Auto-industry bigwigs these days are either on government welfare (GM’s Whitacre, Chrysler’s Marchionne) or are former green activists (Ford’s Bill Ford). But outside the boardroom, industry experts fear Washington green mandates foisted on them by pols who wouldn’t know a connecting rod from a valve stem. In a business world where Big Auto and Big Government are increasingly indistinguishable, however, few can speak out.<\/p>\n
An exception is longtime Detroit insider Peter De Lorenzo. As electric-carmaker Tesla’s stock plummeted this week after its government-financed IPO, he unloaded on his blog:<\/p>\n
The blind embracing of Tesla – again, that glorified kit car company that hasn’t produced even a whiff of profit or demonstrated even the remotest suggestion of being able to bring a mainstream electric sedan to market – is Egregious Example No. 1 and proof-positive that the Green Horde will suspend all vestiges of reality in order to shove their view of a transportation future down the rest of this nation’s throat, even if the infrastructure doesn’t exist to support it now – not to mention that the funds to even begin paying for it are nowhere to be found on the horizon.<\/i><\/p>\n