McCain proposes $300M prize for new auto battery

Electric cars have been made & marketed for over 100 years. Most of us don't drive them because gasoline engines have been far more practical. This "x-prize" approach targets the biggest obstacle to electric cars being a mainstream choice - the battery.

McCain proposes $300M prize for new auto battery - Yahoo! News: "The Arizona senator proposed a $300 million prize for whoever can develop a better automobile battery, and $5,000 tax credits for consumers who buy new zero-emission vehicles. The latest proposal is in addition to his support for overturning the federal ban on offshore oil drilling.

'In the quest for alternatives to oil, our government has thrown around enough money subsidizing special interests and excusing failure. From now on, we will encourage heroic efforts in engineering, and we will reward the greatest success,' McCain said in a speech at Fresno State University.
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The $300 million battery bounty amounts to $1 for every man, woman and child in the country. He 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."

McCain said he could envision foreign automakers such as Honda and Toyota being eligible for the prize, since the Japanese companies have large manufacturing plants in the United States.

As for how he would come up with the prize money, the senator said: "I could pay for it by canceling three pork-barrel projects that are unnecessary and unwanted.""