The Gazette
30 S. Prospect St.
Colorado Springs, CO 80903
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http://www.gazette.com

The following article appeared in the Colorado Springs Gazette, Wednesday, April 1, 2008 - 10:40PM.

“GOING ALL GREEN NOT QUITE SO EASY

California regulators face reality on mandate

Once again utopian thinking combined with top-down government coercion falls short when reality bites.”

http://www.gazette.com/opinion/warming_34852___article.html/arb_global.html

 

My reply:

 

Are we to understand from this article, that Global warming is not a problem,

 

the auto industry does not have the technology to build Battery Electric Vehicles,

 

the CARB can't legislate technology break throughs,

 

and the auto industry has not had sufficient lead time?

 

 

Most of the EV community sees this as a defeat because the numbers are down from the 25,000 or so originally in the mandate.  

 

The CARB has failed, not because we don't have the technology, and that can't be legislated into existence, but because there is power struggle going on over the future role of Oil in this country and around the world.

 

You may have seen "Who Killed the Electric Car".  It has a great deal of information on this power struggle.  There is a lot to absorb there.  The key points are that we have the technology to build Battery Electric Vehicles that work and last.  The Toyota RAV4 EV is extant evidence of this.  The EV1s were called back and crushed by GM.  They would be further evidence, if they had not been crushed and would belie claims by GM that their Volt is waiting for battery technology.

 

 

The EV1 and the RAV4 EV were powered by NiMH batteries (nickel Metal Hydride batteries).  You have these same batteries, in a smaller form factor, in your hybrid.  They work and they last.  They hold twice the energy of lead acid batteries in half the weight.  The fact is the state of California can not legislate technology into existence.  But they don't need to.  We have the technology.  There are hundreds of RAV4 EVs on the road today with their original batteries traveling over a hundred miles on a charge.

 

For $13,000 dollars, your Hybrid car can be modified today, to do what the Volt promises to do.  If it was mass produced as a Plug-in Hybrid, it would be much cheaper.

 

Ironically, GM held the patent for those batteries, the ones in your Hybrid car, and they sold it to Chevron. Why?

 

I don't agree with the article in its conclusions.  They are buying into GM's and Chevron's spin, that says we don't have the technology and the Auto Industry has not had sufficient lead time.  How much time do they need?  The technology was in the EV1 and the Rav4 EV over ten years ago.

 

 

No, I don't agree with the article.  I believe we have the technology and the Auto Industry has had sufficient lead time.  Further, I believe it is a national security issue.  Our presence in Iraq is, I believe, because of our interest in region stability, to the end that Oil keeps flowing.

 

Who Killed the Electric Car?  Maybe it's the media with articles like this one.  The electric car is inevitable.  If it weren't, Corporate America wouldn't be fighting it so hard.  Corporate oil is scared of the Battery Electric Vehicle.

 

What corporation in its right mind, would spend over a billion dollars in research and development, then recall the product and crush it and then sell the patent necessary to build the product to a company profiting from an alternate technology?  We live in a world of corporate insanity or is it greed?  It must be insanity; it is hard to see how GM will profit from this in the long run.

 

The Government has no problem passing the Patriot Act to limit personal liberties in interest of National Security.  They should regulate industry in the interest of National Security with the same zeal.

 

 

Here is a link to my web site.

http://www.evprogress.org/index.htm

 

If you are really interested in this subject, checkout "Letters Written" at the bottom of the page.  "Why Electric" may also be of interest.

 

Cheers,

Al Lococo

 

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