The big news over the past week has been the still not completely settled $700 billion bailout of the banking industry. But also noteworthy: the $25 million bailout of the auto industry. It’s not really intended to have any kind of green effect on anything, but it looks like it actually might.
Because it just happens that right now is the moment that GM and Chrysler are in a PR/marketing duel over whose electric car is the Next Prius. Both are coming out with new models in 2010, the Chevy Volt for GM, which is promised to get 100 mpg, and three or four different models from Chrysler (depending on what you count as an electric car), like the Dodge EV, which is supposed to get 150 miles from an electric charge.
Since this is the single greatest area of competition between two of our top three auto makers at the moment, a lot of those 25 billion federal dollars will probably go, indirectly, to the intensive marketing of electric vehicles. The closest thing to a propaganda campaign our government is allowed, in our free-market society, that isn’t an anti-smoking effort.
Image: flickr/Derek Farr
October 1st, 2008 at 11:50 am
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October 16th, 2008 at 11:49 am
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This is one of the more useful reads I have had today.
October 18th, 2008 at 1:24 am
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Where did you get your sources from?
October 30th, 2008 at 10:29 am
The $25 billion - not million - loan to the U.S. auto industry will have a green effect outside of the marketing of hybrid electric vehicles.
The Detroit Big Three - Ford, Chrysler and GM - are largely seeking the money so that they can retool their manufacturing plants to more efficiently and effectively build and design hybrid cars and trucks. Gas-electric and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles burn less gasoline, thus reducing the amount of carbon that is released into the atmosphere and is believed to contribute to climate change.
So the loan from the government will not only help three major U.S. employers and the many companies with whom they work to stay in business, it will also have a positive effect on the environment.
Chris McManes
IEEE-USA
Public Relations Manager
November 8th, 2008 at 6:01 am
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I appreciate you taking the time to post this. Really helps. Thanks!
November 9th, 2008 at 10:18 pm
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It really is going to be a long 2008, isn’t it?
November 19th, 2008 at 7:00 pm
Community Blogger
As the web continues to round up geeks websites, we’ll try to recommend them to you.