Detroit 3 vary in their electric-vehicle visions

[msirach]

Who killed the electric car part II: CHRYSLER

BRADLEY BERMAN - FREEP - November 22, 2009

Will Chrysler killing their EV division drive the nail deeper in their coffin? --Ed.

Chrysler said recently that its in-house team of electric car development engineers had been disbanded and will be folded into the company's organizational chart.

The announcement comes three months after Chrysler took $70 million in grants from the U.S. Department of Energy to develop a test fleet of 220 hybrid pickup trucks and minivans. It comes less than a year after Chrysler built its case for federal aid -- it received $12.5 billion -- by showing flashy designs of electric sports cars, trucks and vans, and promising 500,000 battery-powered vehicles on the road by 2013.

With a swipe of his wrist, Fiat CEO Sergio Marchionne cast aside Chrysler's EV plans -- commenting that batteries aren't ready, the market is minuscule and "electric vehicles are going to struggle." In doing so, he followed in the footsteps of other U.S. and European carmakers that have dismissed the inexorable movement of the auto industry toward greener more fuel-efficient electric and hybrid cars.

Chrysler is now left with an obligation to put those 220 test hybrids on the road -- which it says it will honor -- and an anemic effort to market a Dodge Ram Hybrid, which is to dribble out next year after five years' worth of promises that the vehicle is coming. In an era when green is the new black, the breakup of Chrysler's hybrid and electric car team is a public relations blunder.... [Read More]

[Robert Lastick]

The Article pines;

"Wouldn't it be cool if there were a Detroit auto company that saw the value of electric-drive vehicles (unlike Chrysler), and (unlike GM) was modestly going about producing common-sense, affordable electric cars and plug-in hybrids on existing global scalable platforms"?

For decades we Americans have been subject to Detroit's propaganda selling us fuel sucking pigs to enhance their bottom line. They and their lobbyists have kept high MPG cars they make for Europe out of this country. Their propaganda has been so successful that most of us now feel that the bigger the engine under our hood and the faster and more aggressive we drive, the more we can strut our machismo. Now that gas prices have dropped we see our fellow Americans again stepping up to enhance their machismo with bully fast driving and Silverado's.

And, in a larger sense the big three have every right to continue with "business as usual". After all, our economy is built on the profit incentive. If they feel they can make a bigger profit selling FSP's then they have every right to do so. If they must engage in restraint of trade, price collusion and corrupt practices to do this (as they have for decades), then so be it. Other industries are into it big time. It IS the "American" way.

Factors such as our countries oil dependency and what we as a country is doing in the world (and to the world) to put gas into our Silverado's simply is not part of the equation. When the needs of the country and the profits of large companies are at odds, those in power have their god given American right to stamp out anything that is in the way of their bottom line. End of topic. Responsibility and ethics simply do not count.

We Americans will all have to simply roll over and accept their will. They are actually using our tax dollars now to sell us more machismo. Health insurance providers have been doing the exact same thing.

We must fix this huge hole in our system that allows those who have the power to do anything they want to increase their bottom line. It is not the American way, and we do have to do it SOON.

[saturnsc2]

Nice to see the ev1 sitting right next to the volt...The ev1 bodywork and stance looks superior in every way

[wokwithm]

Agree with you two!

And when is the next Report Card?

[brick]

Robert, I think you nailed it!