So we heard about the disaster of Solyndra and flushing $535 down the toilet in federal grant.
Some other interesting green tech stories…
A123 Systems makes li-ion batteries for cars (used in Spyker cars for instance)..It received $249million in federal grants…Well, it filed for bankruptcy…Guess who is buying it???? Yup….Wanxiang Group..Buying approximately 80% of the company……
…So essentially what you have our government funded a Green Tech company with $250million, money that either taxpayers paid or will pay….The company goes bellie up….And a company in China is gonna buy it, along with all the intellectual property that has been developed….
Talking about Tesla, I went to UTC and swung by the Tesla store to see the car in person. Overheard the sales girl pitching the car to a guy who asked how fast is it. She said, it’s 0-60 in 4.4 seconds. Then he asked how much is it. She said it starts in the $60k. But she forgot to mentioned the $60k model can’t do 0-60 in 4.4 seconds :-D.
What’s even more funny is they have a simulator to see how the car perform in various condition. They advertise 300 miles range, but if you drive during the summer with AC your mileage drop to around 240 miles and in the winter, it drops even lower to 220 miles. They also stop the simulator at 65 MPH. They also say a 400 miles trip would take almost 8 hours instead of your normal 5-6 hours. That’s also assuming you’re driving on flat road instead up a mountain (like on the grapevine).
When the government picks winners and losers instead of letting the free market sort it out, it usually gets it wrong. Solyndra, Volt, A123, etc. are only the more publicized examples–there are hundreds more.
Get ready for more of the same–we just voted to double-down on the past four years.
.
