One More Missouri solution to gas prices

[Charles_Main]

Check this out. ZENN Motor Company and once it has this Ultra capacitor for ZENN Car it will be even better!!

They plan to launch a model called the cityZENN which will be a fully certified electric car with 80 mph top speed and 250-mile range.

now that I would buy!!

 

[doeton]

yeah cool. I didn't see a price...but there's a dealer in Mo...where i live.

 

[Shogun]

We were also being told that No one would buy a vehicle smaller than an SUV a mere 4 years ago. This excuse to push a product that has such a tiny shelf life indicates that what some would have us believe about our purchasing habits are not as honest as they could be. Need Proof? google which car companies are now dominating the market. It's not the guys building hummers and the next season's SUV.

This example is merely an INDICATION of the big bad "market forces" that chicken necked capitalsts talk about but never act on (when it doesn't provide a larger profit margin in an artificial economy - tax write offs for SUVS anyone?). If capitalism worked how they would insist when calling someone a marxist commie GM would have jumped on the bandwagon 10 years ago. Instead, here we are with hummers in the driveway instead of decked out compact cars.

AND, to boot, anyone wanna take a guess what happens when GM fails? Can anyone say Freddie Mac?

 

[editec]

It's a damn shame that we spent the last 60 years deliberately using government policy to push a sprawl model of development. Because if we had more compact towns, electric "city" cars would have grabbed a big share of the market, a long time ago.

AMEN!~ Brother.

And having a more compact town doesn't even mean that you have to give up your yard. You simply stack apartments and condos on top of retail, reduce parking lot sizes, and allow parking along roads. All houses are within 1/4 mile of the town core, with retail and schools and so forth. You won't need as much parking, because people don't bother getting in their car to travel 1/8 of a mile. Retail workers live in apartments and simply walk downstairs to get to work and shopping.

That smacks of sensibilty that puts you into the tree hugging socialist planning camp according to some mindsets.

Anybody remember Solex motorized bicycles? They got about a trillion miles per gallon (your mileage may vary, depending on your tolerance for hyperbole) and could sustain speeds of 20 MPH on a flataway.

Maybe we need more well build bike paths and less suburbs, eh?

 

[BaronVonBigmeat]

That smacks of sensibilty that puts you into the tree hugging socialist planning camp according to some mindsets.

Well, that's one way to look at it. Most people who advocate new urbanism want the government to push the changes; although they tend to be decentralist socialists who want to put political power back in local communities.

Mostly they're just pragmatic and looking for whatever works though. Most cities have building and zoning codes that are hundreds of pages long, full of arcane gobbledygook that was written to protect established developers. The new urbanist codebook looks like a pamphlet in comparison, way fewer pages, with lots of common-sense illustrations. So if I advocate that, am I leftie looking to smash corporate barriers to competition and build nice communities, or am I a laissez-faire guy who wants smaller government and less regulations?

At any rate, I think you could make a pretty good free market case for new urbanism, even though most don't. Switch property taxes to be based on square footage instead of value, or eliminate them totally. That's not anticapitalist, and it would encourage building up instead of out, and higher quality buildings to boot. Railroads could also electrify without paying higher property taxes. Scrap the requirements for parking lot minimums. Get rid of restrictions on mixed-use multi-story buildings. Stop building "free" freeways--it's nothing more than a gigantic subsidy to corporate box stores. Let road companies build and run the freeways, and charge what the market will bear. They will raise tolls enough to get traffic moving and get people into mass transit (or living closer to work). On and on.

 

[JimH52]

I'd spend that much if I could go 55, and get 100 miles per charge. That would be my minumum requirement.

It will come. Give it time. I hope all the "speculators" made their millions in the oil run up. Because what they have done is to reduce consumption in the US to such a point that inventions and patents such as these are beginning to roll out in huge numbers. The urgency of reducing dependence on fossil fuels has been hastened.

There will be so many innovations that not even Exxon/Mobile will be able to buy them all...the scum suckers.

 

[Charles_Main]

It will come. Give it time. I hope all the "speculators" made their millions in the oil run up. Because what they have done is to reduce consumption in the US to such a point that inventions and patents such as these are beginning to roll out in huge numbers. The urgency of reducing dependence on fossil fuels has been hastened.

There will be so many innovations that not even Exxon/Mobile will be able to buy them all...the scum suckers.

I am sure they will try