Almost one hundred years ago, Henry Ford’s wife Clara would stroll around in her 1914 Detroit Electric Model 47 Brougham. Thirty years ago we faced oil shortages and the warning was clear. Five years ago GM sent the remaining EV1’s to the Mesa, Arizona desert to be stripped and crushed. Yesterday we paid over $4/gallon to fill our low MPG cars. Today there is hope.

Thanks to our friends at California based Tesla Motors, we should all be free of the big oil / big auto stranglehold on our societies transportation requirements within the next four years. Tesla is best known for its Tesla Roadster, the first production model for the company. The Roadster is a two-seat sports car based upon the Lotus Elise. Each Tesla Roadster is a powered by a proprietary Lithium ion battery pack and plugged into a home electrical outlet for its charge.

“Just after Tesla CEO Ze’ev Drori announced Telsa’s plans to build the Model S, Elon Musk began discussing its development of electric car tech to get the price of future cars to (and below) $30,000. When asked when that technology would be commercially available, Musk said that it shouldn’t be any more than four years from now.” TOPOLSKY, Joshua (2008), Tesla’s Elon Musk promises sub-$30k all-electric car in less than four years, engadget, [30 June 2008]

Electric has always been a more efficient choice for powering our vehicles. View the chart below (courtesy Tesla Motors) to compare the horsepower and torque of an electric vehicle vs an internal combustion based vehicle. Electric provides a smooth and clean power curve with zero emissions.

63% of our oil is used for transportation. With an electric vehicle in every garage and high-efficiency solar panels on every roof, we become nearly 100% energy SELF-SUSTAINING. Decentralized power generation means our power grid would become impervious to any terror attack or natural disaster. All this results in no dependence on foreign oil, no dependence on speculators, no dependence on greedy automobile or oil companies.

You remember independence don’t you?

Tags: arizona desert, dependence on foreign oil, Energy & Humanity, high efficiency solar panels, internal combustion, lithium ion battery pack, lotus elise, oil shortages, one hundred years, tesla roadster, transportation requirements, zero emissions

That’s right.  Despite the lies that you have been told by our government, oil companies, wall street and the media, if our legislature drafted a bill curtailing oil speculation and providing transparency to the industry, we would have $2/gallon gasoline nationally in less than thirty days. This is according to testimony given to the House Committee on Energy & Commerce this week.

Expert testimony states that although there are deep underlying issues to supply and demand, oil should be trading at $65-$75/barrel.  It is the self-fulfilling prophesy of financial speculation that has created the current climate of $131/barrel plus pricing.

To add insult to injury, our federal governing body for commodity futures (the CFTC) has been issuing exemptions that ALLOW and ENCOURAGE further speculation. In other words, OUR government’s corporatism is to blame for this acute rise in gas prices, not OPEC, not you.

Read the testimony given to the House Committee Energy & Commerce on 6/23/2008 below and ask yourself, whom do you believe?

Question:
“BOTH SECRETARY PAULSON AND SECRETARY BODMAN HAVE ARGUED SPECULATIONS’ PLAY NO ROLE IN THE RISING OF OIL PRICES.  THE CFTC AGREES WITH THEM.  WHAT ARE THE COST OF INACTION IF CONGRESS FAILS TO ADDRESS THIS MATTER?  WILL IT SELF CORRECT ITSELF?”

Answer:
“THIS IS AN ACUTE PROBLEM.  IT CAN BE SOLVED VERY QUICKLY WITH CHANGES IN THE VERY GOOD BRIEF REMARK.  — AND THE REGULATORY FRAMEWORK.”

Question:
“MR. MASTERS, YOU INDICATED THIS PROBLEM COULD BE SOLVED  RATHER QUICKLY IF WE TOOK STEPS  REGARDING THE REGULATORY ON A TRAIN OF SPECULATORS IN THE MARKETS.  LET’S SAY THAT CONGRESS PASSED  LEGISLATION AND ADOPTED THESE,  AND SEND IT, PAST, AND THE  PRESIDENT SIGNED.  HOW SOON WOULD WE SEE A  SIGNIFICANT REDUCTION IN RETAIL  GASOLINE PRICES?”

Answer:
“WITHOUT BEING ABLE TO PREDICT THE FUTURE, MY ESTIMATION WOULD  BE WITHIN 30 DAYS.”

Question:
“HOW MUCH WOULD THEY BE REDUCED, ROUGHLY?”

Answer:
“I AM NOT SURE I HAVE A CRYSTAL BALL.  I WOULD GO BACK TO WHAT I SAID EARLIER.  MY SENSE IS THEY WOULD PROBABLY  DROP OVER A REASONABLY SHORT  PERIOD OF TIME CLOSER TO  $65-$75.”

Answer:
“I THINK IT IS REASONABLE TO CONCLUDE THAT IS ABOUT HALF OF WHERE PRICES ARE TODAY.  I WOULD THINK THAT GASOLINE PRICES WOULD REFLECT THAT.”

Question:
“YOU’RE SAYING THAT WE COULD ALMOST CUT THE RETAIL PRICE OF GAS IN HALF IN A RELATIVELY SHORT TIME.”

Answer:
“YES.”

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Tags: acute problem, cftc, commodity futures, corporatism, Energy & Humanity, expert testimony, financial speculation, Gov, government oil companies, insult to injury, oil prices, oil speculation, paulson, regulatory framework, retail gasoline prices, self fulfilling prophesy, speculators, thirty days