Cars and Politics

I hate politics. Democrats, Republicans, Independents, Greenies, Ralph Nader - they all tell you what you want to hear so they can get elected, and then they could care less. We could probably solve this whole mess in Iraq if we took a big airplane and flew it over to Iraq and started dropping politicians on the stinking terrorists. Or maybe we could drop Chryslers on them.

So why am I talking about politics on an automotive engineering forum? Well, it's because politics is going to decide whether there is even going to be an automotive industry in the US. Did you ever think you'd see the day when all 3 US car companies could go bankrupt? Is Toyota going to end up owning GM or Ford, or both?

The speech that Obama just made about national Corporate Automotive Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards and tough greenhouse gas emissions standards is going to change the direction of the entire auto industry, for better or for worse. Politics is going to decide whether even more money is going to be pumped into GM or Ford to keep them afloat, or whether they're going to sink into the abyss like a 1960 Edsel.

What is going on? How could this happen? What is going to happen now? Like it or not, politics is going to play a big part in the auto industry, and may determine whether it survives at all. So what do you think? Will the Chevy Volt save GM, or will GM end up crushing all of them, like the EV-1, and selling the battery patent rights to Chevron? Will gas prices go up enough to make the Volt viable? Should we pump more billions into the auto industry, or just give it all to AIG?