Time's up for petrol cars, says GM chief

[depakid]

THE world's biggest car maker, General Motors, believes global oil supply has peaked and a switch to electric cars is inevitable.

In a stunning announcement at the opening of the Detroit motor show, Rick Wagoner, GM's chairman and chief executive, also said ethanol was an "important interim solution" to the world's demand for oil, until battery technology improved to give electric cars the same driving range as petrol-powered cars.

GM is working on an electric car, called the Volt, which is due in showrooms in 2010, but delays in suitable battery technology have slowed the project.

Mr Wagoner cited US Department of Energy figures which show the world is consuming roughly 1000 barrels of oil every second of the day, and yet demand for oil is likely to increase by 70 per cent over the next 20 years. Some experts believe the supply of oil peaked in 2006.

The remaining oil reserves are deeper below the Earth's surface and therefore more costly to mine and refine.

"There is no doubt demand for oil is outpacing supply at a rapid pace, and has been for some time now," Mr Wagoner said. "As a business necessity and an obligation to society we need to develop alternative sources of propulsion."

More: http://www.smh.com.au/news/environment/times-up-for-petrol-cars-says-gm-chief/2008/01/14/1200159363527.html
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Curious to see what slant the coverage for US consumption takes.

[GliderGuider]

1. Which way to the bandwagon?

Seriously, it's nice seeing guys like Wagoner wake up. Now let's see what we can do about the problem in the time we have left.

[wtmusic]

2. Not a word in American press yet

Maybe that's the slant...non-existent?

[tom_paine]

20. That's the customary treatment for truly troubling (to the Ruling Elite) topics

The Big Ignore. Down the Memory Hole. If they haven't seen it on TV, it didn't happen.

[jwirr]

3. Now let's see the action.

[European Socialist]

4. I guess 10 years too late is better than never.

[Ganja Ninja]

7. About 30 years too late.

We should have done something when oil production in this country started to fall off and we started to import oil back in the 70's.

[European Socialist]

14. You are right---but remember we are talking about GM.

[hunter]

5. Times up for a lot of things.

Petrol cars are just one of those things, and not so big a worry as simple food and a warm dry place to sleep.

The upper classes will have their electric cars. The lower classes will have very little.

Families who once depended on cars will learn to do without. Following peak oil there will inevitably be a worldwide peak in personal automobile ownership. Electric cars won't solve this problem because the infrastructure that supports cars also depends upon inexpensive high-energy-return-on-investment petroleum. Fewer people will have cars while the cost of constructing and maintaining roads skyrockets. Decrepit roads and high costs will further reduce the incentives for owning personal automobiles, which will justify further reductions in road maintenance.

Declining oil production will bring an end to the personal automobile culture.

[Ganja Ninja]

6. It's time for all of American industry to realize that Big Oil is the

big problem. Big oil has their foot on the gas peddle of the American economy and Big Oil has been holding us back. The only way to advance is to find a way to live without their product as our primary source of energy. They can't go soon enough as far as I'm concerned.

[GliderGuider]

8. If you're worried about corporate control of America (or even the world)

I'd suggest being a lot more concerned about agribusiness than Big Oil. The product on which Big Oil's power is built is about to start going away, and their power will fade along with the output of the fields. That applies to the National Oil Companies and all the thousands of Little Oils as well as the Chevrons, Exxons and Totals of the world.

Agribusiness, on the other hand, has really big plans for you. How big? Between GMOs, "species efficiency", biofuels and corporate consolidation, their aim is nothing less than to seize control of the world's food supply. Sounds hysterical, doesn't it? Read the work of William Engdahl, the author of the book "Seeds of Destruction" for the background of this little corporate adventure.

Start here: http://www.mindfully.org/GE/2005/Geopolitics-GM-Food6mar05.htm

Once you own a people's food supply, you own the people. Humanity didn't drive for millions of years. But we've always eaten...

[diane in sf]

9. Seeds of Destruction is a really excellent book. For those of you who are

wondering, Monsanto and Arthur Anderson (yes, that accounting firm) coooked up the idea of controlling the world's food supply.

[DCKit]

23. Ah, but it was Henry Kissenger who first postulated that...

even more than oil, control of food production could bring the entire world to heel. The backlash Monsanto, ADM, et. al. are experiencing in third world countries is hardly misplaced when even illiterate, uneducated farmers realize the implications of GMO crops.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but USAID, the World Bank and the IMF, in several instances, have put the importation and planting of GMO crops (not to mention attempting to privatize water supplies) as a condition for aid and loans. Only the countries that have broken away from these vampires stand a chance at maintaining control of their own agricultural production.

[dbackjon]

11. One big difference - I can grow a lot of my own food

Even in suburbia, a lot of food could be grown locally, if push came to shove, out of the reach of big companies. Energy production (oil, especially) is out of the reach of most Americans.

[GliderGuider]

12. You can make your own biodiesel, too

That won't keep America on the road, though. In the same way, the scale of potential home food production is way too small for the Monsantos and ADMs of the world to worry about. You might protect yourself to some extent, but the other 300 million people in America aren't all going to turn into gardeners or farmers. For them, there is simply no choice - they will buy what is offered. But they don't even know they should be making a choice, or that there is even a crisis at all. GM wheat tastes just fine...

