Who Killed the Electric Car? - why GM deserves to go under

[bleedingheart]

We rented this movie and I have to say that GM could have been at the forefront of the electric car/hybrid movement and they did evertyhing to shoot themselves in the foot when they had the ability to own a big piece of the market.

It was amazing...

A car that was here, that could be on the road...but they would not market it properly, they did not try to sell it and they only leased the few they did put out...then they destroyed the ones that came back from the leases.

I watched in disgust and I have to say that while I feel bad for the GM workers, I think that the decision makers at GM are idiots although I think that gives idiots a bad name...

I don't know if anyone else saw this movie but I do recommend it.

[Earth_First]

1. Yes, however if GM goes under...

those American jobs that are still left, go under with them. I'd like for nothing more to happen than a complete turnaround for GM and their employees.

[barb162]

35. same here. GM has a huge effect on this economy with its

suppliers, its pensioners, its employees, etc.

[Auggie]

2. Go under? GM still pays my dad's retirement.

They're still guilty of gross stupidity, greed and arrogance though.

[bleedingheart]

4. well the sad fact is that the upper managment at GM is full of morons

and sadly the workers will pay for it.

[barb162]

36. Yes, perfectly right, but then that means get rid of those

management idiots versus the whole company. I suspect the pensioners and employees own huge blocks of stock and they should be voting on these management idiots and taking ads out in the press about them.

[bleedingheart]

38. I know some folks who are in the finance industry who have been

watching GM for some time and are worried.

I do hope that they vote out the morons but I just don't know.

[Mark E. Smith]

3. Stupid

Not much else to say about your post.

[bleedingheart]

5. why? because GM literally gave up a market and now Toyota is eating their lunch

it is GM that is stupid.

[Mark E. Smith]

7. No, that you would consign 10s of thousands of people

... to joblessness over something you saw on a rented Sony film.

Have you no critical capacity whatsoever?

[bleedingheart]

10. you mean like the people who are already losing their jobs

either because Ford and GM are already losing market share?

and the tens of thousands who will lose their jobs because the Chinese will soon be entering the market with I am sure cars that will also be fuel efficient?

[Earth_First]

11. Sure, if the corporation gets spanked...

it's a progressives wet dream.

[wtmusic]

24. That "something" is destroying the planet

No, providing jobs is not the most important thing in the world -- if those jobs come at the expense of the environment. Time to get an update on that 19th-century worldview.

[Zhade]

66. THANK you.

NT!

[Canuckistanian]

15. But we still can't buy a battery electric car

Thanks to GM and Ford.

And remember, Toyota ALSO destroyed ALL of their electric RAV4's at the same time that GM and Ford were destroying theirs.

[Auggie]

20. GM didn't give up the market. For the past 10-15 years they've made what

people want and have bought: SUVs. So have Porsche, Mercedes, Lexus, BMW...

[wtmusic]

33. Then why are they going under? nt

[barb162]

43. pensions, health insurance costs, etc.

The Japanese and other contries don't have these costs put on their companies

[Auggie]

46. Yes. And they are not going under. They're still the largest auto maker

in the world (or close to it).

[wtmusic]

60. And it has nothing to do with the fact that as late as 2002

GM's CEO was stating that categorically "hybrids don't make sense"? To me, that demonstrates a profound lack of foresight.

[wtmusic]

54. Toyota doesn't offer pensions and health insurance?

News to me.

[barb162]

57. Health insurance, etc is funded by the Japanese government

similar to the the way Europeans do it... taxes. SO no costs are put on the companies...it's national health insurance.

[lectrobyte]

58. Those sneaky Japanese. Why didn't we think of doing something

like that?

[barb162]

64. Yeah and the sneaky Europeans

I doubt we can do national health insurance anymore. The debt and deficit are so high right now, I think it's "done for."

[lectrobyte]

59. And yet we keep hearing how that "socialism" will destroy our industry...

Excuse me, I must go vomit now.

