StraightCarTalk

What Lies Ahead for Hybrid Car Investors?

beach bum has caught some mis-statements, but there are so many items in this article that the author must be clueless on how cars work. People do not buy hybrids to drive on the highway - they buy them if they do a lot of city driving. The Escalade also gets 20 MPG in the city - a whopping 67% increase over the base vehicle of 12 MPG. For a driver who drives 12K miles per year at $3/gallon, this is a savings of $1,200 PER YEAR, or about $10K over the life of the vehicle. People who drive on the highway a lot would be better with a diesel vehicle. As Diesel prices come down, it begins to look a lot better. In general, fuel economy for COMPARABLE vehicles is the same, but the cost is less (compare the Jetta to the Honda Civic Hybrid, not the insight).

GM Execs Fill Up on the Taxpayer's Dime

To PeteK,

GM does have to start over - and they are. However, don't vilify the hard working engineers and middle managers who are changing GM (and yes, this change DID start before the current breakdown). People seem to forget that engineers, designers, and technicians - mostly non-union - design the products the UAW makes. Many of the 8000 are in this category. Can GM adjust this - yes, and they should. Suggestion - only people who have direct affect on the product should have these vehicles (engineers, manufacturing , purchasing, marketing, etc. - not finance, legal, administrative, etc.) Also, when the vehicles are done, they are sold to other employees for about what it costs GM to make the vehicle. So the argument that it costs GM a lot of money for this program is ridiculous. The benefit far outweighs the cost.

Lets focus on where the problem actually is - Wall Street - which DEMANDS monthly returns. I have seen companies (auto and more) miss projections by 1 cent and have their stock drop by 30-40% - IN ONE DAY! Where is the problem? GM and the others are driven by Wall Street to short term profits, and the managers do that. Up until 1 year ago, these profits were in trucks.

People talk about half truths earlier - look at the whole picture. Unlike the banks, the auto companies did nothing illegal or overly risky - they did what their owners wanted them to do - make money. Americans wanted trucks, and GM made them. Oh yes, so did Toyota (Tundra) and Honda (Ridgeline) and Nissan (Titan). Everyone realized the US market wanted these vehicles, and they made A LOT of money. The auto companies do not control oil prices. No one expected oil prices to jump as quickly as they did. No one expected the credit crunch. There is nothing in history that could have prepared the car companies for what happened in 2008. No expert in late 2007 could have predicted what happened. No one got it right. How can you blame this on the automotive companies when experts could not predict what happened as quickly as it did. Yes, some experts were predicting high oil prices, but not to double in a couple of months (predictions of $200/barrel only came AFTER the price hit about $125, not when it was $70). Others were predicting a recession, but not the Dow losing 50% of it's value. And for every negative prediction, there was a prediction from an expert just as credible that things were turning around.

I am not defending the auto companies for everything they did - they made some mistakes and admitted them. They were and are in the process of change. They have negotiated union contracts that reduce cost (look at the results from the 2007 contract negotiations). Can they (and their unions) do more? Yes, and they will have to. But to put these companies in the same light as John D. Rockefeller and Standard Oil of the nineteenth century is not accurate nor right - it is only propogating a stereotype that is no longer accurate in the 21st Century. Get your facts straight and the US will be better. Continue to twist facts to progress personal hatreds will not solve the problem - only cause anger and conflict.

GM Execs Fill Up on the Taxpayer's Dime

Looking at all of these comments shows that some people get it and some people do not. Some facts from someone in the auto industry who DOES NOT work for GM (or any OEM)

1. Of the 8000, not all are managers. Many are higher level engineers who have been designing the cars for years. They are VERY qualified to evaluate the vehicles, and should be doing that. The only change I would recommend is that GM also buy competitor vehicles and make them drive those.

2. GM's problems, although many were self inflicted, were caused by the meltdown in the Banking industry. When was the last time anyone here paid CASH for a vehicle? No one does. When financing dried up last year, GM, Ford, and Chrysler could not sell vehicles (oh yeah, neither could Toyota, Honda, Nissan, ....). Because GM was in the midst of re-building and their new vehicles were not out yet, they were hit very hard. Remember, it takes a minimum of 2.5 years to get a new vehicle design and APPROVED by the US government for sale. Yeah, the Auto Industry is one of the most regulated industries in the US and spends billions just meeting government and California (the other US government) regulations.

3. I saw a map on CNN last week that shows where GM buys parts from. There was a dot in EVERY state. This is not a Michigan problem, it is national. Oh yeah, every state also has car dealerships and many have GM factories. If GM is forced into Chapter 11, what are the first things to go - the union contracts and the dealership agreements. Next are the supplier agreements - although the suppliers already make very little money and will also go into bankruptcy if this happens.

So for all those bashing GM, go see your doctor. You obviously have cranial-rectal inversion syndrome. This is curable with a little education and research.