Industry executive blasts U.S. over hybrid, electric policy

By brian #1, Posted: 8/12/2008

so true

By mlevere1992 #2, Posted: 8/12/2008

I am glad to see someone in the industry stand up and tell it like it is. The government law makers are idiots and should have no say in how things are produced. None of them have any knowledge on how hard it is to advance this technology. they just need to get out of their own way and let the auto makers get on with their work without hindering them and making it harder and more expensive to produce new technologies.

By NoNameDenton #3, Posted: 8/12/2008

One problem is that fact that government needs to learn to mind their own business. Private indusrty does better on their own then without the government interference.

By bambam #4, Posted: 8/13/2008

Policies, what policy?
There ain't enough electric vehicle out there to have a policy.
has anyone died from an electric vehicle yet. There isn't even a competitor.

By bambam #5, Posted: 8/13/2008

oh yeah its true that we need these policies but just not yet.

By NCyder #6, Posted: 8/13/2008

Ridiculous to see Toyota and Honda committed to producing hybrids while US infrastructure bitches and moans about lack of maturity in technology.

Fact is, big three gambled that US consumers wanted or would accept hybrid SUVs and lost. They saw that gamble as lowest risk to their wallets due to the high profit margins of their SUV market and got burned by the combination of the credit crunch and runaway oil market.

If the US wants to be competitive again, then US workers and politicians need to learn to live without an entitlement and consumerism mentality. Getting your GED and going to work on the assembly line shouldn't be an instant ticket to the middle class. And while you are fuming at me over my discompassion, learn to do without or to make do with less.

By Mark Reynolds #7, Posted: 8/20/2008

“They just do not understand the technology challenges. They don’t understand where this stuff comes from. They don’t understand what it’s going to take to make us competitive here so that we can take the shutters off of 35,000 plants and make ourselves competitive again.”

The entire article is nonsense and Mary Wright is either uninformed or a shill for the oil and auto industry. The all electric Toyota Rav4 is still on the road after 10 years, still making over 100 hiway speed miles per charge, with air conditioning and power windows, on its original 95 AH Large Format NiMH battery pack. Just what challanges are there? The Rav4 is an embarassment and a Myth Buster against the EV "more research required" talking heads.

Well, there is an artificial challange in that the 95 AHLarge Format NiMH battery is controlled by Chevron, who sued Panasonic to shut down the factory that made those batteries. This battery is not available for sale now. Why?

Additionally, the car companies don't want to build an EV.

Who does not want EV’s in our driveways:
-Legacy Automakers, because they, and their dealer networks do not earn enough revenue by selling cars. A look at how large their service departments are (and our out-of-wallet experience with them) shows what’s at stake revenue-wise because EV’s never need service beyond tire changes. EV’s don’t even need brake jobs due to electronic regenerative braking that does most of the work. Their ordinary friction brake pads and rotors thus last the life of the car (as shown on the Toyota electric Rav4).
The large established car companies depend on their service department, like printer companies depend on sales of ink cartridges. So why did Toyota sell the Rav4 instead of leasing and crushing as GM did with the EV1? It’s a mystery, but I came across a blog that mentioned that a Toyota exec at a public speech mistakenly said that the cars would be sold, and so to save face, Toyota reluctantly sold the Rav4. Buyers, however, now post on blogs that they actually had difficulty in getting the Toyota dealer to sell them an electric Rav4 and that they were highly pressured to instead buy a Gas Toyota or a Prius.
-Oil companies, for obvious reasons. Note they are also major stockholders in auto companies and thus probably have influence over their board of directors.
Business firms exist to make profits, but profits are going to be reduced if EV’s replace the ICE car. Much of our economy is based on the automobile, and its upkeep. Almost every business is related in some way to the car. What will happen to employment if the need to service a car is practically eliminated?
What happens to Midas, Pepboys, Kragen’s, smog check, AMCO, gas stations, Jiffylube, general service repair centers, the manufacturing plants that fabricate repair parts, the UPS people that deliver the parts, the corner deli or Taco Bells frequented by those firm’s workers at lunchtime? What about government agencies that depend on collecting all manner of tax revenue from the above interlinked economy?
If people understand this scenario, then they will understand why they can’t yet buy an EV from the legacy business infrastructure. Only recently can one sniff the scent of a potential EV from start-up EV manufacturers like Tesla (too costly for mass production partly because they hand-solder a battery pack of 6000 Lithium AA sized cells together in series-parallel groups), Aptera, and even the tiny BugE, etc., because a startup company does not need to address the risk that a service-free vehicle will parasitically affect revenue from other parts of its company. And startups probably are not in business relations with oil companies either. One interesting emerging EV contender is the Chinese and their unstoppable manufacturing base. Google the “Miles EV” (American CEOs operating in China) and “Thunder Sky” Lithium battery (which can replace the Chevron suppressed NiMH battery. Google “95 AH Large Format NiMH battery” to see that a 30 million dollar lawsuit dismantled the Panasonic plant that built these batteries that gave the Toyota Rav4 EV more than 100 miles of highway speed range- 10 years ago). The Chinese don’t have any obligations to any western business or oil cartel. Although they are importing oil at increasing rates, I think they are taking steps to limit dependency on oil by mass producing EVs. A $4000 Lithium powered highway speed Vespa style motorcycle just appeared from China: the “XM-3500Li” You can buy it now in America.
Curiously, Nissan’s CEO has advocated a pure EV but I have a hard time believing he really will build one and that the announcement is mostly PR “green washing” in nature. After all, Nissan has service centers, too.
Legacy Car manufacturer's EVs will continue to run on the fuel of press releases for a long time.

By Glenn #8, Posted: 8/31/2008

Toyota had the foresight to develop and produce the prius with its HSD, making regular improvements over the last 10 years until now we expect the third generation, a car that will be better than its predecessors in every way. The Prius is now the 13th best selling car in America, and GM has absolutely NOTHING to compete with it.

With that kind of stupidity, GM deserves to go out of business.