GM slams possible fuel economy changes(unfair, since SUV & trucks would take a hit)

[RedEarth]

DETROIT (Reuters) -- A proposal to increase U.S. fuel economy standards would force Detroit-based automakers to "hand over" the market for trucks and sport-utility vehicles to Japanese manufacturers, a senior General Motors Corp. executive said.

Bob Lutz, GM's vice chairman and the head of the company's global product development team, said the proposed changes to the government's Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards would represent an unfair burden on the traditional Big Three automakers.

"For one thing, it puts us, the domestic manufacturers, at odds with the desires of most of our customers, namely larger vehicles," Lutz said in a year-end posting on a Web site maintained by GM

http://money.cnn.com/2006/12/26/news/companies/gm_fuel.reut/index.htm?eref=rss_topstories

........Join the Road Hog Reduction Campaign.....

http://www.suv.org/index.html

[Joanne98]

1. The GM execs are killing this company....

Can you even believe what idiots they are.

[raccoon]

27. Yes. Too bad it's the rank and file that has to take it in the neck. nt

[VegasWolf]

40. The fuel standards they are whining about having to support in 10 years are where

the Chinese are today. Good ole boy AmeriKan technology. These corporations deserve their own self destruction.

[Pharaoh]

2. Fucking Morons!

They killed their own electric car which was a huge success and would have saved the company from junk status............fuck them, the arrogant fucks!

[silverweb]

3. Idiots.

They're still stuck in the old mode of thinking that they create the market, that they get to tell us what we want and "have to have."

Those days are at an end, you greedy morons. Now we are telling you what we want, and you don't want to respond to us or our concerns.

So die. And take your filthy, fuel-guzzling, monster machines with you.

[leesa]

20. But they DID tell us what we wanted and it worked like a charm. NOBODY

would have touched a giant SUV 15 years ago. They marketed them so that every American was certain they had to have one.

[silverweb]

32. True... only to a point.

Quite a few morons fell for the monster marketing strategy, but the demand for energy efficient cars never died. Just look at the demand for the electric car when it came out and the waiting lists for hybrids. Had US manufactures answered our demand for clean, energy efficient vehicles, they'd be well in the black right now instead of on the verge of bankruptcy.

[susanna]

41. I disagree.

Seriously. I work in the domestic industry. Most folks bought those things out from under us BEFORE we figured out a marketing angle, which I do not deny that we eventually did.

So I don't buy the "they made me buy it" excuse. Ever. We were completely surprised by the demand; they'd always been niche vehicles to us up to that point.

[Book Lover]

4. Bob, your customers came, cash in hand, for those EV-1s

and your people kicked them to the curb. Pickup/SUV sales are declining and you all know it. Bring us what you sell in Europe and in five years, you will have Toyota hurting both on the coasts and in the heartland!

[NickB79]

5. So is he saying US auto companies aren't as smart as the Japanese?

"A proposal to increase U.S. fuel economy standards would force Detroit-based automakers to "hand over" the market for trucks and sport-utility vehicles to Japanese manufacturers, a senior General Motors Corp. executive said."

If the Japanese can do it, why can't American automakers do it? Mr. Lutz, are you admitting you are dumber than your Japanese counterparts?

If they had actually invested money in new technology instead of trying to build the biggest cock-compensator on the road for the past decade, maybe they wouldn't find themselves in the hole they are in now.

[SemperEadem]

13. Lazy, more like it...

Hubris--the autopilot of pride.

[Parisle]

6. Hindsight

--- The goddamned automakers shouldn't have bribed all those federal legislators to have their SUV's declared as "trucks" back in the 90's. And they shouldn't be paying any attention to "consumer preferences" when those preferences are clearly short-sighted and destructive. Consumers don't know shit.

[fishwax]

7. what a crock

GM's management is to blame. It's not as though it should have been difficult to see this coming. Why haven't they invested more in appropriate technology? Why would this force them to "hand over" the market to the Japanese--can they make bigger vehicles that don't use as much fuel as GM's big vehicles? And whose fault is that?

[WHEN CRABS ROAR]

8. This is the same company that fought seatbelts.

[One_Life_To_Give]

9. New rules were issued this past summer

A major overhaul of the SUV and light truck fule economy standard was jujst completed within the last year. All the big light truck and SUV makers had significant input into what came out in the standard. And it doesn't partucularly favor one manufacturer over another as I recall.

[Little Wing]

10. tough shit

[tabasco]

11. Just can't buy a clue, can they?

Sad for the workers.

