GM Exec: Global Warming a “Crock,” Hybrids “Feel Good” Cars

Posted by Bill Dupray on Jun 7 2009 Filed under Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry

I’m thinking that Bob Lutz, truthteller, is not long for the payroll of General Motors. After all, he is a Global Warming Denier, who, if this were the time of Henry VIII, would be burned at the stake as a heretic. But for now, it is nice to see at least one auto executive call BS on the Enviro-kooks.

The 77-year-old silver-haired, tanned and gregarious former Marine aviator rides motorcycles, pilots a helicopter that his GM colleagues say he lands on his driveway, once called global warming “a crock,” and appeared on David Letterman’s and Stephen Colbert’s shows to banter about GM’s hopes for the Volt. Just the new language associated with environmentalism irks him. He momentarily looks bewildered when asked whether the place of the modern vehicle is undergoing a change in the culture, whether in time Americans might chiefly appreciate a GM car simply for its “utilitarian” value, a reliable conveyor of riders from point A to B.

Lutz raises his eyebrows. “Utilitarian?”

A car is not an appliance, he says. A car is not a washing machine — the proof of which is that people do not lust after their washing machines. They lust after a beautiful car, he says. If you want reliable, go get yourself a refrigerator. A gorgeous car, he says, is an expression of power and yearning, especially for owners who hope the vehicles will inject excitement and romance into their otherwise mundane lives. “Show me a washing machine that can do that,” he says.

And his disdain for the feel-good lefties, who think that having their car use less gas will somehow change the temperature of the planet, is palpable.

In early 2006 — “much too late,” he acknowledges now — a troubled Lutz saw that driving a Prius constituted nothing less than a values statement for many of its owners, a means to bask in the perception of their own enlightenment. . . .

“That’s where Toyota did a very clever thing: The Prius had its own unique appearance,” he says. “Just like the Volkswagen Beetle was ugly in the ’50s, the Prius had a certain ugly chic about it that appealed to a lot of people, the same kind of trendsetters who’d bought the Beetles long ago because to do it was cool and showed you were not part of a materialistic society.”

Here is where he made his mistake. If a substantial part of your customer base thinks that red shag carpet on the dashboard is very chic, and leaky sunroofs are a convenient way to save water at home by showering in the car on the way to work, and that purple cars with yellow polka-dots make birds less constipated; then you build that hideous piece of garbage and sell it to them.

Because just like a a gorgeous car “is an expression of power and yearning, especially for owners who hope the vehicles will inject excitement and romance into their otherwise mundane lives,” nutball environmentalists are dead-serious about their silly global warming theories and feel a primal need to assuage their guilt and show others how self-righteous they are. It is all about pushing buyers’ buttons. His buttons, and those of a majority of Americans, are pushed by big, powerful cars and trucks, the essence of America on four wheels. But ignoring the nutballs cost them their company.

Capitalists don’t have the luxury of ignoring part of their potential customer base, because in a Capitalist society, you can be sure your competition will embrace them.

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