No one cared because they were far too expensive and gas prices weren't at the level to generate actual interest
Expenses will go down soon IMO. The domestic electric car companies now have a better footing in the market now they have the stimulus. The international companies will probably get there even quicker. It’s debatable whether they weren’t at the level to generate interest. At the very least the public knows more about them then before. That will make it easier to get their attention the next time they can get high profile exposure.
True. If car companies, and I'm not just talking about GM and Ford, I'm also talking about Toyota and Hyundai, they need to really bring down the costs of hybrid and electric vehicles quicker.
True.
And frankly I don't think any of them have any true interest in doing so.
Which will only hurt them in the end. They haven’t exactly been doing well with the status quo. They’ve only managed to give international competitors and small domestic companies an edge which will grow over time.
Personally, I think that this would be a great idea for the government to invest in GM and Ford to speed up the processes of making them cheaper and stirring up interest.
Agreed.
I can't see gas going up over $2.50/gallon in the near future.
I mean in the next few decades, not now.
Oil producing nations and oil companies won't let it happen on account that $4/gallon gas resulted in massive demand for alternative energies and fuel efficient technologies.
They can only do so much. When oil runs out, it’s gone. By then they’d have made it much harder for their nations to recover with alternate energy technology just for a quick buck.
When gas went below $2/gallon demand for such was killed.
The incentives and a national advertising campaign fixed that for the hybrids. They're still popular.
Bring the gas prices to absurd levels again and the demand will go back up for alternative energies and fuel efficient technologies.
Agreed.
But this time it will be harder to kill that demand.
I disagree. The government are already working on projects which could wean them off oil earlier then before the economy collapsed. China isn't far behind America on this front.
China is the world's second largest emitter of human-generated greenhouse gases, which scientists say are behind rising global temperatures that in coming decades could wreak havoc through drought, unstable rain patterns, hurricanes and rising sea levels.
He said Beijing aimed to increase its emphasis on renewable "green" energy sources like water, wind and solar power.
"By 2010 we are going to increase the proportion of renewable energy used to 10 percent," Xie said.
A further aspect of the plan would be a rise in the use of coal-bed methane gas to 10 billion cubic metres by 2010, he said.
"Another objective is that by 2010 the emission of N2O (nitrous oxide) will be stabilised at the level of 2005," Xie said.
Asked if China would be willing to accept specific CO2 emissions reduction targets for the period after 2012 when the U.N.'s Kyoto Protocol expires, Xie said only that the success of the current protocol's targets needed to be evaluated and assessed before a successor agreement could be made.
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L17219097.htm
And killing the demand for oil and gas will result in the massive power and profits that oil companies and oil producing nations have.
True, but that only applies to countries who want to reliant on it. America is moving away from that with Obama.
Take a look at polling, nobody except for extreme leftists and greens really care about global warming.
You don’t have to be an extreme leftist to believe in global warming. In the past few years the subject has pretty much been accepted by society.
This is where the apathy from American culture comes into play.
True.
Instead of investing in electric car companies we should be putting that money into GM and Ford so they can do such things.
Why not both?
Doubt it. As a matter in fact this recession has proven that the only time that American culture gets angry is when it is too late.
True.
Yeah...tell that to the people who own Hummers and F-150s. People wanted the gas guzzling vehicles.
Some people wanted them, some had no other options to choose from.
Everyone I talked to who owns one says that they wanted it.
That’s not enough people to accurately gauge the population’s interest in hybrids or electric cars.
Toyota isn't kicking GM and Fords' asses because of hybrids. Toyota is kicking their ass because they put out a better product in general.
Which includes the hybrids. That’s a niche market GM hasn’t touched yet. A market which is only getting stronger demand from the public.
Prius sales slumped in the final months of 2006 when some tax credits on the car were discontinued and gas prices fell. In January, Toyota placed its first incentives ever on the small hybrid-electric vehicle and started a national advertising campaign. Prius sales have set records since then, and Toyota is on track to meet its sales target.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/21/automobiles/21auto.html
GM and Ford had no reason to invest in hybrid and electric technology
Of course they do. Their competition already has that niche market all to itself now and that’s just going to expand in time. It isn’t just Japan they have to worry about. India is making electric cars, too.
nor had the money to do so because of already high labor costs.
How high were the costs for management over the decades? You can’t blame the labor entirely for this.
The financial industries housing, health care and more will make it easier to buy cars once the economy would get restarted again. Once that happens the demand will come back. This is just a theory.
Wagoner worked on a $1/year salary.
Isn’t he keeping that $20 million golden parachute? You need to add in all the money and expensive perks he received before accepting that $1 offer, too.
And GM and Ford executives were reducing their bonuses and benefits. It wasn't the executives who saw this as a one sided compromise, they knew that in order to get everyone on board that they would that they would have to suffer along with the workers. Hell, Wagoner even had the loyalty and respect of GMs employees.
Can you give me links about the executives compromising? I haven’t seen a single thing about that in the news.
The people who wanted a one-sided compromise was the leadership of the UAW.
Debatable.
The mistakes contributed to it, but they are nowhere near as vast as the massive amount of money they have to put into labor costs.
Their employees deserve to be properly compensated for their work. Especially the ones who are near retirement. These people are not abstract figures on a chalkboard they’re living, breathing human beings.
They were mistakes that can be quickly fixed. As we're seeing GM is cutting Saturn and Saab, just like they dropped Oldsmobile.
They weren’t fixed even though they were easy, though. Which was my point.
And GM is attempting to look into more of the longer term.
They’re only doing this because they have no choice. This was going to happen eventually. The recession just sped the timetable up. I will be very surprised if they actually do something to improve themselves dramatically, though.
But GMs biggest problem is labor costs and the UAW refuses to budge on them.
Then they should pray Obama’s health care proposal gets through.
