<html><head></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; ">Jim Kunstler this week presents his opinion of the future of electric cars in the US. The same could be said for Australia, except that we have no hope of ever making any electric cars (unless there is a massive government subsidy = higher taxes). If we did make a car it would look like and have the public appeal of a Trabant, and the venture would fold quickly and quietly.<br><div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; "><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; "><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; "><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; "><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; "><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; "><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div>-----------------------------</div><div>Keith Thomas</div><div><a href="http://www.evfit.com">www.evfit.com</a></div><div>-----------------------------</div></div></span></div></span></div></span></div></span></div></span></div></span></span>
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<!--StartFragment--><p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;
text-autospace:none"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-bidi-font-size:15.0pt;
font-family:"Lucida Grande";mso-bidi-font-family:"Lucida Grande";mso-ansi-language:
EN-US">I'd like to know how many Americans believe that electric cars run on
virtually free energy (but I don't have pollsters on my payroll). I'd bet a lot
of them do, including President Obama. Sorry to rain on this uplifting parade.
At best, such a car fleet would run on coal -- that is coal-fired electric
power plants -- but even that is a ridiculous fantasy when you actually
pencil-out the details. Not to mention that a nation full of people with
dwindling or vanishing incomes won't be in a position to fork over forty-grand
for one of those new pseudo "green" vehicles. Also not to mention --
wait for it -- that due to rapidly vanishing capital there will be far fewer car
loans available. The only thing growing in this part of the picture is the
number of Americans who cannot possibly qualify for a car loan under normal
terms that would require regular repayment of interest-and-principal. (Plenty
of Americans qualify for the new "innovative" kind of loan -- the
kind that you never have to make payments on, but for the moment, the banks are
choking to death on them, so additional approvals may lag for a time.)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;
text-autospace:none"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-bidi-font-size:15.0pt;
font-family:"Lucida Grande";mso-bidi-font-family:"Lucida Grande";mso-ansi-language:
EN-US">It's instructive that so much current hoopla about economic growth revolves
around the issue of cars. For, if anything, reality is telling us very clearly
that the mass motoring paradigm is near its end. Our determination to prop it
up at all costs, despite the grave impairments of available capital and energy
resources is a symptom of our detachment from reality. It's also a fine
illustration of the psychology of previous investment, which prompts a
desperate society to squander its scarce remaining resources on the very things
that are putting it out of business.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;
text-autospace:none"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-bidi-font-size:15.0pt;
font-family:"Lucida Grande";mso-bidi-font-family:"Lucida Grande";mso-ansi-language:
EN-US">We don't need more highways. We're about to find out that we don't have
the money to keep up regular repairs on the highways we already have. The
hundreds of millions of "stimulus" dollars that President Obama flung
into "shovel-ready" highway projects was among the more tragically
dumb mistakes he made early on, and he has apparently learned nothing along
these lines since then.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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