Carmakers Convinced Batteries Alone Won't Meet Green Goals

The whole electric cars movement is bogus. Just the crack pipe of some like-minded environmental idealists. Battery tech, such as it is today, isn't ready for prime time. There's nothing wrong with the fuel that got us to where we are today, and there is plenty of it. I'm not against electric cars. I think everyone who wants an electrified sardine can on wheels should be able to buy one with their own money, just like I think that everyone who wants an electric golfcart should be able to buy one. But let's not subsidize this pipe dream with taxpayer money. The whole GW thing is also bogus. If anyone takes the time to look over geological time and analyze the warming and cooling cycles of the earth, they would find that there was much worse GW AND cooling over the millennia past. The planet can take care of itself. It was here long before us, and it will be here long after we've returned to the dust of the ages.

@highdesertcat Agreed on all points except one: my Leaf isn't a 'sardine can'.

@SCE to AUX LOL! Hey, if it works for you, that's all that matters. I'm not a candidate for anything smaller than a full-size pickup truck, and certainly nothing smaller than a 2012 Grand Cherokee or 2008 Highlander. That's about as tight as I want to get packed in any vehicle, for any length of time, going any distance. I do not believe in this government-initiated behavior modification of the masses to get them to drive smaller, economical and more fuel-efficient cars. My brother in Manhattan had a Leaf. But he and his wife drove his F150 or her Camry a lot more than they did their Leaf. He ended up selling his Leaf last year to a guy who owns a golf course in the Huntsville, AL, area. So like I said, if it works for you, that's all that matters. No doubt the $7500 taxpayer-funded subsidy helped like the $4500 subsidy helped spark interest during C4C. In the case of the $4500 C4C bonus bucks, the recipient had to count that as income and pay taxes on that amount, IIRC. I have to admit that I'm curious about what you do if you ever had to go further than the 50-mile radius of your battery, within a limited time span. What my brother did, each time, was to take the F150 or the Camry, if his wife was driving.

@highdesertcat "In the case of the $4500 C4C bonus bucks, the recipient had to count that as income and pay taxes on that amount, IIRC." You are giving incorrect information here. What you're saying is a myth if you are talking about federal income tax. I'm also not aware of any state that counted it as income for state income tax purposes either. www dot snopes dot com/politics/taxes/clunkers dot asp There are some cases where states did include Cash for Clunkers cash as part of the sales tax or excise tax base, but that's not the same thing.

@highdesertcat I agree. All this "environmental" stuff boils down to is that it's impossible to buy a new car that isn't more complex and expensive to service than a luxury car was twenty years ago. And it's getting more and more extreme as time goes on, there's no apparent end to it. It really is time to decide who rules who in the EU. Who is the public and who is the servant here?

@Defender90 From what I can tell unelected bureaucrats technically "run" the EU, with member states having a varying degree of autonomy. Its not quite as bad in the US yet, except for the unelected bureaucracies who set rules for different parts of life and industry, oh and all of the unelected White House czars.

@28-Cars-Later The czar thing is a silly criticism by partisan hacks and is really no different from what any other president does. The term "czar" is something created by the media to describe a point person on a particular issue. Every president has had point people on particular issues, particularly noticeable for the so-called "war on drugs." These people generate coordinate policy goals across various agencies. It's not as if these people have any more power than the executive branch has already. In addition, some of the so-called czars are Senate-confirmable already. Any rules set by an agency can be overturned by Congress or courts if they are found to be overreaching or inconsistent with existing laws, so it's again much ado about nothing. It'd be better to focus on substance as to where you think these czars are doing a bad job, rather than criticize a silly media-created term in the form of a talking point. As for the EU, it's not clear that you understand how EU Regulations work or how the EU Parliament works from your post above. This is sort of like your French immigration comment the other day -- I would really recommend reading a book on this stuff, rather than making it up.

@28-Cars-Later Politics aside, its not whats best for the country no matter which side does it, and unelected bureaucrats as a whole are not good for a so called republic. If you look at the list of "czars" since FDR, from Truman to Bush I, you have less than ten per administration, until Clinton (11/8 years), Bush II (49/8 years), and Obama (43/5 years). Either the government is too complex post Clinton for anything to get done properly without czar authority, or the power to accomplish tasks was purposely concentrated in the hands of a few loyal to the administration. Either eventuality is a problem to curtail. http://en.wikipedia DOT org/wiki/List_of_U.S._executive_branch_czars

@28-Cars-Later The title czar is meaningless. I'm not sure you understand that it's only a nickname, often given by the media, but it conveys no additional powers. What specific additional powers do you think "czars" have? This isn't mother Russia. The difference between Clinton, Bush I or II, and Obama, and many prior presidents, is that there were few idiot talking heads on 24-hour news channels during other administrations, or at least they didn't have very much influence. News reporting was also better, rather than he said/she said garbage.

@Highdesertcat I think the governments around the world needlessly waste billions of tax payer (or borrowed) funds on ventures that aren't self supporting, in other words viable. Liberalise the motor vehicle industry globally and let market forces find a solution. There is still more technology to be found and exploited using existing technologies. I do know your view on vehicle sizes and I respect that. If people want and can afford to operate any vehicle they want let them. Keep what lithium we have for cordless drill and laptops. That is not an endless supply of resources either. Leave any research to universities and let some government funding go that way. But other than that if it costs 3-4 times more for an EV or hybrid, then that's what you pay.

