Peace through strength

[The Persnickety Platypus]

Is the following a good philosophy by which to dictate a country's foriegn affairs?

[The Persnickety Platypus]

Do you have any evidence that the lithium-ion batteries are a real cost deterrent to producing electric cars? I note that the Volvo 3CC introduced at the Detroit Auto Show in 2005 uses lithium-ion batteries and, unlike the Tesla Roadster, was supposed to be a concept car aimed an a more economic price point.

Either they are a cost deterrant, or the oil industry has hijacked them.

And as your link demonstrates, the later appears to be more correct:

"Ovonics was purchased by Chevron-Texaco in 2001, reportedly so Chevron-Texaco could expand their business into the emerging hybrid market. But, some in the alternative energy field see an ulterior motive, so Chevron-Texaco can suppress the development of Lithium Ion Batteries. They may have a point, as Ovonics has shown little interest in selling Lithium Ion Batteries to electric vehicle enthusiasts since purchasing the company."

I didn't realize Ovonics and COBASYS were both part of ECD. Chevron has complete control over the NHM battery AND the Lithium Ion!

Is there any wonder why these two promising technologies have thusfar failed to make any impact on the auto industry? The US will never achieve energy independence as long as these sorts of business maneuvers are allowed.

If we are to ever disengage ourselves from the Middle East, lower gas prices, and stave off the potential environmental doomsday, we must put sanctions on this despicable manipulation of the free market.

The first step to doing this is developing a viable democracy. If not, the alternative energy industry must (somehow) step up.

Here's more info on this battery breakthrough at Toshiba's website:

http://www.toshiba.co.jp/about/press/2005_03/pr2901.htm

If this new pans out, this could go a long way towards making electric cars commercially viable.

Ah... this makes for a much brighter side of the discussion.

The American oil industry has very limited power over Japanese companies (so far), so hopefully this sort of technology may find it's way into the American market.

Perhaps the alternative energy industry does have the means to step up on it's own- but I won't get my hopes up.

How exactly do you imagine that ethanol is going to be implemented if not from "profit induced corporate maneuvers"? No one is going to go through the considerable expense of building out an ethanol infrastructure if there is not a profit involved.

What I am saying is that that oil and auto industries are utilizing this useless technology to fatten their oil and SUV profits; as the article you posted re-inforces.

Common sense alone should tell us to be skeptical of any alternative fuel supported by the oil industry.....

[The Persnickety Platypus]

Driving to school the other day I witnessed the unthinkable:





I took a picture for proof. Funny, there have been no recent changes in petroleum production that would merit such a rapid 60 cent drop. How convenient for Republicans that this would happen just before the November elections...

[Metatron]

I didn't realize Ovonics and COBASYS were both part of ECD. Chevron has complete control over the NHM battery AND the Lithium Ion!

Is there any wonder why these two promising technologies have thusfar failed to make any impact on the auto industry? The US will never achieve energy independence as long as these sorts of business maneuvers are allowed.

If we are to ever disengage ourselves from the Middle East, lower gas prices, and stave off the potential environmental doomsday, we must put sanctions on this despicable manipulation of the free market.

What exactly do you mean by "despicable manipulation of the free market"? Even assuming that Cobasys is in fact limiting their batteries to hybrid only applications (something I don't consider proven), it is THEIR BATTERY TECHNOLOGY not yours and not the governments. They have the right to do with their property as they please. Respect for property rights, whether physical or intellectual, is one of the foundations of a free market. Without it, a "free market" is just an illusion.

The first step to doing this is developing a viable democracy. If not, the alternative energy industry must (somehow) step up.

The alternative energy industry will "step up" the moment they become economically competitive and not a second sooner.

Perhaps the alternative energy industry does have the means to step up on it's own- but I won't get my hopes up.

Incidently, while it's not your beloved electric cars, the evil American automobile companies seem to be making some progress on hydrogen fuel cell cars.

http://www.gm.com/company/gmability/adv ... 91206.html

Common sense alone should tell us to be skeptical of any alternative fuel supported by the oil industry.....

So while we may disagree on who are the bad guys, we apparently agree that ethanol is a boondoggle?

[Metatron]

Driving to school the other day I witnessed the unthinkable:





I took a picture for proof. Funny, there have been no recent changes in petroleum production that would merit such a rapid 60 cent drop. How convenient for Republicans that this would happen just before the November elections...

Ahhh.... the conspiracy theories again. Perhaps you will educate me as to how this presumed manipulation is occurring. While I await your illuminating response I'll posit a few reasons why I think this is occurring.

1. Record levels of gasoline imports

High prices of spring and summer attracted more imported gasoline than usual, contributing to the above-average supplies that now are keeping prices down. "We had record levels of gasoline imports for a while, more than 1 million barrels a day just of gasoline," says Neil Gamson, analyst at the EIA.

http://www.usatoday.com/money/industrie ... ices_x.htm

2. The end of the driving season.

Although motorists worried that once the $3 barrier was pierced, prices never would fall much, the current drop-offs are logical, Gamson says: "The driving season is over. There's plenty of gasoline in inventory and crude oil prices have been dropping a lot. It's mainly market fundamentals."

(The quote above is also from the usatoday article above.)

3. Drilling and refinery capacity damaged by Katrina and Rita continues to come back online.

4. What was originally predicted to be a very active hurricane season has thus far been quite mild. This has aided #3 above and has reduced some of the catastrophe premium in oil prices.

