It's Always About the Money

"Groagun" (groagun) 10/30/2019 at 15:50 • Filed to: None

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If you’re a petrol head, got gasoline running through your veins, you know what Top Gear is and was. We set schedules around new episodes and series when Jeremy, James and Richard graced us with their presence on the ‘tele’.

Back in the day if you lived on this side of the pond, you had to wait for Final Gear to upload the torrent, but we managed. You could get edited and commercial laden episodes on BBC America months after their initial airing but let’s be real; there was nothing better than the original.

If you ‘l come with me back in time, to a specific episode, a trip down memory lane, I‘d like to write about one of, if not the best segments ever done by Top Gear, the old crew. It really is remarkable art/television that should be taught in school and shown as an example of what is and can be great about the art form of moving pictures.

It’s just shy of 4 minutes, so take the time and enjoy. If you know it, watch it again and just marvel in its beauty, simplicity and emotional journey.

This clip is seriously great television and deserves all the praise we can heap upon it. BUT,,,,,,, the actual message conveyed by Mr. Clarkson is complete bull shit.

Let’s leave the past there for a moment and return to present day, a story yesterday on Jalopnik, Oct 29/2019. It isn’t a new story, quite to the contrary: this is a story that’s been almost 3 years in the making and longer if you really deep dive back to the Bush administration and the GM and Chrysler bailouts. And yes my conservative friends, it was President Bush who authorized the $17+ Billion to the auto industry using TARP(Troubled Assets Relief Program) in late 2008, before President Obama took office.

We can debate whether or not that was a good policy that in the long run helped or hurt the American auto industry but at the time, you either saved all those jobs or, put millions of people out of work. I tend to come down on the side of not bailing out the industry but it was very likely that had the taxpayer not flipped the bill and let GM and Chrysler die, the economy may have spiraled out of control and we, we the world, may have thrust ourselves into an unbelievable depression.

I’m not convinced that what we got was something better in the end overall. GM is and has been a shit show for a long time now. By no means am I putting any blame on the line workers: they work hard and can only build what the company tells them too.

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I have dealt directly with GM people, middle to upper management. For the most part, nice people and passionate car enthusiasts but the system is terrible. For me, GM is a place where good people go to kill their careers and ambitions. That company is a disaster and if you’re young and just getting into the business stay away from GM! Oh and Chrysler, FCA now, don’t get me started.

It is really disheartening meeting bright and passion people working at GM whose talents are going to waste in that terrible company. That leads us to the very topic of today’s blog.

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Just the first gear section, “1st Gear: A Whole Bunch Of Car Companies Side With Trump In California Fuel Economy Battle”

Let’s just break this down to its most simple elements;

One – These companies including GM and FCA, are tired of having to meet stricter emissions in California. They want it easier on them and a slower pace of technology advancement.

Two – Having to spend more on R&D isn’t in the interest of share holders and in turn, management.

Three – Siding with the Trump administration while not the best public image, furthers the agenda of point Two.

Four – This is all for immediate and short term gains. Again, shareholders are interested in making money now, who cares about tomorrow?

Five – Look carefully at the companies who are siding with the Trump admin. GM, FCA, Toyota, Mazda, Nissan, Kia and Subaru. Perhaps with what you would think is the exception, Toyota, all are way behind or non players in the alternative power train game: That being either hybrid or batteries or anything else of serious consideration from a propulsion stand point.

Six – The reason they have signed onto this nonsense, it buys them time. The time to develop an alternative power train they can put on the showroom floor. It allows them the space to spread out their R&D investments over a longer period keeping more money for shareholders on a per annul basis.

Seven – Lets be real and honest with one another: The internal combustion engine has served humanity well over that last 100-200 years. We’ve advanced and grown as a species in large part because of the ability to freely and easily travel to far off destinations that not so long ago would be near impossible for %98 of the entire global population.

Bonus points if you can name the car those seats come out of.

Hell, as little as 100 years ago in America, the land of the car, it was common place for people to have never been outside their own little town, never even going to just the next town over. Now we take that for granted: jump in the car, use the train, take a bus, grab an Uber, taxi it to the airport or any other form of dead dinosaur powered contraption that can move us with complete ease and freedom on and in a transportation network and infrastructure that is the stuff of dreams.

