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Wow, it is "scary stuff"! They had the opportunity to help Tesla(or be Tesla), and they made everything on their power to destroy it, remember the GM first ele

Wow, it is "scary stuff"! They had the opportunity to help Tesla(or be Tesla), and they made everything on their power to destroy it, remember the GM first electric car. Now it is scary because it survived and it is the future, not them. This people is frightened by the future so they try to delay it as much as they can. They are worried about themselves, rent seekers trying not to lose what they have instead of caring about their customers. In business you have to care(genuinely)for your customers or you are dead. Like dinosaurs.

D_Alex 12y ago
This part: >Now we have Silicon Valley challenging Detroit's leadership in the auto industry's most promising growth areas — autonomous cars, connected vehicles, eco-friendly powertrains made me snigger. "Detroit's leadership" - and this applies to many of the overseas subsidiaries of Detroit's companies also - has been mainly in rent-seeking behaviour for years. Since 1970's the only trend they have kept up with is the move to SUVs, missing just about everything else: downsized engines, turbocharging, diesel, reliability engineering, interior design and of course the electric car. I had a little glimpse through my job at the inside workings of one of the "Big Three" US carmakers. I got the impression that far too few people working there actually, you know, liked cars. The employees were generic dispassionate corporate managers, engineers, accountants etc. They really needed an injection of car enthusiasts.
- hackuser 12y ago
  > I got the impression that far too few people working there actually, you know, liked cars. These aren't startups. Are most IBM or HP employees so passionate about information technology?
BrainInAJar 12y ago
> Now it is scary because it survived and it is the future, not them. The future is civic design around people rather than cars, and that's a threat to Tesla and GM alike
- DannyBee 12y ago
  "The future is civic design around people rather than cars," In what way? Trying to change social behavior (americans like cars) is ridiculously hard.
  - BrainInAJar 12y ago
    By providing incentives for multimodal transport (building bike lanes, improving public transport) and removing the incentives to drive (free parking, ever widening roads inducing demand, mandatory parking in the building codes) It's actually quite easy to change people's social behaviour through a very small number of minor modifications to zoning. Copenhagen was very car oriented until the 70's when they decided to change it, and now it's a model of a car-lite city
    - DannyBee 12y ago
      "It's actually quite easy to change people's social behaviour through a very small number of minor modifications to zoning." I 100% do not buy this would work in the US :) There are huge culture differences. Can you cite any example of a large US city where it has worked? A bunch of them have tried, AFAIK.

D_Alex 12y ago

This part: >Now we have Silicon Valley challenging Detroit's leadership in the auto industry's most promising growth areas — autonomous cars, connected vehicles, eco-friendly powertrains made me snigger. "Detroit's leadership" - and this applies to many of the overseas subsidiaries of Detroit's companies also - has been mainly in rent-seeking behaviour for years. Since 1970's the only trend they have kept up with is the move to SUVs, missing just about everything else: downsized engines, turbocharging, diesel, reliability engineering, interior design and of course the electric car. I had a little glimpse through my job at the inside workings of one of the "Big Three" US carmakers. I got the impression that far too few people working there actually, you know, liked cars. The employees were generic dispassionate corporate managers, engineers, accountants etc. They really needed an injection of car enthusiasts.

hackuser 12y ago
> I got the impression that far too few people working there actually, you know, liked cars. These aren't startups. Are most IBM or HP employees so passionate about information technology?

BrainInAJar 12y ago

> Now it is scary because it survived and it is the future, not them. The future is civic design around people rather than cars, and that's a threat to Tesla and GM alike

DannyBee 12y ago
"The future is civic design around people rather than cars," In what way? Trying to change social behavior (americans like cars) is ridiculously hard.
- BrainInAJar 12y ago
  By providing incentives for multimodal transport (building bike lanes, improving public transport) and removing the incentives to drive (free parking, ever widening roads inducing demand, mandatory parking in the building codes) It's actually quite easy to change people's social behaviour through a very small number of minor modifications to zoning. Copenhagen was very car oriented until the 70's when they decided to change it, and now it's a model of a car-lite city
  - DannyBee 12y ago
    "It's actually quite easy to change people's social behaviour through a very small number of minor modifications to zoning." I 100% do not buy this would work in the US :) There are huge culture differences. Can you cite any example of a large US city where it has worked? A bunch of them have tried, AFAIK.