It's About Liberty: A Conservative Forum
Topics => Economy => Topic started by: IronDioPriest on March 05, 2011, 01:00:01 PM
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From the comments @ thetruthaboutcars.com (http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2011/03/bill-ford-sounds-ev-retreat/):[blockquote]"Let us be clear, EV are not a market decision, but a political one. Without political support (subsidies) there would be no market push for EV at all. This situation is a fact, regardless of whatever one thinks of the worth of the subsidies. What he is essentially saying is that he cannot count on the political will to continue these subsidies. Again, for whatever reason (and there are a lot of possible reasons), if politicians lose interest in the EV subsidy, any preexisting capital investment in the technology will have been money thrown down the drain. It is usually easier to predict market demand than political will."[/blockquote]
Bill Ford Sounds EV Retreat (http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2011/03/bill-ford-sounds-ev-retreat/)
When, in a former life, I wrote speeches for top execs at Volkswagen, I never made my guy admit failure. Bad for his career and my business. The secret phrase for full retreat was: “This is one of the many options we are looking at. We are in a changing world and must change with it.”
I must have a less circumspect colleague at Ford.
“Electric is a focus of investment,” Ford CEO William Ford said yesterday at The Wall Street Journal’s ECO:nomics Conference in Santa Barbara. And then he dropped the bombshell:[blockquote]“We still don’t know what the winning technology is going to be…We’re continuing to invest in hydrogen, we’re continuing to invest in biofuels.”[/blockquote]Ford bluntly reminded us that EVs had been tried before and failed:[blockquote]“Prior to the Model T, a third of all vehicles in this country were electric… this isn’t a new technology. The reason it died away was the ubiquity of charging. Today, we have the same issue.”[/blockquote]According to a Wall Street Journal report, Ford “has no certainty that an electric grid will be developed that is capable of supporting droves of electric vehicles on the roads.”
Here is a nugget which I would have never dared to put into a speech, and as my victims will attest, I never was shy:[blockquote]“We’ve made a big bet on electric… but the pace at which that develops, I think anyone who can tell you that is lying.”[/blockquote]What is most significant is the choice of venue for these choice words. It was like preaching Satanism to a nun’s convent. According to a survey conducted at the ECO:nomics conference, half of the respondents said they planned to buy an electric car in the next decade. Most likely, they lied also.
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EV, and ethanol, are not products; they're government propaganda in material form.
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Good for Ford. Ford motor company has a history of independence that GM and Chrysler never did. It may be that Ford's genius and continuance is that of an independent whereas the other two were corporations absorbing smaller corporations. Uber corporate mentality.
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I have always been a GM buyer. Primarily Chevrolet but Pontiac as well. That all ended with the government bailout. I will never purchase another GM (or Chrysler) product as long as government ownership exists. I will buy Ford.
The Chevy Volt will join a long list of infamous vehicles that have been ill-conceived, manufactured and brought to market for all of the wrong reasons with the usual inevitable result.
I believe this is the future of hybrids, too. When hybrid owners have to replace the batteries they will freak out at the cost.
Ultimately, the power storage problem has to be solved before any electric car is feasible. An electric car needs to be an improvement over fossil fueled cars before they are marketable. The definition of improvement would have to include at least the following items:
-cheaper to buy
-cheaper to operate
-greater range
-safer to operate
I can't fathom buying a car that can only go fifty miles or less between refueling stops. I also cannot fathom buying a car that cannot survive being stuck in snow for many hours. I don't want to be killed by my car while it's standing still in a blizzard.
The kind of technology improvement in electrical storage would truly need to be an order of magnitude type of leap. Another necessary item would be a drastic improvement in charging time...it should not take any longer than a fossil fueled vehicle, 5 minutes or less. Finally, the electric grid and the electric generation infrastructure would need to be drastically improved to accommodate many millions of users.
Barring a big change in reality this is clearly many decades away from happening.
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I have always been a GM buyer. Primarily Chevrolet but Pontiac as well. That all ended with the government bailout. I will never purchase another GM (or Chrysler) product as long as government ownership exists. I will buy Ford.
