So, how's it working so far, Obamessiah?
Time and time again, President Obama has told us that the reasons why GM and Chrysler failed is that they were not making and selling the small efficient cars that Americans wanted to buy (and I will keep bringing up the Chrysler 300 he owned as Exhibit A that he's lying through his teeth - not until he started to run did HE buy "eco-friendly").
Thus, I smiled when I first read this...
Detroit, Mich. — The future of GM and Chrysler depend on increasing their production of small cars and hybrids, says the Obama administration — even as sales of small cars and hybrids are in the tank.
Obama has been hawkish on hybrids, pouring money into GM in part to force it to transition to hybrid vehicles. “The plants shut down for a period during the height of the Depression, and major shifts in production have been required to meet the changing times,” he has said. “Tractors became automobiles. Automobiles became artillery shells. SUVs are becoming hybrids as we speak.”
I think the changing time" was called WW II - this time is not a time of all out war where ALL resources need to be diverted for survival. Once again, we see the strawman, silly rhetoric that is getting so, so tiring.
Well, no. GM announced today that it has suspended production of the Chevrolet Malibu hybrid due to poor sales. A glut of 2009 models is sitting on dealer lots. In fact, the Malibu hybrid has been losing sales to its sister four-cylinder gasoline model, which gets similar mpg numbers (22 city/33 highway compared with 26/34 for the hybrid) but is $4,000 cheaper.
Trouble is, Chrysler will be selling in the U.S. market where small car sales in May dove 39 percent compared to a 27 percent decline in SUV sales.
...and cringed as the future still holds that he is eliminating the freedom of our choice to pick the cars and trucks we would prefer by taking over GM / Chrysler, the financial institutions that fund our purchases of them, and the CAFE standards that will mandate small cars.
All in the land of the free???
Remember, we are supposed to be a free people - we are going to lose that freedom until we start the push back. Which for me, will be voting with my dollars - nothing for GM or Chrysler until the Feds are out AND the CAFE standards stop being stupid.
At the risk of seeing the auto equivalents of Amtrack (which is only alive due to long term massive tax payer funding), I hope the small car strategy blows up in his face.
(H/T: Planet Gore)
