Bob Lutz, donโt let the door bang you in the backside on your way out of theย building.
As reported in this excellent post at Solve Climate, General Motors Denier-in-Chief and Vice President for New Product Development is being excused from duty – accepting retirement to make room for Tom Stephens, the executive who has been leading the development of hybrid technology at GM.
Lutz has been GMโs leading dinosaur, the reigning champion of GMโs obsession with the fuel-guzzling muscle cars that helped Toyota become the number one automaker in theย world.
If you doubt that Lutz is inflicted with a fantasy gene, check the comments that he wrote on his Fastlane blog under the headline, โYouโre not rid of me yetโ (heโs actually hanging around in one diminished capacity or another till the end of theย year):
โI feel very comfortable handing over the keys to Tom Stephens, โฆ. Tom will do a great job ensuring the continued excellence of GMโs new cars, trucks andย crossoversโ
Continued excellence? There seems, in this, no recognition that he is being pushed – or that his company is in such dire straights that Bloomberg actually thinks GMโs prospects would be improved in bankruptcy.
It is, in any case, reassuring to see a changing of the guard at GM, just as in the White House, but you canโt help wonder how much better off the world might have been (and how many jobs General Motors might have saved) if the guys being replaced had not been quite so stubborn in ignoring evidence and courting disaster. There should be a price for such culpability, and you have to hope that Lutz stays at GM just long enough to payย it.
