bob_nestor wrote:
Just about any politician will tell you, and the voters, that engineers are too stupid to advance technology and business leaders too greedy to market that better mousetrap all by themselves. It takes the leadership, vision and foresight of a Politician to make the hard decisions that will advance technology and force the engineers and business leaders to implement them. The engineering challenges and potential market profits by themselves are just not enough to motive advancements, at least according to the Politician.
I think you got it a little backwards. What if I was to tell you you could get a pickup today that would get 100 mpg. Would you buy it? Who wouldn't. But then, what if I told you that it cost $30,000.00 more (technology ain't cheap)? Well then you would pull out your calculator and determine that you could buy about 13,000 gallons of gas and at 16 mpg that's about 200,000 miles. Way longer than most people keep a truck. Now who would buy it? And a manufacturer ain't going to make it if they can't sell it and make a profit.
But when a politician comes along and says "Though shalt ..." well now all of a sudden you got buyers that have to buy it and pay for it whether they want to or not. Now the manufacturer can make it and make a profit doing it because you don't have a better choice.
I don't know about Canada but in the US the reason EV's are selling is because of the tax incentive. Take the tax incentive out of the picture then watch what happens. And guess who's paying for that nice little tax break? If they had to stand on their own - it would be a whole different ball game.