5. The end of the Israeli - Hezbollah conflict and the temporary lack of a major blowup in the Middle-East temporarily eases the terror premium on the price of oil.

[The Persnickety Platypus]

What exactly do you mean by "despicable manipulation of the free market"? Even assuming that Cobasys is in fact limiting their batteries to hybrid only applications (something I don't consider proven), it is THEIR BATTERY TECHNOLOGY not yours and not the governments. They have the right to do with their property as they please. Respect for property rights, whether physical or intellectual, is one of the foundations of a free market. Without it, a "free market" is just an illusion.

Should tycoons possessing complete control over important resources really be allowed to do whatever they wish with their products, regardless of any detrimental effects these decisions may have on innocent bystanders and/or consumers?

Should weapon contracters be allowed to sell their services to violent foriegn regimes?

Should a food retailer be allowed to stop critical food sales in a needy country in favor of a more profitable enterprise somewhere else in the world?

Should billionaires be allowed to invest in multimillion dollar yachts while millions of people around the globe starve to death?

Regarding the current situation, are you in favor of letting Chevron withold a beneficial resource for the simple sake of inflating their oil sales, all while gas buyers suffer, our life sustaining environment is critically defiled, the entire US economy is thrust into shackles over foriegn energy dependence, and citizens of the Middle East suffer under a society at the reigns of corrupt oil lords, not to mention frequent invasions from gas guzzling countries hoping to save a few cents at the pump?

Is this the sort of society you wish to live in?

There's a funny thing about this "free market" you describe; it's not actually free. Pick up a history textbook. When corporations are allowed to run completely loose, the last thing present in a market is free competition (Standard Oil ring a bell?). Now we have companies like Chevron controlling every aspect of even their COMPETITOR'S businesses. Is that what you call capitalism?

Even assuming that Cobasys is in fact limiting their batteries to hybrid only applications (something I don't consider proven),

Just what would it take for you to consider this proven?

Did you know that I took all this information out of the encyclopedia?

Chevron owns COBASYS. Fact. NHM batteries are only sold to vehicles running on at least 50% gasoline. Fact

Incidently, while it's not your beloved electric cars, the evil American automobile companies seem to be making some progress on hydrogen fuel cell cars.

http://www.gm.com/company/gmability/adv ... 91206.html

I'll save my exitement for when (and if) it goes into production. As for now, GM has one of the worst average fuel economy ratings in the auto industry.

So while we may disagree on who are the bad guys, we apparently agree that ethanol is a boondoggle?

Ethanol is boondoggle, yes.

But I'm curious. Just who do you consider the bad guys? If it's not the industrial conglomerates stifling alternative energy production, who is it?

[Metatron]

What exactly do you mean by "despicable manipulation of the free market"? Even assuming that Cobasys is in fact limiting their batteries to hybrid only applications (something I don't consider proven), it is THEIR BATTERY TECHNOLOGY not yours and not the governments. They have the right to do with their property as they please. Respect for property rights, whether physical or intellectual, is one of the foundations of a free market. Without it, a "free market" is just an illusion.

Should tycoons possessing complete control over important resources really be allowed to do whatever they wish with their products, regardless of any detrimental effects these decisions may have on innocent bystanders and/or consumers?

First a comment on the loaded expression "tycoon". Last time I checked all of these evil oil companies were publicly traded enterprises. They are not owned by the modern day incarnations of Rockefeller. Chevron, for example, has 62% institutional ownership. That means that the primary owners of Chevron are mutual funds, insurance companies, corporate and government pension plans, etc. If you have any money tucked away in an IRA or 401K you probably own some of the stocks of these companies yourself. The rest of the stock is owned by thousands of individual investors. I myself have owned stock in some of these energy companies from time to time and undoubtedly will again in the future, but have never thought of myself as a "tycoon".

As to your point, if a company can be shown to have broken a law or to have caused harm through a faulty product or through some harm like pollution then the government has a right to protect the public. However, the decision by a company to sell it's product to producers of hybrid and fuel cell technologies rather than electric hardly rises to this level.

Should weapon contracters be allowed to sell their services to violent foriegn regimes?

The federal government has always had the right to control the import and export of goods and services to and from foreign countries. The government has absolute control over whether arms are sold to other nations and (hopefully) bases these decisions on our perceived national interest.

Should a food retailer be allowed to stop critical food sales in a needy country in favor of a more profitable enterprise somewhere else in the world?

Yes

Should billionaires be allowed to invest in multimillion dollar yachts while millions of people around the globe starve to death?

Yes

Regarding the current situation, are you in favor of letting Chevron withold a beneficial resource for the simple sake of inflating their oil sales, all while gas buyers suffer, our life sustaining environment is critically defiled, the entire US economy is thrust into shackles over foriegn energy dependence, and citizens of the Middle East suffer under a society at the reigns of corrupt oil lords, not to mention frequent invasions from gas guzzling countries hoping to save a few cents at the pump?

Your scenario is so full of hyperbole I'm not sure how to respond. I suppose that if Chevron owned the technology to the Mr. Fusion from the "Back to the Future" movies then I would want our government to buy the technology from Chevron to ensure it's development but nickel metal hydride batteries are not even remotely that important. They are already being used for developments in plug in hybrids and fuel cell vehicles that have the possibility to impact society as much as your theoretical EVs.

There's a funny thing about this "free market" you describe; it's not actually free. Pick up a history textbook. When corporations are allowed to run completely loose, the last thing present in a market is free competition (Standard Oil ring a bell?). Now we have companies like Chevron controlling every aspect of even their COMPETITOR'S businesses. Is that what you call capitalism?

