The Ethanol Papers - Paperturn manuscript - Flipbook - Page 575
Except that in the middle of the epilogue he slips in two positive mentions about
electric cars - what a coincidence.
His first quip is, “While the continued calls for energy independence and the
increased use of corn ethanol are distressing, 2008 also brought some positive
news on the energy front. Several automakers announced plans to develop and
sell electric cars in the U.S. market by 2010.”
A few pages later he writes, “Meanwhile, numerous battery companies, both in
the U.S. and abroad, are continuing to develop better batteries. All of those
developments leave me optimistic about our potential to meet the energy challenges that face the U.S. and the rest of the world.”
Whether you’ve read GUSHER OF LIES or not, you’ll see when I get to his
comments on subsidies that Bryce is ‘Mr. I Hate Subsidies.’ He never mentioned subsidies to electric vehicle manufacturers in these two quips. Doesn’t
that seem odd? The entire modern electric car movement has been about government subsidies, unproven technologies, insufficient production capabilities,
unrealistic purchase prices; everything that Bryce rails against when considering non-fossil fuels.
Suddenly, he is optimistic. All the subsidies that the government has given to
this particular non-fossil fuel alternative is good; he now understands why a
government subsidy can be a good thing to encourage innovation and to provide a little bit of leveling of the playing field. I guess he was swayed either by
GM’s promise that they would produce 7,000 Volt electric cars for 2011, or one
of the handlers at BIG OIL R US gave him the secret sign it was okay.
In case you were wondering, about 12 million new cars and trucks were sold in
the U.S. in 2011, so he was optimistic about sales that represented less than
0.7% of the new-vehicle market. Well, if that made him happy, then he would
probably be delirious to know that a few 2011’s are still available and he can
have his pick of color.
THE GUSHING TRUTH ABOUT ALTERNATIVE FUELS
In 2008, around the same time that Robert Bryce published GUSHER OF LIES,
I wrote another very long article that was published on The Auto Channel website (owning a media outlet really comes in handy when you have a lot of opinions). This article was titled “NO NEW GASOLINE-POWERED VEHICLES IN
THE U.S. BY 2014...Can It Be Done?” (It’s included earlier in this book).
