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Originally Posted by whell
Glad you asked! 
I have been all for electric vehicles....when such vehicles are able to be supported by market conditions. That's not really where we are today.
Electric vehicles are subsidized through manufacturer incentives and tax credits for the purchaser. I'm not in favor of these incentives: it simply shifts costs from the manufacturer to the taxpayer, then the taxpayer is hit again to pay for the subsidized purchase. When the subsidies ended - saw this first hand during the Obama years - companies who started up based on the promise of incentives went belly-up when those incentives were not paid out.
I would be in favor of subsidies for public or private universities to conduct research on battery technology or materials technology that could then be adapted for use electric vehicle use.
But we better be damned careful what we do with any tech advancements or developments paid for with taxpayer dollars, so we can stay away from idiotic bureaucratic blunders like THIS.
I will say that I finally got to ride in a Tesla when I was down in Tempe last week. The Uber driver that took me back to the airport had a Tesla. It was a damned impressive car. |
Hi Whell, on this we agree, as much as I also like the idea of pure electric vehicles, I am not for the tax subsidies, the free market alone should be the determiner of whether they are truly ready for mass market acceptance. If any of my three gas powered vehicles manages to die before I do, I will buy an EV , whether my fellow taxpayers foot part of the bill or not. In fact, I'll go as far as to wonder; if someone wouldn't buy one unless it was subsidized, how committed are they to the concept in the first place
