Go Chrysler!  And Neil of course.  Do i have to retire "Living With War" after the inauguration?

How about a green revolution version Neil?  Living With Revolution?

But really Chrysler, if you are serious please go Fiber Forge carbon fiber body/frame technology too.  That might put you in  position to buy out GM in a few years.

The key to plugin hybrid, is lightweight.  Carbon fiber does it while actually increasing crash protection strength and safety.  A 1200 pound economy plugin hybrid would beat the world to the punch.  make it a Chrysler.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin

Come on!  This is about as bassakwards as putting hybrid engines into Chevy Tahoes and heavy pickups.  

I don't give a shit -- putting much larger battery packs and larger motors in electric vehicles, especially those designed for transporting 175 pounds of human flesh, makes absolutely no freaking sense!  For one, it requires generating much more power to charge the batteries.  Where is this power coming from?  And get real and get honest -- coal and nuclear.  

Forget about it.  Chrysler is not going to survive and this is a prime example of why it shouldn't.  

Come on guys, this is just part of their desperate PR strategy to squeeze billions of dollars out of taxpayers. They know with a bad economy and low gas prices people won't be buying more costly electric cars anyway.

he way forward is to provide people with a variety of better transportation choices that have less environmental impact. This includes high-speed rail, rapid transit, cycling and walking as well as building communities that don't force people to walk and cycle.

Instead of wasting money bailing out the failed auto makers, it would be far better to provide loans to new, innovative companies that can provide transportation solutions for the future. Funding should also be provided to help transition auto workers to new jobs.

The world marches on. By desperately hanging on to sunset industries, we will far even further behind other countries.

Chrysler, like other American car manufacturers, is in trouble.

Chrysler, like other car manufacturers world-wide, sees that electric cars are the vehicles of the not-so-distant future.

Chrysler sees an opportunity to save its butt by moving as rapidly as possible into the the electric car market.  The quickest way to get there is by modifying versions of their current lines, thus saving time and money.

and...

 America needs jobs.  If we let very major manufacturers go under we take the risk of driving our economy into a deep depression that could take years of recovery.

 If we let manufacturers go out of business we are going to be facing enormous amounts of expense to keep millions of Americans fed and housed.  We will not permit mass starvation and millions of Americans dying on our sidewalks.

 If we spend some money now to keep American car manufacturers alive while they transition to more economic and electric vehicles we stand to create a flow of tax money back into our coffers rather than sending all that money overseas to purchase foreign products from now to eternity.

---

(All that anger at American car manufactures because they made the big cars/trucks/SUVs that Americans wanted to buy and didn't make the shoe-box sized fuel sipper that a half dozen people wanted back when gas was cheap?  

Get the f*ck over it.  Doesn't matter who shot the hole in the hull when the boat is sinking.  What matters is bailing.)

What is the appeal of an electric Jeep or Ram Pickup?  Anyone with any serious heavy use for either is going to continue choosing the gas model.  

One of their big problems now is too many freaking models.  Applying electric motors to the behemoths in their product line is just plain stupid.  

They should put their efforts into a couple of models that really have some potential sales in the electric market which is primarily going to be in large urban areas.  

They should have learned their lessons by observing how many hybrid Tahoes that GM sold.

They need to get lighter, get smaller and get smarter if they want to make the switch to electric.  

And I thought it was only software companies that sold vaporware!

"This is the essence of science...you ask an impertinent question and you're on your way to a pertinent answer." -- Fox Mulder, S1E4, "Conduit"

Here's a guess...

Their market research told them that they would sell more electrics that look like Jeeps than electrics that look like Prowlers.  (Remember Prowlers?

Another guess...

Engineering and Tooling told them that they could produce an electric Jeep months/years faster than they could create a brand new super-lite "whatever".  And Finance told them that time was of the essence.

(And ask yourself.  How many people who bought 4wd SUVs actually needed 4wd or that much interior space?  Seems to me that a lot of the market is not driven by rabid rationality.)

It's likely that you couldn't have been luckier to have expensive oil and the financial meltdown to happen at the same time.

Reversing a moving ship is harder than one that is sitting still....

All the existing klunky models of Chrysler (and their brethren GM and Ford) seem to be like those deck chairs being rearranged while the ship is taking on water.  

This is the company that brought us the "K" car...

Seems we need a new paradigm here, and I'm not sure a Jeep with tons of batteries on board to weigh it down further is going to convince the average Joe Sixpack to convert to sustainable transportation.  Maybe if gas were $15 per gallon... (that's another post from today's gristmill)

Seriously, how about converting these companies into transportation companies, with investments in light rail, and maybe coast-to-coast stocks of Flexcar-style vehicle network services in every voting precinct?  

I know there are workable electric vehicle concepts out there, including some that can be stacked to run like trains over longer distances...  

Meanwhile how about some market signals and incentives encouraging people to live within about 6 miles of their workplace, etc?  Many of the lifestyle choices people take as fixed or given, need not be so in the end.  20 years from now, will you care whether your commute to work was in a large or small car?  Or whether the earth's climate and biodiversity and sustainability were protected?

American know-how is capable of more.  

What would Bucky (Fuller) do?

Moving toward sustainability with hopefulness, one revolution at a time.

They deserve to live.

But let's kill them because something that they tried 15 years ago didn't work.

Got it....