E-mail updates
Follow on Twitter
Subscribe to RSS
Handout / Reuters
GM's CEO Dan Akerson flashes next to the Chevy Volt electric car.
By msnbc.com news services
Republicans accused the Obama administration on Wednesday of purposely delaying disclosure of Chevy Volt battery fires to avoid criticism of its General Motors Co bailout and to protect its interests in electric car development.
Jim Jordan, chairman of the House Oversight regulatory subcommittee, said at a hearing that a six-month delay last year was inexplicable and disturbing.
He also said auto safety regulators had not fully cooperated with a congressional investigation of disclosure and other issues involving the Chevrolet Volt, made by GM.
"While it remains to be seen whether GM received special treatment during (the investigation) of the Volt fires, it's clear that the administration has tremendous incentives to protect the political investment it has made in the company and the vehicle," Jordan said.
Volt battery fires first erupted at government test sites in May and then again in November, the last prompting a formal investigation by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
There were no "real world" fire incidents, and NHTSA closed the investigation last week without finding any defects and expressing satisfaction with GM's remedies to better protect the lithium-ion battery pack.
After the hearing, GM Chief Executive Dan Akerson told CNBC that he welcomed the chance to get the company’s point of view on the record, adding that the automaker would now have to reconstruct the car’s public image.
“We are making good products and cars the market loves, whether it’s the volt or other cars,” he said.
Akerson also said politics played a role in the Volt probe.
Akerson said in testimony prepared for the same hearing that political pressure over Obama administration support of alternative fuels and controversy over the auto industry bailouts has fueled the extended investigation of the Volt.
NHTSA has denied allegations it delayed public notification or that its handling of the matter was politically influenced.
David Strickland, the agency's administrator, said investigators first needed to analyze why the fires occurred. He said the agency had no real-world data on Volt fires and used "every second" over a six-month period for engineers to perform a thorough investigation.
Strickland said there was no unreasonable risk to public safety and said he would have sounded a public alarm had there been a reason to do so.
"We would have clearly disclosed it," he said under withering questioning from Jordan and other Republicans on the committee. "The Chevrolet Volt is safe to drive."
The heavily promoted Volt is the centerpiece of GM's efforts to lead on fuel efficiency. Its development has been supported by President Barack Obama, who envisions electric cars as a game changer in reducing oil imports and tailpipe emissions.
The administration, which authorized much of the $50 billion in taxpayer support used to bail out GM in 2009, has aggressively backed funding of suppliers and other research that spurred development and production of the Volt and battery systems used in electric vehicles.
There are roughly 8,000 Volts on the road today and another 6,500 have been manufactured. All will undergo retrofits to better protect the battery from damage in crashes. GM will also take steps to reduce chances of coolant leaks, which can trigger fires.
Reuters contributed to this report.
Leave a Comment:
We all know if this happened to Toyota or Nissan it would have been hyped into a media firestorm after the very first allegation of a fire.
"Too big to fail" once again being protected by another failure (our government).
The Volt fires are just the tip of the ice berg. How about the failed lifters in the 2008 and 2009 Chevy and GMC 5.3 liter engines that cause premature engine failure. If any other manufacture had an issue like this, it would have been front page news and the manufacturer would have been forced by the Department of Transportation to conduct a recall. But not government motors. No recall. Nothing but silence even though the technical service bulletins from GM knew of this problem years ago. How many owners have suffered engine failure due to this? This is just another example of the favoritism that GM has received from the Obama administration. Recent news reported GM's great earnings but failed to mention that GM and its management are still failing to adequately fund the pension and benefit plans. Nothing has changed, other than GM is now part of the government, and the government, more than ever before, can not be trusted.
New technology always presents unexpected problems and when they do occur it is right to have a technical based plan to resolve the problems.
This is not a political issue, merely a new technology issue. The facts only please.
Hey Glenn, quick question for you! If the government can't be trusted, then why in the hell are you believing what comes out of a disgruntled republicans mouth? Seems a bit hypocritical, wouldn't you agree?
