Well union of conerned scientists, ralph nader, the big 3 auto companies, most environmentalists all decided it was a bad program and those groups rarely all agree on anything. Tax cuts to individuals aren't government spending so how can that count. Tax breaks to oil companies, those should be killed too bad program. No bid cotracts to halliburton bad program, cut it. Wall street bailout was done badly but needed to be done. Government that made bad loans and supported too big to fail needs to be reformed, bad programs they need to be killed. NO bad programs should be axed period whether it is tax breaks for BP or research into making a a $100K family car. The problem is political agendas keep these things alive well after we know they are bad. Huh. So how would getting an oligopoly to raise fuel economy make them less competitive? That's what gore should have done. Creating a program with little chance of success instead, then keeping it around after it has failed seems like a particular bad use of resources. Ofcourse if you are with a major party you will try and keep bad programs alive for ever. It makes washington bigger, increases your power, and cricism might stop people from funding your next stupid idea. This is a false idea. GM and Chrysler would have gone bankrupt regardless. The shill program just fed money to some labs instead of making these companies competitive. It was done instead of doing the right things to make the auto industry adapt to future price spikes.
Passenger Vehicle Market Shares and the Real Price of Gasoline, 2004 to 2006 Sources: Congressional Budget Office based on data from Automotive News and the Department of Energy, Energy Information Administration 2004 2005 2006 Calendar Year Sales (Millions of vehicles, trucks) 9.4 9.1 8.4 Change from Previous Year (Percent) 6.0 -3.3 -7.8 Calendar Year Sales (Millions of vehicles, trucks) 7.6 7.8 7.5 Change from Previous Year (Percent) -1.2 2.2 -3.6 2008 data: Nearly 10 Billion Fewer Miles Driven in May 2008 than May 2007, 7/28/08 surely that had nothing to do with GM/Chrysler bankruptcy? I am not familiar with "union of conerned scientists" but this is "ad nauseam" right? and we believe this unsupported claim just b/c you repeat "big lie" many times? GM Unveils Concept Car That Gets 80 Miles A Gallon So the program 79.6% funded by private industry is your definition of "wasteful" government program?
The big lie is that this program would have produced any cars that people would have bought. It is repeated now, but when the program was killed no one cared. In fact many liked the freedom car concept better. I think they are both fails. Read that car and driver. The prius was around. Do you think if gm had produced a larger car that was twice as expensive is a little better mileage it would have sold? Maybe 3000 a year? Not exactly a solution. This was done instead of raising cafe standards that would have gotten more fuel efficient cars on the road and reduced SUV production. We have the same problem with ehanol subsidies, a program everyone knows is harmful, but pacs lie and get them in the budget every year. Oil exploration subsidies are the same thing. Most of these bad programs started with good intentions. My rule of thumb is if it is corporate welfare and is not acheiving its goals it needs to be cut. PNGV was a soviet style 10 year plan that got cut after 8 years. Sure we could still be on it, but the US government is very bad at long term planned economy ideas.
Actually it did, patents developed while working on Precept were used in Hybrid Transit buses.. also Volt? On a second thought count Volt out of Precept sheet, but count it in on XP-883 tab. /The XP-883 was an experimental plug-in hybrid car demonstrated by General Motors in 1969/ how many Volts did they sell a month? Also with respect to Toyota: Actually they got sued over patent infringement, and per court order pay 75$(?) per car, hence the price hike. Ford bought license, so they are getting licensing through Ford.
Hi AG, While Toyota was not allowed to participate, it did use allot of the results from the PGNV programs. Specifically, the analysis of the Gen 1 MG2, which resulted in the Gen II MG2, and the Simulink Program "Advisor" done by the NREL. Which allows one to size motors and batteries in complex mechatronic vehicle systems. The analysis of the Prius done by Argonne alone has payed dramatic Toyota dividends. One could even say the 2nd Gen Prius was a result of the PGNV program.
Just to add: the fact that Japanese company like Toyota had developed and delivered hybrid technology to market, that over 50% of cars sold in Europe are high efficiency diesels and we have none of that is the failure of our energy policies. While Europe promoted small diesel cars with their tax policies, while Japan subsidized Toyota hybrid development and benefited from realistic gas prices, we subsidized oil companies and cheap gas. The tier 2 bin 5 was designed to keep small efficient diesels out of US, not to clean environment. PGNV was killed not b/c it was wasteful, it was done to delay high efficiency cars from US market.
I'm a bigger believer of government/US auto corp. incompetence than organized conspiracy here. But that matters little in the bigger picture. The bigger picture is that efficient car buyers seem to be a minority compared to Monster SUV buyers when money/easy credit is available. GM was quite happy to devote all there engineering resources on those due to "customer demand" and did not (want to) see any ROI on efficient vehicles.
+1 You're hitting the nail on the head ... yet it's just the tip of the melting ice berg ... whether it be man caused or natural. Consider for example the $40,000 bass boat in this article: EV WORLD CURRENTS: Bass Boats and Personal Priorities The read goes on to say, That's schizophrenia AND hypocricy all rolled into one. And so is calling one state least green. Don't some states simply export their toxic mess to their neighboring states? ... for a fee? If the state of Podunk buys electric power from the neighbor state - who then builds a coal powered generator to deliver power ... then who is really the bad guy?
When media made Donald Rumsfeld into scape goat I laughed at people who believed he is a dimwit. If you have reservation catch his Jon Stewart interview. There were no incompetence; more like greed+ignorance and unhealthy dose of cynicism . The Energy Task Force /officially the National Energy Policy Development Group (NEPDG)/ with chairman Dick Cheney was created in 2nd week of GW presidency. Read about it if interested. Agree on grand scale it matters little conspiracy or not we still have what we have. And in the same vein $4/gal is good for energy conservation. Would have been better if we were paying it as a tax instead to oil companies, at least that would have taken care of deficit.