Bill Maher & General Motors

I've started watching a lot of "Real Time with Bill Maher" since moving into my apartment and having HBO. Check it out sometime, it's really a great show. Unfortunately, its airs on Friday nights but I typically catch it later during encore broadcasts.

Anyway, he has this section towards the end of every show called "New Rules." Basically, he spends the remaining ten minutes of the one hour long program bitching about whats on his mind with a dose of comedy and satire. Well, one of the "new rules" this week really struck me hard. It managed to affect because I'm an advocate for environmental issues, I've grown disgusted with America's obsession for SUVs, and partly because I curse at the horrible situation General Motors has driven (oh I love puns) itself into these days (coming from somebody who interned at GM and whose father has worked there almost entirely... well that says a lot). To paraphrase my father, "GM is in some shit right now, more than you know."

Anyway, here's the "new rule" from Bill Maher:

And finally, New Rule: Because it's Earth Day, I get to ask this question: How come we have cars with global positioning systems, satellite radio and voice-activated web access, and we still power them with the black goop you have to suck out of the ground? Well, I hate to tell you this, folks, but gas doesn't cost too much; it costs too little. Ooh, I know, I know. I know you hear about gas prices over two dollars a gallon and it makes you nearly choke on your four-dollar latte.

We bitch about gas, but adjusted for inflation, it's the same price it was back when the Pope was a Nazi. And that's not the fault of ExxonMobil, either. That's like Kirstie Alley saying her problem is that Arabs control all the fudge. Anyone who's been to Europe knows that the price of gas over there is just a picture of an arm and a leg. And that's because they tax it heavily and we don't. How come we Americans accepted that you could do that to cigarettes - overtax them because they were bad - but burning oil into the atmosphere is okay? You can't smoke in a bar, but you can drive through a restaurant?

A little smoke from a cigar is intolerable, but a lot from a Hummer is no problem? Of course, the Hummer is made by General Motors, the owner of other gas-guzzling F***-You-mobiles - like the Escalade and the Suburban. And they just lost a billion dollars in one quarter. Because it suddenly got a lot less sexy to drive one of these fake macho vehicles now that it costs a hundred bucks to fill it up. Yeah, nobody's dick is that small.

Plus, does anybody remember the '70s? GM did this before. They got filthy rich selling giant cars that suddenly people didn't want because gas went up. Cut to the Japanese gloating, as they are again. Because they own the patent for the hybrid car. GM could have had a piece of it, but they said it didn't make economic sense. Hey, you just lost a billion dollars in three months. You don't have any economic sense.

What ever happened to all the research that went into the GM EV1? GM was first to bring out an electric car. Sure it flopped but that was because no one wanted to plug in their car every night. How did GM not see the future of hybrids. Furthermore, why haven't they reacted faster to the Toyota Prius? GM has been steadily losing market share for decades, and Toyota has a three month long wait list for the Prius. Do I need to spell it out any more clearly? Ok, here it is GM... take your fledgling Pontiac G6, rip out its V6, offer a manual transmission, and give it a hybrid or diesel engine. I recommend starting with Saturn's 1.9L SOHC or Chevy's 2.2L Ecotec. Or, ask Opel for some help. If you manage to succeed, you'll have something better than the Prius because the G6 isn't quite nearly as ugly.

Now, I've recently made comments similar to these a few months ago to my dad when I went with him to the Detroit Auto Show. I complained that GM didn't have any hybrids that were available and that they were missing the boat. He responded that GM instead focused on developing hybrid buses for nine metropolitan areas that collectively have saved more gasoline than all the Prius' combined. Thats all well and good, but that doesn't help GM sell cars. Nobody rides a bus and thinks, "hey, this bus is really nice... I need to go buy a GM car!"

Get with the program GM. Its tough love time. I'm in the market for a new car and I really want to buy something from GM. My discount is fantastic and you've been good to my dad but if you don't offer me something that I'd like to buy soon, you'll just force me to buy a Civic because I can get it with an hybrid engine and a manual transmission.