Newsweek magazine has published a hagiography of GM Vice Chair 
Bob Lutz. This one-pager, Bob Lutz: The Man Who Revived the Electric Car, focusing on his role in resuscitating the electric car after GM’s efforts to kill the electric car. The 75-year Lutz is given the last word as to his vision.
Detroit’s horsepower jockey insists the Volt will be his crowning achievement—and his swan song. “This is like JFK’s call for the moon shot,” he says. “I want to stick around to see the Volt come to market. Then I’ll pack it in around 80.” And ride off into the sunset on electric power.
Truth be told, after having been core to such environmentally and national security sound vehicles like the Dodge Viper, Ford Explorer and other vehicles that have helped US fall deeper into oil addiction, Lutz has a deep hole to dig himself out of before he merits lavish praise for the Volt.
Now, two points:
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Lutz does seem critical to fostering the Volt at GM.
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The Volt PHEV (plug-in hybrid electric vehicle) could prove crucial to turning the US (and, perhaps, global) auto industry toward a more sensible path.
Now, as we see the singing of Lutz’ virtues, consider this paragraph from the Newsweek piece.
But the biggest naysayers Lutz faced were inside his own company. After being burned by the failure of its EV1 electric car in the ’90s … GM was gun-shy about plugging in again. When Lutz first proposed creating an electric car in 2003, the idea “bombed” inside GM, he says. “I got beaten down a number of times.”
So in 2006, Lutz formed a skunkworks team of engineers and designers to quickly cobble together the Chevy Volt concept car, which became the star of the 2007 Detroit Auto Show. And then he persuaded the brass to greenlight the Volt for production by arguing that they must try to seize the green high ground from Toyota, which is battling GM for the title of the world’s No. 1 automaker. “We saw Toyota getting highly beneficial rub-off from their Prius success, which permitted them to cloak themselves in the mantle of total greenness,” says Lutz. “This was starting to hurt because it was one reason for a sudden surge in Toyota’s market share.”
What jumps out from this?
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“Failure of EV1” as opposed to GM’s undercutting of and destroying of the EV1.
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GM management fought going (back to) electric, hard.
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Production decision was ‘green image’ (greenwashing driven).
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Note the pointing to Toyota’s use of Prius to provide coverage for their gas-guzzling SUVs.
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Note the speed to action. Team formed in 2006. Concept car 2007. Production in a few years. Where would GM be if it hadn’t been so desperate to kill the EV1?
And, well, this hagiography clearly shows that Newsweek doesn’t consider Lutz a putz, no matter what idiocies he might say about Global Warming.
0 responses so far ↓
1 itsaboutchoice // Mar 5, 2008 at 4:40 am
“Truth be told, after having been core to such environmentally and national security sound vehicles like the Dodge Viper, Ford Explorer and other vehicles that have helped US fall deeper into oil addiction, Lutz has a deep hole to dig himself out of before he merits lavish praise for the Volt.”
The “people” bought the cars, Lutz did not force them upon us. Point the finger at yourself and others, not the person that satisfied your desires.
2 A Siegel // Mar 5, 2008 at 11:25 am
Yes, “its about choice”.
There is no such thing as advertising. Yes, “choice” … how many Americans had ever heard of the “Hemi” before it was heavily advertised? (For example …)
There is no such thing as corporate lobbying re CAFE standards and otherwise.
Now, by the way, have you ever seen “Who killed the Electric Car?” I’m not an acolyte, saying that it is the perfect film and 100% truth, but it has quite a lot of substantive material/points laying out how a Corporation (oops, GM) can seriously undercut a project and help it be doomed to failure. In this case, the “people” wanted that electric car and GM choice to take it from them and destroy them.
It is a nice “framing” that it is all about “choice”, but the fact is that choices are constrain by the options put before us and shaped by things like advertising.
3 Thomas C. Gray // Mar 5, 2008 at 1:51 pm
The idea that GM was “desperate” to kill of the EV-1 is a complete fabrication. The EV-1 should never have been offered to the public in the first place. No one who’s familiar with EVs even considered the EV-1 the equal of either Honda’s 1996 electric car (cancelled later that year), ot Toyota’s Rav4 electric, killed at the same trime as the EV-1,but offered to the public for only half as long as the EV-1. Unfortuantely, the only source of info the media has is that totally fititious movie “Who Killed the Electric Car?”, a
long sequence of lies and silly conspiracy theories.
The EV-1 was a total flop, and deservedly so.
Find me one fool who would spend $43,000 to buy (and then $20,0000 every five years for a new battery pack) for a vehicle that couldn’t guarantee a round trip to a destination a mere 35 miles away. And it took 8 hours to recharge!
GM’ had a list (not a waiting list, as “Who Killed..” falsely claims) of GM customers who expresed interest in an electric car. It contained 5,000 names. Only 50 of those ever followed thru with a lease of the EV-1. The idea that the EV-1 was either popular or viable is one of the giant lies the braindead media has swallowed.
You’d think none of them even knew what a car is supposed to do. Incredible!!!
4 A Siegel // Mar 6, 2008 at 12:21 pm
Well, Thomas, this is a distortion of the EV-1. Yes, Who Killed the Electric Car? is not an unbiased film, without message. Don’t think that I’ve ever said/written that. On the other hand, neither is your post. And, “totally fictional”? Come on.
The vitriol comes from where?
Now, as to the EV1, want to mention that there were already delivered upgrades that provided a longer round-trip?
“What a car is supposed to do”? What is that supposed to mean. Are cars and car users 100% the same, requiring and desiring the same things in their transport?
Etc …