Are you actually familiar with the intricacies of this topic, or are you just guessing?
I'm a controller (accountant) in my day job and have had to handle HR duties for several companies over the years including my current one. I wouldn't say I'm an expert but due to my job duties I'm more familiar with some of the nuances of HR than I ever really cared to be.
Interesting. I know a lot of employees where I work (aerospace engineering) that are classified as contractors, and indeed are sent there via a contracting agency (that they display on the employee badge), and yet they work there full time, for pretty long (indefinite) periods. And they're exempt from all the politically correct training that directs have to go through.
It's ok to do that but at some point if they are doing similar work to the regular employees with similar experience and time with the company then the company is generally obligated to give them similar compensation. The line for when this occurs is pretty fuzzy. Whether that is a good thing or a bad thing probably depends on your particular circumstance and values.
Seems it's quite easy to count someone as a contractor.
It is. And that is generally a good thing. But if the company abuses it they open themselves to lawsuits. And believe me, someone will eventually sue.
So what exactly stops all the other employers out there from just classifying their employees as "contractors" and thereby ignore the entire labyrinthine system of employment law?
Because there are laws which determine whether a contractor is de-facto an employee regardless of what the employer chooses to call them. There are a set of criteria which are easy to find which are used by regulatory agencies including the IRS. Microsoft actually lost a class action lawsuit a few years back for trying to classify a large percentage of their work force as contractors when they were effectively full time employees in every meaningful respect otherwise. Cost Microsoft quite a bit of money in back pay and benefits as I recall.
FYI, it's against US Employment law to ask any applicant any age related question other than to verify they are 18 or over.
Actually that's not quite true. There are questions which an employer should not ask because they create the actionable legal perception of having discriminated against a protected category of people. However there usually are simple ways to get the same information with perfectly acceptable questions. Furthermore it is perfectly legal to conduct a background examination of a job applicant in most cases and while you may not ask about their exact age, you can usually come up with a reasonably accurate guess without landing in legal hot water.
Since an actor is essentially a Contractor and not an employee, they are hired on the merits of their qualifications -- once again age has nothing to do with it, only their appearance and ability to do the work.
Problem is that their age may have a meaningful effect on their appearance and ability to do the work. You aren't going to hire a 40 year old to play to the part of a teenager unless they are some sort of genetic freak of nature. There exists case law supporting that for some jobs appearance does matter. When it is a "bona-fide occupational qualification", it is often legal to discriminate. A maker of women's makeup is going to be allowed to discriminate against men when hiring models for their products.
So please, feel free to elaborate how the act of not disclosing her age to the public at large is "lying"
Let's see, you could easily make the argument that it is a lie by omission, a lie in trade, bluffing, puffery or even a white lie. It might be acceptable behavior for her to not reveal her actual age but that makes it no less of a lie.
Let's not forget that Apple came back from a far worse shape than this in the late 90s.
Apple's come back had much to do with returning Steve Jobs to the helm. Without putting to fine a point on it, RIM does not appear to have similarly competent leadership at this time. I agree that a come back is not remotely out of the question for RIM but they have far less cash than their primary direct competitors (Nokia, Microsoft, Apple and Google). RIM has also managed a pretty spectacular string of mediocre-at-best products, operational screw ups and strategic blunders. I cannot see them surviving as an independent company without some pretty immediate changes in top management and strategy.
Our new game, "Dragon's Tale," functions exclusively in Bitcoins. It's a gambling MMORPG based...
Saying it is a gambling game using bitcoin is a redundant statement.
Choosing Bitcoins means that I never have to worry about PayPal freezing my account, or about $25 chargeback fees, or making Mastercard a 2.5% partner in my business.
I guarantee you that using bitcoin costs you FAR more than 2.5% in lost revenue alone since very few people are going to be willing to use bitcoin. Not to mention the transaction costs, exchange rate risk, counterparty risk, accounting complexity and other issues.
But that isn't even the problem. I transferred some cash to BitCoins and back on Friday and it was paid out to me on Sunday. By the time I got the transfer, it had lost almost half of its value.
This should not be remotely surprising. You used an illiquid, thinly traded medium of exchange. Such assets are inherently prone to volatility. You can speculate on volatility and might even get lucky but anyone who expects bitcoin to be a stable currency anytime soon is an idiot.
Now imagine if that would constantly happen with your real money.
It does. The only difference is the volatility isn't usually as bad. But hyperinflation and debt defaults can cause fluctuations in "real" currencies of similar magnitude.
Just sayin'... rear doors in a coupe is a wee bit of a contradiction;)
If you want to get pedantic about it it really only has the one door split into two parts. There is no B pillar in the car. It's just easier to say rear door.
