Many humans are not very good at long term thinking for a variety of reasons.
Fuel efficiency will help lower operating costs and alternative fuels will definitely be needed.
I suppose short term thinking is driven by CEO compensation. They know better but if they can pocket a few million, or 10 million, per year for a while then they can survive any future problems. Maybe. If they could eat some of that money it would help … and maybe they hope their children and grand children can eat the money they pass on to them.
The companies can easily hide the long term problems with cool and seductive marketing that makes the consumers want it now. They can even pretend that they are doing the right thing for the environment with the same marketing campaigns. They have essentially tricked consumers to have the same short term thinking but without any equivalent rewards when compared to their own CEO compensation packages.
I drive a Chevy Volt. I really like the car but Chevy killed the model. It is such a good blend of battery and gasoline. I can drive for 50 miles on 100% battery and that 50 miles can recharge on 220VAC in 4 hours. It has a total range of over 400 miles on battery and gasoline. I drive 100 miles round trip twice per week for work and end up averaging about 100 MPG combined. When on gasoline the MPG is nearly 50MPG. If I had a local job in my city I probably could go a month or more and never have to fill up my 8 gallon tank. And yes, the battery and 8 gallons of gas will go over 400 miles.
The technology exists today to transition from gasoline to electric with this type of plugin hybrid vehicle but somehow it is just not sexy enough to market heavily. And you might think performance is an issue but the Volt is nearly one second FASTER in 0–60 than a 4 cylinder Toyota Camry.
Yes … I agree … A bailout will be necessary. It is just a question of when.
The other calculation somebody should chart would be auto company CEO salaries since the previous bailout and how much they will make until the next one.
Ahhh … capitalism … what could possibly go wrong … when CEO compensation and stock price are the main drivers for product design and marketing?
