Aptera's chances of getting DOE loan money improving?
Aptera 2e final design rendering - Click above to enlarge
Aptera is planning to build the 2e, a fully electric, extremely efficient, highway-speed vehicle that can seat two occupants, and the company would like to get some funding from the Department of Energy. For its part, the DOE is looking for qualifying companies to grant attractive loans in order to spur the development of efficient cars and trucks. Perfect match, right?
Well, there's just one problem, and it's a biggie. As intriguing as it may be, the Aptera 2e isn't a car, at least not by the strict definition of the word. Because it sports three wheels, the government considers the 2e a motorcycle, which does have its advantages. In this case, though, that tripod arrangement isn't doing Aptera any funding favors.
That soon might change. Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) has co-sponsored legislation that would redefine what kind of vehicles would qualify for DOE funding. It seems that this updated legislation has passed through the House and is likely to be voted on in the Senate sometime next week.
If passed, any vehicle that's fully enclosed, designed to carry at least two adults and averages at least 75 mpg would be eligible for funding. Aptera isn't the only company that's interested in seeing this definition changed as the law would apply to any company that meets the updated qualifications.
Gallery: Aptera
[Source: Automotive News - Sub. Req'd]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
Tim 12:06PM (10/03/2009)
Money for Apetra? Why not give EVERY corporation welfare? After all, Federal Reserve FIAT money DOES grow on trees!
( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporatism )
One problem… every $Dollar the Fed prints makes YOURS less valuable!
In 1933 when the Federal Reserve was created, a US $Dollar had the purchasing power of One US $Dollar. Now it is worth only $0.04 cents and THAT was before this last year when the Fed doubled the money supply and Congress (both parties) doubled the national debt.
Audit the Fed and then End the Fed! Replace it with Sound, Constitutional United States money instead of the counterfeited Federal Reserve Notes. With sound money, Congress can NOT spend us into oblivion because they would have to get the funds via fully disclosed taxes instead of printing it and passing on a hidden inflation tax.
Without the Fed there would be NO more undeclared wars, NO more Corporatism pretending to be free market capitalism, NO more generational gov't dependant welfare families, NO more $Trillion US global empire pissing off the entire world and NO more ACORN type fraud and abuse of taxpayer charity!
Society is held hostage by Corporatists NOT Free Market Capitalists. This is demonstrated by Gov’t bailouts, loans & Corporate welfare.
When Corporatism & Progressive Gov’t Central Planning fails, IDOTS like Michael Moore blame the heavily regulated (Free) Market Capitalists.
A Capitalist is ANYONE who saves CAPITAL to INVEST in business for a profit. CAPITALISTS range from Street Vendors to the Stock Market Investors.
If you save up and buy a chain saw to cut wood to sell on the corner.. you are a capitalist. If you buy sewing needles and yarn to make sweaters to sell on eBay... you are a capitalist. If you start a blog to sell advertising (Sebastian)... you are a capitalist!
If you go to gov't to get taxpayer money to fund a company, that Gov't/Business partnership gave you an unfair competitive advantage in the marketplace which makes you are Corporatist, NOT a capitalist!
Taxpayer money for Aptera?
Learn something valuable at (mises dot org) & Rediscover Liberty!
Reply
mike 12:08PM (10/03/2009)
I think you're wrong on a good deal of this stuff, Tim.
My_SS_RX8 12:27PM (10/03/2009)
"""In 1933 when the Federal Reserve was created, a US $Dollar had the purchasing power of One US $Dollar. Now it is worth only $0.04 cents and THAT was before this last year when the Fed doubled the money supply and Congress (both parties) doubled the national debt.""""
And a cup of coffee cost a nickel, $20 would buy 5 full bags of groceries, hamburger costs .11 cents a pound, gas was 10 cents a gal. a new car could be had for $445 dollars and the average working joe earned about $24. to $28. a week and put .15 cents of that into savings. You could buy a new house for $5600 or pay rent of about $18 a month. Gold was $26.33 an oz. and very very very few ordinary people owned any. The Yankees beat the Washington Senators in the World Series. Unemployment was 25.2%. Hitler became the German chancellor, blamed the burning of the Reichstag on the Jews and opened the first concentration camp at Dachau. The republican party fought efforts for unemployment payments, reconstruction efforts, efforts to mitigate the dust bowl, and the Emergency Banking Act which later was passed to prevent a run on small banks causing their bankruptcy. The wealthy then as now got their money from the banks first. Republicans said then as now that people should be more self sufficient and the Gov. had no business doing what people should do for themselves. Field workers in Calif. were paid $1.75 a day, you had to prove a 3 year residency to receive any government relief help. Cotton field workers in the south were paid .75 cents per 100 pounds picked.
Ah yes the good? old days.
Tim 12:30PM (10/03/2009)
Mike,
Please be specific about where you disagree and I'll try to explain it to you.
