The shocking truth about electric cars

On 09/08/2011 11:12 AM, Scott Dorsey wrote:
> > wrote:
>>
>> So you know more about power generation than the head of an electric
>> utility?
>
> I can't speak for him, but I know more about power generation than the head
> of an electric utility.
>
> In fact, looking at the board of directors of Dominion Resources (parent
> company of Dominion Virginia Power), there's only one person with any actual
> background in electricity. Everyone else has a background in banking,
> accounting, or law.
>
> This is why power companies get sucked into stupid ideas like BPL; they
> really don't have anyone at the top tier who really have any clue about
> electrical power.
>
> Before the government takeover, the board of directors of GM was just as
> bad. Nobody there who had ever worked on a car. In fact, half the people
> on the board didn't even drive, they had chauffeurs to drive them. What
> the hell did they know about cars?
>
> This, in short, is what killed GM and is killing US industry on the whole,
> I believe.

absolutely. amen. look at german industry, and it's all run by
engineering phd's. and that used to be strongly so in japan too.

after i was done with my engineering and materials ed, i went looking
for jobs in industry, and when interviewing with big name firms, always
asked about management progression pathways. without exception, the
response was always that they didn't promote engineers and research
people to management, they hired accounting, economics, business and law
grads instead.

the first time i heard this, naively and incredulously, i asked: "so no
one running the [insert operations] division actually knows about how
the product's made, what drives production efficiencies, or what your
customers actually need it to do?" the silence that followed lasted
about a minute. the interviewers, [one h.r. and one manager] looked at
each other. you could see the unspoken speech bubbles: "um, yes, but we
can't say that. and we can't hire anyone who might embarrass us
either". so i ended up back-dooring into management via the accounting
route. **** 'em.

[oh, and accounting math vs engineering math??? the fact that those
guys think accounting math is /hard/ tells you pretty much all you need
to know!!!]

there are exceptions to the above of course, and historically, there
have been many fine firms that have been started and run by engineers,
chemists, technologists, and people that actually "do" stuff. but by
and large, the modern "mba" culture has so infected the board room,
anyone who doesn't want to sit and listen to narrow-minded myopia just
steps down and leaves them to it. again, **** 'em. and the results we
see splashed across the business sections our newspapers every day.


>
> Personally, I am in favor of electric vehicles because they allow us to
> put the noise and pollution someplace very distant from the car that is
> being driven; that alone is worth something. They certainly aren't a panacea
> but I think there's a valid use for them in more densely-populated areas.
>
> But I don't think that anything practical is going to come of it until we
> have more car companies that are run by people who know about cars and who
> are willing to invest in research and development.
>
> Ford is maybe an exception to the rule, but even Ford has an awful lot of
> accountants and lawyers up there.
> --scott
>
>


--
nomina rutrum rutrum