Our industrial leaders had a visit last week from one of the major Japanese auto manufacturers. The Japanese auto industry is already deploying hundreds of engineers to meet market demands of zero emission cars. In fact, they are already looking ahead at what they term the second generation zero emission vehicle, which they look at as the fuel cell and maybe some other technologies. While that’s going on, we find that in fact the U.S. industry as well is working hard in many areas, as Mr. Walsh pointed out, basically tradng, through legislation, to get those standards backed off. Therefore, the proposed $1 billion in Federal funds should encourage the U.S. auto industry to do the same thing, that is to focus on the technological challenges and should not be used to fund the legal process to jeopardize the technologically feasible zero pollution technology. In summary, what can you do? I think we can help the process by supporting the California program. As demonstrated, that is feasible. Support those States wishing to adopt those programs. I think that is very important as we look worldwide. This will help to restore U.S. leadership and market. Continue to create an environment which fosters competition, not only competition with the major manufacturers but also to put Federal dollars, allow a mechanism for the entrepreneurs, the small business, to access those dollars and access that risk-sharing. That we see, with the advanced technology, as very important to allow not only the major manufacturers to have that opportunity, but also the entrepreneurs.If you enjoyed reading this post, check out my other writings on the automobile industry, such as my article about plate lookup searches. Have a look, you’ll like it!
August 10th 2008 Posted to
Autos