Electric Car Tech or Detroit Bailout?

All those who believe a bailout can salvage a sick auto industry should study the history of the British Government's bailout of British Leyland. Several billion dollars later, the company no longer exists. Is there even a British automotive industry any more? I see Tata of India now owns Jaguar, after Ford totally destroyed the brand; who is making the new Mini? And does Volkswagen still own Rolls Royce? The British experience should be studied to determine just what effect billions of dollars will really have...

Yup, well said...
Of course we now have some decent foreign owned car plants employing people, notably Nissan.

I don't s'pose the workers care who owns the plant. The key thing is to be building competitive cars that people want.

Del

I agree with ck that we should look at what happened with British Leyland.

My first car was an 1957 MGA fixed head coupe. $75. A new seal for the clutch master cylinder made it drivable: for $76 total, I had a fun little car. I remember thinking, not long after, that the consolidation that came with British Leyland was not a good thing -- it homogenized what were independent brands, and seemed to me to be the British equivalent of GM.

I don't agree with ck re Jaguar. They were in dire shape when Ford bought them, and quality improved measurably after Ford took over. Unfortunately, as almost has to happen with consolidation, the brand was diluted, with the Jaguar 3.8 sedan becoming a gussied-up Ford Taurus. Nothing in the line now has anything remotely close to the image of the original XKE.

I guess some people actually believe there is some connection between the original Bugatti and the current one, but to me this brand consolidation (and branding by MBAs) is disheartening. The idea of Ferrari, Fiat, Maserati, and Alfa Romeo all being the same company would be unthinkable to an enthusiast of the 60's. Ferrari and Maserati sharing engines???!!! How can you be a real enthusiast of a brand if it's all smoke and mirrors? How can you believe Volvo is really socially conscious and focused on safety, when it is owned by the same company that machined gunned its workers, brought us the flaming Pinto, and created and covered up rollover Explorers?

R&D, probably especially R&D, should be company funded, so that the company is really engaged, and has something at risk. The only GM product that has created real enthusiasm, that wasn't just easy parts swapping, is the Corvette, and in particular the 1963 Stingray. With its independent rear suspension, this was the first real American sports car: something that could go around corners with a European car and not be too badly embarrassed. Were it not for the enthusiasm of the team involved, and the leadership of Duntov, the car would have been just another poser, something thrown together with whatever parts are available. Corporations like GM and Ford actively squelch creativity and risk taking, and focus only on short term profit. In the short term, it's far better to put all your eggs in the most profitable basket, and forget about innovation: Ford sold four times as many high-profit F150s two years ago as Toyota sold Priuses. A couple years before that, the ratio was ten to one in favor of the Ford. When leadership is rewarded (and rewarded at obscenely high rates -- many hundreds of times more per year than the workers) for a focus on short term profits above all else, you get, of course, short term thinking, with no ability to prepare for changing market conditions, and no ability to lead, rather than follow the market.

Taxpayers should not chip in to further reward such thinking.

"Focus on the short term"; the terminal disease of the dying, both individuals and civilizations.

I submit that this way of thinking is far more deeply ingrained in our American society than any of us want to admit. A survival instinct at the very root of all our problems. Why?

Too much philosophy for me. Problems I can never solve. The curse of the engineer taught to examine the fundamentals.

I think I shall go work on my model trains.

Ed Weldon

Ed, I agree with Blink's statement on appropriation of funding and your observation of short term survival instinct. The appropriation of funding for the purpose of innovation is not only short sighted as applied to the automobile, but, misguided when applied to the regrowth of that unsustainable industry. i feel that the funding - 25 billion dollars, would have been better used if applied to the creation of a creative and cutting edge national mass transit system. This country's growing and shifting population will not take a rest for this century unless there is going to be a "mother of all wars." Yet, while the problems with our auto industry are dire, our problems with transportation in general - will not just go away. The posts so far cover Bugatti to Pinto - electric to frustration. Instead of model trains I suggest we work on the real deal and start coming up with some ideas that will suggest a future without automobiles and roads. I cannot believe, that our engineers and scientist that will take us one day to Mars and beyond, cannot even discuss innovative mass transit for this country on CR4 - least ways in the halls of our government, academia,the business community, and especially - from the young minds that can churn out so much these days in all of our high technology fields. Is it possible that we cannot engineer our way out of this? Shall we just not broach the subject. I think the changes that many of us "retired" are looking for, from our younger super generations, simply must be addressed and encouraged - not avoided.

