Robert Schoenberger, a reporter for The Plain Dealer of Cleveland, wrote a story for Newhouse News Service about how General Motors Vice Chairman Bob Lutz is calling “for a national push on the scale of the World War II Manhattan Project to curb imports of foreign oil.” Sounds good, eh?
It should. Plug-in Partners had raised such a call for plug-in hybrids. In fact, the lines that Felix Kramer of Cal Cars delivered in a kick-off video used the same Manhattan Project analogy. So, GM could say that they are joining the call, except that when Lutz rolled out the concept of a Chevrolet plug-in hybrid, Felix Kramer, reminded us that the ballyhoo came from the same company that created then crushed the EV1 and still is part of an auto industry lawsuit against the State of California.
Bob Lutz pushing the Chevrolet Volt concept, either that, or Madame Tussard’s has a new display on the horrors of the forthcoming climate changes from global heating.
Kramer’s observation was rather benign; others were more blunt about perceived deception. Such critics felt especially vindicated after the Detroit Free Press released a subsequent story where Lutz had called an informational meeting where he explained to key members of the Press how the vehicle may never get built.
GM has backtracked a little since then, stating that they definitely would build a concept car. The car displayed during the announcement was a concept of a concept. Basically, it was a prop (What? You didn’t know?) and lacked actual plug-in capability. Cynics, and you can count this blog as one, doubt seriously whether GM ever will offer a production plug-in hybrid for sale.
Meanwhile, remember this blog had cautioned about AFS (Alternative Fuel Spin). Thus, it is particularly insidious that the automobile advertising supported mainstream media now has picked up the call to develop “technologies and an infrastructure to switch from petroleum fuels to biofuels such as ethanol and bio-diesel”. Denial requires intervention rather than further deceit and this is first class denial.
“I have no qualms about recommending the standard” would seem to be the automotive industry mantra. Yet worldwide in 2000 transportation fuels represented 19% of anthropogenic carbon emissions. (For the United States in 2001, the Energy Information Administration, U.S. Department of Energy, showed transportation responsible for 32%.)
Speaking at Kentucky’s eighth annual Global Automotive Conference in Louisville, the design guru said existing proposals to improve fuel economy “by tiny and increasingly expensive increments,” such as forcing automakers to increase efficiency by 4 percent per year for the next five years, would be extremely expensive and counter-productive.
When testifying before Congress only one month earlier, Al Gore recommended raising CAFE (Corporate Average Fuel Economy) standards, a recommendation that the Big Oil – Big SUV Complex will fight to our very last breath. While acknowledging that technologies exist to get 25-30 percent improvements, Lutz said he opposes such incremental changes in fuel economy standards on the basis of cost.
Mr. President, is it true that addicts will commit crimes to support their addiction without regard for whom those crimes might harm?”
This would be cost, as in doing business as usual, never mind those doom and gloom scientists that fail to understand how business is done. GM is wrapping itself in the American flag and unleashing the sod busters. Nor would the Big Oil — Big SUV complex seem to have any qualms about such business strategy, since they also are unleashing the lawyers and hiring more public policy analysts.
What is Not Being Said, except by someone like pro-plug-in author Sherry Boschert is that, if the Otto makers are backed into a corner, they expect to be able to make promises then have the privilege later to walk away from those promises of improved efficiency, as they had done previously.
Not only is the GM strategy insidious because it co-opts the Plug-in Partners analogy, but also, and more importantly, it tries to decouple energy security from climate change risks. While it can be a useful analysis in terms of identifying options to separate energy security from climate change risk, the truth of the matter is it also could be quite dangerous. For various reasons, climate change is a serious threat to national security.
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I’m really surprised that the suits at GM still don’t get it. They’re being pummeled in sales because they’re pathetic in terms of developing new products and seeing new market niches. Toyota has been eating up marketshare because they’re perceived as greener and more fuel efficient. How did they do this? They actually built AND sold a green, fuel efficient vehicle. They didn’t just trot out a “concept” that’s just a few years off…
I wonder if GM management will ever figure that out.
Citing a report from Edmunds that General Motors’ North American operations chief, Troy Clarke, is bringing along the Chevrolet Volt plug-in hybrid prototype to his meeting with legislators on Capitol Hill, Joe Romm suggests that GM is using the Volt to underline GM’s anti-CAFE-increase argument in the same way that it used fuel cell cars to kill the electric car in California.
Jess Jenkins notes that editorial cartoonist, Tim Toles, over at the Washington Post has been drawing up some pretty spot-on climate cartoons lately.
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