I do not disagree with everything which Chaim says, SerbAvenger, because if I did I certainly would not be hanging out here and trying to support the JTF movement through my actions. Having said that I still stand by my statement that electric cars are expensive, both to create, and to run because generating electricity requires an energy source and currently most generation methods are harsh on the environment.
I do not expect the world to exist just for me to be able to drive my sports car. I believe that we live in a complex economy where my contribution to the field of Digital video allow others to pursue interests in creating more efficient vehicles. I do believe that for both reasons, to remove the need for Arab oil and to ease the burden on the environment, we should pursue alternate energy sources.
But my response to this post is that by governmental enforcement of such a sort will have HUGE economic impact. Unless the government subsidizes the purchase of these new cars I don't see the average American being able to afford this. If someone would research the costs and report the actual impact I would be more inclined to change my view.
I do think of Israel and the impact on Israel each day. Im sorry if I seemed insensitive but certainly I should not be condemned for not mentioning it more.
Muman, where is your Jewish idealism? Where is your faith and hope in Hashem?
None of this is an unrealistic goal--in fact, as Lisa mentioned several countries less developed than ours have already made it a reality.
Granted, sugarcane doesn't grow like a weed here like it does in Brazil, but we can create
infinite electricity. Unlike oil, electricity is a renewable resource and there isn't even a theoretical limit on the maximum amount we can generate. There are homes in the hot American southwest (where I live) that are completely functional on solar power alone (they put those panels across their roofs); what would life be like if every household in southern California/Arizona/NV/NM did that? And that's a relatively easy, lazy way to go about it; what about nuclear power (which is literally inexhaustible) or wind or hydroelectric or biomass?
Expense!?! Expense certainly was not an issue for you when you bought your collection of sports cars. You are worried about price? A whole lot of working- and middle-class people whose incomes do not come close to yours have managed to buy Priuses and Insights. Even if an electric car will always be more expensive than a liquid-fuel car (which I highly doubt), how much would the consumer save over a lifetime in fuel costs? And what about production costs? Are you
honestly telling me it is cheaper and more efficient to have sand negroes 16,000 miles away extract, process, and barrel oil and load it up on barges (after paying the requisite baksheesh to the Saudi "royals") than to wire in fresh, clean power 120 miles from the hills of Palm Springs to homes in downtown Los Angeles?
Of course there would be big start-up costs, but doesn't every business have those? If the government, which is throwing hundreds of billions of dollars like water down the rathole to corpses like AIG and GM, invested just one-tenth of that in all these garage industries that have sprouted up that will build you a kit to make your car run on electricity, bacon grease, soybean oil, etc., they would have all that money back and then some in a decade and
tens of millions of sophisticated new jobs would be created for mechanical and technical workers to boot. The economy would soar to unforeseen heights and the lack of the oil monkey would go a long way towards making it recession-proof. And even if you don't want that money to be spent, just imagine what the result would be if Congress right now passed a law granting 90% lifetime corporate tax immunity to any automaker that switches to an all-electric fleet by 2012. I guarantee you we'd see some action then.
Finally, you profess to be a staunch and stalwart advocate of the free market, but you are one of this forum's biggest advocates of locking up and throwing away the key on Bernie Madoff, who practiced it. Unlike what the oil oligopolies are currently doing to us, Madoff's investors had perfect free will and knew what they were doing when they signed their life savings over to that charlatan. It seems like you only want the market to be free up to a point.
PS what does Norwegian anti-Semitism have to do with the fact that we need to get our tuchises off of Muslim Nazi oil? Are you trying to say that because Norway is anti-Semitic, nobody should use electric cars?