I suppose there are few of us who hadn’t guessed this, but it would have been nice to have it reported before the administration committed to a bailout: It’s sure to be a stretch. For the United States to fully recover its investment, the value of General Motors stock will have to reach levels it has never before attained. “I’m not going to predict it | Read More »
That’s what Elon Musk wants, in order to make his all-electric Tesla roadster more competitive in the new car market: Tesla CEO Elon Musk is speaking right now at Wired Live. What’s he saying? For starters, he wants to buy a car factory from a Detroit automaker so he can produce 100,000 cars per year. More craziness below. So it’s nice that Musk has such | Read More »
Right now the Obama team is swearing up and down that General Motors is only going to be a government property for a short time – a few years, at the most. But there’s nothing harder to kill than a federal program. There’s already plenty of evidence that both the White House and Congressional leaders view GM as a jobs program, rather than a company. | Read More »
Barack Obama dismissed Rick Wagoner, and he is reportedly planning to dismiss a majority of GM’s Board of Directors. He also says he wants bold reform, so that General Motors offers the sort of cutting-edge products that the car buyers of today and tomorrow want. He also doesn’t like the Chevy Volt. So what does Barack Obama expect us to drive? Today’s news gives us | Read More »
Way to go, General Motors! You’ve staked your survival on electric cars, hybrid cars, and high-mileage cars – apparently reading tea leaves and thinking that was what Obama and Congressional Democrats wanted. Instead, it turns out Barack Obama thinks you did it all wrong. Even more surprising, it’s GM’s high-tech, environmentally-friendly, crown jewel car of the future that was your biggest mistake. The Chevrolet Volt | Read More »
The Wall Street Journal reports that the Obama administration is prepared to recommend billions in new ‘loans’ to America’s automakers, as long as they meet certain requirements. But once you get past that headline, something very disturbing becomes apparent: Obama’s task force never really considered a bailout on the merits, but concerned itself only with how to structure it. The decision to pour tens of | Read More »
GM’s auditors are talking about bankruptcy for the automaker: General Motors Corp.’s auditors have raised “substantial doubt” about the troubled automaker’s ability to continue operations, and the company said it may have to seek bankruptcy protection if it can’t execute a huge restructuring plan.
NPR’s Morning Edition featured a very interesting interview with Chairman Barney Frank this morning. In it he asserted that the $25 billion that the Big 3 is now seeking is definitely not enough to keep the companies going, and it will be followed by tens of billions more if the companies come up with a ‘plan’ that seems promising. Although if you listen to the | Read More »
The Wall Street Journal’s Kimberly Strassel injects a necessary dose of reality into the debate over what to do about the Big 3. She reminds us that the same Democrats who sanctimoniously remind us that ‘something must be done’ to save the U.S.-based automakers, refused to do anything when they had the chance: Democrats have been trying to shuffle money to Detroit since summer, but | Read More »
Barack Obama and the Congressional Democrats are clearly determined to extend Detroit a ‘loan’ that runs into the tens of billions of dollars, and which seems unlikely ever to be repaid. But as the Bush administration negotiates with Congress over the package, it’s clear that Democrats in Washington don’t want to ‘save’ the automakers. Rather, they want to run a car company and ensure that | Read More »
![[RS]](/t/img/logo-footer.jpg){kind=logo}