(US) Car makers attack fuel measures - BBC

[Eugene]

Last Updated: Thursday, 15 March 2007, 00:49 GMT

Car makers attack fuel measures

US carmakers have said they need help in tackling the challenges the
industry is facing set by global warming.

The heads of General Motors, Chrysler and Ford said that measures to
improve fuel efficiency were not enough and may cost thousands of jobs.

They told a House of Representatives subcommittee that the car industry
alone could not act on climate change.

-snip-

'Calamitous'

Meeting a target to boost fuel efficiency by 4% would by "extraordinarily
expensive" and "technologically challenging" said GM's head Rick Wagoner.

-snip-

Full article: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/6452601.stm

[robinlynne]

1. bullshit. they were making wonderful electric cars over ten years ago.

Tell them to GET THE MESSAGE!

[robinlynne]

2. and down the list, the enxt article: "chrysler questions climate change" nt

[Kutjara]

3. What a crock of shit.

Carmakers have had 100 years to improve fuel efficiency, yet the average passenger car today gets about the same gas mileage as the Model T (25 mpg). Every other part of the car has improved by leaps and bounds (safty, comfort, entertainment, power, reliability), yet, somehow they just crack the nut of making engines more efficient? I call bullshit. They dropped the ball on social responsibility and now they're pleading poverty (and the inevitable threat of "major job losses.")

A 4% improvement in MPG is frankly pitiful (amounting to just over 1 mpg for an average car), yet the carmakers are already squealing. They should be made to push the development of fuel cell technology, electricity and alternative fuels. They should be set stiff targets that force them to make at least 50% of their fleet zero emission vehicles by 2015 and 100% by 2020. This whining at the first suggestion they get off their collective asses and actually innovate a bit is disgusting. No wonder the auto industry in this country is a worldwide joke.

[grannylib]

5. *lol* great minds...but you said it much better!

[grannylib]

4. What bullshit. They have failed to keep up with the changing demands

of consumers, and now they are whining about it. Suck it up, redesign, retool, and get with the program, or die as you deserve to and let more innovative, progressive automakers pick up your slack.
That's the way the holy and sacred free market system is supposed to work, right????

[Kutjara]

6. Exactly. The "Big 3,"...

...or whatever they're called these days, are just looking for a big handout of public money to pay them for doing what they should have been doing for the past twenty years. They've ignored consumer's desires and needs, churning out endless versions of the same old crap: gas guzzling land leviathans that are more like apartments on wheels than cars.

So the bottom line: "We really can't figure out how to make products people want, so give us billions of dollars of tax money and we'll keep employing people so that the communities in which we operate don't collapse." That sound more like the old Soviet Union than the Land of Opportunity. Actually, it sounds exactly like blackmail.

[DainBramaged]

7. They do it in Europe they can do it here

They don't want to sell small, unprofitable cars here. The U.S. subsidizes their European profits. And the ego of U.S. engineering comes into play, since they don't understand "small". Shit, Ford and GM are so over capacity they could easily build a small "shift n sweat" (no air manual trans) here.

[Pangolin]

8. Funny how these guys can make 100 mpg PHEV's.

http://www.calcars.org/

Using off the shelf components atatched to a Toyota Prius.