Good-bye General Motors

This news post (yahoo! finance news post linked below), like everything GM, is again shamefully mis-titled and mis-represented. "End of an era"? GM isn't and never was symbol of any 'golden' era (not even any worth remembering era for that matter), no matter how repeatedly they've told us so and how continuously they'd keep telling us so. "End of a cartel" may be. Or, "end of blatant greed" perhaps. Or, "failure of that concept called capitalism" more aptly. GM epitomizes everything that is and was wrong with American capitalism. From 'profit-comes-first' thinking to 'everything is fair in business' belief, from insensitive customer handling to inept workforce management, from confusingly complex marketing tricks to outrightly dumb designs, from insane white-collar benefits to an increasing innovation deficit, from a super-inflated ego to a line of mediocre products ... for a long time GM has been accumulating in it's repertoire, everything necessary to sink it to the ocean floor and take down with it, a whole lot of others too. Do I need to say, that's the same path that capitalism is on, too?

End of a 'crap car' era: Good bye GM.

-- Waqqas.
*For more of GM's 'historic accomplishments' to mark an 'era', see my 2007 post (copied below).


----- Message d'origine ----
De: Shiraz Bashir shirazbashir[at]gmail.com
Envoyé le: Dimanche, 31 Mai 2009, 13h31mn 35s
Objet: End of an Era: US General Motors Going Bankrupt on Monday

End of an Era: US General Motors Going Bankrupt on Mondayhttp://finance.yahoo.com/tech-ticker/article/256244/End-of-an-Era%3A-GM-Going-Bankrupt-On-Monday
The company who defined Automotive industry is going bankrupt. This is classic example of disaster which results from refusing to Introspect, continuing to blame others, unable to change.
-Shiraz.

----- Message d'origine ----
De : Waqqas Akhtar <waqqas_akhtar[at]yahoo.com>
Envoyé le : Jeudi, 24 Mai 2007, 23h42mn 39s
Objet: Fact file: How Petro-enterprises are blocking the electric revolution...
Hello!
This evening I intend sharing with you a revealing documentary. "Who killed the Electric Car?"
This documentary makes clear, electric vehicles didn’t die of consumer indifference. They didn’t even die – as some of the more arcane arguments would have it – because of concern about electrical grid capacity in the wake of blackout crisis. Rather, they were deliberately and meticulously pulled out of circulation and destroyed by the companies who manufactured them. The car makers, along with the oil companies and the gas pump operators and their political allies, first sabotaged and then strangled the electric vehicle, not because it had no future but because it threatened their core livelihood - OIL!
In this excellent documentary video . . . Director Chris Paine elucidates the situation that we all know of subliminally, but maybe are afraid to face head on, that we do not REALLY need the deadly oil, or in this case, gas, to make our lives and our cars go. They can run just as easily, and more importantly, cleanly, on electricity. Paine outlines in chilling detail how the major car companies created, then reclaimed and destroyed the very vehicle that may save our planet, from everything from Global Warming to War in Iraq. That terrible secret is laid right out clearly and powerfully. The Oil Companies are running the world and our lives. And their greed for fossil fuels is destroying our environment, our health and maybe eventually the entire planet itself. . .

Who Killed the Electric Car? is electrifying and should be required viewing for every citizen of the Earth. Kudos to distributors Sony Pictures Classics for putting this important film out there for all the world to see. I hope that someday a film of this type nabs an Oscar nomination, for Best Documentary.

Preview:
http://www.sonyclassics.com/whokilledtheelectriccar/electric.html

Synopsis:
It was among the fastest, most efficient production cars ever built. It ran on electricity, produced no emissions and catapulted technology to the forefront of the automotive industry. The lucky few who drove it never wanted to give it up. So why did General Motors crush its fleet of EV1 electric vehicles in the Arizona desert?

WHO KILLED THE ELECTRIC CAR? chronicles the life and mysterious death of the GM EV1, examining its cultural and economic ripple effects and how they reverberated through the halls of government and big business. The year is 1990. California is in a pollution crisis. Smog threatens public health. Desperate for a solution, the California Air Resources Board (CARB) targets the source of its problem: auto exhaust. Inspired by a recent announcement from General Motors about an electric vehicle prototype, the Zero Emissions Mandate (ZEV) is born. It required 2% of new vehicles sold in California to be emission-free by 1998, 10% by 2003. It is the most radical smog-fighting mandate since the catalytic converter. With a jump on the competition thanks to its speed-record-breaking electric concept car, GM launches its EV1 electric vehicle in 1996. It was a revolutionary modern car, requiring no gas, no oil changes, no mufflers, and rare brake maintenance (a billion-dollar industry unto itself). A typical maintenance checkup for the EV1 consisted of replenishing the windshield washer fluid and a tire rotation. But the fanfare surrounding the EV1’s launch disappeared and the cars followed. Was it lack of consumer demand as carmakers claimed, or were other persuasive forces at work?

Fast forward to 6 years later... The fleet is gone. EV charging stations dot the California landscape like tombstones, collecting dust and spider webs. How could this happen? Did anyone bother to examine the evidence? Yes, in fact, someone did. And it was a murder. The electric car threatened the status quo. The truth behind its demise resembles the climactic outcome of Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express: multiple suspects, each taking their turn with the knife.

WHO KILLED THE ELECTRIC CAR? interviews and investigates automakers, legislators, engineers, consumers and car enthusiasts from Los Angeles to Detroit, to work through motives and alibis, and to piece the complex puzzle together. WHO KILLED THE ELECTRIC CAR? is not just about the EV1. It’s about how this allegory for failure—reflected in today’s oil prices and air quality—can also be a shining symbol of society’s potential to better itself and the world around it. While there’s plenty of outrage for lost time, there’s also time for renewal as technology is reborn in WHO KILLED THE ELECTRIC CAR?

-- Waqqas.