The McCain $300 million challenge

[Wesley]

Sen. McCain offers $300 million prize for new auto battery

The presumed Republican nominee is proposing a $300 million government prize to whoever can develop an automobile battery that far surpasses existing technology. The bounty would equate to $1 for every man, woman and child in the country, "a small price to pay for helping to break the back of our oil dependency," McCain said in remarks prepared for delivery Monday at Fresno State University in California.
McCain said such a device should deliver power at 30 percent of current costs and have "the size, capacity, cost and power to leapfrog the commercially available plug-in hybrids or electric cars."
...
"In the quest for alternatives to oil, our government has thrown around enough money subsidizing special interests and excusing failure," said excerpts from McCain's prepared text. "From now on, we will encourage heroic efforts in engineering, and we will reward the greatest success."



This is along the same lines as Google's recent announcement of the Lunar X Prize (a $30 million competition for the first privately funded team to send a robot to the moon), the Ansari X Prize (a $10 million prize for the first private space flight), and the Orteig Prize (the $25,000 transatlantic flight prize claimed by Charles Limbergh way back in 1927) . . . but there is one MAJOR difference. Those all replied on private, not public, funds.

The idea is not new, and relatively sound, but the method? Thoughts, comments?

[Asaf]

I think it is acceptable as it would ultimately benefit us all and would basically help drive down how much we are paying for gas and travel in general.

[York99]

No, it's not a new idea at all.

It IS a great idea... but it's not a great idea for a policy. We should have all sorts of incentives like this that benefit the progression of technology, etc. for the country, but we can't rely on them in place of funding research on the front end.

[hdw07]

this is a public give-away to mccain's buddies with the pretense of spurring technology research. i bet he knows who might get this in the end.

the reality is that the big tech corps have been racing to develop this kind of battery for a long time - if you google it you'll find tons of articles about research into "next generation" batteries. the industry has the resources and the motivation already in place - this is just a publicity stunt.

[sara farr]

McCain is not a public servant. It sounds fishy. And you are right, Wes, to point out that he is not using HIS money, but the tax payers... who are already paying for this kind of research through existing government programs. I'd be up for it if they'd take the $300 mil away from the war budget. Make stuff that helps people, not hurts people. If we made this new battery and gave it to Iraq, wouldn't that be cool!!?!

[York99]

Thinking more about it, the queer part to me is the amount of money. It's way too much to entice Joe Sixpack working in his garage. It's obviously to entice a big research and development organization. If they need that much, then they aren't going to risk missing being the first to develop the technology by 6 months or whatever. This IS geared toward an existing big company... and I wouldn't be surprised if it was one already on the way to developing it. Better to take that money and subsidize version 1.0 on the market to speed up the process of reducing the retail cost in later iterations.

I still like the idea of "contests" like these, though.

[DollarBill]

Here's the thing about "fancy future batteries" and "100mpg carburetors" and "hydrogen cars" etc. etc... Some of it's possible and some of it's not. But people are already working on it. Really really brilliant people are already working on it. It's in their best interest.

My call is that the McCain thing is just another "WE'LL GET VENDING MACHINES IN THE LUNCH ROOM THIS YEAR!!!!" Even when the technology exists to create a 200 mile-per-charge-battery-system cost less than $100,000, many people still won't buy it because of their unsure of repair costs or length of vehicle life. When the technology is feasible and affordable, you'll have your future car. Just be patient.

[mpbrockman]

... you'll have your future car. Just be patient.

When I was a kid we were all going to have jetpacks by now. Where's my f***in' jetpack?

[DollarBill]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THEcWrznicY

[DollarBill]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THEcWrznicY

[York99]

But where's MY jet pack?