Why Electric Cars Have Stalled

Jay, i think it has to do with the number of cars built in Canada but sold in the US. since Canadian car standards differ somewhat. the car has to be built specifically for one market or the other...

iow, the canadian bailout is just a US bailout with different colored money is all because its still paying for US mistakes

 

EV's have not stalled, at least not all configurations of electrics...look at the well known "AFS Infinity"....ok, maybe not so well known...but the Saturn Vue is right??

here is a review on a test drive

http://www.afstrinity.com/EV-WORLD-EXCLUSIVE-ARTICLE.pdf

 

There isn't that much difference. Eg: daytime running lights, metric speedo/odo, bilingual labeling etc.

The vast majority of vehicles assembled in Canada are exported to the US. For example, the Chrysler 300 is assembled in Ontario, so are the Dodge/Chrysler minivans. The Toyota Corolla is also assembled in Ontario

 

Indeed. So much for the power and glory of free enterprise. If GM wanted to sell shares to the governments to raise cash, that would be one thing.

 

I suggest Canada pony up the money.

Your calculation based on total population is misguided. There are 58,000 Canadian Auto Workers employed by the automotive sector in Canada. There are 465,000 total United Auto Workers employed in all industry sectors in the US. So more than 10% of all autoworkers are employed in Canada.

You say the Detroit 3 have requested $5.6 Billion from the Canadian government. The Detroit 3 have requested $54 Billion from the US government. These requests are roughly equivalent the level of employment for each country.

If the US government comes up with the money but the Canadian government doesn't I can guess which country will have more plants shutdown and loose more jobs. GM has done this in the past. I remember the UAW strike back in 1997. (I lived in Flint at the time.) The UAW went on strike because GM wanted them to build axle A and the contract said axle B. (No jobs were at stake, just different part numbers) The strike shut down all GM operations within a couple of weeks due to one critical component made at that plant. GM came in at night and moved the tooling for that critical part from the Flint plant to a plant in Ontario. The CAW refused to make the parts. The next contract, that plant in Ontario was shut down. Expect similar treatment this time around if money isn't forthcoming.

From watching the US Congressional hearing, the members were quite insistent that any money provided be used to save US jobs, not Canadian, or Mexican jobs. If the US congress or the Obama administration appoints an oversight board you can easily predict what will happen.

Let's see, Ford has 3 plants that make the F150 and they only need one. One is in Canada, one in Mexico, and one in the US. Which one should we keep?

 

wasnt that 34 billion? but dont get me wrong!! wouldnt surprise me if it was up to 54 B now...

 

$25 billion authorized already for fuel efficient vehicles

$34 billion requested this week and yet to be authorized

That is a total of $59 billion not $54 billion, my mistake.

 

Gee-zus! These numbers are changing on a daily basis!

However, despite the fact that the Canadian subsidiaries of the Big Three don't have to worry about those nasty legacy health care benefit costs, they still appear to need the money

It's not like the Big Three haven't already suckled from the Canadian taxpayer teat:

New $120 Million General Motors of Canada Automotive Centre of Excellence Launched at UOIT | 2008

Ontario Premier: "No Regrets" Over $250m GM Handout | The Truth About Cars

Automotive - Canada government strikes deal with GM for investment in Ontario

The last one in particular. How cute! GM got the gawdam funds based on a promise to maintain a certain minimum employment level, they didn't keep this promise, yet there won't be any "early" repayment required.

I bet they won't have to repay, period

My taxpayer teat is now sore and dry

 

It's all quite understandable if you recognize that government "by ... for ... and of the people" is a fairy tale and always was. The purpose of government is and always has been to transfer wealth from the poor to the rich. At one time that meant the king, the feudal aristocracy, and the landed gentry. In the U.S. at one time it meant land speculators like Washington and Jefferson and the rest, and later it was the robber barons. Nowadays it's the big transnational corporations.

The purpose of government today is to take money from you and me and give it to big corporations like the "big 3" and the oil companies, and all the rest. The complicated part is keeping the public believing otherwise, and keeping the working poor and middle class fighting among themselves, so they never notice they're all being robbed by the same folks.

The bank bailout, the auto bailout, the S&L bailout before them, these are all just business as usual. It's no different than the tribute that conquered nations had to pay to Rome, or the days of free labor that peasants used to have to give to the lord of the manor.

 

Would you say that's true of ALL governments, or only those taken over by the corporate agenda? Hmm...never mind, I think I answered my own question.

