Experts say GM bankruptcy is almost inevitable »

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• sonofreasonComment removed: Hard Banned1 Reply

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    nostalgia6 months ago

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    I totally agree
    
    And what's worse, we are going to see any repayment of the billions that were given to the car companies
    
    In fact that was already decided in the case of Chrysler
    
    Chrysler won't repay bailout money
    An administration official confirms that a $4 billion bridge loan and $3.2 billion in bankruptcy financing won't be paid back by Chrysler following bankruptcy.
    Chrysler LLC will not repay U.S. taxpayers more than $7 billion in bailout money it received earlier this year and as part of its bankruptcy filing.
    
    This revelation was buried within Chrysler's bankruptcy filings last week and confirmed by the Obama administration Tuesday. The filings included a list of business assumptions from one of the company's key financial advisors in the bankruptcy case.
    
    Some of the main assumptions listed by Robert Manzo of Capstone Advisory Group were that the Treasury would forgive a $4 billion bridge loan given to Chrysler in the closing days of the Bush administration, a $300 million fee on that loan, and the $3.2 billion in financing approved last week by the Obama administration to fund Chrysler's operations during bankruptcy.
    
    http://money.cnn.com/2009/05/05/news/companies/chr...
    
    More taxpayer money down the rat hole

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  FrankHummel6 months ago

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  What I have heard theorized is that GM is now looking to split itself into two pieces, corralling its VIABLE businesses and assets into one of them and letting the other go bankrupt.
  
  But those VIABLE assets will include the Chevy VOLT --- which is CLEARLY the prototype of the whole automotive technology of the future, since it points the way to ELIMINATING up to seven-eighths of "our" abject, addictive dependency on FOREIGN OIL to refine into gasoline to brainlessly burn up as a mere fuel to power automobiles!
  
  GM has also, as I understand it, put in for $2.6 Billion in "bailout" funding to COMPLETE the Volt initiative (which has already been just about finished and all but "ready to go" --- having been "under development" for the past two or more years now already) --- and that plans are now already afoot to extend the technology to the Cadillac and Buick lines as well.
  
  And THAT, I submit, would be about the SMARTEST $2.6 Billion the government will have spent in the whole massive attempt to underwrite the reestablishment of a functional economy for this nation. For THAT would be the "skeletal framework" on which the whole automotive industry could rebuild!
  
  But better get busy actually WORKING on all of that, folks --- for contrary to a FALSE notion fondly perpetuated by many of the older heads among us, "we" are NOT the only center of technological advance in the world any longer (as though "we" ever ACTUALLY were!). The EUROPEAN counterpart of the VOLT (jovially dubbed the AMPERE) is now SLIGHTLY AHEAD in the "development derby" --- having now been UNVEILED already at a major European auto show. And you can BET that all those clever folks over in ASIA are ALSO "hot on the trail" as well!
  
  I submit that it is WAY PAST high time to nostalgically long for the "good old days of business as usual" to return. It is instead time to "roll up our sleeves" and GET BUSY doing ALTERNATIVE ENERGY THINGS that are now going to be needed in the aftermath of "cheap, easy" oil. Those technological alternatives DO EXIST, and they HAVE INDEED been devised, "explored", investigated, and many even "piloted" going back MANY YEARS NOW ALREADY. What needs to happen next is that they are going to have to actually be IMPLEMENTED --- and that "green-collar” economy about which many have been talking NEEDS TO BE GENUINELY INSTITUTED AND SERIOUSLY PURSUED!
  
  So get busy DOING that, people, instead of milling about aimlessly like cattle in holding pens at a slaughterhouse. If WE don't do the job --- you can RELY on it that OTHERS ELSEWHERE WILL do it "for" us. And I wonder how many people here will then enjoy being in a position of "economic subordination" --- and ultimately SUBSERVIENCE --- to folks of OTHER ethnicities and cultures...

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    nostalgia6 months ago

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    But those VIABLE assets will include the Chevy VOLT"
    
    Really?
    
    Taking the charge out of Chevy's Volt
    A new study casts doubt on the benefits of the automaker's much-hyped plug-in hybrid.
    
    Carnegie Mellon University Study:
    
    The study concludes that plug-in hybrids like the Chevy Volt - GM's most publicized technology project - "are not cost effective in any scenario." GM says the Volt can go 40 miles on a single charge. But a better choice, according to the report, is a car that goes less than 20 miles on a charge.
    
    The Volt has been referred to in the media as "the car that could save GM."
    The Carnegie Mellon study, conducted by engineers from three different departments, constructed computer simulation models to determine the impact of additional batteries on fuel consumption and cost and greenhouse gas emissions over a range of charging frequencies.
    
    It found that small-capacity plug-ins that get less than 20 miles per charge are more efficient than conventional hybrids. And it said that large capacity hybrids like the Volt that go 40 miles or further on a charge are never cost-effective, because the batteries cost and weigh too much.
    
    A car with the Volt's range, according to the study, would also be extremely uneconomical traveling fewer miles as it hauls around battery capacity it doesn't need.
    
    With a likely price of $40,000, the Volt has always been a dicey economic proposition for GM. At that cost, the car would be limited to buyers with a high income who can afford a car - most likely a second or third one - with limited functionality. Nobody will want to take a Volt on a trip much beyond its 40-mile range because it is too inefficient.
    
    http://money.cnn.com/2009/03/03/autos/gm_volt.fort...

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      FrankHummel6 months ago

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      I don't doubt the conclusions of the Carnegie-Mellon study with respect to the overall outlines of the VOLT as presently constituted. The point of the VOLT is as a PROTOTYPE of a CONCEPT. (It probably bears the same relationship to the cars of the future as did the Ford Models A and T back in THEIR era.)
      
      There are things FUNDAMENTALLY deficient about the rather PRIMITIVE design of the VOLT as it presently stands. But one has to START SOMEWHERE! Waggoner and Lutz are to be commended for having finally (if woefully belatedly) had the INITIATIVE to actually TRY. (Of course, they could probably see the train wreck coming, and probably knew they had to attemp SOMETHING --- and too bad it was not possible to actually start a more effective alternative much SOONER --- but AUTOMOBILE BUYERS DID NOT WANT to hear the truth about really fundamental changes being needed as a consequence of the EXHAUSTION of “OUR” OWN petroleum reserves. People seemed to imagine that they could just endlessly “BUY” UP --- or if needs be “AGGRESSIVELY EXPROPRIATE” --- the reserves of OTHERS ELSEWHERE in the world.) Anyway, what needs to happen now is that a much LARGER, more CAPABLE effort now needs to be BUILT UP ON THE PIONEERING ALTERNATIVE ENERGY EFFORTS OF THE FOLKS AT GM!
      
      One truly fundamental reality is that there is not enough LITHIUM in the world to use lithium-ion battery technology for truly MASS high-power applications. We need to fall back to heavier, lower-power-density hydrogen-ion battery technology based on the much more PLENTIFUL element NICKEL. Moreover, we will need to “layer in” REGENERATIVE BRAKING technology (a la that pioneered in the basically-GASOLINE-powered Toyota PRIUS system --- THAT concept is NOT somehow specific to the internal combustion engine!) to ABOUT DOUBLE the range of WHATEVER battery technology is used --- we can thereby probably achieve about the same range using nickel as could be achieved using lithium (if enough of that stuff actually existed)!

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