Here is the excellent op ed in our local paper by my co-author, Joseph McKinney. He is addressing our Gov.
GUEST VIEWPOINT: Governor is ignoring local talent
By Joseph McKinney
Posted to Web: Monday, Apr 27, 2009 05:46PM
Appeared in print: Tuesday, Apr 28, 2009, page A9
Opinion: Editorials & Letters: Story
I’ve been reading about Gov. Ted Kulongoski’s efforts to attract federal stimulus funds so that Oregon can take leadership in the rollout of electric cars and trucks. I applaud the effort, because I believe our future transporters will be electric vehicles. Electric vehicles are the clean alternative to the wasteful, inefficient and dangerously overbuilt models we employ today for the simple task of moving from here to there.
I note that the governor has been working on this project for years. I have been monitoring the subject during the 25 years I’ve spent in the car business as a dealer and as the president of a vehicle leasing and finance company. My company, Oregon Roads Inc., had an electric vehicle division and a partnership with Portland’s Clean Cities program as early as 1994.
Although I’m happy that Kulongoski is focusing attention on electric vehicles, I think he may be doing more harm than good. The governor seems to be acting independently. Why not network with the Oregonians who have experience in the field? There are at least three manufacturers in Oregon designing electric vehicle prototypes, but Kulongoski spends his time promoting products from other countries.
Automotive manufacturers are on the ropes. More than half of them have suffered heretofore unfathomable losses. The CEO of Fiat Group, Sergio Marchionne, recently suggested that only six of 27 companies will survive. Looking to this sector for solutions is a dead end.
The governor recently met with representatives from Th!nk, an electric vehicle maker from Norway that was spun off from Ford a few years ago. The company is broke, but Kulongoski showed them the Freightliner facility in Portland. Soon they will offer to use it, but they’ll expect us to pay for it.
If the governor had been networked with other Oregonians in the field, he would have known that we were working with Th!nk to license the company’s technology and build a variation of its design in the Lane County motor home consortium. We have available skilled labor, surplus facilities and years of experience.
So what is better for Oregon? When Kulongoski offers incentives to Th!nk, the company can bail out Daimler, Freightliner’s owner, by assuming the liabilities and paying the rent on its Portland factory. The benefit goes to German and Norwegian corporations. Perhaps Oregon corporations would have been the beneficiary as well as Oregon lenders, suppliers, manufacturers and ultimately the consumer had Kulongoski not been involved.
The same interference in our marketplace is leading the state down another road to folly. There are two competing conglomerates trying to get governments to invest in charging stations for electric vehicles. Neither of these companies has any connection to Oregon. They are supported by Nissan and Mitsubishi, which are developing electric vehicles also without any connection to Oregon. They have the support of Tesla, a California company converting a British Lotus to sell as a $120,000 electric car.
How many Oregonians will be buying those cars? Why does the governor suggest spending $30 million of Oregonians’ taxes to build a charging infrastructure we will never fully use?
We are making a transition from internal combustion to electric vehicles, but the highway is the last place you’ll find them. During the next decade we will see electric vehicles replacing cars powered by internal combusion engines in our villages. Electric vehicles make great village vehicles, and 80 percent of our driving is in that realm. My commute to work, taking my daughter to school and doing my grocery shopping can all be accomplished by an efficient, lightweight, 30 mph electric vehicle. The highways are the least appropriate place for electric vehicles, and therefore the least appropriate place for charging stations.
We need electric village vehicles to connect us to mass transit. Highway travel will be replaced by high speed rail in the future, not highway-speed electric vehicles. If Kulongoski can provide incentives for electric vehicles with a contribution of $30 million, he should consider using those resources instead as seed money and participate with other Oregonians in a coordinated effort to develop electric vehicle solutions for Oregonians and by Oregonians.
Joseph McKinney of Eugene is president of Oregon Roads Inc.
The End Of The Road 