20 Idealistic Emails - Day Number 7
November 17, 2008 by Duke
Dear Government:
You’ve got some nerve, I’ll give you that. Look, I’ve already written to you about the Big 3 bail-out, and I’m not going to keep harping about it. You’ll either listen to me or not, but you should at least be a little more careful about pointing fingers.
I saw in the news yesterday that you think that the management of GM has to go because they’re not doing a very good job of running the company. You said that they can’t produce a green automobile, that they’re wasting their cash, that they’re unorganized, and that they’re a slave to Big Oil.
Uh, Pot, I’d like to introduce you to Kettle. Kettle, meet Pot. Jesus, don’t you guys know that if you’re living in a house of cards that you shouldn’t pass gas?
The truth of it is, I probably agree with you regarding the ineptitude of GM’s management. BUT, you’re no fucking better. In fact, I’d say you’re worse. Now, maybe GM isn’t the perfect business model, maybe they don’t have all the answers, but at least they’re trying. Are you? Sometimes I wonder. In fact, I’m wondering right fucking now. So, just for shits and giggles, lets take a little side by side look at how you do things, compared to the average corporation in the good ol’ U.S. of A., shall we? Come on, it’ll be fun!
There. Need I say more? Maybe you guys should start trying to run the Government a little more like business. And no, I still don’t think you should bail out GM unless you do it my way. At least they’re trying. Maybe you should model yourself after Google. You could call it Googlement.
By the way. You guys aren’t that busy. How about a fucking response already? God, at this point I’d be willing to take that cheese…….even if it is Cheddar.
Signed,
CABIA
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Nice site. There?s some good information on here. I?ll be checking back regularly.
Uh, actually there were Green Cars Built. The EV1, and all models were collected up and destroyed.
The EV1 was the first modern production electric vehicle from a major automaker and also the first purpose-built electric car produced by General Motors (GM) in the United States.Introduced in 1996, The EV1 electric cars were available in California and Arizona as a lease only, as well as through a Southern Company employee lease program in Georgia, and could be serviced at designated Saturn retailers. They were discontinued after 1999 and subsequently removed from the roads in 2003 by General Motors (except for a few). The car’s discontinuation was and remains a controversial topic….It has recently been theorized by the documentary Who Killed the Electric Car? that the EV1 program was eliminated because it threatened the oil industry. GM responded to the film’s claims,laying out several reasons why the EV1 was not commercially viable at the time.[19]
See Film: Who Killed the Electric Car
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who_Killed_the_Electric_Car%3F
Who Killed the Electric Car? is a 2006 documentary film that explores the creation, limited commercialization, and subsequent destruction of the battery electric vehicle in the United States, specifically the General Motors EV1 of the 1990s. The film explores the roles of automobile manufacturers, the oil industry, the US government, the Californian government, batteries, hydrogen vehicles, and consumers in limiting the development and adoption of this technology. It was released on DVD to the home video market on November 14, 2006 by Sony Pictures Home Entertainment….The film details the California Air Resources Board’s reversal of the mandate after suits from automobile manufacturers, the oil industry, and the George W. Bush administration. It points out that Bush’s chief influences, Dick Cheney, Condoleezza Rice, and Andrew Card, are all former executives and board members of oil and auto companies….GM never responded to the EV drivers’ offer to pay the residual lease value ($1.9 million was offered for the remaining 78 cars in Burbank before they were crushed). Several activists are shown being arrested in the protest that attempted to block the GM car carriers taking the remaining EV1s off to be crushed.
Oil companies
Fearful of losing business to a competing technology, they supported efforts to kill the ZEV mandate. They also bought patents to prevent modern NiMH batteries from being used in US electric cars.
Car companies
Negative marketing, sabotaging their own product program, failure to produce cars to meet existing demand, unusual business practices with regards to leasing versus sales. The film only explains this behavior once, saying that electric cars needed fewer expensive repairs and would hence not make the car companies as much money over the long term as gasoline-powered cars. The film also describes the history of automaker efforts to destroy competing technologies, such as their destruction through front companies of public transit systems in the United States in the early 20th century. It also, in one interview, mentions that automakers introduced important safety and emissions innovations including seat belts, airbags and catalytic converters only when forced by government legislation.
Government
The federal government joined in the auto industry suit against California, has failed to act in the public interest to limit pollution and require increased fuel economy, has promoted the purchase of vehicles with poor fuel efficiency through preferential tax breaks, and has redirected alternative fuel research from electric towards hydrogen.
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GM Didnt Fail to create a Green Car, they did. They just scared the shit right out of the oil Industry and the administration made up of old Oil Execs–including our beloved shrubya.
GM has good benefits for its workers, the kind of plan all workers should have, but its too expensive for them to keep up during these tough times, something that a universal health care and dental care plan could fix–among other things.
Its sad really. There was hope for a moment and then it was snuffed out by big oil’s big fat ass.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EV1
seeing eye chick´s last blog post..The Worth of Humanity.