General Motors (“GM”) was happy to kill the Corvair, with the help of Ralph Nader, crushing its first small idea of an answer to the VW “bug”.
Previously, GM’s Corvette, an answer to the MG-TD, had grown from a “snazzy small car” to a giant gas-guzzler.
GM committed to giant, gas-guzzling monster-cars, which Nader assisted with the claim that only big, heavy cars were “safe”. So with false “consumer-advocates”, government watchdogs, and bulging profit motives, GM closed its eyes to alternatives and blithely sailed along, making ever-bigger, “safer”, and more-crumbly gashog boatmobiles … until the “oil shock” of 1974.
Belatedly, GM shrank down some of its cars to “world-class” platforms, shrank down its operations, lowered its expectations, and survived cratered financials by huge gains on its “purchases” of Hughes and EDS.
Meanwhile, “consumers” – disappointed drivers – turned away from Big-Three cars, because the quality had been so awful. You may remember, in desperation, people turning to pickups, because at least they lasted more than 3 years and didn’t turn into food for Charley the Junkman, rusted-out hulks in trailer parks and on front lawns, vacant lots, or simply abandoned on the street.
One old gent, having struck it rich in business and retired, satisfied his life-long ambition by purchasing a Cadillac El Dorado for all cash ($25,000, a lot of money at the time). Simultaneously, he bought a brand-new Honda Civic for his child; as you can guess, the Cadillac was a good “sittin’ car”, not good for much in the way of drivin’, and the Honda became the car of choice for any trip longer than out the driveway. Similar experiences doomed GM’s reputation; in this case, the dealer had refused to fix what turned out to be a vindictive sabotage of the El Dorado by some unknown factory worker, or some screwup, no one can be sure, but the rings were in “upside down”, supposedly, and its compression sucked…not enough.
It’s not that GM wasn’t warned; DeLorean, once the wunderkind of Chevrolet and the saviour of NAO, had demanded that GM build “a sensible car”. Not only was he exiled and disgraced, he was framed and humiliated, and The Board just ignored his ideas and alarums.
One joke had three guys, about to be executed; the first, an English, had a last request to see the face of the Queen one last time. The second, a Japanese, requested to give one last, Barn-Burning Lecture about The Superiority of Japanese Managerial Techniques. The last, a harried GM middle-manager, requested to be shot first, because he just could not stand … one more … lecture … about the Superiority of Japanese Managerial Techniques. At this time, GM looked to the foreigners for inspiration, but … but their heart was not really in it. They are, after all, mostly owned by folks who own far more BIG OIL, and who would not like the idea of cutting down on gasoline consumption:
http://EV1.org/gmoil.htm
GM’s short-lived “come to Jesus” launch of Saturn, to emulate the excellence of Japanese cars, produced a perennial money-loser that became, eventually, just another loser division of Chevrolet.
GM, forced to produce the EV1 oil-free car, did everything it could to fight against it, even buying up the battery patents and selling them to … an oil company (Texaco, which became part of Chevron)! Later, GM rectified their goof, after the election of Bush ensured that the Clean Air Act could not be enforced, by slurping up and crushing all the evidence they could that such a car could be made.
Recently, oil execs sneered at the idea of “energy independence”, claiming that interdependence with the oil-dictators of the world, and the consequent loss of financial and political power, was what they really wanted for us. Yet, 328 drivers of Toyota RAV4-EV prove, every day, that oil-free plug-in serial hybrids are possible, right now, and that rooftop solar PV systems can generate MORE ELECTRIC credits for night-time off-peak charging than needed for daily driving. This is the reality that the oil dictators, both foreign and domestic, try so hard to hide and eradicate.
That’s why GM, errand-boy to the oil companies, went to such lengths not only to seize and CRUSH the EV1, but also vindictively charged ex-lessees for “damages” on the cars it crushed, and then illegally (in violation of FCRA) went behind their backs to damage their credit rating.
Now, surfacing after a new-life in the gas-glut 1990’s, GM has turned its benighted attention back to Saturn. All these hybrids, all the money-making small cars that GM can’t duplicate. GM feels, it seems, as if it has to do something to look “world-class”. Three years ago, Vice Chairman Klutz (oops, meant “Lutz”) proclaimed the idiocy of hybrids, just as he had trumpeted the “demise” of Nissan. Ooops.
Now, can a doomsquat crypto-hybrid save GM, after so many years of shrinkage and failures?
According to one account by Forbes, the Vue “green line” hybrid shows not how far GM has come, but how far it needs to go, to compete in the world market.
Reference:
- drivingthefuture.com/electcan.htm Shows that daytime solar PV rooftop production, combined with nighly charging of plug-in Electric cars such as the Toyota RAV4-EV, can replace enough gasoline in cars to avoid overseas oil imports – without building a single new power plant, and at a cost lower than drivers’ existing electric bills. ;
