Kill the Messenger - this time the LA Times

[tw]

From CBSMarketWatch.com of 20 Feb 2006:

Moody's dunks GM further into junk
Moody's Investors Service on Tuesday pushed General Motors Corp.'s debt deeper into junk, piquing concerns that the troubled automaker is not making adequate progress to avert bankruptcy. ...

The credit-ratings agency cut GM's $30 billion in debt to B2, five notches below investment grade, down from B1. Moody's outlook for GM is negative, which means another cut could be on the way.

As long as the GM problem remains - its top management and especially the bean counter Rick Wagoner - GM will only continue along a well worn path taken by AT&T, big American steel companies, and Penn Central. GM does not even have, standard, 70 Hp/liter engines in their products. In each case, top management was not removed while that top management blamed employees, unfair competition, the economy, economies of scale, the LA Times, and everything else but the only problem - top management.

[Undertoad]

Honda doing hydrogen fuel cell car PLUS home hydrogen generation.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Don't hold your breath. They've got a long, long way to go before that's going to happen around here.

[richlevy]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

Don't hold your breath. They've got a long, long way to go before that's going to happen around here.

Not really. It's the same as with the hybrids. An innovative Japanese manufacturer builds the first commercially viable models, licenses the technology, and drags the American manufacturers kicking and screaming into the marketplace.

Toyota had the first commercially available hybrid in the US, followed by Honda.

American manufacturers haved been working with fuel cells. There are even buses in the US running on fuel cells. I still own stock in Ballard Power, which has gone from $3 to $150 and back down to about $6. It is the company that was partnered with Ford.

The founder of the company has started a venture to attempt to build the infrastructure in the US and Canada. It is one of GM's Advanced Technology Partners. It just seems odd that with all of these partners, and with concept vehicles already being built, the Japanese are still going to beat GM to the market.

[Griff]

BAE North America is working with Daimler Chrysler on their hybrid bus. Some of the work is being done in Johnson City.
At the heart of the Orion VII hybrid bus is the HybriDriveTM propulsion system provided by BAE Systems. The system propels the bus with a single electric motor that is powered by a diesel-driven generator and an energy storage unit. Among the system's benefits:
The engine is smaller than that used in conventional buses and runs at optimum speed for clean operation and efficiency.
The design offers quicker acceleration, helping drivers merge into heavy traffic.
Customers enjoy a quieter ride than on a conventional diesel bus.
The system design eliminates the transmission, thereby removing a major maintenance item on vehicles operated in heavy stop-and-go conditions.
A regenerative braking system uses the drive motor to slow the bus, effectively turning the motor into a generator to help recharge the energy storage system. This feature saves energy and also reduces brake wear by about one-third, reducing the frequency of brake maintenance.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Originally Posted by richlevy

Not really. It's the same as with the hybrids.

Bullshit. It's not the same as hybrids. H-Y-D-R-O-G-E-N!
Where you gonna get it? It takes a ton of energy to get hydrogen from anywhere. They're using natural gas and that's not cheap or plentiful. Getting it from water is even more expensive. Then you've got to distribute it.
Like I said, "Don't hold your breath. They've got a long, long way to go before that's going to happen around here."

Hybrids are viable right now, but this Honda/Hydrogen deal is way off, if ever, for this country.

[fargon]

What is wrong with GM? What is always wrong with GM, Back in the '70s my Dad had a friend who was a GM engieneer. When my Dad asked him why they didn't put a 4-53 2 stroke diesel in the pick up trucks instead of some POS made out of a big gas V/8? He was told that the public would not buy a 4 cylender engine when they could have a V-8.
And the GM 2 stroke diesel engines will last forever, Why put them in a car that will only last 5 years.
Ford uses a V-8 built by Navistar (International Harvester), and Dodge uses an inline 6 cyl. turbocharged monster. My 91 dodge 3/4 ton has a twisted frame and the transmission has only 2 speeds that can be used because that engine has so much torque that it destroyed the truck, after 750,000 miles. The only thing we use this truck for is feeding the cows. that engine starts and runs like it did when it was new.

As far as Hydrogen fuel goes, we have a viable fuel source now every time you flush your toilet. Self produced methane has been in use for years in many third world countries. Hog farmers, and dairymen have been using this technology to produce eletricity with very positive results.

GMs got a problem? Yes they brought on them selfs.

[tw]

So many have considered saving GM from itself. Ross Perot tried and was eventually paid a massive and handsome reward to go away. T Boone Pickens had looking into it. Carl Icahn considered it. Kirk Kerkorian is the latest to try having bought just short of 10% GM stock over 18 months, suffered large losses, got GM to talk to Nissan and Renault, and has apparently just given up after initially suggesting he would increase his GM ownership to 12%. From the NY Times of 7 Oct 2006:

Dissident Quits Board at G.M.
More than that, however, Mr. York said he had not found “an environment in the boardroom that is very receptive to probing much beyond” data provided by management.

But Mr. York always faced the risk of being the board’s odd man out. Early on in his tenure as a G.M. board member, management experts suggested he would probably be isolated, given that every other G.M. director was chosen while Mr. Wagoner was chief executive or a top company manager.

In fact, Mr. York’s comments echoed those of another dissident G.M. board member, H. Ross Perot, who parted ways with the company nearly two decades ago after a brief but bitter stint on the board.