The Chevy Volt will join a long list of infamous vehicles that have been ill-conceived, manufactured and brought to market for all of the wrong reasons with the usual inevitable result.
I believe this is the future of hybrids, too. When hybrid owners have to replace the batteries they will freak out at the cost.
Ultimately, the power storage problem has to be solved before any electric car is feasible. An electric car needs to be an improvement over fossil fueled cars before they are marketable. The definition of improvement would have to include at least the following items:
-cheaper to buy
-cheaper to operate
-greater range
-safer to operate
I can't fathom buying a car that can only go fifty miles or less between refueling stops. I also cannot fathom buying a car that cannot survive being stuck in snow for many hours. I don't want to be killed by my car while it's standing still in a blizzard.
At aroung 50 miles a charge, depending on weather, the volt doesn't need a charging station, just a long extension cord.
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....I will never purchase another GM (or Chrysler) product as long as government ownership exists. I will buy Ford.....
I'm with you, with an additional requirement. Not only must the government be completely divested of financial interest, influence, and control, but the assets that should have been liquidated in bankruptcy proceedings to repay secured creditors that were instead stolen from those creditors and given to the UAW must be taken from the UAW and returned to the creditors with interest.
Until that day, I will not own another GM or Chrysler product.
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....I will never purchase another GM (or Chrysler) product as long as government ownership exists. I will buy Ford.....
I'm with you, with an additional requirement. Not only must the government be completely divested of financial interest, influence, and control, but the assets that should have been liquidated in bankruptcy proceedings to repay secured creditors that were instead stolen from those creditors and given to the UAW must be taken from the UAW and returned to the creditors with interest.
Until that day, I will not own another GM or Chrysler product.
Good points.
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Another part of GM, GMAC was given banking approval, even though they turned down viable Walmart. GMAC changed its name to Ally.
You may have seen the commercials.
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After all , Oboner's favorite "investment" , the Chevy Volt has done so frigging well this year ...Less than 400 units sold ( despite the government subsidy ) . The next thing we'll see is the government buying up Chevy's surplus just to get rid of the dogs . They'll be buzzing around all over D.C. ( or will it become A.C. / D.C. ) .
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Why not just buy 2 Prius cars instead of one Volt?
Damn. Free market is a bitch . . .
http://www.soultek.com/clean_energy/hybrid_cars/100_mpg_prius_versus_the_volt_electric_the_great_war_of_2010.htm (http://www.soultek.com/clean_energy/hybrid_cars/100_mpg_prius_versus_the_volt_electric_the_great_war_of_2010.htm)
http://forums.automobilemag.com/70/7972193/general-automotive/2011-chevy-volt-vs-2010-toyota-prius/index.html (http://forums.automobilemag.com/70/7972193/general-automotive/2011-chevy-volt-vs-2010-toyota-prius/index.html)
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Since I seriously doubt GM or Chrysler will ever pull their heads out, owning anything made by those morons is looking like a never again event.
And I like the idea of making the UAW pay back the creditors that Obamakov kicked to the curb!
And screw hybrids and alternative crap! They'll never reach the level of affordability, efficiency, range, maintenance, durability and safety of their gas-burning big brothers and sisters!
And Bravo to Ford for resisting to follow lemmings over the cliff!
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I wonder how long it will be before the government demands that Ford keeps their Volt in production, whether it sells or not. In fact, if it hurts the bottomline at Ford, the better (for obama that is).
I'm sure there will be a quota system put in place where all the car manufacturers have to 'sell', not manufacture, a certain per centage of 'acceptable' vehicles, otherwise, pay stiff fines. Just saying........
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Such a requirement will not pass congressional muster right now, and shouldn't ever pass constitutional muster, although that genie was let out of its bottle long ago...but that is another argument.
But even if made, I would ignore the damned thing!
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I'm sure there will be a quota system put in place where all the car manufacturers have to 'sell', not manufacture, a certain per centage of 'acceptable' vehicles, otherwise, pay stiff fines. Just saying........
It's already in place. It's called CAFE standards, the only thing necessary is revising them.