If I remeber correctly (and I do, because I used to sell cars) the number one top selling vehicles last year were SUV’s Yeah those big massive things. And let me give you a hint they are not fuel effiecent. Yet the demand is still greatest for these kinds of vehicles.
Let’s face it, if you were in a wreck, would you rather be in a Jeep cherokee or a geo metro???
While driving will you fell safer in the metro or the cherokee???
Last summer when gas prices got really expensive, How many people do you know that trade their cars in for one of those little gas electric hyundi put out??? (none)
Minivans are the second best sellers and they are just about as big and heavy as an SUV, so same things apply.
Although there are your smaller cars like your neons, saturns, and such. Many of these little cars finest selling features are the responsiveness of the vehicle and (due to size and weight) the cars ability to get up and go. Still they have to make further advancements in the technology to compete with gasoline burning engines.
And well sport cars people don’t buy them for the gas mileage they’re going to get.
The fact is until the technology in this feild has come to the point where it can produce power to run one of these large SUV’s instead of a compact car the size of a metro, and also be able to put out enough power to really move a car these “fuel cell” cars will stay in second place, and no one wants second best.
but thats just what I think…
I have failed you, then, Tracer. I don’t have that information either, aside from promises from Ford et al that it does, indeed, perform a certain function.
Perhaps the bonds in methanol are weak enough so that the hydrogen extraction requires minimal amounts of energy? Does anyone smarter than me know?
tracer – I believe hydrogen is the way Ford have primarily gone (I also think General Motors have taken the battery route). As with others, I couldn’t readily locate very much on the web but this explains the theory. Unfortunately, the article is almost two years old and doesn’t refer to the most recent advancements. But it’s still helpful (I hope). Also, the links (top right of the page) seem to offer a wealth of information on the subject.
Additionally, this report from a few months later details the problems and a partial solution development.
In the reports I saw about two months ago, Ford were claiming the last remaining substantial issue was distance between refueling. They also said the car might not be ready for the market until near the end of the decade but, one imagines, that has more to do with oil related factors rather than technological innovation.
kimstu – Thanks for extrapolating the basic idea of how Governments – all Governments – manipulate markets (anyone remember the olde fashioned ‘import duty’ ? –<sigh>, those were the days!!).
I think this is interesting because of the implied assumption that Governments simply walk away with our money. The way you characterise tax is akin to theft and I wonder if this highlights a different philosophical approach to taxation between Europe and the US.
While there are numerous caveats (efficiency, using the money to follow an election winning mandate / agenda, etc.), mainland Europeans (the UK has been more reluctant to prescribe to this view, BTW) are more content with the view that taxation is A Good Thing because it provides the bricks and mortar of a civilised society and provides essential services more efficiently than does a capitalist free market (we’ve had this discussion many, many times but it is an inescapable fact that capitalised health care is hopelessly inefficient at providing cost-effective health care for a society).
It would seem that tax at the point of sale on gas / petrol has a number of benefits, for example: He who uses more contributes more to countering the environmental cost, providing funds for public transport infrastructure, higher contributions to health care provision (especially the environmental related problems like increased asthma in children) and a whole range of additional hidden costs.
Also RickJay (as you use the FRG as an example), the FRG has no oil reserves – the effect on the balance of payments is quite staggering.
One of the main problems about the whole taxation issue is that it is also emotive, that too often detracts from a meaningful discussion.
Anyway, onwards…