As I have stated in the past, we do not have a pure laissez-faire capitalist economy. We have a so called mixed economy where capitalist enterprises are regulated when necessary for the public good. We are a far cry from the days of Rockefeller, Carnegie, and Morgan. The closest thing to Standard Oil these days is Microsoft not Chevron.

You have not even remotely demonstrated that Chevron has this awe inspiring power over it's competitors (most of it's TRUE competitors being other oil companies). Indeed, given the rather early stage development of practical electrical vehicles, you have not even demonstrated a discernable amount of harm from their alleged battery restrictions. Even if Cobasys had been aggressively trying to promote NHM batteries for EV applications all of this time I doubt that there would be a significant number of electrical cars on the road today. The costs of the vehicles and the infrastructure to make them practical would have greatly impeded their adoption. Perhaps these new lithium-ion batteries from Toshiba will help make this possible but the Cobasys NHM batteries certainly wouldn't have.

Even assuming that Cobasys is in fact limiting their batteries to hybrid only applications (something I don't consider proven),

Just what would it take for you to consider this proven?

Did you know that I took all this information out of the encyclopedia?

Perhaps, but given that this is Wikipedia and the Cobasys references have the caption citation needed, I'd be a lot more comfortable if I could find something other than hearsay references on this. Furthermore, the Wiki article states that the Cobasys website only addresses the use of NHM batteries for large multi-passenger hybrid vehicles which is not true. The website mentions use for vehicles of all scales and includes EV applications.

Chevron owns COBASYS. Fact. NHM batteries are only sold to vehicles running on at least 50% gasoline.

Fact: Cobasys is partly owned by Chevron and partly owned by Energy Conversion Devices.

As for your statement that NHM batteries are only used on vehicles running on at least 50% gasoline, are you expecting me to believe that Energy Conversion Devices, one of the primary FUEL CELL manufacturers, does not use their own batteries with their own fuel cells? Fuel cells run on hydrogen not gasoline so this prohibition wouldn't make much sense

So while we may disagree on who are the bad guys, we apparently agree that ethanol is a boondoggle?

Ethanol is boondoggle, yes.

But I'm curious. Just who do you consider the bad guys? If it's not the industrial conglomerates stifling alternative energy production, who is it?

The agri-business lobby and corn farmers. The people who brought you $35 billion in farm subsidies and large tariffs on the importation of Brazilian sugar cane (a more efficient ethanol fuel stock than corn).

[The Persnickety Platypus]

First a comment on the loaded expression "tycoon". Last time I checked all of these evil oil companies were publicly traded enterprises. They are not owned by the modern day incarnations of Rockefeller. Chevron, for example, has 62% institutional ownership. That means that the primary owners of Chevron are mutual funds, insurance companies, corporate and government pension plans, etc. If you have any money tucked away in an IRA or 401K you probably own some of the stocks of these companies yourself. The rest of the stock is owned by thousands of individual investors. I myself have owned stock in some of these energy companies from time to time and undoubtedly will again in the future, but have never thought of myself as a "tycoon".

Are you telling me that Standard Oil and Carnegie Steel had no shareholders? The CEO's of present day oil companies are tycoons by definition, albiet not necissarily to the extent that Rockefeller and co were.

Regardless, the oil industry is an oligopy, no matter how many shareholders they possess. Just because they may not be as bad as Standard Oil was does not make them legitimate players in a supposed free market.

As to your point, if a company can be shown to have broken a law or to have caused harm through a faulty product or through some harm like pollution then the government has a right to protect the public. However, the decision by a company to sell it's product to producers of hybrid and fuel cell technologies rather than electric hardly rises to this level.

I don't understand. How is the oil industry's undeniable supression of the alternative industry not harming the consumer?

You mention pollution as a legitimate reason for government regulation. Correct me if I am wrong, but aren't gasoline (and even hybrid) cars far dirtier than electric?

I shudder to think how far this problem would have to escalate before you would support any government intervention. What would it take? An American invasion of all OPEC nations?

Should a food retailer be allowed to stop critical food sales in a needy country in favor of a more profitable enterprise somewhere else in the world?

Yes

Should billionaires be allowed to invest in multimillion dollar yachts while millions of people around the globe starve to death?

Yes

These questions were actually intended to be rhetorical. I was hoping (in vain) that no one with even a remote sense of ethics could possibly favor (for example) the materialism of one over the lives of millions. I have long wondered how anyone who has ever seen pictures of starving, impoverished communities can look at the vast eccentricies of America's elite and see no problem with it. Has this "free" market blinded us from an accurate sense of justice?

I don't suppose you can convincingly justify your answers...?

Perhaps, but given that this is Wikipedia and the Cobasys references have the caption citation needed, I'd be a lot more comfortable if I could find something other than hearsay references on this. Furthermore, the Wiki article states that the Cobasys website only addresses the use of NHM batteries for large multi-passenger hybrid vehicles which is not true. The website mentions use for vehicles of all scales and includes EV applications.

Wikipedia oversees all encyclopedia entries, and deletes information which is false and/or biased. Otherwise, of course, you would see controversial topics (e.g. the Bible) littered with biased assertions. The fact that there is a "citation needed" for the article I quote does not really mean much; it just so happens that not a lot has been published on this subject (for good reason- one can see why Chevron/Texaco/GM might not want to let this information become common knowledge). Also notice that the entry occurs under the general topic of 'Electric Vehicles', not something such as 'anti-EV conspiracy theorys'.

