Tesla Electric Roadster

[tw]

Originally Posted by Griff

As far as getting electricity, my first concern is weakening the power of the oil rich Arab states.

Which is totally irrelevant and not the problem. Energy problem occurs when we do not do more with less energy - when we don't innovate every decade. When an economy stop innovating, then not only does recession loom. We even have citizens acting like children - crying about the price of energy. Crying in part because citizens encouraged and therefore helped create problems.

Why is gasoline at $3+ per gallon? Look at innovation in the 1990s - or better, notice how much innovation was stifled in those 1990. Government provided $100 million to produce a hybrid in 1994. Where is te hybrid today? Instead those $100 million masked GM no profits and impending bankruptcy. Remember, GM was only four hours from bankruptcy in 1991 - their innovation has been that pathetic for that long. With stifled innovation, then economics punishes society 10 years later.

Arabs are not the problem. A society dominated by those who most successfully stifle innovation - the MBA and the lawyer - are the problem. Hybrid is but another technology stifled for so long that eventually it appeared in Japanese products. As a result, we even have higher energy prices, excessive energy consumption, increasing interest rates, increasing trade imbalances, average incomes that don't even keep pace with inflation, etc.

Where did Arabs create any of this? Nowhere. A trophy of that problem is a 1968 technology vehicle called the SUV. Another trophy is GM engines that still don't even have 1970 technology - the overhead cam. Arabs didn't do any of that. We consumers who failed to buy using free market economics - we created the problem. For example, many of us so hated America as to buy Chevys, Buicks, Pontiacs, and GMC products. Vehicles so bad as to not even routinely exceed their EPA Highway mileage ratings in real world driving. Products so bad that such vehicles must have two extra pistons to only equal what overseas competition did routinely last decade.

Only realistic solution is doing more work with less energy. Everything else is hype and myth.

[MaggieL]

Originally Posted by tw

Another trophy is GM engines that still don't even have 1970 technology - the overhead cam. Arabs didn't do any of that. We consumers who failed to buy using free market economics - we created the problem. For example, many of us so hated America as to buy Chevys, Buicks, Pontiacs, and GMC products. Vehicles so bad as to not even routinely exceed their EPA Highway mileage ratings in real world driving.

CarChip says my 1998 Saturn SC2 is getting 38mpg with its 1.9l DOHC engine.

Maybe they only sold them to lesbians.

[Griff]

tw you ignorant slut. You are addressing (improperly I might add) the wrong problem. The problem is national security. Half-steps, like increasing the efficiency of our use of an enemy controlled comodity, in the face of the rapidly increasing Chinese import of same, is pointless.

[JayMcGee]

mmmmm.... we seem to have drifted slightly off topic...


If you've not heard of Tesla, google him. You will be truly amazed, electrifried and magnetised by this man's ideas.