McCain Suggests Award for Advanced Battery Technology
Sen. John McCain, the presumed Republican nominee, wants to award a $300 million government prize to whoever can develop an automobile battery that far surpasses existing technology. That’s about $1 for every man, woman and child in the country, “a small price to pay for helping to break the back of our oil dependency,” McCain said at Fresno State University.
McCain said that 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.”
The Arizona senator also proposed stiffer fines for automakers who skirt existing fuel-efficiency standards, as well as incentives to increase use of domestic and foreign alcohol-based fuels such as ethanol.
