Tuesday, April 7, 2009

did GM really miss the boat that badly?

detroit is an easy target these days, but having finally seen "who killed the electric car?," i'd like to throw a few at that big bull's eye.

i enjoyed this movie. i mean who doesn't love hearing president bartlett (aka martin sheen, the narrator) talking sense again. i only had 2 complaints, 1. i thought the effort to be a little bit balanced was a little too lopsided. (in a direction that i agreed w/, but still...) i think it would have been better if they let their biases be known even more clearly. 2. i would have liked to hear more about the other electric cars' stories, not just the GM. buuut... they had a neat little package of a story for the GM EV and a cute redheaded spokesperson to tell some of it. so i can see why they chose it. readers, what did you think of the film?

ok, enough with the movie reviewing, hotpants! here's the nitty gritty that i got from the film, for those that don't know. the lovely golden state demanded that 10% of vehicles be zero emissions for car companies to be able to sell in their state (a board called CARB did this). yay! for them. electric cars were produced and a lot of people liked them (at least the GM EV). There were wait lists. However, they were not mass-produced for a variety of reasons, and some conspiracy theories (that i might believe...). then cali revoked the policy (at least in part) and the cars were destroyed. every one of the GM EV's was leased, so they recalled them and crushed them. arg!!!! now there are wait lists for hybrid toyatas instead.

i heard two things on the radio relevant to detroit today. one was that jay leno is giving a free concert to several thousand people who had been laid off there recently. the other was a commentator predicting that the prolonged recession will bring "smaller cars and fuller lives." well here's hoping that for laughs, smaller cars and fuller lives for the people in detroit that no longer have jobs thanks, in part, to their bosses' short-sightedness.

the film's website (it's really good and very informative)

GM's response to the movie

5 comments:

John Moore said...

I bet the Jetson's cars where electric and isn't that what we are all really looking for, where is my robot?

hotpants said...

i forgot to mention that the cali's were not doing this just to be crunchy. smog has terrible health effects and the fact that GM and other companies fought this tooth and nail is kinda despicable.

and yeah, where is your robot john? where is mine for that matter.

howdoyoustopthiscrazything said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
howdoyoustopthiscrazything said...

Your robots have all gone missing because they're getting ready for Pesach.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=noDiXiGp6ew

Jonathan said...

I haven't seen the movie, but a friend from school sent me a video of his response to the movie today:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGhNXSk6BEw&feature=channel_page

(The video isn't exactly riveting, but it is an electric car he has been working on for a little while now)