In the 18th century the British parliament offered a £20,000 prize to anyone who figured how to solve the problem of calculating longitude. More recently, Netflix offered a million-dollar prize for improving its movie recommendation software. And now Senator John McCain is suggesting a new, national prize: $300 million for anyone who can develop a better, more efficient car battery. “I further propose we inspire the ingenuity and resolve of the American people by offering a $300 million prize for the development of a battery package that has the size, capacity, cost and power to leapfrog the commercially available plug-in hybrids or electric cars,’’ Mr. McCain said here at California State University, Fresno.
“That’s one dollar, one dollar, for every man, woman and child in the U.S.,’’ he said. “A small price to pay for helping too break the back of our oil dependency, and should deliver a power source at 30 percent of the current costs.’’
He made the proposal as he spoke about improving enforcement of fuel efficiency standards, hastening the conversion of cars to flex-fuel vehicles, and offering tax credits to people who buy zero-emissions cars – stressing issues that are popular in California. (Last week, in Houston, he proposed lifting the moratorium on off-shore drilling for oil, which is considerably less popular here.)
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