While on the topic of closed car lots, I have to say I’m surprised at the speed with which Americans have gone from loving their SUVs, pick-up trucks and Hummers to declaring our auto industry obviously bloated, inefficient and to be building vehicles that nobody wants.
Ralph Nader began his testy relationship with the auto industry in a 1959 article, “The Safe Car You Can’t Buy.” Today Nader says Congress should intervene in the auto industry bailout:
“The government-led restructuring of Chrysler and General Motors has been twice delegated — first by Congress to the Executive, and then by the President to a task force. Formally made up of cabinet officials and high-level political appointees, control over the process has in fact been delegated, without adequate standards, to a handful of special advisers,” argue Nader and [Multinational Monitor editor Rob] Weissman, who have long histories of challenging misguided auto-industry policies. “Thus has the future of a centerpiece of American manufacturing capacity been delegated to a small unelected and largely unaccountable group arranged to avoid the Federal Advisory Committee Act.”
In an urgent letter dispatched to Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs chair Chris Dodd, D-Connecticut, and House Committee on Financial Services chair Barney Frank, D-Massachusetts, Nader and Weissman write, “At the very least, the Congress must exercise its oversight powers. It should, at the very least, urge the Obama administration to defer any plans for bankruptcy or other irreversible moves until after the task force plan has been subjected to close and careful review via thorough Congressional hearings. If delay requires some additional bridge funding for GM, surely such funding with suitable equity positions is appropriate, in light of the potential risks of bankruptcy to millions of families and further governmental relief programs, and the vastly greater sums that have been so recklessly expended on the virtually condition-free Wall Street bailout.”
Nader and Weissman explain that, “Among the most worrisome components in the restructuring plan is the willingness to sacrifice U.S. manufacturing, and permit GM to increase manufacturing overseas for export back into the United States. Recent news reports indicate that the company will rely increasingly on overseas plants to make cars for sale in the United States, with cars made in low-wage countries like Mexico rising from 15 to 23 percent of GM sales in the United States. For the first time, GM plans emerged to export cars from China to the United States, in what may be a harbinger of the company’s future business model; although the company has stated after negative publicity that it will not export from China, there is no evidence that it is abandoning the business model of outsourcing production for the U.S. market, and questions remain about how binding is the recent commitment not to export to the United States from China.”
In other Nader/Auto news… Bob Barr and has joined with him to support the Right-To-Repair Act of 2009 (H.R. 2057). That law would make it legal to break the DRM in cars in order for independent garages to do repairs — even if the manufacturers try to lock them out and then charge high fees to a few select mechanics who are given the code to read engine diagnostics.EFF:
We’re all for promoting competition and consumer choice. But this bill points to a much bigger consumer issue. The problem that this law attempts to fix is the direct result of the use of computers in cars, accompanied by proprietary diagnostic tools and “lock-out codes.” Sound familiar? It should, as it’s the very sort of thing that can also make it difficult to repair computer systems, sell replacement garage door openers, and refill printer toner cartridges. One underlying legal problem here is the DMCA, which prohibits bypassing or circumventing “technological protection measures.”
So while the Right-to-Repair Act of 2009 is legislation that deserves our support, it doesn’t help those who repair things other than cars. For example, it won’t help Joe Montero, who treks to the Copyright Office every three years to argue for a DMCA exemption to permit the repair and replacement of obsolete and malfunctioning software “dongles,” those little hardware devices purportedly intended to prevent software piracy, but which often end up frustrating perfectly legitimate customers.
And the issue goes beyond the importance of being able to get independent repair and maintenance services. The use of technological “locks” against tinkerers also threatens “user innovation” — the kinds of innovation that traditionally have come from independent tinkerers — which has increasingly been recognized as an important part of economic growth and technological improvement. MIT Professor Eric Von Hippel has been at the forefront of this research, and has been hosting a fascinating workshop this week entitled “Intellectual Property Law and Open & User Innovation” (being live-blogged by Georgetown Prof. Rebecca Tushnet).
That last via Cory Doctorow at Boing Boing.