EVcast #210: GM is Dead and Bo and Ryan Dress for the Funeral

Perhaps a crime greater than crushing the EV-1 was the deliberate plan in the 30's by a consortium of companies like GM, Firestone, Mack Truck, Phillips Petroleum and Unocal (Standard Oil of California back then) to form a front company called National City Lines in the thirties. This was the 1930's and the market for cars was saturated in the 1920's

The car companies were competing with mass-transit in the 20's and 80% of the American public used electric trolleys. They had all of the advantages of electric cars. They were fast, efficient, and had no tailpipe to vent polluting effluents. When the depression kicked in by the 1930's GM was desperate from new markets but one thing stood in their way. That thing was the electric trolley car. Eliminate the trolley cars and you have a new market for your buses. Their plan was to monopolize mass-transit in the United States and the buses would be GM's, of course, run on Firestone tires and fueled with diesel from Phillips Petroleum on the east coast and Unocal on the west coast. Essentially they targeted 40 cities in the US in an effort to replace their electric trolley systems with diesel buses. Their plan was temporarily halted by World War II due to the government's campaign to get people to conserve gasoline for the war effort by driving less and use mass-transit. Once the war ended National City Lines proceeded full steam ahead. However, by 1946, the Justice Department was receiving complaints across the country about how National City Lines was predatorily destroying the trolley cars to promote its buses.

The FBI investigated and the US Attorney General indicted the participants of National City Lines in 1947 on two counts under the Sherman Anti-trust Act. The indictments against National City Lines owners were conspiracy to control a number transit companies in order form a transportation monopoly and conspiring to monopolize buses and sales of supplies to the companies of National City Lines. Ultimately after the original case and appeals National City Lines was found not guilty of the first charge and guilty on the second charge in a court in Northern Illinois. The companies were fined $5,000 each.

Now consider the damage to the United States. Getting us off the rails, so to speak, has made us vulnerable to a way of moving around powered by cheap petroleum whose supply and price stability are waning. Urban sprawl was powered by the automobile and cheap petroleum and the boom in the construction of roads, highways and the Interstate Hiway System. We are now in the midst of rebuilding and reforming our cities at a slow pace. This pace may not be able to compensate for the anticipated rise in gasoline prices which even now are inching their way up in a deep recession.

In short GM's activities in the 30's and 40's have exposed the country to great harm and the cost to rebuild the electric railways will be expensive and difficult to do because rail thrives in high density urban environments. The crushing of the EV-1 was just another example of GM rejecting anything that doesn't conform to a business model that has up until now served it very well.

GM may or may not survive but it is clear to many people that transportation will have to be linked to electricity. That's my take.

http://thethirdrail.net/9905/agt1.htm

PS: Ok Bo, hit your conspiracy alert button.

Rick, from the oil capitol of the world, Houston, TX.

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As made famous in the film "Who Framed Roger Rabbit"

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I can't remember whether or not I took my Ginko today.

Channeling steven wright again.

Now that I am a quasi-live listener I realize the benefit of hearing the show twice.  I understand it somewhat the second time.  Even after two or three times I don't hear my wife.

Gint you assume that you could turn around Saturn by adding some "good" assets. Saturn is considered a bad asset and will take much cash and a major make over and it still maybe a sunk.  It could turn good assets into poo.  Web reports have it being taken over by a non-gm company.

I wonder if the show title will be googleflypaper.  Creating pseudo tech terms is one of my new hobbies.

Fred

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This might make electric car conversions more popular. 2 minutes

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cy0drXTxO48

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    It seems that GM did indeed create the environmental disaster that is Leaded Gasoline.   Which, shockingly, is still sold by American companies to foreign countries. 

    In an ironic and cruel twist in history, in 1925 ethonal was going to be added to gasoline to increase its octane for high performance.  However, ethonal could not be patented so GM went with the toxic additive TEL (Tetra Ethyl Lead). This caused the immediate deaths of dozen's of people working at the factory and many long term health consiquences for the rest of us breathing in lead dust from cars. So ethonal's history with gasoline is a long one.

    The story is a cautionary tale of corporate profits given more importance than human health, of government regulators bowing to corporate pressure, and scientists at Universities being funded by Corporations to give cover to bad corporate actions.

   If you are interested in a very very long and wonderful article from 2000, check this out.

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20000320/kitman/

and a shorter discussion is here

http://www.runet.edu/~wkovarik/ethylwar/

So far from the history of these Corporate behaviors being unknown, they are actually painfully well documented.

   For me, it is also a reminder that burning things is generally bad for the environment and human health.  It would be nice to stop burning gasoline, home heating oil, and coal and perhaps human health would improve.  If we all get to drive around in Tesla's as a result, that is all the better.

Later
John C. Briggs

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GM needs to die to save the Volt.  They need bankruptcy to reduce their bond interest, Union labor costs, supplier costs, healthcare costs, etc.

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