Reply #8: So, when the Japanese govt funds their auto companies, we all benefit, but when the US govt...

[ContinentalOp]

funds automotive R&D, we get nothing in return for our tax money? Do the Big 3 executives really want to call attention to this fact?

"Is Press forgetting that the U.S.-government, under the Clinton Administration’s Partnership for a New Generation of Vehicles, spent more than a billion dollars to produce three 80-mpg hybrid prototypes, including the Chrysler ESX? The vehicles were never put into production. What about the continued work and taxpayer support of the U.S. Advanced Battery Consortium?"

http://www.hybridcars.com/news/jim-press-toyota-government-funding-prius.html


"1990: California establishes the Zero Emission Vehicle (ZEV) Mandate; requires 2% of vehicles to be ZEVs by 1998, 10% ZEVs by 2003. GM shows their production EV initially named, Impact; later it was re-named the EV-1. (US government spent $194 million on all energy efficient research. Much less than the $1 billion for a single day of Desert Storm, or the $1 billion per week of 2003 Iraq conflict.)"

http://www.eaaev.org/History/index.html