San Francisco Mayor Takes Detroit to Task For Electric Car Failures
San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom is in it to win it today. After earlier defending San Francisco from Oregon’s plan to overtake the Bay Area as the EV capital of the world, news hit the wire that Mayor Newsom struck hard at Detroit for killing their electric vehicle programs and lacking the vision to move beyond hybrids.
At conference on the future of the auto industry sponsored by Newsweek, Mayor Newsom remarked:
“With respect to Detroit, it is not good enough to advance by 2012 an ambitious strategy of having 14 different models at GM of hybrids — when hybrids are yesterday’s technology. Hybrids have been on the market since 1999. The car industry must be reinvented and automakers must move quicker to plug-in hybrids.”
As reported in the Detroit News, Mayor Newsom said that California has been fighting the EPA for the last eight years to pursue their own emissions reduction plan — for most of that time, the EPA was on the side of the Big Three and refused to let California take their own path. Newsom scolded the Big Three for resisting California’s push to reduce vehicle emissions by 30% by 2016.
“Talk about shooting yourself in the foot. This is the same group of folks that spent billions of dollars over the years lobbying against seat belts, lobbying against rear view mirrors, lobbying against air bags and now lobbying against the one thing that will save them — low carbon fuel standards. We’ve got to save this industry and that’s why we need partnerships.”
Newsom appeared to indicate that the numerous California EV startups could provide models for how to retool the Big Three. He criticized how much money has been spent on bailing out the auto industry, yet all it seems to have done is delayed the inevitable.
“We’re going to have to dramatically re-imagine the automobile industry, and the problem is we’re still stuck in this argument about how we can fail more efficiently.”
Sources: Press Release and The Detroit News
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