Maybe GM and Chrysler management should visit the BYD factory to learn a few things...

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China, like Japan, learns quickly. It's competition from both that will continue to make us ask the question, "so why didn't we do that?"

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can we bail them out instead?

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Bail them out... that's funny ( as I'm sure it's meant to be). The US car manufacturers are absolutely dead in the water now. Shame they've just had $17 billion of the US tax payers. Within 2 years they'll all be shut.
Unfortunately people in the US and UK would rather buy cheap than support their fellow countrymen. Our government would rather hand over cash (funded by China buying US treasuries I might add) than give incentives for US producers to make production in the US viable again. Even this site constantly promotes the transport of products (which could easily be made in the US) from China. The joke is a supposed 'green site' thinks that is a good idea. What a joke!

The greenest thing we could all do is to stop buying all this thro away crap and especilly from the other side of the world where fossil fuel powered production is basically accelerating global polution at a frightening rate.

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Re the transport of BYDs from China to US, they are of course not doing it yet and maybe they won't. Who is to say they will not build them in Tennessee or somewhere?

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I agree with Adam Stein about our monstrous preference for lower prices, though actually I think foreign cars are generally more rather than less expensive than domestic ones. The government has spent the past 8 years transferring wealth from the sort of people who buy Chevrolets to the sort of people who buy BMWs.

As for the idea that the government needs to give incentives to companies to be competitive, isn't that called the profit motive and don't we already have that?

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don't get me wrong... I think some of the stuff on this site is brilliant!

But I also think that green sites should understand the implications of other actions they take. If they take them purely for economic reasons then they should say so and NOT do it in the name of green issues.

I'm going to pick up on a couple of naive points made. The government may offer incentives BUT that does not address the US debt heading towards 1100 billion dollars!
The US is so indebted to China at THIS point in time that if they continue at the current rate the US will be bankrupt in 10-12 years. E.g. Unable to repay the bonds / gilts / interest etc that they use to bail our floundering economy. They will have to choose, run the economy or pay their debts. They will not have the funds to do both.

Back to green issues, it can NEVER be considered green to advocate importing luxury / supplementary / unnecessary goods from countries which have terrible green production standard, not to mention the cost of shipping all these goods. Mark every product on this site with it's origin. Where is it made? Also put on each product the environmental cost of it's production and shipping. If you don't know what that amounts to then clearly state that so your consumers can understand what it is they are doing. If it's made in China by a company who you know nothing about then say, Made in China which has the worst pollution records in manufacturing on this planet. As a person who has worked all over the world in including China I have seen first hand what is happening and what they are allowed to do in the name of profit.

I am not anti China developing, I encourage it when done with global responsibility, I am not anti the US consuming but someone needs to tell people what it is they do EVERY time they consume. People are ignorant of the facts and I don't see that changing soon because it will cost people money!

People who only buy things because they are cheap without any care for how they were produced, how far they've travelled and their global impact aren't monsters but they are ignorant of facts and they are causing global pollution on a scale which you seem to have no comprehension of? The very sad fact is these people do this because they think they are helping, being green, being smart. Well I'm sorry they are not. They are consuming unnecessarily from sources who do NOT care OR have no legislation to control the pollution they produce. Anyone who supports this is at the very least misinformed.

I am happy to share our research with anyone who is interested to hear the facts. Of course the blind, the ignorant and those who just want the latest gadget so they can 'look' green may not be interested????

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BTW: Our trade deficit is out of control...
Last time I looked it was approximately 800,000 million dollars in deficit.

Does anyone actually think that our economic policies are correct when we have a deficit this large? Don't be fooled by this 'current' global blip and peoples lack of money restricting this.. the deficit will continue to grow and that can NOT go on forever without massive repercussions.

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800,000 million? Might that be 800 billion?

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Also, a serious point that mig misses is that driving a car uses so much energy that it _almost_ doesn't matter where the car is made. Since 90% of a car's lifetime energy is embodied in its use, not in its manufacture, it makes a whole lot of environmental sense to get PHEVs distributed as rapidly as possible across the globe to people who will start driving on electrons and stop driving on oil.
The simplistic scenario alluded to is also made more complex by the decades-old fact that now even American cars have parts (and assemblies) delivered from all over the world. In effect, an American car, like every other car, is a global car, and it entailed shipping of many of its parts even before it was made. Buying American will only eliminate a small part of the carbon budget of the building and selling of the car, which, again, is only 10% of the lifetime carbon budget of the car.
Upshot: get us the PHEVs and get them to us NOW so we can stop burning lots of oil! If it's China, great! If it's America, even better! But get the car to me NOW!!!

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humm, i wonder how much their bailout was? oh wait, they did not need one did they.

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I'll wait to see if it actually works.