Beyond this, I'm really not sure what would satisfy you (if anything). Try these:

Chevron buys NiMH patent
Browse through a few of these entries if you wish (just so you know that this whole patent-buyout deal is not just some random guy on wikipedia blowing stuff out his ass).

Chevron sues Toyota over patent infringement
Toyota-Panasonic formed a partnership "PEVE" to license and improve NiMH for EVs. Around this time, GM purchased the worldwide patent rights to the NiMH battery. Later, GM decided to sell those rights to Texaco, which then merged with Chevron. Chevron then put the battery rights under control of a Joint Venture, "COBASYS," and decided to fund a lawsuit against large-format (electric car battery) competitors such as Toyota-Panasonic.
Chevron's lawsuit led to a settlement agreement with PEVE (and Sanyo, etc.) whereby Toyota paid $30M to Chevron, Toyota was granted the rights to use "small-format" batteries on the Prius, and Toyota agreed not to build "large-format" versions of its batteries (needed for plug-in cars) for export to the U.S. until 2014. At least, that's what it seems to be; portions of the settlement agreement are still secret.


Hence, Chevron and GM together led to the end of Toyota's RAV4-EV program, it seems; at the current time, only Chevron is allowed to market "large-format" NiMH batteries in the USA, and Chevron has decided not to do so. In fact, Chevron won't sell its NiMH batteries to anyone except large fleets, it says.

I think this lawsuit best shows how Chevron intends to use it's patent- not for electric technology development, but electric technology supression.

Panasonic's battery catalog

What do you notice? Currently they only offer NiMH batteries under 10Ah. Before the legal battle against Cobasys, they had 95 Ah batteries for sale (proven by the fact that the remaining Toyota RAV4-EV's use these same batteries recieved in the former joint venture w/ Panasonic).

All this is consistent with the Wikipedia article, which points out that cars using less than 50% gas will violate Chevron's patent and be demoted to use of the smaller batteries (10ah). If it were not for this restriction, Panasonic would still be selling high power NiMH batteries to 100% electric vehicles.

Even if Cobasys had been aggressively trying to promote NHM batteries for EV applications all of this time I doubt that there would be a significant number of electrical cars on the road today. The costs of the vehicles and the infrastructure to make them practical would have greatly impeded their adoption. Perhaps these new lithium-ion batteries from Toshiba will help make this possible but the Cobasys NHM batteries certainly wouldn't have.

100% electric cars are feasible. In fact, they were on the road just a few years ago...

Have you ever heard of the EV1?





100-120 miles per charge. Electric vehicles impractical? That's news to This guy.

What's more, these long range electric vehicles ran on first edition NiMH batteries. The technology has been around for ages.

GM stopped production of the popular EV1 shortly after it's induction to the market, claiming NiMH battery required extensive flammability testing, the development of a cooling system, and other technology solutions. A little of an investment and all these hurdles could have been leapt. Instead, GM decided to go the easy route to big bucks; bigger SUVs.

Afterwards, to insure that the NiMH posed no future market threat, the patent was sold to Chevron/Texaco (as I have been saying all along).

GM's decision to stop production of the EV1's is not necissarily an unethical business tactic. However, Chevron's REFUSAL to make the wonder-battery available again (right in the midst of a growing energy crisis) is unacceptable, in my opinion.

Once again, all this is consistent with the Wiki article. Successful 100% electric vehicles have been made before, and could be made now- if not for Chevron/Texaco's patent. To make matters worse, companies cannot even develop a different battery similar to the NiMH in order to escape Chev's patent, as the Toyota/Panasonic case demonstrates.

There are even better alternatives to the hybrid. Unfortunately, the "free market" restricts current companies from exploiting those opportunities.

The agri-business lobby and corn farmers. The people who brought you $35 billion in farm subsidies and large tariffs on the importation of Brazilian sugar cane (a more efficient ethanol fuel stock than corn).

So we both agree that certain big industries are at fault.

But as you oppose any and all government intervention regarding the practices of these industries, how do you propose that we quell this problem? Magic?

[Metatron]

Are you telling me that Standard Oil and Carnegie Steel had no shareholders? The CEO's of present day oil companies are tycoons by definition, albiet not necissarily to the extent that Rockefeller and co were.

The term tycoon usually implies major share ownership and substantial control of the voting power of the company. Most of these CEO's, while horribly overpayed, still do not have anything resembling share control of the company and could be dismissed by the board at will. The closest thing to a modern day tycoon would be Bill Gates or Warren Buffett who both have a substantial percentage of the company stock and overwhelming control of the company.

Regardless, the oil industry is an oligopy, no matter how many shareholders they possess. Just because they may not be as bad as Standard Oil was does not make them legitimate players in a supposed free market.

Assuming the term you are using here is oligopoly then it depends on how you define it. If the oil industry is an oligopoly then so are most others. The oil industry's big boys are Exxon, Chevron, Conocco, Shell, BP, Total, and coming up rapidly Lukoil. There are also a host of second tier companies like Marathon, Hesse, Occidental Petroleum, Citgo, Devon Energy, etc. Then there are additional third tier companies like Ultra Petroleum, Southwestern Energy, Chesapeake Energy, etc. For all of their size, Exxon, for example, has a relatively small slice of the global oil pie.

