That is what I thought. I mean if everyone put 1 gallon of gas to this project you would have 1.2 billion dollars. Sounds like a huge amount of money but that's just enough profit for a pharmaceutical company to become interested in researching a drug. I couldn't think of a better analogy but that should put some of these "huge" numbers in perspective.

$300 isn't enough IMO. Not for a technology that will change the world and disrupt the large business on the planet. Not when you are talking about a multi trillion dollar industry. A $1 donation is not enough when gas is $4 a gallon and rising.

This article talks about spending $800 million to develop a drug:

http://www.forbes.com/2004/05/28/cz_...tsourcing.html

$300 million does little more than make headlines. Although I suspect this will make a lot of people look into batteries that never seriously considered them before. And that is a good thing.

Well that's the thing isn't it. When something might not have been profitable my $20-$30 million dollars $300 million dollars can change a lot of people's minds.

Also what are the requirements of this $300 million dollar battery and how much would it actually change things?

Well, woudln't they get the $300M AND whatever the market dumps on them for coming up with this brilliant product? Sounds like it could be a lot of ****ing money IMO.

I would look at this as a bonus and not a cap on what someone could make. It's a subsidy.

Exactly. So, wacki, how big of a subsidy do you think is needed to get people to work on this?

If they were bonafide serious, I think they'd give each domestic car manufacturer 100M instead of an unguaranteed 300M to the winner based on who knows what stipulations.

I don't like the $300 million deal given it seems like a joke.
I'd be more for a 5K or 10K tax credit on each car produced to the seller and a similar tax credit to the buyer. Not sure that is doable though

Well maybe you should put some more thought into the post then, the point isn't XYZ is better than electric tech (or not better) its the McCain is making a positive statement that electric batteries are better than the alternatives by suggesting that they should get incentives. What is it in his background that makes his expertise in the area strong enough that he should make decisions about which tech has the best risk reward ratio of investment? What are the consequences if he's wrong?

This doesn't make sense. It's 'possible', but look at it this way, Chevron holds X% of the gasoline market, that X is way way below 100%, it controls a much larger % of the NiMH battery market thanks to patents. If those batteries could legitimately replace oil they woul dmake huge amounts of money off them. Remember also that patents expire, when they do anyone can produce those batteries, Chevron would be ******ed if it was holding back technology that it will lose control of and is immensely valuable. Its possible, but not particularly intelligent or likely.

A $300 million prize. What a ******ed stunt. No research dollars?

One dollar for every U.S. citizen? You know that's exactly how some moron dreamed up this one. So, we have become a "prize based" happy meal country? This is exactly the kind of moronic leadership I'd expect from McCain.

We got bounties on Osama and now bounties on gas prices. We should just make "Dog Chapman" President.

Dont understand the concept of incentives too well do you?

It's a subsidy in a different form. Last I checked you were pretty fond of clean energy subsidies. Or at least your candidate of choice is.

I would call this a relatively benign stunt.

In general, I don't mind government encouraging research and investment, especially when there is some reason to think that the market is inhibiting the research for some reason. But here, I don't see why the money will make a difference, since the goal seems clearly like the kind of thing many would be pursuing anyway.

If there is a downside, I guess it's that government money is being diverted from other, potentially more helpful things. But in the end, I doubt this plan will change anything, for better or worse.

The idea of awarding prizes is a phenomenal idea. However, these prizes should be aligned with what we as a nation are trying to accomplish:

1. Eliminating the reliance on foreign oil;
2. Developing a reliable, clean array of transportation technologies;
3. Developing a practical alternative that allows consumers to continue their way of life (at least short term);
4. Allow for economic profit;
5. Not at an enormous societal/economic cost (e.g. devoting 50% of corn to ethanol).

Evaluating automobiles, as we import 70% of our fuel, this means we could theoretically become foreign oil-independent (in regard to automobiles) if we could increase average MPG by 133%. This would mean going from ~20 MPG to ~47 MPG. Next year's Honda Accord diesel will get ~50 MPG, so with diesel passenger auto technology we are already there. In addition the diesel Accord meets the tough CA emissions requirements, so its clean. VW is also producing a diesel for U.S. market, with similar fuel efficiency numbers.

So I recommend Detroit "wake up" and follow the lead of Honda and VW and get us out of their useless gasoline monopoly, and start producing truly fuel-efficient engines in the 50 MPG range.

Nothing against battery/fuel cell technologies, but these will not roll out overnight. In addition, the infrastructure is not yet there. I would give them 10 years to be truly marketable. By then, our foreign oil reliance will be even higher, and our need for battery/fuel cell technologies will be similar to our fuel efficiency needs now.

