Re: Why is Gas so expensive?
The thing is, we've had the technology for decades, in several forms. The oil companies just buy up the patents to most of them when they are invented, as well as pay auto makers to both not make a lot of efficient cars, or destroy them once they are made. Like when GM (or maybe GMC?) had 1,000 electric cars that they destroyed. Green groups heard about it and offered to buy the cars that were to be destroyed for $ thousands a piece, but the auto maker declined. They hamust have had a better offer to keep the cars off the roads. It's criminal. I think that if automakers were not allowed to accept money from the oil industry, we'd already have several more options for energy efficient and alternative fuel autos.
Re: Why is Gas so expensive?
I would like to see real proof of this. I think that story is just an urban legend.
Oil companies have much more important things to do than buy useless patents. I have a friend who is a patent atorney. She says that the industry is always looking for ways to build a better mouse trap. Most of the patents that are presented to the industry are just CRAP.
Re: Why is Gas so expensive?
Quote:
Originally Posted by AkivaSmith
I would like to see real proof of this. I think that story is just an urban legend.
Oil companies have much more important things to do than buy useless patents. I have a friend who is a patent atorney. She says that the industry is always looking for ways to build a better mouse trap. Most of the patents that are presented to the industry are just CRAP.
You're kidding right, you honestly don't think they would buy a patent and not use it if it made them BILLIONS of dollars.
Re: Why is Gas so expensive?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Wild Bill
You're kidding right, you honestly don't think they would buy a patent and not use it if it made them BILLIONS of dollars.
The point is that 99.99999999% of the patents do not make any money, and therefor do not get bought by the big companies. LOTS of little companies dump BILLIONS of dollars into projects that never make there money back and those little companies go bankrupt.
That unfortunately is the truth. The big companies have the money to investigate a patent before they buy into it.
BTW, my original comment was that I felt that PYTHON_WALLACE's coment:
Quote:
The oil companies just buy up the patents to most of them when they are invented, as well as pay auto makers to both not make a lot of efficient cars, or destroy them once they are made.
was nonsense.
Re: Why is Gas so expensive?
Quote:
Originally Posted by AkivaSmith
That unfortunately is the truth. The big companies have the money to investigate a patent before they buy into it.
Correct and if they thought it would cost them money in the future, they wouldn't hesitate to buy it out.
Re: Why is Gas so expensive?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Wild Bill
Correct and if they thought it would cost them money in the future, they wouldn't hesitate to buy it out.
Only if they can capitalize on it. The fact is NOBODY buys a patent and does nothing with it. It is just too costly.
If you saw Pirates #3 -- the cost of doing business is often death...
Re: Why is Gas so expensive?
I personally know someone, who is a head engineer for a large auto maker, who invented an engine that runs on only gasoline, but the car got about 100 mpg. He applied for a patent and was soon visited by a couple of guys with an offer for his patent that he couldn't refuse. He hasn't seen or heard of his engine design since. And I believe the story about the 1,000 electric cars was an article I read in Time magazine, hardly urban legend.
Re: Why is Gas so expensive?
Quote:
Originally Posted by AkivaSmith
Only if they can capitalize on it. The fact is NOBODY buys a patent and does nothing with it. It is just too costly.
If you saw Pirates #3 -- the cost of doing business is often death...
Are you kidding? How does spending a few million dollars on a patent not make you money, if owning that patent and not using it causes YOUR company to make 100s of billions of dollars.
Re: Why is Gas so expensive?
Quote:
Originally Posted by AkivaSmith
Only if they can capitalize on it. The fact is NOBODY buys a patent and does nothing with it. It is just too costly.
So if they bought a patent for an engine that got 100 mpg and released it the demand for their product (gasoline) would go down. Prices of the product would go down. But by not releasing the patent to be produced, they control the demand on their product and can make billions in profits by doing NOTHING extra. I would call that CAPITALIZING on a patent wihtout the need of investing anything but the cost to purchase the patent. Spend millions to make billions, sounds like corporate America to me.
Re: Why is Gas so expensive?
Quote:
Originally Posted by PythonWallace
And I believe the story about the 1,000 electric cars was an article I read in Time magazine, hardly urban legend.
The reason that the auto manufacture did not want to sell those cars, is that they would have to deal with all sorts of maintenance problems that would cost them far more than what the car was worth.
I do not want to patronize anyone, but lets look at what goes into building a car:
design and testing.
prototyping.
manufacturing and assembly
sales
maintenance
liability insurance and recall insurance
I believe that the electric cars were prototypes.
