USA: Auto Industry: Obama govt h+prioritizes "electrification of the vehicle"

In a stunning report on not-so-micro management of the auto industry by the full-programme Obama economic-recovery policy, Jeff Green and John Hughes (Apr5,2k9, Blomberg) outline how "the Obama administration has put such a high priority on the electrification of the vehicle that it would be a very difficult policy decision to drop the Volt [GM's projected electric car, due on the market Nov2k10].

April 3 (Bloomberg) -- The Obama administration, pressing for more fuel-efficient vehicles, won’t block General Motors Corp.’s Chevrolet Volt electric car even after the president’s task force called it too expensive, a person familiar with the matter said.

Questions about the plug-in Volt’s future arose after the administration ousted Chief Executive Officer Rick Wagoner on March 27 and criticized the car in a report that said government-supported GM’s recovery plan was insufficient.

“While the Chevy Volt holds promise, it will likely be too expensive to be commercially successful in the short-term,” according to the March 30 report by President Barack Obama’s auto task force.

The administration’s concerns about the Volt were offset by its belief that GM needs cleaner, fuel-efficient vehicles to succeed in the long term, said the person, who asked not to be identified because the task force’s deliberations are private. GM’s problems may mean the company won’t meet its timetables for producing and selling the Volt though, the person said.

The automaker said yesterday it still plans to deliver the vehicle to showrooms in November 2010, as planned.

For those interested in Christian social philosophy from the reformational standpoint, this particular issue of how green policy becomes more important to the making of cars, than the bad-business-as-usual of General Motors and United Auto Workers. These latter are a decade late in making the transition to electric battery driven vehicle engines. The govt has had the wisdom to displace the regime of whimpering drones at GM, and to guide the GM bureaucracy into making electrocars instead of simply catering to an ignorant public's current tastes. The issue may well reveal how focal the problem of "realizing the norm" and "simultaneity of norm-realization" have to become in the theorizing about societal spheres, and the general philosophical doctrine of societal-sphere sovereignty.

-- EconoMix

Further Research:

Obama uses taxes to push electrocars
Obama/Schwarzenegger push electrocars