The Opportunity in Autos

There is no right thing this is just another part to make the greed keep on business they think I willing to give-up my car for these junk's I don't think so, let me ask you were you see any new places were these cars will be repaired or the new technicians will be only be the dealer ? when do we know people are learning to promote a new car like this,or just put them at the dilership and buy it just like that ? do you know the safety on these small cars ? and other thing all the same pretty nice I do believe the only dilership will survive in this economy will be Ford Motors and I never buy any Ford in my life on the past I have Mersedes and the repair cost you big time as BMW, and others like that good cars good cuality but the thechnicians pretty expensive so be the one to buy one of these cars and when you get on the highway you see , just try !.....

Puting the bailout money into producing an electric car makes sense; so why would congress suddenly do the right thing ?

Government waste is what congress represents.

Doing the wrong thing at tax payer expense is the congressional way of life.

Changing stations? It better work like Nascar. With instant pit stops at traffic lights.

GM is spending $10k per car for it's 40 mile battery. People won't want to change batteries every 10 miles, or even everyday. So they are going to have to have $10k of batteries.

Battery improvement? Come on. Industry has had huge incentives to make tighter batteries for cell phones and computers. Even the genius's at Sony burnt their fingers on this when theír battery efforts blew up on some computer owners.

Ya know, gold is just one proton away from lead. Alchemy has been tried for 2,000 years, but nature won't yield. Anyone who's ever watched lighteing race across the sky has got to wonder just how much electric power will fit in a fixed space. In a battery.

This article is horrible. They get liberal arts majors at Time or the NYT to write this stuff, as if it were a human interest story. This is the kind of stuff that gets laughed at 20 years later, when on big change has occurred.

It is an invitation for Obama to fail as Carter did. Better start thinking about how to get around, or at least minimize, the battery. And that is doable. Then electric cars can work. Full blown, big cars, running electric. If you count on the battery for more than about 5 miles, your out of luck on cost. And no innovation is likely to change that.

Ok, Green is good. I have no doubt about that, but.. Do you remember the California Electric Crisis? They even bought "shares" of electricity from Canada at very large rates! So where do we get the "GigaWatts" of electric power when power companies every year asks users during the summer to not use their A/C units or at least not during the daylight. Before spending on electric cars, spend on creating an abundance of electricity first, then cars.

The problem is the very simply the size of these goofy looking electric cars - like the photo caption for this article. Nobody I know wants to drive one and trying to force people to do so is plain foolish...

Making fueled autos more efficient is the only way to go.Electric is fine for cities, but we like to travel far, and off the beaten path. I suppose satekkites will eventualy power autos from space, using "space energy"!
We need to get these "space" cases out of controling the industry with their "warm fuzzy locic".

well i see you have fallen into the green electric mind control. where do you suggest we get the power to plug the cars in if you are not in a METRO area. say somewhere between riverton wy and casper wy. loose power your stranded. 40 below zero your dead. 100 in the summer you boil. get real. how many billions wiil it cost to make this electric grid. what will the power plants be fueled by? you think electricity comes from the socket on the wall. cool, kill the internal combustion engine, kill the oil and gas. put another few million people out of work. you need to do some research. GORE LIED! we do not have to buy overseas oil. we have our own. GO GET IT. Global warming is a farce. Global temperatures have dropped since 1998.

Electric cars are fine for commuters but it will mean that people with have to have 2nd vehicles of larger size to carry their families, friends and groceries. That will mean that if a husband and wife work they will each have to have a tiny electric car for the commute and share a larger vehicle to make family trips. Hmmm--sounds like this is a way to create greater demand for vehicles in the US--don't you think??

I think when I see Obama and Pelosi and Gore using little electric vehicles I will consider one. They are hot to force the masses into tiny, dangerous vehicles that are miserable to drive and ride in, and impossible to haul a family or take a vacation. This is absurd. It is a manufactured crisis, a massive political correctness project on steroids.

So what about those of us who have 3/4 ton or larger pickup trucks? I use mine for work, carry a camper, and also tow my boat. What kind of electric vehicle can give me three hundred plus miles of range at 65 MPH PLUS carry 2800 lbs and tow 2000lbs? Is there anything in the works for that kind of usage?

Even with today's battery technology it is possible to do away with the internal combustion engine. All we need is the infrastructure to swap batteries which take less time than filling up a gas tank. Hopefully the Obama administration can proactively push this CHANGE.

Rather than bail out the auto industry, the money should go into a project to produce an electric car.

That has to be the smartest thing said on this matter.

I do have some resevations led by the historical data that shows all American funding of new technology seems to not be the patentable property of the United States!

Discussing changes to the car industry such as:

1)Quality, longer lasting vehicles, cars that last 25-30 years
2)Predicting the parts that will fail and expecting to replace them
and the neutral process required
3)Changing the Fuel, from oil to less oil or to other types of energy
4)Allocating driving privilages and rewards
5)Vehicle standards for other auto's safety, ie height requirements

Is one of the more obvious example where green business doesn't fit
with the goal of GDP. Always America's problem is take home pay,
break even replaceable business/products.

What happens when Obama's cap-and-trade gets forced through Congress, and everyone's electricity bill triples? Suddenly plugging in your car costs more than gas.

The day will come when every car on the road is electric, and it's not all the far in the future.
The problems with the cost of hydrogen production and the problems with quantity production are much greater than over coming the deficiencies we see in batteries for electric autos.
Tesla is showing the way, while many have decried the cost of the roadster. The perfomance of this little fireball equals the finest sportcars in the world at many times the cost of a Tesla and a very affordable sedan is now available.
American inovation at its best.

It was called the EV1, and guess who footed the bill? Bunch of anti-Americans.

What a forward thinking idea, Addison! Not only would this keep us from sacrificing our planet, but it would be so much wiser for people and their money as well. This kind of thinking "out of the box" needs to be carefully considered by our government or we will fine ourselves under the thumb of another government sooner rather than later.

They should have thought of this before bailing the automakers out. It's too late now. Half of the proposed $100 billion has gone down the drain. Within two years we will be buying quality electric cards from China.