I suspect GM’s stock price would shoot back up upon such an announcement, and there would be unprecedented anticipation for how Apple’s co-founder, the visionary Steve Jobs, might bring the same type of innovation to the American automobile industry that he brought to the computer and communications and music industry.
Would it be enough and in time to save them? That I couldn’t tell ya, but it’d be just about the best chance they’d have, I’d venture.
While I’m focused on this point, allow me to link back to my recent article asking why Congress hasn’t asked GM about their popular, fully-electric car, the EV1, before trying to give them billions of dollars.
The company introduced the EV1 in California in 1996, before killing it inexplicably three years later and, literally, shredding every last one of the much-sought-after vehicles. Several excellent comments left by readers on that article, also look into the related mystery of Texaco having purchased the patent for the second generation battery for the car. The purchase occurred at nearly the same time as the EV1 was taken off the market. The new battery technology is said to have had a superbly long life on a single charge. The purchase effectively took the battery off the market — has it been heard from since?
Texaco itself was purchased by Chevron just days after they’d bought the rights to the battery in 2000. At the time of the purchase, as coincidence would have it, Condoleeza Rice was on Chevron’s board, and Andy Card was GM’s VP of Government Relations, according to Wikipedia, where he served until he was selected as George W. Bush’s Chief of Staff. Prior to that, from ’93 to ’98, Card had been President and CEO of the American Automobile Manufacturers Assoc. (AAMA), representing GM, Ford and Chrysler. All just coincidences, of course.
But back to the main point of this item…If Steve Jobs is disinclined to leave Apple, the company he co-founded, in order to take the reins as CEO of the floundering GM, then I suppose I could revise the headline of this piece to read instead:
How to Save the American Automobile Industry in Three Words:
‘The Apple iCar’
Just sayin’.
UPDATE 12/11/08: Looks like a few others were having the same idea just about the time that I was, and in a bit more detail…
The good Bob Cringely offers the most details, as he was “wondering what would happen if Steve Jobs were put in charge of any of the Big Three car companies.” He takes the time to flesh out the thought in smart detail, noting the “eery resemblance to the positions of the automakers today” that Apple faced when Jobs returned to the helm to save the company he co-founded after several years in exile. The company was, writes Cringely, “in worse shape than some of these car companies” before Jobs worked his magic…
…
Today Apple and Jobs are at the top of their game, taking market share from other computer companies while at the same time establishing game-changing new product concepts like the iPod and iPhone. Apple is America’s largest music seller (who could have seen that one coming back in ’97? Nobody), has no debt, and $22+ billion in the bank. Even at its currently depressed stock price, Apple is worth more than any of the car companies and for good reason: Apple has a future.
See his full column for what Jobs did to streamline the company when he returned to “make Apple such a business success and how [he] would…translate these techniques to a car company.”
Also, Thomas Friedman is pondering similar-ish ideas, drawing ideas on how to save the auto industry from Jobs’ successful Apple model.
BTW, if any of you may be wondering, I’m a PC.
Thanks for keeping this on the front burner Brad. This would be a great story for Rachel Maddow’s show to get out into wider circulation. There are so many aspects to it that make you screaming mad. It’s very hard to root for a bailout of a company that has been so foolish and shortsighted except the people who get screwed by letting them fail, aren’t the ones who made these choices. The talented people who designed and built the EV-1 are the ones who get punished for the failure of upper management.
It would be very interesting if some brave congressperson could attach as a condition of getting federal money, a full disclosure of why this program was dumped and who made the calls under pressure from whom.
on the gm ev1 electric car i was doing some research on electric cars and found that at the same time toyota made one using the same batteries as gm ev1 this research was in 2001
and what i saw on the net was that toyota sold thier cars to the public and that in 2001 the batteries were doing just as good on power as they were when new. thats great battery life.
Jobs would do so much better than the CEOs from the Good Oil Boy network.
On another note:
Al Franken, Election Integrity Activist? IMHO, his video reminds me of something I’d find on the Bradblog:
http://www.alfranken.com/
– Tom
Any word on the number of “spoiled” ballots in the Franken race other than absentee?
In most elections, the number of spoiled and voided run around 2-3%, but I’m not hearing anything about the 70-80 THOUSAND votes this would represent.
Are they just RE-COUNTING the votes they already counted (like in Florida 2000 and Ohio 2004) and ignoring the votes that never got counted in the first place?
I look to BradBlog for news on this kind of thing. What’s the story?
What about the water car and the air car? They’re both viable candidates for fossil fuel replacement vehicles.
It’s not clear. There are perhaps 4,000-5,000 ballots that were challenged and will be reviewed. A number of these, I’m guessing in the thousands, were challenged by Coleman simply to keep the official recount number in his favor, since challenged ballots wouldn’t be included. Then Franken was forced to also challenge additional ballots so, politically, Coleman wouldn’t look like he was artificially gaining.
