Quote:
Originally Posted by DixieGal
There has to be a carrot.
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Unfortunately true... but this would be the single most important thing for the administration to work out, and if they were successful, could get the majority of Americans behind a new vehicle type in short order.
Lots of carrots.
I personally feel all-electrics with alt-fuel battery charging
only would work for probably 90+% of American driving, and require much, much less alt-fuel use than present gas and alt-fuel vehicles. Cars would get most of their energy from plugging in between uses, and we already have the beginnings of an electrical grid for that job (needs upgrading, but can be used as-is in the beginning and improved upon later). If a plug-in system was devised, and everyone using it had an account registered to the car and driver that allowed them to plug in anywhere and be directly charged, you have a workable system.
If you can effectively demonstrate how much money it will save owners over gas (especially if the gas subsidies GO AWAY), you've got a good carrot. If you offer
good incentives to trade in your old car for a new one (even if it's just a significantly lower tax for owning the new car), you've got another carrot. And if the cars offer some other new feature, like remote driving capability on highways, preferably something not available on old-tech cars, another carrot.
How 'bout a tax break or rebate on the cost of the car for using mass transit
instead of your car? Another carrot. (Actually, this would work for today's cars, too... but you could set things up so it only pays off for new-tech cars).
And oh, yeah: Make 'em
pretty, for God's sake.
I wish this wasn't what was required to get most Americans to switch to more efficient vehicles. Unfortunately, the history of American consumerism demonstrates that it is the best solution to get the most people on-board.