[TheCowsCameHome]

12. Wave to Toyota when they whiz by, you morans.

[jakefrep]

30. Fuck Toyota....

...They're moving aggressively into the big truck/SUV market. Why don't they catch any shit? Plus they did more than their fair share to kill the electric car.

http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061220/COL14/612200410

[susanna]

42. Thank you.

Toyota has admitted publicly that "Who Killed the Electric Car" was a pretty slanted flick. The filmmaker agreed. Toyota killed their EV too, but the filmmaker didn't focus on that. Funny, huh?

And, for the record, their "All New Tundra" is gonna burn a lotta gas. Plus they don't seem to "get" trucks at this point, which is good for the domestics. Not that they won't eventually figure it out. I hope the domestics figure out their junk before Toyota cracks the truck market...

[depakid]

14. Cry me a river -

If management wasn't so utterly vain and stupid- opposing CAFE standards and exploiting loopholes all these years, they wouldn't be on the verge of bankruptcy.

[we can do it]

15. I Just Sent This Email To GM

Give customers what they want? What a laugh. I WAS a loyal GM customer for many years until I simply could not buy a small, sporty fuel efficient hatchback with a manual transmission. Instead you continue to push unstable, unmanueverable oversize gas hogs, while our environment is being ruined - what a pity. I hope you wake up some day.

[BayCityProgressive]

16. who cares

the automakers have fucked Michigan already. The management sucks. I think the future of the world is more important than GM short term profits. Just a thought.

[we can do it]

24. Happy Holidays To You Too

[Dover]

17. 1996 - a short review of how we got here: Auto, Oil and Politics Mixer

The CAFE standard of 27.5 mpg for cars has not been increased during the last 20 years, and the light truck standard has been increased only about 1 mpg in the same period. Congressional action has frozen CAFE standards since fiscal year 1996, and the fuel economy of the combined light duty fleet has now dropped to 24 mpg from its 1986–87 high of 25.9 mpg. Because SUVs are held to the less stringent light truck standard, their growing popularity has led to the decline in average fuel economy for the entire passenger fleet. Improving fuel economy will not only provide short-term savings for consumers by decreasing the amount they spend on fuel, but will also ensure an adequate energy supply for the long-term and reduce unhealthy air-polluting emissions, thus improving the quality of the air we breathe. - Congresswoman Tammy Baldwin, Wisconsin



Car Talks:
Motown Walks, Detroit stalls on a solution to global warming.

by B. J. Bergman

Perhaps it was, as one oil man called it, "a nutty idea to begin with": 30 scientists, environmentalists, policy wonks, and executives from the auto and oil industries banging heads trying to figure out how to slow global warming.
When the United States signed the Earth Summit Climate Treaty, it obligated itself to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels. The most logical place to start was to address emissions from cars and trucks, the largest contributors to global warming.

The presidential panel designated to hash out the problem was burdened not only with a ponderous name ("The Policy Dialogue Advisory Committee to Assist in the Development of Measures to Significantly Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Personal Motor Vehicles," nicknamed "Car Talks" for sanity's sake), but with the sharply divergent agendas of its members. Few observers were surprised when Car Talks ended up spinning its wheels.

"It was a very difficult, unpleasant effort," says Dan Becker, director of the Sierra Club's Global Warming and Energy Program. Tapped in 1994 by President Clinton, Becker joined the group with modest hopes that it could find common ground to cut carbon dioxide emissions. "But over the course of the year," says Becker, "it became obvious the auto industry would not agree with us on anything reasonable."

"Us" included other public-interest advocates, state and local government officials, and a range of energy and transportation experts, all of whom pushed for higher corporate average fuel economy (CAFE) standards. Back in 1975, ignoring the automakers' dire predictions of a sub-subcompact America, Congress gave them a decade to double the efficiency of their fleets to an average of 27.5 miles per gallon. Despite its protestations, Detroit managed to hit that mark, but has idled there ever since. The Sierra Club has long contended that fuel efficiency standards should and could be boosted to 45 mpg for cars and 34 mpg for trucks. While that goal was embraced by candidate Bill Clinton, the President--who has the authority to hike the standards on his own--has thus far been unwilling to do battle with Detroit.