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China produces less greenhouse gas per capita than USA. They are showing with this car that they can get green transportation about 20 times faster than USA by mass producing green cars like this plug in electric car. Ford GM and Chrysler have conned you into believing you want to buy what they make, rather than responding to the need for fuel efficient non polluting cars. They are the dinosaurs and deserve to go broke. Why is the Volt a four door car? Surely we need smaller 2 door cars. Most drivers drive alone or with only one passenger. I still dont think they get it and in three months time you will be bailing them out again with more billions. The Volt at $30,000 will not sell anyway, but the Chinese electric car may sell if they can get sales volume. It may be the next T Model Ford?

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While our government pays our anachronistic car industry to stay in the early 20th century, Japan and China leap frog over us technologically.

It is embarrassing and a HUGE waste of US resources. Jan. 19 can't come soon enough.

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I wonder how many of you have actually spoke to or emailed to the big 3 asking them that you want plug-in electric or hybrids, or even clean diesel cars?

There must be a shift in dynamics of consumer/manufacturer relationship. Meaning that it is about time that we, as consumer, dictate what the manufacturers produce, not the other way around.

Guess what happens if a million people ask them to make clean diesel, plug-in hybrids and electric cars, and actually placed a deposit?

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Hello
Sorry to weigh in here so late in this dialog. I'm surpised that many comments do not include the Bush Adminstration's 100% tax incentive for the 6k gross weight vehicle deduction. This invented the large SUV markets and ended the mass produced plug-in market.

China building a cost affordable hybrid is amazing, how? Private enterprise sells our natural resources to their private enterprise and they build something, that is amazing because it is afforable? The real issue is labor unions versus non-organized labor. Cool let's race to the bottom, boom? Or, build them here with union labor, you all must decide how you want your 21st century. More Chicago Econ school of economic destruction, where the very rich elite continue to rule in the 'best interest' of all the people, or with an attempt to balance this 'best interest' with the historic voice of a blue/green collar economic group. That's what we are talking about when we confuse bail out of industry and bail out of groups who invest into those industies.

So let's see the group who put the only solar powered vehicle on the moon still travels by what type energy? Oh, wasn't that built by Union labor? How about a 100% tax deduction for a solar powered people moving vehicle (PMV)? Don' get me wrong this China built vehicle is movement to the correct mind set; and yes I want it NOW-'cus they told me, we would have 'jet cars' by now; yet, the true aim is understanding that without the purchasing power of the blue/green collar there will be no 'jet cars'. So my suggestion is to fund an economic model that builds up and does not tear down, for profits, with the end goal being a PMV, not a new economic order.

Oh yea, the statement: "...why don't we do that"; well we did, those folks created the thing-we just had to have and conviced us we needed it NOW at an afforable price.

I also look forward to the new President's spin on how he rebuilds that blue/green collar group, also continue to enrich those 'risk takers' and re-do the deficit. It will be a greater challenge than a Zen walk on eggs.

Thanks all,
dm

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One point that needs to be made before we get on our high horse about China and India's GHG emissions is that in our zeal to make things ever cheaper we have outsourced most of the production for *our* products to *their* countries. That means that *they* are producing *our* greenhouse gases to satisfy *our* demand.

Perhaps more importantly, outsourcing all of our production may have made our economy effectively blind to the impending financial crisis. China provided all the supply we wanted, so the Fed was able to keep interest rates low even when the market was flooded with demand. About the only thing left in the US that could have clued us into the supply/demand imbalance was the housing market bubble. Oops.

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We in the USA may think that we are buying a domestically produced product, while in fact, many of the components therein are produced in Mexico, Canada, etc. It amuses me to no end to read bumper stickers on American cars that proclaim "Buy American". If only the drivers of these vehicles realized where a majority of their car's components came from.

Takeaway point: US car manufacturers cannot compete either domestically or globally owing to the cost of production as compared to US salary and standards of living, no matter what the product.

As was the case with the manufacturers of small light private aircraft prior to tort reform in the US, innovation in the field of electric/hybrid electric vehicles will spring from the minds of private tinkerers and inventors that can bypass the design-by-committee mentality of the Detroit boardroom. Great ideas are spawned because there is no priority to increase shareholder equity.

Future cars need to be designed locally, produced locally, and sold locally. We may choose to buy green cars from abroad, but how green or socially responsible is that choice when these vehicles are produced by workers who make a subsistence wage within inefficient fossil-fuel burning plants, are placed on fossil-fuel burning ships to get them to a California port, and then are loaded on a fossil-fuel burning car carrier for a trip to the East coast? I would bet that by the time this car appears at the showroom, enough fuel has been burned getting it there than that car would have produced in 100 years.

Something's gotta give.

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