Ford crushes 'Clean Cars', ramps up SUVs

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

ttp://www.greenpeace.org/news/details?item%5fid=572227

snip
The Ford motor company is scrapping its fleet of zero emission electric vehicles in the US. Not content with being the worst ranked motor company on fuel efficiency it has decided to plumb new depths by sending its most fuel efficient, zero emission Th!nk cars to the crushers.

Why is a global corporation courting even worse publicity and going back on numerous promises to improve the environmental credentials of its cars? The vehicle is popular with consumers - there were waiting lists to buy the cars after a hugely popular leasing period started in 2001. Zero-emission cars reduce urban smog. When charged by electricity from renewable sources, they help fight the biggest threat to our planet - climate change.

With record oil prices forcing gasoline prices up, they are also a sound economic choice. Popular, clean and efficient, shouldn't this be part of the future of transport rather than being reduced to small cubes of scrap?

Surprisingly, money doesn't seem to be the motivation. Even if Ford doesn't want the cars, a Norwegian firm has plenty of customers and has offered US$1 million for them. Ford hasn't even replied to the offer. So we've launched a campaign to tell Ford to send these cars to people who want them.
/snip

[Fovea]

1. How vile!

What are they thinking?

[leesa]

2. Anything to support the fossil fuel folks.

So they will be stuck with thousands of SUVs...

[Joanne98]

3. Sometimes I think they're running us out of oil on purpose MIHOP

tinfoil hurts my head.........

[R Hickey]

5. That's what I think too.

The higher the price, the greater the profit. If they squeze supply a little, the price goes up a lot.

[0007]

6. The Hummer exceeds all expectations of the imagination

What next? A tank!

[nolabels]

15. Any speculation on also wanting to ....................

Strangle the baby in the bathwater? Ford a very global corporation needing to get rid of the US domestic work force to increase its profit ratio. What better way than not to make autos in the US. The Corporate big wigs are not big thinkers but are highly secretive. When has (especially lately) any large corporation in the US done anything good for the US public as a whole?

If you ask me these big corporations are in some type of unspoken covert war with the general population of the US. It's some kind of war to drive down our standard of living. Sort of like some kind of religion that goes unspoken. They do things that make no economic sense that seem to be done just for spite.

My brother now has a good job just because such imbeciles do such things. The place he is working now production capacities were sent over seas to China to produce parts. The owner of the company did it because a manager pissed him off, talked some crap to him and all. The thought he was going to show the guy up and sent the big machining shop away and lost his ASS in the process.

The company orders got way behind and many parts were not up to spec. The company was losing to the competition badly. As a consequence they had to move it all back in the states now. The Bro has a decent paying Machinist job with a Union workforce. He runs three big machines by himself and has to have a pretty fair knowledge to do it

[Kolesar]

4. GM crushed their EV1 electric cars

They only offered them on lease, then called them back and destroyed them. Maybe they foresaw long-term problems in the out years and did not want the quality stories dogging them.

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

7. They're obviously pretty confident a Republican will be pres again

or that a Dem won't do anything

[Philostopher]

10. A few years back, Toyota had an all-electric RAV4

that it was selling as a governmental fleet car in California. The people who drove them for work out there loved them, or so I read on some message boards at the time. I don't know the whole story, but they've done away with the model and decided not to sell it to consumers -- Google RAV4-EV and you'll get a lot of information. Probably some you don't really want, especially if a fully-electric mini-ute would have seemed like a good idea for you.

It would have been a great idea for us, but the first hybrid above a car Toyota's talking about making is a Highlander that, with the mileage boost from the fuel cell, gets about the same mileage our non-hybrid RAV4 gets. Whoop-de-do.

[sventvkg]

8. They are going Hybrid instead....

Hybrid is the way right now so they are jumping on it...All electric ain't ready yet but demand for Hybrid is going up up up....Calm down.

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

9. No I won't calm down

I'm so sick of excuses and halfway atempts at doing the right thing. I don't give a flying fuck what the demand is - I demand they make a green car!

[trogdor]

21. Hybrid is less problematic than EV.

There's the range problem, for one thing. Then there's the expense. Both are mitigated by hybrid tech. Gotta hand it to Toyota; the Big Three would have introduced it in their largest luxury cars back in the day. Lots easier to absorb the extra cost that way. Starting off with an economy car is more of a challenge, IMO, but it proves the long-term viability of hybrid tech.

