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Car battery or campaign charger?
Presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain
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Who will pay for this 300 millions? Will McCain back it up? Is this official or is he trying to get for himself a vote? why Electric? Charging station could be problem, bottom line is you still have to pay something for energy, nothing is free.
I have a solution for America 2 years ago, I can double the mileage for any gasoline cars right now, I'm looking for a radio or a tv company to witness my road test. Yup... my Mercedes-Benz c280 can go 600+ miles on a full tank. No hydrogen junk, just pure gas.
Cam
Scott should be informed that $300 mil gouing into cancer research is a waste of money. Billions already go into cancer research and there is nothing to show for it except expensive "treatments", while real cures are suppressed by a greedy industry and our government.
When Scott Jagow asked Chris Farrell if this wasn't akin to a game show Farrell said "No, that's capitalism!". Taking money from the taxpayers and giving it a successful business is nothing like capitalism. "Republicanism" is more like it. I was shocked by that reply.
Compare this story with the one that preceded it about auto manufacturers fighting against mileage standards. If "the marketplace" had anything to do with the American economy auto makers would be imposing their own mileage standards in order to compete.
The bottom line? More corporate welfare and less regulation have gotten us in the mess we're in. Cheering on more of the same with slogans like "That's Capitalism!" does a disservice to your listeners.
Hasn't McCain or his advisors heard of the "Progressive Automotive X PRIZE Competition." He's spinning an existing idea for political purposes. Then, if a company is successful (say one of the Big 3), we can award them w/ government $$, set up another agency to oversee the whole thing, & give them further tax incentives to mass produce it. "Big Government" Mr. McCain? The guy is senile........
I heard comments from politicians and others but not from engineers. As an engineer, I would like to warn the public that we are not tackling the real problem. We need an energy source such as fossil fuels, nuclear or some other natural source. Once you have that, you can convert that energy source to electricity. Finally this energy can be used to charge automobile batteries.
Simply put without any technical jargon, the politician's push for battery technology is like presenting an empty fuel tank or discharged battery
You now know enough to decide whether this is a gimmick or a great idea.
This also raises concern about the politician’s capability to comprehend national issues.
I agree that there are problems with such a contest, but it is not without precedent: DARPA has awarded (much smaller) cash prizes to "teams" for developing robotically self-driving cars in their "Grand Challenge" contest. I don't know who owns the rights to the resulting product(s) (I believe DARPA does), and the teams were a mix of individuals, universities, and corporate-sponsored groups, but the military now has the basic building blocks for vehicles that can "drive themselves" to destinations without tying up valuable personnel.
Maybe the Army could have developed this technology itself. Maybe some car maker or oil company is "sitting on" better battery technology. But maybe, in a capitalistic, free-market economy, opening up the doors to development to all comers by offering a cash incentive prize will yield a better product with a shorter development cycle. Put me down as "cautiously in favor of".
My opinion - save the 300M. Maybe 100M would help Aptera Motors speed up their production process. We already have a great lithium ion battery that is suitable for the majority of the needs of the average person. Bottom line, the technology is available, it is just not being used or in production. That is where we need to focus our energy and resources.
$300 Million to company who already have Billions of $$ in their pockets isn't likely to benefit from such incentives. If they knew how it would of been already developed. It may help them allocate more resource to the development. But thats where it ends. No small Joe Mo company would benefit from such incentive because they don't have knowledge or know how. Starting from clean slate is not gone help. It is my opinion, that these schemes are designed to give back - our taxpayers money to companies who contributed to political campaigns and funded these politicians. Its indirect way of doing it. And making them look good as well.
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