Electric Vehicles, Carbon Taxes, and Exxon Mobil

There was a lot going on this week in the industry plus NO MORE GEORGE W. BUSH!

Electric vehicles were the big highlight of the Detroit Auto Show and recieved considerable media coverage. It was a funny coincidence that Detroit was the site of so much technological innovation. Of course, on closer inspection there is really no surprise because almost all of the big news coming out of the show had nothing to do with the Big 3. Which of course leads to another point; how are these companies still called the Big 3? The Big 3 of what? Failure? Tragedy? Stupidity? At any rate, it is way to easy to pile on GM, Ford, and Chrysler. GM may have have something with the Chevy Volt, although it remains behind foreign and U.S. competitors (check out Tesla). Ford is doing ok with its standard offerings and Chrysler...well they're still hanging around somehow. Thanks Secretary Paulson!

There was also major news in the carbon mitigation world. Exxon Mobil announced it was in favor of a Carbon Tax! Obviously, a good deal of skepticism is in order whenever Exxon announces anything that might be good for the environment. But, the Exxon announcement is a big deal for a number of reasons.

1) The Exxon announcement is a signal of the regime change occuring in the US. No more Bush is a transformative event for the energy industry.

2) Congress may revisit the Carbon Tax vs. Cap and Trade System debate. There is a lot to talk about here and we plan to get more in-depth. For now, lets just say that a National Carbon Tax holds great merit and that there is a surprising amount of support for a Carbon Tax from an unlikely group that typically loves trade.