There are two separate things going on in the article there though - 1 presupposition that everyone will be driving BEVs in the future - that won't happen anytime soon AND complaining about the Leaf. The stats on the leaf are certainly true. I am guessing that where it gets really cold, there probably aren't a lot of BEV owners. That's a fact too. It still comes across sounding like he has an agenda though.
He brings up Solyndra - the fact that they scammed the government has NOTHING to do with the solar industry other than the fact that they got the grant for being a green company. I used to work with some of the key people from that company too. The solar market collapsed - had it not, they probably would not have been caught in their illicit siphoning of funds so quickly. I do agree about how this funding comes about too; when the government dangles a carrot like that in front of them, sooner or later someone is going to scam it. Solyndra was likely only the largest one, not the only one.
Hi John,
The first article, while factual, was an opinion piece.
Though, it was culled from the Car & Driver long term test, and they had a negative opinion also.
IMO he brought up Solyndra to show how the government gets behind half baked and failed industries to push an agenda.
The government shouldn't be in the job of picking winners and losers in the energy market.
It has cost taxpayers billions of dollars.
Photovoltaics are ranked in tiers 1 thru 5, with 1 being the best.
Two of the twenty companies that went bankrupt were Evergreen Solar and Solyndra, tier 4 and 5 respectively, the bottom of the barrel and most expensive.
Our government wasn't smart enough to check into that before giving them 3/4 of a Billion Dollar$ of tax payer money.
The U.S. solar market collapsed for two reasons - It's a grossly inefficient technology. That's why it sat on the sidelines since the 1940's
- The USA made the lowest tier panels and the most expensive ones and couldn't compete in a free market.
Regards,
Rick