To much rian and mold up there in Seattle. You can tell, everytime a democrate opens their mouth nothing but a bunch of crap falls out.
@JustMe...I was born and raised in Detroit and spent the first 25 years of my 44 there! I use to test drive cars for Chrysler, every night driving from Detroit to Grand Rapids then up to Cadillac and back, so I know a little bit about the auto industry and politics. This dear sir is indeed political and another attempt to discredit accomplishments of this administration and show the lament republicans have about being wrong about "guba-ment motors!"
The fact that this was kept quiet for so long by the government is truly disturbing. That the administration pressured the NHTSA to sit on the information for political reasons unfortunately does not surprise me one bit. Obama has been touting this technology and pushed the Volt in particular. To have it come out that the car had problems right after the bailout would have cost Obama dearly in a political sense. This leading the way technology was part of the justification Obama used for his support of GM and for it to come out that the technology was flawed would have left Obama with egg on his face and raised serious questions about the wisdom of the bailout. They took time to all get their story straight to minimize the damage before announcing the defect and it still has done damage to GMs reputation. Imagine if this had come out from the NHTSA before GM had a fix ready. It could have ended up killing the Volt entirely.
Wawwwwwww...Just me...Clearly you suffer from that disease peculiar to conservatives. "Cranial Rectal Insertion Disease." You obviously never worked in the manufacturing sector and have no familiarity with quality systems or ISO standards..Bet you couldn't tell the difference between a caliper and a CMM. So STFU
If I got it right, fires occurred as collision aftermath. Well, non-electric cars have something just as flammable and dangerous in collision - the gas tank. Battery alone doesn't make electric or hybrid cars inherently more dangerous than gas burning ones.
The cover-up is a separate story. In fact, if intentional politically motivated cover-up occurred, it may warrant an investigation and even appointing a special prosecutor.
And the Republicans are very concerned about the common person (no "real life" fires have been reported) and not trying to protect their buddies in the oil industry by discrediting alternate technologies, not to mention their anti-global warming brigade and the fact that this being the election year if GM crashes and burns, laying of thousands of workers and cannot repay the bailout money, it is not going to help them in the elections.
No of course not their multi-millionaire candidates for president are extremely concerned about the peasants.
Republicans accusing the President of something. It must be true, of course...
The issue here surfaced after crash testing. Ordinarily, when crash tested vehicles are dragged off to the yard, they are drained of any leaking fluids to prevent any hazards. If there is a clear short circuit situation, battery cables are disconnected. The problem with the volt is that the batteries contain an enormous amount of energy, not all that different than a full gas tank.
When a crash damages the volt battery or wiring and there may be an unnoticeable amount of "power leakage", over time the damage will heat up significantly and can ignite. If a regular car battery is damaged or feeding a low level short, it will quickly drain all its power without any ill effects. The Volt battery is something entirely different because its power will not quickly drain as its power level is monsterously huge by comparison to a starter battery.
The issue here is not one of driver safety, but one of procedural handling of wreck damaged Volts by wrecking and salvage people involved in dealing with wrecked vehicles. The issue is about the stored energy and how to deal with it. For a century, the biggest concern was the danger of the energy stored in fuel, gasolene or deisel. The Volt, and most hybrids I might add, pose a different situation in that the energy stored is electrical energy in batteries. This is a problem, but not a driver hazard. The issue is about adequately adjusting to this different form of energy storage.
The situation is being blown out of proportion. Many people who do not understand the issue are running with "car fire" like it is a direct correlation to something like the Pinto fires from ruptured gas tanks. It is not the same thing or even comparable. However, some who are exploiting this know full well the difference, but are capitalizing of the basic lack of knowledge in the general public. "Car fire" sounds like an eminent danger. That's not what we're talking about here, but the GM haters want it to sound like that. This wasn't "withheld", I heard about it a very long time ago. But a consumer warning wasn't issued, nor was it appropriate to do so because no extraordinary risk is associated with driving these vehicles.
The perfect volt license plate: OOPS
Just re-volting! First Solydra, now this. I am so sick and tired of this administration constantly COVERING IT'S OWN ASS!