Compare the oil industry to a number of other industries and you'll find that it's actually fairly low on the oligopoly scale. Microsoft has a near monopoly when comes to operating systems and office application programs. Oracle dominates the industrial strength database market. Altria is the 800 lbs. gorilla of the tobacco industry. Walmart has overwhelming market share in retail. The car industry used to be an oligopoly in the days of the Big Three, but that has largely been broken by foreign competitors. In short, Exxon and company are comparative light weights in terms of control of their industry.

As to your point, if a company can be shown to have broken a law or to have caused harm through a faulty product or through some harm like pollution then the government has a right to protect the public. However, the decision by a company to sell it's product to producers of hybrid and fuel cell technologies rather than electric hardly rises to this level.

I don't understand. How is the oil industry's undeniable supression of the alternative industry not harming the consumer?

You mention pollution as a legitimate reason for government regulation. Correct me if I am wrong, but aren't gasoline (and even hybrid) cars far dirtier than electric?

I shudder to think how far this problem would have to escalate before you would support any government intervention. What would it take? An American invasion of all OPEC nations?

1. You have yet to demonstrate that this "suppression" has done any significant harm. I doubt that electrical vehicles would have achieved any significant market share, Cobasys or no Cobasys. Most people are not going to accept the range limitations and need for overnight charging of vehicles required by the NHM batteries.

2. As for your comments about pollution, it should be noted that the electricity to power these EV's comes from power plants that mostly use hydrocarbons for power sources. Cobasys' co-owner Energy Conversion Devices developes fuel cells which have a similar energy footprint to EVs, ie. the only pollutants are caused by the energy needed to produce hydrogen for the fuel cell.

Should a food retailer be allowed to stop critical food sales in a needy country in favor of a more profitable enterprise somewhere else in the world?

Yes

Should billionaires be allowed to invest in multimillion dollar yachts while millions of people around the globe starve to death?

Yes

These questions were actually intended to be rhetorical. I was hoping (in vain) that no one with even a remote sense of ethics could possibly favor (for example) the materialism of one over the lives of millions. I have long wondered how anyone who has ever seen pictures of starving, impoverished communities can look at the vast eccentricies of America's elite and see no problem with it. Has this "free" market blinded us from an accurate sense of justice?

I don't suppose you can convincingly justify your answers...?

These are simply the more extreme consequences of a capitalist system.
In a capitalist system a seller will seek the best price that he can receive while the buyer tries to do likewise. The law of supply and demand largely determine what that price will be.

In the case of your example about cutting off critical food, it is unlikely that a company could literally cut off a shipment because the food would be part of contract agreed upon by the two parties. When the contract was over, if the country involved was unable or unwilling to pay market prices for the food then the company would be financially justified in selling it's products elsewhere. It might not choose to do so because of charitable impulses or public relations considerations but that would be outside of the economics involved. If the country in question is in this bad of shape then the issue comes more under the category of charity which usually involves charitable organization (often backed by these same companies) or government to government charity (often through UN groups like UNESCO or through loans by the IMF).

As for the billionaire and his yacht, it is another concept of capitalism that a person gets to keep the money that he earns (after paying taxes) and is allowed to purchase any legal good or service. It is a tenet of the economic system that a person can aspire to wealth, even great wealth. This is supposed to be an incentive for innovation either in new products or processes since the innovator gets to profit in proportion to the ideas economic impact in the market. Once again the problem of starving people is a matter of charity handled by charitable foundations (often funded by evil corporations and evil tycoons like Bill Gates) or government aid programs.

Incidently, if you object to this, you're quickly running out of places to move to that fits your philosophy. This is hardly only an American phenomenon. There are no lack of billionaires in the rest of the world and with the forces of globalization and the spread of capitalism, they'll be popping up in increasing numbers in nominally communist places like China. Your best bets are probably Cuba and North Korea.

Perhaps, but given that this is Wikipedia and the Cobasys references have the caption citation needed, I'd be a lot more comfortable if I could find something other than hearsay references on this. Furthermore, the Wiki article states that the Cobasys website only addresses the use of NHM batteries for large multi-passenger hybrid vehicles which is not true. The website mentions use for vehicles of all scales and includes EV applications.

Wikipedia oversees all encyclopedia entries, and deletes information which is false and/or biased. Otherwise, of course, you would see controversial topics (e.g. the Bible) littered with biased assertions. The fact that there is a "citation needed" for the article I quote does not really mean much; it just so happens that not a lot has been published on this subject (for good reason- one can see why Chevron/Texaco/GM might not want to let this information become common knowledge). Also notice that the entry occurs under the general topic of 'Electric Vehicles', not something such as 'anti-EV conspiracy theorys'.

Beyond this, I'm really not sure what would satisfy you (if anything). Try these:

Chevron buys NiMH patent
Browse through a few of these entries if you wish (just so you know that this whole patent-buyout deal is not just some random guy on wikipedia blowing stuff out his ass).

Chevron sues Toyota over patent infringement
Toyota-Panasonic formed a partnership "PEVE" to license and improve NiMH for EVs. Around this time, GM purchased the worldwide patent rights to the NiMH battery. Later, GM decided to sell those rights to Texaco, which then merged with Chevron. Chevron then put the battery rights under control of a Joint Venture, "COBASYS," and decided to fund a lawsuit against large-format (electric car battery) competitors such as Toyota-Panasonic.
Chevron's lawsuit led to a settlement agreement with PEVE (and Sanyo, etc.) whereby Toyota paid $30M to Chevron, Toyota was granted the rights to use "small-format" batteries on the Prius, and Toyota agreed not to build "large-format" versions of its batteries (needed for plug-in cars) for export to the U.S. until 2014. At least, that's what it seems to be; portions of the settlement agreement are still secret.


