[s-cars] Thought provoking stuff......NAC

[Jim Fleischer]

Good stuff guys, but I'm not buying the fact that there is no demand.......they had to pry the EV-1 out of the owners hands, and if the benefits of the electric car were marketed, not the limitations, there would be much more interest.  GM says it spent millions marketing the car in the late 90's......funny, I was a subscriber to many car magazines back then and fail to remember even one advertisement.  I think it was some baseball movie not long ago that stated "If you build it, they will come."  GM, Ford and Honda built it, they came, then they were taken away.  California had electric car charging stations built, the infrastructure was happening, then Big Oil and the car manufacturers pressured the California Air Resources Board (CARB) to renig on their demands of zero emissions cars by a certain time period.  (watch the movie, it's really pretty sad what happened politically)

As far as sh*t having to hit the fan before we decide it's time to rethink our transportation technology, well it may be too late by then.  Scientific evidence about C02 in the atmosphere is currently off the charts, meaning we really have no idea what the effects may be in the near or distant future.  Big business is obviously only interested in big profits, however, look where GM and Ford are right now......sucking wind, laying off thousands, while companies like Toyota are selling through.  What company has the most hybrid vehicles out there?  Toyota?  Maybe a coincidence, maybe not.  Do you guys think that the Car manufacturers and Big Oil aren't in bed with eachother on this one?  They need eachother, as big oil would not exist without the Internal Combustion Engine.

As far as Hydrogen fuel cells go, it is estimated that they won't be viable for another 15-20 years.  Then you have the huge expense of installing fueling stations for the hydrogen.  Oh, has anyone priced Hydrogen lately?  Noone ever brings that up, but supposedly it is already more expensive than gasoline, and not as efficient.  Plus, you still end up "paying the man."  Wouldn't electric cars charged by wind power or solar energy make so much more sense?

I guess what I'm trying to say is that there are technologies out there that could truly help with our environmental predicament, whether it be Global Warming, or simply smog in L.A. and Salt Lake, they are viable, and there is enough cash out there that if they were offered, I think there are enough people concerned about our footprint on this earth that they would buy them.  There are people at the highest levels of government and corporations that are standing in the way, to secure their future profits for generations to come.  Well it's starting to piss me off, and I hope that others will start getting PO'd as well.
  
I really do hope that some of you will go and rent the movie.....there are some aspects of the way the whole EV thing was handled that are pretty enlightening, and maybe, just maybe, a little public knowledge will be a dangerous thing to the current establishment.

Thanks for listening.....

Jim Fleischer
'95 S6 Avant
'91 200TQ
'83 ur