Whatever happened to transparency? Gone, along with the audacity I guess.
Notice "Fast and Furious", et al, has been swept under the rug....and Mr. Holder remains as the DOJ. Anyone working in the private sector would have been FIRED on the spot.
And, notice that 12,000 troops have been sent into Libya when Mr. Obama repeatedly stated "no troops on the ground". That too, has been kept silent at MSNBC.
I suppose Mr. Obama and his staff will say GM is a co-operative ally.
"COVERING ITS ASS" on what?
One of the Volt fires was in a car that had been crash tested. I worked at one of the automaker durability test facilities. What those cars are put through can be extreme at times. The idea is to find out what will cause them to break. Once they break comes the hard part of figuring out if it will happen in the real world. We had several issues that required changing how cars were tested because the problems we found failed to show up in real world use.
This is all just political games with no substance.
Didn't the fires happen months after the crash test while the cars sat around? There has been absolutely no threat to the public.
This is a completely blown out of proportion political witch hunt.
edandbunny - As a test engineer myself I take exception to some of the comments you made. If you design a test program you should have some idea of the failure modes anticipated. Granted there are times when a product can fail in other than expected areas/ways but it shouldn't baffle a competent engineer. If you had so many unexpected failures not anticipated in real world use then your test program is faulty or you have a poorly designed product.
As for the political games, there could be very substantial substance behind the withholding of information. Withheld information not only affects the corporate financial position but also the politics behind the bailout. There could very well be more underlying reasons that your management didn't pass on the news to you - their paychecks, as well as yours, were on the line.
thethinker: What a breath of fresh air. Excellent post simple and direct. I am a radical and don't buy into this administration's credibility whatsoever. I would like to give your post a gold star.
Now that we know these fires were much ado about nothing and the car is safe is there any point in any of this? For the record I was against bailing out the automakers and I wouldn't buy a Chevy Volt with your money but all this political posturing and sniping is beyond old.
Here is the problem. Whether they did or didn't do anything wrong, by bailing out GM and owning stock in their company, lots of people will always wonder if they can be trusted to honestly deal with GM as a government should or are they going to get preferential treatment to protect the politicians?
It's a valid problem. They need to avoid the appearance of impropriety as much as impropriety itself. At least they don't seem to have a problem telling everyone else that....
I would certainly hope for a riceburner "firestorm". Where's your loyalty, in Tokyo?
The Obama DECEPTION is upon the world.......... Spending trillions to accomplish the final blow to the American economy..... You cannot spend your way out of debt. This GM snafu is nothing to what's coming... Welcome to economic slavery.
You don't get it. The spending is for economic support - not debt reduction. You're arguing apples and oranges and your priorities are backwards.
Most would argue that a healthy economy is key to reducing the debt. After all, as commerce increases so does the taxation on that commerce. As commerce increases, so decreases the need for economic support. Revenues up. Spending down. The economy therefore must come before the debt.
Here's the flip side slogan to yours (in bold of course):
You can't austerity your way to a healthy economy. Just ask Europe. That's what they are trying - and it ain't working. Their problems are becoming prolonged and entrenched due to a lack of investment in the economy. Are you seriously suggesting that America follow a failed European example!?
And seriously you should unplug for a while and drink a nice calming tea or something. Did you really suggest that a small technical glitch = economic slavery??? Maybe bed rest too.
Radagast: Thanks for your insight.... No offense taken by your insults either. If you honestly believe that academic dribble all I can say is good for you. I will watch you back peddle in your arguments and slither back in the hole you came out of. If you wish to dispel my belief then learn how to approach someone in the forum with kindness it would serve you much better in your educated argument. Obviously I hit a nerve in you and you felt the need to insult me.... Good. You hit a nerve in me also. Who's right or wrong between us remains to be seen.
Fed Up, have you not paid any attention to reality??????
It is the Conservative agenda that has and will asail the world/American economy. the deregulation and the transfer of wealth to the upper 1% IS what has killed the economies.
