Jun 02 2009
GM’s Delisting; End of An Era
There is no doubt that the delisting of GM and the planned addition of Cisco in its place is a mile marker. Goodbye King Auto, Hello King Computer. Sputnik changed the views of the American culture from looking at the past and its fascination with the cowboy. Now the nation’s complete dominance of the automobile has been changed to domination of the computer, ironically the very thing that helped make the Sputnik flight possible.
It’s not that America has lost its fascination with the car. It’s more that the marriage of the American consumer has mellowed with age. We expect to hop in and go. We expect to use it to get to work. And now, after years of inexpensive fuel, the time has come to move to the next generation of cars, one that is fuel efficient.
GM’s demise was not that it had provided too much for the workers and retirees. There was some of that as an issue, too, yes. But it was because it lost its ability to look ahead, something Toyota did well. When oil prices were climbing, it was putting out a vehicle that got 9 miles to the gallon and swooning the owners with lavish parties. Their demise was not preparing for a different future.
One senior GM executive said that Tesla woke up GM to the fact that an engine could be fuel efficient. Tesla showed that if their car could run 150 miles to the gallon, so could many others. And where is Tesla made? On the west coast.
Europeans can, in no way, understand the American citizen’s need and desire about the automobile. Yesterday an acquaintance mentioned that people in Norway bike everywhere. That’s great! But here in the United States, we have so much space that in two of our states, you can’t even drive from one end to the other in 24 hours. Our roads are not set up to accommodate bikers all that well; something that hopefully can be remedied. The U.S. is a car country, and changing that will not be easy. Only in some cities is biking encouraged by the traffic patterns and laws. And now since fuel became more expensive, mass transit is looking more inviting, too.
American needs a new car to fall in love with; one that doesn’t look like a jelly bean, is cool and economical, too. We want the vroom of an engine, without using gas. We want the cool look of the 50’s with a new look, something a new millennium can call its own. We want the glamour of having a new car without looking like we spend ridiculous amounts of money at a time when people are struggling. Basically, in order to fall in love with the car again, we want the same feeling we got in the 50’s when we bought one; it wouldn’t break our banks, it didn’t look like an old lady was going to drive it, but it wasn’t a car to pick up chicks, either. The cars of the fifties were cool, even for middle age folks, and affordable. GM may have a lot of making up to do, but it better know what it is going to do before it just jumps into the same old cooking pot.
In the meantime, there is one more thing to consider. Replacing GM with Cisco shows the movement of innovation and a new era to the west coast. No longer are the repetitive manufacturing jobs the enviable ones. The future is in secondary education; not in a manufacturing plant. And what an exciting future it will be.
