Posted on 05/06/2014 11:42:23 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Smith Electric was the future of the UK. Then it was the future of America. Now maybe it can be the future of Zimbabwe or Syria. Or some other sucker country.
The Obama economy would look a lot like the Soviet economy if instead of building non-working third rate versions of Western technologies, the USSR had spent all its time trying to make a car that runs on dreams and pixie dust.
Say what you will about the Lada, but at least they managed to make more than 500 of them.
Smith had a long strange and troubled history and essentially we subsidized a British state subsidized company that used to make electric milk trucks.
Three years before Obama called Smith Electric, “the Future of America”, Tony Blair said, “This will be a company that will really make its presence felt not just in the North East, but actually throughout the world.”
You can guess how that worked out.
Smith Electric was selling government mandated delivery vehicles, subsidized by taxpayers, to major corporations. Then the UK got a conservative government and the US got a Socialist government and the US branch of the electric milk truck company, sensing a good thing, bought out its UK parent and began slurping up that dirty Socialist money in the States.
Obama said Smith Vehicles were “America’s future.”
Four years have passed since President Obama visited Kansas City’s main airport, rolled up his shirt sleeves and admonished the skeptics who said Smith Electric Vehicles was unlikely to make good on its promises to build 510 experimental electric-powered trucks and buses suitable for commercial use.
“Come see what’s going on at Smith Electric,” the president said, inspecting a table full of bright green truck batteries in what was once a maintenance hangar for TWA. “I think they’re going to be hard-pressed to tell you that you’re not better off than you would be if we hadn’t made the investments in this plant.”
The skeptics turned out to be right.
Despite $32 million in federal stimulus funds and status as one of Obama’s favorite “green” companies, the firm has halted production, having built just 439 of the promised 510 vehicles.
The scary thing is that Smith Vehicles just might be America’s future. Worthless politically correct state subsidized industries that are as worthless as their European and Soviet counterparts.
But it’s still a better track record than some of the Green Energy companies that Obama dumped even more money on. Smith seems to have pulled out before it was too late.
Smith Electric relied heavily on the $32 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy, allowing Smith to actually subsidize the purchase of electric vehicles to entice customers. In other words when a company like Frito-Lay purchased a Smith EV, they didn’t pay full price.
At least Frito-Lay got to deliver its snack foods on an electric vehicle subsidized by working Americans.
Thanks Obama.
The UK have been using Electric Milk Floats like FOREVER
If the Obamadork and his minions support a technology, one can rest assured that it will fail.
And that include “climate change”.
No greater collection of idiocy has ever existed in the history of the multiverse.
Idiocracy? Obama and friends.
British milk trucks have been battery operated for years. At least where I lived.
Did someone bother to tell the Obamdorks that we don’t have milk deliveries in the US like we used to?........................
If the private sector won’t invest, that should tell you something. Folks who fund new ventures are a lot more savvy than politicians, bureaucrats and community organizers.
Why is the emperor giving our hard earned tax money to a British company?
Because he still thinks he can write huge checks on the United States Treasury for BS, lefty causes, to foreign nations, using money we borrow from China and no one’s (i.e. Boner) called him on it yet?
32B...that’s just pocket change for King Zero!
$72,892.93 per vehicle built paid buy our taxes.
Assuming the vehicle is a 15,000 premium over a diesel powered truck, what did we pay for with the other 57k per vehicle?
If a company lobbied government for a subsidy for electric trucks — then that would be a subsidy. However, if the company had no interest in electric vehicles; until the government decided to subsidize their production, then that company (eg. Frito Lay) was not being subsidized. Pressure from environmental organizations and government likely makes many companies feel compelled to buy an electric delivery truck — even where it makes no sense, financially.
Your post got me curious, so I tried to look it up.
Wikipedia claims that the "Newton" model starts at 78k GBP. The Newton has/had a GVWR of 14,000lbs. You can buy a 2014 Ford F-450 with a GVWR of 16,500lbs starting at $51k MSRP. I'll assume that the exchange rate is US $1.50 to 1 GBP. The Smith vehicle would cost well over twice the cost of a new Ford and you could only drive 60 miles or so between charges.
Even with the 71k subsidy, the equivalent Ford (or GM, Volvo, Freightliner, etc.) product would still be a better buy.
He's very much correct.....
I hope Obama doesn’t get to backing the E-cat. Even assuming the technology works, 0bama would jinx & doom it with outlandish praise and predictions. And lots of taxpayer money.
Why do they keep trying these electric vehicles BEFORE inventing a small, powerful, light weight, long lasting, fast charging, inexpensive, safe, battery?
you have taken it the direction I would have if I had had more time at lunch...
Wasn’t the old Serpico movie quote, “Follow the money...”
The money often tells the story.
It looks like we were paying the 125% premium for a, so called, green vehicle that cost 225% of the american made product readily available.
The reason they used these vehicles in Britain had nothing to do with Green issues of smog — they use them for noise due to the extreme early morning delivery of dairy products so a gas vehicle doesn’t have to re-start at each house up and down the street at 5:00 am when the deliveries start.
The so-called green issue is something that they have piggy backed on the already in place quiet delivery method introduced for quiet operations by dairy delivery.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.