I know the arguments about the liberals being complicit, but that is a red herring... Any Democrat that has contributed to this, including President Clinton, is really a Conservative. Most of these "Democrats" would be hard core Republicans in any other time.
You need to get out more. Faux Snews is not anything to do with News or reality!!! No one is trying to spend their way out of dept!!! They are trying to stimulate the economy. Ger a CLUE!!!
The Republican/Conservitive aggenda is the aggenda of economic slavery!!!
Radagast - Your thinking is flawed. You can't spend your way out of a recession. It has never worked and never will.
Joyce,
It has worked and has been working multiple times. You need to get out more, you can't live in your parent's basement and think you have a clue!!!
History has shown that targeted spending has brought more than one economy, including ours out of recession.
Wake up and stop spending your time on Faux Snews!!!
History shows that a country MUST spend its way out of a recession. The government spends to keep the economy going because individuals don't have the money to spend.
The Great Depression showed this. The economy grew in the years after when the government spent. For two years the government pulled back on its spending and the economy retracted during those years. WWII took us out of the depression permanently--how? it was a huge stimulus plan that got everyone working again helping the war cause.
Japan and now Europe have tried austerity and their economies are suffering because of it. Obama's stimulus plan, criticized by many at the time for not being big enough, is still credited for saving more than 3 million jobs.
Spending never gets the economy going. FDR didn't get it going with govt. programs. The war ended the recession. Military spending is the only stimulative spending there is. If government spends to build roads, bridges, schools then it is bad and creates no permanent jobs. Plus you have the nasty side effect of having a better infrastructure and who wants that? If govt. spends to build fighter jets, destroyers, and bombs it is good because it stimulates the economy. You must use them or sell to despots then the world is unsafe so you need to build more. You guys need to listen too Fox more to learn how it works. As an aside, 1/2 billion lost to Solyndra much, much worse than the billions and billions lost and unaccounted for in iraq.
dabouv,
I assume you got your PhD in economics from Fox University. Old Professor Beck was one hell of an instructor!
Do just a little bit of common sense research. What is it about war that helps improve an economy? Spending! You even admit that yourself without even realizing it. You seem to think that the only spending that works is spending that results in things getting blown up. So the money invested is used to create a flash of light, a loud noise and a cloud of smoke. Oh yeah, we can all see the long term benefits of that! Seems to me it isn't much different than hiring government employees to dig holes so other government employees can fill them in. My guess is you wouldn't support that.
And half a billion "wasted" is somehow worse than a trillion dollars wasted? I suppose you got your math degree at Fox University too.
Spending is the only way out of recession. Yes the only way. If you don't spend and buy things, new things to replace those are not needed. Now that doesn't mean that the spending absolutely needs to be government spending, but when private wealth is just sitting there collecting dust, the government can effectively stimulate a recovery by doing its own spending. The big problem today is that the vast majority of the country has little or no wealth, so they can't do much spending on their own. If the wealthy would cough up some of their excess cash, maybe we would be OK, but that isn't about to happen. and even at that, one percent of the population can not possibly consume enough to spark a recovery. Everybody has to play, and you can't play if you don't have any chips.
In a big poker game, when all the players are tapped out, the game ends and won't restart by itself. Yes, a few high rollers can start a game amongst themselves, but nobody else can benefit. The money doesn't circulate. The only way the rest of players get back in is if they are bankrolled by somebody. In an economy, the ones doing the bankrolling are the government.
Hoepfully that is simple enough for a Fox graduate to understand.
dabouv,
OK, I read your post again and I concluded that it may be sarcasm. Assuming that's an accurate assessment, I apologize. Just have to say that your logic in that post rings so true with many purely sincere posts we see here on this board from the far right.
However, if you actually believe that, you need to get some help.
Joyce - WWII
Spending done during WWII wasn't just for airplanes and bullets. They purchased, food, medicine, uniforms, latrines, toothbrushes, diesel fuel - it spurred every single facet of manufacturing. Stimulus spending absolutely got us out of the depression. What Obama has reinvested in our economy is a paltry sum compared to what was spent during WWII.