Yes it is possible that we can't engineer our way out of "this". There are a lot of "them" that won't yield to engineering solutions. I cringe whenever someone suggests that we just throw money(use someone else's money and don't raise my taxes in the process) into a "war on "X" because doing so got us to the moon. Engineering has its limits, both technical and social. Our formal educations teach us much about the former. The latter we hopefully learn from experience and observation.

There are still a lot of questions, both technical and social, to answer.

How vital are individual transportation vehicles and the capabilities thereof to our future prosperity?

How important is it for the nation to retain the knowledge and infrastructure to manufacture and use such devices?

What propulsion method best suits our national energy needs?

How, if at all, do we want to stratify our American culture? Should the availability of manufacturing jobs be part of that picture?

What and how much should be the role of the federal government?

Is radical reinvention of the way we go about our lives a good idea?

With respect to mass transit I think it has a good future because of its inherent efficiency (well I think it's inherent; but nobody has proven that to me yet at least with respect to the USA). I do believe that our nation will have to find ways to fix a lot of the urban social problems before people will be voting with their wallets for mass transportation.

Ed Weldon

Ed, thank you. At least we are both on the same frequency if not slightly skewed. Actually, engineering limits will never cease to amaze me. Engineers seem to come up with some very sophisticated and sometimes complicated answers when all seems forsaken. However, only a few notables, not only correctly answer questions and address problems, but, introduce perspective and new ideas. My point being, that since this is over the horizon hallucinating it is more the place of the young minds to start expressing themselves in terms of dimensions and concepts. There should be no fear of radicalism. Many things we have and do today were first expressed in comic books in days of yore. But vision often became reality. I cringe when the guy who may one day take me to Mars seems to have problems punctuating and spelling - his mother tongue! The same genre seem to lack vision. Maybe I've missed something along the way, but, I can tell you these old bones will not be able actuate the solutions and this forgetful mind no longer has a sharp vision to dream up the solutions. I do know that it is up to the younger minds to provide definition, vision and direction to their world - so some of us can unhook the plow and put the mule back in the barn and have faith that all will be OK and there will still be room for everybody.

Quote WOODROOSTER: "Instead of model trains I suggest we work on the real deal and start coming up with some ideas that will suggest a future without automobiles and roads."

Model trains are a lot of fun and even a bit technical. They let me create my own little world where I'm Chief Engineer and General Superintendent. But sadly, I think there is little future in our culture for geared steam locomotives.

At age 70 few if any will take you seriously no matter how much wisdom and logic there are in your words. There are exceptions, of course. If you're a real CEO or Professor Emeritus of something then they listen to you.

Or if you're lucky like me and have a son following in your footsteps. He's out there on the cutting edge of real world solar technology. We've talked "shop" a lot over the last 20 years. This "kid" (38 yrs. old is a kid to me) has a masters degree in mechanical engineering and 29 patents under his name. He's the portal through which I can contribute.

BTW, my son was one of the team from UC Davis that fielded a hybrid 2 seater in the Ford sponsored competition in 1992! This 2 seat enclosed GT coupe was a fully operational and road ready; a 1700 pound car that got 65 mpg with an experimental 25 hp Briggs and Stratton engine and handled and braked like a decent sports car. (even if the fiberglass body was a bit primitive) It was a parallel configuration with a sophisticated transmission and clutch system. It won first place in its class and 2nd overall behind a hybrid conversion of a stock body sedan.

It's truly heartbreaking how these kids (and their brilliant faculty advisor, Dr. Andy Frank) and the other program participants handed Ford Motor Company hybrid technology on a silver platter 15 years ago and the senior management of the company just blew it off. Andy Frank is still around and deep into this stuff. He is one of the few that are truly worth listening to.

