Reply #15: I am going to barf!

[Coastie for Truth]

:rant:

An "electric car" (I am using "electric" in its broadest, most generic, all-encompassing sense of pure electrics like the GM EV and Toyota RAV4EV, the ubiquitous hybrids, and emerging "plug in hybrids", and fuel cells) is going to reduce demand in a world facing:

• Peak oil,
  
• Increasing demand for petroleum in India and China
  
• Increasing hatred for the US in the oil lands (Bush and the PNAC doctrine have failed miserably)
  
• Increasing instability in the oil lands (again, Bush and the PNAC doctrine have failed miserably)
  
• An oil financed/driven re-emergence of Russia as a major power

And reducing domestic demand is the only way to go.

An earlier thread asked --- and :

:rant:

Who killed the electric car?

• Roger "Squeaky" Smith, CEO of the General Motors Corporation
  
  I worked with and interacted with GM people who were his direct reports. There was no motivation to "develop and grow a business" - there was a commitment to show the California Air Resources Board that "it couldn't be done."
  
  
  
• A "Not Invented Here" Mind Set
  
  There was hostility that the "electric car" came from "California tree hugging hippies" and "Left Wing Politicians" and not from "Real mechanical engineers like us "Big Ten Land Grant School Midwestern Engineers."
  
  Make no mistake - the "Big Three" is as localized to the Upper Midwest as the oil industry is localized to Texas, Oklahoma, and Louisiana engineers.
  
  
  
• A Real Bias Against Electric Cars Per Se
  
  Remember - the GM EV1 was coincident with SUV's. And the image of many was that EV's were for old retirees in retirement communities for getting around the golf course and getting to the Rec Center.
  
  
  
• Too soon
  
  Remember - gas was still relatively cheap, we weren't at war in Iraq and facing "problems" with Iran, and global warming was only apparent to the cognoscenti.
  
  

I think if Toyota or Honda (and only Toyota or Honda - the US manufacturers have lost all credibility on this issue) came out with an electric today - with gasoline at $3.30/gallon, and war in Iraq and instability in Iran and Venezuela hating our guts, and global warming driving storms into our southland - it would sell.

:rant:

The GOP has done nothing to increase the supply of oil (ANWR and tax breaks for new refineries and drilling off of California and Florida ain't worth a pitcher of warm spittle), the GOP has done nothing to placate the oil states, and the GOP has done nothing to conserve (like raising CAFE).

I have only been in alternative, renewable and green energy for 30+ of my 40+ years of working. And IMHO the Bushies have screwed it up royally.

:rant: