From: ems@michael.apple.com (E. Michael Smith)
Newsgroups: sci.energy
Subject: Re: Electric Car summary
Date: 17 Oct 92 01:56:00 GMT
Organization: Apple Computer Inc, Cupertino, CA

In article <1bne28INN2f4@gap.caltech.edu> carl@SOL1.GPS.CALTECH.EDU writes:
>In article <1992Oct16.182650.5623@michael.apple.com>, ems@michael.apple.com (E. Michael Smith) writes:
>>I just don't see how you can claim that buying a car for 'niche use'
>>is an economic hardship or a waste of resources.  If a person's 
>>driving style fits that niche, it is no more of a hardship to buy
>>a ZEV than it is to buy an IC vehicle (assuming equal prices).
>
>Fine.  

Glad you agree.

>If your claim is true, then why the hell does it take a law to force
>people to buy them?  

Because *my* claim has nothing to do with sales or laws forcing
sales.  *My* claim is only that 'niche use' is not a valid 'fault'.

The legaly forced sale of ZEVs may well be stupid, or may not be.  That
is a subject I have not addressed.  (And to some extent specifically
avoided addressing.  Note the specific condition 'assuming equal prices'
above...)

>Something smells fishy here.

What I suspect 'smells fishy' is that you have confounded the 
issues of legally mandated market share and niche markets.  That
one may well be a bogus thing for the govenment to do has no
bearing on the other...

>>It isn't a waste of resources for anyone if I buy a vehicle optimized
>>for my driving style.  I would argue that it is, in fact, a better
>>use of resources since it IS the optimum match to my needs! 
>
>Fine.  

Glad you agree yet again!

>Go buy one.  

And I have!  (No, not a ZEV.  I have a large 'niche' vehicle; a Ford
F350 4x4 Crew Cab 8 mpg truck.  A 'niche' vehicle if ever there was one!)
Oh, you were talking about ZEVs, not 'niche vehicles'?  Then we argue
from different premisses ... ;-)

>That's no excuse for passing laws to force the sale of a
>certain number of the vehicles.  

Never said it was.  The reason for THAT law, as I understand it,
has nothing to do with the economic advantage of matching the niche
vehicle with the niche user, but has A LOT to do with running out
of clean air and the desire to promote the adoption of technologies
to clean the air by incenting manufacturers.  I have not taken a 
position on the sanity or lack of it in that action.

I generally hold government intervention to be bad.  (That government
which governs least, governs best.  {Who said that?})  

It may well be that getting the market started early is a 'good thing'.
It may well be that this is just another government boondogle.  I don't
know, and havn't staked out any position.

I HAVE said that 'niche vehicle' isn't a pejorative term ... and that
implies that detractors of the California ZEV requirments ought to 
find another grounds to argue from; but that IS NOT a statement of
support for ZEV requirments.  (As much as I would like to have an
electric car to buy, I'd rather have it as a result of market forces
than government mandate.  I HATE government mandate.  Even when it
makes sense, I don't have to like it ...)

>Especially when the laws still allow cars from
>the early 70's and before to belch as much filth into the atmosphere as they
>do.

I think there is a tendency to ascribe too much damage to early cars...
I have no data to back this up, but what I've observed locally is that
most old cars are either collectors cars (and rarely used), old rust
buckets sitting in driveways (I have one, anyone want to buy a 1980
IH Scout ?) that don't get driven, or owned by very poor people who
don't have a lot of money for gas ...  Does anyone have any real data
on the number of miles that old cars are actually run?  Or the quantity
of pollution they really put in the air? (NOT some estimate based on
the number of them that exist, but something that actually looks at
the miles they are driven...)  I'd like to know what the facts really
are.  I'd not want a law forcing them all to be melted (I *LIKE* seeing
Model T's and '56 Chevys every so often; and hate mandates...) but
the idea of a buy-back of old rust buckets is attractive ...

(Especially since I have one ;-)

-- 

E. Michael Smith  ems@apple.COM

'Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it.  Boldness has
 genius, power and magic in it.'  -  Goethe

I am not responsible nor is anyone else.  Everything is disclaimed.
Newsgroups: sci.energy