New Model To Save Auto Industry

As GM goes, so goes the nation.

This worries me.  Not because General Motors has gone into bankruptcy protection … or the plant closures … or the permanently lost jobs.  There is no doubt these are all bad signs.

What worries me most is GM restructuring to become “sustainable”.  The CEO using buzz word doesn’t mean they have changed their underlying business model.  The same model that got them into this mess in the first place.

Read between the lines of the new business plan and you see “sustainable” to GM means they will cut production … until people start buying cars again.

And so goes the nation.  The entire economic recovery model is based on consuming.  Plan A-to-X is to find ways to cut back until people are ready to buy then ramp up again – hopefully to even greater levels than before.

After all, prosperity is defined by continued (year after year) growth, not by reaching plateaus.

We know this is no longer functional.  This was never sustainable.

If GM, or any automaker, wants to [re]gain its position as an innovative industry leader – a nation leader – then they need to start from scratch and address the question

“how would we invent cars if  we invented cars today?“

One viable answer begins with a paradigm shift – a shift from believing they are in the new car business to being in the renew car business.  Using a model such as Cradle to Cradle™ Design, renewable vehicles (or any product) bring economic, environmental and social benefits together into a whole process.

Products can be developed for closed-loop systems in which every ingredient is safe and beneficial — either to biodegrade naturally and restore the soil, or to be fully recycled into high-quality materials for subsequent product generations, again and again.   MBDC

The systemic problem of the new car business model is it is based on consuming limited non-renewable resources and making waste of existing cars.

Imagine a vehicle upon return to the manufacturer is deconstructed into its original components with no degradation of quality.  Each component then returns to the assembly line in and becomes part of the next renew vehicle.

Car makers win on several fronts:

• Revenue streams expand with the  inclusion of dis-assembly divisions (formerly known as scrap).
• Input resource costs fall towards zero once the equilibrium point of dismantling and manufacturing is reached.
• Brand loyalty is increased by providing value, socially beneficial products and leading edge technology.

Consumers win because they can drive with “new car smell” every year if they like without impacting the environment.

The environment wins as new resource extraction falls towards zero and the need for dumping scrap and waste disappears.

Employees win with increased job opportunities on the (dis)assembly line and research.

Societies as a whole win through improved technology and sharing across industries for improved product development.

A new model to save the auto industry and manufacturing for generations to come is theirs – and ours – for the taking.  The only question that remains is who will step up and be the first to grab hold of this industry changing opportunity?