Singing the same old song
The car industry is in trouble. The first hint of it came from Honda pulling out of Formula One racing. There are some cynics who say that the recession was a blessing which allowed them to creep away from an embarrassing period during which they spent a fortune producing one of the slowest cars on the grid. If the teams were to be ranked on the basis of annual budget divided by points won, Honda might have topped that list. Still, Max is determined that the cost of racing will go down, and it looks like most of the teams agree with him. And, although I initially disagreed, I have since come to realise that this might be the most important change that will ever have occurred to the sport. More to follow.
Obviously, budgets are being slashed in an effort to preserve the factories. The companies in England are going on to reduced working patterns in an attempt to ride out the troubles while they, like their American counterparts, beg for government assistance. Sadly, I don't feel they're going to get it, because unlike the banks, there are only jobs at stake. And, unlike the banks, the car companies haven't got themselves into such embarrassing debt levels to outsiders such that the governments have no choice but to step in.
Another little giveaway is the decline in advertising for new cars on the television. But, and this is where my title for this post comes to the fore, what adverts there are, are little changed. Buy our car because you'll get laid/ make your neighbours jealous/ Take up more space on the road than the other drivers/ No reason other than we've made a clever advert with lots of strange martial arts scenes like the Matrix.
Do the car companies deserve to survive on taxpayers money? Not one manufacturer has released an advert along the following lines:
"Remember that summer of discontent when crude oil prices climbed higher than the Jumbo Jets? Remember how the goverments said they heard your pleas and would do something? Remember how they failed to cut the price of oil and waited for the recession to do it for them? Well, we heard your pleas too, and we did something about them. The new (insert car name here) does 50% more miles to the gallon than any other car, so when the oil prices soar again, you won't be forced to empty your pockets to enjoy your driving."
No, not a single car company has made any attempt to look ahead and protect their core market. For that reason, I don't think they're worthy of assistance. If the government is going to pump billions into parts of the transport industry, I think they should be funding research into future technology, whether it be on more fuel-efficient cars or on producing biofuels, I'm not able to judge. But my instinct says it should be on smaller. lighter, more efficient cars capable of running on a range of fuels, and. ideally, on electricity when in towns or villages.
(A few weeks ago, when the BBC news site published an article about the possibility of a bail-out, they asked for readers comments, and I sent in one suggesting that any large injection of money into the car industry should be conditional upon it being used to fund better development of better cars. The BBC didn't publish my comment, or any similar ones. Seems I'm in a minority.)
I decided I'd add this final point:
The modern car is generally wasteful of our natural resources and harmful to the environment, and the only people who get any significant benefit from them are the energy companies who sell us the fuel. If anybody should bail out the car industry to protect their assets, it should be the energy companies. Let them preserve the gas-guzzlers. After all, they've got a large amount of our money regularly coming into their coffers. Invest it (and not in a bank, you suckers).
Obviously, budgets are being slashed in an effort to preserve the factories. The companies in England are going on to reduced working patterns in an attempt to ride out the troubles while they, like their American counterparts, beg for government assistance. Sadly, I don't feel they're going to get it, because unlike the banks, there are only jobs at stake. And, unlike the banks, the car companies haven't got themselves into such embarrassing debt levels to outsiders such that the governments have no choice but to step in.
Another little giveaway is the decline in advertising for new cars on the television. But, and this is where my title for this post comes to the fore, what adverts there are, are little changed. Buy our car because you'll get laid/ make your neighbours jealous/ Take up more space on the road than the other drivers/ No reason other than we've made a clever advert with lots of strange martial arts scenes like the Matrix.
Do the car companies deserve to survive on taxpayers money? Not one manufacturer has released an advert along the following lines:
"Remember that summer of discontent when crude oil prices climbed higher than the Jumbo Jets? Remember how the goverments said they heard your pleas and would do something? Remember how they failed to cut the price of oil and waited for the recession to do it for them? Well, we heard your pleas too, and we did something about them. The new (insert car name here) does 50% more miles to the gallon than any other car, so when the oil prices soar again, you won't be forced to empty your pockets to enjoy your driving."
No, not a single car company has made any attempt to look ahead and protect their core market. For that reason, I don't think they're worthy of assistance. If the government is going to pump billions into parts of the transport industry, I think they should be funding research into future technology, whether it be on more fuel-efficient cars or on producing biofuels, I'm not able to judge. But my instinct says it should be on smaller. lighter, more efficient cars capable of running on a range of fuels, and. ideally, on electricity when in towns or villages.
(A few weeks ago, when the BBC news site published an article about the possibility of a bail-out, they asked for readers comments, and I sent in one suggesting that any large injection of money into the car industry should be conditional upon it being used to fund better development of better cars. The BBC didn't publish my comment, or any similar ones. Seems I'm in a minority.)
I decided I'd add this final point:
The modern car is generally wasteful of our natural resources and harmful to the environment, and the only people who get any significant benefit from them are the energy companies who sell us the fuel. If anybody should bail out the car industry to protect their assets, it should be the energy companies. Let them preserve the gas-guzzlers. After all, they've got a large amount of our money regularly coming into their coffers. Invest it (and not in a bank, you suckers).
Labels: cost of bailing out the car anufacturers, cost of car adverts, cost of fuel
posted by Sopwith-Camel | 8:52 am
2 Comments:
I don't have a car anymore. How smug am I?
I don't see why the government should help produce more cars when we should be actively reducing car usage. In that sense, the "downturn" (or whatever this week's name for it is) should be seen as an opportunity.
But then, this is the government that wants to give Heathrow a third runway.
Yes, the lunatics have taken over the asylum.
ST, I tried to do without a car last year, cycling as much as possible. However, it isn't easy in the countryside, when the whole way of life is geared up to shopping and working via cars.
I think one advantage of having the lunatics take over the asylum is that they're visibly there for the press to comment on. If they were furtively working away behind the scenes we might never know they're there at all, or what they're getting up to.
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