@highdesertcat corntrollio, I wasn't one of the recipients of the C4C bonus bucks, but I do recall that I heard or read something somewhere that mentioned that the $4500 was counted as taxable income and that taxes had to be paid on it, on all levels. That's why I wrote IIRC. That means, "If I Remember Correctly". I could be wrong. I did not benefit from that handout, nor was I entitled to it. I don't know anyone who got the bucks to ask if they had to pay taxes on it. But, it would be interesting, although quite out of date now, to get feedback from someone, like a CPA, who actually knows about what the bonus bucks entailed and whether or not real people in real life actually had to count that as income and pay taxes on it. I do remember that when Oprah gave away all those free cars to her audience, those people had to count that as taxable income and pay taxes on each gift car. Feel free to enlighten us if you have more info. I'm always ready, willing and able to learn something. That's why I peruse ttac. The best and brightest reside here. -------------- ---------------- Big Al, I think we can have commercially-built electric vehicles and Hybrids available to the public. That old saying of, "If you build it, they will come", even has some merit to it when applied to EVs and Hybrids. They did build it. And they did come. Toyota's Prius line sure did better than expected. The others not so much. Some people will buy anything, most of the time. Sometimes they buy "whatever-it-is" as a novelty, other times as a toy, and yet other times under the mistaken belief that it is somehow environmentally more sound than "whatever else is out there." My personal belief is that we should have EVs and Hybrids available for anyone who wants to buy one. But let's not subsidize them. We don't subsidize electric golf carts, so why electric cars? Fundamentally, the whole EV movement, the sun, wind and wave power epidemic, is brought on by zealots who do not like our use and application of carbon-based resources, like oil, natgas, coal, uranium, that have made America what it is today. I probably use and waste more power and energy than many Americans, but as long as I am paying for it, and as long as I can afford it, I am not going to alter my behavior because it suits my purpose. That said, battery tech has improved tremendously from when I was a kid. And that is a good thing. I like portable electronics, cell phones, and the like. If someone, somewhere can make batteries work in cars as good as gasoline, diesel, LPG and natgas work in cars, I say let them bring it on. Right now costs are insurmountable obstacles to EVs and hybrids, for the great unwashed masses, living from paycheck to paycheck. I prefer gasoline over everything else. I make that clear. It works for me, in my cars, in my AC generators, in my outdoor kitchen. Hey, you haven't cooked until you've cooked with Premium Unleaded gasoline! And while I was in Nam, we heated our water with gasoline so we could have hot showers. The applications for gasoline have proven to be endless. The applications for batteries are still limited, and limiting.

@Highdesertcat Be careful with that gasoline. I know this isn't to do with cars, but gasoline. When I was in my early 20s I had a small business that used timber (lumber and from rainforests:). The scraps gradaully made a pile about 30'x30' and a yard high. There was a lot of air pockets between to wood. All I had was 2 drums of gas to get it going so I poured US 12 gallons all around and made a 'wick' gas to light. Guess what, I didn't have matches and it was about a 200 yard round trip to get some. When I came back with the matches I couldn't find the 'wick", so I light matches and threw them in the genral direction of the wood heap, getting ever so closer with each new match. And boom, I was knocked on my ass after the gasoline became fumes. I got up in a daze and thought to my self wow, I'm not doing that again. My brother was on the other side of the 33 acres came screaming over because he felt the shock wave. There are two things to the story gasoline is dangerous and young men pay more for insurance:)

@highdesertcat Big Al, I agree, it is tricky business. The way I use it to cook with is very similar to the Coleman Camping cooking stoves that can be used with either Reg Unl or Coleman Kerosene fuel, except I use a much, much bigger gas tank. For my applications I use an old 2-gal Roundup pump tank filled with gasoline (Premium is all I have in my two 55-gallon drums I keep for my AC generators and to top of my cars), pump up the Roundup tank and run the sprayer hose to a burner. The gas never vaporizes until it gets out of the burners. That's how we did it in Nam too. We fashioned a burner out of steel pipe, drilled tiny holes in it, hooked it up to a tank of gasoline, and when the burner was lit the gas would vaporize in the pipe and shoot out of the holes. There was a flow-valve that regulated the flow of gas to the burner and controlled the intensity of the flames which heated the water in the drum over it. Hey, I burn the weeds on my property the same way too, except I hook up the same tank hose to a long steel pipe with a burner at the end of it and scorch my weeds that way. Works real good and is cheaper than LPG. I wouldn't advise the uninitiated to try it but this practice to burn weeds, cook and heat with gasoline or AVGAS is older than dirt. My dad told me that they were doing things like that with gas and oil while he was a kid in Portugal. If you're familiar with Sterno, this is Sterno on steroids and on a much bigger scale.

@HDC: I wouldn't have gotten the Leaf without the incentives. FYI - EV rebates are taxable income.

No environmentalist worthy of the Hitler fetish gear in his closet would choose a human life over a dog's.

@CJinSD +1