Actually it's pretty easy to argue that it is theft. It was not his, he knew it was not his, he intended to deprive the rightful owner of it permanently, it had value, he moved it physically thereby taking possession of it, and it was taken without consent. I believe the proper term is larceny. By fulfilling all those criteria, he committed theft.
Obviously it is up to the courts to decide whether or not it is theft and what the punishment should be (if any) if it is determined to be theft. It sounds like in this case the court determined it to be theft but considered the offense to be rather minor in nature. Sounds roughly appropriate to me.
Is it really less efficient? As I understood it, the rotary engine gives an equivalent HP compared to a piston engine at a fraction of the displacement.
Power to weight the rotary is excellent and they are very smooth and compact but those are not the only things that matter. Rotary engines tend to be relatively poor with regard to fuel consumption (not awful but bad enough to be a meaningful disadvantage) and always had problems with leaking seals and oil consumption by virtue of their design. There also are network effect problems. Not as many mechanics are familiar with them and there are cost issues for the manufacturer due to the lack of economies of scale.
I'll miss the RX8. Drove one a few years back. Good car, fun to drive, looked nice and had some nice features. The rear doors in a coupe is a great feature that should not be lost.
But to put Steve Jobs in the same league as people like Alan Turing, or Ada Lovelace, or Charles Babbage seems... very wrong.
Why? You don't know any more about Turing, Lovelace or Babbage than you do about Jobs. You're engaging in the same sort of hero worship you seem to be railing against. All of them did important work on different pieces of the technology puzzle. You might be more interested in the work of Turing (which is fine) but that doesn't make him more or less worthy of admiration. Jobs couldn't do what Turing did and Turing couldn't have done what Jobs did. Most of us only have the vaguest third-person idea of what sort of people they were so we can only really judge them by their works.
Didn't any of you read Ender's Game? Remember how, among other things, Ender often longs to just be a kid?
You are using a fictional story about a prodigy written by someone who was not a prodigy and likely has no special insights into raising one as a guide? Should we next consult the Fellowship of the Ring for advice on raising an adopted nephew?
Seriously, your point about exposing him to other things is fine but using Ender's Game as a parenting guide is beyond ridiculous.
With ebook prices falling and some readers even unwilling to pay more than 99 cents for an ebook
A lot of ebooks aren't worth even $0.99. Same with a lot of printed books. Most books are simply not going to sell well and won't command much of a price.
some authors are starting to consider a move back to the patronage model that was successful in providing them with a living before the widespread use of copyright.
Never been anything stopping them aside from finding a patron. Of course patrons usually tend to sponsor people with, you know, actual talent. Just because you want to be an author doesn't mean you automatically deserve to make your living doing it.
There's a disconnect here. If people are buying big heavy cars which aren't fuel efficient, why did the US auto makers need a bailout?
There is no disconnect here. In 2006 almost 17 million cars were sold in the US. In 2009 10.4 million cars were sold. They needed a bailout because they have huge fixed costs which were draining their cash reserves and nearly half their revenue was wiped out. The only way for any large manufacturer to deal with that sort of business environment is to have large cash reserves, cut costs as much as you can and then wait for a recovery. Everyone lost money, foreign AND domestic alike. The only difference is that the recession happened before the US manufacturers could get their high labor costs back to competitive levels. Their balance sheet wasn't in good enough shape going into the recession and it was more than they were able to absorb. Frankly the bankruptcy is probably the best thing that could have happened to GM and Chrysler because it sped up their recovery and made them competitive more quickly than they might have otherwise been.
Because consumers were still buying cars, they just weren't buying the cars the big three were making.
The actual data shows that consumers weren't buying cars from ANYONE. Even Toyota had their first full year loss in decades to the tune of several billion dollars. Toyota, Nissan and Honda sales in 2008 fell more than Ford or GM that year. It was a bloodbath across the board, foreign and domestic alike.
Why, then, does my 1982 S-Class Mercedes with power everything that weighs 3450 at the curb get 30 mpg on the freeway?
First off, the plural of anecdote is not data. We're talking about FLEET averages, not individual cars. Every auto maker is perfectly capable of making cars that get better than 30mpg and most of them have.
Second, did you really want to use Mercedes as an example? They have worse fuel economy than Ford or GM across their fleets. In fact aside from some small luxury car makers they have the absolute worst overall fleet fuel economy of any major auto manufacturer who sells cars in the US.
The same cost is applied to all automakers. Well, those who haven't already made efficiency a priority; it won't cost them anything.
