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Friday, January 02, 2009

What's wrong with the U.S. car industry in a nutshell
Posted by Jill | 6:26 AM
Before settling in for a day of cartoons yesterday, we caught some of CNBC's program Saving GM, which focused on the development of a new version of the old Chevrolet standby, the Camaro, for 2010. (You can watch it yourself here and here.) And it struck me how this portrayal of the money and effort that GM was spending to try to revive an old brand name from an era radically different from today was the essence of what is wrong with the U.S. car industry.

In the 1960's, when the Camaro made its appearance, it was a sporty car for people who couldn't afford a Corvette. It was a time of muscle cars, cheap gas, and plentiful jobs, and upward mobility. Today we live in a time of uncertain and volatile fuel prices, wars for oil, and a contracting economy. And instead of going full-bore with developing the next generation of transportation that does not rely on the petroleum-fueled internal combustion engine, General Motors is looking back to the 1960's and focusing on restyling an old car so they can market it as "If you just buy this car, we can turn back the clock." Swell. Yes, they have the Volt being hyped for a 2010 release, but frankly, we do not have the luxury of expending automotive R&D dollars on revamped muscle cars.

So while General Motors is trying desperately to turn back the clock to 1967, Toyota is looking way, way ahead into the future:
Toyota Motor Corp. is secretly developing a vehicle that will be powered solely by solar energy in an effort to turn around its struggling business with a futuristic ecological car, a top business daily reported Thursday.

The Nikkei newspaper, however, said it will be years before the planned vehicle will be available on the market. Toyota's offices were closed Thursday and officials were not immediately available for comment.

According to The Nikkei, Toyota is working on an electric vehicle that will get some of its power from solar cells equipped on the vehicle, and that can be recharged with electricity generated from solar panels on the roofs of homes. The automaker later hopes to develop a model totally powered by solar cells on the vehicle, the newspaper said without citing sources.

The solar car is part of efforts by Japan's top automaker to grow during hard times, The Nikkei said.


Americans have this peculiar need to have a car that's "fun to drive", though with increasing congestion on our highways, I'm not sure that there are many places left in the country where driving is "fun." And while I'll admire a cool-looking car as much as anyone (though my idea of cool-looking runs more towards this than pale imitations of 1960's muscle cars), when it's time for the rubber to hit the road, give me a fuel-efficient car that I can rely on to be on the road more than it is in the shop. Perhaps there are enough baby boomers in midlife crisis to buy this misbegotten beast that GM is betting enough of the ranch on to pay Dale Earnhardt Jr. to test-drive it. But if this is what GM's vision is for turning the company around, then we just wasted $7 billion on them.

And you can't for one minute blame this boondoggle on the UAW.

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7 Comments:
Blogger Charles D said...
Perhaps the problem with the US auto industry is that we still have one. Thanks to the auto industry and its corporate cousins (tires, concrete, oil, etc.) we are blessed with a transportation system wholly dependent on the two most inefficient modalities of transport: autos and airplanes.

Instead of worrying about whether GM will ever get ahead of Toyota or Nissan in developing new-fangled cars (it won't), we should be re-tooling the industry to produce high-speed rail and mass transit.

Instead of worrying about whether or mode of transport is "fun" or whether it adequately projects our imagined personality, let's worry about whether it is good for the earth and makes economic sense. Cars don't, regardless of whether they are solar or run on cow dung.
1/2/09, 8:34 AM  
Blogger Nan said...
But doesn't GM's dilemma and misguided planning neatly capture everything that's wrong with the U.S. today? Lots of looking backwards and fighting yesterday's wars, figuratively speaking, while displaying a total unwillingness to face the future?
1/2/09, 10:59 AM  
Blogger Phil said...
Hammer, meet nail.

That is exactly why GM is in trouble.
They keep thrashing around in the Sixties and refuse to pull their heads out of their asses.

They could have been miles ahead if they had fired about two thirds of their management and brought in some younger blood with fresh ideas.
But no.

I will be Forty nine years old at the end of this month and I AM a car guy.
If I wanted a fucking Camaro, I would have one,a real one.

GM needs to start building small sedans and station wagons with super fuel efficient engines in small quantities and in the meantime revamp their factories and start building electric cars if they want to survive.
1/2/09, 11:20 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...
DemocracyLover you are the closest to understanding reality.

Societies and governance need a system of movement that is scalable within a limited environment (system). It has to be a democratic system in that it allows freedom of movement and equal access to the system if governance is to have any chance.

Cars are a great idea but they are not scalable.

Sorry Bustednuckles, I'm not trying to knock on you, just the car guy mentality. (I'm going to assume you know how to spell and were forced to drop the K.)

I always find it interesting that car guys seem to be mechanical or engineer types but limit the idea of systems outside the one they are comfortable with: the internal infernal combustion engine. And they don't seem to understand the fundamental physics of accumulating effects of tiny actions and feedback.

This needs imagination and I think car guys have none or little. Car guys need to isolate everything and regard it as static or inert. Car guys need to see things in compartments in order to debug and solve problems in mechanical systems. It's easier then to take something off a shelf, install it, and calibrate it to quickly solve the system defect.

Looking at the current state of trauma, car guys in their compartmentalized imaginations tend (want) to believe that electric cars are going to solve the global energy and environmental crises. But they fail to understand in an energy crisis it's not JUST the 'usage' consumption that's the problem. There's a problem of scale that exists before usage takes place.

Electric cars have to be built. Building a car regardless of platform takes a lot of energy, possibly more than it consumes during usage. Scalability remains a limiting factor.

Nan you've touched the raw nerve everyone wants to look away from. Society, and it's not just the western one, has become one large unmovable, unchangeable, opaque system that fears the future rather than defines it.

The problem remains larger than just cars. It's the form of cities, architecture, local government, true accounting of subsidies, taxation and a lot more consumption and compensating systems that govern our relationships and organizing.

We have to start addressing the issues in terms of needs and NOT wants!

Change is inevitable. Whereas change was once ours to control, it is no longer ours to control. Our partner the planet will take over. We are no longer masters but slaves of our own creations.

Let me suggest a source of some clarity: the book 'Presence' by Peter Senge and friends.

- SansS
1/3/09, 9:58 AM  
Blogger Damian Taylor said...
Yes... but the problem is once we give them the bail out money they will use it to give themselves bonuses. And yeah we could make cars that are cheaper for the average joe... but why when you can make money? whatever lifes no t fair
1/4/09, 7:25 PM  
Blogger Mr. Natural said...
My goodness Mr/Ms SansS you certainly are a smart one!

"Sorry Bustednuckles, I'm not trying to knock on you, just the car guy mentality." Then you ramble on for 3 paragraphs doing just that.

If meaningless words were worth a nickel each, I guess you could afford to get your scalable reality up and running, eh?

Great original post, and as always interesting comments.
1/4/09, 10:41 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...
Jill,

Interesting you like your neighbors MINI Clubman. I bought a used MINI Cooper last January based on my own prediction of $4 a gallon gas by the summer of 2008 (sometimes I'm a freakin' genius).

I'm 6 foot 2, 300 lbs. and love driving the MINI. Great gas mileage AND fun to drive. It's my road trip car.
1/5/09, 4:25 PM  
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