 

Yep, you did

Depressing, isn't it? Try heavy drinking, works for me

I think it's cute how people who are opposed to social programs that attempt to help individuals and families, are suddenly cheering for GM et al. Sorry, in my eye, socialism is all the same, whether individual or corporate

 

My parents lived through the Great Depression - which was actually pretty mild compared to what happened in Europe. Their parents understood the cozy relationship between gov and corp, instilled that belief in my parents, and thus my parents programmed me to believe it to

What I find bizarre is that folks who would normally be opposed to Socialist programs intended to improve individual and family lives, don't appear to have any problem supporting corporate welfare

I'm sure you're well aware of my stance on corporate welfare. For example, my extreme rants over Crown Corps up here that shovel billions into businesses that *still* fail. If the business is well managed, and has a great product the entire world wants, they will be successful. Then, the taxpayer money is nothing more than a perk

Consider Research In Motion, maker of the BlackBerry. A Canadian company, RIM has proven they are capable of developing a product everybody wants, including the US government

 

Those aren't very convincing articles:

The first to about a $120M joint-venture tech center being built at a Canadian University. From reading the article it appears that the investments are: $58M Ontario, $5M universities, $60M GM, EDS, HP, Siemens, Sun Microsystems + 5 other unnamed corporate sponsors. So the Ontario government and 10 major corporations are going in 50/50 on a tech center to let students learn hands on with engineers. Where is the handout?

The second is about the Ontario and local governments giving tax breaks and tax holidays to GM in return for a plant. They probably also gave GM the land and developed the site with roads and utilities. Now GM has cut back production at one of the plants. This is standard practice. Governments give tax breaks to companies to companies to build a plant. The government is happy to do this because the plant will employ people and stimulate the local economy. The government will see increased revenue in the form of increased Sales and personal income taxes. Now if they didn't give the corporate tax breaks (property / business taxes), they wouldn't get the plant and the jobs and tax revenue (sales / income taxes) that goes with it.

I'll give you a US version of this. Back in 2004 when Toyota was shopping for a site for their new assembly plant, TN developed a site just north of Chattanooga. They didn't get the plant it went to Mississippi. If you drive north on I-75 you will find a mysterious exit to nowhere. This is the industrial park that was developed for Toyota. Now 4 year later they won the new VW assembly plant mostly because they had a turn-key site ready to go.

Your third link goes to some Chinese site that requires registration.

I idea that a tax break is a giveaway or investment is crazy.

 

Sorry about that. We get it through work, and I was already logged in. Ignore it

It's kind of obvious that you support corporate welfare, and I don't. I did find a link from the Canadian Taxpayers Federation

Fighting for Taxpayers: No to Auto-Bail-outs

The Big Three in Canada can also dip into Crown Corporation funding that is generally exempt from audit or reporting. The CTF has submitted Access To Information requests for years, and the link I posted above is the result of this work

When one considers how poorly the taxpayer investment is performing in the auto sector in Canada, why should further funds be allocated? Why should we keep reaching for our wallets when they have proven how irresponsible they are?

It's like giving money to a wino on the street. The wino will only wander into a liquor store and get another bottle

 

A common misconception is to use "socialism" and "welfare" as though they were synonymous. Historically, socialist countries have implemented strong welfare programs, but the two are very different things, and there's no reason that a welfare state must be socialist or that a socialist state must have welfare.

Welfare normally means a social safety net to protect people who cannot survive economically in the existing economic system. The term "corporate welfare" is a misnomer which implies that welfare is a bad thing and seeks to equate the theft of billions by big business via corrupt politicians, with the idea of providing the bare necessities of life to people who have fallen through the cracks. "Corporate welfare" is not welfare at all, it's theft and corruption on a massive scale.

Socialism is an economic system in which production is owned and controlled by labor, rather than by capital, and the benefits or losses of an enterprise are enjoyed or suffered by the workers, rather than by the investors.

The old Soviet Union was neither socialist nor communist. It was a state capitalist system, where production was owned and controlled by capital, but the state owned all the capital, integrated with a very strong welfare system. It claimed to be socialist by propagating the fairy tale that the state acted in the workers' interest, and the strong welfare system helped promote that notion. But it actually worked in the interest of the ruling party officials.

The United States is a corporate capitalist country with a moderate welfare system and a tightly-controlled electoral system which allows it to pretend to be governed democratically while actually being run by big business for the sole benefit of big business. Historically, a large middle class was allowed to exist to insulate the rich from the poor, and to promote the myth of social democracy and social mobility. But as our economic dominance in the world deteriorates and the ruling class finds it necessary to spend money on militaristic adventurism, the middle class is shrinking because the money to support a middle class is needed to secure cheap natural resources militarily from nations that are more and more inclined to demand fair prices for them. We'll spend ten times as much money to steal resources than it would cost us to buy them, because we want to maintain control over the transaction

Some governments are more humane than others, and some are more repressive and cruel than others. Some are more sophisticated than others at presenting the illusion of democracy. But the purpose of government is always to take from the poor and give to the rich.

