Liberty Maven

Once again, the seemingly tough questions and their very obvious answers are poised right in front of us.  Take, for instance, the question of the day:

Call it an economic and environmental murder mystery in the making: Will a cash-strapped Detroit kill the electric car -- again?

Detroit hasn’t been able to compete with the Japanese or even the Koreans for quite some time. Those nations are building better vehicles for a lower price to the consumer and “they have done it with lower wages, health-care benefits and retirement plans.”

The U.S. companies say they need $25 billion in taxpayer money to help convert to building smaller, more fuel-efficient vehicles.

Many are afraid that if Detroit does not somehow obtain it’s $25 Billion from the taxpayers that consumers won’t get vehicles they need, such as the Chevy Volt.  Well, who needs the Chevy Volt, and who needs Detroit?

“I think right now we’re in what I call a serious Act Two moment with oil prices down and money tight,” said Chris Paine, whose 2006 documentary “Who Killed the Electric Car?” chronicled GM’s controversial decision to scrap an earlier electric car marketed in California as the Saturn EV1.

Paine, who has been working on a Volt-centered sequel, said U.S. automakers would have been better able to weather the current crisis if they had listened to critics who blasted them for turning away from electric cars earlier this decade.

“This may turn out to be the biggest blunder ever for these companies,” he said.

I say, let them restructure or fail.  We don’t need the dangling carrot that the Volt represents, but we DO need our $25 Billion.  Detroit had it’s chance.  Let’s let the market choose the next winner, instead of letting Congress choose which companies will live or die.  Let’s allow the local, entrepreneurial companies, the mom and pops, to survive and thrive.  Companies like Aptera, Hybrid Technologies, Phoenix Motor Cars, Venture Vehicles, Fisker, and even BMW, Nissan, Saturn, and Toyota have all proven to us that they know what consumers want and need, and that they will build those vehicles for us.

While I don’t agree with Thomas Friedman that we should give $25 to $30 Billion to auto startups as investment capital, I do believe that Congress should make it easier and dramatically less expensive to get these cars to market, so that 2009 can be the Year of the Electric Vehicle, instead of 2010 or 2011.

Dinosaur companies and fossil fuel technologies are the past for the United States.  Let’s get back to the basics of what has always worked: pioneers, entrepreneurs.  America needs it’s new economy, it’s new technologies.  Bailout bills, politicians, and out of touch CEO’s are not the cure for what ails America.

Let’s fix our energy crisis and fix our stumbling economy at the same time, by forcing the bloated entities of Detroit to work their own problems out, and, at the same time, encourage and empower the fledgling startups and their revolutionary products which can change the way we all think about travel forever.