Design News - Electric Car Subsidies Won't Make EV Batteries Better
They have a point about battery technology progress, but otherwise miss the point completely IMHO.
However, experts say increased subsidies would not change the big dilemma facing the EV battery market. Economies of scale would help cut battery costs to some degree, but they would not necessarily bring the costs low enough or the energy density high enough for mass adoption of EVs.
"Even if you had 50 or 60 million electric vehicles on the road, it still wouldn't bring about the revolution in battery technology that all of us hope for," Beiker said.
David Cole, chairman emeritus of the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor, Mich., said the technology must be allowed to mature on its own. "Everybody who's capable of engineering batteries is already working overtime. When it becomes economical, it will take off. But you can't force it to go any faster than it already is."
Industry analysts also questioned whether the incentives -- particularly electric car tax credits, which call on average Americans to subsidize vehicle purchases for consumers who tend to be wealthy -- would last long enough to create an impact on EVs 10 years from now. (GM has publicly acknowledged that the average annual income of a Volt buyer is $175,000.)
Cole said that the tax credits are likely to lose popularity over time. "We can justify the concept of tax credits over a short period of time with the idea of helping create a bridge to a new technology. But any tax credit is always going to be temporary. You can't base a business case on a tax credit."
Still, the White House said that EV buyers would see monetary advantages: Driving such a car would save the average consumer roughly $100 a month, and those savings would ultimately combine with lower up-front vehicle costs to create a better bottom line for energy consumers.
"We just can't rely on fossil fuels from the last century," Obama told the autoworkers. "We've got to continually develop new sources of energy."
They have a point about battery technology progress, but otherwise miss the point completely IMHO.