In short, the private automobile as presently designed doesn’t work, and the immediate response in hypertrophy — to try to grow big and push others out of the way.

If it wasn’t for all of the Toyota hybrid technology that Ford licenses, the hybrid Explorer would still be on some engineer’s whiteboard instead of on the road. The Japanese makers are light-years ahead of the US makers when it comes to alternative-fuel vehicles. And #15′s claim about GM’s “leadership” in hydrogen-fueled vehicles? Pure fantasy, and emblematic of why Toyota is eating their lunch. GM threw in the towel on hybrids in favor of RUNNING ADS touting fuel cells. Now it appears they’ve skipped ahead to flying cars.

As for #14, his claims are bloustery nonsense. He appears to have gotten caught up in the excitement of the season – tell a bunch of lies while sounding authoritative, and hope no one checks the facts until after the election.

That’s all I would chalk that up to.

Looks to me like rail is more efficient than passenger vehicles: http://www.bts.gov/publications/national_transportation_statistics/html/table_04_20.html

I think a lot of people can’t rattle off (real, accurate) statistics at a moment’s notice, nor do they care to expend the time + energy. I just did a couple quick google searches, nothing fancy. On the other hand, it’s very easy to make up fake statistics, as that anonymous poster did.

How come none of you wonks took this guy on? Is that for me to assume that he was actually right? I don’t, but… Or do you feel much more comfortable debating someone elses pensions and health insurance rights and the US auto industry rather than the actual safety character of the mode?

Me? If I had an extra $30K laying around and wasn’t trying to support a family, I’d love to have a new hybrid, or even an all-electric like the vehicle formerly-known-as-the-Corbin-Sparrow to drive to work. Until that happens, I’ll have to stick with my crappy Mercury Mystique.

One last point: Let’s give consumers some credit. Marketing can affect our consumption decisions, but we’re responsible for our purchases and their consequences. To say that ads unduly influence us is to stray into the kind of paternalistic concepts that represent the worst of progressive thinking. The commons problem is a longstanding and global issue that is sure to crop up in places like India and China when they get their hands on cars and fridges, as they have as much right to do as we do.

SUV’s don’t work in Western European cities because their streets are small and gas prices are high, not because they are smarter consumers. As a recovering tree-hugger, I came to terms with the fact that a lot of people really don’t care about these issues, even if it affects them adversely.

Rather than count on those of us who give a shit to consume less of a good (like, say, gasoline) that has many negative consequences, we need to tax it so that it’s cost represents those consequences accurately. Or rejoice when the free market does that for us. Then we don’t have to worry about who cares about our causes.

I am still struck with how NYC politicians don’t see the economic effects of traffic and overuse of cars. Conservative estimates put the cost in the billions. Scaling back car culture here is truly a win win…for the tree-huggers and the capitalists.

Sproule

First off, if environmentalists are still "granola" eating "tree huggers" then, given what we now know about the Earth’s environmental crisis, what should we call people who aren’t incorporating pro-environmental ideas into their day-to-day lives and work? Tree haters? Coal-fired power plant huggers?

Putting aside the name-calling I find one important piece of your argument to be disingenuous. Consumer preference does not grow in a vacuum. The demand for gigantic gas-guzzling SUV’s is not an innate human desire, otherwise we’d see more of them in European cities too, you’d think. The auto industry spends hundreds upon hundreds of millions of dollars each year to shape consumer preferences and steer us towards particular products.  As recounted in Keith Bradsher’s "High & Mighty," automakers created the SUV craze, stoked it, and resisted government’s attempts to foster sanity in the marketplace because SUV’s were more profitable than regular cars.

You’ve got to believe that if American automakers spent the same energy and money telling us that smaller more fuel-efficient cars were the cool, smart, macho, sexy, powerful — and good for America — then a whole lot of Americans could be led to believe that. And yet today, given what we know about the trajectory of oil prices, the disaster that’s underway in the Middle East and the specter of climate change hovering over us, the TV airwaves are still jammed with car commercials selling gas guzzling, America- and planet-destroying SUV’s. 

How much money would it take to get LeBron James or Tiger Woods to drive a hyrbrid vehicle?

What I find more disturbing is the carte blanche afforded all non-domestic manufacturers when it comes to fuel economy and product lineup decisions. True the domestics missed the hybrid boom (although they say they are prepared to get into the game) while they were focused on meeting consumer needs for SUVs – a much more profitable segment of business. But before any tree-hugging granola head screams “the SUV boom was a conspiracy led by the domestic auto manufacturers to force these vehicles on the unsuspecting public” let’s be honest – consumers purchased these vehicles willingly. This fact did not go unnoticed by Toyota, Honda and Nissan – most of the growth of the these companies (and other non-domestics) in the US in recent years has come from the sales of full-size SUVs (Armada, Pathfinder) and full-size trucks (Tundra and Titan) – product offerings with fuel efficiency that is at best comparable to domestic offerings, but more often times lower.

I’m not here to defend the domestics – I suspect they will continue to suffer from their broken promises to employees, consumers and investors. But, I won’t root for their demise or that of the foriegn automakers – competition benefits all of us as long as we recoginize all manufacturers are for-profit businesses, not charitable organizations and made their business decisions are made accordingly.