Or, you can go to http://mises.org/ or http://www.campaignforliberty.com/ and start learning about liberty. Gov’t schools NEVER taught you about FREEDOM!
Progressive/Corporatists (a lot on this blog) HATE full disclosure… also called truth because it diminishes their control over our money, our lives and our liberty.
Boyprodigy1 12:51PM (10/03/2009)
No tim, i really think mike is right. What you may have said were some partial truths, but MY_SS_RX8 said it basically right. The hard working educated american is as wealthy today as he was 65 years ago. If you want to be a bum, you will be poor. But I'll go to college and be wealthy. Now as far as this loan is concerned, this would yet again insure that the best technology in the world would be built in the US, which is more valuable to me than your petty gripes.
Mark Kiernan 4:16PM (10/03/2009)
The insanity continues.
mike 4:36AM (10/04/2009)
@Tim
Well.. just on the face of it, you are claiming that all our modern ills started in '33 with the creation of the Fed and that abolishing it and getting rid of a fiat currency in exchange for a gold standard again would solve our ills and preclude so very many social problems.
But then how do you explain the great depression, which preceded (and indeed was the cause of) these terribles you speak of.
Or maybe you could explain the many wars fought by ourselves and other nations for riches prior to the great rise of fiat currencies around the world.
Maybe you could just explain how it is that ridding ourselves of them would rid government of interference or control by the rich - be they corporations or individuals.
The world is not a perfect place, nor was it a perfect place in '33, nor will it be in 2133...
You also fail to mention the huge government push for and spending on the space program of the 60s - which has bred so much advancement in technology that it would be almost impossible to trace it all.
blah, blah, blah...
I don't know why I am even going into this.
It is not like you are going to have your mind changed or except any faults in your thinking.
Tim 9:26AM (10/04/2009)
Sorry Mike, (this is long, but you asked)
The 1933 date was a typo. The Fed was created in 1913 and it was Gov't central planning and the Fed's artificially manipulated (too low) interest rates and EASY credit that created the cheap & easy money that "investors" borrowed to gamble (not invest) in the stock market.
The Gov’t and the Fed promoted gambling in the Stock Market. This gambling artificially inflated the stock values (a bubble). Then the Fed popped the bubble while trying to suck back in the money while trying to centrally control the inflation that THEY created. The Fed & Progressive-Corporatists crashed stock market so they could confiscate our property during the margin call.
This is EXACTLY what happened in the latest Real Estate Crash.
(simple economics Keynesians don’t want you to know)
Plentiful Fiat Money + Cheap & Easy Credit = Artificially High Prices (Bubble) which popped when adjustable rates adjusted up and debtors could not make the higher payments. (Progressive-Corporatist Keynesian Central Planning created the 1929 Stock Market Crash, 1930s Great Depression and the 2008 Real Estate Crash)
Regardless of Progressive revisionist history taught to school children, it was NOT FDR who ended the Great Depression… it was WWII.
The TRUTH is that FDR's protectionism and piling on of Federal Debt with socialist “works” programs instead of allowing Free Market bankruptcy & liquidation turned a painful one-year correction into a much worse 10-year Great Depression. This was only made possible by the Fed debasing our FIAT currency and FDR’s confiscating (stealing) all privately owned gold to give to the Federal Reserve bankers to pay their high interest.
The LAST Constitutionally DECLARED war was WWII. Should we have been in Europe? If we had NOT been in WWII, would we all be speaking German? Debatable.
There are several good papers on this at (mises.org) & Rediscover Liberty!
mike 2:43PM (10/04/2009)
@Tim
Great.
So then I should find no bubbles/crashes in the financial markets of gold based economies prior to 1913?
How likely do you think that is, Tim?
Tim 4:35PM (10/04/2009)
Correct, Mike.
Those banks that made bad investments prior to 1913 went bankrupt and the bankers usually went to jail for fraud. There were NO systemic failures prior to the Fed. After 1913, they were rewarded with Federal taxpayer money. In other words, “good gambling, sorry you lost, but here’s some MORE free money to play with. It’s O.K., it didn’t cost us (the Fed) a dime to create. We charged the American Taxpayer for the paper and Ink. We’re even charging them interest on the fiat currency. As long as we’re not audited, the suckers will never know!”
You should start with a good understanding of how the Fed creates money out of thin air (counterfeiting). Politicians LOVE the fact that it gives them a bottomless pocket book with which to buy “support” from their Corporate Partners and Special Interest Group (think ACORN) backers.
Then you should gain an understanding of how the banks in the Federal Reserve System can use "Fractional Reserve Banking" to loan out and charge interest on 25 TIMES as much money as they have on deposit (4% reserve)
Then you should do some research on inflation over the last 100 years.
There is LOTS of good info at mises.org.
