Obama's Green Auto Ultimatum: Get Efficient Or Get Lost

treehugger.com:

This statement, from the Obama administration's "New Path to Viability for GM & Chrysler" outlines the issue:

Industry financial analysts and industry experts are nearly unanimous in their views that, to be competitive in the decades to come, auto companies will need to transform their processes and products to improve efficiency, reduce costs, and offer higher quality, more fuel efficient fleet.

In other words, both companies need to get a whole lot greener if they want to get bailed out. Obama's administration is forcing a point that's long been clear to many, many people (excluding the Big 3, that is)--fuel efficiency is a necessity now, and will be even more so in the future auto market. So what does Obama have in mind for the future of the two failing car giants?

Read the whole story: treehugger.com

Comments

[plantguy]

Until they make a car that people finds attractive , alot of people are not going to buy one.

[unite4change]

US car companies know their days are numbered. They have failed the American people. They have been in bed with the oil companies for decades and have suppressed technolgy in support of oil. I saw the Chinese roll out the hydrogen car almost fours years ago on CNNI.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2228669770213573581

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CrxfMz2eDME

[quidam56]

Think one of those reality shows should take a Hummer and make it green...

[jsarets]

Like the Governator's Hydrogen Hummer?

http://www.gmhummer.com/gallery/showphoto.php/photo/77

[UbiVeritas]

Raising the federal gasoline tax would be the best way to signal the market to produce more fuel-efficient cars. But then Obama wouldn't be able to play "tough guy" with the automakers.

[sc300nc]

I love listening to these politicians who have never had an honest job in their lives thinking they somehow can run a bank, insurance company, auto manufacturer.

GM will soon realize that sucking on the gov't teat has way too many strings attached. Chapter 11 will be a walk in the park compared to listening to these novices dictate your business.

Won't be long, GM will say up yours to the gov't and file.

[bannorhill]

Why do you think Ford told Obama to shove it.

[unite4change]

Ford realized they would have to undergo the same scrutiny as GM and Chrysler. These companies have been suppressing technology for decades in favor of big oil. GM in Brazil makes cars fueled by sugar ethanol and the hydrogen car was rolled out in China almost 4 years ago.

Our good old politicians have been selling the American people out in favor of big business for years and now you want to blame Obama for everything wrong with our country.

Do some research people!

[tinrobot]

The government stopped telling the banks how to run their business when deregulation was passed in 1999, and Bush took office and took a hands-off approach to banking. Look what that ultimately did to the economy.

Besides, most companies these days are run financiers, not business people. Financiers are only interested in extracting as much profit as possible, not in creating and running sound businesses.

[SFTor]

"Won't be long, GM will say up yours to the gov't and file."

So going out of business has become a brave act of defiance? When you see that expressed in quotation marks, don't you think it is the stupidest thing you have seen in a while?

[jsarets]

The American automakers didn't fail because they didn't make enough fuel sippers. The failed because they took on the substantial burden of health and retirement benefits that are provided by the governments of their foreign competitors.

If anything, they suffer from too much light truck capacity rather than not enough small car assembly lines. The debt associated with all of that excess capacity is burning a hole in their pockets.

All Detroit really needs to survive is universal healthcare and a buyer for their some of their truck plants. Perhaps there's a passenger rail venture that needs an assembly plant?

[KillTheMessenger]

Universal health care does not mean that the government pays the health care cost. It only means that you can't hire without giving health care benefits.

You are absolutely right about over-capacity. GM would have been earning money for years if they had reduced to 60% of their current capacity.

[jsarets]

To me, universal healthcare means that producers aren't expected to provide coverage because consumers are expected to pay for it through progressive taxation and/or individual premiums.

I'm open to financing healthcare through private partnerships, but they should be workplace-independent. Employers shouldn't choose the healthcare options available to their employees.

[OkieMon]

the demise of detroit is not due to worker's benefits but rather to the fact that the fleets of asian car companies average 30 mgp and detroit's average 14.....

[TJCole]

Also that we refuse to join the other civilized nations and provide health care for all Americans..!

[TJCole]

If this President was really serious and sincere he'd stop ignoring the science and economic advantage of our growing, Industrial Hemp for cellulose ethanol and also bio diesel from the seeds..which also eats huge amounts of CO2, and would relieve the world food crisis due to king corn...

http://hemp4fuel.com/

[biskitdaddy]

YES WE CANnabis

[SouthJerseySteve]

How about those cheap Indian cars!? I hear you can buy an Indian-made car for $12K new -- and those Chinese-made cars will be here next year -- what a country!

