General Motors executive Tom Stephens, Group Vice President of GM’s Powertrain division, makes his blogging debut witha post titled Myths and Facts about Fuel Economy. To me the piece is total marketing spin BS and not the reasonably honest, blog-like writing previously published in the same blog by GM Vice Chairman Bob Lutz. I made one simple comment early on in the thread (the second, actually, though the blog doesn’t create permalinks for each comment) pointing this out but subsequent commentators dismissed the attempt by myself and the anonymous first comment. LOL, like that would stop me and so I wrote a much longer comment. GM moderates the comments and mine hasn’t made it through the screen yet, a couple of hours later (hey, it’s Saturday and I’m not accusing the automaker of blocking negative comments), so I thought I’d polish it a bit and post my thoughts here:
For all of you who want to dismiss the concerns I’ve stated (and not anonymously, my user name is linked to my personal website) about the need for a huge change in oil consumption rather than just cars that are a little bit better than the competition, please read this NY Press article: It’s the pipelines, stupid [via JRobb].
While the article’s main focus is on the short term political risk, specifically the increasing focus of terrorist activity in the Middle East on disrupting oil exports (a reality that is independent of your political views or mine), the author also describes the long term (by which I mean 10-20 years, not really that long) problem of Peak Oil.
What is Peak Oil? That’s the concept that we have, or are soon will, pull half the global oil reserves out of the ground. Dr. King Huppert, one of the first scientists to write about it way back in the 1950s, claimed we would reach this level in the 1970s and clearly he was overly pessimistic as significant additional sources were discovered in the 20 years after his initial publications but now that no major new oil fields have been discovered in more than a decade his idea is widely accepted on both the environmentalist left and in the industry. For a good example of the latter, I refer you to Texas oilman and Bush supporter Matthew Simmons who has given many speeches, such as this one, to try and bring this problem into the public debate.
Can GM or the auto industry alone prevent the economic shock that will happen when declining oil supplies–for whatever reason–push prices up far above the recent $57/bbl? No. But building cars and trucks that use a different fuel source can make a huge difference in when the crisis happens and how big it impacts us.
GM has been showing the Hy-wire, a fuel cell-powered complete reimagining of the automobile, for several years now. In my opinion, Stephens and the other GM execs need to partner with their competitors, specialized manufacturers, academics and government to drive these new systems to commercial viability as quickly as possible.
Related: The NY Times has an article today about the latest fad in Celebrityville, New Way for Stars to Keep Truckin’, and as I read it the phrase “How freaking stupid are these people anyway?” repeated in my head, reverberating like a powerball inside an elastic box. “[T]he 7300 CXT, which went on sale in September, weighs about seven tons unloaded, more than twice the weight of the Hummer H2 and equivalent to about five MINI Coopers.” This truck, made by Navistar division International Truck and Engine,… damn, I am so discombobulated by the concept of rich assholes like Ashton Kutcher driving one around that I can’t finish the thought. We’re supposed to think that Kutcher only plays a stupider than a small rock character on That ’70s Show and in movies but he’s making liars out of his PR staff.
BillSaysThis 