The straight talker and car czar Bob Lutz said a lot of interesting comments during a closed-door session with some journalists: global warming is a “total crock of shit,” hybrid and diesel cars “make no economic sense.”
Our good old Bob Lutz is never short of a joke. This time he said that he was rather skeptic about global warming and didn’t want the Volt to be developed to fight global warming but to reduce the US dependance on foreign oil.
He also said that Hybrid cars like those made by Toyota “make no economic sense,” because their price will never come down and that diesel cars are also uneconomic. He justified his view about diesel by explaining that diesel cars make sense when diesel fuel is half the cost of regular gasoline. When it’s not the case, diesel has little market penetration. Surprisingly, in the UK, diesel and gasoline cost the same and still diesel penetration reach 40% in January. It might be interesting for Bob to travel abroad sometimes and not only in a private jet.
He also compared the mission of a car maker to the movie business. “you’ve got to look at the business artistically, too. Part of our business is creating blockbusters”, he said. Unfortunately for GM, Bob doesn’t have a good flair for blockbusters!
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