Chevy Volt a Failure - GM to Layoff 1,300

No, you have it wrong. Defense is really just an elaborate trillion-dollar, government-subsidized jobs program, according to ACQB, who I had mistakenly considered a smaller-government guy. The wars and casualties are incidental expenses.

 

Perhaps further discussion of this topic should be taken to the Politics thread?

 

So trillions in government waste is OK as long as it creates jobs? Noted.

(And none of these totals include the cost of the wars. Those are kept in a separate ledger.)

 

I think the costs associated with the care and feeding of our military/industrial complex transcend party politics.

 

That's a red herring and you know it.

The point is, the anti-Obamas point to government investment in the Volt (or any other "green" industry still in its infancy) as a blatent example of wasteful spending, but have no problem with 100x times the money being spent on unwinnable wars, or on defense weapons systems we do not need and that the Pentagon doesn't even want.

 

Sheesh, what a partisan hack! Can we ban this guy mods?

 

Ask Kodak if investing in digital photography is worth it.

Ask Blackberry if touchscreens are a good idea to look into.

Ask Barnes and Noble if selling things other than books online is a good idea.

Internal combustion engines very well could be the horse and buggy of this generation. Not working on a viable product does not make good business sense.

 

False. Many, many people like myself take issue with all forms of government waste. Doesn't matter if it's an electric car that can't go more than 100 miles on a single charge or a missile-defense system that hits its target once every 1,257 test firings. It's all wasteful.

But nice generalization anyhow.

 

The all-electric car is about as novel a technology as the horse and buggy. GM might have actually gotten a better bang for its buck -- technology-wise -- by investing in a bunch of next-generation battery developers. There's little reason to anticipate that GM developed knowledge that it can then apply to subsequent products, because the Volt, unique or no, isn't that profound a development.

 

But it's not an 'all-electric' car. It's a plug-in electric with an onboard generator and a range of 380 miles. And who gets to say what's a 'profound development' and what isn't? You? Me?

The number of patents GM has won for hybrid drive and battery design would seem to indicate it has 'developed knowledge' that can be applied to subsequent products.

 

I use the phrase "profound development" here to talk about a radical or revolutionary automotive architecture. The Volt has a number of innovations, as you correctly point out, but these are more of what experts on innovation might call sustaining (rather than disruptive) innovations. This is because they simply further the evolution of a given paradigm. Because organizations can't help but be committed to the way they've been doing things (rather than the way that they should be doing them), it is highly unlikely that the truly worthwhile innovations vis-a-vis electric vehicles will come from inside the automotive industry.

 

And therein lies the difference. I don't believe government investment in an electric/hybrid car is a waste of money. As has been said many times earlier on this thread, it's an investment in an emerging technology that has considerable promise as the product gets better and better, much like radar, cellphones, the Internet, etc. Obviously we disagree.