The catch however, with all of this advancement is, the numbers have caught up to us and it’s time for the internal combustion engine to be retired.

This many people and these may cars simply do not mix well. We’re killing ourselves, slowly, but we are coming to a point where it is no longer sustainable.

Mr. Trump and people like him deny global warming and the effects man made activities are having on our planet and ultimately us! It’s not the planet we are going to kill, it’s us!

There are lies, more lies and damn lies: Mr. Clarkson started us out by lying and crying about the Aston Martin Vantage V12 being the last of its kind. Oh please, we can buy a 700+ HP Mustang right now. A Mustang with 700+ HP! A Mustang is a rolling pile of tin.

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The auto makers who have sided with the Trump administration? Their lying about why they have. If it were up to them to decide, we would all still be driving around in a 1962 Chevy Biscayne.

Now if you’re a family in need of something bigger, they even have a wagon version for you. You SUV lovers can rest at ease.

And that leaves us. What are we lying about? We’re the enthusiasts, the petrol heads, and the ones with gasoline running through our veins. We’re lying to ourselves about the reality of the world, our place in it and the health of just not the planet but us as a species.

I love cars and motorcycles and things that go fast and can deliver me a thrill that most other things simply cannot. I hear all too often that we the enthusiasts will be the last ones still driving ICE cars and bikes and so on. That is absolutely true.

Way back when we all owned a horse and that horse was a tool. It was the life blood of the farm and the family. Today, horse enthusiasts keep horses for their beauty and magnificence, just how I suspect we will keep our gasoline powered cars in the future.

That’s ok, it’s great! It’s time for us take our lives and health way more seriously and put the internal combustion engine out to pasture. If we don’t, it will be done by the next generation and perhaps not in a manner we like. The ICE has served us well and deserves the right send off, by us, the enthusiasts and the ones who love them. It will be costly but I guarantee, it will be fitting and proper and on our terms, embrace the future and enjoy the ride.

BoxerFanatic, troublesome iconoclast. > Groagun 10/30/2019 at 17:06

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Even if it is time for a transition, there are several points.

1: internal combustion is still the most readily available way to change chemical energy into thermal, and then kinetic energy on-board a vehicle, and chemical energy is still easier to come by more readily.

2: mass-adoption of electric cars from the current small minority to even half or more than half the market, would take HUGE amounts of mineral resources, battery manufacturing, and a huge upgrade of aging power-grids that have been politically allowed to languish. Solar and wind are renewable but not power-efficient. Hydro and nuclear are not welcomed much by environmentalists, and that leaves petrochemicals like oil, natural gas, and coal at the power plant constant output level, because a power plant can’t stop-start like a modern economy car, nor can it store energy readily like a hybrid. petrochemicals on-board a vehi cle is much more individual on-demand.

3: 97 percent of the land-mass in this country alone, is rural areas. Electric adoption in cities is one thing... getting a limited-range BEV to work pragmatically in rural areas with longer distances, and extreme heat or cold for long periods of time, is still not assured and easy.

4: a huge portion of transportation is commercial. HUGE. That means trucks, ships, and trains. They all burn fuel, just like cars, and power plants. Trains, and maybe some ships, are already diesel-electric hybrids.

5: government is not the methodology. It never has worked very well for progress, compared to letting the people and their commerce, aka market forces propel innovation at it’s feasibly natural pace. Incentives, perhaps to a point, but those get dicey. Removing dis-incentives perhaps a little better, but not central planning.

6: making sweeping generalizations and declaring that it is time to change is a sure fire way to mis-manage that change, and one of the ways companies like GM become horrific corporate environments, due to insurmountable management. Preparing for what you can see coming, and reacting to it as it happens, and finding ways to bring proactive pieces into that mix is a more rational process, and if everyone does that, society, culture, and technology progresses naturally and inevitably.

nermal > Groagun 10/30/2019 at 17:42

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The key for widespread adoption of alternative fuel vehicles is for them to become both better, and cheaper. Simple! 

Tesla has come the closest to this. Compare their cars to those from a comparable premium brand. The Teslas provide value that the other competitive models do not. Hence the reason they are selling so well.