As an aside: The government actually nationalized many of the auto makers' leadership under the military. Back then it was called patriotism, today it would be socialism. Huh, go figure!
lastly, Fed up -
Not so much of a nerve thing. More of a "is this guy playing with a full deck?" kind of thing.
Let's see...your picture is insulting, the Obama DECEPTION is upon the world comment was a bit off kilter, you did in fact make the wildly tin foil hat-esque statement about GM leading to economic slavery...so I just calls it like I see it. There was actually nothing of substance in your comment except insipid trolling nonsense. If your opening remarks are what passes for a "kind" and "educated" statement...
*sigh, facepalm*
Have you heard the one about the pot and the kettle?
radagast:
Within the first six weeks of office, Barack Obama proposed spending programs that exceeds the total government spending of the U.S. since it's founding to Obama's inauguration. He has borrowed Trillions of dollars and ensured the slavery of our children for generations to come.
He sent his Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, on a mission to China to beseech them to continue buying U.S. debt... and what did she use for collateral? Our children's lives and property.
(Unknown Author)
Numbers and sources. Numbers and sources.
I have a source for you: The Jeremiah Project.
http://www.jeremiahproject.com/newworldorder/
You quoted word for word from a New World Order conspiracy rag and expect me to take you seriously. The entire site talks about bible prophecy and Obama as the anti-christ.
Here is the very next paragraph from the piece (of trash) you quoted:
Newsviners everywhere, I implore you...A fact based discussion cannot be had when your source is the Jeremiah Project! I bet there are a couple of people out there who wish they could take back their votes for this nonsense.
Indeed.
Republicans would never do this! The Republicans would never tell anybody...
Is that why the democrats did withhold the info - because they thought the republicans might do the same?
So let's see... the GOP wants less regulation... pollute streams, coal mine mountain tops... but the Obama administration lets the cars see what's going on... NOW.. that's just terrible... Of course the GOP has refused to investigate the fracking that is polluting the entire groundwater of the US..... wonder why?.... maybe it's because it fits "their spin"....
Kevin...you left out skinning puppies alive on the White House steps.
Geeezz...hopelessly polarized much?
The difference between the Volt and Toyota/Nissan defaults in their autos is that the Volt issue was only created in a government testing facility, the others were problems discovered by citizens, which were put in harms way during their ownership. There have been no citizen reporting the problems which were created in government testing. I am thankful that the government worked with GM to address the problems and that GM made changes to insure these issues didn't develop in the real world before someone was hurt. Actually, this seems like exactly the way auto manufacturers and the government should be working together.
These new hybrid vehicles are the way to go. We can either embrace technology or we can embrace ignorance. The republicans really need to go the way of the Whigs. We would still be using horse and buggies if republicans had their say.
well you might be able to go where you want in one of them but where I live it is almost impossiable to get to and from work in one mush less go somewhere to visit a friend. You might look at a map and see how far it is to other towns in your area. I live in Dalllas my sister is down near Austin which is over 4 hrs away. Electric cars can't make the trip. It would take me days to go see my mother in San Diego when I can use my truck and get there in about 26 hrs driving time.
We all do not have 40,000$ laying around to embrace this technology.
Give it time. High Def TV's started out at $25000 and now have come down to a few hundred. New technology always starts out expensive.
Yea, I trust the government to protect me and look out for me. Especially the FDA.
Without the FDA, you'd be taking drugs willy-nilly just because the manufacturers said they worked great.
I trust government way more than corporations who are trying to sell me something.
I know that everyone wants to move to electric vehicles to eliminate the need for oil and that sounds good but how is that electricity going to be produced?? For example the past couple of years California has had rolling blackouts due to the lack of electricity, how in the world is there going to be enough electricity to "fill up" all the cars if they also run on electricity?
We must use the strong force instead of chemical bond energies. Safe, reliable, non polluting (no GHGs), abundant, and cheap electricity could come from LFTR (liquid fluoride thorium reactor) nuclear reactors. Its hallmarks include:
- Safety: no possibility of explosions since there is no water as a coolant and no H2 is produced and it runs at atmospheric pressure, a meltdown is impossible as it already is a liquid, any leaks would be immediately contained as the fluid will solidify and become inert.
