Guess what though, when it comes to corporate vs government abuse and problems to the country, the corporations are doing far worse atm and they have far less keeping them in check than the government.
That's what we like to call "a matter of opinion".
Corporations don't take billions of my tax dollars to waste on projects that only benefit a tiny fraction of the populace, and the government does that
all the time. The government also did lovely things like
requiring Fannie Mae to acquire a sufficient number of mortgages issued to people of below-median income so as to constitute almost 60% of their portfolio.
Because encouraging banks to issue millions of sub-prime mortgages would
never have consequences, right?
Do you know how much marketing was done for the EV1? Very little to none. They didn't even TRY to create a market for the car. And don't give me anything about how people wouldn't go for it. It gave the mileage needed for most Americans and it saved money, especially given gas prices today and how they continue to go up. There easily could have been a market for it if people were made more aware of it. That's part of a company's job. To create a god damn market for their product. New things often need to have a market created. There has been tons of shit we have today that people years ago would have gone "why do I need that?" but the clever marketing departments of the companies made people believe they did need em and so now a lot of people have them.
GM spent $10 million dollars in the first year for advertising. That's respectable, considering that, in that first year, they managed to lease an
incredible 288 cars.
Essentially, GM spent the sticker price of an EV1 in advertising for every EV1 leased that year.
And then they spent millions more.
So, bullshit on your "they didn't advertise!" claim. It's just that they didn't see much
return from their advertising.
How can you explain them not even trying to create a market? How can you explain the oil companies actively spending to try and make the EV1 seem downright worse for the environment? How can you explain the fact a better battery that offered even more mileage and incredibly more efficiently than the previous was forced to be kept quiet by GM after buying majority shares of the company that created? Oh wait, that's an easy answer. It's because these companies didn't want the EV1 out. Not because there wasn't a market. Hell, Tesla is doing pretty well and they have done well because they've been marketing and actually getting people interested by advertising for their car. GM coulda done the same easily. Here's the thing though, do you know where a lot of profits for the car industry comes in? Oil filters, oil, etc. The various parts of a car that current oil engines require to be replaced constantly over the course of the car's short life. So much money.
The NiMH battery pack for the EV1 did increase the range, somewhat, aye.
It also took longer to charge, required the air conditioning to be running in order to
cool the battery (thus significantly limiting the hoped-for range increase), and was more expensive, on a vehicle that was already something on the order of $14,000 dollars more costly than its contemporaries.
And the parts market would have been there for the EV1. The problem was, there were so few of them on the roads (
because people didn't want them), that producing those parts would have been in very limited runs, raising the cost. GM wouldn't have made money selling parts for the EV1 not because it was such a technological marvel, but because there were so damn few of them.
And they'd have had to keep producing those parts for 15 years,
by law. So the "GM pulled all the cars off the road because they didn't want people to see how awesome electric cars are!" claim is also bullshit.
I call bullshit at your claim the electric car isn't viable and Tesla is proof that people are buying and a company can thrive. It's still very new, but I do foresee them taking the market considering they are working to make their cars far more cost effective. Something GM could have done with the EV1 had they worked to create a mass production facility for it. Instead they left it at hand made for the most part that drove the costs up.
...
Have you
ever done a cost analysis of electric cars?
I have.
I have a friend who has, as well. His was far more detailed than mine, and I think I shall link it in at this point. It's incredibly extensive, and based on worst-case analysis for
internal combustion vehicles.
Here it be.
Ultimately, the sad truth is this: From the perspective of the consumer, barring a very particular scenario in which the government radically increases taxes on gasoline, and maintains the already-significant tax breaks on hybrid/electric vehicles, a reasonably efficient internal combustion vehicle will cost them substantially less over the lifetime of the car.
In short, even
hybrids are only viable because people like to think that they're saving the planet.
And you don't think those people suppressing it are doing what they can to buy people off in areas to help suppress it? Listen, if a truly efficient energy means was discovered (and quite a few potential ones have been, but require more testing) I have no doubt eventually they would. But they won't jump to it. Hell, it took government intervention to even get new things pushed for. it took government intervention to get air bags, catalytic converters and other things to be in our cars today. Things the companies (oil, cars, etc) had no interest in really bothering with because it increased their costs to make a car.
