One glaring reason we shouldn't bale out the Big Three without demanding fuel-efficient cars

[NickB79]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PNGV

"The PNGV program "overcame many challenges and has forged a useful and productive partnership of industry and government participants" <2>, "resulting in three concept cars that demonstrate the feasibility of a variety of new automotive technologies." <3>

GM, Ford, and Chrysler all created working concept vehicles of 5 passenger family cars that achieved at least 72 mpg <4>. GM created the 80 mpg Precept, Ford created the 72 mpg Prodigy, and Chrysler created the 72 mpg ESX-3."

The Chrysler ESX-3 was built around a heavily modified Dodge Intrepid body and frame. This car was a mid-size 4-door sedan, actually larger than a Toyota Prius, yet still got over 70 mpg!!!

It also cost only $7500 more than the non-hybrid Intrepid: http://www.popularmechanics.com/automotive/motorsports/1268751.html. This is comparable to the cost of a Toyota Prius.

What happened to this ground-breaking work, you may ask?

"On track to achieving its objectives, the program was cancelled in 2001 at the request of the automakers"

If the US does bale out the auto industry, it should come with the condition that they resurrect this program and actually use the technology they created a decade ago but sat on.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

1. I am really against baling them out...

But if we do, then this is the least of my demands.

I have strong objections to helping companies after they've made some really bad business decisions.

:grr:

[FreakinDJ]

2. Made in America Too...

we need to keep the money in THIS COUNTRY

[Donnachaidh]

3. Honestly, they've done MORE to sabotage the environmental stuff

than many people know.

They've also outsourced far too many jobs to other countries. WTF would we bail THEM out?

Now, if we had some smaller entrepreneurs who would be willing to go into the old boarded up factories, re-tool them and produce something NEW, environmentally sound -- and made in the US with US workers? THAT is what we should be looking to do.

WHY bail out companies that put profits BEFORE people? And have a long history of putting profits before people? It makes NO sense.

[Coloradan4Truth]

4. How about because a lot of innocent middle-class workers will lose their jobs if we don't? n/t

[w4rma]

14. They can work for the smaller business competitors / replacements. (nt)

[Hannah Bell]

16. a lot of them will lose their jobs regardless. global automaking WILL consolidate,

& jobs WILL be lost.

The corps want bailout $$$ to be in good position to buy up the spoils post-crash, just like the banksters.

Consolidation & reorganization is on the global ruling class agenda.

[Romulox]

22. Still waiting for this poster to comment on the Wall Street bailout. nt

[dweller]

5. this info sounds a lot like what a caller on Ed Schultz said today

and he pointed out that the technology was paid for by taxpayers previously. We own it. But they have the intellectual rights to it.

so, they want more $$? We've paid for it already. So, now they have to put it in action to get the $$.

dp

[orleans]

6. k&r people don't realize this--how we got fucked by these assholes

shame on them.

we bail them out we better have some major conditions to go with the check we had over

[99th_Monkey]

7. Absolutely!! I think it's called LEVERAGE: Use it or Lose it. This is PUBLIC's money for Gawd'sake.

I say USE ANY Bailout as LEVERAGE to REQUIRE*:
1) Federal Audits of bailed out companies, with criminal investigations where warranted,
2) Criminal charges are to be brought, as the evidence may warrant, no matter how up the
food chain the crooks are (including complicit Bush Federal employees).
3) Outlawing outlandish CEO compensation packages, golden parachutes, and/or bonuses; and
instead all compensation to ALL employees is locked into a Federally mandated floor-to-ceiling
ratio of $1 to $10, i.e. for every ONE dollar the janitor gets, the CEO can only earn no more
than 10 times that; and everyone else obviously gets something in between.

*If said company doesn't like these terms, then they can opt to be nationalized and
turned into a worker-owned/controlled enterprise, with the technical support of Big Labor
and hired management.

Fuck these corporate give-aways!!

These rat-bastards won't be happy until they've utterly milked the US taxpayers to death,
both figuratively and literally, to the point of bankrupting the nation beyond the point
of no return; which effectively puts an ever-tightening noose around the Obama Administration's
neck, which achieves several ReThug objectives:
1) These bail-outs are milking us "rubes" for everything, absolutely everything we
have, or thought we had, and then some... to line the greedy pockets of the "have-mores"
on their way out the door. The worse for the Obama Administration, the better, at least
in their view. In other words, "fuck the country".
2) Renders ALL "entitlement programs" (such as Social Security, Medicare, HUD, etc.)
as low hanging fruit ripe for the picking for further bail-outs; and don't even
ask about Health Care Reform, or middle-class/low-income tax cuts, etc. or you'll
be laughed out of the room.
3) Having made a laughing stock of the Obama Administrations "pipe dreams" Health Care
reform, "green alternative energy" inititatives, etc., they will try to use this (w/ much
help from the M$M) to win back lost seats in Congress in 2010, and then to have a shot at
the WH in 2012.

Mark my words. This is the biggest reason in my book that Obama's GOT to "GO BIG",
and forcefully demand a halt to this grand-scale heist, because that's really the ONLY
way Obama will EVER have a prayer of delivering on his campaign promises. "The people:
voted for real change, for change that matters to real people, real people who vote.