Hence, Chevron and GM together led to the end of Toyota's RAV4-EV program, it seems; at the current time, only Chevron is allowed to market "large-format" NiMH batteries in the USA, and Chevron has decided not to do so. In fact, Chevron won't sell its NiMH batteries to anyone except large fleets, it says.

I think this lawsuit best shows how Chevron intends to use it's patent- not for electric technology development, but electric technology supression.

Panasonic's battery catalog

What do you notice? Currently they only offer NiMH batteries under 10Ah. Before the legal battle against Cobasys, they had 95 Ah batteries for sale (proven by the fact that the remaining Toyota RAV4-EV's use these same batteries recieved in the former joint venture w/ Panasonic).

All this is consistent with the Wikipedia article, which points out that cars using less than 50% gas will violate Chevron's patent and be demoted to use of the smaller batteries (10ah). If it were not for this restriction, Panasonic would still be selling high power NiMH batteries to 100% electric vehicles.

I grow weary of arguing over Cobasys and their NiMH batteries. Perhaps the board of directors of Chevron are all fiends from hell for all I know. It's irrelevant anyway. The owners of a patent can largely do what they want with their property as long as they don't break any laws. There are no laws forcing someone to sell a product like a battery to possible competitors. End of story.

Even if Cobasys had been aggressively trying to promote NHM batteries for EV applications all of this time I doubt that there would be a significant number of electrical cars on the road today. The costs of the vehicles and the infrastructure to make them practical would have greatly impeded their adoption. Perhaps these new lithium-ion batteries from Toshiba will help make this possible but the Cobasys NHM batteries certainly wouldn't have.

100% electric cars are feasible. In fact, they were on the road just a few years ago...

Have you ever heard of the EV1?





100-120 miles per charge. Electric vehicles impractical? That's news to This guy.

What's more, these long range electric vehicles ran on first edition NiMH batteries. The technology has been around for ages.

GM stopped production of the popular EV1 shortly after it's induction to the market, claiming NiMH battery required extensive flammability testing, the development of a cooling system, and other technology solutions. A little of an investment and all these hurdles could have been leapt. Instead, GM decided to go the easy route to big bucks; bigger SUVs.

Afterwards, to insure that the NiMH posed no future market threat, the patent was sold to Chevron/Texaco (as I have been saying all along).

GM's decision to stop production of the EV1's is not necissarily an unethical business tactic. However, Chevron's REFUSAL to make the wonder-battery available again (right in the midst of a growing energy crisis) is unacceptable, in my opinion.

Once again, all this is consistent with the Wiki article. Successful 100% electric vehicles have been made before, and could be made now- if not for Chevron/Texaco's patent. To make matters worse, companies cannot even develop a different battery similar to the NiMH in order to escape Chev's patent, as the Toyota/Panasonic case demonstrates.

There are even better alternatives to the hybrid. Unfortunately, the "free market" restricts current companies from exploiting those opportunities.

I guess we just have a different definition of practical. An electric car that has only a range of 100 to 120 miles and requires an overnight charge to refuel is not my idea of practical. It might be okay for driving to areas near my house but would be problematic for long commutes to work and completely useless for long distance travel. Not to mention that I suspect that the EV-1 was more expensive than an equivalent sized gasoline powered car. The EV-1 was really only practical as a fleet vehicle for a company that limited it to in town driving between businesses. It's no great wonder that GM would want to divert resources to vehicles that would sell in sufficient numbers to warrant the cost of an assembly facility.

The agri-business lobby and corn farmers. The people who brought you $35 billion in farm subsidies and large tariffs on the importation of Brazilian sugar cane (a more efficient ethanol fuel stock than corn).

So we both agree that certain big industries are at fault.

But as you oppose any and all government intervention regarding the practices of these industries, how do you propose that we quell this problem? Magic?

1. I've never maintained that the system wasn't broken or that government is not unduly influenced by lobbyist and their donations. I simply claimed that the energy industry is neither better or worse in this regard from other industries that throw their money around through K Street flaks. ADM and their buddies are a case in point. Another would be the HMO industry that successfully lobbied for the Medicare prescription drug plan boondoggle that will further exacerbate the Medicare deficits on future generations.

2. In the case of the farm lobby what is needed is not government intervention but a LACK of government intervention! The problems above are government interventions on the behalf of a particular group, namely farm subsidies and protective tariffs. When you ask for government intervention for alternative energy, you are essentially asking for much the same thing, ie. government financial subsidies for alt-energy businesses and regulatory restrictions on their competitors.

[The Persnickety Platypus]

Assuming the term you are using here is oligopoly then it depends on how you define it. If the oil industry is an oligopoly then so are most others. The oil industry's big boys are Exxon, Chevron, Conocco, Shell, BP, Total, and coming up rapidly Lukoil. There are also a host of second tier companies like Marathon, Hesse, Occidental Petroleum, Citgo, Devon Energy, etc. Then there are additional third tier companies like Ultra Petroleum, Southwestern Energy, Chesapeake Energy, etc. For all of their size, Exxon, for example, has a relatively small slice of the global oil pie.

I am not claiming that there are only a few oil companies controlling the supply. What qualifies the industry as an oligopoly is that all these companies essentially operate as one giant trust. Their may be 20-30 different corporations, but they all lobby the government together under one name.

