Financial History Issue 122 (Summer 2017) | Page 12

Brian Grinder uses these photos — of his grandfather branding cows and his father recovering in St . Joseph ’ s hospital — to introduce his students to the concept of risk management .
Samuel Pierpont Langley ’ s “ aerodrome ,” ready to be catapulted from a houseboat on the Potomac River , 1903 . Langley spent 70 times as much as the Wright Brothers in his failed attempt to be the first to fly a manned heavier-than-air craft .
Hulton Archive / Stringer state tax credit for EVs .
According to The Wall Street Journal , the federal government currently provides a tax credit of up to $ 7,500 each for the first 200,000 electric vehicles sold by a manufacturer . Tesla will likely hit the 200,000 mark in early 2018 . When this happens , it will take about a year to phase out the tax credit . As the tax credit phases out , a subsequent reduction in Tesla sales is likely to follow .
Perhaps government-subsidized Tesla will be able to overcome all of the obstacles in its path and dominate the automotive industry with its EVs . Wouldn ’ t it be great , though , if somewhere a couple of obsessed , bicycle-shop-owning siblings , in their spare time and at their own expense , were at this moment perfecting an inexpensive EV with a single charge capacity of 1,000 miles or more ? Maybe it will even be capable of flight !
Brian Grinder is a professor at Eastern Washington University and a member of Financial History ’ s editorial board . Dr . Dan Cooper is the president of Active Learning Technologies .
Sources
Butler , John A . Atlantic Kingdom : America ’ s Contest with Cunard in the Age of Sail and Steam . Washington , DC : Brassey ’ s , Inc . 2001 .
Cummings , Steve . “ GM vs . Tesla : Who Will Reach 200,000 US Electric Car Sales First ?” Clean Technia . September 23 , 2016 .
Elimination of Federal Tax Credits Likely to Kill US EV Market . Edmunds . com . 2017 .
Goldstone , Lawrence . Birdmen : The Wright Brothers , Glenn Curtiss , and the Battle to Control the Skies . New York : Ballantine Books . 2014
Ip , Greg . “ Electric Cars Are the Future ? Not So Fast .” The Wall Street Journal . July 13 , 2017 .
Kelly , Fred C . The Wright Brothers : A Biography . New York : Dover Publications . 1989 . Langley , S P . “ The Flying-Machine .” McClure ’ s
Magazine . IX , 647 – 660 . 1897 . McCullough , David G . The Wright Brothers .
New York : Simon & Schuster . 2015 .
McFarland , Marvin W ., ed . The Papers of Wilbur and Orville Wright . New York : McGraw-Hill . 1953 .
Stiles , TJ . The First Tycoon : The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt . New York : Alfred A . Knopf . 2009 .
Summers , Mark W . The Plundering Generation : Corruption and the Crisis of the Union , 1849 – 1861 . New York : Oxford University Press . 1987 .
Tobin , James . To Conquer the Air : The Wright Brothers and the Great Race for Flight . New York : Free Press . 2003 .
Whitney , Ralph . “ The Unlucky Collins Line .” American Heritage . 8 , 48 – 53 , 100 – 102 . 1957 .
10 FINANCIAL HISTORY | Summer 2017 | www . MoAF . org