Detroit and its automobile makers have decades of shoddy manufacturing to live down. One way to do this is to join the cutting edge of high technology and be part of the innovation wave that will create automobiles of the future.
Now General Motors, home to Buick, Cadillac, GMC, and Chevrolet, has joined the Silicon Valley crowd by establishing the GM Advanced Technology Silicon Valley Office where GM designers and engineers have become its eyes and ears as they live, work, and network with other talented people in the area. Being on the floor in Silicon Valley allows the GM team to pick up on trends before or as they start instead of discovering them months or years later. In a sense, it’s a matter of self-preservation; if GM misses out it could be the end of the company.
At the same time, GM is launching the Chevy Bolt EV 2017, considered an innovative and competitive EV and marking GM as an innovation leader, something they can be proud of while standing shoulder to shoulder with the Masters of the Universe.
According to reports, GM has been actively seeking working relationships with Silicon Valley stalwarts Apple and Google while some of its competitors are hesitant to do so. Other reports suggest that Apple and Google are having trouble on the manufacturing end of the automobile industry, something they thought they would be immune to. Bill Gates’ comment, “If GM had kept up with the technology like the computer industry has, we would all be driving $25 cars that got 1000 miles to the gallon,” now seems even more arrogant and out of touch than it did when he said it.
Below is GM’s famous response back to Bill Gates:
If GM had developed technology like Microsoft, we would all be driving cars with the following characteristics:
1. For no reason at all, your car would crash twice a day.
2. Every time they repainted the lines on the road, you would have to buy a new car.
3. Occasionally, executing a manoeuver such as a left-turn would cause your car to shut down and refuse to restart, and you would have to reinstall the engine.
4. When your car died on the freeway for no reason, you would just accept this, restart and drive on.
5. Only one person at a time could use the car, unless you bought ‘Car95’ or ‘CarNT’, and then added more seats.
6. Apple would make a car powered by the sun, reliable, five times as fast, and twice as easy to drive, but would run on only five per cent of the roads.
7. Oil, water temperature and alternator warning lights would be replaced by a single ‘general car default’ warning light.
8. New seats would force every-one to have the same size butt.
9. The airbag would say ‘Are you sure?’ before going off.
10. Occasionally, for no reason, your car would lock you out and refuse to let you in until you simultaneously lifted the door handle, turned the key, and grabbed the radio antenna.
11. GM would require all car buyers to also purchase a deluxe set of road maps from Rand-McNally (a subsidiary of GM), even though they neither need them nor want them. Trying to delete this option would immediately cause the car’s performance to diminish by 50 per cent or more. Moreover, GM would become a target for investigation by the Justice Department.
12. Every time GM introduced a new model, car buyers would have to learn how to drive all over again because none of the controls would operate in the same manner as the old car.
13. You would press the ‘start’ button to shut off the engine.
Following is a review of the new Chevy Volt 2017 which features: Bluetooth, Cruise Control, Rear Vision Camera, 6 Speaker Audio System, Wi-Fi, Heated Seats, Teen Driver Settings, 17” Aluminum Wheels, Comfort Package, Power-Adjustable Heated Outside Mirrors, Tire Pressure Monitor, Heated Steering Wheel and more:
