Deserted factories show how China's electric car boom went too far

[Ogre]

Most of these examples are likely just dressing with the sole purpose of convincing investors to put money into some sham company.

Sort of the Chinese version of Enron.

 

[Crissa]

Yep, just because Enron was a stupid scam, having a network which lets power be traded across the state enabled us to have solar and renewables traded across the state.

And we learned lessons from it, too. We're learning lessons about letting the PUC not do its job and just focusing on rates...

-Crissa

 

[Quicksilver]

A few years ago when I was pursuing a degree in Communications I wrote a term paper on the boom in railroad construction after the Civil War.
There were a lot of grifters and scam artists that ran schemes to get people to invest in the railroad industry. Railroads were the DOT COMS of their day.
In many cases land would be surveyed, right of ways would be cleared and some track might even be laid and investors would pour money into the company.
Then the "railroad" would either declare bankruptcy or the scammers would just disappear with investors money.
Sometimes the railroads would actually be built and operated by small short line companies but the big returns promised to investors never appeared. These lines were either bought out by the larger more successful railroads or abandoned.
The government often provided subsidies (does this sound familiar) to the large railroads to keep the unprofitable railroads afloat citing customers that could only be serviced by rail. This freight was usually bulk commodities such as sand, rock, coal or grain.
These short lines survived until the subsidies were cut off and either abandoned or bought by independent operators that kept them operating on a shoestring budget.
The last small railroad in my town is on life support since the Goodyear plant closed and I think they serve four or five customers. I rarely see one of their trains operating anymore.
I see a parallel with budding electric car companies.