Carmakers: We've Seen The Light

(CBS)  With bankruptcy possible for at least two of America's Big Three automakers, those companies have more on the line than ever at this year's New York Auto Show. They need vehicles that sell, both now and in the future, as CBS News correspondent Priya David reports.

The big annual auto show is downshifting.

"We used to have parties with champagne and stuff," said Ralph Gilles, Chrysler vice president of design. "That's all gone. We're just getting back to the product."

Like its competitors General Motors and Ford, Chrysler's sales have dropped 40 percent in the past year, and the company is struggling to stay in business.

So how does it feel to be in the industry right now?

"It's like a horror show - you can't stop watching it," Gilles said.

The government is funding Chrysler until the end of April, while the company pursues a partnership with Italian carmaker Fiat to produce more fuel-efficient cars. Gilles showed CBS News some concept cars, like the electric Dodge Circuit.

"It's actually as fast as a muscle car, but it doesn't burn any gas," Gilles said.

General Motors' long-awaited electric vehicle, the Chevy Volt, is finally scheduled to hit the road in 2010. But GM has greater hopes riding on the Chevy Cruze, a sedan that gets 40 miles to the gallon and is due out later this year. GM insists it will still be here when its 60-day government lifeline runs out at the end of May, although many argue that bankruptcy is the best option for the company to reorganize.

"Seriously, I wouldn't be standing here talking to you passionately about the product that we are working on if I didn't think there was a market for us, because we are going to be around," said Michel Simcoe, GM's vice head of North American Exterior Design.

Which, according to Consumer Reports automotive editor Rik Paul, is exactly what buyers should want.

"We don't want to see any automaker, any major automaker, go out of business because that reduces choices for the consumer and has less competition in the market," Paul said.

Ford has been the most forward-looking of the Big Three, and it's offering a smorgasbord of new products, including the new hybrid Ford Fusion.

"Ford has not been seeking government assistance," said Robert Parker, product communications director for Ford. "We're going it alone."

The company says it plans to recover the old-fashioned way - by selling more cars. It's also offering innovative assurances.

"We guarantee that if you lose your job, that we will make the payments on the car for up to 12 months," Parker said.

As Gilles put it, "That 'Never ay die' attitude is strong. People want to survive."

But even mere survival is far from guaranteed. The economy or years of poor planning could soon drive any of these car companies off the road.

[Enoughtimes10]

This is incredible, GM is actually making a car to save money on gas but cost a fortue. Here is a newsflash. The people that need to save money on gas and that care about the environment don't have 40,000 to pay for that car. The people with that kind of money don't care how much gas they pay for or use. And just so you know GM, most people do drive more than 40 miles to work.

[beach671]

""WHERE ARE THE COMPRESSED NATURAL GAS VEHICLES?????""

Build your own. That's what I did. There are kits you can buy online. The next time gas prices shoot up you can laugh at everyone at the gas pumps as you'll have enough gas at home in the tank to last a year...and it doesn't go bad.

[bopedroza]

Hi cbs:
I think this could be the result of many years of making wrong decisions, because if they had thought of making more efficient cars and better quality ones before, probably they would be compiting more with the japanese automakeres which in sipite of the crisis are still producing and selling more cars that the US ones, besides I think that we should all start to change the way we use cars and the kind of energy that we are used to use in order to be more efficient and act sustainable.
greetings
Roberto Pedroza

[weedapeapl]

One big obstacle to the production of electric cars is that the best electric car technology was patented by GM when the built the EV-1.

Then when they abruptly ended that program, they SOLD THE PATENTS TO THE OIL COMPANIES.

Now oil companies own the patents on the best known electric car technologies.

How likely are they to put themselves out of business by letting car makers use their patents??

THANKS GM for stabbing electric cars in the heart.

[chris-matthews]

How many SUV`s have to be parked to offset the test in our country?
\

Of the 2,044 nuclear weapons tests worldwide, there have been 711 in the atmosphere or underwater: 215 by the U.S., 207 by the Soviet Union, 21 by Britain, 45 by France and, 23 by China.

The last atmospheric nuclear weapons test occurred on 16 October 1980 in China. The first was on 16 July 1945 in the U.S.

It is estimated that the total yield of all the atmospheric nuclear weapons tests conducted is 438 megatons. That's equivalent to 29,200 Hiroshima size bombs. In the 36 years between 1945 and 1980 when atmospheric testing was being conducted this would have been equivalent to exploding a Hiroshima size bomb in the atmosphere every 11 hours.

Approximately 3,830 kilograms of plutonium has been left in the ground as a result of all underground nuclear testing and some 4,200 kilograms of plutonium has been discharged into the atmosphere as a result of atmospheric nuclear testing.

[chris-matthews]

Total global bull !
Tree hugging libs and their holier then Obama attitudes.

When you guys are putting around in your clown cars I will burn barrels of oil in remembrance of when people were not so stupid or arrogant as to think they had anything to do with the weather.

When they tested nukes below and above, don?t ya think that would have had an affect on the temperature of the earth?

It didn?t, The earth is not like that of the liberal mental state. It is a strong and will be here long after we are gone.



How come no one cries about this source of heat being generated every week for 65 years ?
The average pace of nuclear weapons testing is remarkable: Since 16 July 1945 there have been 2,044 tests worldwide, the equivalent of one test occurring somewhere in the world every nine days for the last fifty years.
The U.S. has conducted the equivalent of one nuclear weapons test every 17 days since its first test; the Soviet Union has tested on average every 23 days; France every 63 days; Britain every 349 days and; China every 222 days. India has conducted only one test so far.
Nuclear weapon test explosions have been carried out in all environments: above ground, underground, and underwater. They have occurred on top of towers, onboard barges, suspended from balloons, on the earth's surface, underwater to depths of 2,000 feet, underground to depths of more than 8,000 feet, and in horizontal tunnels. Test bombs also have been dropped by aircraft and fired by rockets up to 200 miles into the atmosphere.

[eddrojas]

"Switch to electricity, it is cleaner than gas!"

especially if it's generated from photovoltaics....

[Haug_Dude]

Nothing can change for "personal transportation" AKA cars and light trucks, until the total removal of corporate pork barrel subsidies underpinning the still-cheap "price" of oil, which is disconnected from its true cost to society. Only when the petro-addicts -- US -- have to pay the true costs of burning petroleum will there be affordable efficient motor vehicles that implement available technology and damage the environment less. There is no incentive to excel when taxpayers underpin an inefficient fuel distribution system kept alive by big money special interests. This idea is likely unobtainable in the near term since banks and corporate elites totally run the US Government, and have since WW-II. Why do you think the Treasury has been hosed out to recapitalize these billionaires? Not to save the country; but to save their greedy masters. Time for a change? Yea sure.

[babooph]

Ceos & cfos paid multi millions for endless years & now they see the light??A govt. employee running the co at 1/100 the salary could have done better,but the propaganda system is not allowed to say that.

[itsmeinks]

Well if I was to buy any stock out of the big 3 it would be ford. Refuses to take bail out money and wants to make it on there own merit. That is the american way.