Capitol Hill Blue Forums Political Issues Finance, the economy & Economics Bailing out the auto industry - yes or no?

YES.

That is exactly what we need, and Obama would do well to give this guy a crack at the brass ring.
People like Goodwin are few and far between, and if we seek people like him out and listen carefully we might get to keep a tiny slice of the cake we're eating.

Or we can just do as some folks suggest and let the cake supply run out and go back to eating dirt.

I say we learn how to be better cake bakers all around, and keep an eye open for better and more efficient ingredients.

Thanks for the re-focusing onto new possibilities. Jeff, has the Obama administration contacted you yet?

Yes Strang, and think of the torque a high performance fully electric car motor could be made to exert. And it would be over a very wide band. In fact a correctly developed fully electric car could be made to beat just about anything a piston driven fuelie engine could throw out.

And we could also have our more modestly powered vehicles to make the majority happy. The torque heads could be satisfied as well as the masses. Everyone happy and no gasoline burned. Happy visions..happy visions…..

No, but they probably know where he lives.:-))
Yours,
Issodhos

Yours? Just yours? I almost read "yours ominously" or "yours expectantly", or "yours without change".

I am most anxious to see just how far the new Administration will go in slapping Big Oil and Big Auto in the face with new regulations and incentives for new technology. My expectation is not much higher than (I believe) yours is.

I'll have my popcorn plain. Dash of paprika?

CS, I thought about your post as I drove across country today, and I think I disagree with you after all - even with the redirection.

Romantic booshwah, I'm afraid. For one thing, Columbus wasn't looking for the edge of the world, he was looking for cash. For another thing, the peacock can display all the damn feathers he wants -- he just isn't welcome to use the world's resources in order to do it.

No. Major exploration now is being done in space and under the sea. Even back in the day when there was a lot of surface exploration - from the great sea voyagers to Lewis and Clark -- the explorers were a few intrepid individuals, not anywhere near a majority or even a significant minority, who were more likely to be found plodding behind mules. That certainly can't be used to justify America's love affair with cars.


Once again, and I'm sorry - balderdash. Power and speed for the sake of power and speed is a waste of ANY kind of energy unless there's an unlimited source, and we're not to that point yet. Unless the goal is to further exploration to unknown places, and even there it's a big "maybe," speed and power can be limited without any huge loss. Nobody, NOBODY needs a car that goes 200 miles an hour, and I don't care if it's only driven in a continual left turn. We need those design resources to solve real problems that have been, so far, unsolvable.

It's precisely because of that love of speed and power that the Big Three have been focused on everything BUT alternative energy. I vaguely remember a time when electric cars were being tested but they wouldn't go over 40 or 45 and they had a limited distance, so they were dropped. That was a long time ago; how different might our life be if we had had 20 years of electric cars, but we'd had to drive 15 mph slower, and limit our range?

No. I don't buy it, I'm sorry. Want to go fast? Get a bike. But until we've solved the immediate transportation problems facing this country, including energy and mass transit design --- that power and speed argument is just a distraction, and I want the serious gearheads working on serious problems.

I hope you'll agree that we can disagree.

I just really think we can make a go of it if we return to the adventurous spirit we had in the moon race days.
The economic downturn is a mighty scary thing, and dependence on oil is at an all time high but I've lived long enough to know that Americans are at their best when facing a mighty challenge, if we remember our history.

Even if we have to burn some kind of fossil fuels it can be as little as a tenth of what we burn now if we play our cards right.
There will always be people who want to go balls to the wall, and if they want to pay for the technology to do that I say let them have at it.
The racing industry has given us more efficiency as well as more power, and it has also given us safer automobiles as well.
If racing goes electric, count on seeing electric motors that weigh a fraction of what they weigh now soon afterward.
And you can count on the electric racing business to show up with add-ons that breathe even more performance into the already fast electrics available today.
It may turn out to be the most exciting chapter in racing history.
It may also kick start the enthusiasm for the breed like nothing else will.

First thought that comes to mind:

It must be very very small.

--They just need to bring people like Jonathan Goodwin into the fold, and nurture idea people like him as much as possible.
People like Goodwin come along once in a generation and revolutionize the business.
Tom Hoover was a guy like Goodwin, and so is Zora Duntov, John Z. DeLorean, Ray Loewy, Preston Tucker and Harley Earl.
GM or any of the Big Three would be fools to ignore his potential. He could almost singlehandedly put any of the Big Three on top of the world again.