The 1908 Ford Model T had a 4-cylinder engine, ran on 4 wheels, used gasoline, with a mileage of 20mpg. A hundred years later, the basics are still the same. Why put billions more in a dead-end industry?
The government should instead invest in new ways of building cars. Like the Aptera 2e (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aptera_hybrid_car) which is fundamentally changing the way a car is built. Or Tesla. Or Zap.
I'm #1607 on the waiting list for an Aptera. I signed up because I had complained so often that there was no electric car you could actually buy, and people kept telling me I just didn't try hard enough. So far I'm right, and I predict I'll never actually get mine. When the CEO brags that they have 45 circuit boards [1], I can already read the company's obituary. But maybe they'll pull it off, and I'll have a really snazzy car.
I'm more excited about Mission Motors electric motorcycle. http://www.ridemission.com/. (I'm an investor.) It's breathtakingly fast and fun to ride.
The Aptera smacks of vaporware, with the constant delays, but I'm still guardedly excited about it--if they can hit their price target with something close to their promise, I'd make a Californian friend just to buy one.
The Mission Motors bike, on the other hand, is firmly in the Tesla roadster camp: The projected price point puts it out of the "this could save you money, eventually" category and into the "cool toy for rich eco-geeks" category. Its performance is similar to my Daytona 675's, which cost me $7500 and gets 45mpg.
Why do you think there should be 300 car companies? Can you point to another manufacturing industry where hundreds of players collectively have significant market share?
Yes. The car industry in the early twentieth century. Car companies coming out of every moderately-well-off mechanic's garage.
Yes, it eventually consolidated. It will again. But we're not going to get from here to there without some competition that just isn't going to come from the established players, for a variety of reasons.
The 1908 Ford Model T had a 4-cylinder engine, ran on 4 wheels, used gasoline, with a mileage of 20mpg. A hundred years later, the basics are still the same. Why put billions more in a dead-end industry?
The government should instead invest in new ways of building cars. Like the Aptera 2e (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aptera_hybrid_car) which is fundamentally changing the way a car is built. Or Tesla. Or Zap.
Forget the Big 3. Create the Small 300.