The government has refused to financially help out General Motors in its attempted merger with Chrysler. This is a bit surprising (although not all that much) since it’s a common belief that the Bush administration is partly in the pockets of fossil fuel-based domestic automakers (the rest being in the pocket of oil companies). On the other hand, it is consistent with the Republican’s free market policy. What is rather more surprising is that the administration is supporting a $25 billion loan program for fuel-efficient vehicles.
Given how badly US automakers have forecast trends in the automobile market, it’s no surprise that they’re doing badly, and the current economic downturn only makes their situation much worse. Perhaps things would have been different if they didn’t focus so much on large vehicles and put in more resources into hybrid or electric cars, instead of discontinuing development of vehicles such as the EV1. Then again, their problems might lie somewhere else so that they may still have ended up poorly.
I wonder if there will still be cars from GM or Ford in a couple of decades …