My other connection is my wife's nephew an electrical engineer from Florida. He works as a project manager for what the guys in Kentucky refer to as the "Chicken Shit Express"; the railroad company, CSX. It never ceases to surprise me how much of a commitment those folks have to modern technology. Don't sell them short. They are part of one of the few industries in the US that still have some distant vision beyond the next quarter. When we're really ready to expand rail transportation into passenger operations those folks will be there. But don't expect them to suffer any fools lightly.

Ed Weldon

Ed, Somewhere over the rainbow is a box with a complete American Flyer train set with tracks and controller that I got for Christmas when I was 8 years old. You've excited a wave of nostalgia. I really like this discussion with you, Blink, Shadetree and Naturalextraction; for that matter, all participants have had obviously meaningful input. I still have friends from CSX, the ports of Jaxport and Port Everglades. You are right, the thinking in Florida, these days, seems to be forward looking in spite of the economy. However, as long as I don't take myself seriously, I can still look in the mirror. I too am older than a cell phone and grew up with that wood box on the wall with crank. I really want to listen to the ideas generated by today's elementary and high school students. I have great faith in them and great hope for their futures. I grew up on a farm and I was really impressed when the Mennonites arrived by horse and carriage, took over the countryside and pounded the most fascinating, austere, but, content existence out of nothing - with their bare hands and a strong sense of commitment. I think the younger set today lack commitment because they have lost hope in anything that starts tomorrow and are confused by what is taking place right under their noses. They are being hijacked of their futures which to them must be a true hallucination. We always had a sunset and sunrise on the farm. That might not be so today. Yet, I just know that the capability to excite and build this century is their's. Once on a plane, I asked the young, newly graduated civil engineer sitting next to me, to look out of the window and observe all of the buildings we were passing over. I commented that man has been here since Adam and we still live in boxes. Why is that? I asked. After all of these years, why are we not living in our own bubbles? I asked. He had no answer. I guess I will not see bubbles in my lifetime. Now our conversation here, seems to be a show & tell of war stories with smattering glints of hope in our advice. The solutions are with the young who need hope - not advice. With hope will come commitment and solutions will be pounded out with their bare hands; with their excited brains. Where do we come into the pix? Sunglasses, bald heads, flowery shirts, and bags of advice. Now you know why I won't take myself seriously. If you are a young person - why not express your visions and solutions and lend some your perspectives to this conversation - before I have to take a nap!!

Del -- re your comments: "I don't s'pose the workers care who owns the plant. The key thing is to be building competitive cars that people want."

Still it's sad to see the profits from that operation going back into some other nation's economy because their system was set up to reward long term planning.

The key to building cars people want is having the vision and being able to take action 5-10 years ahead of time so the planning can proceed in an orderly and efficient manner. Wall Street's fixation on quarterly results and the resultant lavish compensation for executive "staff" don't help. Neither does "Corn Curtain" product planning. And it would certainly help to remind the car company execs that they are in the business of making cars; not money lending. ........or any other business at the rate we're going now.

Ed Weldon

Still it's sad to see the profits from that operation going back into some other nation's economy.

Yeh but the host country doubtless takes some in tax on that profit and tax on all the workers wages.

It's the old leaprog thing. After WWII Japan and Germany leapfrogged the rest of us by biding their time and then re-building with the most up to date machinery when the UK was still trying to struggle on with an industry pummelled by the Luftwaffe and years with no investment or maintenance.

Maybe it's best to let the industry go and then jump in and start again when the next generation of (electric?) vehicles has evolved and the rest of the world has picked up the huge bill for development.

Sometimes coming second is the way to win (certainly with the ladies)

Del

"Firing millions of workers" is a bit of hyperbole. It's more like several hundred thousand following an orderly chapter 11 process.

Exotic electric cars vs hungry UAW families? These are extremes. Realities lie somewhere closer to the middle. UAW families have made good money. Any who failed to save were fools. Our society has safety nets for them. We all are having to cut back our standards of living this time. The UAW should not be exempt.

$25 billion is seed money for the preservation and regrowth of the industry. If we never spend that money for that purpose we will still have electric cars or whatever technology proves best. The only difference is that the cars will be provided to our market by foreign auto firms.