Groagun > BoxerFanatic, troublesome iconoclast. 10/30/2019 at 20:56

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I’ll try and tackle this in order

1- yes

2a- I’m not calling nor did I call for the mass adoption of BEV’s. In fact I think the current state of battery technology is no where near what it needs to be to successfully satisfy ou r daily needs. On a side note, you are correct about the process and chemical composition concerns of current battery technology. BEV’s are not the only source of power and we should be employing them all.

2b - The answer to your question about insificnt power grids/infrastructure is in your statement: it’s a political problem. Whether or not BEV’s become the cars of choice, our grids and electric infrastructure must be invested in and built up. We’re going to have to pay for it anyways, might as well do it now and accept one way or another, it has to happen.

3 - The numbers game. “97 percent of the land-mass in this country alone, is rural areas” and %97 of all vehicles are in and operate within urban areas. Again, BEV’s are not for everyone and every situation.

4 - The commercial side of the business is where I work and I know this stuff from top to bottom. We are desperate for alternatives to gas and diesel and the company I’m with now has a solution. It all boils down to money and investment.

5 - The Gov is useless. This is complete and utter nonsense. Governments exist and operate for just this type or reason. When a project of this scale and scope is to be undertaken, only gobernments have the resources and mandate to pursue and take on such large and expensive pursuits. This is nothing but a small minded and bunk conservative talking point used to get rubes all riled up.

6 - I honestly am not sure what you mean by these statements. GM’s problems are that they react to problems that have or already are happening. Most of the time they’ve just been late to the party or missed the train altogether. I also have no idea what the ‘natural and inevitable’ pace or progress is. Can you qualify that against any measure of quantifiable reason we can get behind. Do you think this is all moving too fast?

You make some very valid points but it just seems you are a bit defeatest and are saying ‘we’ll get around to it eventually, might as well just keep doing what we’re doing now and have done for the past 100+ years: even though it’s killing us.

Groagun > nermal 10/30/2019 at 21:05

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On the one hand you’re correct, on the other, not so much.

Tesla is not, nor will ever be an affordable car to own or operate. To be completely honest, they use old battery tech and build cars in the way Henry F ord did and they use aluminum, an expensive and extremely toxic metal to smelt and produce: something they neglect to put in their sales brochures .

BoxerFanatic, troublesome iconoclast. > Groagun 10/30/2019 at 21:21

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I would seriously question the assertion that 97% of vehicles operate in the city.

dense urban areas are where people are least likely to need to own a car, most expensive places to register and park cars, and worst places to drive in traffic, and greatest availability of taxis, rideshares, and pubic transportation. Many, many people live in cities without owning a car.

I live in a decidedly rural area...I have two and take care of a third for an elderly relative . My extended family counts up to 10 vehicles . Granted some of them are classics amidst restoration on their part.

Rural commuting is a whole different thing than hopping on a commuter train and a subway.

On commercial transportation, is Compressed Natural Gas a thing? I’ve heard of conversion kits, but it seems like it hasn’t caught on, despite an abundance of inexpensive, domestic supply.

Regarding GM management.. any corporation that big has layers upon layers of bureaucracy that is too ponderous and personally political to see forward clearly, or react quickly or generally correctly. GM is a particularly obvious example, but most large companies are, and most small companies are almost as bad, being an extension of a few people’s egos.

It is extremely rare to have an effective leader that can overcome the bureaucratic morass of middle management and labor dynamics, rather than being bogged down in it, with a cohesive and effective direction and motivation to move a company (or even worse, the government) forward in a well thought out plan, and an effective mechanism to react to the unforeseeable things that require modifying that plan from time to time.

I am actually not defeatist, I just thing that trying to force the invisible hand is a bad idea, and would rather let it work, and help it’s dexterity a bit from time to time... The work gets done more effectively and correctly that way. Every time a person or group of people come to power and try to force their own agenda, other people end up paying for it, and the unintended consequences and unforeseen complications create more of a mess, not a better solution.

nermal > Groagun 10/31/2019 at 09:45

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If you’re looking for the most affordable car, the answer is always a 3 year old Honda Civic / Accord or Toyota Corolla / Camry that you run to 200k miles.

A 50K Tesla Model 3 will be cheaper to own than a $50k Audi / BMW / Mercedes, due to the inherent lack of maintenance requirements of an EV and lower energy costs. As such, Tesla  can steal market share from that category. They will not steal market share from 3 year old Hondas and Toyotas, but they’re not trying to either.