If someone started a business making cars that use electic or solar power, would they be shut down?

Question

Do you think the government would shut that business down, since they oil companies would be losing billions of dollars?

Answer 1

It already happened. Saturn used to have an electric car called the EV1 they leased in AZ and CA. It was very cool.  I live in AZ and I wanted one.  Inexplicably, they decided not only to stop producing them, but to take all of them back from the lessees and sent them to the junkyard.

Answer 2

No one would shut it down except its bad products. Give people something thats economical to operate , workable and is reasonably priced and the business will succeed.

Answer 3

No it would be like all others in the past.. You would either be bought out then shut down or, you would get hit by a car while checking your mail in front of your home. Or you would end up in jail for the rest of your life.

Pretty simple. You don't mess with the big boys and their money.

Answer 4

It is very very expensive bringing a car to market. even the biggest, like Toyata, team up with others for new models like the Aygo/Peugeot/Ceitroen C1.

The scandinavian pico couldn't afford the crash testing, was bought out by Ford Th!nk and closed down.

Also look at the size of the advertising bugets to make us buy infernal combustion cars we don't want/need.

key NiMH battery patents are owned by oil companies, which limits the electric only range of hybrids to a useless <10 miles.

Answer 5

Yes of course they would. The government is nothing more than money whores. Look at all the cases online. We have the power and technology to save the Earth from all the daily c**p but money would stop a coming and as we all know money rules the world.

Answer 6

no but you would have to be price competitive or the lack of business will

Answer 7

no. the marketplace would shut them down.

no one wants electric cars.

this was proven 100 years ago.

your great-great grandparents chose combustion engines over electric and just like the horse whip, they went away.

Answer 8

There is always a greater strategy. We are burning all the Middle East oil to leave the desert dry. We didn't know there would be so much to burn.

Remember there is also a greater strategy than that. Mankind is choking himself into a de-population cycle.

Remember there is a greater strategy than that, Mother Nature is striking back at us.

Remember there is a greater strategy than that, humans will not know what they have until they loose it. A great mass extinction is going on. Dozens of species are dying out each week.

There is a greater strategy than that; our sun is showing the first signs of dying to become a giant dwarf. The earth will become a cinder.

There is a greater strategy than that, we will all return as some form of dispersed matter and energy floating in the cosmos.

There is a greater strategy than that, somewhere we may be re-born on a marvelous green planet as a test to see if we will be grand hosts of such an incredible creation.

But, someone will invent money and accumulation of wealth to maintain power over the population. They will divide the land and dictate upon it, and use it for greedy purposes without giving back a plug nickel to support what once was. They will walk the earth with their priorities out of order to maintain dominant position and gather willing armies to defend their castles, luxuries, and laws.

The populations will be powerless, ignorant, and subservient to the demons of power.

There is a greater strategy than that, God and the Devil will battle in our hearts and we all will chose sides.

Answer 9

Electric cars suck is why they have not been successful. It has nothing to do with the government or oil companies.

Electric cars have been and are being produced now. If they were practical, there would be millions of them. Why aren't all you conspirancy theory proponents not driving one? If you like them, go buy one! They are available now.

Answer 10

No  and I think that is a wacky outlook.  Detroit sells cars not oil and the price of gasoline has severely impacted that business.  GMC and  Ford have sunk billions into hydrogen cell vehicles with the hope of reaching a production model within twenty years. Hydrogen cell is not a fossil fuel and burns completely clean.  Ford had made some huge advances lately through some European research.  The first manufacturer having a cost efficient hydrogen cell car wins and thats clear.  The electric cars of the past were not very efficient, were very expensive and amazingly got into trouble with environmentalists because of the batteries.  The favorite fantasy of wacked out environmentalists was that the GM electric car was taken off the road by a massive oil company conspiracy but in fact GM was faced with legal sanctions from greenies about the batteries.  Those cars were taken off the road and bought back, at a loss to GM, in order to assure that the batteries did not end up in landfills.  My brother had one in the early 90's and we watched in amazement as that happened.  Oil companies sell a vanishing resource and know that they are out of business in the near future so they are getting all they can right now.  The automobile industry knows that the future is hydrogen cell, hybrids and ethanol are only short term bridges to that goal.  The internal combustion engine is on borrowed time.  GM and Ford are spending billions in research and prototypes (some in use right now) to help oil die.  Your conspiracy views are part of the problem and not the solution.  If you are an eco-wack then you need to know that you are the problem not the solution.  The other great mean monster Wal-Mart has agreed to sell ethanol and be a hydrogen fuel station at its thousands of US stations.  Other than diddle with conspiracy fantasies and wear hemp shoes are you doing anything on that scale that will have that much impact?  Not too likely.  And I am sure you will obstruct clean fuel as long as you can.

Answer 11

Not in the United States.  In fact, anyone with a decent scheme to produce a solar or electric car that actually works is elegible for any number of Federal grants.  

Trust me: the oil companies are not worried about solar power, or electric cars.  Most of them have invested heavily in these technologies anyway, and would benefit by their development.  

The reason that we don't have electric or solar cars is that nobody has made any that are particularly practical.  Nor is there any reason to believe that great advances will soon be made.  This business isn't like computers, which got small and miraculous.  Transportation requires big motors and high currents and heavy things, none of which software can help with.

Answer 12

a solar car won't work.

the sun doesn't shine at night.

or in the rain.

or when it's cloudy.

it's not a conspiracy, it just doesn't work.

every year or 2, there's an electric car race.

typically entered by university engineering departments.

the cars weigh 50 pounds, and wouldn't survive a crash of any kind.  and only work on deserted flat roads.  they like the Australian outback.  not cloudy and hilly new england.

as far as electric, don't toyota, saturn, and several other companies make them already?

Answer 13

The government would not shut you down, and neither would the oil companies.  Your company would, however, probably fail because electric and solar powered cars simply cannot compete in the market place.  Of course if you came up with some type of revolutionary technology that made one or both of these economically viable, you would probably do very well.

Answer 14

It would be  a freakin' miracle that businesses like these would even exist because of the obvious monopoly of these oil companies. Take for example a fellow Filipino who invented a car powered by water. Impossible? I was very skeptical about it also. But when it was shown on TV, the car could have a max speed of 40-60kph! Not bad for a water-powered engine that releases only white smoke (water vapor) from its exhaust pipe. Just like SOME typical governments around the world, the people that they represent are more enthusiastic and supportive about the breakthrough. They on the other hand, applause or praise for a short-period of time and then turn a deaf-ear and a blind-eye about the possibility of being totally independent from oil-producing companies. Obviously, when money talks, everybody, especially the people in government listens A WHOLE LOT MORE THAN MOST PEOPLE! It is not only a matter of financial reasons whether potential companies offering alternative sources of energy may be shut down, (or even be set-up for that matter!)it is also a matter of "economic logic" that monopoly is a harsh reality that everybody has to face and unless governments would be willing, open-minded and use their political will in the right way instead of bureaucratic bullshit to chip off some of the monopolic force that oil companies are imposing on different countries,  I guess the GOLDEN RULE will always apply:  "HE WHO HAS THE GOLD MAKES THE RULE!!!! and of course, corruption is not so far behind! (WHY AM I NOT SO SURPRISED?!)

Answer 15

No they wouldn't.

Though if you sell solar powered cars you're probably have a hard time finding people willing to buy them.

Electric cars aren't so much of a problem though and there are already companies that actually make electric cars (not just vapourware like the Tesla roadster).