It was interesting listening to former GM white-shirt and idea thief, Bob Lutz speaking with local conservative talk, christian table hammerer and climate change denier, Frank Beckman earlier today about the origins of the Volt, and what the motivation was in its manufacture.
Lutz openly trashes those trying to make the environment better when he chirps to Beckmann about their fraternity in climate change ignorance:
"You and I share the same views on global warming, we're not doing it (building the Volt Hybrid) for CO2, by the way have you noticed no one's talking about CO2 anymore."
It is telling, it is a revelation as to what the big idea is behind the Volt. It's not to move toward a green economy. It's not to meet the American demand to get off of fossil fuels. If anything, Lutz is an oil advocate, and even admits to being on the board of a combustion engine advocacy lobby company. So don't think for a moment that the original mouth behind the Volt gave a fuck about anything but killing the popularity behind Toyota's hugely successful Prius. Lutz whines that hearing the media swooning over it when it was new just nauseated him.
"It made you wanna gag," Beckmann inserts.
"Oh, absolutely it was sickening." Lutz responds.
Beckmann goads Bob Lutz to explain why people should remember his name as the "Intellectual Father of the Battery Vehicle." And Bob obliges.
"Well, I'm very proud of it and actually do consider myself the intellectual father, and the driving force behind it."
How, you ask? How is Bob Lutz the sort of Menlo Park Wizard of auto?
"In various meetings we were all engaged in hand wringing, garment tearing and teeth gnashing over the incredible infatuation of the American media with Toyota. (...) And I proposed a lithium ion powered electric car and I talked to some people who had some advanced lithium ion batteries and they said they could do a show car for us that, like the Tesla, had a 200 mile range. And I said, lets do one!"
But that wasn't where the final idea came from, as much as Bob would like you to assume all on your own, as he continues his recollection.
"And then, John Lochner, my colleague at GM and a certified engineer which I'm not, said 'look it's not a bad idea to do something radical, and extreme, and on fuel efficiency, and do something nobody else has done but let's not do a pure battery operated car."
Lutz explains that he draws out how he envisioned what basically had already been done ... by the very car company Lutz so hated, Toyota. Lochman draw it out on a paper pad in what Lutz says was "about 10 minutes."
"And the minute he laid it out for me I realized (ahem) that this was now my idea."
So GM steals the idea for a hybrid from Toyota, albeit one that goes slightly farther on battery power before sucking up gasoline and spewing out CO2s and exhaust fumes like everyone else, and doing nothing to innovate a green economy which Lutz sneers at as the bane of the business infrastructure.
And Lutz, the man who claims the mantle as the brain behind the Chevy Volt, admits on live radio of stealing the credit for the concept from an underling like a cannibal over a giant iron pot.
The entire 17 minute interview is laced with right wing contempt for all things Progressive, and it illustrates the real motive behind this technolgical snorer.
GM's presentation of the Chevy Volt is a fucking ruse. There's no heart behind it. There's no mission. There's no plan. There's no vision. It's just a half-hearted fling of technological toys to out-do Toyota for a while and to hold the greenies back awhile until America loses interest.
Unfortunately this time, other car companies are standing around and waiting for GM to be the innovators. Later this year Nissan will introduce the first commercial electric vehicle, the Leaf.
Fuck you GM. You killed the electric car once, and if you thought you could get away with it, you'd do it again. Take your Volt and shove it up your outlet. My first EV will not come from a Detroit maker, much as I wish it did. The simple fact is Detroit isn't interested in making and EV. It's the same people behind their design now as it was when they tried to do the oil companies bidding and smash any talk about electrics, just like the smashed the electric trolley companies when they first muscled their way into Detroit.
GM is why I wish there never was a bail out for the auto industry. Because to me, for GM to fail and close up shop would be like watching the evil villain in a stupid sci fi movie loosing its grip, and slipping off the giant cliff into the fiery chasm below, met with peals of cheers from a relieve audience.