(I’m convinced that this is NOT an original idea, but I can’t for the life of me recall where I saw this before)

I don’t understand why the automfgr bailout doesn’t just take the form of a purchase order.

“Dear Big 3, I’d like to take 30,000 of your most tricked out Ford Focus flavored cars, to go please.  Love, Congress.”  Or whatever.  Make sure they’re all hybrids too.  

Give an order to Tesla while they’re at it.  Not for the $100k car, for the $30k car that they can’t quite make since they don’t have a fleet order.

Then, take those cars and give ‘em to peeps who otherwise wouldn’t be able to get to work.  

1) Automfgrs stay in business since their main problem is they can’t sell cars.  Check.

2) The entire friggin’ supply chain stays in business since the automfgrs don’t have parts on hand for, say, 30,000 cars.  I’m guessing here.

3) Whoa, we just created a whole new hybrid centric aftermarket with this program.  This might even contribute to a virtuous cycle whereby people want the kind of car they can take advantage of the cool aftermarket.  Whoa.  Just whoa.

4) Some peeps can get to work.  Perhaps we take some ol’ huge carbon footprint machines off the grid to boot.

There’s drawbacks here, but I don’t know what they are… help?