Please Barack. GO BIG! at least on this one issue, as it's the linchpin to everything
else. ... the sooner the better.

[PATRICK]

8. OIl is running out

You have to put them on a highly regulated war production footing style the CEO's will hate or transition will be dragged on and likely fail to small companies whose output might be slow and insufficient.

[earth mom]

9. I agree that it should only be done if they build environmentally friendly cars otherwise

it's nothing but same shit, different day.

Plus all those union jobs would be saved.

Win Win. :thumbsup:

[TexasObserver]

10. Agreed. Unless they improve the mileage, no money.

[leftchick]

11. "the DaimlerChrysler Pacifica design center in Southern California."??

I wonder if it still exists. It would be a great place to start.

[leftchick]

12. k&r

.

[bean fidhleir]

13. No, the mandate should be A COMPLETELY DIFFERENT MODEL

of personal transportation.

Moving around a 2000-lb chunk of metal and plastic in order to move around 200-lbs of human and parcels is *CRAZY*.

Requiring different roadway channels be dedicated to human-powered, ultralight, and conventional vehicles would go a long way toward a better solution. Two hundred fifty pounds of human and parcels can easily be moved at 30mph by a 1hp engine in an ultralight vehicle: 200mpg!

[petgoat]

15. Each SUV-sized parallel parking space could probably hold 7 of these, angle parked.

Fiat 600

Or ten of these:



BMW Isetta

[bean fidhleir]

19. Right on. When I lived in Germany in the early '60s, the streets were filled

with microcars like the Isetta, its better-looking, native-German counterpart the Heinkel Kabine, the slice-of-fighter-plane Messerschmitt, the occasional *very* strange looking Zundapp Janus (they looked like 2 Isettas stuck together back to back) and the ones that looked more conventional like that Fiat of blessed memory, the Goggomobil, the NSU, and others.

They were all comparatively inexpensive to operate, but they still heavier and more expensive than necessary for everyday use, so many people left them at home and cycled to work through the week.

I wanted a Heinkel, but could never find one at a price I could afford. So I bought a clapped-out old crash-box VW (environmentally horrible -it burned as much oil as gas- but who knew) and, like a German, only drove it in the weekend.

[Romulox]

23. Why didn't we insist on a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT MODEL of corporate finance???

[bean fidhleir]

30. Sounds good. Wocha got in mind? (nt)

[Strelnikov_]

27. Yep

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=4437024&mesg_id=4438951

[Hannah Bell]

17. Buffett: investing in trains.

[Romulox]

21. Buffet already got HIS bailout, so he's basically a hypocrite.

[illuminaughty]

18. I highly recommend the film "Who Killed the Electric Car" n/t

[pampango]

20. Good idea, but why should we micromanage the auto industry. Managements job is to decide

what types of cars to build, where to build them, how much to pay their workers, what dividends to pay, how much to borrow, etc.

We could bail them out with the restriction that we answer each one of these questions and they have to follow our orders, but then we are functioning as the management. What would we be paying them to do? Is it not better to allow the auto companies to go bankrupt, if it comes to that, allow them to continue to operate under bankruptcy, then either reorganize them or allow them to be bought out? Either way they will emerge from bankruptcy with new management and ownership that would be superior to the incompetents who have run the industry into the ground. And we wouldn't have to do management's job for them.

[Romulox]

24. $140 Billion to AIG alone. You "free market" types are nothing if not inconsistent! nt

[pampango]

26. I hope that the fact of the AIG bailout does not mean that no questions can now be asked

about the bailouts of any other company or industry.

Opposing corporate bailouts makes one a "free market" type? I thought opposing the bailout of incompetent management and ownership (corporate welfare) made one a progressive, not a "free market" type. Are you supporting the bailout of the auto companies, so that their incompetent and overpaid executives can keep their positions? Did you support the AIG bailout as well?

[Romulox]

29. No, picking and choosing which segments of the economy must "compete" and which get gov't largesse

makes you a "free market" (notice the scare quotes!) type--that is, someone who appeals to the "free market" when someone else's ox is gored but who has no problems with a corporate bailout when it redounds to her own benefit. :hi:

"I thought opposing the bailout of incompetent management and ownership (corporate welfare) made one a progressive, not a "free market" type."

Not when you support a bailout of one industry but not another. This is cronyism, not principle.

"Are you supporting the bailout of the auto companies, so that their incompetent and overpaid executives can keep their positions? "

Nope, I am supporting it because the auto industry is one of the last decent paying blue collar employers out there.

"Did you support the AIG bailout as well?"

Nope. Did you? Because if you didn't, you need to start protesting the existing, ongoing bailouts of AIG et al, rather than whining that the Big 3 might get a small bailout of their own. :hi:

[Ganja Ninja]

25. Perhaps what we should do is offer a very large tax credit for ...

purchasing fuel efficient American made cars (or cars with at least 80% American content) no matter which company makes them.

[Ezlivin]

28. We CAN build new, fuel efficient cars without massive infrastructure

If you watch this TED Talk by Amory Lovins you may get excited about the solutions we already have in hand. (After discussing the "Oil Endgame", Lovins begins talking about vehicles at 6:49 in.)

Perhaps the struggling auto industry is giving us an opportunity to launch dozens of new businesses creating and building the lightweight, fuel-efficient cars of the future.