Re: Congress Passes H-Prize

Lots of replies. I do understand the laws of physics, economics and even
some politics.
I don't think market forces alone will work, nor would a command economy.
Even Goldilocks found "just right", why can't we?
We are at war and have been told we will be at war till some fuzzy goal
is met.
We are in debt, big time and continue to fund our potential enemies.
The planet is melting.
Is peace, clean air and abundant energy so far fetched?
Hell let's just do it!

Donald Qualls wrote:
> Alex Fraser wrote:
>> I think the H-Prize is a good idea.  We must progress.  However I 
>> think the congress could do better.
>>
>>
>> -Increase mileage standards for new cars.  Include trucks of all kinds.
>>
>>
>> -free mass transit.
>>
>>
>> -Big tax breaks for getting rid of your gas hog. 
>>
>> -Huge tax on gas now!  Force the market to react.
>>
>>
>> Work the problem at both ends.  Make it as important as the Manhattan 
>> project.  Do it as soon as we get good leadership (don't hold your 
>> breath).
>>
>> Sorry to post politics, but I don't think it's primarily a technical 
>> problem.
>>
>
> The problem with financial incentives is that they will *ALWAYS* 
> penalize those who can't afford to replace their vehicle even with 
> them.  I drive a fifteen year old van (mostly because it was running 
> and the other car wasn't when the landlady said we had to get the dead 
> vehicle out of the back yard -- there was no money to fix the second 
> car, so we sold it for $50).  I get poor mileage, and compensate 
> (mostly) by driving very little -- at 13-14 mpg, I get 4 weeks on a 20 
> gallon tank (with great care and some planning, I can just about make 
> six weeks).
>
> If gas went up to, say, $5/gal due to increased taxes (it'd have to 
> get there to serve as an incentive for the "gas prices don't bother 
> me" crowd), the van would be parked; it'd cost more than I can spend 
> to fill it once a month.  No tax break for getting rid of it would 
> begin to pay for a replacement vehicle of any kind (I don't see the 
> Feds buying me a car, which is what it would take) -- and my wife 
> wouldn't be happy walking 2 1/2 miles to work and back on her bad 
> knees.  The free mass transit, I guarantee, wouldn't cover the trip 
> she makes (outward from town, and in a smallish town anyway, where 
> "mass transit" means there's a bus every other hour if you're on one 
> of the four routes), and it'd be years before it got implemented if 
> there was more to it than just waiving the fare for the existing routes.
>
> And increasing mileage standards (if the onset of CAFE in the 1980s is 
> any indication) mostly serves to push up prices on the cars people 
> want to drive, in order to try to push sales over to those that meet 
> the mileage standard -- as well as leading to disasters on wheels like 
> the Pinto, Yugo, etc.  The only way a mileage standard will help much 
> is if it applies to *every* vehicle, not just to a fleet average 
> weighted by sales.
>
> If I could afford an electric car, it would do 100% of the driving I 
> undertake in an average month, even with a top speed of only 70 mph 
> and range of only 70 miles.  If I had a few thousand dollars lying 
> around, I'd be tempted to buy a junked car in the class of a Honda 600 
> or similar and build a little electric -- the speed control would be 
> the only really difficult part, and it'd pay for itself in a year 
> compared to buying gas.  Unfortunately, I can't even afford the 
> batteries I'd need, much less the rest of the pieces...
>


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............ Alex Fraser ............
......... [email protected] .......
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