[INdemo]

29. You got it right

GM actually had the technology for the hybrid right there at their fingertips and sold their interest in Toyota to Subaru and now with joint operations they will own the market on the hybrid vehicle..

[GumboYaYa]

6. GM has a new car in development that is electric with a small gas

motor. It can run on the battery charge for short trips. For longer trips the engine charges the battery. I think I remember hearing that it has a range of 600 miles and gets close to 100 miles per gallon.

[bleedingheart]

8. they actually had a car on the roads and not in development

that is what is so amazing to me.

Do you know when this car they have under development will actually appear on the market?

In the meantime they will lose more market share.

[GumboYaYa]

44. I don't know when it is supposed to come on the market.

I heard an interview on public radio with a "green consultant" to the auto industry who had just attended an auto show. The guy who directed "Who Killed the Electric Car" was at the show and was apparently very impressed with the new technology.

Nevertheless, as you noted, it would have been nice to have this years ago.

[lectrobyte]

12. And Prius's with add-on battery packs are already doing that on the

roads today.

[bleedingheart]

17. we bought the Prius and are trying to find out about that add-on battery pack

[lectrobyte]

23. I've looked into this too. Right now, it is still very expensive, 10 to 12

thousand. http://www.hymotion.com/ is one of the companies, and there is another company I'm not remembering at the moment. I'm not sure I'm ready to spend that much on an aftermarket project, but I'd have to assume that it would be cheaper from the factory.

My point being, there's already the possibility of delivering this technology. As near as I can tell, Toyota doesn't believe customers are ready for something that would require plugging in, but I suspect if they wanted to, they could have a plug-in Prius out in the '09 model year. They're also working on the next spin of the Prius, out in '09 or '10 and are promising better performance with an 80MPG avergage. Take all that with a grain of salt, it's not what they say, but what they do. I also suspect the Chevy Volt is at least 4 years out, if it ever sees the light of day at all.

[wtmusic]

26. Probably more like $18K at this point

and there is evidence that Toyota is deliberately programming the Prius to make PHEV conversions impractical. A very interesting mail list to which Who Killed "castmembers" Doug Korthof and Greg Hanssen contribute regularly:

http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/edrivephev/messages/269

I was going to go PHEV but it looks like they won't be available for at least a year.

[lectrobyte]

31. I expect my next car to be a PHEV of some sort, so I'm hoping for

some competition. We'd all be better off if say GM and Toyota were racing to deliver this technology sooner.

[IDemo]

16. The concept has been used here as well --->>

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2006/08/the_hybrid_mini.php

[Canuckistanian]

9. I saw the movie about 2 months ago and I'm still outraged

The sheer lengths that GM went to to make sure that not one electric EV1 car survived was astounding.

And the way the California Air Resources Board folded like a cheap card table to powerful corporate interests was devastating.

It was the most blatant example of corporate interests totally overriding public interest I've ever seen.

And you're right. GM deserves to go under for this.

[bleedingheart]

13. and GM will take a bunch of other companies with them in the process

all because they just could not think ahead...meanwhile had they just steadily increased that market, they would have had a far bigger piece of the pie in the current market.

[Earth_First]

18. You sound like quite the economist, bleedingheart...

The ignorance you have on the economy should this ocurr is pretty obvious when the extent of your analysis of GM going under is "market share" "market" "market share" "market".

Two DUer family members stand to lose their entire pensions; not to mention the livelihood of ten of thousands of American jobs because of your short-sighted, completely incoherent emotion-based attack post.

Like I previously stated, as long as the corporation gets spanked, right bleedingheart?

[bleedingheart]

21. people will lose their pensions anyways...ever hear of what is happening

to the Steel Industry and the Airline Industry

Corporations don't give a shit about the people who make the money for them.

When it becomes inconvenient to their shareholders they will figure out a way to default on their pensions and shove that responsibility on to the Federal Government.

I work in corporate America and I have no pension and the very large company I work for does not provide any new employee with pensions and those who were promised pensions have had more caveats added to them being able to get the pensions they were promised.