Over the past couple weeks, both Franken and Coleman have withdrawn challenges to hundreds of ballots.
I’d guess that less than a thousand ballots are probably appropriately challenged.
It’s murky and messy. By Franken’s math, he comes out 4 votes ahead of Coleman in the recount, including challenged ballots. You can also check out http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com and http://www.firedoglake.com to keep up with the latest developments.
– Tom
http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/2008/pulpit_20081207_005508.html
@Tom R (#6): Yeah, I know the count of “contested” ballots, but that number doesn’t add up. For the last 8 years, the number of “spoiled” and “voided” ballots has been in the range of 2-3% of every election. Those are ballots that are thrown out BEFORE THE COUNTING EVEN STARTS. Yes, that includes the absentee ballots that are rejected because of signature mis-match or postmarks, but it also includes a whole bunch of OTHER categories.
Why would that percentage suddenly go from 2-3% down to .02% or less? I know there is a fairly fair SoS there now, but still, the machenery of Rethuglican election theft hasn’t been dissolved.
THE SPOILAGE RATE IS HIGHER — I would bet my Democratic Republic on it! The players involved either are not being told about the spoiled ballots, or are chosing to ignore them.
CharlieL – I’ll try to get an answer for you from a source in MN, if I can.
TomR – Thanks for responding to Charlie, as I’ve been trying (though, not particularly successfully) to take a bit of down time and as the Franken/Coleman race is being fairly well-covered elsewhere, for a pleasant change, didn’t think I need to cover it in ballot-by-ballot detail, unless there was something I was otherwise able to offer that others haven’t.
Have been, of course, jumping in as needed, and when unavoidable, as I will continue to do. Whether I like it or not! 🙂
Some latest news on Minnesota Senate race:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/12/11/more-minnesota-absentee-b_n_150292.html
http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/12/still_more_ballots_in_minnesot.php
There’s a distinction being made between rejected and uncounted absentee ballots. Now where do spoiled ballots fit into the mix?
On another topic, I’ve been wondering what’s the status of Don Siegelman’s appeal? Not much conclusive news apparently.
– Tom
There’s an underlying level we ought to be considering. It’s not just cars and car-making that need to be re-thought. We need to include other transit systems- street-cars, buses,…
On another blog I found this:
“If you look into the history of streetcars and interurban street railroads in the US, you will find that in the 1930-40’s, the automobile manufacturers bought up all the streetcar businesses, closed them, ripped up the tracks and thus created ideal conditions for persons to *have* to purchase automobiles for transport.”
Let’s have some real systems thinking, ok?
Perceptive Centaur?
THIS changes everything!
Just an insanely great question: Would Jobs save jobs?
@TomR: Every election usually has a lot of situations where ballots are “spoiled” and/or “voided” at the COUNTING phase, and I don’t get a clear indication that those are being considered.
The reason I question this is that the OVERALL total counts for BOTH candidates should be going UP if they are being considered.
Provisional ballots? How many of those were given out, and are they being counted?
@Brad: I would disagree that there is a lot of coverage of this recount. I think there is the basic “Coleman is ahead because he says so” coverage locally, but not much else.
I would reference Mark Cripin Miller and Greg Palast if their work was online.
Glad to see that Jobs has completed his reinvention so thoroughly that all his failures have been forgotten. Apple spent 22 years, 1976-1998, as a big failure. Then on the basis of a single product, the iPod, he has somehow lost the stink of his passed failures?
I live in the valley and the only thing he is really good at is the history rewrites. Read Apple’s wiki entry.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Computer
Let’s get someone that knows more than how to hype things.
RC
Jobs was gone most of that time. He came back, Apple got better.
I worked at Apple when Jobs was first there, during the Scully, et al… years, and when he came back.
Under the reins of Jobs, Apple staffed up, laid off, staffed up, laid off, etc…numerous times. It was never a stable place to be.
I still have friends there – and they report that as an employee, the pride in producing leading edge products is there, but they also report that the bad habit of never being able to hold marketshare is something that Apple cannot seem to shake.
I would never question Mr. Jobs’ brilliance – but remember Apple is and always has been more than Jobs company.
Oh – and never forget Jobs’ other venture….NeXT?
Where is that company now?
Give me Jack Welch or someone else who knows how to run a big company. We don’t need this kind of management in Detroit.
Charlie L, the uptake.org has good info on the Franken recount.
There isn’t anyone that could fix the big 3 if no one has a decent job to buy the cars…they are mostly overpriced anyway.
I had a Dodge Neon (UAW made)that had over 200,000 miles on it and all I ever did on it was fluids and brakes, so they can make a good car
Republican Depression II here we come
Don’t like Welch, worked under him for 5 years.
he was able to find good people to work under him, but his people skills were terrible. Ego.
Hired and fired just to keep you on your toes. You work the 60 hour week, to let him work a 20 hour week. Kills your life so he could roll on the grass wacking a ball. Ruined more companies then saving them.