Engineering a better car ain't as easy as it looks

Carter Wood at Shopfloor.org points us to a pretty interesting showdown between environmentalists and the auto industry.

The Union of Concerned Scientists swears that it's possible for automakers to build a minivan with a 40 percent reduction in tailpipe emissions, using affordable, off-the-shelf technology.

So General Motors said "come on down" and show us what you've got. After the meeting, the car guys were less than impressed with the Union's engineering.

You know, corporate people always get beat up for not speaking plainly. But you can't get any more straight-forward than these two quotes from yesteday's Detroit News:

"The challenge with the environmentalists is that there is a complete lack of business and technical experience from which they can draw conclusions."

That was from a GM spokesperson.

GM Vice Chairman Bob Lutz is apparently just as blunt. The paper quoted this passage from the well-known corporate blogger:

There is no technological bag of tricks that enables much better fuel economy than we have today. Despite what alarmists may think, we don't have any magic 100-mpg carburetor that we're holding back because we're in bed with the oil companies.

Corporate-speak? I don't think so.

Quick hit: Environmentalists would be far more effective if they stopped trying to embarrass corporations by painting them as evil and started listening and learning about the competitive marketplace.