Nissan: Taxpayer Money Needed for Expensive Electric Cars

By Paul Chesser

Highlighting that electric vehicles are no more than a scheme to extract money from taxpayers rather than sell a viable product, the producer of a dismal-(but still highest) selling all-electric car in the U.S. confirmed they wouldn’t exist at all without government.

Francois Bancon, Nissan’s global general manager of product strategy and planning, could not have been more clear in a discussion with the media at the Australia launch of the all-electric Leaf. In the U.S., taxpayers are backing a $1.4 billion loan guarantee for Nissan to retrofit a Tennessee manufacturing plant to produce the Leaf.

“Yeah, [government support] is the key,” Bancon said in an interview reported by Web site Car Advice. “This technology is expensive; the car is expensive.

Read the rest at National Legal and Policy Center.

23 Responses to Nissan: Taxpayer Money Needed for Expensive Electric Cars

  1. Rob N. Hood June 20, 2012 at 3:30 pm #

    “wouldn’t exist without government”- Wow. Shocking! How about virtually nothing would exist without government- some people seem to have forgotten that seriously important FACT of life here on little old earth. How about the large businesses banks that cannot fail?? The amounts of money we’ve given and continue to shovel to these entities is STAGGERING, to put it lightly. Oh well, let’s focus our paranoia and anger elsewhere. Gee, that seems quite a convenient and successful strategy. And the ABOVE is a loan! What I was referring to was FREE (tax-payer) MONEY.

    • NEILIO June 21, 2012 at 7:30 pm #

      No it’s not just any old loan. It is a federal loan guarantee. Which means if the recipient of the loan can’t or won’t pay it back, then the federal govt pays the loan off. Which means we the taxpayers are stuck with the bill. And given the failure of virtually all “green” companies that have gotten loans guaranteed by the govt in the past few years, the bill is aleady huge. This Nissan LDT (Little Death Trap) is probably going to be one of the next “green” peices of junk on the junkpile that the taxpayers have been footing the bill for.

  2. Heath Clarke June 21, 2012 at 12:44 pm #

    As usual, the free market should determine what products and service people should buy, and the government should maintain a role of ensuring that those good and services don’t hurt anyone else. Unproven global warming theories don’t count in this regard.

  3. Rob N. Hood June 21, 2012 at 2:55 pm #

    What about our “dependence upon foreign oil”, terrorism, costs of pollution, etc. etc.? The government intervenes all the time, every day, on behalf of business, especially the big ones, for their benefit and sometimes a mutual benefit as I’ve listed above as a few examples. I’m not saying that is always the right thing to do, just that the focus on “green” business and products as undeserving of this same or similar attention is disingenuous, hypocritical, and spurious.

  4. Rob N. Hood June 22, 2012 at 9:08 am #

    Thank you Neil for the education re: what a “loan” is. Very useful and informative. But once again you ignore all the absolute free money that is doled out, in even much greater amounts. But no- let’s all focus our rage and suspicion on other things… interesting how that works. Convenient too, for the big boys and the big money.

  5. Rob N. Hood June 22, 2012 at 1:07 pm #

    Corporate Power, which totally dominates the U.S. economy, is on its way to own, literally, the whole of the U.S. political process as well. The GOP totally serves the interests of the Corporate Power: achieving as much environmental, financial, and workplace de-regulation as possible; making sure that nothing significant is done about global warming; continuing reduction of personal and corporate income taxes; continuing destruction of the U.S. labor movement; and eliminating virtually any Federal programs other that those concerned with the military, American imperialism, and domestic repression. It is also well-known that the Democratic Party has, since Cinton, offered little organized resistance to this process

  6. Joe June 22, 2012 at 11:23 pm #

    Heath, you said it in a few words and you, in my opinion, are correct. Keep posting please.

  7. NEILIO June 23, 2012 at 8:59 pm #

    “What it is really going to require I think is expanding our horizons in that regard and viewing charging stations as today’s version of an off ramp or a highway.”

    Woa!!! Hold on a sec. Is this what they have in mind when they talk about infrastructure? So who pays for the electricity to charge the vehicles at these “infrastucture” charging stations? Is that going to be another bill to the taxpayers? I’m sorry, call me old fashioned but I really thought that with the new electric vehicles the charging stations were going to be somewhat in the fashion of todays gas stations, where you pull up to a charger, hook up, unhook when the charge is complete, and pay for the electricity you’ve used to charge the vehicle. But now that I think about it that won’t work well because it takes a significant amount of time to charge an EV’s battery. Has any one even considered this while we stumble into the future of transportation? Charging stations are going to have to be more like hotels. Rent a room for 8 hours while your battery charges. Why is it the more I think about it the more ridiculous it seems?

  8. Rob N. Hood June 24, 2012 at 4:23 pm #

    So you stick your credit card or debit card into the slot and Presto Chango you pay for your electicity! Wow! And if you choose to take a long jouney with your EV, well, by golly you plan ahead a little bit, don’t you…?! Course the best charging stations take much less time than regular ones, and they may get better and faster as TECHNOLOGY progresses! Wowy!

    • NEILIO June 24, 2012 at 7:02 pm #

      What I was commenting on was this from the article:

      “What it is really going to require I think is expanding our horizons in that regard and viewing charging stations as today’s version of an off ramp or a highway.”