 

I would agree with that. However, the term "corporate welfare" is widely used in the media, so I chose to go with it. The fact remains that large, corrupt, incompetent corporations expect billions of taxpayer dollars, and I personally refuse to give them one penny

At least Canada could afford to cut the Big Three here a check without onerous debt obligations. The Big Three bailout proposed in the US - which will almost certainly go ahead - can only be funded by mortgaging future generations

 

The irony is, auto regulations are top heavy BECAUSE of the auto industry. If it hadn't been for horribly made cars (take the Pinto fires for example ... or the Vegas falling apart as fast as Ugo's) the Fed's wouldn't have had tor over-regulate. Virtually NOTHING came via auto manufacturers's initiatives ... whether it be seat belts, cat converters, padded dashes, steering colums that wouldn't punch a hole in your lungs during a crash ... no, all regulations have been written in blood.

Thank god the Aptera is 3 wheels. Classified as a motorcycle, it avoids crash testing jillions of 'em ... all the while, they're building it with all the modern safety features of a 4 wheel car ... yet you don't need a motorcycle license ... yet its aerodynamic shape is so low in drag, it doesn't need a ton of horsepower to easily do long distant / freeway speeds. Best of both worlds. I wish GM could have brought something like this to market a decad ago when they weren't so close to the brink of BKO. Oh wait ... they DID bring something to market ... the EV1. Never mind.

 

That may be true in CA, where you have to be to get one, assuming you ever actually can get one. But each state has its own regulations. In WA you need a trike endorsement to drive a 3-wheel vehicle. The endorsement is easy to get, though. A simple "written" (actually computer-screen) test, and an easy driving test.

However, skipping the crash testing is not a good idea for a freeway-capable vehicle. All the "designing" in the world will not tell you what will happen in a real-world crash. I'd have bought an Aptera if it had been available when I bought my Xebra. But if I were king, every vehicle that wanted to be street legal would require crash testing.

 

Thanks for the link.

I guess we have different definitions of what "corporate welfare" is. For example, you must think that the tech center described in your first link is welfare. I don't, I see it as a mutually beneficial project. The companies benefit because the students will be working on their projects. The university benefits because their students get industry experience. (The number one complaint about new engineering grads is that they lack the skills necessary to be successful in the industrial environment.)

I don't see tax breaks as giveaways or investment either. Some believe that if the government takes $1 million in taxes instead of $10 million they have "given" the company $9M. I see it as the government took $1M.

Now you don't seem to think that the auto industry provides much to Ontario. That's fine, if the Canadian and Ontario governments agree, they won't support the industry and that industry will disappear. Just be prepared to live with the consequences.

 

there is a lot of buzz going around with a crash test video of the Zenn posted by Transport Canada... it shows some pretty hellacious (say it all the time...always wondered if was a real word...spell check says not...I say it is) damage.

some say it not really applicable because it shows collisions with immovable objects at 25 mph... but in real life there is nearly always a mitigation of a worse case scenario. but then people also posted that particulates spewed by cars are responsible for killing more people in the state of California alone than ALL TRAFFIC DEATHS ANNUALLY IN THE US (granted we can only guesstimate how many people are killed indirectly this way, but even if we triple the mean error of calculations, the numbers are staggering... ya know what i mean)

also, the whole point of going to lighter and smaller vehicles is exactly just that. your odds of surviving are greatly enhanced if you dont hit something that is 3 times your weight (curb weight of my Zenn is around 1200 lbs)...

also combine the number of motorcyclists on the road with the lack of crash protection and you can see, there is no real guarantee of safety NO MATTER WHAT YOU ARE DOING

i think we need to weigh personal situations, responsibilities and actions with the greater good.

do i conserve because of possible shortages in the future, well of course i do... do i think it will affect me personally? yes, to a degree, but not really. i think gas will be expensive within 3 years (at least i hope since gas will not go up again until we are well on our way out of this recession) but because of my personal choices, i will survive and survive well.

but what about my children and the world in general?? i am not proud of the fact that my generation will most likely go down as being the generation that destroyed America

BUT i am also in the group that actually can reverse the damage and do it well enough potentially that the crisis we are in now would not warrant more than a few paragraphs in a middle school history book (now for college level economics there would probably be an entire class devoted to WHAT NOT TO DO)