As I drive home for the weekend, I cannot help but think: “wow, how incredible is it that we have had all of these new and innovative American automobile start-up companies during my lifetime.”
Homines libenter quod volunt credunt
Jul 29th, 2011 by wintercow20
As I drive home for the weekend, I cannot help but think: “wow, how incredible is it that we have had all of these new and innovative American automobile start-up companies during my lifetime.”
It must be fun to drive a DeLorean, but where do you put the kids and the tent?
Driving back from the track today, I noticed a truck pulling a boat with a 115 hp outboard on a trailer. The sight made me wonder, “Why weren’t automobiles developed with a similar configuration? Wouldn’t it make just as much sense to build a car with an easily detachable power and drive module that fastened on to it as it does to do so on a boat? If the outboard motor had become common before the auto, would that be how cars would be built today?”
Chuck, I assume you were driving your Shelby, which is faster than Wintercow’s DeLorean.
Outlaws and others drive air-cooled vehicles, which are sort of like riding an Evinrude, except you do not have to drive it through water.
The dream combination is to have a Chevy Suburban pulling two trailers, one for your boat, followed with another trailer holding your motorcycle, your mountain bike, and fuel. Hook the Suburban up to the RV. That way you can go south in the winter and ride your bike, which gets great mileage. The EPA will send you money for riding the mountain bike or the Harley. Add another trailer to pull the Volt, and get $7000.
It’s not that incredible once you understand that the reason we have so many wonderful start-up automobile companies here is partly because the Unions’ flexible work rules are a breeding ground for innovation.
Also, the pro-market government has ensured that there are no barriers to entry, enforces the rule of law by treating all companies equally, and has allowed consumers to freely acquire automobiles from anywhere in the world with no tariffs or other convoluted tax schemes to distort their decisions.
This entire process was accelerated when in 2008, as the largest and oldest US automotive companies were in bankruptcy, the government proved to investors that it would not reward its political supporters at the expense of introducing regime uncertainty. Thus, when GM and Chrysler were dissolved, they split up into many of the small and innovative automotive companies you see today, with seed financing from the bondholders and stockholders of the failed companies, who got a perfectly reasonable amount for their initial investment.