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Originally Posted by glatt
According to this Wired article, GM has literally torn apart the competition to help it decide that hybrids are not the future, and that it should focus its efforts in the hydrogen fuel cell side of things.
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It only takes basic numbers from science to see through those GM myths. Hydrogen - a carrier - does not hold enough energy per pound. Since that hydrogen vehicle requires so many more pounds of hydrogen, what is big enough (or high enough pressure) to hold all that hydrogen? These are damning numbers.
Meanwhile transport and storage problems associated with hydrogen - from basic thermodynamics - says little energy carried by hydrogen actually produces useful work. Hydrogen as a fuel - a carrier - its numbers for transport and storage again say not economically viable.
Return to a question about competency of top GM management - who don't come from where the work gets done. Hydrogen as a fuel is that ridiculous. But the article really hides a much larger management problem.
The Wired article is about teardown. It fueled the Mona Lisa room even long before 1986. Top GM executives could see why GM engines failed more often, cost more to build, and were even taller - causing increased costs in materials, more block, more body, more suspension, etc.
Alex Mair who created Mona Liza room would later create Saturn. GM management could see why 70 Hp/liter engines resulted in lower costs, better engine performance, lower costs, etc. GM executives would see first hand why a technology developed in GM before 1975 caused other automakers to make superior products. But once that technology went through cost control analysis, then, well, still GM does not manufacturer 70 Hp/liter engines for every vehicle.
The joke about tear down: management spends all that money, then completely ignores the lessons. 30 years after GM demonstrated the technology, still GM cars don't have the 70 Hp/liter engine. Even when demonstrated superior in competition products, still GM management even makes new engines only using push rods. Those teardowns demonstrated why 1975 GM technology made competition products with two less cylinders per car - a massive decrease in parts and costs. 15 years of tear downs of cars with that stifled GM technology and still GM management still will not use that technology. It is the pathetic joke about tear downs. An overpaid block of lumber just cannot learn once petrified by his business school training.
The previous post about GM attempting to bankrupt the LA Times is because the LA Times even discussed this Mona Liza room. With tear downs mounted on their own Mona Liza room walls on the 17th floor, still, GM management could not authorize 70 Hp/liter technologies. Better, instead, to bankrupt the LA Times for telling that story. Notice that Wired told the story in a way that GM might not attack.
Appreciate what that Wired article really demonstrates. They will spend a fortune to learn how the competition does it - and still not use the superior technology. That is what happens when so many so hate America as to 'Buy American' - protect top GM management that just cannot learn the obvious. Their paralysis is created by a cost control mentality - that fears to innovate.