Electric Cars should be on the roads, and it is GM's fault they are not, so let GM fail.

Date:   12/20/2008 1:59:54 PM ( 16 y ago)

I don't want GM to be bailed out. Those factories will still exist, and the GM workers can work in those same factories when another company starts making different cars, or something else, there. The economy will be better off without GM and it's hugely expensive production lines and over-burdened pension plan and yes, I will risk saying it, without workers that get paid $70 and hour ; how about twice as many people working for $35 an hour? - that would be better for almost everyone.

Besides, we HATE GM. They are the quintessential big ugly corporation. They are big enough that they can tell government what to do, and GM does what lobbyists from oil companies want them to do - they "play the game" all the way. Whatever it takes. Besides, they make cars that cost far too much, there is no real "economy" models for poor people ; they caved in to big union demands and passed the costs on to customers.


And then there is the electric car fiasco:

Watch the movie "Who Killed the Electric Car?" and then ask yourself if GM should be bailed out. See the ugly tactics they used , and see what they did and the lies that they are still telling about electric cars, and then ask yourself if GM is the kind of corporation that we want in our world.

What we still hear today about those EV1 cars is that the problem was the batteries, and that the total cost of the car, plus replacing the batteries every few years, would have been beyond what customers would be willing to pay. And, that the range - how far you could go on one charge - and the re-charging time made the whole thing just not feasable, it wouldn't work.

It wasn't about the batteries - the movie tells us that GM used the worst battery technology around in those cars, and yet the test drivers LOVED them!! GM used lead-acid batteries that were actually defects from the Delco plant, even though nickle-hydride batteries were available at the time... and NOW we have the lithium-ion batteries [like the ones in your laptop computer] which are really really great. But, even with the bad lead-acid batteries that might need to be changed every few years, that would only cost about $1000 and a whole new industry of battery re-building is allready starting up ["the Battery Doctor"] ; replacing lithiom-ion battery packs will cost about $10,000, but those batteries will last for 10 years. Even battery replacment costs at $10,000 every year, which might happen if you drive your EV 100 miles a day 300 days a year, drivers would still save money as compared to buying $4/gal gasoline to drive 100 miles a day in a 10mpg vehicle {10gals/100miles X $4/gal = $40/day X 300 days a year = $12,000}.

It wasn't the cost - people were signing up for these cars on waiting lists that had 1000s of names on them, and were even willing to pay in advance up to $50,000 for these cars. Even at $50,000, drivers would get back half that in just a few years of driving without having to pay for gas... Also, the price of the EV1 would have gone down to just $25,000 with mass production... AND there is very little maintenance on the electric cars. Even now there are no end of drivers signing up for the $120,000 Tesla Roadster electric cars. The movies tells of the agreement to return the EV1s after a year, and that tow-trucks came around to each test-driver's house and picked them up, and how the group of test drivers of the EV1 quickly raised over $1Million and offered it to GM to get those cars back... but GM crushed them... after hauling them to Nevada so the owners would not find them and continue their protests wherever the cars were being stored. Oh ya, the test-drivers LOVED the EV1s.

It wasn't the RANGE - 80% of drivers go less than 40 miles a day, and even those bad batteries got 40 miles on a charge. And the test-drivers all found that the 40-mile range was not a problem for their needs. If they needed to go further they simply plugged them in while at work during the day. Plus, there could be solar panels on the car that would increase the range even as the cars are being driven. And quick-charging technology will be a reality soon too [the Zenn EV 'capacitor technology', for eg.].

By The Way - With 80% fewer gas-burning cars on the road, the reduction of smog over major American cities would be noticably visible within a week!! Blue skies would be here again... and isn't it sad that we are so willing to just toss that possibility away... especially with the kids geting asthma and their parents have heart disease that are both directly related to breathing in the smog.

GM is not producing the EV1 cars for any of the reasons that GM tells us.

GM is not producing electric cars for one major reason and a lot of little things that add up. It was about adding a quart of oil now and then, and doing maintenance, and the pressure from other industries such as parts suppliers, and the big thing was of course was using gasoline, and the pressure from oil importers and gasoline refiners [Exxon, Conoco, etc.] to stop the idea of EVs in it's tracks. And the fact that EVs would last for-bloody-ever without engines that break down the way combustion engines allways do.

And now "we" are bailing out GM, without demanding that they make electric powered vehicles. I heard CEO Rick Wagoner says something about "making cars that use alternative power sources", but he probably does not have electricity in mind when he says that. Anything but electricity. If he was referring to hydrogen, he means oil and gas again, because hydrogen "has to" come from natural gas or crude oil... there was an agreement a few years ago that said that hydrogen can only be produced from natural gas and not by electrolysis [splitting water molecules with electricity]. Electric cars would be good for the economy, good for the environment, good for average people. G.M. could export electric cars to China and India and then G.E. could export clean electricity producing equiptment too, and we would put a huge dent in global CO2 emissions that are contributing to global warming, as well as the toxic pollution that is causing so much environmental damage and disease to people.

Let GM fail. Something better would take their place.




 

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