The Same Old Thing
America’s big three automakers were on Capital Hill recently, attempting to gain support for a Federal bailout of their struggling companies. They say because of their dire financial circumstances, they are cutting back on the development of more fuel-efficient cars. General Motors has delayed the development of its Saturn Vue, a gas-electric hybrid, and Chrysler is halting production of its “well-reviewed” Dodge Durango and Chrysler Aspen hybrids for the next few months. Plus, it’s closing the Delaware plant where they are built.
US automakers want access to $25 billion from the already approved $700 billion Wall St. Bailout package. Rumor has it that’s not likely to fly in the House. Then there’s the option of using $25 billion in loans approved last September, specifically for the development of cleaner vehicles with higher fuel efficiency, for more general uses instead.
This option offers the possibly of keeping the American auto industry afloat during this economic down turn. But at what cost to society’s health and global climate change? Pollutants in our air have been proven to cause asthma and heart disease. Climate change is also proven, and it’s not going away. In fact, it may actually be worse than even the most dire climate models have predicted. I see the financial trouble automakers are in as an opportunity to change the whole industry here, to one that’s cleaner and stronger.
Instead of simply giving loans to status quo production, I wonder what forcing the automakers to use the money already allocated might achieve. What if, purely from a philosophical standpoint, the big three only had the $25 billion in loans already approved, to use? What if they halted production on all vehicles not meeting a higher fuel efficiency standard and focused all efforts on the R&D needed to generate an impressive fleet of hybrids, all-electric vehicles, hydrogen fuel celled vehicles, or even some new technology still on the drawing board? Since we’re headed for a recession anyway, I can’t imagine many cars are going to be sold. So why struggle to keep building them and spend the advertising to get them sold-especially with taxpayer dollars?
Certainly there are arguments to this stiff-armed approach, but I’m only posing this philosophically. Yes, oil is cheap now, so the demand for fuel efficiency is less, but it won’t be like that forever. Also, provisions in union contracts will prevent putting workers completely on the street. There are going to be some job casualties to this recession anyway, why not make them strategic?
If we are truly a capitalistic society, we should allow obsolete technologies to fade into the past and do whatever we can with the public’s money to build a technological infrastructure that benefits the international community as a whole. Being a capitalism would mean getting something substantial for our investment in the Big Three. By shrinking the big three automakers down to their core products and forcing the industry to focus on cleaner more renewable technologies, a stronger, greener industry just might emerge. One that’s ready to put on the road dozens of new green vehicle designs, just in time for the economy to come roaring back.
Tags: Cleantech, Lisa Ann Pinkerton