- Zero carbon emissions.
- It has the possibility to undercut coal in $/kwh, making it the cheapest electricity available.
- Baseload power is always available, so there wouldn't be intermittent blackouts; it can be used where the wind doesn't blow and the sun doesn't shine. Also, its energy density is far superior to wind and solar, meaning that it won't use up nearly as much land.
- It can burn existing nuclear waste from conventional nuclear reactors and turn it into electricity. LFTR waste is far less dangerous than conventional waste and is nontoxic after 300 years, as opposed to tens of thousands of years for existing waste.
- LFTR was researched extensively at Oak Ridge National Labs in the 60s. A reactor was built and ran successfully for several years. The program was cancelled because LFTRs do not breed weapons grade plutonium or uranium that the government needed for nuclear weapons during the Cold War. The conventional reactors we have today do. LFTRs are proliferation resistant.
- Thorium is widely available. Coal plants throw it away as waste slag all the time. In fact, coal plants throw away several orders of magnitude more potential energy in thorium than they actually use in burning coal.
Research it.
LFTRs aren't the holy grail of energy, and they do have their own significant problems, but they are a very viable possibility which should be utilized in the US.
Unfortunately, the liberals will protest anything that has the word 'reactor' in it, or 'nuclear', or anything like that, even if it actually REDUCES the amount of nuclear waste we have.
Rolling blackouts due to Enron and other providers who withhold power to raise rates.
Rolling blackouts due to Enron and other providers who withhold power to raise rates.
C. Smith -
That would be fusion. Until it is a reality, LFTR is the best option. As the saying goes, practical fusion power is perpetually 30 years away.
The pros far outweigh the cons.
We can only hope. China already has plans for them. The US is behind, unless Flibe Energy can gain any traction.
I think its the public in general, not just liberals. The biggest hurdles for LFTR production won't be technical issues. The main issues will be the (uneducated) public perception, the NRC, and the entrenched energy establishment which is helped by the government on both sides of the aisle.
Bull@!$%# headline. Jim Jordan is posturing for his team and being a total dick.
If there was information that there was a problem and it was held back it is wrong. There is a time amount required to investigate and you also can't just assume a problem on an isolated case, must investigate.
I haven' seen a Volt and obviously not doing well but it is the future. The first of anything is ever that great. Its problem is cost, you would never recoup your money and the number of people who are willing to pay that much of a premium are few. Still, it i a big deal and a long time coming. Sometime in the future we will have batteries that will make pure electric a much better option. And sometime we will have batteries that are better at storing energy and solar panels that are more efficient. America needs a game changer to gets is fiscal house in order and nothing better than stopping the import of billions of dollars of oil/day. Solyndra is a classic red meat name for the morons, like Acorn. There was a big push to spread the money around but th 1/2 billion pales to the losses we saw in Iraq and technology is always risky as most ideas don't pan out. GM has worked out far better than anyone imagined. The downside to doing nothing was a depression. Cheney didn't act as h didn't want the responsibility of letting the auto industry fold nor that of keeping it afloat. Time will tell but when you are on the edge of depression, you have to do something in my mind although some think let things go to hell and let the investors take over. My parents grew up in the depression and my grandfather told me stories. No thanks. This isn't just a US problem either. Europe is debt riddled, Japan has been in a slump for decades, China is slowing and takes our jobs by basically having workers who are barely better than slaves. It is complicated and unfortunately for you reps, if it doesn't fit on a bumper sticker and rhyme too much information.
we didn't have to bail GM out. They could have done what Ford did and what about the dealerships that the government closed even though they were some of the biggest dealerships. Who picked the winners and losers????
My parents and grand parents lived during the same time period and lived through it too, They didn't get the help people get today and they worked to get out of the mess.
Yeah, Joe, Obama should have let the tens of thousands of American autoworkers fend for themselves...just the way the GOP wanted to. Then you could have complained that Obama ignored the problem and let the auto industry die, along with the jobs. It worked well for the Hoover administration, and if it was good enough for Grandma...