[pscot]

13. But oil lends itself to monopoly control

Food, not so much. It takes a lot of capital to find oil, refine it and get it to the consumer, where-as any sturdy yeoman with a modest back yard and a shovel can grow potatos, beets, onions and beans, and even wheat, to say nothing of chickens and the odd pig. Local market gardeners used to feed our cities. That system has been superceded, but it could be revived. Peak oil presents serious problems for agri-business and world food markets. The current system is an energy hog. I don't think it will be sustainable, post peak, requiring as it does, vast inputs of diesel fuel, petroleum based pesticides and nitrogen fertilizer derived from natural gas.

[GliderGuider]

15. A few points

Local market gardeners used to feed our cities back when the population was a quarter or a third what it is today.
"Any" sturdy yeoman has to translate to "every sturdy yeoman" before subsistence production will make a dent in the food supply. There are lots of yeomen without sturdy backs, back yards, shovels or the required skills.

I agree that Peak Oil is going to present enormous problems for agriculture, problems that will force us back towards the world of yeomen with shovels. But as long as there is any semblance of industrial agriculture, the corporatists want to control it. That control will make the transition back to yeomanry much more difficult than it ought to be, and represents a frank danger to the global food supply during the transition.

They don't want to control all the food. They don't need to. All they need to control is the seed supply. Anything beyond that is gravy. They're almost there.

[wtmusic]

18. Food from plants IS seed

How can they control the seed supply without controlling all the food?

[GliderGuider]

21. They start with the original seed.

At the moment the agri-corps are achieving control mainly by using patent law to prevent seed saving and re-use of their patent-protected GM seeds. A more direct approach, using what has been called "Terminator" technology that produces sterile second-generation seed proved to be a little too obvious for a first attempt, and has been put on hold (though the technology is still waiting in the wings). A variant technique is to engineer a seed that will not germinate without the application of a patented chemical trigger available only from the seed supplier. Yet another technique is for agri-corps to buy up the agencies that purchase the resulting crops, and then refuse to buy any crop that comes from unsanctioned seed - i.e. any seed not originally sold by the corporation that's buying the product.

The main goal is to use any and all means available to prevent seed saving, to force farmers to re-purchase their seeds each year from corporate suppliers.

[wtmusic]

22. Interesting.

The whole thing strikes me as tinfoilish in that I can't imagine every farmer in the world participating in a scheme as cynical as this. It would take but a few renegades to create a lot of "open source" seed.

I come from a farming family and they take great pride in the fact that they are providers.

On the other hand, until I saw "Who Killed the Electric Car?" I never would have believed that a conspiracy of the magnitude of National City Lines was possible. So I should read the book before passing judgement.

[FREEWILL56]

10. Yea, do you think he and the rest of the big 3 after trying their best

to shove gas guzzling SUVs down our throats that they would set the 'trend' in spite of oil skyrocketing got the message? They are so overly paid that they don't have a clue what people can afford or even want in a car. This isn't supposed to be like a freakin fashion show of stuff very few would wear. It is one of the sad reasons why the big 3 are failing with so many workers being laid off while the foreign car makers prosper. Those CEOs aren't taking a cut in pay or suffering for their bad decisions either.

[depakid]

16. This was one of the the lead stories on ABC (Australia) this morning

As well as being on the front page of print addition of the Sydney Morning Herald.

Nary a mention in the US press, from what I can tell. Plenty of other news from the autoshow- like this bit from the wires:

The following is a compilation of items from Dow Jones Newswires reporters covering the North American International Auto Show, which got under way Sunday in Detroit.

There's more green talk - and products - than ever at this year's show, but it doesn't look like the industry is ready to give up its fuel-thirsty pickup trucks and souped-up sports cars just yet.

One thing that sticks out early on in this show is the dichotomy between displays of hybrid vehicles, gasoline-sipping small cars, ethanol partnerships and fuel-saving technologies along with introductions of new pickup trucks, and rip-roaring sports cars. And if future buyers still want to scan the floor for giant sport utility vehicles, the auto makers aren't exactly shamefully tucking them away in the corners.

If someone decides they'd like to bulk up several sizes from Daimler's diminutive "fortwo" model Smart car, for example, Nissan's aptly named Armada is moored just one display away.

General Motors Corp.'s Chevrolet display has the green theme front and center, complete with green carpeting that mimics the look of grass. The display features the different technologies Chevrolet - GM's mainstream, high-volume brand - is pursuing to improve fuel efficiency and maybe one day fuel cars without petroleum. Chevrolet is developing the Volt, an electrically powered vehicle, and is rolling out a test fleet of hydrogen fuel cell versions of its Equinox. It also has a Chevy Tahoe two-mode hybrid.

But also on the Chevy display is the Corvette ZR1, a 600-horsepower version of the iconic sports car that'll cost in the $100,000 range.

There's no doubt all auto makers are serious about improving the fuel mileage of their vehicles and investing in new technologies such as plug-in hybrids, ethanol and fuel cells. GM Chief Executive Rick Wagoner announced a partnership with Coskata, Inc. to find a way to make cellulosic ethanol. And the auto maker is spending a large sum and pushing its engineers to bring the Chevrolet Volt to market by 2010.

http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/articles/djf500/200801140714DOWJONESDJONLINE000215_FORTUNE5.htm

[tinrobot]

17. Better late than never...

I'm glad the tide is finally turning. Can't wait to buy my first electric car.

[wtmusic]

19. Don't hold your breath

GM dealers make a full one half of their gross income from parts and service. Electric vehicles require a tiny fraction of both, compared to those with internal combustion engines.

That, in a nutshell, is why GM is making the Volt and not the EV1.