Chevy Volt a Failure - GM to Layoff 1,300

Actually, it runs on gas. ... and uses compressed air to squeeze out better mileage. Their mechanism, using hydrogen, might be a different compressed-air approach, but hybrid hyrdaulics are not new.

Peugeot is in bad shape. It has been losing market share for a whilem and sales were down another 9 percent last year. It is heavily in debt. They don't even have the cash to develop this car, which is why they are out looking for a partner: http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/03/07/autoshow-geneva-peugeot-hybrids-idUSL6N0BZHMJ20130307

This story after that Geneva auto show, puts that car into the context of this thread: http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2013-03-08/news/37561766_1_electric-cars-battery-cars-hybrids

There is all of this government pressure in Europe to meet these strict emissions standards. And electric vehicles have been a dismal failure. With that darling pretty much off the board, because 1) sales have been so poor, and 2) They haven't been able to come up with battery technology that solves the century-old problem of too-much weight, too little range, as the expert in the story put it, they are pretty much back to the drawing board.

Which kind of explains why our government (if you are American) shouldn't have been putting us into debt subsidizing battery companies and car companies geared toward politically-picked electric-car technologies. It has been a waste of resources, not just in terms of the increased tally to our national debt, but the fact that it has diverted resources from other places that could have developed cars that people actually want.

 

Why would anyone want to emulate Japan's fiscal behavior?

They have had two lost decades, have a ridiculously high and precarious debt to GDP ratio (200+ percent), have gone through a series of recessions over and over again for 20 years, and have seen the amount of wealth in the country disappear like a fart in the wind.

The country has been governed by a series of corrupt politicitized decisions, for the last 20 years, that amount to cronyism. And it has been an anchor on its economy, which has gone two decades without a recovery.

Saying, "Japan does it!" shouldn't be a rallying cry for us to be stupid, as well. We should be looking at Japan since its market collapse since 1989 and using it as a road map for how NOT to create a fiscal mess that becomes a permanent anchor on an economy.

Do we really want our next two decades to be characterized by the economic growth Japan has seen for their last two decades? That is what out of control publicly-funded debt leads to.

 

1) There are no graphene ultracapacitor cars and there won't be for decades -- IF ultracapacitors do revolutionize our energy needs.

2) As much as various governments have been putting into funding graphene research the last few years, it is a small drop in the bucket to the privately funded R&D money that has been going into graphene research since 2004. There is apparently enough MARKET potential, that companies that could stand to benefit from ultracapacitors, have been putting their own R&D money into the research. Nokia, for example, has spent a ton on what is still early research (they have been experimenting with graphene since 2006 and it has constituted a huge part of their R&D budget) that aims to develop ultracapicitors that might be able to power everything from cell phones to airplanes. I know this, because I looked into the investment potential of any graphene-related companies after HC posted her link. IBM has spent a ton of money trying to develop graphene processors. That is how markets work. Nokia, IBM, Samsung (another company that has invested a large amount) have incentive to try to develop technologies that have the most potential -- for Nokia, an ultracapacitor that recharges in a second and has way more capacity that batteries do would give it a competitive edge. For IBM, a graphene microprocessor that is faster and more efficient than a silicon one would give it a huge competitive advantage in the computer hardware business.

3) I am not sure what your point was, 93, because for this entire thread you have talked about how thrilled you are to flush government patronage money down the drain chasing battery technology -- you were the one who posted several times that in a few years, you expect the whole world to be zipping around in electric cars with a lot of range that are cheap -- when there is no evidence that is anywhere nearly a reality, and when others point out reality, you respond incoherently. What we are finding is that a ton of public money has been flushed down the drain because politicians decided where to divert our economic resources instead of letting the marketplace figure it out. And in the case of battery technology, they still are nowhere near solving the problems of capacity and weight to fuel a car -- let alone cost. Apparently, market forces have determined that graphene has actual potential. It's too bad we have had a government-sponsored program that has not only run up debt, but tried to force technologies that didn't have the most viability on the market in batteries and electric cars and solar panels and whoever else could buy off Washington D.C., and funneled money out of the economy (in the form of a debt burden, which creates even greater harm than just diverting money, because it keeps on costing us) and potentially more productive uses. We all pay for that waste and corruption. That is the takeaway you should have when you read about the excitement over graphene (and other potential ultracapicitors).

 

You have been like a pogo stick on this thread. First, Japan Inc. again? That was a 1980s phenomenon. Japan hasn't had an economic boom since 1990 or so. There is no Japan Inc. today. The Nikkei crashed because of "Japan Inc." and it has never come back. Why are you trying to force the term into use over and over again on this thread when it was retired more than a decade ago for good reason?

That aside, I am not sure what your point is, or how it relates to electric cars. The kicker -- last line -- in your story, pretty much sums up anyone's takeaway about government corruption or quid pro quos (what that story was about):

“The greatest enemy of good aircraft is people who interfere with the freedom to shop for the highest quality,” Mr. Aboulafia said.

I agree with that.

So why exactly have so many people on this thread been gung-ho about U.S. government interference with people's freedom to shop for autos in the U.S. by trying to drive demand (and it has been unsuccessful) into technologies that have been successful in buying government patronage? It's part and parcel of the same thing. So if that is the point, yeah, I have been saying this over and over again on the thread.

 

God, I would love to really have discussions with you, because I think you really are earnest underneath it all.

But what the hell are you talking about? You make absolutely no sense. What does 15 years ago and an iPhone have to do with whether our Federal government should be trying to create markets and try to steer demand toward technologies politicians pick, rather than the ones people naturally pick for themselves?

To the extent there can actually be a point in there -- the iPhone was successful because people liked it (consumer demand) and they have bought hundreds of millions of them. That is EXACTLY how markets work. Every time you bring up the iPhone, you are making the case for FREE ENTERPRISE and demand fueling product development, not centralized planning. So why don't you jump on board?

 

You stated that the Prius was the result of grants from the Japanese government. I asked for evidence of that. You took the your pogo stick for a ride, didn't answer me, and linked to every unrelated piece of research the Japanese government has ever funded you could find, including all kinds of research that had nothing to do with autos and postdated the Prius by years. And the stuff you linked to was piddly in terms of dollar amounts, anyhow. And 99 percent of it had zero to do with electric cars (the point of this thread) or hybrids (where you began).

Of course the story of the Prius isn't a mystery, and I gave you links to magazine stories about how the car was developed, which detailed the significance expense Toyota went to. It is *not* a story of the Japanese government deciding hybrids were the way of the future and steering technology toward them.

Now, your link about Boeing -- and political quid pro quos -- still has nothing to do with the Chevy Volt. ... or Japan Inc. (which has nothing to do with any of this)... or cars, even.

So what exactly is the point of the pogo stick routine?