Iacocca Slams Detroit For Sloth, Inefficiency (I am without words here)

[hatrack]

"After remaining silent during Detroit's recent doldrums, Lee Iacocca, the 80-year-old former Chrysler chairman, is talking about cars again and even promoting Chrysler's cars in three new commercials. In an interview, the man who once pulled Chrysler from the brink of bankruptcy in the early 1980s offers his views on the US domestic car industry and its weakest giant, General Motors.

Among other things, he says Detroit's auto makers need to move faster on hybrid electric cars. GM, he adds, should have invested in hybrids instead of buying the Hummer brand. GM's eight domestic brands are too many to manage effectively, he said, and Robert Lutz, GM's vice-chairman and product development chief, has not made enough progress revitalising the company's cars and trucks in his nearly four-year tenure. Lutz, 73, was Chrysler's president while Iacocca was chairman, and the two had a contentious relationship.

But Iacocca says GM's biggest problem is its employee health-care costs, which, at an estimated $US1500 ($1992) per vehicle in the United States, exceed the cost of steel. "They're fighting for their lives because they have to get their health-care costs under control," he says.

EDIT

Iacocca also says American auto makers need to go aggressively after the hybrid market. Addressing complaints that some hybrid drivers get less fuel savings than they expect, Iacocca says: "If it delivers on half the promise, do it. Because you can't let Toyota rule the roost here continually."

EDIT/END

http://afr.com/articles/2005/07/19/1121538969969.html

This coming from the man who said "There's one thing we've got to ask ourselves - just how much clean air do we need?" Better late than never, or just another guy enjoying the freedom of retirement? Who the hell knows?

[Fenris]

1. His diagnosis of GM is pretty spot on, though.

[bahrbearian]

2. All that from the , designer of the K-Car.

[kodi]

3. let the workers run GM. could they fuck it up worse than managment?

class war!

let's rumble!

[necso]

4. Old link about the guy:

http://www.electrifyingtimes.com/iacocca_e-bike.html

IMO, electric vehicles have more potential than one might gather from this article. Of course, the industry doesn't want to hear about it.

And electric can come from many sources -- oil comes from organics.

[Coastie for Truth]

6. The Electric Car Had Several Problems

1. NIH - Not Invented Here. That is the kiss of death in Motown.

2. California's Mandate that 10% of All Motor Vehicles Had To Be Zero Emissions Vehicles - Motown doesn't like to be "Told" what to do by "Outsiders" - remember they fought uniform size license plates, belt height stop lights, uniform bumper standards, air bags, catalytic converters, etc.

3. Bad Image - as a golf cart for tooling around the "Active Adult Planned Retirement Community." This was an image that Motown created by creative leaks - like Rove's "Valerie Flame" leaks to Bob Novak -- super double double secret deep backgrounders from "Market Research."

I worked for a prime vendor on the GM EV1 Project, and watched this unfold.

4. Range (Batteries) - The constant battle between weight and capacity. Although the "plug in hybrid" solves this problem.

BOTTOM LINE TO TAKE HOME AT THE END OF THE DAY - The "industry" did not want to make electrics -- and they would convince the public not to buy them.

CONCLUSION - I think the "plug in hybrid" will be a common version of hybrids in the next product cycle. And the "electric" will be the logical extension of the "plug in hybrid" as fuel prices rise.

[necso]

8. There are some interesting

stories on the net about electric cars.

My bookmarks are a nightmare to navigate, but I remember one link where an owner got replacement batteries (a different design -- the first batteries crapped out) and the range went way up.

Battery design may need improved too, but better batteries have other uses too. And I read about some breakthrough (I think, in Japan) in Lion batteries.

I, for one, am not willing to give up on straight electric design. You add in distributed electric production with much local production (solar, wind, or whatever), and you have a system much more resistant to disruption, damage, attack, neo-looters, etc.

[Coastie for Truth]

9. Good points

But I remember one link where an owner got replacement batteries (a different design -- the first batteries crapped out) and the range went way up.

The first generation of EV's had lead-acid batteries. And as they failed, they were (in many cases) replaced with nickel-metal hydride. Much better range for the same weight and volume.

Battery design may need improved too, but better batteries have other uses too. And I read about some breakthrough (I think, in Japan) in Lion batteries.

There are hybrid and ev prototypes with Li-Ion batteries. Much higher energy density - kwhr/unit of weight --> which means more range.

From a marketing perspective - evs will come back. I think the most likely route is as a "plug in hybrid" -- followed by pure evs.

[phantom power]

11. I was a bit astonished at how superior lith-ion batteries are.

they have something like 3x the energy/mass and 5x energy/vol as the runner up.

At least, according to the chart at the bottom of this page:
http://www.afrlhorizons.com/Briefs/Feb04/PR0306.html

[Coastie for Truth]

12. You are seeing two very exciting things with Li-Ion batteries

Totally market driven - the cell phone and computer and digital camera/camcorder manufacturers went to the battery companies with a defined need - long cycle time and light weight (light weight drove a high ratio of watt hours/volume and watt hours/weight). Definitely not the auto industry where lead acid was "good enough" for a century.

"Taming" a very "hot" technology. Lithium is a very reactive metal. (Look where it is on the periodic table). The idea of "immobilizing" the Lithium ion in a polymer matrix was a major breakthrough -- that led to the consumer Lithium battery.

Even though it was a "Not Invented Here" (I was a metal hydride team member) - a fantastic piece of chemistry and engineering.

