America doesn’t need ,000 hybrids?
I’ve been reading a lot lately about the various tax incentive programs being created by Congress and states, particularly Michigan, to promote battery research and development.
Are these people on crack?
I’m 100 percent for incentives to push consumers into fuel efficient vehicles, but I think the facts are pretty clear. If gas is cheap, consumers WILL NOT buy these cars in numbers that will cost-effectively justify their production without 100s of billions of tax payer subsidies. Even then, the effort might still fail.
More important, according to a recent study, the costs of greening the auto industry are staggering, especially if you’re talking electrification, and pay back will take decades.
Thus, how can almost bankrupt automakers survive by going green? They can’t possibly afford to go green. They can’t survive today without government help and next year is even supposed to be worse for automakers.
Going green means being put on the government dole, especially if we don’t put a serious bottom on fuel prices that rewards fuel efficiency. And the government dole always breeds complacency and inefficiency, it doesn’t breed the kind of competition that results in revolutionary innovations.
Today, the US auto industry needs to fight for survival, to question everything, to think further outside of the box than ever before if they are truly going to survive and compete. Otherwise, we might as well just nationalize these companies today.
Democrats, unfortunately, are acting as if just throwing 100s of billions at this problem will solve all the issues that created this mess in the first place (Of course, at least Democrats are trying something other than only drilling for more oil). Ironically, however, the one thing that created this mess, cheap gas, is barely even on the table as a topic.
Ultimately, if you can’t address the root of a problem, can you really solve the problem? Is the green movement just turning into a porkfest for armchair liberals to get rich off the government at taxpayer expense?
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