Re: Plug In America Wants Automakers to Retool for the Future

On the Talk of Nation show Friday, mention was made that there are about
25 EV startup in the country and an allusion was made to what if the $25
Billion was split up among those 25? A $1B would be a huge boost to a
startup. On NPRs Morning Edition (also Friday) they were discussing EV
batteries and one of the participants seemed to feel batteries (esp
LiIon) were not fully developed and too expensive to be of much use
right now. I wonder what a few $B would do to make LiIon (or whatever
alternative you prefer) cheaper and better? Either one of these
investments would create new jobs and new industries that I feel have
tremendous growth potential. I guess that's the key  - these would
actually be investments; $25B to the big 3 would be.........

- SteveS

Steve

You've touched on some of the key issues. In one fell swooped you've also touched on why we
are really pretty screwed.

I'm new to the EV discussion but I have been dealing with big business and politicians for some time.

Is it really that much of a technical challenge to produce better batteries? Without getting into the controversial NiMH discussion, it seems at a glance that most of the major independent players in the battery industry have have fallen into the big money groups who call the shots and most of the really promising existing options have been de-rated. I'll bow to the wisdom of the guys on this forum who know better and I mean no offense to anyone in the business.

Can there be real progress without increased demand? Is the lack of progress not really the most convenient excuse to not create demand? We're dealing with people who cal sell ice cubes to the Inuit.

As far as I can tell it's just to mindbogglingly complex for those in political power to put money in the hands of people who might actually do something with it (grant money as the simplest example tends to go to people who have received it in the past whether they have accomplished anything positive with it or not).

As the excitement of the election winds down the cynical side of me begins to thing “change” is just another word for business as usual. This really isn't a business discussion it's a political one, and those usually just follow a circular path.

In answer to the original question, which really is do I as a tax payer want to bail out the big three? Regardless of the cost to the mostly unionized workforce, the answer is a resounding “hell no”. I've owned 5 American cars, the first was great, the rest had more than one major chronic problem. Dealing with repairs and sort-of honored warranties became the norm until I bought my first import, then another, sadly I doubt I will ever go back. But we are going to bail them out.

We already gave them 25b (with another 25b they haven't got yet) to retool and they haven't.  This 25b isn't about retooling it's about meeting operating costs. At present rate of lose GM will be out of money in 9 months, they have 11 billion cash on hand. I don't really see what 25b split 3 ways is going to accomplish unless mergers are part of the equation.

We could give them the money on the condition they put the EV1 into full scale production but that would be insanity wouldn't it.