is the government making a mistake focusing on electric car subsidies?

Author: n8nrgim

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#1
n8nrgim
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i mean, it's good to subsidize alternative fuel, cause it speeds up the transition to those sources. but i hear things like how hydorgen engines are making lots of break throughs recently. what if hydrogen makes more sense technologically, but economically electric cars have the advantage due to excess subsidies? maybe the government should give blanket tax credits to alternative energy sources, and let the chips fall where they may. 

note, this is a hybrid free market argument. i recognize that government intervention could be a good thing, but i still see how tinkering in the market could distort maximum economic/technological progress. 
#2
oromagi
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Advantages of Hydrogen

  • You can refuel quickly- like a gas tank
Advantages of Electric

  • Much cheaper- a full tank of hydrogen costs 8 times a fully charged electric vehicle
  • Electric is production ready now.  America could switch to all electric in tens years with the right leadership.  Hydrogen is nowhere close to ready
  • Current hydrogen production is heavily dependent on fossil fuels.  That's also true of electric but electric has green alternative sources that hydrogen lacks.
  • green sources have the potential of reducing waste heat
The big question is battery tech.  Right now, battery tech has hit certain weight/storage/disposal limits that seem difficult to overcome.  For example, a hydrogen fueled plane or train that's big and fast is far more likely in the near future than an electric plane.

#3
zedvictor4
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@n8nrgim
How about encouraging people to not pointlessly drive about all day.

Watch cars on the highway, and you will see a string of five seaters all with just one person in them.


People always want to be somewhere other than where they are.

Maybe it's just a response to the old hunter gathering instinct.


Interestingly, prior to just 137 years ago, as a species we managed quite well without cars.

in fact, I can't think of any other species that is reliant upon motor transport.


In an evolutionary context, perhaps it would be more prudent to start discouraging the unnecessary, and concentrate more on the necessary.


Ah!....But the motor industry.

And the GOD of money rears it's ugly head. 
#4
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yes it's a mistake
#5
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@n8nrgim
i recognize that government intervention could be a good thing, but i still see how tinkering in the market could distort maximum economic/technological progress. 

You should read up on how much damage the government has done to the environment by subsidizing Ethanol the past 50 years.
#6
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#7
sadolite
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The govt never makes mistakes. What you or I would call a mistake or a colossal failure the govt looks at it as unavoidable collateral damage.  Results are meaningless to the govt. Intentions are what matters. It doesn't matter if those intentions kill, poison, disfigure, marginalize, humiliate, or destroy fiscally thousand or even millions of people.  It was the intention that mattered.
#8
zedvictor4
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50 years is a moment.

And things developed.

So we applied progress

With little regard for the future

And we blame everyone but ourselves

And a generation of petrol heads 

Are well and truly stuck in the past 


#9
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@sadolite
unavoidable collateral damage

Unintended consequences is a feature of central planners, not a bug.
#10
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@zedvictor4
And we blame everyone but ourselves

There's no reason to blame the individual when our entire lives are managed by central planners.
#11
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@Greyparrot
So you are in effect advocating anarchy again.

The thing is, that without planning and planners we would still be living in caves, fearful of every thing that moved.

Planning and planners is how human society has evolved.

And you're either a planner or not.

And if you're not a planner, then that's your fault and not the fault of the planners.

So you just become one of the millions that whinges from the side lines and always think that they could have done better.
#12
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@zedvictor4
Change for the sake of change is pretty much what planners do today. Their plans are not based on what the people want or need but what they (THE PLANNERS) want.  They get what they want by scare tactics and end of the world doomsday BS. Hell, since 1970 the world should have ended 7 or 8 times over. I should be 20 feet under water right now according to planners.
#13
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@sadolite
See above.


Your getting older, set in your ways and are fearful and reluctant to accept change.....That's typical behaviour.

Or perhaps you think that we should still all be riding horses.

Now, the biggest change in our lifetimes was the advent of the technological age.....So did you resist this in favour of the Pony Express.

I expect not, because you were younger and more able to mentally cope with the change.

But now it's........ Electric cars?........ How preposterous, what ever next?......A gas guzzling truck never did me any harm.


And we will die very soon, and another bunch of non achievers that failed to  make it into the planning elite, will stand on the side-lines of evolution and whinge about change.

And the planners will plan and will continue to plan and in a relatively short period of time, everything will have changed beyond all recognition.