Our objective as a nation should be to keep as much of our auto industry's skilled workers and usable facilities intact as needed to support industry regrowth. The last thing we want to do is throw everything in the trash pile only to have to spend enormous sums building it all over again. To do so will guarantee that the resurgent industry will be handicapped against foreign competition by the need to amortize huge new capital investments.

Take a look at any modern car and you will see the majority part of what goes into it, technology, goods and services will be relatively unchanged even by radical changes in propulsion technology. This is what needs to be saved.

Better we keep what we have even if it means eating into the 25 billion new technology development dollars. It will not help us to rebuild our automotive industry if it still cannot compete with the foreign firms.

Ed Weldon

I find that it all falls back on the bases of balance. We are again very out of balance within our industries. Once a great exporter we are now a major importer loosing our true power of innovation and production as a "super power". So that even our labor force has reached beyond our boundaries by a larger number each year. This is a contributing factor for the true taking of food from the UAW family tables. Fighting everybody else's wars and spending more of our money outside the states is ultimately futile. I could go on but you all are quite aware, so I digress back to the original question. UAW, I'm sorry to say, has helped to bleed the system to imbalance along with the industry not being innovative and making profit, profit, profit the true motivation for product output. Ultimately trying to accommodate large employee and other overhead costs.Thus loosing sight of long term benefits and consequences. (There are so many other issues contributing to the problem I wont add here), So hence forth more short term planning and less about the long term gains and consequences. This however hopefully leaves an opening/opportunity for the smaller sector of technical companies to continue and make real gains in electric motivated cars, more efficient IC engines, more efficient solar collector panels (as in the development and use of quantum dot technology) etc. R&D is far on the back burner with the automotive industry as it is assumed to have no measurable rate of return. It will be left up to new smaller companies to leap forward and hope that an infusion of private and government funding will bring more of these new and more efficient ideas to the national and international market place. I see this to be the new wave of the future for America if so allowed. Deep and recent History has taught us that any civilization cannot continue with these self serving, short sighted, ignorant individuals holding the reigns to huge amounts of social, industrial, political, scientific and financial control without an inevitable demise. So much of that thinking and these people have infiltrated the news mediums lately that I am in disgust. I am hoping and looking forward to one day soon, witnessing some real scientific break through make it into accepted mainstream thinking and market place. Using that 25 billion to feed the same old problem is also futile, long term. We need it for new, productive, long term, progressive, goal oriented industries. Sorry so long winded.

Let's get real. This nation is not going to innovate it's way out of this one. I'm not saying that enterprise growth from innovation doesn't have its place. But there are a lot of things that need to be done that have little to do with new technology in order to fix our economy.

It has to do with the American people and what they think is important. There are still a lot of us who haven't reached our reality checkpoint yet. And there are another big group who immunized themselves against any of it by making and protecting their nest eggs before the crash got started. These folks are ready to make a lot of noise to keep this nation of ours from changing to meet the challenges of the next few years. They like it the way it is just fine, thank you. The "me first", "my way or the highway" and instant gratification ethics still run pretty deep. And it will stay that way until their money starts to lose its value in a future inflationary spiral.

Everything we can do to preserve and build our national productivity will be needed. And that includes building an efficient transportation network that fits America's needs, not those of some other country. And that network will need more than just innovative little cars made by boutique car companies that don't have the foggiest idea how to manufacture 100,000 vehicles in a year let alone a million.

We have in this country a lot of the best automotive engineers in the world. Don't blame them for the lousy products they were directed to design and manufacture. They are perfectly capable of producing the automobiles we need in the future. What we need to do is lift the stupid handicaps off of them. We need to level the playing field with foreign manufacturers and put Wall Street where it belongs so we can compete.

Ed Weldon

Well said. It is the finanacial system that is fundamentally to blame for most of the problem. That is where the root cause is, so that is where the corrective action needs to focus.

Maybe they need to think on a larger scale about technology. Here's an interesting view about lithium ; http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/technology/article5254564.ece

"Between 2003 and 2007, industrial demand for lithium doubled and now consumption stands at about 80,000 tonnes a year: give or take 18 months of global downturn, the growth rate for lithium demand is soon expected to return to about 25 per cent per year.

