David Martin

General Motors Bailout: Consider Other Alternatives

Who is going to be daft enough to buy a car from a company that is bankrupt and where supplies of spares may cease and warranties be void?
Actually, the big 3 are zombies, jsut like the banks, but that will not stop TPTB from pumping in good money after bad.

A GM Collapse Would Signal Hope for Robin Hood

Sales of autos are not going to recover for the foreseeable future.
Massive overcapacity has to be reduced, and the US big 3 are by far the weakest and most poorly run.
Not that that will stop the Government spending taxpayers money in a vain attempt to preserve the living dead.

Paulson Pulls Back the TARP

The contrast with the Swedish full nationalisation of a bank the other day is instructive.
All the board was sacked and they will be lucky to escape prosecution, let alone collect bonuses.
Paulson is a grifter, and sadly Obama has surrounded himself with other grifters who created the mess in the first place and profited hugely by it.
I don't think these scam artists have got their head around the fact that if they avoid the rule of law, when the ponzi scheme crashes Judge Lynch is going to look for them and theirs.

In Search of a Less Insane U.S. Auto Industry

Yeah.
The same goes for the banks, and the Fed.
They are disfunctional and irreformable.

The Long Case for Autos

Whatever may be the case in the US, in the UK car market there will be no rebound.
The banks have agreed to alter the headline rate, but the first thing they would order on returning to their offices is to neutralise it.
For the small proportion of loans that they have to make on those terms they will seek to alter the conditions, for instance with much higher deposits and stricter credit checks.
Most mortgages do not come under those terms anyway.
It just means a bit more window-dressing for the banks, the real cost to the customer of their loans will continue to rise, whilst the Banks take money from the Treasury at favourable rates and re-capitalise from the money they have lost in sub-prime, derivatives and developing countries.

Detroit is Hemorrhaging

As a Brit I observe efforts to prop up the American car industry with some wry amusement.
Umpteen bail-outs later, the British car industry consists of a few small specialised companies and foreign transplants.
Sometimes the rot goes too deep to save.

Car Prices Keep Falling, Consumers Keep Waiting

And the big 3 are still hoping to load the smaller cars they are being forced into selling with extras to increase margin.
They deserve to go bust, not to be bailed out.

Will GM's Volt Change History?

Much of the comment in this thread is erroneous.
Lithium batteries have a much higher energy density than NiMH - that is why Toyota is not offering plug in technology in the new Prius yet, as they are still working on the lithium batteries and are currently using NiMH.
Although full specs have not been released, it looks as though Toyota are planning a much milder PHEV than the Volt, with a 10 mile electric only range instead of 40.
The cost reductions possible by this means in my view make this the better call, as enough people will be satisfied with this range to guarantee the market for all Toyota can make, and they will be a lot cheaper than the Volt.
Perhaps the biggest number of new vehicles will come from Nissan/Renault though, with their model of all EV vehicles where you buy the car and hire the battery - cheaper than paying for petrol - you hire a normal car when you need to make a very long journey.