Actually, you are not staying on topic, on topic would have been discussing your contention of how there wouldn't be technological innovation in the future to make the electric cars cheaper and more efficient and also how none of the benefits of those improvements would make it to the U.S.Ok staying completely on topic...How do youfigure that the Volt will keep laid off workers on the job when 2/3rds of the jobs supporting the Volt will be based in China, South Korea etc. Also, zero US payroll taxes are collected from those Chinese and South Korean subcontract workers. Yes sales tax will be collected on the sale of Volts, offset by a net tax revenue 'loss' of the $7,500 federal tax credit
That point notwithstanding, I’d like to see the source that confirms that 2/3’s of the workers involved in manufacturing the Volt are from outside the U.S. Even if they were however, 1/3 of the jobs is better than NONE of the jobs. This car was pretty much 100% designed and developed in the U.S., there were hundreds of U.S. companies and thousands of jobs involved in that aspect of the project over the past several years. In addition there are thousands and thousands of U.S. jobs and companies outside of the manufacture of the Volt that will and have directly benefited by the Volt; the advertising companies that will advertise it, the freight companies that deliver those foreign components to the U.S. factory, the sales staff, secretaries and receptionists at sales and service offices, equipment makers who built the equipment to assemble the cars, companies that will maintain and repair that equipment printers to print all the literature, forms and marketing materiels , public relation firms, banks who provided financing, accountants for the company, accountants for the employees tax returns, technicians to do service, pizza places to deliver pizza’s to the various Volt staff for lunch, legal firms, catering companies who will take care of holiday parties, office supply companies for all the desks, chairs, printers computers, paper that will be used in hundreds of Volt related offices, cleaning companies to clean all the offices and showrooms, it’s endless. All those transactions will generate payroll and/or sales tax that is NOT offset by tax-credits.
The Volt saves fuel costs by providing a round trip commute of under 35 miles (75% of commuters) on full battery for about $1.50. Electricity isn’t solely generated by coal but also by solar, hydro and other renewable methods. This proportion will increase in the future as technology improves.The volt only appears to save on fuel costs by avoiding the payment of appropriate road tax and by the de-facto substitution from high priced gasoline to lower priced coal ( at the power plants being used to charge them ). If coal fired power plants are carbon limited, electricity prices based on natgas generation will quickly rise.
Here is an example. Solar Trees are being manufactured and sold by several U.S. companies and also responsible for hundreds of U.S jobs. These units provide energy that can charge the cars, help power the building and even sell excess power to the utility company.
http://solarpowerauthority.com/solar-car-ports-and-electric-cars/
http://www.jetsongreen.com/2008/06/solar-trees-env.html
http://gas2.org/2009/10/26/dell-builds-solar-trees-for-parking-lot/
http://www.enn.com/top_stories/article/16264
Here is a solar charger under development by Toyota
http://green.autoblog.com/2010/08/23...ns-opens-in-t/
First off, it’s better to protect the environment where these cars are than not at all. Secondly, most of the environmental damage caused by rare earth processing is avoidable by preventing the toxic acids used from getting into the water supply. There is a lot more scrutiny on this now and safeguards are increasingly being put into place.The Volt only appears to protect the environment in the immediate area where it is driven. However, the environmental damage done in China in order to produce batteries and rare earth magnet motors for the Volt is truly horrible.
This has been my point through the whole thread- they are far from perfect right now, but with a little push and some incentives they can easily be improved until the point where they are cheaper and more efficient and with the added benefit of minimizing harm to the environment. We’re not that far off, we’ve already got some pretty well designed cars. All we really need is some more innovations to get costs and consumer prices down and increased technology with items like the solar trees to get the electricity from non-polluting sources. In the process we create a lot of jobs, stimulate the economy and decrease our reliance on foreign oil.There are so many 'stealth' subsidies involved in electric vehicles, and so many real world negative factors that are ignored and/or discounted, yet electric vehicles still aren't close to being price competitive with high efficiency gasoline engine
Here are some other innovations and a taste of what’s on the way:
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2007...bishi_unve.php
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2007/05/solar_hybrid_ca.php



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