Yet Another Reason NOT To Bail Out The Big 3 Automakers

leftchick

(1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore

Mon Nov-10-08 08:43 AM
Original message

Yet Another Reason NOT To Bail Out The Big 3 Automakers

Edited on Mon Nov-10-08 09:25 AM by leftchick

on edit: Until they agree to embrace this type of technology instead of shunning it....

Is This AFS Trinity 150 MPG SUV Being Suppressed By The Auto Industry?

http://www.scientificblogging.com/news_releases/afs_trinity_150_mpg_suv_being_suppressed_auto_industry

<snip>

The company's decision followed actions by the LA Auto Show to muzzle AFS Trinity from highlighting the 150 miles per gallon fuel economy of its XH150 prototype vehicles. The suppression by the automakers of information about technologies such as this raises serious questions about the judgment, vision, intentions and capabilities of the leadership of these companies, said Edward W. Furia, Chairman and CEO of AFS Trinity. Such conduct by the automakers, who are currently seeking tens of billions of taxpayer dollars, ostensibly to develop fuel efficient vehicle technologies, is evidence they are reluctant to embrace solutions they didn't invent.

<snip>

Implications for Auto Industry Stimulus (aka Bail-out) Package

Furia noted that the Associated Press (AP) reported yesterday that Detroit automakers are once again on Capital Hall in Washington, D.C. seeking a bail-out and forecasting their own demise if they don't get it. This is certain to be a major issue that the new U.S. Congress and President-Elect Obama will consider. An emergency bail-out could even become an issue in the remaining days of 2008 for the current U.S. Congress, he said.

The action that the LA Auto Show took to muzzle AFS Trinity has implications for such a bailout, Furia said. The idea that the Detroit automakers, through their LA Auto Show agents, would seek to suppress interest in a super-efficient vehicle technology developed by a small company such as AFS Trinity truly challenges the imagination, particularly given the global energy security landscape through which America must navigate in the next several decades, Furia said.

Whether the behavior of the Greater Los Angeles New Car Dealers, and, by implication and association, the carmakers they serve, is based on NIH (not-invented-here) considerations, or something else, it raises questions about whether the current leadership of the American auto industry possesses the perspective, character, capability and vision to escape the death march in which they currently appear to be locked, no matter how large a bailout the next Congress and President-Elect Obama are willing to support.

As dangerous as Detroit's problems may be, they also represent an enormous opportunity to reject antiquated attitudes and behaviors and create millions of new jobs and feed unprecedented economic growth, precisely because these problems are so large and so critical to address. Simply put, Furia concluded, a stimulus package that allows current auto industry leadership to remain in control of the destiny of this critically important industry as it confronts this unprecedented crisis -- and opportunity -- is something that the new Congress and President-Elect Obama should really think twice about.