Friday, July 17, 2009

$10,000 Rebate for Eco-cars - only good for the short-term

I can understand why Premier McGuinty is promoting the electric car with a 25 per cent rebate (though because of our urban lifestyle the Zenn car might have been a better product to boost).

It would certainly smell like a win-win-win situation to an Ontario political leader, would it not?

First, because our province’s manufacturing sector is taking a nose-dive - especially the automotive industry - promoting a car (“pick a car, any car”) smells like a winning move.

Second, by promoting a car that at first glance sounds like a green machine, Mr. McGuinty may feel he’s on the right side of the save-the-planet debate.

(That debate is still going on isn’t it, even during the recession?)

And thirdly, what politician wouldn’t want to appear generous to a fault in the midst of economic toil and trouble?


["You want mustard on that?"]

I mean, if I was King of All I Survey, I’d want to look generous at all times, and in this day and age, sharing a big bag of Oreos with my serfs... sorry, my loyal followers... in The Village just wouldn’t cut it.

Growth, green, generous. Win-win-win.

Right?

In my opinion, and that’s the one that counts around here (Right?), I think the rebate, worth up to $3 billion, is a short-sighted venture.

More to follow.

***

Your thoughts, so far?

E.G., Would you replace your Civic with a Volt?

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2 comments:

Robert McClelland said...

The thing is, we're in a chicken or the egg sort of situation. We need the infrastructure to support electric cars before people can switch to them but we need enough people driving electric cars to justify building the infrastructure for them. In order to solve dilemmas such a this we need the government to step in and McGuinty is doing so by providing an initial market and infrastructure for electric vehicles. Once he does this the free market can then take over so there's no need for the initiative to be anything but a short term one.

G. Harrison said...

Hi robert,

I appreciate your very thoughtful comment.

The situation is indeed of the chicken and egg variety.

And what kind of eggs should we prefer?

Without giving too much away, I'll say now we do need infrastructure for a new type of transportation model, and government involvement is key.

But what type of transportation model, or chicken (or is it the egg?), will be the easiest to sustain 10 - 20 years down the road?

More to follow.

Gord