(FYI – Ford owns Volvo, GM lost $115m in the 3rd quarter, and while the original Prius’s were sold at a loss in the US, the current versions are profitable).

In the 30s and 40s GM conspired to buy out most of the urban light rail transit lines in the U.S., ran them into the ground, and replaced them with buses and, of course, private automobiles. Thanks to GM’s commitment to buses, the most American cities now have a an urban mass transit infrastructure that the Bulgarians would be ashamed of.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_streetcar_conspiracy

http://reformjudaismmag.org/Articles/index.cfm?id=1166

In point of fact, GM has for years been selling hybrid buses, a far more effective use of hybrid technology than a subcompact, four-passenger car. And GM employs far more Americans than any foreign competitor. Oh yes, why is everyone ignoring GM’s leadership position in the development of fuel-cell vehicles? They’re not commercial yet, but they soon will be, and they are far more important than hybrids.

I am amazed when Americans cheer for Americans to fail. And as long as Americans continue to buy foreign products, it will be a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Despite their many problems cars ARE the most efficient transportation available. They consume less fuel per passenger mile than trains, and have fewer deaths per million passenger miles.

That doesn’t mean we cannot or should not improve on auto’s many weak points, but let’s not invent things that are not true to ensure their demise. The horse is more sustainable than the auto because it uses only renewable resources, but if we were to recreate our modern economy using only horses we would soon find out two things: there aren’t enough renewable resources to feed that many horses, and we are in seriously deep shit.

General Motoers is failing not only because they promised a dream they cannot deliver, but because they promised retirement and health plans they cannot deliver.

The environmental movement has the same problems. They are making promises that they cannot deliver on. As a result they are becoming more and more radicalized, and also more margianalized. It is easy to go out and beat up on GM, drive spikes in trees or burn down homes under construction.

It is a lot harder to actually do something constructive for the environment. It is even harder still to do something that is both constructive for the environment and profitable.

Go look at a sierra club ad and then try to tell me iti s any less fantasmagorical than the GM flying car ad.

Yeah, the flying car ad is utterly stupid. So is much of the rhetoric that supposedly supports what I believe is otherwise, a good cause.When the environmental cause is like Toyota, producing a quality product that people want, and at a price they can afford to pay, then the environmental movement will start to look a little smarter and a little less like GM.

are you going to respond, or just cut and run?

At the risk of making you feel like you stepped into hornets’ nest here, I don’t know how you can say that John Cougar truck ad is appropriate. Others have pointed out all the insulting associations between 9/11 and Rosa Parks (yes, she rode the bus…how more absurd can you get in a car ad?!?) and buying a truck. 99% of the ads we see are inane, so I don’t really hold that against either the GM ad or the “our country” spot, but playing on xenophobia, already over-hyped terrorism fears, and a courageous civil rights pioneer is just plain insulting.

As far as your grasp of global economics, I have to take issue with a few things you implied. Asian car makers don’t “dump” their cars in the US market, they make better cars at a lower cost IN US FACTORIES. And with the Chrysler/Daimler merger, GM’s recent merger talks with Renault, Ford and other’s ownership of brands like SAAB, Aston Martin, etc., the question of where a company is based is almost irrelevant. The Bush Adminstration talks a lot about free-trade, but engages in the same protectionist policies in many sectors…steel, sugar, ethanol, etc., that you attribute to Asian governments.

So “buying American” is as misguided as the “keep America rolling” bull*&^% that we saw in ads right after 9/11. I do agree with you that we should stop bashing US car companies – companies exist to earn their share-holders a profit; governments and watchdog groups exist to regulate them and keep them in line. They make what people want to buy. It’s our fellow Americans who bought and keep buying wasteful vehicles like SUV’s to make themselves feel safe and tough that we should bash.

We know that SUV are not safer than cars, especially regarding climate change. And if a big SUV is someone’s idea of tough, I take a lot of satisfaction that they will pay a $5,000 to $10,000 premium for that lady-killing barge.

All in all, US auto companies are paying dearly for missing the boat on hybrids and higher fuel economy vehicles, and for their costly labor and healthcare arrangements. Spending half a billion or more on crappy ads is not going to help them much. Why don’t they hire the ad whizs that VW used?

I look forward to $4 a gallon gas prices. The free market is already working its invisbile hand magic on the US auto industry.

Sproule

BY MICHAEL ELLIS
FREE PRESS BUSINESS WRITER

August 2, 2006

Less than a week after General Motors Corp. reported a net loss of $3.2 billion in the second quarter of 2006, the automaker revised its results to a loss of $3.4 billion.

The change came after the company reassessed the tax impact from the sale of its GMAC financial services unit.

I almost have to assume your comment is sarcastic. Powertrain warranty? Is that what the Flying Cars ad and the Rosa Parks ads are selling? Please.

Thank goodness the Asian carmakers are "dumping" their products on the U.S. market. Otherwise we would have no hybrid vehicles here. We’d be stuck with the piece-of-junk, gas guzzling SUV’s that our short-sighted, soon-to-be-bankrupt US carmakers continue to produce.

The idea that GM is doing good for America is, at this point, completely unsupportable by the facts.