>Josh chimes in: > >>[W]hen one questions whether the larger businesses are not >>only ignoring potential demand but are actively seeking to forestall the >>technology, one is so often met by the response that one must be >>*anti*-capitalistic. Criticism of big businesses is automatically >>assumed to be a clueless criticism of them for seeking profit. But >>this case is precisely the opposite, and it is the ostensible >>defenders free market concepts who are allowing GM and the like to >>"hide in their skirts" while they continue their contempt for >>customer demand and newer better products. > >Unless I am totally mistaken about what it is you are trying to >argue, it sounds to me like you are saying that GM (and other auto >makers, presumably) *could already make a profit* selling EVs.
I think it's possible that they could make a profit, although if one factors in the costs of stranded assets, then it is possible that they woudn't. Their protestations about not being able to make a profit might ironically have some merit, but not for the reasons they state. They say there is "no" demand and that the technologies are too expensive or inadequate, ignoring demand and ignoring the economies of scale to be realized with mass production (something they would never do for any calculation outside EVs). If it is possible they'd lose money due to the costs of stranded assets and of putting more reliable vehicles on the road that do not cost their owners as much money, then this is a justification they have not admitted-to (with a slight exception at Honda). What I can say with a great deal more confidence is that they have so completely and expertly obfuscated the issues, that it is difficult for anyone to say undisputedly that there is, or is not, "sufficient" demand. GM nor the others have *never* behaved like profit-seeking companies when it comes to the EV1 and other vehicles. Unless I am mistaken, it was written into the ZEV "mandate" that a goal of the project was partly to guage consumer demand (not merely to dictate it).. How was anyone to get an accurate reading of this with the anti-rational behaviour of some of the auto companies as to this program? If GM gave interested buyers months of runaround and then told CARB that the vehicles were not wanted, what should a CARB official make of this? How is he or she to know, at all, whether there is demand, outside of passionate annecdotes? The accurate thing to say is not so much just that some demand existed but how much is hard to say, but that one of the the program's goals of trying to guage demand was obfuscated and partly ruined, deliberately, by a company which is assumed (without investigation) always to behave in a customer-serving honest fashion. Yes, there have been studies done on either side. I am not much interested in doing calculations you suggest are critical to proving my points but if I re-run across some study that seems particularly cogent, either showing or not showing the numbers you see as important, I will try to post it. I am open to the possibility that I am wrong, that in fact producing EV's at this time might not be that profitable, but for the time being my hypothesis is that, despite the obfuscation of the economics by poorly run programs, there is some reason to believe that one could produce an ev and do it in the black. >All >I'm asking for is some evidence that your claim is correct. It is >critical to recognize that some unidentified level of consumer demand >does not equate with profitability. Demand for what product, at what >price, and at what costs? Further, you must support the claim that >selling EVs would not just be profitable, but that they would create >substantially (though not identically) the same rate of return as >alternative uses for the same investment capital. That's a tough >burden, but you're the one making the counter-intuitive claim that a >company is intentionally turning down a profit opportunity and is >potentially engaging in anti-competitive practices. > >I think it is tremendously funny that I'm being equated with big >business, as I am about the most liberal person you will ever meet. I apologize if I portrayed your point of view inaccurately, as I was looking for a foil off of which to formulate a point of view. Yours was not ideal. >But I do think it is a pretty good working assumption that if people >can make money, they will. There are plenty of reasons to believe >that auto makers are nothing more than rational actors acting >rationally. In a way, I suppose. I am at the point where I wish we could go to them and say "Look, what is it going to take to get us into these cars?" since they, as salespeople, are obviously not the least bit interested in doing that in the case of these cars.