[arvay]

Finally, an administration that believes that the air we all breathe, like the airwaves the FCC regulates, deserve the protection of an enlightened government.

[gladiator777]

Totalitarian state here we come.

[SFTor]

Gladiator: I suppose you are a big bad capitalist with great disdain for big government. Well, guess what: your big bad capitalist friends on Wall Street have driven the country to the edge of bankruptcy. Your big bad capitalist friends in Detroit have been out-strategized and out-engineered by Europeans and Japanese companies for years, to the point where they are so weakened that they can't weather this downturn. Without federal assistance GM and Chrysler would be bankrupt. We would be looking at a very high number of jobs lost across the midwest.

If you want taxpayer money, you take taxpayer direction, big bad libertarian capitalist or not.

[gladiator777]

Yes, I have great disdain for big government just as our forefathers did. I don't want to live in a dictatorship, seems you guys are embracing it.

[biskitdaddy]

Don't these fools realize they had big government under Bush???? That is, government that worked for big business and as a result has left millions unemployed and homeless. Perhaps some government intervention is in order.

[TerryFL]

.

If you don't like the way things are, why don't you leave ? And you can take your boy-friend, Bank of America Chairman (grifter) Ken Lewis with you.

.

[OkieMon]

state didn't become totalitarian until you guys elected bush twice.....

[econ1]

The government:

Makes it difficult to import fuel efficient diesel cars from Europe (where they are the majority of vehicles).
Proposes rebate for US manufactured cars, probably only those by the US companies, ignoring the other US workers and the Prius and Insite (which are made overseas).
Promotes ethanol as a benefit (then decides it causes more problems than it solves).
Pours billions of dollars into the two least competitive US Auto companies but not Ford (which is still making it on its' own)...making it harder for Ford.

Wow.....I can't wait for the next brilliant move.

[Tom95134]

Actually, the oil companies are at the bottom of why fuel efficient diesels are not here in the U.S. The European diesels require fuel with additional refining and the oil companies want to milk every dime out of their old refining investments so they lobby Congress to keep the new refining on the outside.

It is really the oil companies that are standing in the way and no-one else. President Obama needs to have someone looking into this.

[EllaBee]

All I want is a hybrid Ford Focus, is that too much to ask?

http://www.newurbanismblog.com

[OkieMon]

good choice...

[orangepetal]

Wonder what is standing in your way, perhaps some big guys loaded with serious dough sent in to DC to take care of the interests of Exxon and Chevron. Nah, could't be. Politicians would never fall for that, they work hard for the people and represent the interests of their community.

[KillTheMessenger]

Go with a Prius, instead. You will get the better value.

[tinrobot]

You'll also get a Japanese car.

[rkimball]

an arm & a leg will get you your focus hybrid.
honda will sell you one for $10k less.

[Gerald Shields]

This subject drives me crazy, and it makes it worse when . . . Question: Why is it that we always see these cars in Europe that can do 60-70 MPG, but we are always getting the 30-35 MPG version here? It's like the powers that be want us to waste and consume gas here, but with the Europeans it's okay not to waste? Why are we the "Mass Consumers"? Why are we given credit cards so we can screw our lives up?

[UbiVeritas]

It's simple -- gasoline costs $8 per gallon in Europe.

[KillTheMessenger]

A short trip to Europe might be helpful. You would learn that cars that get 60-70mpg are kind of hard to see... they are so small. I call them chairs on wheels because that is exactly what they look like.

[MacQ]

Sales of Hybrid cars have been down.
So the government will mandate that failing auto companies will make cars nobody wants to buy. Good strategy.
What is the great one going to call his version fo the volkswagen?

[Exusian]

Earth to MacQ: sales of ALL cars have been down.

[gladiator777]

GM's trucks and suv's have been profitable, cutting them from the line would in essence be completely retarded.

[AngieMom57]

Good Morning MacQ!

If the government would make an interest free in loan to students for the purchase of a Hybrid while attending an accredited college, university, or trade school of their choice is my idea for the day that is as always OOTB.....out of the box...

[cronkyvoddy]

I want to buy this car.

Yes, it is good strategy.

By the "great one" you must be referring to L ush R imjob. L ush would call his Volkswagen the "Hummer" bwaa haaa haaa

Thank for todays humor moment