Electric Cars Aren't Your God-Given Right
March 16, 2005
The EV1, General Motors' failed electric car, has been relegated to the junk heap. Alexandra Paul, a former Baywatch star, was one of two women arrested trying to save the ill-fated vehicle. Paul and her cohort used a Toyota electric automobile to block the path of trucks leaving a Burbank GM training center with cars destined for a recycling yard in Arizona. Protesters, alerted by the Internet, turned out to shout environmental slogans and try to shame GM into saving the electric car that just didn't catch on.
GM has refused to sell the remaining EV1s because it no longer makes parts for them and worries it may be sued because it would have a legal obligation to service them. What is interesting about the California protest is these people think they have a God-given right to an electric car. Dirt people from all over converged on the Burbank facility demanding that GM continue making the modern-day Edsel simply because they wanted them to. I have news for Alexandra Paul and the rest of the eco-freaks camped out in Burbank. You don't have a right to force a car company to lose money just so you can have the car you want.
Now, that's not to say there's not a place for a fuel-efficient car. Hybrid electric-gas automobiles are selling briskly. In fact, the Detroit News says, “The auto industry underestimated the appeal of gas-electric hybrid vehicles, and now the Toyota Prius, Honda Accord Hybrid and Ford Escape Hybrid are selling faster than factories can build them.” But that's not good enough for those environmentalists in Hollywood. They're demanding that car manufacturers churn out money-losing cars in the face of disastrous sales figures.
It sort of reminds me of those AIDS activists who demand that the pharmaceutical companies give away AIDS drugs in Africa. Of course, if they're forced to do so, that destroys any incentive to develop new AIDS drugs. This shortsightedness by the left is once again being demonstrated in California.
The EV1 failed. However, other fuel-efficient vehicles are thriving and others will be developed. You know why? Not because the dirt people whine and complain but because the capitalists inside the automotive industry are beginning to put out models that appeal to the public. That's why all these government incentives handed out by the billions are a waste of money. As gas prices go up, the market for more fuel-efficient vehicles increases. That's the capitalist way. Force-feeding these automobiles on the public will never work.
In typical Hollywood fashion, the rich and useless foist their celebrity upon the unsuspecting public, attempting to send the rest of us on a guilt trip, all the while talking on their cell phones from the back seat of their gas-guzzling limousines. Hollywood alone could've kept the EV1 alive had they merely put their money where their considerable mouths were. Instead, they continue to champion causes that effect the rest of us.
For instance, Warren Beatty recently publicly urged Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to be “the action hero I know you can be” and raise taxes on the rich. Beatty knows his team of tax lawyers will keep him from ever having to pay. A Schwarzenegger spokeswoman responded, “ California needs budget reform because it's not a revenue problem, but a spending problem.” The liberals, of course, never have a problem spending.