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By Design News Staff -- Design News, October 10, 2005
SHOULD HAVE DONE YOUR HOMEWORK
Your latest editorial (DN MYVIEW 08.15.05 http://rbi.ims.ca/4398-508) begs for critical commentary. You really should investigate your subject matter a little more thoroughly before rushing to defend GM in this situation. Here are a few things you might discover:
Consumers don't do all the market "driving" . . . they follow created trends as much as they create them, possibly more so. This is the reason why companies spend billions on "push marketing."
The auto industry has push marketed "light truck" vehicles because their exemption from a variety of regulatory controls has made them a more profitable sales segment. The definition of "light truck," for the purposes of CAFE mileage requirements, pollution controls, and so on, has been the subject of heated debate, with the domestic auto industry largely succeeding in having its way in maintaining exemptions that were originally based on the notion that trucks were "working vehicles" rather than family cars. If the domestic auto industry expended as much effort on engineering as they do on resisting change and regulation, they would be in a far more competitive position now.
According to many engineers on the project, the EV1 was never intended as a serious product. It was produced as a publicity stunt, in part to prove the California legislature and CARB wrong.
I do agree, in a general way, with the notion that consumers (and voters and stockholders) are largely to blame for our current situation vis a vis gas guzzlers. However, to suppose that GM merely answers to the needs of its customers is truly ludicrous, and I suggest that you study Toyota to see a better example of how an auto manufacturer can offer a range of products, including high efficiency models and some larger (but still best-in-class) trucks and SUVs, without solely pandering to the lowest common denominators among consumers.
Design News reader, Mukilteo, WA
GM NO INNOCENT VICTIM
Just as GM's management does not work in a vacuum, as you claim, neither does "the market." Would you claim that automakers could not have done better to produce more efficient vehicles than they are today? Would you suggest that the public would not buy more efficient vehicles given no negative tradeoffs? We all know that is false. Especially if the money spent on marketing these vehicles was like that spent on SUVs. If the millions (billions?) of dollars automakers have spent on lobbying, lawyering, and marketing the low-tech and high-profit SUV's had been spent on engineering, the manufacturers and the markets (and certainly the environment) would be in much better shape. The automakers are not innocent victims. There is a lot of room to work with between a Prius and a Hummer. The automakers saw an opportunity for tremendous profits and took it for all it was worth.
John Annecone, San Jose, CA
SOLUTION: RAISE THE GAS TAX!
You made a good case for demands from the market for gas-guzzling SUVs like the GMC Hummer, but I'd like to point out that exactly the same argument of, "if there weren't a market for these things, nobody would be selling them," could be made (and has been) for the markets for tobacco products, alcoholic beverages, drugs, pornography, and prostitution. These are social issues as well as moral ones, and so is the wasteful use of oil resources—perhaps even more so because of the apparent necessity of expending lives in order to keep foreign oil resources secure. What surprises me isn't that the major automotive manufacturers continue to make gas-guzzlers, but that those of us who pay any federal income tax at all continue to be willing to subsidize the military power necessary to keep running them so inefficiently.
With some 50 percent of our federal tax dollars going to the military and more than 50 percent of that being used to secure or defend oil resources, the portion of income tax earmarked for oil security may be as much as 25 percent of total revenue received. The federal tax on a gallon of gas is only 18.4 cents, so even a person driving an 8 MPG Hummer H2 16,000 miles per year pays only $368 in federal tax on the gas used. Using a 28 percent marginal tax rate, though, that same person pays $700 per $10,000 of taxable income for the military cost of securing foreign oil. If there was ever a political party in this country that was serious about fair taxation and reducing our dependence on foreign oil, it seems to me the first thing they'd want to do is to transfer the "oil security tax" from the federal income tax to a national sales tax at the pump. Income tax rates could be reduced by a lot more than just a token, and we'd have a glaring economic reason to get serious about conservation and alternative energy research.
Jon Roesler, Layton, UT
WHO IS THE REAL VILLIAN?
Karen's piece on the environmental record of the automotive industry hit the nail right on the head. Forcing public policy upon people by manipulating product plans in a free market cannot ever work. It is as ridiculous as criticizing clothing manufacturers for making such large sizes while obesity is such a big problem. Will smaller-sized clothing reduce obesity or will the manufacturer suffer because the clothing doesn't sell?
I would add that criticizing specific auto companies for having below average fuel economy is similarly ridiculous. Why is one company worse than others simply because it serves a proportionally larger share of the gas-guzzler market? The market is what it is, and manufacturers will do well to seize whatever segment of that market they can. People are the ones who buy and burn the gas, but people are a less popular target because "they" ultimately are "us" no one can be singled out and vilified.
Thank you for exposing this flawed viewpoint. Now we can focus on solutions that improve the environment.
Rick Szumski, Detroit, MI
NO DIFFERENT THAN DRUGS
I read your article about GM. Do you really think people want gas-guzzlers or are they just tolerating what Detroit can get by with selling them? Why don't we sell heroin and cocaine over the counter? There would be a huge market for these products and it would give many people what they want. Why don't we legalize prostitution across the country? In my opinion we shouldn't sell these things on the open market because it would be bad for the people who use them and the country in general. You may think that I am comparing apples to oranges but I don't think so. How can it be good for the country to be making these low mileage vehicles when the consensus seems to be that we are at the end of the era of cheap oil. We are also importing over 50 percent of our fossil fuels, and much of this comes from unstable parts of the world. I think the Detroit auto companies are putting both themselves and the country at risk. You can't tell me that Detroit couldn't have been incrementally increasing the mileage of their trucks and SUVs over the past ten or fifteen years if they had chosen to. Instead they chose to take the cheapest route they could and mileage actually decreased in the last couple of years. Of course, I can only partly lay the blame on Detroit. The U.S. government in the past and certainly the present administration has not or will not provide any leadership in reducing our fossil fuel consumption. The bottom line is that you can't use unbridled capitalism as an excuse for corporate behavior that is short-sighted. I am concerned that we are moving into the perfect storm. Making fuel inefficient cars may turn out to be just as disastrous as selling heroin and cocaine over the counter.
Jim Wagoner, Design News reader
Editor's response: I received tons of letters about my editorial on GM. Many readers compared the marketing of gas-guzzling vehicles to an illegal activity like drug dealing. They seemed to argue in favor of increased government intervention. Given the political climate today, I am surprised that there is an engineer on the planet that feels that this is a proper role for government in a free market system. If the engineers who are promoting this kind of legislative activism really think that government can do better at picking cars than they can, I suggest they write to Congress immediately. I would like to see what sort of vehicle Tom Delay and Nancy Pelosi actually can agree upon for us buy. Maybe I am just an optimist, but I'd like to think most adults are capable of making informed decisions on their own. —K. Field
To read more letters from readers on this subject go to http://rbi.ims.ca/4398-509.
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