Anyone sick of politics yet ? That is all this is, more b.s. more posturing by someone. So what the car battery catches fire when it crashes on a test course in UNREAL conditions. If it happened that way in real life, a person would be dead long before the thing catches fire anyways.
Kinda like the Ford Pintos never caught fire (according to the manufacturer) and GM trucks didn't have safety concerns with their gas tanks, and Ford didn't have fire problems with their cruise controls, etc. - UNREAL conditions?
everything you mention occurred to people as they were driving these vehicles. No fires have occurred in sold Volts.
The issue isn't about where or when the fires happened but that they did happen. That is the reason for the recall of the vehicles - underlying safety concerns.
Do you GOPeaParty types experience severe cognitive dissonance as you criticize AMERICAN companies ?
Was President Obama responsible for Ford Pintos that burst into flames? Was President Obama responsible for the exploding tires on Ford Explorers? How about those who were POTUS at the time these and many other problems surfaced? Are THEY responsible?
This is absurd. President Obama is simply fixing the things you folks broke. Now, you snipe from the sidelines that the cleanup is not proceeding according to YOUR advice.
Anyone who believes there will not be problems as we migrate from a fossil fuel / internal combustion fleet to one fueled by non-conventional fuels and electricity is sadly naive. There will be. So what? We fix the problems and move on.
Why don't you pessimistic naysayers just get out of the way?
Ian...No Obama is not responsible. Everyone knows darn well it's Bush's fault. It's all Bush's fault. Including the black plague and the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs. You made that perfectly clear in numerous times.
Ian you miss the point. It is not that the Obama administration is responsible for bad engineering at GM. GM is responsible for that. What was done here is to engineer the news so that it looked like the BAILOUT was a wonderful idea. Just as was the case with Solynda, tax money was poured down a rat hole to win political points. If GM actually had to compete in a real marketplace, they might actually get rid of some of the inept leaders and develop business practices and vehicles that work. As with the banks, the BAILOUTS protected the people who created the problems and signaled that you don't need to worry about competition, Uncle Sam will always be there to bail you out.
I know there will be problems and have been looking in to fuels for some time now. I had a model of a car fueled by a solar cell in the 60's. I am aware that it takes time to come up with products that will do the job needed.
Ask yourself a few questions. How far can I go before I have to charge the battery?
Can I get to a station that has a charger?
Where are the stations?
Try taking one of these vehicles on a trip across the country and see just how long it will take.
Solyndra was first supported by Bush, by the way.
Who knows what companies are going to do great and what's going to fail.
I'm glad that we're trying to support American companies in this battle for clean energy technology.
Bail outs, as a reminder, are bipartisan. Bailing out Wall Street occurred under Bush with fierce Republican support.
Bob-767984......
Free enterprise is NOT a god before whom you should offer sacrifices of auto workers, supply chain companies (and THEIR employees), and our national security.
It is a TOOL. As such, it should be MANAGED. You can continue forever to make your case that our auto companies should have been allowed to disappear. That did not happen. So, you won't be forced to live with the severe consequences of your preferred folly.
Neither Romney, Gingrich, nor Bush agreed with you that we should allow our auto industry to be replaced by foreign corporations. Thankfully, neither did President Obama. The companies are now recovering (despite your assertions to the contrary). It was the best decision under highly unfortunate (and preventable) circumstances. Perhaps, the next time your crowd is entrusted with our national economy, you will be better stewards. In that case, we won't be faced with such as calamity as President Obama faced in the winter of 2008.
Oh my, next you'll tell me that the unemployment numbers are contrived and quietly revised after they come out to make it look like the administration has been effective in improving the economy. Golly, gee whiz. I am so totally shocked!
The Administration is doing nothing but protecting Obama!
Sounds about right for the Obama and Dems. Liberals who put their own interests and bailout money first and for most.
I mean Obama telling the truth. Get real. He is a fence jumper who jumps at which ever side looks best for HIM and his re-election.