Compare the oil industry to a number of other industries and you'll find that it's actually fairly low on the oligopoly scale. Microsoft has a near monopoly when comes to operating systems and office application programs. Oracle dominates the industrial strength database market. Altria is the 800 lbs. gorilla of the tobacco industry. Walmart has overwhelming market share in retail. The car industry used to be an oligopoly in the days of the Big Three, but that has largely been broken by foreign competitors. In short, Exxon and company are comparative light weights in terms of control of their industry.

There is nothing inherently wrong with oligopolies. It is how they throw their weight around which makes the difference.

The gravest threat Microsoft poses to the market is perhaps slightly weaker technological progression, which in an age of open sourcing, is becomming less and less of a problem. Oracle certainly isn't going to be influencing any pre-emptive wars anytime soon. Altria's dominance is arguably only weaking the market for one of the most detrimental consumer substances on the planet, so no complaint there. Walmart is another story, of course.

Compared to the oil industry, Microsoft, Oracle, and Altria fail to incite any signifigant amount of consumer outrage. So what does this mean? Are we unfairly focusing on oil companies? No; we merely choose to focus our anger on the GREATEST of evils.

1. You have yet to demonstrate that this "suppression" has done any significant harm. I doubt that electrical vehicles would have achieved any significant market share, Cobasys or no Cobasys. Most people are not going to accept the range limitations and need for overnight charging of vehicles required by the NHM batteries.

I guess we just have a different definition of practical. An electric car that has only a range of 100 to 120 miles and requires an overnight charge to refuel is not my idea of practical. It might be okay for driving to areas near my house but would be problematic for long commutes to work and completely useless for long distance travel. Not to mention that I suspect that the EV-1 was more expensive than an equivalent sized gasoline powered car. The EV-1 was really only practical as a fleet vehicle for a company that limited it to in town driving between businesses. It's no great wonder that GM would want to divert resources to vehicles that would sell in sufficient numbers to warrant the cost of an assembly facility.

This just is not true. People were lining up by the thousands to purchase EV1s before GM pulled the plug on their production. In fact, GM's headquarters suffered a signifigant streak of riots after consumers were denied access to this car. Litterally hundreds of EV1 fan sites exist to this day.

The NiMH powered EV1 achieved 100-120 miles a charge. The average American drives 29 miles a day (remember, not all Americans live in the boondocks). That means one would only have to recharge his car every 3-4 days. Sounds totally reasonable to me. Most people must fill up their gas tanks in about that amount of time.

Also, don't forget, the EV1 was only the first of it's type- introduced almost a decade ago. Think of what technological and efficiency advancements electric car manufacturers could have achieved on these in the last 10 years if the NiMH had not been locked away in Chevron's closet all this time.

These are simply the more extreme consequences of a capitalist system.
In a capitalist system a seller will seek the best price that he can receive while the buyer tries to do likewise. The law of supply and demand largely determine what that price will be.

But you said it yourself- we don't live in a capitalist system. Supply and demand are not always the only factors determining price... they couldn't be.

As for the billionaire and his yacht, it is another concept of capitalism that a person gets to keep the money that he earns (after paying taxes) and is allowed to purchase any legal good or service. It is a tenet of the economic system that a person can aspire to wealth, even great wealth. This is supposed to be an incentive for innovation either in new products or processes since the innovator gets to profit in proportion to the ideas economic impact in the market. Once again the problem of starving people is a matter of charity handled by charitable foundations (often funded by evil corporations and evil tycoons like Bill Gates) or government aid programs.

There is a point where wealth incentive no longer becomes a contributing factor to innovation. I seriously doubt that many people making over a billion dollars innovate because they want even more money. At a certain point it all comes down to power: innovation is ones means of staying on top.

In addition, most mega-millionaires work for mega-companies. Mega-companies which control most of the market only hinder innovation, as they tend to squash competition.

Also, as long as we are talking about the economics of this dillema, can anyone really argue that losing BILLIONS of hours of potential manpower every year to disease and poverty is beneficial to the world market?

No one needs a yacht to survive.

Incidently, if you object to this, you're quickly running out of places to move to that fits your philosophy. This is hardly only an American phenomenon. There are no lack of billionaires in the rest of the world and with the forces of globalization and the spread of capitalism, they'll be popping up in increasing numbers in nominally communist places like China. Your best bets are probably Cuba and North Korea.

The United States has 256 billionares. Know who comes in second? Japan, with (if I'm not mistaken) a measly 79. To most other nation's, the term "billionaire" is a foriegn one. But contrary to your philosophy, their lack of super-elitists is having no detrimental effects to their economies.

The 2005 top 20 richest nations (income per capita):

Luxembourg
Norway
Switzerland
United States
Denmark
Iceland
Japan
Sweden
Ireland
United Kingdom
Finland
Austria
Netherlands
Belgium
Germany
France
Canada
Australia
Hong Kong
Italy


15/20 of the richest nations on the planet are super-liberal Socialist Welfare States (nary a billionare in sight of their borders). 4 out of the remaining 5 are not far off from being considered part of this category. The sole conservative, ultra-capitalist, billionaire loving nation to grace the top 20 is the United States.

In short, there are plenty of places to go which would fit my philosophy. Most of the nations on this list have highly regulated markets (within reason). They feature steeply graduated income taxes, and contribute a far higher percentage of their resources uplifting the poor (including those in developing countries).

I would hope that the most signifigant effect of globalization is not more billionaires as you suggested, but rather more nations joining the developed economies of the West. However, this may only happen if our world market may undergo nominal planning and regulation. If not, we will only be incorperating the people of the world into our nation's unfortunate system of wealth distribution. Take from the poor, give to the rich. It has been the trend ever since Reagan.

