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Originally Posted by Trooth
a 40% improvement in fuel consumption is quoted for one of the cars here.
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40% is significant in 1 car, when deducted from the millions of cars, and all of the other uses, it's nothing. The Geo Metro gets about the same mileage, as the cars on that page, with a gas engine, should it get tax breaks too?
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Originally Posted by Trooth
The problem with investing in R&D is that it produces ever more sophisticated systems that are expensive to produce due to small volume.
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Actually electric motors have become less technical, require less maintainance and often cost less, deducting inflation, than the ones produced 10 years ago. Sadly this was about the last time any real breakthroughs were made, and it was done with new technology used to create smaller wire, that was, if I remember correctly, created under a research grant at a college here in the states. The story goes that they sent a sample to a Japanese college that was working on the same thing, just to show off. The Japanese college used a special water drill to drill a hole through it lengthwise and create the worlds smallest copper tubing. They sent it back to the States, just to show off. (That has nothing to do with anything, but it's a fun story.)
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Originally Posted by Trooth
exactly what happened to the SUV
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Actually, it was a tax break for the rich, those vehicles can't be afforded by normal people.
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Originally Posted by Trooth
drove down the cost of the SuV
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Here the price of SUVs has gone up at about the same rate as any other car, and there is relatively no difference in the tech used.
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Originally Posted by Trooth
Also, lets remember that cars of 50 years were dirtier, slower, less safe, less efficient, less packed with toys and features and more expensive. It wasn't one off R&D that produced modern cars with a gap of 50 years, it was the competition in the market.
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Exactly my point, it took 50 years to get this far, and it took the government forcing stricter fuel efficency standards to do it. Bad thing is, with hybreds, the auto manufacturers, the ones making the money, don't know anything about electric motors or high technology batteries. They will just buy ones for their hybreds, and even if 100,000 are sold a year, it will barely touch the current motor/battery market. Also remember most of these companies are cutting costs in an attempt to keep up with profit margins, the first thing cut is R&D, one of the reasons motors have stagnated in the free trade world.
I would just rather see any tax breaks, which is the same as government spending, to go into old ladies pension funds through investment, instead of giving someone, who allready has money, $200 for a car they would have bought anyway.
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Originally Posted by Trooth
mate.
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I love your accent.
