Jeff Bingham, Chairman
On Tuesday the Senate Natural Resources Committee heard from GM VP Beth Lowery about ways to reduce fuel consumption. She encouraged the government to help subsidize the production of biofuels like E85, which could power the Volt. She also recommended tax money be spent on battery research.
The comiitte called for the automakers to do more in terms of increasing gas mileage in return. Hondas VP in opposition claimed that the fuel savings of plugins wont justify the cost.
I hope were not just concerned with cost, but more so preventing climate change, and reducing Middle East dependence.
This entry was posted on Thursday, February 1st, 2007 at 9:18 pm and is filed under Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
Feb 3rd, 2007 (1:16 am)“Hondas VP in opposition claimed that the fuel savings of plugins wont justify the cost.”
Unfortunately for a lot of people the cost of hybrids and “environmentally friendly” solutions be it automotive, energy saving appliances, food etc. the cost is the main deterrent and unless there is a perceived or real benefit to the consumer to make the extra expense back fuel savings or energy costs they do not purchase the environmentally sound option, but rather opt for the sheap convenient option. Unfortunately the time will have to come for people to learn that the benefit of choosing s more fuel efficient car is not the savings in your pocket for the fuel (though it is nice) it is the benefit to the environment. That is the real cost, our future generations. Green energy will cost more, but if we learn to change out habits and reduce our consumption everything can balance out. It troubles me when the VP of honda can make such a claim. It’s not about justifying the cost, it’s making a vehicle that reduces emissions. Period. Until we learn and are willing to pay the premium for our environment regardless of our personal benefit, nothing will change. If GM puts this vehicle into production it will be my next car.
Feb 4th, 2007 (10:53 pm)“Cobasys is a joint venture between Chevron Technology Ventures LLC, a subsidiary of Chevron Corporation (NYSE: CVX) and Energy Conversion Devices, Inc. (NASDAQ: ENER).”
Chevron an oil company. I’m sure they are fully committed to improving battery systems so we can “fuel” our cars from the power grid and not from their refineries (deep sarcasm). Seems really strange an oil company is involved in batteries research. Could it be GM sold the battery rights to Chevron to hold and prevent other industries from using?
Congress should consider giving the consumer a big tax credit to buy electric primary/gas secondary cars and not just hand the money to GM. One result would be the end of the stall tactics of “5 more years battery research” or “not economically viable”. Any auto manufacturer would have incentive to produce cars. Let the early adopters have a tax break to get some cars on the road.
The GM Volt is the correct plan, but I don’t trust the good old boy club of the auto and oil industry to let it see the light of day.
Remember the EV1s were all crushed and removed from public view. Pretty strange when people wanted to buy the cars as is. Very strange.
GM could put out cars with Nickel-metal-hydride that could be upgraded to Lithium-Ion. Sigh…
Apr 10th, 2009 (4:14 am)I usually don