🚀 go-pugleaf

John Larkin wrote:
> On Sun, 18 May 2008 08:38:33 -0400, Phil Hobbs
> <pcdhSpamMeSenseless@pergamos.net> wrote:
> 
>> John Larkin wrote:
>>> On Sat, 17 May 2008 23:10:12 -0400, Phil Hobbs
>>> <pcdhSpamMeSenseless@pergamos.net> wrote:
>>>
>>>> David L. Jones wrote:
>>>>> "Eeyore" <rabbitsfriendsandrelations@hotmail.com> wrote in message 
>>>>> news:482FA872.804C42A9@hotmail.com...
>>>>>> "David L. Jones" wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> I just saw the movie Who Killed the Electric Car?:
>>>>>>> http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0489037/
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Fantastic!
>>>>>> It completely misses the point.
>>>>> Sounds like it's you who missed the point of the movie.
>>>>>
>>>>>>> Everyone should watch this one.
>>>>>>> The IMDB user comment is spot on - " This film WILL frustrate you 
>>>>>>> greatly"
>>>>>>> In fact, it's enough to make you want to cry.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Can't believe I had never heard of the movie before the other day.
>>>>>> http://gm-volt.com/2008/05/11/the-ev-1-wasnt-killed-it-was-dead-on-arrival/
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Required to do so, GM went on to make the EV-1. It used lead acid 
>>>>>> batteries
>>>>>> which held 0.4% as much energy as the same weight of gasoline.
>>>>> Irrelevant.
>>>>>
>>>>>> Thus the EV-1
>>>>>> weighed 2970 lbs, 1175 lbs of which were the batteries.
>>>>> Also irrelevant.
>>>>>
>>>>>> The resulting range
>>>>>> was 90/70 miles hwy/city.
>>>>> Plenty enough for the majority of people. Especially when you can 
>>>>> conveniently recharge at home, at work, or at a shopping centre etc.
>>>>>
>>>>>> To achieve this, the tiny two-seater also had to
>>>>>> have the record lowest CD, the most advanced powertrain of the day, and a 
>>>>>> cost
>>>>>> of $80,000 (they were only leased to consumers).
>>>>> So what? price would come down in time.
>>>>> Thousands of people buy $80,00 cars every day.
>>>>>
>>>>> No excuse for GM to go to ridiculous lengths to get back every one of the 
>>>>> cars and then crush them literally out of existence. Especially when there 
>>>>> were thousands who would have taken them off their hands and waived all 
>>>>> rights to support.
>>>>> GM did an evil thing, just evil.
>>>>>
>>>>>> The article concludes:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> "In the end, though, the price wasn't an issue. The reality is the EV1 was
>>>>>> hostage to a technology the engineers knew from the get-go just wasn't 
>>>>>> able to
>>>>>> do the job Roger Smith and the California Air Resources Board believed it
>>>>>> could. That's what killed the electric car."
>>>>> Everyone had better rush and get one of those Humvees with the $100,000 Bush 
>>>>> government tax rebate before the new government gets in. Or has that 
>>>>> fire-sale finished already?
>>>>>
>>>>> Dave. 
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>> A lot of assets get crushed on account of the corporate tax code and 
>>>> accounting rules.  I vividly remember 1992, when IBM got into the glue 
>>>> really badly--we crushed a whole lot of brand new equipment, all paid 
>>>> for and everything, because our budgets were being slashed and it was 
>>>> either keep the people or keep the equipment--which had to have the 
>>>> depreciation paid.  The waste was astronomical, but the management was 
>>>> in a bind and did their best with the choices available.
>>>>
>>>> Cheers,
>>>>
>>>> Phil Hobbs
>>> A small business can expense about $120K a year in equipment
>>> purchases. The big boys have to show equipment and real estate and
>>> improvements as assets, ie as taxable profit, which the public doesn't
>>> generally understand. No wonder we export jobs.
>>>
>>> But in the 1992 situation, they could have had a garage sale for
>>> employees, got rid of the stuff at a suitable loss, and made some
>>> employees very happy. I think.
>>>
>>> John
>>>
>>>
>> That's probably true, but what would I do with a $2m copper dep tool?
>>
> 
> Sell it and buy a ski lodge?
> 

And then the taxman cometh. Audits the company, wonders where all that 
stuff went, pokes around a bit in the books, raises his eyebrows, hops 
into the car and shows up at the lodge with a humongous tax bill in hand.

I remember when all the trucks moved up 50 towards Nevada in the usual 
year-end inventory shuffle. We live 2mi away and it almost caused local 
smog. A while ago I took a look at Nevada, see what the biz-friendliness 
there would be. Turns out you really have to watch it. If I am not 
mistaken Clark County socks people with more than 3% in property taxes. 
Yikes!

-- 
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

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