However, some experts say, the present calculations of lithium reserve usage do not take sufficient account of the potential demand from the car industry if it truly plans to convert the world to cleaner, emission-free electric cars. The sort of batteries large enough to power a car use about 100 times more lithium than a laptop and, according to William Tahil, research director of Meridian International Research, there is not enough commercially extractable lithium in the world to meet the sort of demand implied if motoring goes electric.

By his calculations, world reserves of lithium - that is, the quantity that can be extracted economically - are about four million tonnes. Mr Tahil told The Times that production of lithium cannot possibly be expanded to meet the ambitions of the car industry. Even highly productive lodes of the material, such as the deposits at the Salar de Atacama salt lake in Chile, may be past their peak already.

Although Mr Tahil's warnings are not universally accepted by industrial users and producers of lithium, actions speak louder than words. Toyota is said to have scrapped plans to use a lithium battery in its 2009 Prius hybrid and will stick with the heavier, less efficient, nickel battery. The company said recently that it did not believe that future lithium supply would be able to sustain the dual demands from the electronics and car industries"

Whether those views are right or wrong;

America can't afford to let it's auto industry die. Too many jobs, directly or indirectly, depend on it. There's no choice but to develop alternative technologies because of jobs, environment, and strategic dependence on oil. Someone put all the eggs in one basket, and the money to put them somewhere safer shouldn't be handed out 'easy' or the same mistakes will happen again. Plenty of people will suffer (probably not the fat cats), but that's the sticky end of a market economy. The internal combustion engine as we know it will eventually die. Get over it, and don't bail out companies that refuse to acknowledge it.

_{(Sorry America - I'm in a foul mood, I just found out the coffee jar is empty)}

We can't putt all our eggs in one basket... those sodding bankers have eaten all the eggs and burnt the basket.

Guess what popped through my door this morning amongst the Chrissy Cards?
Yes the offer of some stupid Citi credit card at some userous rate of interest 16 odd% apr. I s'pose there must be some people stupid enough to fall for it. personally I'd like to go and stuff it up the arse of the bloated overpaid SOB who runs the bank on what is our money and then expects to lend it back to us at that sort of rate...

Stick some toast on old chap, and pour out another mug of tea.

Del

I had a 'funny' flyer from British Gas ; all dressed up like a bill, telling people to take up boiler repair cover. It probably killed half the local elderly population with shock ! I wouldn't use the jerks any more than I'd use British Telecom. Then there's all those 'celebs' on TV giving us their advice on crap we should buy. First it was John Stalker selling awnings, then it was Vordy selling dodgy finance, blah blah blah.....

I'm gonna have a whole pint of custard (but your tea and toast remedy does cheer me up ) for lunch.

You forget that seawater contains more then enough Lithium to power the cars of the future, however alot of ther reports dismiss this avenue due to cost of extraction based on a price comprasion on current salt lake extraction nor do these reports consider using green energy to power such extraction ie surf powered or wind powered operations would offset such things as power use...

There's gold in them thar waves.........Come to think of it, all rocks end up back in the briney.

it is very bad situtation.

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This looks like pure SPAM!!

my proposal;

1. ship as many cars as possible(detroit makes) out of states. there are many american oil companies out there in africa and other parts of the world. I'm talking about used cars.

once this happens, used car pool in states in gonna dry up, and second, part market for american made models would pickup as well.

then, of course, each of us could contribute by scrapping as many junks/older models as possible... agreed, that's gonna cost a bit!

In addition, don't you guys think that there's something not right with the current car making business model, i.e.: mass production and such?

could detroit survive only with volume...how about niche markets?

bottom line, these guys need to downsize ... big time and start making cars which only americans could make, along the lines of ferrari or lambho.

I think that a boat this size cannot be saved. It seems to be a 12ft fishing boat - overloaded - with a hole in the bottom - no capitan - no oars - adrift in the Ocean! Sometimes, you have to know when to fold them.

fortunately, for the boat, this is US of A and god is always watching(besides he's got not much to do anyway!), i.e.: god-the-taxpayers aka government 'feels' that the boat needs rescuing..................and so it shall be done!

