What do you think of the Auto Industry rescue plan proposed by Obama?

[Erbium]

Re: watch the movie "who killed the Electric Car?" to get a perspective

Sort of true, but all the Hybrids Toyota made the first couple of years they sold at a loss, but they eventually came down in price do to MASS PRODUCTION and consumer demand. You have to take a loss sometimes to get a new technology into the market. In general an electric motor needs almost 0 servicing. So, even if the batteries were really failing, that would have been the only bad component. These are bugs that could have been fixed with the next release. The emissions laws in California were relaxed so GM didn't care about the project anymore. If they had kept it up, they would have looked like geniuses now. Isn't it kind of dumb to give up on a project that you know you will need in the future? Who didn't realize even in the early 90's that we need cars not powered by gas? I did and I was 12 years old at the time. I agree that people maybe weren't ready for the electric car then, but why wouldn't you put it on the back burner instead of chucking the whole thing? That car had a lot of design innovations such as the recharging brakes that hybrids used today. Smart people don't give up on good ideas unless something else is going on.

While true, this does not account for the fact that the car manufacturers are a slave to their stock price....you are only as good as your last 3 months on that publicly owned level of business....if you start taking major losses, you not only are losing money, but your public funding will be affected as everyone jumps ship, and sells their stock....when you have the overhead these guys have, no matter how obvious it was to get alternative energy cars on the road, you can't risk it...there is a reason Honda and Toyota were the first to be able to roll out the Hybrids....they are on much more stable financial grounds....Wall street and the quarterly reports have had just as big of an impact on our lack of innovation over the years as anyone, IMO.