The owners of a patent can largely do what they want with their property as long as they don't break any laws. There are no laws forcing someone to sell a product like a battery to possible competitors. End of story.

But there should be. And if America ever wants to work it's way out of it's foriegn energy dependence, there will be.

[Metatron]

Assuming the term you are using here is oligopoly then it depends on how you define it. If the oil industry is an oligopoly then so are most others. The oil industry's big boys are Exxon, Chevron, Conocco, Shell, BP, Total, and coming up rapidly Lukoil. There are also a host of second tier companies like Marathon, Hesse, Occidental Petroleum, Citgo, Devon Energy, etc. Then there are additional third tier companies like Ultra Petroleum, Southwestern Energy, Chesapeake Energy, etc. For all of their size, Exxon, for example, has a relatively small slice of the global oil pie.

I am not claiming that there are only a few oil companies controlling the supply. What qualifies the industry as an oligopoly is that all these companies essentially operate as one giant trust. Their may be 20-30 different corporations, but they all lobby the government together under one name.

I think it will come as something of a shock to all of these oil companies that they are actually one giant oil trust. Out of curiosity, what is the name of this all encompassing oil lobbying organization that all of these oil companies supposedly pool all of their resources under.

Compare the oil industry to a number of other industries and you'll find that it's actually fairly low on the oligopoly scale. Microsoft has a near monopoly when comes to operating systems and office application programs. Oracle dominates the industrial strength database market. Altria is the 800 lbs. gorilla of the tobacco industry. Walmart has overwhelming market share in retail. The car industry used to be an oligopoly in the days of the Big Three, but that has largely been broken by foreign competitors. In short, Exxon and company are comparative light weights in terms of control of their industry.

There is nothing inherently wrong with oligopolies. It is how they throw their weight around which makes the difference.

The gravest threat Microsoft poses to the market is perhaps slightly weaker technological progression, which in an age of open sourcing, is becomming less and less of a problem. Oracle certainly isn't going to be influencing any pre-emptive wars anytime soon. Altria's dominance is arguably only weaking the market for one of the most detrimental consumer substances on the planet, so no complaint there. Walmart is another story, of course.

Compared to the oil industry, Microsoft, Oracle, and Altria fail to incite any signifigant amount of consumer outrage. So what does this mean? Are we unfairly focusing on oil companies? No; we merely choose to focus our anger on the GREATEST of evils.

1. Altria has not provoked consumer rage??? They've been successfully sued by the states (who ironically rely on the settlement for a good chunk of their state budgets), they are constantly answering to class action law suits, and they are perhaps unique in the corporate world in that they have advertising and websites devoted to persuading people NOT to use their products!!!

2. I gather that you are another one of those liberal whackjobs who like to pummel Walmart unmercifully. How dare Walmart employ 1.3 million people. It's really unfortunate how they discount products so that poor and lower middle class people can actually afford them. Heck, those fiends from Bentonville are getting ready to roll out a plan to lower the co-pay on generic drugs to only $4! Will the evil never end???

3. Your notion that oil companies WANTED the US to invade Afghanistan and Iraq is one of the goofiest ideas I've heard in a long time. First of all, why would they even care about Afghanistan? There's no oil there or anything else for that matter except for poppys. As for Iraq, any conceivable gain by the oil companies there (and they would be long term at best given the chaos there) is countered by the potential threats to their business elsewhere in the Middle-East as a result of this. Now they have the constant threat that their assets and personnel there can be attacked by terrorists. They have to worry whether Iran will get pissed off and close the straits of Hormuz to tankers. The chances are also now increased that friendly governments will be overthrown by fundamentalist as happened in Iran which would result in having their businesses nationalized there. If you want the names of companies that actually have a reason to root for warfare, I'll give you a few. Lockeed-Martin, General Dynamics, Boeing, and Raytheon for starters. It's all upside for defense contractors with no downside that I can see.

The NiMH powered EV1 achieved 100-120 miles a charge. The average American drives 29 miles a day (remember, not all Americans live in the boondocks). That means one would only have to recharge his car every 3-4 days. Sounds totally reasonable to me. Most people must fill up their gas tanks in about that amount of time.

Hey, different strokes for different folks. I personally don't know many people who can get by with such restricted mileage, but that may be because I live in Houston, TX. , a rather spread out city where long commutes are the norm. Perhaps people who live in inner or near city areas can get away with this.

There is a point where wealth incentive no longer becomes a contributing factor to innovation. I seriously doubt that many people making over a billion dollars innovate because they want even more money. At a certain point it all comes down to power: innovation is ones means of staying on top.

Even if true, it's still innovation no matter the motive.

In addition, most mega-millionaires work for mega-companies. Mega-companies which control most of the market only hinder innovation, as they tend to squash competition.

And your solution is what? Arbitrarily limit the size of companies?

Also, as long as we are talking about the economics of this dillema, can anyone really argue that losing BILLIONS of hours of potential manpower every year to disease and poverty is beneficial to the world market?

Of course not. I just happen to believe that destroying the economic underpinnings of the free market system is not the way to go about solving the problem. The free market system you seem to be upset about is what is helping to raise the standard of living in many emerging market countries. Look at South Korea for example. When I was a kid, South Korea was not a whole lot better off than many African nations are now. They are now a successful, technologically savvy nation who is quickly ascending to first world status assuming that they aren't already there.