If Clinton meant for Car Talks to get him off the political hook, the strategy failed. "The auto guys resisted talking about CAFE from day one," recounts Becker. Only in the final hours did the automakers-- the Big Three of GM, Chrysler, and Ford plus delegates from BMW and Honda--offer a substitute proposal, to curb driving by boosting gasoline taxes $1.50 per gallon over 30 years. Predictably, oil- industry reps at the table blew a gasket...cont'd

http://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/199603/priorities.asp

__________________________________________________________________________________________________



Their argument? Still using the same ones -
http://www.nationalcenter.org/NPA546CAFEStandards.html

Again exploiting people's insecurities. Now wouldn't you feel safer with a big fat hogging SUV wrapped around you? It's a dangerous world out there. And this while much of Europe drives smaller, more efficient cars at nearly twice the speed!

________________________________________________________________________________________________

A 2002 Report (informative):

Effectiveness and Impact of Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) Standards (2002)
Board on Energy and Environmental Systems (BEES).

http://www.nap.edu/books/0309076013/html/1.html

[buddysmellgood]

18. Whaaaaah. Tough shit. Be American. Innnovate.

[Contrite]

19. Remember that Chevy Tahoe on-line ad writing campaign?

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.12/tahoe.html

Here's what happened. According to GM, they "knew" they would get negative messages and the Tahoe took off in sales, anyway. They blame the downturn in SUV sales on gas prices rather than consumer concerns about global warming.

[Javaman]

21. WTF???

"A proposal to increase U.S. fuel economy standards would force Detroit-based automakers to "hand over" the market for trucks and sport-utility vehicles to Japanese manufacturers, a senior General Motors Corp. executive said. "

Holy shit!!! GM needs to desperately get they heads out of their collective corporate asses.

GM has already done a fine job of handing over the market to the Japanese. Blaming congress for their colossal fuck up helps no one.

Hey, GM suck it up, stop selling gas suckers, produce your electric car again and shut the fuck up as the money rolls in again.

God damn they are such fucking whiners.

[MindPilot]

22. Does GM build the chassis for the Whaaaambulance?

They did the same thing back when emission regulations came on the scene. Spent years throwing a corporate hissy fit while the japanese developed emission controls that actual worked and didn't impact performance or economy. A few years earlier they were trying to convince the Americans that safety improvements would make a car cost more than the average American can afford. Then they answered the OPEC embargo with the friggin' Vega. Meanwhile the Japansese...

Now GM can't even get anything out there that isn't butt-ugly (the Corvette being the only notable exception)let alone something that is innovative or reliable.

And their new truck ad campaign is just vile...if you ain't country, you ain't American. And make more nice white Christan babies; "this is our purpose." :puke:

GM, you screwed yourself, you are a dinosaur now as useful as a blacksmith in a computer room.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

26. blacksmith in a computer room. heh heh.

if at first you don't succeed, get a bigger hammer.

[KansDem]

33. I remember when Honda came out with its innovative steering system...

The system that allows the rear wheels to turn in tandem with the front wheels. I saw an ad for it on T.V. Then a couple minutes later, I saw an ad for an American-made auto. It's new feature: pin-striping...

I knew something was amiss when I saw that juxtaposition!

[liberal1973]

23. If GM doesn't want

to lead then get the heck out of the way. GM is the blame for their own suv troubles and nobody else.

No wonder they paid pig boy hannity do a radio spot on his show. I guess douchebags go hand in hand. :)

[ChairmanAgnostic]

25. SAVE US FROM OUR STUPID DECISIONS!

after all, we BELIEVED dick Cheney when he guaranteed cheap gas. It's not our fault. Really.

[Zhade]

28. Boo. Fucking. HOO.

Greedy assholes.

[Say_What]

29. Too F*ck'n bad... you had plenty of decades to do something about it

and you didn't so, piss off.

[w4rma]

31. GM execs had to have known this law was long in the coming. They need to quit whining and work. (nt)

[Vidar]

34. Continuing to demonstrate the short-sighted avarice that has ruined the company

over the last forty years.

[Triana]

35. That's a crock O Sh*t

WHO wants a gas guzzeling tank with gas prices as they are? Poor babies, couldn't keep up with foreign manufacturers and now have to COMPETE with them. Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwww....

As another in this thread said: Cry me a freakin river, you pigs!

[libnnc]

36. Waaah. Big titty-babies.

It's not like they've never made fuel efficient small trucks before. It CAN be done.

Remember these?

[trogdor]

46. The Luv was made in Japan by Isuzu

[libnnc]

47. So why leave everything to Japan?

Are American companies too technologically ignorant to make them?

We can put a man on the moon but we can't make a small truck?



That's the point I was trying to make.

[jmowreader]

48. The thing is, we CAN make a small truck, and a good one at that

The Big Three--GM, Ford and DaimlerChrysler--all make good small trucks.

