

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If only one has ever existed....


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Whats the name of this car?
Whats its range?
When was it first built?

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It was the EV1
80 miles
1999

The problem that arose in the documentary is that GM was not actively pursuing new technology that would increase the range and decrease the charge time. At the time it seemed like crap(range and time needed for charge) but that technology has been improved a great deal in under a decade.

[flaja]

Californians must be the biggest wimps on earth. They’ve had about 7 days of wildfires and this is about all the AP has reported on over the last week. Last Spring Georgia had something like 7 weeks of wild fires with nary a whimper in the news.

[Luxoris]

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Californians must be the biggest wimps on earth. They’ve had about 7 days of wildfires and this is about all the AP has reported on over the last week. Last Spring Georgia had something like 7 weeks of wild fires with nary a whimper in the news.

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Thats because the total value of all Georgia property is about equal to one Malibu house!

[DblBarrelJ]

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You are now ignoring this user. You will no longer see the body of any of their posts.

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No more of that nonsense.

[Jamougha]

I thought Georgia was in Russia?

[natedogg]

I don't know if this has been said already in this thread, but high oil prices are the best policy for encouraging higher MPGs and alternative energy sources.

natedogg