Here is a good film About the Fed:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYZM58dulPE
Gaseous 3:35AM (10/05/2009)
Tim..... I just wish Aptera would get off the stick and build the hybrid version. Somehow I find the idea of a 300 mpg safe, cool-looking vehicle to be rather appealing. And I've never even been to Keynesia.
Tim 8:23AM (10/05/2009)
Gaseous,
I agree! I'd buy an Aptera in a heartbeat!! It’s VERY COOL!
BUT, Aptera should NOT force me to give (or loan) then my tax money. They should have to compete on a level playing field with every other car manufacturer because that is the ONLY way to keep them honest while maximizing their product's value and quality for me, the consumer.
BTW: I've live in Keynesia, but I’ve read the travel brochures to Austria. Austria is MUCH nicer… by far! Here are the travel to liberty brochures: http://mises.org/ http://www.campaignforliberty.com/
The "stuff" in Austria may not be free, but the People are free and the "stuff" you buy there is of MUCH better quality. The lower taxes and far greater freedom in Austria more than compensates for the cost of the "stuff".
Personally, I don't need that much "stuff" anyway and I HATE being forced to buy “stuff” I don’t get. What a rip off!
KK 12:16PM (10/05/2009)
> They should have to compete on a level playing
> field with every other car manufacturer
Which is why they need the loan. Why should Aptera be denied a loan when Ford already got a $5.9 billion loan under the same program, and GM and Chrysler got massive bailouts? And I'm sure you recall Fisker and Tesla got hundreds of millions in loans as well.
Not to mention, auto makers in all other countries are getting subsidies from their respective governments. And even without those subsidies, American start-up companies are at a disadvantage compared to other countries because they have to pay the exorbitant health care costs for their employees.
Tim 12:39PM (10/05/2009)
KK,
NONE of them should have gotten our tax money!
How many auto companies are there including the new EV start-ups? DOZENS!
Where does this Corporatism end?
BANKS should be investing to gain a profit on depositor’s money and ONLY in those companies who have the credit/collateral and a business plan that makes sense.
Why banks and NOT Gov’t? It’s quite simple!
When banks make bad loans, they go bankrupt. When Politicians make bad loans with OUR tax money, they just get the Fed to print more money out of thin air (for which WE pay interest). This additional currency waters down the value (debases) the money that we have and need to pay our bills. That's called inflation and it is the worst kind of tax effects the poor worst of all.
Politicians are MUCH more likely to gamble with taxpayer money that banks will gamble with depositor’s money. (That is unless the banks know that the Progressive-Corporatist politicians will bail them out with OUR tax money.)
When banks gamble & lose their stockholders loose. (no bailouts!)
When politicians gamble & lose... We taxpayers & consumers pay higher prices. Who wins, the corporations who did not pay back the "loans". Inflation hurts the poor worst of all and that’s NOT compassion, but it is Progressive-Corporatism!
( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporatism )
Here is a good film About the Fed:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYZM58dulPE
KK 12:59PM (10/05/2009)
> NONE of them should have gotten our tax money!
Well, good luck convincing the Japanese and Chinese governments that they shouldn't do anything to help their automobile companies.
Tim 1:20PM (10/05/2009)
KK,
Two points:
1) If the market were FREE, the automakers would not NEED taxpayer help.
2) We are NOT Japanese or Chinese but we can stop buying (or importing) their cars.
We need to audit the Fed, then eliminate it!
KK 2:59PM (10/05/2009)
> We are NOT Japanese or Chinese but we
> can stop buying (or importing) their cars.
How do you prevent Americans from buying imported cars? Use the power of the Federal government to impose tariffs? Or some other regulation to force consumers to choose American cars even when an import is cheaper? Maybe tax breaks for people who buy American cars? Or perhaps the government can provide some assistance to American auto companies, e.g. loans that can be used to build or upgrade their factories?
Tim 3:08PM (10/05/2009)
KK,
This book will answer your questions:
http://mises.org/store/product.aspx?ProductId=33
A small investment for a lot of knowledge regarding economic liberty.
(no, I don't work for mises, but I do love liberty.)
KK 3:34PM (10/05/2009)
Whenever someone refuses to formulate their own answer and points to a book instead, it always means they don't understand the issue themselves.
Tim 3:51PM (10/05/2009)
KK,
Whenever someone refuses to even look at the answer offered for their question, that question was rhetorical in nature as a answer was never really wanted.
It always means they don't care to understand the issue themselves.
Your answer requires a short lesson in economics which your Keynesian Professors never offered because they were too busy explaining ways that Gov’t can “fix” the symptoms instead of acknowledging that Gov’t is the cause and NOT the cure.
Here’s a FREE .pdf copy: (you’ll read it if you really want the answer)
http://prawo.uni.wroc.pl/~kwasnicki/EkonLit/Economics%20In%20One%20Lesson.pdf