My mother's neighbor is a former GM employee and every year, he finds that more of his pension benefits are cut.

I have no faith in the corporations, they do not have a good record of keeping their promises to their retired employees or even to those employees they do have.

Do you realize how many of them are cutting their healthcare benefits and plan to phase out healthcare?

[BeatleBoot]

27. You aren't kidding brother.

Michigan has the highest foreclosure rate and unemployment rate in the country.

And its not due to the electric car not being rolled out sooner.

The problems the Auto industry face are much more complex than that.

For instance, NAFTA side agreements are not being enforced by this admnistration so that doemstic auto companies can sell their product overseas, yet overseas manufacturers are able to sell their products in the U.S.

Another specific example would be the high raw material costs that domestic manufacturers are facing such as oil (which is the basis for plastics interior components) and the cost of steel.

Labor costs are also another hinderance to the domestic auto companies.

These all outweigh the roll out of an electric car as a reason for the current woes.

I agree with you. The post was a short-sighted view of the problem.

[bleedingheart]

32. let me address some of your concerns

NAFTA isn't enforced because of greed

As for the high cost of oil, well if we have more fuel efficient cars then it would help oil consumption drop. If anything using oil to make gas is probably the least useful byproducts that can be produced with oil.

Labor, well to be blunt companies would love to enslave people in their plants and not let them out in their ideal world. I think everyone, not just Americans deserve to make enough to support their families, own a home and actually be able to live a quality life. I am the daughter of a union steel worker and my dad died before his job was shipped over seas to cheaper competitors. My grandfather was a union coal miner and was one of the men who brought unions to the mines.


** I also want to add that I am one of those people willing to pay for more for stuff in order to support union jobs. I shop at a unionized grocery store when Walmart might be cheaper because people I went to school with have worked there all their lives. The store is clean, well taken care of and a very nice place. So it costs me a bit more but I don't have to buy too much.

[BeatleBoot]

40. I cannot disagree with you on any of those points,

My point, quite simply, is that the roll out of the Electric Car did not put the auto companies in the situation they are in today.

Its way deeper than that.

Precious metal prices are just another example. Nickel, Copper - they all make up the components of on board electronics. This just drives up the cost of vehicles and causes the OEM's to be non-competitive.

And, of course, Health Care costs are another example.

If I recall, the CFO of one of the domestic auto companies endorsed Kerry in 2004 in hopes of shifting and reforming Health Care costs via a National Health Care program.

By the way, I'm the son of a retired union member, too.

And proud of it.

:)

[wtmusic]

28. Toyota employs 110,000 American workers

and makes a 50mpg environmentally-responsible car, which with plugin capability will one day extend that to over 100mpg.

I'm sure there are many job openings for ex-GM employees who want to work for a forward-looking company.

[Hope springs eternal]

52. I hate to say this

But the fact is the only economic system in the world that has garenteed jobs is communisum. Now, unless you think living under the axe and sickle is a good idea, I think we should all sober up to the reality that GM is going down the tubes due to their own shortsidedness.

[Hope springs eternal]

53. I hate to say this

But the fact is the only economic system in the world that has garenteed jobs is communisum. Now, unless you think living under the axe and sickle is a good idea, I think we should all sober up to the reality that GM is going down the tubes due to their own shortsidedness.

[Auggie]

14. They deserve to lose market share, which is exactly what has happened.

But not to go under.

[Canuckistanian]

62. Well, fine, but whatever it takes

$$$$ are what car companies understand these days.

But if they understood what consumers REALLY want and demand instead of pushing their vision of what consumers "should " buy, everyone would benefit, in the short and long term.

[Canuckistanian]

19. The internal combustion car is on it's way out

Corporations like GM can plan for it and prosper. Or be totally surprised by it and die a quick, painful death.

Doing NOTHING to ease the transition helps no one, either the public interest or the employees of GM.

[bleedingheart]

22. It is the 1970's all over again and that is what is even more pathetic

I remember the first Toyotas and Hondas...I remember my steel worker father who hated those little japanese cars because he knew they would end up costing him his job.

