🚀 go-pugleaf

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?

Cheers,

Phil Hobbs