GM's entry for many years was the Chevrolet S-10/GMC S-15. Same truck with a different nameplate. I like to refer to them as "the most powerful trucks on the planet" in jest--you should see how many people show up with one of these asking us to put a whole skid of shingles in the bed. (I always refuse on the grounds that a 3400-pound truck cannot haul a 4400-pound skid of shingles.) If you can convince yourself NOT to try hauling a skid of shingles in the back of one of these, it's a quality truck that will last a long time.

GM's new entry is the Chevrolet Colorado/GMC Canyon. This truck is good. It's so good that in a reversal of the Chevy LUV situation (where the American-nameplate truck came off Isuzu's Japanese assembly line), the current Isuzu I-280 pickup is a rebadged version of the Colorado and comes off GM's Shreveport, Louisiana, assembly line.

Ford's compact pickup is the Ranger. This is another good truck, and it's another with a Japanese clone: the Mazda B-series truck is a relabeled Ranger.

DaimlerChrysler makes the Dakota. They have a very small problem with the Dakota: it's capable enough, and large enough, that many people who might have purchased the Ram 1500 go home with the Dakota instead. In response, Dodge has altered the two lines: the Ram 1500 is available in standard and "extended" cabs, while the Dakota is available in standard and crew cabs. Its Japanese counterpart is the Mitsubishi Raider.

A few months ago we were discussing how buying foreign nameplates injures the American autoworker, and I pointed out that it would be hard to injure the American autoworker by purchasing a Mazda, Isuzu or Mitsubishi pickup because American autoworkers build them.

Here's the problem: A very nicely equipped compact pickup costs around $25,000. One of the local Ford dealers was displaying a Harley-Davidson Special Edition F-350 Dual Wheel Pickup with PowerStroke Diesel Engine. Bottom line was well over $50,000. It takes no more time and requires no more workers to build a $50,000 truck than it does to build a $25,000 truck. (On second thought...Ford needs to employ fewer workers to build that F-350 than to build a Ranger; Ford owns the engine plant that makes the Ranger engines, but they buy their diesels ready to install.) If you had to choose between making $50,000 trucks and making $25,000 trucks that contain about the same labor, you'd definitely choose to make $50,000 trucks. Also, a Ranger won't make your penis any larger.

[hatrack]

37. Arrogant when they're making money, whining when they're losing it

So, other than workers getting fucked and the occupants of the Executive Clown Car getting more money than they'll ever be able to use, did I miss any of the other GM inevitabilities?

[napi21]

38. GM's position on this is just plain insane!

The laws are "Company fuel AVERAGE"! They can still make the large cars, trucks & SUV's. All they have to ddo is target the marketing of smaller cars more!

I hate those damn SUV's, but there are a few instances where a particular consumer really NEEDS a heavy duty truck or car. That's fine, but if GM or any other car manufacturer would design a really nice looking car that was also fuel efficient, they could take over the market! Remember the old "Year of the Mustang"?

How about the new Saturn SKY? It's a very nice looking sports car, and Priced inline with it's competition.

I am really tired of every darn car on the road looking the same, and there are NONE that really take my breath away anymore. Comeon guys, get your creative juices flowing and make areally desireable product, and you won't have to worry about the Japanese competitors!!!

[Nevernose]

49. What about Powell Motor's new car?

The horn even plays "La Cucaracha."

[goforit]

39. Complete idiots!!

[nebula]

43. No incentive for GM to change its ways

GM execs are rewarded millions in salary and bonuses every year, REGARDLESS of how they perform or how the company does.

[MGD]

44. It's a global economy you dummbasses AND THERE'S NO GLOBAL MARKET FOR 15-20 MPG SUVs!

This is why Toyota is kicking your asses US automobile manufacturers.

[cambie]

45. Don't be so hard on them

Changing would have been complicated and troublesome. There was a far simpler way to make everything good again - the Iraq cakewalk. Really, it was a perfect plan, a beautiful plan. It just didn't work.

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

50. Why doesn't GM make their SUVs 3 times larger?

Basically design a garage on four wheels that can be driven down the road. I'm sure there are selfish psychopaths out there who would buy the mobile garage, claiming that they feel safer driving their garage to work and that the mobile garage gives them lots of carrying space. And that way, GM can whine 3 times louder about suffering what they call an unfair burden. Their whining is music to my ears.

[Jack Rabbit]

51. I repeat: The world will be a better place without General Motors

How many of those wizards in Detroit suites have Harvard MBAs? What on earth do they teach people there?