I also remember how the big three automakers were so "caught by suprise"....and not but 30 years later...it happens all again.

Proving that those who do not remember history are doomed to repeat it.

[Auggie]

25. My feeling is that GM will respond... eventually, and likely, among the last to do so.

It's standard operating procedure. Wait to see where the market is headed. Don't take risks.

[Lorien]

47. I saw it with a friend three days ago

we're still seething and we agree with you entirely!

[ironflange]

30. It's not GM, don't blame them

While looking for this pic, I discovered there are actually Stonecutter lodges now:

[lectrobyte]

34. Some folks would argue that GM never should have gotten so

big in the first place, or that the whole car/suburb century shouldn't have happened. Google up James Kunstler for more on that.

Who knows where we went wrong? Googling "national city lines" might help to get a feel why some of us of a certain age shed no tears for GM. Yes, I hate to see folks lose their jobs. But in the age of peak oil, there probably isn't any happy landing for GM.

[bleedingheart]

37. GM got very big and not only in cars...they have been selling of pieces of itself

like....the GMAC Finance group last year

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4838162.stm

"US car giant General Motors (GM) says an investor group has bought a majority stake in property firm GMAC Commercial Holding, from GM's financing arm GMAC.
GMAC sold 78% of its equity in GMAC Commercial Holding in exchange for more than $1.5bn (£0.86bn) in cash, GM said. "

This was done to help raise capital to turn itself around.

Like many companies they got into a lot of different markets..not just cars.

I suspect that GM will keep trimming and probably is trimming off other aspects of their business

[bleedingheart]

41. here is another piece of GM that may be sold off as well

http://www.clickondetroit.com/news/10843557/detail.html

GM May Sell Division To Focus On Core Business

"DETROIT -- General Motors Corp. said Thursday that it may sell its Allison Transmission division as part of its effort to raise money and focus on its core business.

GM said in a news release that "it is looking at strategic options" for the Indianapolis-based transmission unit "including a potential sale of the business.""


Big company lost sight of goals...got so big and fingers in too many pots..

[jmowreader]

65. I'm surprised they still have Allison Transmission

The Allison Division used to be Detroit Diesel-Allison.

Listen close, folks, for this is important: the most important technology GM ever invented wasn't the EV1 electric car, it was Detroit Diesel Electronic Control (DDEC)--the fuel-injection control system they invented for the Series 60 engine, which was DDC's first "electronic engine." You know how diesel engines used to shoot black smoke six feet out the stack when they were first started? They don't do it anymore, and a big part of why is DDEC.

DaimlerChrysler, who as Daimler-Benz has been making diesel engines ever since there were diesel engines to make, bought Detroit Diesel specifically to get the DDEC system for their own engines. It's that good.

There are two parts to Allison--heavy-duty transmissions and turbine engines. They sold the turbine division to Rolls-Royce.

Now, instead of owning a company that makes three things they largely don't use themselves--GM makes some medium trucks, but that's about it as far as consuming Allison transmissions; before the Duramax came out they were big consumers of Caterpillar engines--they just make transmissions and sell 'em to Freightliner and Kenworth.

[Rosemary2205]

39. Why did TOYOTA kill the electric car.

This has to be one of the worst posts ever.

You are wishing more than 200,000 retired SENIOR CITIZENS lose everything they worked all their lives for because you personally don't believe the automakers pulled the cars because of slow sales?

Un- freaking - believable.

http://news.com.com/2061-10796_3-6153394.html

Mary Nickerson, national marketing manager for Toyota, has a different take. Customers didn't want it.

"The Rav4 EV had a 100-mile range. That range was not sufficient for most people in the marketplace," she said during the Clean Tech Investor Summit which took place this week in Palm Desert, Calif. "If it is the only vehicle in your garage, it is not enough for a typical American household."

That limited range meant it was mostly interesting to people looking for a second or third car, or an in-town car. But even then, sales were low. "The number of people who closed the deal dribbled" to low numbers, she said.

