A fairly naked beg for our money

Of course, it’s all our money whichever route it takes to get there but still:

The sector needs big pockets to fund the electric revolution, but analysts fear that without state aid, it will run out of road...(...)...combined with supportive governments...(...)...Burn agrees: “Manufacturing in the UK is down to government’s appetite for it. Does it support it or not?”...(...)...Vauxhall boss Michael Lohscheller said he expected the Government to “behave in the interest of the UK economy… we need UK Government support to make it happen”....(...)...Investors might need to see concrete government support to be willing to back these factories....

“Support” obviously meaning our money as filtered through the tax and political system.

The problem with this claim upon our wallets is that the stock markets are willing to fund just about anything in this space these days. Add the words “battery” or “lithium” or even “EV” to a company name and the money pours in. One innovative company even freewheeled a truck downhill and raised money for its as yet non-existent fuel cell that wasn’t, in fact, powering said lorry.

For this particular sector markets haven’t been so monumentally febrile since perhaps the South Sea Bubble. Capital is, to a useful level of approximation, free simply by asking investors for it. This is not the time to be forcing, through government, the subsidy by us all of such plans when there are some who will do it voluntarily - even if not perhaps wholly wisely.

After all, the point of government is to do those things that markets don’t - given that the markets will fund alternative vehicle technologies currently government shouldn’t.