Well, in all fairness, they didn't have any auto industry lobbyist paying them not to design the car or paying them to vote against increased fuel efficiency standards. (Hat tip, reader Daniel.)
In a posting on his GM blog on Thursday, Lutz said those "spewing virtual vitriol" at him for minimizing the threat of climate change were "missing the big picture."
"What they should be doing in earnest is forming opinions, not about me but about GM and what this company is doing that is ... hugely beneficial to the causes they so enthusiastically claim to support," he said in a posting titled, "Talk About a Crock."
Fine, let me tell you about how everyone I know hates the pieces of junk that GM has been selling for decades. The lousy gas mileage, the breaking down just after the warranty expired, the miserable resale value, the horrendous reliability and the butt ugly looks. The GM cars here in Europe (Opel) are just as lousy and it's a miracle they're still in business. Of course, let's not forget the tens of thousands of ruined households thanks to GM shutting down factory towns because people like Lutz were designing such massive pieces of junk. His designs helped millions of Americans turn away from Detroit and buy foreign cars. I mean, if that's what Lutz wants to talk about, why not?
Please. If Porsche and the rest of the German automakers would quit this attitude and start producing cars that polluted less it would be much better for everyone. Germany has already forced the EU to allow automakers to get away with heavy gas guzzlers and now the luxury car maker is whining about about gas guzzlers having to pay more money to drive in London.
Somehow it's hard to sympathize with drivers who are paying well over $100 to fill their tank (if not closer to $200) on top of the $100,000+ they pay for the SUV. We're not talking about people who have to buy a big truck out of necessity for work to pay their bills. Driving a beast like this is a luxury that they chose on their own. If they can afford those costs so easily, they can afford to pay for their pollution. Porsche ought to spend more money on building environmentally friendly cars and less money on lawyers and lobbyists who bully others into global warming.
Thankfully they have plenty of enablers in Congress who help them go down the drain. Instead of pushing Detroit to offer products of the future, they helped GM stay locked in the past, becoming less and less competitive. In addition to the massive financial loss, GM is also announcing 74,000 hourly jobs are disappearing.
Did you know that the new environmental regulations will cost Detroit $85 billion and they're going to make you pay for all of it? Wow, I'm shaking in my boots. So instead of gradually moving in this direction decades ago when foreign car makers decided the long term future was not gas guzzlers, Detroit used political muscle with goons like Congressman Dingell to delay the inevitable making it much more expensive for Big Auto. Let's all feel sorry for the management in Detroit that made these idiotic decisions, shall we? You know, the people who has dragged the industry down and fired tens of thousands of workers.
Detroit can certainly raise their prices and they probably will. If that's how they think they can become competitive, more power to them. With the weak dollar, they may even have a window of opportunity to pass the buck on to the consumer but that also will be a short term strategy. They can find all of the media stooges they want to tell us how tough it's going to be but it's still not going to help them compete. They made their bed, now they can go sleep in it.
At least Detroit is finally moving in the direction of what Americans want to buy instead of telling them what they ought to buy. Detroit may have been wrong as often as Dick Cheney and that's not easy to do. Prius sales shot up 69% in 2007.
Americans bought more Toyota Prius hybrid gas-electric hatchbacks last year than Ford Explorer sport-utility vehicles, the top-selling SUV for more than a decade.
Now it's Mitt's day to talk about handouts. Until Detroit can show they know how to compete and hire Americans, forget it. We have a long way to go until we get that point and there are much more pressing issues for the country. It may not be hunting season, but it's obviously pandering season.
Note to Mitt: It's not 1950 anymore so quit thinking Detroit is going to rescue the US economy.
The way people like Dingell and his fellow Detroit Big Auto enablers act, you would think it's still 1950 when GM and Ford hired people and stood at the top of the pile. In the real world, those companies have blown massive their leadership positions thanks to decades of incompetent management. The same people who ran their respective companies into the ground want to run our country into the ground by ruining the environment.
If GM and Ford were still sitting at the top, as much as I might not like it, I could see them as a force in Washington. The difference here is their track record is clear and it is not good. Why do we allow these clowns to control the destiny of our country like this? Big Auto ought to be spending more time on competing with the rest of the world instead of mucking about with our environment. The enablers all allow this to happen.
It's in the best interest of the US to have Detroit leading the way and generating the car that people want to buy. That means jobs and money flowing in the US economy. It's also in the best interest of the US and the world to address global warming. Who knows if this is the future, but I'd like to see US automakers delivering stories like this one of these days.
Honda will introduce a state-of-the-art hydrogen-powered car in the United States next year, offering a glimpse of the next generation of environmentally friendly vehicles, officials said Wednesday.
The only emission is water. Wow. Decades of coddling Big Auto management has driven any competitive or innovative spirit right out the window. That needs to change.
The foot-dragging and excuses just aren't working as well as they did in the past when they actually employed people.
A federal judge in Vermont yesterday rejected an attempt by automakers to block individual states from adopting their own standards for limiting greenhouse gas emissions from cars and trucks.
Judge William Sessions III of U.S. District Court in Burlington ruled that state action to limit greenhouse gas emissions from new vehicles -- standards that originated in California in 2002 and have since been adopted by Vermont and at least 10 other states -- was not preempted by federal rules on vehicle fuel economy.
Big Auto should be spending more time and money figuring out how to change with the market instead of sending teams of lawyers to block environmental regulations.
The GOP continues to coddle and protect their friends in Big Oil who are always open to a free ride on the backs of the American middle class consumer. Senate Democrats continue pressing forward with dragging the GOP, Big Auto and the oil industry into the modern world, succeeding to increase the average fleet mileage for the first time in 20 years and starting the process of changing our energy policies. The GOP did succeed in defeating a tax increase for Big Oil, once again choosing to prop up the best interest of the oil industry over average Americans who are already suffering with earnings problems and increases in daily expenses for food and gas.
Bush meanwhile is asking that Congress is "realistic" about an energy policy. For non-CEO Americans, getting serious about energy is in fact realistic and a plan for the future. Ignoring the problem and throwing corporate welfare to Big Oil and the automobile industry is not helping the vast majority of Americans who want change, who want to move beyond the best interests of Big Oil and who would like choices with cars. Just because Detroit, Big Oil and the GOP want something doesn't mean 300 million people have to follow.
