GM keeping it all in the country with electric engine manufacturing

Devin Coldewey

Devin Coldewey is a Seattle-based writer and photographer. He has written for the TechCrunch network since 2007. Some posts he’d like you to read: The Dangers of Externalizing Knowledge | Generation i | Surveillant Society | Choose Two | Frame Wars | The User’s Manifesto | Our Great Sin His personal website is coldewey.cc. → Learn More

Tuesday, January 26th, 2010


Good for GM. I don’t just congratulate them on a strict “buy American” level, but the decision to break off from the pack and both design and build the next generation of electric engines is a good one. Of course, there’s the question of whether they’ll be using Panasonic batteries and other Japanese parts. They’re still pretty much cornered in some of those areas. But hey, we’ll take what we can get.

The reasons for designing and manufacturing your own engine are pretty easy to see, and it’s a lot easier to do with an electric engine than an internal combustion one. Not nearly as many parts, and you aren’t managing hundreds of carefully controlled explosions every second. That’s not to say I could design one, but clearly GM thinks they can, and we should give them a slap on the back for it. How good it’ll be, we’ll just have to find out, but in the meantime just buy some flags and start waving.

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