Is Chryslerl greenwashing? I hope not. I think Chrysler, of the Three, is deepest in the brown stuff right now. They aren’t likely, in my view, to climb out by doing the same thing they (and the others) have always done. It really is time to bring the rabbits out of hats and in a wholehearted manner. And it sounds like that is the plan, so good for them.

Missing from the debate seems to be reference to an electric car developed by GM some years back. Known as the “EV”, by all accounts it was a very impressive vehicle. An history of the car can be found in the DVD “Who Killed the Electric Car?” A couple of brief points: First, if GM’s EV was as good as it seemed to be, that technology should still be available, and to a greater or lesser extent, relevant to the electric vehicle future. Secondly, in the DVD, blame for the demise of the EV is partially laid on GM and Oil. There were several other parties, not the least being Joe Citizen, who probably did not know better at the time. Well now we are starting to know better, and President Obama has made it clear that we have individual responsibility to get up amd make the country grow again. Make the electric car work and you take a giant step to overcoming climate change issues, oil (energy) dependence, resource wars, food issues and more. Hell, if your tax dollar, via hand-outs to the car-makers brings that outcome, I say that is fantastic!

There will be those who try to obstruct, and have done so successfully for 100 years. (Did you know that Edison and Henry Ford planned and built electric vehicles? Edison was even experimenting with Cadmium batteries – True!).

Those powerful forces are still out there, but if you think that now is the right time to change you are in my view, absolutely right.

Prof Andy Frank

But it is indeed properly classified under humor.

And like the Chinese car (BYD DM) I’m suspicious of the numbers — these sounds like ALL electric cars for the short term — with limits in range, huge battery backs and poor performance.

I don’t blame any car company for making giant SUVs — I blame the idiot consumers who bought them. Some some woman idling for 30 minutes in a ford Expedition — really wanted to put a rock through her windshield.

Last I heard Ford was firing up F-150 production again, in response to declining gas prices. It’s congenital, incorrigible behavior, plain and simple, and they’re all like that.

So far Cerberus itself, by not injecting cash into Chrysler, has implicitly said Chrysler can’t be saved and isn’t worth saving. That’s their own daddy saying that. So why should anyone gainsay them?

I’ll believe in the sincerity and viability of this alleged electrification initiative when Cerberus does, when it signals it does by pumping in all the cash Chrysler says it needs.

In the current press ‘announcement’ all three of those cars in the current announcement are heavy and that’s got to cut down significantly on range unless they load them down with LiONs. As I read the articles on Chrysler’s press ‘announcement’ it turns out they are going to put 26 KW/hrs worth of LiONs in the battery compartment. That’s a full 10 KW more than the Chevy Volt! If you thought the Volt’s projected $40,000.00 price tag was expensive with only a 16 KW/hr LiON battery pack just how expensive are these little gems, no pun intended, going to be?

There’s no way in the world that they can electrify their product line by 2015, and engineering cars to support two radically different driveline options going to cost a fortune.

I’d like this to be true, but it’s just not credible.

Oh, wait a minute….