Ford's Mark Fields: Plug-In Hybrids Must Be a "National Priority."
TTAC burned a lot of metaphorical midnight oil trying to make heads or tails of plug-in EVs. Thankfully Ford's mouthpiece Mark Fields is here to set us straight about our energy independence, via the "It's important to note most battery supply is currently being developed in Asia," Fields told the Detroit News. "For those looking to plug-ins to answer our energy security concerns, we must ensure a domestic battery supply. Moving from imported oil to imported batteries clearly would not address this growing concern." I'm struggling to remember if that's a masked-man fallacy, a package deal fallacy of just plain old Ignoratio elenchi. Luckily (for Ford) politicians are completely immune to all forms of logic. If Fields keeps making arguments like this, Detroit might get the $500m of our tax dollars they so desperately crave for battery R&D. But, spades being spades, he's confusing the issue. At least.
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Do ANY of these guys understand how stupid they sound? Never mind, that is a rhetorical question at this point.
Translation: "The American People won't give us money voluntarily, so they should be forced to give us their money by government coercion". Well anyway no problem, we all know Ford will be selling 250,000 hybrids a year by 2010. Oh, wait, no they won't. Take down the billboard.
M1EK-Ignore Ford. Toyota won't release a Li-ion Prius until they are sure the battery life is equal to the ones they have in their current Priuses-that is, ten years or more.
So Mark, where are your investment dollars? How long ago did Ford dispose of the Autolite battery making factories as old, mature commodity businesses no longer of interest? US companies have a horrible case of ADD, and once a field gets hot again they are already long gone. RCA, Motorola, GE and others once led the world in television design and manufacturing, but then their MBAs figured these were no growth mature markets and let it all go to Asia. Now there isn't a flat screen manufacturing plant in the US and billions of dollars have been made by others building the things. So it goes. When you stop playing the game, don't piss and moan about being left out.