12-03-2008, 08:15 PM
Davester, you called it as "all incorporate significant and fundamental technological advances that are far beyond any EV technology used before", usually "innovative" is a shorter term to describe that. I responded only to show it was not as you thought. On my part, stating "Tesla in the end is mostly repackaging existing technology into a vehicle", was in response to karsen's use of the company in an example where he talked of stifling "competition and innovation". At this point, Tesla is not particularly competitive or innovative, or at least yet. As I said, it appeared to make a difference to you, but as you now state, it looks like it is about on my level of care. I don't wish them ill , and maybe they will be a factor at some point a decade or more in the future. But as a potential solution to the current mess in the car market, they are not even in the running.
Karsen uses the standard arguments for free market, let the chips fall where they may, approach to running the economy. But what we actually have to deal with is a market where there are many impediments to the entry and replacement of existing suppliers of items. One of the biggest is that many aspects of current and future technology take large sums of money to even bring to market, tends to keep small players from even getting in. And unless there are incentives, the big players tend to go for "safe" choices, look where that got GM, Ford and Chrysler. At this point there are three main options. One, we nationalize; two, we "bail out"; and three, let whoever fails, fail. I don't think the first is going to happen, or should happen. Most of the argument is whether we do the second and on what terms. The third might happen, but there is a lot of pressure to not do so because of the other impacts on the US economy.
Karsen uses the standard arguments for free market, let the chips fall where they may, approach to running the economy. But what we actually have to deal with is a market where there are many impediments to the entry and replacement of existing suppliers of items. One of the biggest is that many aspects of current and future technology take large sums of money to even bring to market, tends to keep small players from even getting in. And unless there are incentives, the big players tend to go for "safe" choices, look where that got GM, Ford and Chrysler. At this point there are three main options. One, we nationalize; two, we "bail out"; and three, let whoever fails, fail. I don't think the first is going to happen, or should happen. Most of the argument is whether we do the second and on what terms. The third might happen, but there is a lot of pressure to not do so because of the other impacts on the US economy.