Obama's Dream Car: Government Intervention on Four Wheels

From the Christian Science Monitor.

"If it requires government subsidies to get built, more subsidies to buy, and doesn't actually reduce pollution, what's the benefit of an electric car?"

Good question. One so-called "benefit" is that it would boost demand for a car that ordinarily people wouldn't (or couldn't) buy, feeding into the buy-me-a-cure crowd (his typical constituency) who have more dollars than sense. If everyone had one of these cars, it would theoretically allow us to get off foreign oil (as well as domestic) while lining the pockets of some well-placed portfolios (namely Al Gore's, Nancy Pelosi's, and most assuredly Obama's).

The car itself takes about 11-17 barrels of oil to produce. The batteries in these cars alone cost $3000 and up. We as yet have no infrastructure to plug these puppies in when we're parked. Some benefits!

"In one way it reminds us of the German predecessor: the Volkswagen. A car not produced according to market demand, but for dubious ideological targets. However, the new ‘Voltswagen’, on sale for $41,000, costs, when all subsidies are accounted for, about $81,000. Not only is it worlds apart from the original Volkswagen, but its creation signifies a distorted economy: taxpayers funding a vehicle which can only lead to loss and a shortage. In addition, comes the government subsidy of $7,500 for purchasers of the car, a nice addition for ‘upscale urban liberals’, some of Obama's strongest supporters."

...

"Government intervention stymies market forces. Furthermore, the creation of the ‘Voltswagen’ blatantly derives an ‘is’ from an ‘ought’: there should be electric cars, whether supply is economically feasible or demand is there."