HE is as dirty as any Rep is running. He gave the big corporations money and most of it went into the pockets of the CEO's to buy loyalty in the elections, while the workers who he claims he represents got the boot.
Name a fence that he's jumped.
By the way, the Wall Street bail out was under Bush, not Obama...and all the Repubs supported it.
You can't trust anything coming out of the White House anymore.
Hey Liberals how is the hopey-changey thing working out for you now?????
Government Motors....the best engineering the taxpayers can fund!!!!!
Working pretty well for me, thanks for asking!
If GM is the best engineering that money can fund, it is no wonder that they are in the red. I'll stick with the engineering of other brands.
To be fair, could you ever trust anything that came out of the WH? The tragedy of Obama is not that he is worse than George Bush, it is that yiou cannot tell the difference between his policies and those of the Bush administration:
drone bomers killing civilians
Gitmo
Torture
Endless and costly wars
BAILOUTS
Secret government actions
and so on
Hopey-change working FANTASTIC here. We finally have a President who thinks about problems and puts forth vetted solutions.
"While it remains to be seen whether GM received special treatment during (the investigation) of the Volt fires, it's clear that the administration has tremendous incentives..." - in other words, "While we have little to no evidence, the administration had motive, therefore it must be true."
I absolutely do not agree that this would have been immediately hyped up if it was Toyota. I watched Toyota get away with murder through the 90's and 2000's as I went through two Tacoma's and a Tundra. Their defects were well known (especially the early Tundra) and I found myself in arbitration with them at one point. The Camry's had horrible V6 engine sludge problems and who knows how many engines Toyota quietly replaced, or worse how many owners got stuck paying for engine rebuilds. It took years for shady dealership and corporate business practices to catch up with them. It cost me personally thousands of $. They were the most arrogant people I've ever done business with. I now drive Jeeps. I'd rather contend with mechanical problems than be treated like crap.
All manufacturers have issues. Was there polictical pressure, I'm sure. But not just because of the bailouts, because the oil companies really do not want to see electric vehicles succeed.
Six months is not a long time to research a potential issue, especially when nothing happened on the road. In fact compared to other real world safety problems, it's quite quick.
In about the same timeframe, the NTSB has also researched and cleared the Toyota Prius of safety problems. So I don't support the idea of favoritism in any way.
Typical Republicans. Attack the very American businesses they claim to be advocates for to try and get political gain. Oh wait... they only attack those who's employees are unionized. It's really burning their asses to see GM back on top as #1 when they advocated letting it die altogether.
Anyone else remember them protecting oil companies after spills? Hmm? Anyone?
I'm pretty sure Romney didn't give a sh!t if the businesses he bought and destroyed were union or not.
Seems to me that they forgot a few key points, like the volt was being built long before Obama was elected, and that it was GWB who saved GM to be around when he was elected.
Facts are a great thing, I wish we had more of them in politics.
HA CNBC raked Toyota over the coals for their gas pedal problems for months in an effort to bring them down, but you can bet this story is gone by Friday
David,
The gas pedal problems were affecting real drivers on real roads, causing real accidents. Even if it was corrected or later attributed to driver error, it was happening out there.
There hasn't been a single incident on the road, only in the lab. It's a potential risk and they have big incentive to fix it fast.
And remember NBC went so far to sensationalize the Chevy truck side saddle gas tank fires that they mocked an explosion and aired it as valid footage. They got sued for it.
That was on the news forever.
Exactly, these fires were in a lab. Guess what: I found out that if I set fire to a book it burns! Lets have a congressional subcommittee grill publishers to get to the truth about this potentially fatal flaw in paper.
I agree with Ted. Most products that hit the market have some potential risk, in some way. There's huge difference in customers discovering a real danger, and a technician discovering a potential danger in an artificial and extreme lab condition.
If the potential danger exists only in the most extreme testing conditions, there's no reason to alert the media, and potentially devastate the project.
If a customer's Volt had caught fire - that's an entirely different situation. That's when people need to be alerted. Otherwise, the smart thing to do is to figure out how to prevent the problem from happening, should any of their customers engage in similar extreme driving conditions.