I haven’t been a fan of American auto manufacturing corporations for years. By that, I mean the executives deigned worthy enough to run the companies … right into the ground. I fully support the hard-working men and women employed by these over-sized behemoths. The workers are the backbone of America’s middle class and receive my full support. It’s not their fault their corporations have been run by greedy, immoral hypocritical liars for decades.
The latest proof? Chrysler, who announced that they were dismantling their electric vehicle engineering team. That’s the same team and program they promised American taxpayers would be in place as the begged for millions of our tax dollars to prop up their purposefully dysfunctional wasteland of a company.
This is obviously a very stupid move. Regulations are now in place to force Chrysler and other car manufacturers to improve fuel efficiency (a standard Chrysler and the others paid millions of dollars to fight for years). The cost of meeting these standards are not prohibitive. Chrysler and the others exist in the European and Asian car markets, which have had more robust standards for years. They chose to make inefficient vehicles for American customers. Given the price of oil and gas, guzzlers are no longer profitable to make because the American public has shifted its buying habits. Shutting down an electric vehicle engineering team as the marketplace transitions to more fuel efficient vehicles is an absurd move to make.
But it goes further than just that. It hurts other corporations and other workers. A123 systems manufactures electric batteries for use in vehicles, among other things. They could be a viable American success story: using ingenuity and entrepreneurship to exploit a market need. They contracted with Chrysler to provide batteries earlier this spring. What are they supposed to do? What happens if they fail because Chrysler’s executives decided they wanted to fail? That unnecessarily hurts the entire hybrid and electric vehicle market.
Much like the Wall St. banks who gladly accepted trillions of taxpayer bailout dollars with few strings attached, Chrysler has spit in Americans’ faces. By doing so, they cement the company as the most likely to fail moving forward. They have continued their crappy decision making from the 20th century too far into the 21st century. By doing so, I say good riddance. One less non-responsive corporation in the marketplace will do nothing but benefit consumers.
[h/t Climate Progress]
