Thanks for the bailout

Discussion in 'The Back Room' started by JO'Co, Jan 5, 2012.

  1. JO'Co

    JO'Co Well-Known Member

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    Thanks For The Bailout: Government Motors To Move Chevy Volt Production To China…

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    (USA Today) — General Motors agreed in Shanghai today to develop an electric vehicle platform with longtime Chinese partner SAIC. It effectively moves GM’s future electric vehicle development to China. Unclear is whether this would also lead to assembly of future EVs for the U.S. market in China.

    The deal came as the Chinese government is pushing foreign automakers to give Chinese companies EV technology they lack, according to an Associated Press report. U.S. lawmakers have complained that China is “shaking down” GM to get Volt secrets. Electric vehicle development in the U.S. has been developed with extensive U.S. taxpayer funding.

    Details of the plan were not provided, and GM has denied it will involve handing over intellectual property underlying the Volt.

    GM Vice Chairman Steve Girsky, in a conference call from Shanghai, said that neither SAIC nor the Chinese government have demanded Volt technology. Any future EV would, of course, draw on GM’s Volt experience and technology. Under the deal, SAIC and GM will equally share the cost of developing a new all-electric vehicle, Girsky said.

    GM plans to start exporting Michigan-made Volts to China by year’s end, but isn’t likely to sell many. The Chinese government is pushing electrics with a subsidy that amounts to about $19,000 per car — but only if the car is made in China. No imports allowed. There also are tariffs on cars imported to China, which lawmakers argue are unfair and may violateworld trade rules.

    Girsky hinted that the Volt could eventually be built in China. “If we localize, eventually it won’t have a tariff and it will get the subsidy. We have made no decision on if, when or where we build Volt in the future.”
     
  2. JO'Co

    JO'Co Well-Known Member

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    AP Source: GM To Recall All Chevy Volts Sold In U.S. Over Electric Battery Defects…
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    DETROIT (AP) — General Motors will strengthen the structure around the batteries in its Volt electric cars to keep them safe during crashes, a person briefed on the matter said Thursday.

    GM will ask Volt owners to return the cars to dealers for structural modifications, said the person, who did not want to be identified because GM executives plan to announce the repairs later Thursday.

    The fixes are similar to a recall and involve about 8,000 Volts sold in the U.S. in the past two years. GM is making the repairs after three Volt batteries caught fire following crash tests done by federal safety regulators. The fires occurred seven days to three weeks after tests and have been blamed on a coolant leak that caused an electrical short.

    GM’s move is considered a step below a recall, which would be issued by a car company and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

    NHTSA and GM have said the electric cars are safe and that no fires have occurred after crashes on real-world roadways.

    The Volt has a T-shaped, 400-pound (181-kilogram) battery pack that can power the car for about 35 miles (56 kilometers). After that, a small gasoline generator kicks in to run the electric motor.

    NHTSA has been investigating the batteries after a Volt caught fire in June at a crash test facility in Wisconsin. The fire broke out three weeks after a side-impact crash test.
     
  3. George Krebs

    George Krebs Well-Known Member

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    Those sons of bitches! Well, they played this amateur "president' for the fool he is.

    There is social re-engineering at work for you.
     
  4. WSU1996kesley

    WSU1996kesley Well-Known Member

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    There is another scary trend in the multi-pronged attack China uses to steal its way into technological advances. They haven't played by the rules in a long time. Their attacks include hacking into networks and stealing company and military intellectual secrets, reverse-engineering products and breaking international trade rules by building knock-offs, "buying" or "partnering" their way into a company's secrets and then discarding them once they have the intellectual property they were seeking. And they continue to play the innocent, playing Obama for the fool he is. This is scary, folks. The world order is going to be turned upside-down in the next couple decades. How do you keep your technological edge when you can't profit from them? How do you keep your technological edge when your manpower and finances go to enriching another country?
     
  5. JO'Co

    JO'Co Well-Known Member

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    Electric Car Company Given $500 Million “Green” Energy Loan By Obama Admin Announces Layoffs…
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    You may remember Fisker Automotive as the Goracle-connected company given a huge taxpayer loan to build its cars in Finland.

    (Politico) — In another setback for President Obama’s clean energy loan programs, the recipient of more than a half-billion dollars in federal loan guarantees is laying off workers at their Delaware and California operations.

    Delaware’s News Journal reports that Fisker Automotive, a California-based electric car start-up company, is laying off an undisclosed number of staff to try to reserve enough capital in order to qualify for more federal help from the Department of Energy, according to a Delaware state development official.

    “They’re trying to preserve the cash that they have,” said Alan Levin told the News Journal. “And unfortunately, until they meet the milestone that DOE continues to set … they’re not able to access the additional capital that they need.”

    The company also came under fire last year for taking federal loans while producing cars in Finland. Company officials told ABC News at the time that “there was no contract manufacturer in the U.S. that could actually produce our vehicle.” The company was working on reopening a shuttered General Motors plant in Wilmington to produce vehicles — an effort that top Obama administration officials lauded.