Maybe This Will Work

A GM merger with Chrysler is like a troubled couple with an unwanted pregnancy deciding to get married, thinking it will fix their problems.

What they need to do is realize just how badly they've been betrayed by the oil industry and release some of that technology they've been sitting on for forty years. In 1992 my wife had a Chevy Nova that consistently got 40 miles per gallon on the highway. Later, we had a 1996 Saturn SL-1 that consistently got 30 mpg in the city. But I am lucky if my 2003 Saturn Ion gets 26 mpg in the city today. I have to feather the gas and drive with no air conditioner to get the same mileage I got on bad days in my old SL-1. There are hybrids, supposedly fuel efficient, that don't get the gas mileage our old Nova got. There is no excuse for this, unless these cars are intentionally designed to burn more gas, which wouldn't surprise me at all.

They don't need to spend years and billions of dollars designing new technologies. Just dust off the stuff they put in mothballs years ago, probably at the request of the oil companies. To GM and Chrysler I ask, have the oil companies shared any of their record profits with you? No, they're letting you go bankrupt. So return the favor. By 2010, you could be producing sedans that get 50 mpg. You'd make a killing. Drop your inventory to about 8 models, give them all killer gas mileage, and watch your profits soar.

Or you could keep carrying water for the oil companies. And in five years, you'll all be employees of Toyota. Those of you who still have jobs, that is.