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Blaming moderate gasoline price for the failure of Volt is like Madoff or Charles Ponzi or John Law blaming people losing faith in their pyramid schemes for the collapse of their schemes. Or an umbrella maker blaming sun shine for inability to sell umbrellas.
The primary achievement of Volt is the chutzpa to call a hybrid car "an electric car with range extender," then slap a price tag nearly double that of a Prius, which is a well tested hybrid already sold in the hundreds of thousands.
To claim that Volt is some kind of technology breakthrough for the future is even dumber than claiming Ferdinand Porsche's tank in the 1930's with serial hybrid drive train was worth the "planning" and "laying ground work" for future hybrid vehicle development. At least Ferdinand was trying something entirely new, and even his effort was a waste of time and resources. Every single unsold Volt represent wasted time, wasted resources and wasted opportunity. The same metal, uphostery, worker labor and even the lithium batteries could have been put towards something else that would have found better use than sitting on the parking lot to rot.
The statists are fond of confusing planning vs. central planning. Planning is human nature. Everyone plans. Central planning is about having the Master's plan implemented at the expense of slaves and serfs who are forced to discard their own plans. What makes your plan so much superior to those of the mere unwashed masses planning for their own lives? A cursory look at your energy outlook makes it quite clear that the sky-is-falling-unless-you-all-do-what-I-say planning is quite silly: contrary to the alarmist view, the general trend in human history is the gradual DECREASE of energy cost in terms of human labor. Coal replaced fire wood, and oil replace coal, both because the new source was cheaper to obtain and/or cheaper to put to use. Of course, every once in a while, humanity experiences counter-trend rallies in energy cost. For example, one of the major causes for WWII was a general fear that the world was running out of oil; little did the Axis powers realize that had they waited for a few more years, vast quantities of top grade oil would be discovered in Italian colonies in Libya.
Likewise, new oil will be discovered, and new cheaper replacement to oil will also be discovered. There are already two leading candidates as replacement: natural gas, and thorium nuclear power synthesizing liquid fuel. "Gasoline" may well become the "battery" for storing energy from thorium nuclear power, with half the reactant (Oxygen) and waste product of the "battery" reaction not having to be carried inside the car.
If after a decade of energy price rising (largely due to government monetary inflation), the fuel saving scheme car still can not find market acceptance, the company (GM) is truly hopeless. Shutting down the company (GM) and re-allocating the factory equipment, available workers and raw material to some one else capable of making good use of them would be good news indeed.
posted by 75.67.1...
, Mon, 5 Mar 2012 03:31:21, Mon, 5 Mar 2012 10:17:52, Sun, 4 Mar 2012 08:25:13
, Tue, 6 Mar 2012 08:33:10, Mon, 5 Mar 2012 22:27:47
, Sat, 3 Mar 2012 16:06:29
, Sat, 3 Mar 2012 06:59:26, Fri, 2 Mar 2012 18:55:09, Sat, 3 Mar 2012 01:25:05, Sat, 3 Mar 2012 05:13:25, Fri, 2 Mar 2012 17:10:36, Sat, 3 Mar 2012 08:48:50, Fri, 2 Mar 2012 18:37:44, Sat, 3 Mar 2012 08:29:10, Sat, 3 Mar 2012 09:08:32
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