Big Auto loses an Ally - Page 2

You can't use 'what my dad says'.

I didn't. You completely misunderstood my argument. I never said that "because my dad doesn't sell hybrids so hybrids don't sell." I said that the infrastructure for hydrogen or electric cars is not put in place in areas that aren't cities or states where tax credits are given to its residents who could afford to buy green cars. People don't buy hybrids here because they can't afford it or the hybrids aren't available in podunk suburban areas.

I made that claim in my area mainly because people here can't afford to buy any big ticket items because the local economy in this area, along with others in the Rust Belt, is absolute shit.

Quit putting words in my mouth.

If you didn't say it in support of your premise that people aren't buying hybrids, why did you say it. Also, I went back and read the post in question and you don't mention anything other than hybrids when arguing they don't sell because of the lack of infrastructure. Read the damned post again.

Although I think you're right enough about people not being able to afford new cars right now, I still don't see why a lack of charging stations should affect hybrid sales; every single one I've seen charges its own batteries.

He might be referring to plug-in hybrids;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plug-in_hybrid

When I was talking about green cars, I was talking about non-hybrid green cars like hydrogen and electric powered. You need charging stations or else there will be a lot of dead cars on the streets because numnuts forgot to charge the car at home.

Hybrids are just the first step. People in big cities might buy hybrids, but that means shit. Hybrids just aren't selling in the rural and suburban areas. People in the West as a whole are more environmentally conscious as well, which is why they sell in places like California and Oregon.

When hybrids start selling rapidly in places in the Rust Belt or the South, then I'll consider it a boom. A shitload of hybrids selling in Los Angeles or San Francisco means nothing to me.

As for hydrogen powered and electric powered cars, that will not happen until money is pumped into the infrastructure to provide for long travel of those cars. What good is a gas station going to do when your car has no electric power left?

And no, I was just using my father as an example of someone who doesn't sell hybrids because they are unavailable in our area, people don't want to buy them, or people can't buy them. People buy the fuel-efficient gasoline powered cars instead here.

Well that's probably one way Obama is planning to create jobs. There is a potential huge industry in charging stations and once that foundation is in place the car industry will start spitting out those cars like crazy.

Ah.

The Case of the Low Sales is solved!

The fact is that even US car manufacturers make flex fuel cars for virtually every market but ours. The only thing that has prevented progress is the unfair collusion of the oil industry and those in their pockets in Washington, with their enabler friends in the auto industry.

Any argument against moving against progress is pointless. The argument itself becomes null and void with time, and people will look back and wonder how we lived through the Jimmy Carter '70s and turned a blind, self-destructive eye to the writing on the wall. There are still plug-in stations all around LA left over from that brief point in time when there was a growing number of pure electric cars on the road.

And Bitches Leave is right : moving this country up to the 21st century engenders a much needed growth in jobs.

Too bad, food based biofuels are not worth the effort.

What about hemp? But seriously, ElCap, I refuse to believe that you're really a flat-earther.

Flat-earther? yt, you need to calm down a bit. I'm all for alternate ways of powering our cars, but corn based solutions have proved to be disastrous ... biofuels also need to much land real estate. Either way, our current ethanol solutions is counter productive.

Cap is right Biofuels are worse for the environment then big Oil. Algae and gene engineered Bacteria might change that, but they are not quit ready yet. Famine is increasing in the world in large part because of Biofuels.

I never once mentioned biofuels and definitely not corn. I mentioned that all US car manufacturers are making flex fuel cars in non-US markets but not here. I personally think plug in hybrids are the way to go, coupled with wind, solar and hydro power, personal, localized energy production and the ability to funnel power back into the grid.

In terms of gas alternatives, I think we should look more into hemp, algae and sugar -- especially since it's been given such a huge heave ho in the name of corporate welfare for corn producers.

But the last thing I think the US needs to do is create other ecological disasters to avert the fossil fuel-based ones. I'm just saying that the fact that we're only now, in 2008, even talking about this is pathetic and we as a people will be laughed at a few years hence. But arguing to not do anything, or "wait and see," like they've been telling us to do for two decades, is just suicidal.

I don't think anybody here has been arguing for a "wait and see" approach.

Hay YT did you ever watch Smalley's speach on energy?
http://www.researchchannel.org/prog/...D=3427&fID=345

Is it just me or does Henry Waxman look a lot like Jeremiah Wright? /DIGRESSION