You wait until we've had a couple of decades to refine this technology. Before long, you'll see mostly-electric cars with 10 HP multifuel engines that do nothing but charge the batteries when the charge drops below a certain level. Then you'll see MPG ratings in the triple digits. I'm not an engineer, but I know it's gotta be possible.

[hatrack]

11. If you liked that news story, you're going to LOVE this one!

"Ford Motor Co. Chairman Bill Ford, who pitches himself as one of America's leading corporate environmentalists, has launched a campaign in the waning days of the legislative session to kill a plan that would reward Californians who buy the most fuel-efficient hybrid vehicles. Embraced by Hollywood celebrities, Treasurer Phil Angelides and even Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, AB 2628 by Assemblywoman Fran Pavley, D-Agoura Hills, would set aside 75,000 permits to let owners of hybrids that average 45 mpg or more and meet near-zero-emission standards to drive solo in highway car-pool lanes.

In a letter to Schwarzenegger that Ford copied to state lawmakers who have yet to take a final vote, he calls the plan a "Buy Japanese" bill and a "special-interest measure ... intended for almost exclusive use by Toyota Prius drivers." The Prius and Honda's Insight and Civic hybrids meet the legislation's requirements, but Ford has no product that does. Its new Escape hybrid, which will be the first full hybrid SUV to be on the market, is expected to get about 35 mpg.

Ford goes on to say the legislation would hurt company employees and stockholders, and he asks the GOP governor to veto the measure if the Legislature sends it his way.

EDIT

It was unclear whether Ford's lobbying effort is jeopardizing the measure's passage - or whether it could yield amendments to allow a lower mileage standard for hybrid SUVs through the life of a pilot project. The car-pool lane permits would be good only until 2008. Schwarzenegger aides said last week that the governor does not intend to veto the bill if it comes before him. "We're prepared to work with Ford Motor to see if there's any way we might be able to resolve our differences without compromising the integrity or the intention of the original legislation," said spokeswoman Terri Carbaugh."

EDIT

http://www.sacbee.com/content/news/environment/story/10...

Yeah! Way to embrace those free-market forces, Big Green Bill!

[lostnfound]

17. Thanks. BTW your Sacbee link doesn't work.

Looks like it was cut off..this one does work:

http://www.sacbee.com/content/news/environment/story/10491159p-11410496c.html

[nolabels]

18. The govenator is getting to ready strike again

Rather than measured contemplation from an official about response to legislation,
we instead got some guy that jumps when any corporation has a whimper x(

[krkaufman]

12. Ford is looking for a government bailout

From Ford's earlier statement whining about the dearth of supplier parts for hybrid vehicles, I'm expecting that they're trying to milk as much profit as possible out of SUVs -- before the roof collapses. Once oil prices return Ford and GM to failure (due to their own incompetence), they'll be looking for government handouts to convert to hybrid and other more efficient technologies. (Same as the airlines did.)

[Radius]

13. Great topic

Hybrids are expanding. Honda has a hydrogen fuel cell model that runs, and I buy b20 biodiesel and I live off the beaten path.

I love biodiesel, my favorte topic. The diesel motor can burn corn oil or peanut oil just as easily as #2 diesel. Every diesel engine currently can run b20 with no modification. If mandated it could reduce demand for diesel by 20 percent and create a economy of scale for the organic oil that is used to create it. Most diesels can run 100 organic fuel with minor modifications.

B20 greatly reduces emissions of particulates and co. b100 goes even farther. It also shifts petro dollars from overseas to farmers. I have high hopes for this technology.

[Endangered Specie]

14. Ford? I prefer to call them Backwards.

[Rose Siding]

16. Arnold and the recall....

Mission accomplished. Davis had them by the short hairs.

But with the dirty work of killing the clean air regulation in California completed in 2002, Ford dumped its commitment to electric cars faster than you can say "SUV" and sold off Th!nk. This means business as usual for the automakers, producing bigger, thirstier cars every year without the burden of regulation in the US.

Now will Ford declare this a loss to avoid paying corp taxes?

[BiggJawn]

19. Big vehicle equals big doo-hickey...

Well, to most those "Mayor of Trucksville" morans, anyway...

Think it's just chance that Cialis and Silverado spots run in the same break?

S'Yeah, sure, sure it is....

BiggJawn, who would drive an Isetta, if he could find one....:evilgrin:

[Southsideirish]

20. Neanderthals! Then they will want a bailout from Congress.

People are waiting months for their desired Toyota's (my friend did) -that should tell Detroit something.