[geomon666]

42. Well I guess that's ok then since Toyota says that's what happened.

I don't believe in closing down GM or Toyota but come on, you gotta do better than using a Toyota Press Release to prove that Toyota didn't intentionally kill the electric car.

[Rosemary2205]

49. I don't care if they did it intentionally or not.

Wishing Ford and GM and Toyota bankrupt because someone dislikes the lineup of their cars/trucks - wishing 100's of 1000's of senior citizens into poverty and probably well more than 1 million still working out of a job is just unbelievable to me. I can't even fathom the hateful mind that would wish that on someone. But that's just me.

[Auggie]

51. I'll drink to that

[bleedingheart]

56. I am not wishing ill upon the workers, but when companies do dumb things

they are the ones condemning their employees to suffer not me.

I believe that GM (the corporation) is seeing record losses along with Ford because of inept business decisions and their lack of vision. Even if big oil is concerned, GM should have worried about themselves and not tethered themselves to another industry. They should have seen the writing on the wall.

The workers should be mad at GM.

and why do I think GM deserves this fate if they don't figure a way out of it???? Because having lived through the 1970's I saw them do it before and now with Chinese cars potentially being offered in the US market in the next few years they had better work fast...what makes it all the more pathetic is that they were poised to be in the forefront and it is just so frustrating to see this company just turn away from that...

As for the pensions and the rest ...like the people in the steel industry, the coal industry and the airline industry are finding....their welfare was never in the interests of the company...making money has been.

Ford and GM are laying off right now...the state of Michigan as another poster stated is already seeing record foreclosures...and perhaps if those companies were a bit more forward thinking...they wouldn't be in the mess they made for themselves.

If GM does survive they will do everything in their power as part of a restructure to cut their obligation to their pensioners...just like the other big companies. Where were the mass strikes to protest that? Where was the concern? I was outraged that mass walkouts were not staged to protest the failure of those industries to keep up their end of the bargain...

[Rosemary2205]

61. You are moving the goalpost

I don't blame you.

[bleedingheart]

45. but did Toyota stop altogether ?

no...they moved into the hybrid market and appear along with Honda to be leaps ahead.

[Rosemary2205]

50. Well, obviously, Toyota was influence by big oil too.

Hybrids so use some gasoline, where a total electric doesn't use any. By your way of thinking, they deliberately switched to a product that still supported big oil. It had nothing to do with the fact the Rav's only got a range of what? 100 miles at best?

Come on.

I don't mind if you want to bitch about American car makers being on the back side of innovation. But to wish all those people into poverty because the "GM" ALONE "killed the electric car" in some deal with big oil?

I'm sorry but that is just too freaking much especially when your beloved Toyota did the same damn thing for the same reason!

[wtmusic]

55. 100 miles will satisfy the daily needs of only 90% of American drivers

But I know if I keep searching I'll find a justifiable reason for either of these companies to give up their EV programs, and exonerate Big Oil...deep in their hearts, they're good people

:rofl:

[lectrobyte]

48. They dropped the RAV4 EV in favor of developing the Prius. You

do know that the used RAV4 EV's are still for sale, right? It's not like they went out and crushed them all, like GM did with the EV1's (even after folks like Jay Leno offered a million dollars to GM for an EV1 for his car collection) and then just continued selling bigger and bigger SUVs.

Yes, it sucks there's no totally electric car from a major carmaker, but at the time they believed the market just wasn't there and felt like they had a more viable alternative in the gas-electric hybrid technology. Looking at the waiting lists for Prius's and the ever-increasing rebates on GM's SUVs, which company took the better approach?

And you can thank the Reagan-era changes to pension fund laws for leaving the retirees in the lurch. You do know that up until the mid 80's, pension funds were protected and companies couldn't use them as a piggy bank?

[Initech]

63. Yet instead, GM caved to the wishes of Jabba The Hut and created huge, gas-guzzling monstrosities.

[fencesitter]

67. hey, I just watched this film

and started a post. This whole thing blew me away.