The electric power is being used in most of the applications from home appliance to official computers & phone,commercials,media-players etc. But the oil is being used for vehicles & some industries. If we start to use the electricity for automobiles then it is question mark for availability of resorce for electrical power in future.

So as of now the Detroit bailout is the wise solution rather spending for Electric Car Technology.

Try to invest on the solar like unconventional energy to meet the energy scarcity.

The best way to increase the power available in our grid is through the building of nuclear power plants. The spent fuel issue is a red herring fueled in the USA by a number of factors:

1. "Environmentalists" who collect salaries paid for by permanent endowments and will stand as advocates for any pseudo-science as long as it buys their groceries.

2. The willingness of prosperous Americans to get "stoopid" and cling to urban myths (thanks, Oprah!) because they are easy to grasp, unlike scientific reality that requires some intelligent thought. A corollary here is the way prosperity influences the growth of our own collective fear and paranoia.

3. The national plague of "innumerology" which elevates the importance the statistical predictions of a few deaths hundreds of years in the future above the thousands of deaths that will occur in our lifetimes as a direct result of energy shortages and weather events caused by global warming and statistically attributable to the carbon dioxide increase in our atmosphere.

4. The willingness of Americans including government officials. who should know better, to jump on a new "energy solution du jour" every month or so and demand a "Manhattan Project" to make it happen. (paid for, of course, by someone else) "Anything to save us from having to confront the efficacy of nuclear power plants"..........

Ummmm......let's see.....How about we drill holes into the Mohorovic Discontinuity to extract the virtually limitless energy available there. Certainly if we can put men on the Moon we can build the drilling equipment to do the job! Has anyone tried to use nanotechnology to make drill bits? ......quoting Wikipedia: "Japan now has a new project with the same goal, Chikyu Hakken." (LOL)

Mr. Ponzi: Madoff is history. Turn over in your grave, right now!! The sun is shining on you.......

Ed Weldon

As much as I wonder about the sincerity of BP when they say they are not an oil company, but an energy company, at least they popularize the concept. As far as energy is concerned, I recognized what really holds abundant and cheap supplies back is the need for integration of all the technologies.

It simply isn't simple.

Gas stations are simple.

The US does seem to demand high powered vehicles for cross country trips. People buy cars not simply to get to work, but because they want to feel they can escape in it if they have to.

There are mountains to climb in the East to West, and West to East travels. I often imagine a Transportation Grid as part of the overall Grid where your low tech battery car with its standardized great electric motor, would allow you to get to the hook up and roll as far as you want.

Now I have come to feel that it is more proper for government to provide infrastructure than bailout specific businesses.

I guess in a way I believe the government ought to build the roads, and devil take the hindmost who can't build a car that rolls over them.

Of course we don't have an electric road now do we.

It is interesting to consider failed modes of travel, such as Airships.

They were scrapped, and that was that.

You're gonna get some mail from Zeppelin, calling airships a failed mode of travel. In a way, you are right. Airships are a niche entity, like sailing yachts. They are slow, cumbersome, and expensive. But the view is great. They are quiet, don't burn much fuel, and a beautiful sight to behold.

Personally, I'm wanting to build my own airship. Using plastic and a simple construction technique, and keeping the ship as small as possible, I hope to keep the cost down to no more than the cost of a small sailboat.

To Detroit's Automaker Execs /Engrs and UAW Exces and workers:

Accept accountability "Adjust-Modify-Execute. Else, stop whining and get out of the way"

Otherwise, there is NO reason to add Bailout$$$ to bad Corp waste $$$$

The consumer will respond either way. I did: Have a 97 Suburban with 206,000 miles(only problems???: Front leather/power seats ruined at 4000 miles,replaced transmission 200 miles after warranty, lost AC at 115,000 miles) Since Chrevrolet decided not to honor the extended $1450 extended warranty I bought from them I now own 1 Mazda 2000 Protege (now with 162,000 miles) and one Toyota 2004 Echo

with 70,000 miles. Yet, I am whilling to give the Big 3 a chance if they stop whinning

and start taking responsibility for what they do and how they do business/treat the customer.

Cheers

we can hope that Barack Obama will take good steps for auto industry.

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Things in economy will be right soon friends dont worry.

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