Un-Treehugger: General Motors' Hybrid Strategy
by Michael Graham Richard, Gatineau, Canada on 11.23.05
We were reading some random article about automotive news when we saw an ad that read "hybrid Suvs". Intrigued that the URL under it was that of a GM Canada website, we clicked on it expecting to learn about GM's hybrid SUV projects or maybe even see a press release about a vehicle that would soon be released (why else buy ads?). Well, it turns out that the ad leads to a page about the H3 Hummer, a big boxy non-hybrid truck, and nothing on the page has anything to do with hydrids or fuel economy, except maybe the small print that says that the H3 is rated at 15.6 liters per 100 kilometers (15 miles per gallon - and real-world results are usually lower). So is that GM's hybrid strategy? To buy ads with "hybrid" keywords? No wonder things are going so well for them right now...
GM also just cut a whole bunch of jobs at an Ontario plant. Who wants to place bets that the money saved from cutting those jobs went to some top executive's Christmas bonus?
GM gets negative trees out of a possible ten.
That's pretty bad. I still don't understand why so many people are driving big block V8s to commute to work every day. Loving the 30+ mpg in my Civic. ;-)
Chris
http://amateureconblog.blogspot.com/
Sic semper GM (dead language for dead profits). And who's in charge over there? Truly clueless.