From the Washington Post:

In his resignation letter, York said he quit because the boardroom environment was not "very receptive to probing much beyond the materials provided by management."

That is what Ross Perot also complained of 20 years earlier.

The Nissan Renault alliance fell through when Wagoner (GM's top executive) insisted those other companies pay a premium surcharge for doing the alliance with GM. Wagoner somehow insisted that doing business with GM would vastly reward those other two companies. Maybe if GM had something of value to provide. GM products are some of the world's crappiest. The reason that Nissan and Renault were talking is because their changes to GM would make GM more valuable - in direct contradiction to Wagoner's thinking. GM without Nissan and Renault would only continue to stagnate. Why should they pay GM a premium to save GM?

1970s meant innovation with overhead cams. 1980 were the 70 Hp/liter engine (85 and 100 for turbo and supercharged). 1990s were the development of a hybrid. GM still has no overhead cam engines, still does not sell 70 Hp/Liter engines which is why so many GM cars are six and eight cylinders - for more expensive. And, of course, GM still has no hybrid. Classic when management all comes from business schools, does not drive, and fears innovation.

[richlevy]

GM bitches about fuel standards.

DETROIT (Reuters) -- A proposal to increase U.S. fuel economy standards would force Detroit-based automakers to "hand over" the market for trucks and sport-utility vehicles to Japanese manufacturers, a senior General Motors Corp. executive said.

Bob Lutz, GM's vice chairman and the head of the company's global product development team, said the proposed changes to the government's Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards would represent an unfair burden on the traditional Big Three automakers.

"For one thing, it puts us, the domestic manufacturers, at odds with the desires of most of our customers, namely larger vehicles," Lutz said in a year-end posting on a Web site maintained by GM.

He added: "That effectively hands the truck and SUV market over to the imports, particularly the Japanese, who have earned years of accumulated credits from their fleets of formerly very small cars."

Lutz, a long-time critic of government fuel economy regulations, compared the attempt to force carmakers to sell smaller vehicles to "fighting the nation's obesity problem by forcing clothing manufacturers to sell garments only in small sizes."

So basically, now that everyone else in the world has shown that fuel efficient cars can be made, it's unfair to actually set better standards. Cry me a river, Bob.

[Aliantha]

Well it just comes down to the dollar sign at the end of the day.

If they choose to market more efficient cars more effectively, they'll have a growing market. If they choose to rest on their laurels and let the consumers buy what they've already been told they want, then that's what will continue to happen.

To manufacture more fuel efficient vehicles the initial costs would be exhorbitant and that's the only thing stopping the big guys atm. When they're either forced to do it, or realize that fuel for cars as they are now is starting to get a bit more thin on the ground, they'll have to bite the bullet. After that, they'll just tell consumers they don't want big huge gas guzzlers. What they want is something sporty and economical.

Another issue is steel... there are other alternatives that are as strong and not as heavy, but the US auto industry is so deeply in bed with steel that the idea of anything else is just impossible for them to even think of.

[tw]

Originally Posted by richlevy

So basically, now that everyone else in the world has shown that fuel efficient cars can be made, it's unfair to actually set better standards.

And why can some make more fuel efficient cars? Because they have been using and are now upgrading from a technology developed in GM in 1972 ... and GM still does not have those technologies in their 2006 vehicles.

Recently did some GM product numbers. GM products once only did 52 Hp/liter. Now GM is doing 61 HP per liter in some V-8s. Why would they spend any money developing V-8s? No vehicle needed a V8. 80% of Toyotas are four cylinder engines. And who is eating GM's lunch every day? Same company that put GM's 1972 technology in their 1992 cars - Toyota.

GM can cry all it wants. But its top management does not even drive. Its top management did not even come from where the work gets done. Even its chief engineer - a graphics art student.

Pretty is defined by what it does - not the shiny paint. Any whore can fix herself with more makeup. Does that really make her pretty? Only bankruptcy can fix GMs only problem - management that does not even know how to drive.

Ford problems are same. Ford also does not have 70 HP per liter engines in all vehicles. Like GM, Ford puts whore V-8s in trucks to appease ‘big dic’ mentalities – rather than go after intelligent customers. Well, at least Ford is admitting how bad Ford has stifled innovation. So Ford may be negotiating to buy that technology from Toyota.

[tw]

Originally Posted by Aliantha

To manufacture more fuel efficient vehicles the initial costs would be exhorbitant and that's the only thing stopping the big guys atm.

It is called Research and Development. If the executive is a graduate of a business school, then R&D (and engineers) is an expense. If the man comes from where the work gets done (by definition, an American patriot), then that same innovation is an asset.

Unfortunately it is that simple. And unfortunately, so many Americans so hate America as to 'buy American'. That 'buy American' attitude is why the problem remains. The real "only thing stopping the big guys" are still too many Americans who are so dumb as to believe George Jr and who also 'buy American'. The problem of intelligence starts at the source - those who keep telling GM, et al to keep making crap.

[Aliantha]

The R&D is done TW. They already know how to make more fuel efficient cars. It's converting the factories that provides the greater expense.

That was my point.

[Hippikos]

Ford's new CEO Mulally could make the difference. He turned Boeing around after 9/11. I heard he created a War Room where he presented the new strategy for the next 3-5 years to the management. All the assets have been mortgaged, including the blue Ford Logo and 82000 people will be laid off.