**OT** Rande: Let Kevin Rant!
I was involved in Energy R&D throughout the 80's. Wind, Solar, PV, etc... as you know, lot of companies tried to create a market, with strong government assistance (that's the side that I was on).... .Yes technology was available, however it was not truly commercial, yet it was rushed to market to satisfy energy crunch at that time....As a result the consumer was the ultimate test bed, since most product did not go through a rigorous product develop process, what happened? the product failed....and lots of companies lost money...companies failed.... Ultimately, the consumer did not embrace the technologies in the desired wholesale way "people" wanted...So no market, means no business that want to work in the space...
The energy business in the large scale suffered dramatically from morons who run electric companies, which is now changing radically, and offering opportunity..enough said.
The car companies have been investigating alternative fuels on and off for a long time...yet providing "commercially ready" technology prevents(?) them from making the same mistake that occurred with energy.. if they fail, they die.. that is, although the technology is in the lab, do you want to buy it?(or do you want it fully capable))... I was involved with GMs EV project.. which resulted in a 250 useful vehicles....afterwards even CARB realized that is was not reasonable and removed the proposed 2% legislation for zero emission...Funny stuff happens when you build EVs.. it is so quiet that people don't know whats happening, and makes them nervous (prevents them from buying).. EVs actually had to put noise into the car! Remember R&D is just that...it is not product development nor marketing...consumers decide what they want (IMO). If a company had a technology that customers want and are willing to pay for it ... why would they hold it back???? to let the next guy take it? IF anything, what I see is too much conservatism both technically (not wanting to release something that will fail) and fiscally ( if you release "a too early for commercialization product" you WILL get it in the end.
I might suggest that car companies now, not in the 1980's, are developing vehicles that serve the market...would you prefer a Navigator or Ford Falcon station wagon? The new Focus designed to serve the Gen X and Echo booomers is already a success...and it appear that this groups WILL buy hybrids (and that Hybrids are now "commercializable"...Many Patents have been used and are dramatically reducing emissions from Vehicle to the point that they are ( I think) something like 98% cleaner than 20 year ago... Is this worthy of some praise?? If I told you that even MIT can't get some R&D to work outside of lab would you believe me?
Lastly, Baby boomers will not let US car companies "off the hook" for perceived problems in the 80's but the Gen-xer don't see it that way..They see US autos as "cool"... so who's "right"?
Now perception IS reality in many peoples's minds.... and that is hard to change...and created stress in markets...
A long rant ...sorry! |
