I have my doubts about this... How much money did we give to AIG? And now why are we only investing 2.4 billion in alternative transportation then? Anyways, in his speech, Obama says smaller businesses are more innovative, then why is the majority of the grant money going to the Big 3 automakers? GM built an electric car 10 years ago, and destroyed it (read about the EV1). They don't deserve a dime of our tax dollars. Not to say that I dont think we should be investing in electric cars- it just doesn't make sense to award $200 million dollars to a company (GM) who built an electric car and sold the relevant patents to an oil company (Chevron), who refuses to let anyone put NiMH batteries in 100% electric cars now. And on the topic, if Obama wants to get serious about electric cars, he should enact eminent domain to release the NiMH battery patents from Chevron! To learn more check out the book Two Cents Per Mile by Nevres Cefo, or read portions of it onAmazon.com

I completely agree.

Giving money to GM, given how they walked away from the EV1 and then developed the Hummer, is a questionable strategy, at the very least. The quenching of NiMH technology held back EVs for a decade.

That's not to say that new chemistries, such as nickel-zinc or advanced lithium-ion, wouldn't have eventually replaced NiMH. However, the EV1, with NiMH technologies would have put significantly more electric vehicles on the road 10 years ago.

I hope that Obama got the GM bailout plan in writing, or we're going to see a lot of crushed Chevy Volts in a few years.