VintonCounty

What Big Auto Wants from Obama

Rick has mostly bad advice. I'll comment on 5 items.

1. Increased gas tax would be bad for consumers and for auto manufacturers. The reason is told by the economic axiom that "When the price of something rises, people use less of it." If we include operating costs in vehicle prices, raising gas taxes reduces vehicle sales. Auto manufacturers desperately need the opposite.

2. Hydrogen fuel cells are extremely impractical for vehicular applications and always will be. This fact is due to engineering and scientific considerations that are essentially immutable. The extremely condensed explanation is that much energy is needed to separate hydrogen from water, and carrying a useful amount of hydrogen on a vehicle is cumbersome.

3. Car czar. Czars are for Russia. The proper way for the government to protect its "investments" in auto companies is for them to buy voting common stock in those companies. Any czar appointed by politicians would be a politician in fact, even if not nominally. And politicians know nothing of the vehicle business and have no desire to learn.

4. National energy policy. America tried to devise a national energy policy during the 1970s. (Rick looks too young to remember.) It was embarrassing and wasted lots of money. The concept of any group forcing a particular energy plan onto America is tyrannical and foolish. The best energy plan will evolve from technologies and market events that no one can predict.

5. Larry Burns' comment. Burns is annoyed that the public is unenthusiastic about the technologies that Burns favors. So he wants the government to FORCE us to buy products using those technologies.