Inflation from December 1996 to today makes the $500/mo equivalent to $1000/mo.
It’s fascinating to me to watch how pre-BEVs-being-normal they were supposedly impossible to build because Big Auto was lobbying the government and buying the tech and shutting it down. I remember how Reddit would talk about this: GM doesn’t want any competition because they collude with oil companies and so on.
After BEVs became normal, the guys who made them common are supposedly just idiots who got lucky. Presumably history will write LLM inventors as lucky morons as well. And space rocket manufacturers and GLP-1 (and associated) drug makers.
Everything is impossible because of lizard men until one day someone does it and then they were just lucky.
The EV-1 was launched with lead-acid batteries and later upgraded to NiMH. It would still not be possible to make a practial BEV with these battery chemistries. The breakthrough came through the microelectronics industry producing billions of cheap devices with lithium ion batteries in them.
Isn't it remarkable how much less bitter even the tone of the text in the transcripts are too? This is from far before Citizens United. They talk about it with almost idle fascination.
Except big oil is still lobbying incredibly hard against them, enough to make people worry that the US will fall behind the curve on this tech and being a key explanation of why China has taken a lead on this tech.
Just because they do it openly and often very stupidly doesn't stop it being a conspiracy.
This very article details this in relation to California regulations pushing for an EV:
>They didn't like it. So all 3 American car makers, including GM, rallied together, spent a lot of money lobbying, also did this in partnership with the oil companies, I'm sorry to say. The oil companies spent far more than the car companies. And the result was that they got this mandate ordered down, delayed, pushed aside last December. And at that point Ford and Chrysler and the other carmakers no doubt heaved huge sighs of relief and thought great, now we don't have to worry about electrics for at least another 5 years. And that was when GM startled them by saying that it had secretly revived the EV-1, and would be coming out with it this fall. So Ford and Chrysler are if anything angrier at GM, because now that this car's going to be a reality, if it succeeds they've got to compete with it.
Similarly we see German automakers pushing against European regulations, even as China produces better cars cheaper that are zero emissions…
Inflation from December 1996 to today makes the $500/mo equivalent to $1000/mo.
It’s fascinating to me to watch how pre-BEVs-being-normal they were supposedly impossible to build because Big Auto was lobbying the government and buying the tech and shutting it down. I remember how Reddit would talk about this: GM doesn’t want any competition because they collude with oil companies and so on.
After BEVs became normal, the guys who made them common are supposedly just idiots who got lucky. Presumably history will write LLM inventors as lucky morons as well. And space rocket manufacturers and GLP-1 (and associated) drug makers.
Everything is impossible because of lizard men until one day someone does it and then they were just lucky.
The EV-1 was launched with lead-acid batteries and later upgraded to NiMH. It would still not be possible to make a practial BEV with these battery chemistries. The breakthrough came through the microelectronics industry producing billions of cheap devices with lithium ion batteries in them.
Isn't it remarkable how much less bitter even the tone of the text in the transcripts are too? This is from far before Citizens United. They talk about it with almost idle fascination.
Except big oil is still lobbying incredibly hard against them, enough to make people worry that the US will fall behind the curve on this tech and being a key explanation of why China has taken a lead on this tech.
Just because they do it openly and often very stupidly doesn't stop it being a conspiracy.
This very article details this in relation to California regulations pushing for an EV:
>They didn't like it. So all 3 American car makers, including GM, rallied together, spent a lot of money lobbying, also did this in partnership with the oil companies, I'm sorry to say. The oil companies spent far more than the car companies. And the result was that they got this mandate ordered down, delayed, pushed aside last December. And at that point Ford and Chrysler and the other carmakers no doubt heaved huge sighs of relief and thought great, now we don't have to worry about electrics for at least another 5 years. And that was when GM startled them by saying that it had secretly revived the EV-1, and would be coming out with it this fall. So Ford and Chrysler are if anything angrier at GM, because now that this car's going to be a reality, if it succeeds they've got to compete with it.
Similarly we see German automakers pushing against European regulations, even as China produces better cars cheaper that are zero emissions…