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Of course. but they are very fashionable, so we must subsidize them massively. Of course it might make more sense to tax the pollution than for government to

Of course. but they are very fashionable, so we must subsidize them massively. Of course it might make more sense to tax the pollution than for government to try to pick the next technology. Didn't George Bush tell us it was going to be hydrogen cars? Now its supposed to be electric, but who knows what will actually happen in reality? When you pick one technology and give it all of the advantages, it makes it all that much harder for competing technologies to succeed. A level playing field is best. We have an entire industry of people trying to figure out what technologies will win. They compete with each other and have all kinds of different backgrounds and differing opinions. And they learn as they go, something Washington seems incapable of doing.

NickM 16y ago
I don't think the government is interfering as much as you think it is. EVs have been in the pipe for a while now, and the tax credits for them (at least in the US) are only a couple years old. If there were some other promising type of alternative vehicle coming out, I'm sure there would be tax credits for them as well, but right now there aren't really any other practical alternatives to EVs.
- stretchwithme 16y ago
  Its $5000 from California and up to $7500 from the Feds. Which is exactly how much interference I think it is. And all policies start. After a couple of years, a tax credit is always only a couple of years old. I don't see how long a policy has been in please is relevant in deciding whether it should be.
  - jseliger 16y ago
    Considering the foreign policy externalities that our oil consumption generates (even leaving aside the environmental ones for now), I wish the feds and the states would subsidize electric cars more and fight wars in the Middle East less.
    - stretchwithme 16y ago
      Or simply stay out of the Middle East and let the market cope with any fluctuations in the price of oil. Unpredictability is a cost and people are quite capable of deciding how much is too much. By the way, a lot of the additional electricity required for electric vehicles will have to be generated by burning oil.
stellar678 16y ago
Hydrogen cars are just electric cars with a fuel cell instead of a battery. (Unless you're talking hydrogen internal combustion, but that's not the major drive in hydrogen powered vehicles.) The problem with taking a hands-off approach to competing technologies is that it's not a level playing field with the entrenched technologies at all. There are subsidies and externalized costs all the way along the hydrocarbon supply chain.
Luc 16y ago
> When you pick one technology and give it all of the advantages, it makes it all that much harder for competing technologies to succeed. A level playing field is best. Haha, that is exactly what I was thinking - we've already picked combustion engines, the infrastructure for which is now solidly entrenched. This status-quo is very unlikely to be broken without additional incentives, so subsidies seem to me a good way of getting out of a local optimum.
- stretchwithme 16y ago
  the kind of engine was picked by the market, not by government, but yes, the infrastructure is a massive subsidy for the automobile. If we had to pay the actual costs directly, our behavior would change. I am all for ending this subsidy. We'd have higher prices at peak times and flatter demand and less need to gobble of land for highways. But what technology people use to drive on any road is another question entirely. But it seems government can never undo any policy. It must always layer some other policy on top of it. Until the whole structure collapses under its own weight and a younger smarter country invades.
  - Luc 16y ago
    True, but that kind of change would need massive support from voters, so it is unlikely to happen in any real-world democracy.
    - stretchwithme 16y ago
      yeah, people are conditioned to overpay for many things, such as government, and to expect other things to be free. Tell them they'll be paying $20 a week for their roads and that their taxes will be going down $30 a week, they will scream about how terrible it is.
- olefoo 16y ago
  > the infrastructure for which is now solidly entrenched This is one of the reasons you have for making choices and having mandated standards for interoperability. Building infrastructure is expensive and if you do it right it lasts for a long time. From an infrastructure standpoint electric cars have some serious advantages over hydrogen, since we already have extensive experience building electrical infrastructure. And it should be possible to improve batteries without replacing entire vehicles. And electric vehicles create an opening for small entreprneurial companies to try out new devices in ways that hydrogen with it's high barriers to entry and need for a massive infrastructure upgrade do not.

NickM 16y ago

I don't think the government is interfering as much as you think it is. EVs have been in the pipe for a while now, and the tax credits for them (at least in the US) are only a couple years old. If there were some other promising type of alternative vehicle coming out, I'm sure there would be tax credits for them as well, but right now there aren't really any other practical alternatives to EVs.

stretchwithme 16y ago
Its $5000 from California and up to $7500 from the Feds. Which is exactly how much interference I think it is. And all policies start. After a couple of years, a tax credit is always only a couple of years old. I don't see how long a policy has been in please is relevant in deciding whether it should be.
- jseliger 16y ago
  Considering the foreign policy externalities that our oil consumption generates (even leaving aside the environmental ones for now), I wish the feds and the states would subsidize electric cars more and fight wars in the Middle East less.
  - stretchwithme 16y ago
    Or simply stay out of the Middle East and let the market cope with any fluctuations in the price of oil. Unpredictability is a cost and people are quite capable of deciding how much is too much. By the way, a lot of the additional electricity required for electric vehicles will have to be generated by burning oil.

stellar678 16y ago

Hydrogen cars are just electric cars with a fuel cell instead of a battery. (Unless you're talking hydrogen internal combustion, but that's not the major drive in hydrogen powered vehicles.) The problem with taking a hands-off approach to competing technologies is that it's not a level playing field with the entrenched technologies at all. There are subsidies and externalized costs all the way along the hydrocarbon supply chain.

Luc 16y ago

> When you pick one technology and give it all of the advantages, it makes it all that much harder for competing technologies to succeed. A level playing field is best. Haha, that is exactly what I was thinking - we've already picked combustion engines, the infrastructure for which is now solidly entrenched. This status-quo is very unlikely to be broken without additional incentives, so subsidies seem to me a good way of getting out of a local optimum.

stretchwithme 16y ago
the kind of engine was picked by the market, not by government, but yes, the infrastructure is a massive subsidy for the automobile. If we had to pay the actual costs directly, our behavior would change. I am all for ending this subsidy. We'd have higher prices at peak times and flatter demand and less need to gobble of land for highways. But what technology people use to drive on any road is another question entirely. But it seems government can never undo any policy. It must always layer some other policy on top of it. Until the whole structure collapses under its own weight and a younger smarter country invades.
- Luc 16y ago
  True, but that kind of change would need massive support from voters, so it is unlikely to happen in any real-world democracy.
  - stretchwithme 16y ago
    yeah, people are conditioned to overpay for many things, such as government, and to expect other things to be free. Tell them they'll be paying $20 a week for their roads and that their taxes will be going down $30 a week, they will scream about how terrible it is.
olefoo 16y ago
> the infrastructure for which is now solidly entrenched This is one of the reasons you have for making choices and having mandated standards for interoperability. Building infrastructure is expensive and if you do it right it lasts for a long time. From an infrastructure standpoint electric cars have some serious advantages over hydrogen, since we already have extensive experience building electrical infrastructure. And it should be possible to improve batteries without replacing entire vehicles. And electric vehicles create an opening for small entreprneurial companies to try out new devices in ways that hydrogen with it's high barriers to entry and need for a massive infrastructure upgrade do not.