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If we're gonna own GM, let's *own* it
Submitted by Paul Tiffany (not verified) on Mon, 06/08/2009 - 10:21
Jaime Kitman of ForeignPolicy.com asks, "what kind of car company are we trying to build?" No matter your politics, that we now own General Motors is fact. If our interest is to hold or sell, it is stll in our best interest, as American taxpayers, to ensure GM's success.
We must think innovatively about this development as an opportunity. How can we create value for our investment, given the novel stake we each share?
We know that Green is the new Red, White, and Blue. Certainly GM must engineer fuel-efficient solutions. Our economy, our environment, our empire all require energy independence. Going green isn't sexy, and cars are about sexuality and social status. See P.J. O'Rourke and Jon Stewart on why sex sells:
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | M - Th 11p / 10c | |||
| P.J. O'Rourke | ||||
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I suggest, in light of O'Rourke's insight, we can't just Pimp GM's Ride, we must geek it out. We should push GM to produce not only efficient, but intelligent cars. While auto-pilot has yet to overtake cruise-control, DARPA's Grand Challenge and Urban Challenge demonstrated the possibility for applications of artificial intelligence in automobiles. With GM in public control, why not spend a portion of GM's research budget on open, competitive prizes. Peter Diamandis argues grand prizes are most effective at proving fringe technologies feasible. I suspect open innovation platforms could also provide incremental improvements to the safety, efficiency, intelligence and elegance of our rides. Instead of awards, we could incentivize with acquisitions.
Our cars should be individual and social. Tesla's Model S runs Linux on it's dash: Customizing the feel of its interior as easy as changing your desktop background. What if we created a Facebook for our cars? Could we prevent road-rage by Digging down the driver that just cut us off? Can we network our cars with each other to relay precise information on traffic patterns, updating the fastest route to our GPS navigators?
If we own GM, let's own it. We should build a platform to express our vision for our company.
Agreed
I agree completely. It's unfortunate that there's so much fear-mongering over our new public ownership of GM. Thanks for providing some insightful optimism on the issue. We should work towards being proud of Government Motors, not ashamed.
Some items
Relative to your comment: "Can we network our cars with each other to relay precise information on traffic patterns, updating the fastest route to our GPS navigators? "
The higher level TomTom GPS's let the user add map corrections and share them to the community. I don't think the updates are shared to the community wirelessly from the road, but it's a start.
On the general subject... I'm torn over the CAFE standards. I realize it is a way to reduce the USA's fuel consumption and thereby emissions, but the sports car as we know it will be a dying breed. As a car nut, that hurts. What will happen to the used car market for powerful cars?