This "incentive" is the equivalent of a Twinkie for every man, woman, and child. Research and development Twinkies won't get you very far.

We should offer Twinkies to Iraq.

Twinkies to Osama.

Twinkies to terrorists.

Everyone should be guaranteed one Twinkie a day.

We should add a right to Bear Twinkies to the Constitution.

United Twinkies of America.

NASA's 2008 budget by comparison is $17.6 Billion.

DoD's is too big for me to fit in this post.

Maybe some proposals for joint research and development effort among various departments, agencies, and nations, but this $300 million happy meal prize is a ******ed stunt.

wtf?

prizes are stupid

there is already a huge prize out there for developing the technology as pvn pointed out

it puts false preferences on everything as many have pointed out

sigh.... just a different form of populism

All he has to do is add a $4/gal tax to gasoline and people will buy more fuel efficient vehicles and shorten their commutes. No prize necessary. Of course income taxes should be lowered by this amount too.

This $300M prize just sounds like a handout for when GM releases the commercial failure, "Volt", in a couple years. Its expected to cost $40k, so that pretty much rules out the masses from buying one.

That would totally screw many low-income people, and many retirees.

The higher gasoline and oil prices go (whether extra tax or no extra tax) the worse the American economy will get. It's a bad trade-off even if it does spur more R&D. Few if any people on this board lived through the Great Depression, but based on what my parents told me, YOU DON'T WANT TO have a Great Depression, not by a long sight. It sucked out loud. And if fuel prices get high enough, that will happen. Don't think the poker economy won't be devastated if fuel prices keep rising. The recreational gambler/soft poker money will mostly just dry up.

At current gas prices, many people are already looking to trade in their bigger cars for smaller cars. There is no need for further massive gas taxes.

Europe is different because the cities were built before the automobile, and so commutes and travel in Europe are less dependent on the auto. America also has much longer distances since it is just much larger than, say, France.

The $300M plan is a gimmick tactic. It's pretty safe to expect gimmick-quality results from any gimmick plan (if it ever goes through).

[QUOTE=John Kilduff;4795526]That would totally screw many low-income people, and many retirees.

The higher gasoline and oil prices go (whether extra tax or no extra tax) the worse the American economy will get. It's a bad trade-off even if it does spur more R&D. Few if any people on this board lived through the Great Depression, but based on what my parents told me, YOU DON'T WANT TO have a Great Depression, not by a long sight. It sucked out loud. And if fuel prices get high enough, that will happen. Don't think the poker economy won't be devastated if fuel prices keep rising. The recreational gambler/soft poker money will mostly just dry up.

At current gas prices, many people are already looking to trade in their bigger cars for smaller cars. There is no need for further massive gas taxes.

Europe is different because the cities were built before the automobile, and so commutes and travel in Europe are less dependent on the auto. America also has much longer distances since it is just much larger than, say, France.
QUOTE]

This is the cost of fixing global warming. There isn't a fun solution. I am also advocating that these increases will be gradual allowing people time to compensate. Also reductions in other taxes like income tax should be made too offset the income from gas taxes.

Right now too many people drive SUVs and trucks, and have 20 mile daily commutes. The environment can't handle that.

Obviously this solution will never be put in to practice since no one ever votes for short term pain to stave off worse longer term pain.

Please don't f*** up our economy and my life just because you believe some doomsday scenario predicted by models with highly questionable accuracy.

Re tolbiny,

McCain does not support ethanol. He fully understands how much of a boondoggle ethanol is. Read these two links:
http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortu...3132/index.htm
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/23/us...=1&oref=slogin

He also isn't advocating putting all the eggs in one basket:

"Hydrogen is one of the future sources of energy in America," [McCain] added. "It's clean. It's good. But there's a lot of challenges. That's why we've got to let a thousand flowers blossom: Wind, tide, solar..."
http://blog.washingtonpost.com/the-t...n_califor.html

And neither do I. That being said I stand by my statement that the hydrogen economy is not backed by physics. This world is going to be a very ugly place if we have to rely on hydrogen for more than anything but niche applications. More later....

Yes! One less person I have to worry about taking my 300 million dollars. Now where is my ratchet set and lucky screwdriver?

If we're choosing between evils then I prefer a prize, but I'm sure some politicians will figure out a way to corrupt it and **** it up. Although, I have no idea what the $ figure should be. The $300 million figure seems to be populist bull****, though.