The Dodge Circuit at the 2009 New York Auto Show
Remember how much money Chrysler received from the federal government in bailout money? $12.5 billion, according to USA Today’s DriveOn blog. The car maker was able to secure those funds, in part, because it promised to ramp up its efforts to produce electric vehicles.
What a difference a few months makes.
Now owned by Italian auto maker Fiat, plans for electric cars have been, at the very least, postponed: DriveOn notes
At a marathon presentation of Chrysler’s five-year strategy, [Fiat] CEO Sergio Marchionne talked about just about everything on Chrysler’s plate last week except its earlier electric-car plans… He says electrics will only make up 1% or 2% of Fiat sales by 2014 and that he doesn’t put a lot of faith in the technology until battery developments are pushed forward.
Marchionne may well have a point, but scrapping the engineering teams for Chrysler’s Dodge Circuit and two other EVs hardly seem like a way to get the technology to the point of viability.
If you’re an American taxpayer, you’re part owner of Chrysler: the federal government owns a 10% stake in the company. Friends of the Earth suggests leveraging that stake by letting the company know that you won’t support any more taxpayer funding of the company, and you won’t buy their products, unless they reconsider this decision. It’s hard to say how effective such a boycott might be, but letting Chrysler and Fiat know that you want electric cars is a step in the right direction.
Is this a blatant abandonment of promises made by Chrysler to secure government funding… or just a practical step based on current technological realities? Let us know…
Jeff McIntire-Strasburg is the founder and editor of sustainablog. Follow him on Twitter @sustainablog
Image credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/dsix/ / CC BY 2.0
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{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
So the first thing that went through my mind when I read that we should let them know we won’t support more taxpayer funding was a caricature of some evil CEO behind a huge empty desk cackling because he knows the government doesn’t care if the taxpayers support the bailouts or not.
Stinks to be this jaded about our government.
I hear you, Robin…! Thanks for chiming in…
I agree with Robin and feel like this IS a blatant abandonment of promises made by Chrysler to secure government funding. What if more people stopped relying on car companies (or the government) to find the answers and began riding their bikes more, taking public transportation more and carpooling more…
The guy that gave Chrysler all of the money from DOE was Lachlan Seward. He worked for Chrysler in he 1980’s. What is the connection to they guy, the big 3 and all of the billions of tax dollars he gave to his buddies?
I was planning to buy a chrysler electric. I don’t know what chrysler is thinking.But I think that big money is influencing this decision, somebody want’s us to remain slaves to the petrol companies and old thecnology.We can put the entire library of new york on a small memory card but we can’t build a proper battery for an electric car, come on, who are we kidding, there are forces at work here and they are not looking out for the interest of all of us but for the interest of a few people who don’t want things to change.
hydro quebec is working on new type of batterie:called lithium titane
This battery is suposed to be viable for 45 years at normal usage and is capable to function at minus 45 degree celcius. They said it should be ready within 2 to 3 years. By pulling the plug on the engeneering process chrysler or should we say Fiat want’s us to buy their tiny little junk cars, because if you have the choice to buy a big american car that does more than 50 miles a gallon or a small fiat that get’s 50 miles a gallon guest which one people will buy