ICE's vs EV's why does the governement think they must pick a winner?
 

Excellent article with valid points which the current leaders of government ought to espouse.

Click on and read the “Case for Technology Neutral Public Policy”

The answer to your question is simple. The movement toward Socialism and Communism flies in the face of private business. Basically the egoists in Washington DC think that they know much more about what's good for the citizenry than does the citizenry themselves.

I guess it seems quite puzzling to those who feel that it takes the government to develop new products, that people like Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, Bill Gates and Jobs/Wozniak were able to bring massively successful new products and technologies to market without government intervention.

The government has ZERO business backing one product over another. I suppose that after the Supreme Court blazes the way to force you to buy a product, they will make all of us buy one of these cracker boxes.

Crony capitalism.

You mean Crony SOCIALISM!

Definitely. I think there is also something about these magic bullets that the government gets behind - ethanol, for example - that makes them feel as if they are really doing something. That approach also relieves them of the need to actually think about whether their policies are being implemented. This sort of thing happens all over the place. Instead of mandating that coal plants meet certain environmental standards, the government makes them use some specific type of technology. They almost never pick the best technology. How could they?

Mandate that all coal and oil plants be shuttered inside of 20 years and that they be replaced with nuclear plants of commensurate or greater generating capacity. That would be the way to do it. Don't pick a winner in ICE vs EV -- just tax all liquid fossil fuels into the stratosphere and force the market to decide.

Works for me.

Larry, what large socialist program do you think has been passed since like, 1970 or so? Obamacare? Invented by Romney, with no public ownership of health care systems at all. Prescription Drug Benefits? Invented by George Bush, and a cash cow for the drug companies, who wrote the damned law. Name me another one. Neither are socialist systems. What industries have been nationalized? None. Instead, what we have actually seen is greater and greater corporate power concentrated into the hands of fewer people, and they own the government. "Crony Socialism" my ass. Currently, the largest exporting country in the world is not China, it is Germany, along with the rest of the Northern European Democratic Socialist states. Big unions. Socialized medicine. Big environmental regulation. Happier people. Whatever we have, whatever you want to call it, it sucks.

I AGREE with promoting nuclear power, but....

You willing to pay for the huge increase in the cost of EVERYTHING? Is there an alternative to the trucks that deliver everything at some point along the way?
Or would you grant exemptions for trucks?

Are you also willing to harm people who live in the middle of the country where distances demand fossil-fueled vehicles. You might be OK in the large cities and their suburbs, but what about the great plains states--or don't those people count in your utopia?

Other things can be burned -- like hydrogen. Using hydrogen in an ICE is purely an engineering problem at this point.

I would NOT grant exemptions for trucks -- I'd grant low-interest loans to electrify the freight railroad lines and get the long-distance truckies off the roads for good.

Who would pay to extend rail lines to places not currently serviced?

Most places (outside of Alaska and Hawaii) are served within no more than 100 miles. Freight railroads are a replacement for long-distance trucking, not local trucking.

The market place will sort all of this out. I know folks that own hybrids and they say they will never go back because they love the sound they don't make and the instant power of an electric motor. The hybrid works for about 90% of their driving needs.

They also do not like anything to do with Diesels. They don't like filling up with it and they don't like the lag in power they claim to feel. They also don't like changing the oil twice as often as they do in a gasoline car.

Hybrids received a boost from the Feds when they first came out. I don't know of any that are receiving them now but these programs come and go so there may be. I think a few BMW diesels get some sort of Fed rebate or at least they did.

One guy I know is trying to go the extra step and get his Prius retooled so it can be charged by induction. He just thinks it would be wonderful if he could just get in his car, go to work and back, and just forget about ever having to fuel up again. It won't be cheap, but if he's willing to foot the bill.....

I can remember when GM scrapped one of its' V-8 assembly line 'since no one will ever buy a V-8 again'. The customer is king and if the demand is there someone will fill it.

And the whole thing about the Government will demand you buy this or that or the other? Sorry, not everyone drives; everyone does go to the Doctor.

Diesel adoption would probably be much higher in the American market if Generic Morons hadn't released their execrable diesels in the 80s. The consuming sheeple have a long memory.

I hear that.