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Plug In Cars
General Motors said it
will begin manufacturing a few plug in electric cars "when batteries
become available." That means when pigs fly. General Motors, I am
horribly offended, both by your contempt for the public, and by your
stupidity. Wouldn't it make sense economically for you to spend two,
or five, or ten billion dollars as fast as possible to be the first in to
world to develop and own high capacity rechargeable batteries? You
could once again be the world leader in cars! But if it is too hard,
you can just watch your failing company sell fewer cars every year,
just as you have for thirty years now,
until you join Eastern and Pan Am Airlines as another American
extinction. After all, you have paid enormous fortunes to other
chief executives whose main accomplishment is to watch your company
destroy itself. Why break with tradition just because by straining
and reinventing yourself, you might help America?
Now, about another
offensive idea: hybrid cars. Use your common sense. The electricity
in these cars comes from the gasoline engine! Duh! Generating
electricity from a tiny gasoline engine is terribly inefficient.
Hybrids get a small gain from generating a little electricity from
regenerative
braking, but the gain is so small it is not worth the extra cost of
the hybrid. The good mileage of the Japanese hybrids comes from the
simple, obvious fact that they have tiny engines with little pep!
Their good mileage comes from being small, light weight cars, not
from being hybrid. What mileage would a Toyota Prius get if you rip out all the electrical
and battery weight, and just run it on its tiny engine? Almost the
same! Hybrids are a swindle. Solar is another inefficient, high cost
swindle that sound cutesy but doesn't work economically. In addition
to being way too expensive compared to all other alternatives, solar
panels have high total life cycle pollution. It creates a lot of pollution to manufacture
solar panes, and even more
pollution to dispose of them.
The future of cars is
all electric plug ins. The most efficient, lowest cost, lowest
total life cycle pollution of the green ways to make electricity is wind farms and nuclear. The
first day that I am President, I will announce this program. In
fact, here it is!
The
$10,000,000 per Person Rechargeable Battery Contest
So all you researchers
are on notice as of July 20, 2007 that America will have the
biggest automotive contest ever. When I am elected President, I will
waste no time. In my inauguration address, I will announce that the first team to develop an economically feasible,
mass manufacturable, plug in battery set that will power a 2,000 pound car
for 40 miles on one charge, using no more than a standard 240 volt
outlet, and which can recharge from full dead to fully charged at
least 2,500 times, will get a government prize of $10,000,000 per
person for up to twenty people on the team.
Yes, I know that if you
connect 8,000 laptop computer batteries, you can run a plug in car today
for 40 miles between charges, but that is not economically feasible.
I guess to be economically feasible, the battery pack would have to weigh less than 500 pounds and cost less
than $5,000 to manufacture in serious quantities. Your company, of
course, would own
the patent and might become worth billions. This is not a contract, this
is an idea.
Is this the federal
government meddling in private industry? Darn right!
The
responsibility of government is to set the rules of the game, and
then to referee the game. But beyond the sporting analogy,
government must step in where private enterprise fails, or needs
help and guidance. In this case, perhaps for $200 million America
could become the leader of the world in cars. Humph! Put it that
way, I am under-spending compared to the rewards to our nation.
Click here for
ENERGY INDEPENDENCE
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