Dept of Energy Just Keeps Screwing Up

Remember back in the 80's when we had the VHF-Betamax schism. Eventually the market resolved it in favor of VHF. It could be the Department of Energy has spent $115 million on a Betamax for us. We are told that the country needs some 14,000 EV charging stations for the coming surge in electric automobiles. If Chevy Volt sales are a good indicator maybe we can put that off to about the year 2100. Anyway DOE has been pushing auto makers to adopt a standard EV charger. Recently General Motors, Ford, BMW, Audi, Daimler, Porsche, and Volkswagen did just that. Good you say. Not so fast. The biggest selling electric vehicle in the USA is the Nissan Leaf which did not sign off on this standard. DOE has been dumping money into Nissan in the form of subsidies to help them retrofit GM's old Saturn plant in Spring Hill, Tennessee. The Chevy Volt uses a gasoline engine to supplement its driving range the Leaf does not. The Leaf battery is is conducive to rapid recharging where as the Volt might recharge over night-on a warm night. So the Leaf is excluded from using the new-must-have-tomorrow charging stations. If the EPA has its way this could be solved in many areas of the country. Those areas won't be generating enough power to toast a muffin.