      What does that mean? I don’t doubt that they will find ways to make the charging cycle faster eventually, but that certainly is not the current state of the technology. But what concerns me is in that statement this guy seems to consider that charging stations should be available to utilize as part of the infrastructure just like an “off ramp or a highway”. That implies, to me anyway and maybe I’m wrong but, that those would be available for anyone that has a vehicle that requires a charge for no fee. Unless they are looking at it like the Mn pass kind of thing that they are using for carpool lanes, I don’t know. The question is should charging stations be taxpayer funded or private enterprizes?

  9. Rob N. Hood June 24, 2012 at 7:35 pm #

    This will be privatized like gas stations, of course. The infrastructure for these private businesses will also of course be paid for by the government via taxes. Who benefits? Well, both the consumer and the private companies do. Who actually makes money off the system? Well the private companies do. Do they pay taxes? Sure they do. Maybe not enough to preclude the bulk coming from the average citizen, but this is the system that built this country to be what it is today. A successful one. How is this in any way a mystery to be solved or something to be concerned about in light of all the examples in place over decades and decades? It isn’t. It’s Right-wing handwringing and base cage-rattling.

    • NEILIO June 25, 2012 at 5:45 am #

      Really? What makes you say that? What private companies today have had their companies buildings built by the govt.? The only thing I can think of is sports arenas, which is something to which I am opposed. But other than that, can you name a single gas station that was built with tax dollars? What private industries today have had their infrstructure built by the govt.? You say that as if it were commonplace but I am fairly certain it is very rare to non-existant. And I’m not saying that to be antagonistic, and maybe I am just ignorant, but I have not heard of that before. Can you provide some examples?

  10. Rob N. Hood June 25, 2012 at 6:58 am #

    INFRASTRUCTURE. Do you not know what that is?

    • NEILIO June 25, 2012 at 6:35 pm #

      Yes I know what infrastucture is. Roads and highways, bridges, tunnels, on ramps and off ramps, sewers and drainage, and stuff like that. There are no gas stations, hotels, or other businesses buildings that are included in that. How in the heck do charging stations fit into that description? That is the question! One that you don’t seem to have an anwer for.

  11. Rob N. Hood June 26, 2012 at 2:08 pm #

    You brought it up, I didn’t. Off ramps lead to where usually? Businesses! Sewers, electric, frontage roads, etc. are used for what? Businesses! Public schools and colleges educate who? Future business leaders! And these are just the more obvious examples. There are many more less obvious examples though, mnay of which I probably disagree having governement paid or subsidized. But that is probably a whole other kettle of fish more or less.

  12. Rob N. Hood June 27, 2012 at 2:58 pm #

    The politicians in Washington, egged on by inside-the-Beltway media pundits, incessantly push the falsehood that taxing the wealthy would be counter-productive for the economy, claiming such taxation siphons away money that the rich would otherwise use to create jobs.

    The politicians contend it’s better to dump more money into the pockets of the wealthy than to dump fair-share tax money from the wealthy into government coffers because, they argue, government is a sinkhole.

    Think about how many jobs the wealthy are not creating with the tons of tax-break cash they are dumping into political campaigns where the wealthy are nakedly seeking to elect politicians who will sustain their tax breaks to the detriment of society.

    Wealthy conservatives aligned with the likes of power-broker Karl Rove plan to spend upwards of $1 billion this year to capture the White House and control Congress. Getting money out of the election process is the only way to begin turning around this deeply corrupt and corrupting system.

  13. Joe June 29, 2012 at 11:58 pm #

    If I’m reading the article above correctly wasn’t the discussion about electric cars? Hood, your liberal/progressive blather bores me as well as other statements you make that has nothing to do with the subject at hand. Please correct me if I’m wrong.

  14. Rob N. Hood July 2, 2012 at 7:08 am #

    You know you are never wrong Joe.

  15. Joe July 4, 2012 at 12:12 am #

    As to the issue at hand you are correct. Cut to the chase and answer without going into left/right field when the ball is hit into center. Your constant banter about other items is simply annoying to say the least.

  16. Rob N. Hood July 5, 2012 at 7:53 am #

    Yes, I should be as bland and inoffensive as possible. That will help solve something, I’m sure. Funny tho how your advice doesn’t seem to apply to yourself.

  17. Rob N. Hood July 6, 2012 at 12:41 pm #

    Ford’s new C-max looks and sounds very interesting. Although Prius is still king.

  18. Rob N. Hood July 10, 2012 at 1:56 pm #

    The majority of the public hates the Citizens United ruling and wants corporate money completely out of our elections. Public opinion polling margins against corporations and billionaires having the ability to buy elections with essentially unlimited spending is massive among both independents and Democrats. Even most Republicans are against it. And these are not “soft” opinions. The passion is in favor of strict campaign donation limits and zero corporate spending on politics.

  19. Rob N. Hood July 16, 2012 at 8:23 am #

    Romney’s top economic adviser Greg Mankiw has argued for outsourcing jobs, calling it “a good thing.” As another Bain manager explained, “I never thought of what I do for a living as job creation.” Romney’s role at Bain was to create wealth for himself and his firm, not jobs. American jobs were destroyed by them.

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