Posted on 11/30/2008 9:19:37 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
Many members of Congress believe they know what the car company of the future should look like. “A business model based on gas — a gas-guzzling past — is unacceptable,” Sen. Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., said recently. “We need a business model based on cars of the future, and we already know what that future is: the plug-in hybrid electric car.”
But the car company Schumer and other lawmakers envision for the future could turn out to be a money-losing operation, not part of a “sustainable U. S. auto industry” that President-elect Barack Obama and most members of Congress say they want to create.
That’s because car manufacturers still haven’t figured out how to produce hybrid and plug-in vehicles cheaply enough to make money on them.
After a decade of relative success with its hybrid Prius, Toyota has sold about a million of the cars and is still widely believed by analysts to be losing money on each one sold. General_Motors has touted plans for a plug-in hybrid vehicle called the Volt, but the costly battery will prevent it from turning a profit on the vehicle for several years, at least.
“In 10 years are they [GM] going to solve the technological problems with respect to the Volt? Sure,” says Maryann Keller, an automotive analyst and author of a book on GM. “But are they going to be able to stake their survival, which is really more of a now to five-year proposition, on it? I’d say they can’t. They have to stake their future on_Malibus, the Chevy Cruze, and much more conventional technologies.”
U.S. automakers face demands that they provide evidence and assurance that they would use federal bailout money to transform their companies to produce automobiles of the future, using advanced technologies and featuring hybrid or plug-in vehicles.
(Excerpt) Read more at buffalonews.com ...
If anything - electric cars and hybrids might bankrupt them even faster. The Dems taking Congress in 2006 and their NO Energy Policy helped drive oil prices to the moon which was the last straw for Detroit. I love how O and the Dems keep blaming the auto industry execs.
They’ll make it up on volume.
Appropriate that car of the future, like the future in general, is one that makes no money.
Just how are we supposed to live out of a tiny tin car? HOw are we supposed to load our goods, pull food wagons, carry supplies with a car the size of a show-box?
These ijits just amaze me.
In engineering, we have a saying about managers and customers who sound like Schumer does here:
“Don’t confuse them with facts, he has his mind made up.”
After hearing my buddies Roadrunner gulping in the garage this weekend, an entire battery operated car makes me weep.
What advanced technologies? There are several available alternate fuel vehicles, they are all too expensive for the average consumer. No advanced technologies are a viable business without millions in subsidies.
The other issue is fuel taxes. Right now there are several states that are eliminating all savings realized from hybrid fuel vehicles by increasing the tax on fuels. Seems that the savings to the consumer on fuel consumption, the savings that were supposed to offset the high initial cost of the vehicle, has had an unintended consequence. State revenues are declining so instead of reducing spending they are, true to form, increasing taxes to cover it.
Congress needs to address the real issue here and stop with the nonsense, void the union agreements and let the Companies get out from under the huge liabilities and liquidity issues they impose. Everything else is just bull****.
That D*LDO needs to read "The Road To Serfdom".
Oh, sure. F you.
Get between me and my battery concrete mixer truck.
You bastard!
The auto industry, as currently structured, is a life support system for UAW pension and medical benefits.
And much of that will not matter unless Detroit steps up and apologizes for all the clunkers they’ve unloaded on customers over the years. What you mention is necessary, but they also have to figure out how to get customers to even consider a domestic product.
There are now two entire generations of people who have never bought a domestic car and will not even consider them because of the horror stories.
You can purchase a team of horses.
Heh ... Step Right Up
hrumph, very funny! It’ll take two weeks to get over the Skisykous!
Actually, I think hydraulic hybrids are more technologically realistic.
Absolutely it will. More people will flock to Japanese and other manufacturers to get the vehicles they want. You don’t market a car on the idea it will make you feel better about yourself. especially to people who don’t worship at the alter of global warming. This will be a repeat of the ‘70’s, but it will end in the demise of American auto manufacturers.
if you want an electric car then you need electricity. 50% of our electricity comes from coal. The global warmers hate coal so if you want to replace that then you need to build nuclear plants. Well, the price of oil is low and the upfront construction costs of building more nuke plants is very high so if we really want this to work then the govt will have to pitch in with the $ to pay for these plants. Then all the anti-nuke activists will complain.
So I wonder if chuckie really wants to go this route.
The entire industry needs to be rebuilt from the ground up: better products, more competitive labor agreements and less, not more, government interference.
Congress couldn't run its own post office and bank. The idea that they have a clue about running a car company and more so, what products to produce for the future, is laughable beyond imagination.
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