yitbos
Posted on 11/24/2008 9:02:56 PM PST by bruinbirdman
Bay Area Mayors Gavin Newsom, Chuck Reed and Ron Dellums want to turn California into the Detroit of green cars with their new public-private initiative (See "California E-Car Dreaming.")
Now, I'm a conservationist, but I'm also a libertarian. So while I'm all for bringing green business to Silicon Valley, I have to ask: Does that mean rescuing a business that shows no evidence of being able to make it on its own?
Electric car maverick Tesla Motors, of San Carlos, Calif., is asking the U.S. Department of Energy for $400 million in direct loans. To me, it seems like a risky proposition to fork over that much money to a company whose business is still in the red and continues to disappoint.
One fair-minded colleague reminded me that the history of tech-government partnerships is not so outrageous. Noting the relatively small amounts of money that NSF and DARPA received to do the early, risky research, he echoed a long-standing maxim: "For a few billion dollars in federal money, we got the U.S. technology industry."
Another colleague mentioned the role of gadfly electric car companies in pushing major automakers out of the innovation doldrums that typically accompany monopolies. She mentioned a story on Tesla that quotes General Motors' (nyse: GM - news - people ) Bob Lutz: "If some Silicon Valley start-up can solve this equation, no one is going to tell me anymore that it's unfeasible."
I don't doubt the feasibility of producing an electric car in volume. This is America after all. But Tesla can only make about 10 of its $109,000 sports cars per week. Somehow, I don't think plugging $400 million into the company is going to produce a sustainable solution.
(Excerpt) Read more at forbes.com ...
No.
I find it disturbing that anyone is even considering investing 400 million in Tesla, Public or private.
Where does the electricity come from? We cannot build power plants any more than we can drill for oil.
Let's check the etymology:
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=maverick
1867, "calf or yearling found without an owner's brand," in allusion to Samuel A. Maverick (1803-70), Texas cattle owner who was negligent in branding his calves. Sense of "individualist, unconventional person" is first recorded 1886, via notion of "masterless."
Not one stinking cent!!!
No.
“Where does the electricity come from?”
Arnie will just issue another billion bond and buy it from out of state!
Hmm, as long as I get one. Hmm. Put my buck in the lottery.
yitbos
Subsidy for actors and fat cat liberals looking to make a “green” statement. Wake up, Detroit, the environmentalists are about to throw you under the bus.
I believe there is excess capacity at night. The key to a successful electric car will be the battery.
Enron!
And Algore invented the Internet. Private sector? What private sector?
I believe Jay Leno had the right idea for these auto industry ‘bailouts’ and loans: give the money back to the taxpayers, with the provision that they spend it on a new car. That way, at least we get a new car out of it.
yitbos
You mean $0.4 billion? Now’s the time to ask for it!
If this project is viable the venture capital will show up, so guess what, IT IS NOT VIABLE.
Here’s another attempt, from inventor of Segway. This one is called Revolt (trying to capitalize or sendoff on Chevy Volt?) BTW, Segway has not proven to be a big commercial success, mostly due to its hefty price.
http://www.foxnews.com/printer_friendly_story/0,3566,449303,00.html
Dean Kamen Making the ‘Segway’ into Hybrid Cars
Monday , November 10, 2008
fter years of tinkering, inventor Dean Kamen is ready to show off what he says is the world’s first hybrid electric car with a Stirling engine.
“I’m a car manufacturer! It’s so exciting,” he said last week, showing off his state registration for his new car, listed as a 2008 DEKA Revolt.
The prototype, uses a recycled version of the Ford Think, an electric car that was discontinued in 2000. The two-seat hatchback can go about 60 miles on a single charge of its lithium battery with almost zero emissions.
In the trunk is a Stirling engine that powers the features that normally would drain power from the battery, including the defroster and heater, leaving the batter primarily for propulsion.
“You’re running a pure electric, which is enormously cheaper to operate and enormously more environmentally friendly,” Kamen said.
If the battery runs low, the Stirling also can recharge it, so drivers wouldn’t get stranded.
The engines are named for Robert Stirling, a minister in Scotland who first applied for a patent on his “economiser” engine in 1816. They use external heat to drive internal pistons, creating clean, quiet power for almost unlimited applications and have been used on occasion to power submarines, coal mine pumps and generators. But engineers have yet to figure out a way to manufacture them economically for mass use.
Kamen started applying for and receiving Stirling-related patents in 2002, sparking speculation that he was working on a way to incorporate the engines into his much-hyped Segway scooters. He said he is in “conversation” with a group of Norwegian investors about producing the car and hopes it will be in production within two years.
He doesn’t know how much it would cost, but the goal is to make it affordable for average consumers, unlike the Segway, which Kamen had said would revolutionize short-distance travel. At about $5,000, the self-balancing vehicles have appealed mostly to police, mall security crews and airport personnel.
Kamen said he is not optimistic that struggling American carmakers will embrace Stirling engine technology. Most big companies seem to misconstrue Darwin’s ideas about which species survive, he said.
“I think what Darwin was really saying was: It’s not the fittest, not the smartest, not the strongest; it’s the ones that can adapt to change. And big industries that have long histories, particularly successful long histories and a lot of ingrained infrastructure become the least adaptable to change.”
But he sees the car as “a step along the way to be able to build, in high volume, high-quality, low-cost electric generation for a couple billion people.”
“If we can demonstrate the utility of the Stirling engine by putting it in a car ... it will leave me with an engine that I can use to supply electricity to the world.”
yitbos
NO.
Federal or SF money?
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