Environment Forum

GM, Chrysler cleared executive decks in 2009

When 2009 began, both General Motors and Chrysler were sliding toward bankruptcy. As the year ends, both companies have survived to fight another day.

The same can’t be said for their senior executives.

Of the top 10 executives at GM’s glass-towered Detroit headquarters in January, only one — Bob Lutz – remains.  At Chrysler, only two of the 10 highest-ranking executives are still in Auburn Hills.  

At GM, the churn took a dramatic toll at the vice president level. Of the 55 top executives, including vice presidents and divisional leaders, who were at GM at the start of the year, 26 have left the automaker.  Of the remainder, few remain in the same positions they held, according to a Reuters tally.

The sweep was made near complete on Dec. 1 when the board at General Motors Co parted company with former chief executive Fritz Henderson after he had the post for only eight months.  

Only at Ford did any of the former Big Three — now called the Detroit Three — automakers kept the slate of top executives pretty much intact.  Only two of Ford’s top 10 executives have left; both retired.

Of course, Ford did not declare bankruptcy to save itself as GM and Chrysler did this year with funding from the Obama administration. 

Yellow Humvees and the UN Procurement Scandal

Kenyan blogger Juliana Rotich is the editor of Green Global Voices, which monitors citizen media in the developing world, and is a regular contributor to this page. Thomson Reuters is not responsible for the content – the views are the author’s alone. 

 The use of SUVs by UN staff in Nairobi is rankling some bloggers. They are posting pictures on their blogs, and have even created a flickr pool called ‘Kick The Habit’. The title of the set of pictures borrows from UNEP’s (United Nations Environment Program) campaign from June of this year, which encouraged ‘countries, companies and communities’ to reduce their CO2 emissions.

The blogger on Sukuma Kenya started the flickr pool in June, after he noticed that many UN vehicles in Nairobi were SUVs, and felt that the UNEP campaign did not communicate how it was reducing carbon emissions while it was asking individuals to ‘kick the CO2 habit’.

On the 27th of October, the Journalist-blogger Nick Wadhams noticed a yellow Humvee with United Nations vehicle plates. He posted a picture on his blog, noting a recent report about the United Nations procurement scandal.

Is it any surprise that Saturday’s Nation newspaper contained this item: “The United Nations office in Nairobi may have lost Sh10 billion in procurement and administrative scandals over the past three years, an internal audit report has revealed.”

Sadly, this kind of thing was a common story when I covered the U.N. Maybe all that money is going to banana yellow Humvees (the picture at top left is of a Humvee at a show in New York in 2003)

Earlier this month, Nick posted an update after confirming that the yellow Humvee seen in Kenya did belong to a UN employee.

PS: I was driving on James Gichuru Road the other day, climbing the hill as it approaches Wayaki Way, and what should I see hurtling in the opposite direction? You guessed it, the B.Y.H! I caught only the briefest of glimpses of the driver (was that you, Charles?), and considered turning around and following him. But there were two other passengers in our car, one of whom happened to be an eight-month-old baby who was angry about being 45 minutes late for a one-year birthday party. Next time, Charles! Next time!

PPS: In the spirit of full disclosure, I should note that we drive a 1989 Mitsubishi Pajero, which, to be honest, probably gets worse gas mileage than Charles’ Humvee. At the moment, there is a problem with the injector pump and it spews a lot of black smoke. Working on it!

Driving on hydrogen, if only for a little while

As part of my job covering the world of alternative fuels, General Motors last week gave me the keys to a hydrogen-powered SUV, the Chevrolet Equinox.  You won’t find the Equinox in any showrooms, and in fact, the car I drove for four days is one of just 100 such vehicles in the United States.

Despite their small numbers, GM and others hope hydrogen-powered fuel cell vehicles will be critical to reducing greenhouse gases and our dependence on ever-costlier gasoline. Hydrogen can be produced by breaking apart water molecules, and it is also made by stripping hydrogen from fossil fuel natural gas. To see an animation of how a fuel cell works, click here.

I had fun driving emissions-free for a few days, but refueling once I had run low on hydrogen wasn’t so fun. That’s because there are just four places in the L.A. area where you can refuel a hydrogen car, and the lack of that infrastructure is one of the biggest impediments to getting them in the mass market.

Below is a brief video of my few days driving on hydrogen.

Video produced and edited by Syantani Chatterjee