Re: "Let the [Dodge] Spirit move you" --- again

[adh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Sandwich Maker)]

" From: Tom Jennings <tomj@xxxxxxx>
" 
" On Wed, 2006-02-15 at 12:02, Mahoney, John wrote:
" 
" > But, if you like taking autos apart --- whether Hornets or history
" > --- and rebuilding them again even better, READ!
" > 
" > http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.02/teardown.html
" > 
" 
" >From that:
" 
" Toyota is likely to sell a mere 105,000 Priuses this year in a US market
" of 16 million vehicles. "Prius owners love it, but are the other 16
" million-plus people beating down the doors of Toyota dealerships to buy
" a hybrid?" Lindsay Brooke asks. "Not yet, and Toyota will have to figure
" out how to drive the hybrid vehicle segment into the meat of the North
" American market."
" 
" 
" 
" Another clue into GM's cluelessness: it doesn't really matter how many
" Priuii Toyota sells. It's got juice; it shows Toyota innovating; it
" explores new tech; it gets tons of free news publicity; it's futuristic;
" people's love for them extends good will to Toyota; ad nauseum.

further thought - i seem to recall the us govt giving billion-dollar
handouts to the big 3 to develop hybrid tech in the early '00s, rather
like the billions they handed out in the '90s to develop electric cars,
and detroit was happy to spend uncle sugar's money - but when it was
gone -- actually develop products for sale?  don't be joking.

iirc honda and toyota also asked to participate in this program on the
basis of their american manufacturing position, but because they
weren't american-based companies they were denied.  who now has hybrid
cars on the market?

having said that - how much pollution is generated in the manufacture
of a prius, from start to finish?  i've heard that for a conventional
car it's as much as the car emits in its lifetime.  then for the prius
there are the batteries, which must contain large amounts of hazardous
waste like nickel...  and do they have any plans to recover them from
junked prii?

" Note however none of those things will make (much) money in the next
" few quarters; it's all longer-term, future-looking good will and
" positioning, clearly something GM has utterly and completely lost.

gm has long been known for ivory-tower mgmt out of touch with anything
but their own internal politics.  the 49-year-old who turned their
china operation into a model showcase was fired.  before that, when gm
bought eds its president ross perot [remember him?] pointed their
isolation out, and what did they do?  gave him a large amount of money
to shut up and go away.  roger smith saw gm shrink by half during his
presidency, yet walked away with a generous golden parachute - for a
good job?

also from the wired article --
GM thinks it has a better idea. In the back of the teardown building,
alongside the dissected Prius and Malibu, lie the parts of a GM
demonstration vehicle powered by hydrogen fuel cells. Although the
vehicle has more total parts than the Prius, almost none of them move,
eliminating many of the finely machined gears and engine components of
the traditional auto. The tables bearing the drive trains of the Prius
and Malibu are laden with parts; those for the fuel cell car are
nearly empty. The three teardowns tell the story of GM's plans: Go
directly from gasoline to fuel cells with a mere nod to hybrid tech.
At the Tokyo auto show in October, GM unveiled its fuel cell-powered
Sequel. Larry Burns, GM's vice president for R&D and planning,
announced that the company would be able to "design and validate a
competitive fuel cell propulsion system by 2010."

there's just one hitch: no infrastructure to obtain and distribute
hydrogen to these fuel-cell cars.  [you can't just use the national
natural-gas pipelines for two reasons - 1, h2 is much tinier than ch4
and can whizz through cracks natural gas doesn't even see, and 2, a
phenomenon called hydrogen embrittlement, which affects steel exposed
to h2]  this sounds like another excellent way for gm to shelve the
pesky question of changing the way they do things for another long
stretch of time.  notice he didn't say 'introduce a fuel cell car to
compete with the likes of toyota'...

i predict they'll develop fuel cell tech, then shelve it, just like
they developed and shelved hybrid tech and electric tech before that.
remember the ev1, anybody?

in their defense, every auto maker must have a staggering investment
in drivetrain manufacture, and to write that off as completely 
obsolete must be well-nigh unthinkable, even long past the time they
really should be thinking about it.
________________________________________________________________________
Andrew Hay                                  the genius nature
internet rambler                            is to see what all have seen
adh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx                       and think what none thought