Let's apply the same logic to air travel. Let's defund taxpayer support for airports and see how well the airlines do.

Whether electric cars are preferable to internal combustion cars depends on the price of crude oil (although all fossil-fuel prices tend to rise and fall together). The price of crude oil is liable to sudden increase at any time, for example if there were a war involving Iran or other major oil-producers. If oil were not so important it would probably not have been considered necessary to expend trillions on past middle-east invasions.

"The effort to get affordable electric cars will inevitably a long process involving many cost-saving and efficiency enhancing innovations."

But the loan program didn't go into innovation; it provided start-up (or expansion) capital to companies that already had innovated, with the expectation their new technologies could be competitive in the marketplace with these subsidies. If the technology needs to be further developed and refined before it can compete, shouldn't the money have instead been spent on more basic R&D?

I agree with Izzatzo's premise (well, at least in a way). That scares me! hahahaha!

I am not familiar with the workings of this program, but if there is one thing we all know, it is demand that begets innovation and development. It would be far better to create incentives to purchase or use energy efficient, low polluting vehicles versus those that consume large amounts of energy or spit out a large amount of pollutants. This would mean innovation could come in the form of non-electric vehicles.

Of course, the intent could be two-fold, reducing our dependence upon imported energy and reduction in emmisions, but also to create high tech jobs and manufacturing in this country. Loan programs would put engineers to work here and would presumably mean manufacturing here as well, though in the long run neither is a given.

Loan programs and/or subsidies to a given industry is just wrong. It does not create price competition. If there was a large enough consumer incentive, no doubt manufacturers would be focusing their efforts in that area. Large enough disincentives would also spur industry. With both phasing out over a reasonable time frame, say 10 years (would that be enough), we could see real progress in this area.

Dean, you forgot your high school economics. Efficiency does not determine consumption, price does.

As a result, energy efficient automobiles will not cause the amount of gasoline consumed to go down, which means that energy efficient cars are not "green." They do nothing beneficial for the environment.

In fact, with a little thought, you would see that more efficient cars would likely cause more destruction to the environment by allowing more people to have them and thus causing more habitat destruction to accommodate the large-scale infrastructure extra cars demand.

Why did you forget your high school economics? Because you subscribed to the conventional wisdom without thinking it through for yourself.

Since you criticise so many for making the same mistake, I think it only fair to point out the rare (perhaps only) occasion you drink the kool-aid.

Defund airport taxes=eliminate airline subsidy=lower airline revenues=fewer airplane purchases=less revenue for Boeing's commercial division=reduced cross fertilization with Boeing military applications=greater cost to government for military planes=cutbacks in Defense budget.

Electric car subsidy=competition with oil fueled vehicles=less use of oil=smaller profits for oil companies=less need for military control of Mideast oil fields=cuts to Defense budget.

Big Military+Big Boeing+Big Oil=Big DOW=continual taxpayer subsidy for the stockholders of same. Until widespread use of electric cars can promise anywhere near the profits that accompany the use of oil-fired vehicles, electric car development will always run into the constant headwind of our corporately controlled media.

Vorpal,

I'm not following you. Suppose we can get cars that use one-fourth of the energy (in whatever form) that sell for the same price as the cars we buy today. Why would we think that demand for cars would expand enough to fuller offset this efficiency gain? Surely there would be some increase in demand, but it's hard to see that demand would quadruple. That would imply incredibly high elasticity. That doesn't seem plausible given that we already have almost as many cars as adults.

Not everyone will buy a fuel efficient car as soon as they are available. If we begin to sell cars that use 1/4 the energy, it will take time for people to make the adjustment. It will based both on car prices AND FUEL prices, since these goods are complementary. If the price of fuel efficient cars goes down, more people buy them. Since they use less gas (energy) than alternative cars that could have been purchased, the demand for energy falls if people replace gas guzzlers. All else equal, the price of energy falls and people have an incentive to use more. That is, every person who buys a Prius or an electric frees up fuel to be used by someone else who wants to buy a Hummer or a speedboat.

This is not a guaranteed effect, but to the extent the Chinese replace bicycles and walking (and mass transit?) with cars, the result will be net increases in the demand for cars, for fuel, and pollution levels. This remains a possibility since the electricity must be generated from some source.

There are a lot of 'ifs' in what I have just said. It is also important to keep in mind that there are limits to these changes, as Dean points out. But I think that this is where Vorpal was going. If not, I apologize in advance for the misinterpretation.

Dean, glad I got your attention. It is so important to get this issue straight.

You posit a 400% increase in efficiency in gas usage.
1) Yes. Automobile usage can most certainly increase by 400%. Currently the global fleet is around 900 million cars. Could a future population of 8 billion people use 3.6 billion cars? Yes. The US has a population of 310 million and we have (last time I checked) 230 million cars.

2) That being said, a 4% increase in worldwide fleet efficiency is far more realistic for a mature technology like the internal combustion engine. 400% increase is basically crazy talk. Complete nonsense with no basis in reality.

3) The global appetite for cars and energy is insatiable. Global producers of oil cannot keep up with increases in demand, this is the only explanation for steadily increasing gas prices since 2004. The notion that efficiency improvements would be implemented so fast that production would have to drop from 86 million barrels a day to 25 million barrels a day is, again, crazy talk.

4) If you need to see the impact of efficiency gains on electrical appliances (surely a success story) on total electrical consumption in the US, I refer you to the EIA. You will see that even with tremendous improvement in electrical efficiency, electricity usage has grown every single year for the US. This, obviously, does not include the growth in emerging markets.

5) I wrote to James Hanson, the famous climatologist, on this subject in 2007. His first response (and he did respond), was like yours. To his credit, he seems to have come around to policy recommendations that I approve. Namely, start removing marginal fossil energy sources from the global production arena, tar sands for example. This way, carbon from these marginal sources stays in the ground.

If you really think it through Dean, you will see that I am right, and that would be a great thing because I have zero clout, but when you talk, people assume you are right...and for good reason.

The "green" efficient car is a myth. Efficient cars are great for human economic growth, but there is no reason to believe they will do anything good for the environment.