LeBeau - Automakers open to fuel efficiency strings for cash
Time to make the best out of this bailout?During CNBC Reports just a few minutes ago, Phil Lebeau - whom interviewed GM CEO Rick Wagoner this morning - stated that US automakers would be open to fuel economy strings for government cash.
Seems like a positive sign, and an angle that Congress should exploit.
Labels: bailout, Congress, fuel economy, toyota
posted by Dahcredyns at
5:08 PM
3 Comments:
I was just thinking about President-elect Obama's plans for a million hybrids, or a million and half - i can't remember - hybrids by 2015.
Even without any government money, who was going to make these hybrids? Toyota and Honda?
GM's Volt plans, in terms of mass-production, are pretty tempered until after 2015. Chrysler's first hybrids were DOA. Ford can't build more than 25,000 Escape hybrids per year.
Maybe Obama should make each automaker commit to putting a Prius-fighter on the road before the end of this decade if they want any bailout money. The technology exists today, no fancy batteries need to be proven - in fact, GM used to OWN the battery technology.
I mean, really, is there any wonder why so many people don't trust the Big 3? The Prius has been around for almost 10 years now and not one US automaker has yet challenged it.
Beggars can't be choosers.
Detroit's leadership is overpaid and dim-witted. It's sad that within a year of the CAFE deals that are way too weak and they showed way too little interest in, Detroit's ears only perk up for cash. They've been given enough money. When Wagoner decides to live in a tent at the edge of the plant and gives up his big $$$, maybe then I'll have a little sympathy. For now, let him have a few meals with the people they've laid off and talk first hand about their greed.
Why don't they earn the money by making smart decisions instead of being paid to agree. Their short-sightedness has cost them dearly. If it wasn't for people blindly buying US brands to support the country, they'd have gone under long ago. International car makers will make cars here AND they think ahead. Why don't they try to sell some of their plants to these companies or do more things like the NUMMI project to develop cars that people will buy because they are good cars?
I hear what you're saying. Still, letting the Big 3 get what they deserve doesn't really hurt executives like Wagoner, it's the rank file workers. It hurts the auto suppliers. it hurst the truck drivers that move auto supplies around. it hurts the restaurant that caters to the auto plant and the auto supply shop.
that being said, there still is an argument for creative destruction, but that would be a bold, risky action at a time when the economy is tanking.
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