-We electrochemists and electrochemical engineers are a tiny niche of the chemistry and chemical engineering world -- and the battery and fuel cell people are an even tinier niche within that tiny niche. While we compete in the market place -- we know each other -- and congratulate each other on a darn fine job.

Here's to you Rob :beer: :thumbsup:

[NNadir]

15. Limits of Lithium.

The total world supply of lithium is about 14 million tons.

http://permanent.access.gpo.gov/websites/usgspubsgeoreforg/minerals.usgs.gov/minerals/pubs/mcs/2003/mcs2003.pdf

This sounds like a lot until you begin making car batteries. Even with perfect recycling, there is a distinct upper limit to the number of batteries that can be made.

I also note that lithium is an extremely useful element in applications having nothing at all to do with batteries or energy storage. (Lithium reagents are, for instance, very important in organic chemistry.)

I like the idea of electric vehicles, especially when recharged by off peak generation of relatively non-polluting types. (Wind suggests itself, as does off peak nuclear.) I suspect though that like other alternative automotive technologies, the use of electric vehicles will be represented by niche use rather than standardized use.

[Coastie for Truth]

16. Leave it to the electrochemists and electrochemical engineers

another electrode pair will be "tamed" (just like Li Ion had to be "tamed") before we run out of Li.

Never judge the electrochemists and electrochemical engineers by the non-progress of Pb-acid and C-Zn. Pb-acid is owned by the auto industry and C-Zn is a museum piece. Both from the 19th Century.

[midnight armadillo]

10. I could use an electric car

My commute is 12 miles each way, and my car is only used for commuting 95% of the time. As long as the electric could do 75 mph to keep up with highway traffic, it'd work for me. I could plug it in at work or at home.

One of my (VERY) long term projects is an electric car conversion.

[necso]

13. What Lee

was doing (hoping to do) was to produce small, cheap, electric vehicles that you could use for something like a short commute. And while the concept of Americans acquiring more junk does not particularly appeal to me, having a cheap electric vehicle (extra vehicle) for commutes (short trips) is not necessarily a bad idea.

But what Lee was producing was more of a warm-climate street (not freeway) vehicle, I think, and I have no idea what the current status is. (Unless they are giving these things away, I can't afford one -- and maybe not even then, depending on insurance, etc.)

Some mix of vehicles and technologies may be the way to go. But, frankly, Americans will probably end up buying whatever is aggressively and effectively marketed to them (hell, that's pretty much our damn culture). And the powers-that-be are not keen on straight electric. Personally, I think that this is criminal... just like the dominance, in general, of marketing in the "marketplace". How the hell is a "free" market supposed to work correctly, when the buyers are programmed to make choices?

Conversion may or may not be realistic. Electric (like almost anything) is best when designed from scratch that way.

We need to push alternative technologies -- but wisely, recognizing that work has to be done in design and (especially) cheaper production technologies. Solar is a good example. We need to get to say 20% efficiency (at least, with say 50+% as a goal) and drop manufacturing costs by a significant factor. (I wrote a very, very crude analysis of this in some ancient post, just to show that solar is not a completely out-of-the-question replacement for oil, unlike what some corporate looter was saying at the time.)

But as these things typically work, you start by deploying some base product, refining it and having improved product replace the older product as the market expands. (With solar, outdated panels would be a great thing to essentially give away to the third world. With good batteries, this could bring electric to essentially anywhere in the middle latitudes year-round, without dependence on big projects, etc.)

But these sorts of things require vision (foresight), and as a people we can't even seem to see what is right in front of our faces.

Oh well. In the long term we'll all be dead anyway, regardless of the extent of our follies -- and those of our "leadership".

[necso]

17. If we take a modular

approach to car design, then there can be a whole range of related options available.

Motors can range in power. There can be inexpensive (low range) batteries, intermediately priced ones and relatively expensive ones, with maybe fuel cells at the high end.

And similar logic can be applied to other systems and to the basic vehicle itself. (If you are running on electricity, why not have different environmental units, etc -- these can be "plug-ins".)

And being able to switch from cheap batteries to better ones (or whatever) would provide the sort of post-purchase upgrade route that only enthusiasts typically utilize now. And maybe you could carry some of this stuff forward when a "new vehicle" was purchased. (And even where these paths are not used, the potential availability is comforting... and a marketing point.)

In any event, we need to not only think out of, but to actually get out of, that "box"... the one on our heads.

And while I am on a rant, our "footprint" on this planet is staggering, and our numbers (and our growth rates in many places) are troubling. Moreover, there is pretty solid evidence that other cultures (those like the US in particular) taking a similar ("out-of-touch squander-ama") course have come to ruin.

Now, I'm not saying that I have any answers (much less all of them). But that box fell off of my head some time ago... when I stumbled and fell. (Actually, it was a long series of "falls" and "icy realizations", but this imagery is less appealing, at least to me. -- And it can be wise to only toss out the evil, the bad and the useless (etc -- which does not necessarily include everything in the "old way"), when you make a change.)

...I'm just saying.

[Coastie for Truth]

14. 100% of my wife's driving is round trips under 20 miles

95% percent of my driving is round trips under 50 miles; and with the exception of a 500 mile-600 mile vacation (fly for anything longer), the remaining 5% of my driving are airport runs of 85 miles round trip.

For that once a year vacation - I would just as soon rent a "full size" luxury car.

So, we are target customers for pure electrics.

[DURHAM D]

5. I hope he made a pitch for Universal Health Care

so American manufactures can compete in the market.

[noamnety]

7. He dumped Bush for Kerry

He stumped for Bush in 2000, and got a lot of press for publicly switching sides to vote for Kerry in 04.