GM Wanders Into the Desert

While 15,000 souls will become un-employed soon due to GM's "re-structure" announcement, that may not be the worst news from the twin towers.

...GM's actions are meant to increase the automaker's profits and strengthen its core business, while it doubles investment in autonomous and battery electric vehicles by 2020...

Uh-huh.

 ...GM has said it believes self-driving and full-electric vehicles could eventually eclipse profits of its current operations. But the operations remain unprofitable.

Autonomous vehicles remain in testing and face a litany of safety and regulatory hurdles, while full battery-electric vehicles represent roughly 1 percent of U.S. sales this year, according to IHS Markit.

"This is the part that scares me across the industry, everyone focusing so much on new mobility -- it's such a long-term play," said Joe Langley, IHS Markit associate director....

People who work directly for auto manufacturers believe that self-driving and full-electric cars are the wave of the future and that what we are driving today will be as extinct as the pterodactyl in 20 years or so.

They tell themselves that every day at the Detroit-area clubs.  The Detroit bunch is exactly like the D.C. bunch in that way:  they are as insulated from the real world as can be, and they're all very fat and happy campers.

We have "autonomous" cars which run over people at night and which are subject to computer-hacking just like any other chip-dependent/wireless device.  We have electric cars, yes--but the batteries are suspiciously fire-prone and there is NO WAY that current utility infrastructure will support overnight charges for every car on the block.  None.

Meantime, the Japanese and Koreans continue to produce real-world sedans and sell them very successfully.

Will Detroit have to take another ass-kicking like the one it took in the '60's/'70's to make those people see the light??

Stay tuned.