Thursday, March 26, 2009
President Obama: business consultant
Obama says automakers need 'drastic changes'
Yes indeed.
Here's some more specific advice in the third to last graf:
The president said even as the economy bounces back, Detroit can't focus on "trying to build more and more SUVs and counting on gas prices being low."
Is President Obama making an energy price forecast, or is there the possibility of a gas tax hike (which is generally considered to be regressive in nature) in there somewhere? He wouldn't make that implication in the face of a steep recession, would he?
3 Comments:
By 
, at
Thu Mar 26, 11:59:00 PM:
FYI, the First Analyst has made other calls, TH.
By , at
Fri Mar 27, 12:25:00 AM:
My father went through the 1960's leasing a Pontiac LeMans two door sedan every two years or so. They started out as compact 4 cylinders jobs and got bigger and more powerful every year. Sort of like the Japanese with their small pick up trucks that evolved into huge V-8 monsters that could tow Godzilla out of Tokyo Bay. There is a reason cars get bigger and more powerful over time. It probably has something to do with consumer preferences, but it is so much easier to blame everything on the greedy corporations.
By , at
Fri Mar 27, 09:55:00 AM:
From Link:
Is Obama smarter than an eight-grader?
Monthly sales of hybrids peaked at about 40,000 in the Spring of 2008 ... they're now running at about 15,000 ... which I calculate to be about 1.5% of sales at current depressed levels ... and that's with subsidies.
Hummers are out of fashion, but hybrids make no sense in a world of $2.00 gas. They didn't make much sense when gas was at $4.00
I used this as an example to teach my eight-grader about payback periods. Simplified math -- you pay $10,000 more for a hybrid -- mostly because it has two engines -- how long until you get your $10,000 back.
If you drive 15,000 miles in a year, and you get 20 mpg in a regular car, but 30 mpg in a hybrid ... you use 250 gallons less per year. So you save $500 a year with gas at $2.00. It's hard to get the savings over $1000 per year, even if you play with these assumptions ... even if gas goes back to $4.00
My eighth-grader got it.
