Bail out automakers to save the Chevy Volt? Part II
I still love the Volt, but it's time for some realityOn Monday, after reading some stories supporting a US automaker bailout to save the Chevy Volt, I slammed the suggestion (more). It's not that I don't believe in the viability of the Volt, it's that I don't believe the Volt is the critical piece of this discussion.
After watching the CEO's of the Big 3 testify before Congress Tuesday, I believe that even more. Both Ford and GM insisted that the new CAFE requirements - 35 mpg by 2020 - were the absolute most achievable limit. Any new strings for the bailout, they argued, should not include higher fuel economy standards.
Hence, by 2020, most US-made vehicles will still be conventional vehicles - though conventional vehicles with direct injection and other technologies that will increase fuel economy - not vehicles like the Volt.
More important, while 35 mpg fleet fuel economy means foreign oil dependency from the Persian Gulf will be reduced by half, America will still be terribly dependent upon foreign oil in 2020. This reality, not the Volt, should be the focus of the bailout talks.
Why can't automakers help end foreign oil dependency by 2020? If EVs and hybrid cars can't get us there be 2020, what other technologies, fuels, etc. can get us there? Can cellulosic ethanol be significantly increased in the next 10 years? Can natural gas help? Something else?
The US auto industry needs government help, and I'm inclined to help. However, if the government and US tax payers are going to partner with the US auto industry to achieve success, why not strive for revolutionary success?
Labels: bailout, Foreign Oil Dependency, fuel economy, Hybrid Vehicles
posted by Dahcredyns at
12:05 AM
6 Comments:
That's what I've been saying all along...these people don't want change. They want to keep making their Tahoes, Camaros, and Escalades.
This is hilarious...the world is going to shit and they are wanting to do the same thing...doesn't that remind you of what is usually known as a drug addict?
I think it's time to kick the addiction.
The UAW needs a little tough love. It derailed the Cerberus deal at Delphi. Today GM suffers a loss of about $2,000 per vehicle sold. On the other hand Toyota whose employees are not part of the UAW earns a profit of about $1,200 per vehicle sold. If GM was able to operate with labor prices near Toyota’s it would have pocketed an additional $29,715,200,000.
http://nomedals.blogspot.com/2008/11/gm-bailout-makes-no-sense.html
but those UAW contracts go under a big change in 2010 that will make the Big 3 far more competitive - at least in the union v. non-union argument. i really think that is becoming a non-issue.
in my opinion, the issue is that the big 3, and the auto industry in general, hasn't been scared into extreme fuel efficiency.
ending foreign oil dependency simply isn't profitable to detroit. Why? could it profitable for other automakers? if we're going to bail them out, can congress help make ending foreign oil dependency profitable?
that's my issue.
If the idea is to reduce our dependancy on foreign oil, then the fuel efficiency of our cars is a non-issue. What we really need to do is start producing our own oil. We have plenty on our own land to use, and it would create more then a few jobs. The only thing congress should do to reduce dependancy on foreign oil is to remove the barriers keeping us from producing our own. The less of a role congress has, the better off we will be.
From what coal liquidification? Tar sands? Ethanol?
Maybe natural gas could be an interim fuel to move from foreign oil, but there is ever mounting evidence that the chemicals used in the most common form of gas drilling is contaminating ever more important clean water sources.
Furthermore, most alternatives require much higher gas prices with close to $4.00 being the threshold.
At $4.00 per gallon electrification makes sense long term and once economies of scale for battery technology develop, electrification will be far more cost-effective and clean than tar sands or coal, etc.
More important, focusing on electrification also develops the technologies that the rest of the world is going to want. They don't want fuels from the stone ages.
Plus, the environmental damage caused by refining tar sands into oil, for instance, make the pollution and CO2 emissions of conventional oil seem like a tree-huggers dream.
The fact is, the rest of the world is moving to a carbon trading system. Even if the US doesn't. Thus, no one in the world will buy our autos if we don't move towards electrification.
It's time to move towards 21st century technologies, not to keep grasping onto planet killing 19th century ones.
Northern Conservative...
Our problem isn't just shortage of oil...the problem is the oil itself. We cannot sustain this ecosystem with this much pollution and contamination.
More oil the answer? You must be joking.
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