American automakers: The power of can't

What a bunch of whiners

Posted by David Roberts at 1:54 PM on 16 Apr 2007

Read more about: politics | litigation | green living | cars | energy

So, remember that lawsuit by the automakers against states implementing California's clean air standards? The one I said might be dismissed, um, several weeks ago? Breaking: it wasn't dismissed!

In fact, the trial is rolling along, and the whiny-ass-titty-baby automakers are in court right now arguing that they don't have the smarts, money, or time to boost their fuel efficiency, and anyway, American consumers demand big, inefficient cars. Why, they won't accept anything less!

Poor, poor automakers.

Remember when the ingenuity and creativity of American industry was envied the world over? When did the political and financial elites in this country become such fearful, clingy, backward-looking wussies?

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capitalism

There is a major myth among the adherents/advocates of free market capitalism that really badly needs to be dispelled.

They operate on the belief that, in a free market, a company will act in order to optimize their profitability. This, through the mechanism of the invisible hand, leads to balanced markets, lower prices, and improved service to the consumer.

This belief is true, as far as I can tell, for entrepreneurial companies, i.e. companies willing to take chances and innovate in order to increase their market share or create new markets. Most successful small companies are this way, of necessity. Some large companies are as well (e.g. Whole Foods).

However, the majority of large companies do not operate on a principle of maximizing profit. Instead, they seek the path of profitable least risk. It's a world of difference, and it leads to crap like this.

by GreenEngineer at 3:03 PM on 16 Apr 2007

Regardless

Regardless of how the whiny-ass-titty-baby US automakers (brilliant, if apt description) feel about it, the world moves on. So like it or not (apparently not), market forces (i.e. reality), not least of which includes peak oil, will doom those companies whose foresight precludes anticipating our changing world.

Pity those hapless workers who cast their lot with the (not so) Big Three.

by gmunger at 6:51 PM on 16 Apr 2007

Evolutionary Model

A better understanding of economic systems can be had if you model them as evolutionary systems, rather than rational ones.

By this, I mean that the momentum of large companies is such that little calculation goes on. Rather, they work analogously to evolution in that the genes (practices) perpetuate themselves, and are naturally selected, rather than being chosen in the normal sense.

For nature to select means that humans have not selected the behaviour in question. The behaviour must create failure of some kind (which can only occur after the fact) in order to be selected out. In any successful company, there will be mechanisms to prune harmful practices prior to company failure, but, in general, they will have done some harm first (in order to be noticed), and will rarely act in advance of that harm.

There will, naturally be mechanisms for creativity too, but here the aversion of harm prevents the development of products that would harm other lines. The effect on other companies' lines, and thus the gain in market share will be treated as an unknown quantity, and in any case needs to be implemented as a deliberate override of the "biological" instictive reaction of the firm in question.

by Morosoph at 5:24 AM on 17 Apr 2007

Ways to get there

The ways to get there are

Clean Diesels (45mpg)
Hybrids (94mpg)
Full Electric (150mpg)

-David Ahlport

by GreyFlcn at 6:57 AM on 17 Apr 2007

Although

Although the easiest step forward would be
"mild hybrids"

Essentially you just swap out the electric starter engine, with one that's an engine one way, and a generator the other way.

And then you connect up an ultracapacitor, or nanolithium battery pack.

Essentially a "regenerative braking only" hybrid.

-David Ahlport

by GreyFlcn at 6:59 AM on 17 Apr 2007
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