Hating GM, Obama and America: Why it's time to bail out the Big 3
Time to leave it all behindI've loved hating GM over the years. Even the Chevy Volt is worth hating sometimes. We've been hearing about it for years and its still almost years away. Furthermore, most Americans need fuel efficient solutions that cost less than $20,000, but can still achieve 40 mpg in the city.
Where's that GM product?
Yet, whom do I really hate when I hate GM? Is not GM but a microcosm of America? Health care, social security and pensions are intricately intertwined between GM - and the larger auto industry - and America. In many ways, GM's failures are America's failures.
Finish: Hating GM, Obama and America: Why it's time to bail out the Big 3
Labels: bailout, barack obama, Chevy Volt electric vehicle concept, Foreign Oil Dependency
posted by Dahcredyns at
1:00 PM
5 Comments:
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I've loved hating GM over the years. Even the Chevy Volt is worth hating sometimes. We've been hearing about it for years and its still almost years away. Furthermore, most Americans need fuel efficient solutions that cost less than $20,000, but can still achieve 40 mpg in the city.
Where's that GM product?
Yet, whom do I really hate when I hate GM? Is not GM but a microcosm of America? Health care, social security and pensions are intricately intertwined between GM - and the larger auto industry - and America. In many ways, GM's failures are America's failures.
It's not SUVs that are killing the Big 3, it's legacy costs.
Certainly, that doesn't absolve GM of its wrongs. But, does it really matter, today?
Ending foreign oil dependence, for instance, would minimally save the US economy hundreds of billions of dollars per year. And that doesn't include ANY war costs. How's that for a return on investment? Isn't that alone worth investing a few hundred billion into US companies, along many with fuel efficiency strings?
Imagine the innovations that would be developed as we achieve this ROI.
It's time to get behind Obama's campaign promise to end foreign oil dependency. The plan is coming together, I believe, but it's going to require a bailout of the US auto industry. Despite the fact that most Americans hate this idea, it's time to get over it.
It's time for change, yes, but it's the path - the plan - that is most important. And Detroit can be an asset in this new direction.
The Obama administration needs to get serious about producing carbon neutral synfuels in America. No, not ethanol. We need to start producing carbon neutral gasoline, methanol, dimethyl ether, and jet fuel from urban and agricultural biowaste and from nuclear power (the Green Freedom process).
Obama should mandate that all hydrocarbon transportation fuels sold in America contain at least 5% carbon neutral fuels by 2015 and 10% by 2020. This would help to found a huge synfuel industry in the US that could eventually completely replace petroleum within 20 or 30 years.
http://newpapyrusmagazine.blogspot.com/2008/11/gasoline-from-air-and-water_24.html
I'd have no problem with that being part of the plan. Whatever it takes to get off foreign oil ASAP - as long as the new fuels are cleaner than the old ones.
Hybrids and plug-in hybrids, such as the Volt, could use these new fuels.
A good balance of cleaner alt fuels and electrified technologies - in addition to lighter vehicles - could end foreign oil dependency much sooner than we believe and more cost-effectively than just EVs or just syn fuels, I believe.
Marcel - Do you really want to be sitting at a stop light 20 years from now breathing the half-burned fumes from synthetic carbon-neutral bio-fuels? I don't. We have the opportunity to use zero emmissions vehicles such as those that rely on lithium batteries or hydrogen fuel cells. Let's not pass that up in favor of stinking pollution-intensive options like bio-fuels.
Not all biofuels are bad, and they certainly aren't always as bad as coal-driven electricity. Even hydrogen may one day be driven by biofuels, such as algae.
If we wait for purely electric vehicles to solve all our problems, we're probably going to be waiting a very long time.
In the short term, smart biofuels, or even natural gas, could help ween the US off of foreign oil much faster than just powertrain technology.
Likewise, plug-in hybrids and hybrids could utilize these cleaner, domestic fuels.
In no way should biofuels be used to justify less electrification, but I think America's first goal needs to be ending foreign oil dependency as quickly as possible.
If cleaner than petroleum biofuels can help as automakers scale up plug-in production, I'm all for it.
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