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Hobbittses, Passing On the Changes, To Mars Alice, Sperm Or Death?, Dino Discoveries, The Weird From Washington, and Interview w/ Dr. James Watson (yes, THE Watson of Watson and Crick… don’t look so surprised)
I'm the host of this little science show. 
Ehile I liked hearing about the drug company physician limitations… I think ya’lls perspective on carbon emission limitation is dead wrong.
First off To Justin: The EV1 (GM’s electric car) failed because they cost about $80,000 per vehicle to make (A two seater subcompact that could go about 100 miles or 50 with A/C or heat) and they were leasing them for about $500 a month. (meaning they only ever got $34,000 – $44,000 from each person who ever drove the car). GM was hoping that producing something that needed high-density, lightweight electricity storage would cause a dramatic drop in battery costs. It didn’t. So they scrammed the program and sued the state of California to remove their Zero Emission Vehicle restrictions because it turned out to be cheaper.
Furthermore, the strike was a UAW planned thing to get GM to agree to unreasonable job security plans. It didn’t work, but GM is giving a huge chunk of money to the UAW and the UAW is now managing it’s workers health plan. GM line workers make more than enough (about 50K a year and another 40K in benefits)
In the meantime, I really hope that Cali, VT, Et Al aren’t going to do something really dumb like a quota system or penalizing carmakers, but it sounds like that is what they are doing. If they really want to influence and change society they should add huge taxes to “carbon belchers”. That will make people more interested in smaller cars or hybrid cars or things that belch less carbon. That will make the car companies sell more of said smaller cars, and then the desired goal is reached because the states actually put a monetary value on cleanliness.
$80,000 per vehicle is a joke… It only works if you add in all the R&D cost that goes into any new vehicle…
There’s a fuel cell highlander down the road from me that cost 10 million dollars to make… but if they made a 2nd one it would cost about 5 million to build… 10 of them @ 1 million a vehicle, etc. just math…
GM pulled the electric vehicle because they were going to lose money it’s true… Electric cars require very little maintanence and don’t have engines. Service departments bring more money into dealerships than the sales departments do.
Why they decided to destroy every one of the vehicles? To kill the market demand.
As far as the strike, Unions are no different than corporations when it comes to flexing their power (free market fans have a problem with that?). One thing that might make it easier for american companies to keep jobs here? Universal healthcare. It’s why there are so many car factories in Canada now.