That's because air bags and catalytic converters don't offer any technical
advantages to a vehicle outside of consumer brand perception. A car with a catalytic converter costs more money, and for the purpose of a vehicle (transportation from point A to B) is functionally identical to a car without one.
The role of government
is to occasionally step in and force the creation of certain objects. In a way, you can look at catalytic converters as a form of public good. Better air quality for everyone, paid for by everyone.
Honestly, the reason I say a lot of people are blind is because you come off as that. You ignore history and the specific examples of corporations purposely shutting down innovation (the new battery that could have made the EV1 even more efficient and go even further) and ignore how companies are ALWAYS hesitant to change. They might want to be the #1 in new things, but guess what? They aren't actually doing much in terms of actual research. No, the research is done by education facilities funded largely by the government and then also by corporations. Sure corporations donate a fair amount, but the government funds more research than corporations. That is, actual research. Now applied research is more the corporation side, but that is well after the actual research is done (and it's usually decades before research is entered into applied research).
I already debunked your bullshit claim about the NiMH battery for the EV1.
And given that my father spent the entirety of his working life as a research chemist, I'm rather surprised at this particular claim.
Oh, that's right, because like every other claim you've made, it's
bullshit.
Private industry funds over 60% of the research done in this country, and provides the facilities for about 70% of it. Moreover, the vast,
vast majority of that money is spent on marketable research, rather than the typical governmental "how many fruit flies will a bat eat over its lifespan?" sort of abstract knowledge based research.
And, even about the donation bit, as I said before. Once they DONATE they should get no damn say in how the research or its results takes place. No other normal person gets to have that right to say to the places they donate. Corporations shouldn't either. If they want to hire and pay themselves for the entire research process, so be it. But in actual donations to other institutes? Well, to hell with them trying to feel they have a right to say after they donated. This isn't a business deal, it's a donation. If they want to make it a business deal ok, whatever, but that causes a whole other slew of problems.
See aforementioned line about bats and fruit flies. It's small wonder that they'd want to have people involved in the grant process.
Because, you know, that's how a grant works. You submit a proposal, a board reviews it, and decides if you get money.
The university does
not just hand free money out to anyone who wants to conduct research on campus.
I'm not asking for government to be everywhere btw, I think there are places government needs to stay the hell outta (people's personal life where they harm no one other than themselves as in drugs or gambling or whatever else) but I do think Government should and must be in places that effects people greatly such as prisons (there's a reason our prison system has gone to hell, we used to have the envy of the world when it came to our prison system and whatnot, but Ronald Reagan basically said "fuck prisoners" and made it worse and its gone down hill since, there's a good book on it, I'll try and find it again), hospitals, education, utilities (electricity and water) and basically things that are essential to the ability of a person to live.
The reason our prison system has gone to hell is because we have too damn many prisoners.
We have too damn many prisoners because the
government decided that mandatory sentencing was a good way to discourage drug crime.
Edit: I do have to ask, do you people think if we actually taxed our corporations (i.e. cut a lot of the loopholes out and they were actually taxed at the tax rate they are supposed to, as in no more corporations paying 0% in taxes) that they'd leave? This isn't exactly on the same topic, but it's related
cause I love that silly flawed argument tbh. They wouldn't leave. And if they did all it'd take is for those around left to say "look at this company, leaving because they don't want to support America" and then bam, public boycott (or you could tax them trying to sell to Americans) and that company will likely die and another will take its place. Considering Americans are the #1 consumers of products on the planet they would never do anything (like leave) to piss off Americans. The only problem at the moment with so many leaving is that people aren't educated enough because no one is saying anything cause the corporations have bought our news and our politicians and most other public areas -_-
The average American doesn't read all that much, doesn't especially care that their consumer goods are made in China by corporations who have no safety oversight, by Chinese managers who are under vast pressure to produce results at all cost and will do things like put toxic chemicals into baby formula in order to fool the sensors into thinking it has a sufficiently high protein count.
The corporations have bought our media, mostly because
they already owned it. The media
is, and always has been run by corporations.
And it's irrelevant to this particular issue.
The fact of the matter is that there might be some minor consumer backlash if a corporation moved its tax structure out of the country, but for the most part, people would forget rather quickly.
It's also a very minor concern. It would take substantial tax increases to make it truly worthwhile for a corporation to find it worthwhile to move to some tax shelter country; closing the loopholes would result in a reduction in profits, but not a removal of them.