That could not be more wrong. They all have to spend money as a result of CAFE, the difference is when and why. The Asian manufacturers who had low labor costs and thus competitive small (low margin) cars are obviously ahead of the game but they still have to invest to keep their lead in small cars. They also want to get into bigger (higher margin) cars which hurts their fuel economy averages unless they invest in the same technology as the US and European makers. The US and European manufacturers with their historically higher labor costs and resultant product lineups with larger (higher margin) cars have a different problem trying to get people to buy smaller vehicles from them. Basically US and Europe are tying to go small while Asian makers are trying to go big. End of the day they all have to invest a lot of extra engineering money to meet mandated fuel economy standards.
I've worked on both types of vehicle directly and I promise you that Toyota has better engineers.
And I've actually worked WITH their engineers in their manufacturing plants. I've helped design assembly lines where the products of both companies are made and sat in design reviews of products. The difference in engineering talent are negligible. The differences in management talent are rather more significant. There is a huge difference between knowing how to engineer a great product and actually being allowed to do it.
... OK, so why is it bad that we're making them do these things?
Didn't say it was bad. Just said that it's physics.
They won't be at a competitive disadvantage if all the other players are doing it too
Depends very much on their cost structure. The short version is that the labor costs for US manufacturers historically have been too high for them to compete effectively in smaller, more fuel efficient cars so they didn't put a lot of effort into them. This means that if fuel standards were raised they were at a potential disadvantage because their fleet averages were worse so they'd get hit with more/bigger penalties which compounded their cost disadvantage. Now that their labor costs are something approaching competitive this dynamic has shifted somewhat.
I'd prefer they raise the price of gas until the changes are driven by consumer demand, but that's politically unpopular.
I completely agree that it is a much better solution but like you said, I just can't see it happening in the US anytime soon.
Perhaps they should invest in tooling that does not require a massive investment to make a simple change?
Go ahead and do it. Fame and fortune await you. Clearly it must be very simple for someone so bright as you to create tooling flexible enough to accommodate any conceivable design change without increasing cost. That must be very easy to do. [/sarcasm]
Because when technology is purchased, it is considered an asset, and appears so on the balance sheet.
True but it also costs something so you have less of another asset, usually cash which is more fungible. You are typically trading a current asset for a (hopefully) future asset.
Internal research and development organizations, however, are viewed as liabilities, since they have payroll and other continuing expenses.
Actually R&D is expensed, not a liability though perhaps that is what you meant. Calculating it is often complicated.
It's an accounting advantage when outside technology, either in the form of entire companies or just their IP, is purchased.
Not necessarily since you have to carry goodwill on the balance sheet which can be subject to writedowns if the value of the property acquired turns out to not be as expected. This is fairly common with R&D and intangible assets purchased since it is very difficult to predict future financial benefits from R&D activities. In fact that difficulty is precisely why internal R&D is not permitted to be treated as an asset - management would be sorely tempted to misstate their assets based on imaginary predictions of future benefits expected.
Said another way, the external technology has a value that is explicitly recorded on the balance sheet.
Subject to periodic review and possible writedowns.
The man claims that the scooters he wants to build for India will consume 25 to 50 percent less fuel while being cheaper, lighter, and adaptable to every fuel from diesel to ethanol with a trivial change in the piston spacing.
Let's assume for a moment that his engineers can achieve all that. (HUGE if but...) He still has to prove that they can be produced cheaply, are sufficiently reliable, have no design showstoppers, are safe, can mass produced, and can scale in size/horsepower without screwing up any of the previous items.
Of course an electric motor does the same thing and can use solar, nuclear, wind and coal in addition to liquid fuels.
If the man can't get people to listen to him it's because he's not telling the whole story and he doesn't have all the problems even nearly worked out. I just can't imagine a more likely alternative.
The guy has a model engine and is trying to raise money in Silicon Valley. What isn't mentioned is that Detroit engineers have worked with pretty much every type of engine over the years, including this type. Maybe this guy's engineers have made a breakthrough but he'll have to prove it first.
Honestly, given their situation, I'd strongly advise trying to work their way into some of the Tier 1 suppliers. It should be a lot easier than approaching the Big 3 directly (I really wouldn't expect them to give this startup the time of day).
I absolutely guarantee they won't give them the time of day. Really though that is just fine. You DON"T want to be a Tier 1 supplier. When the Big 3 want to cut costs the first thing they do is cut payments to the Tier 1 suppliers. Unfortunately the Tier 1 suppliers frequently cannot pass on the cost reductions to the smaller Tier 2 and below suppliers without killing them. My company is a Tier 4 on a GM product and we certainly could not afford a significant price cut. Tier 1s are basically the big auto makers bitches.
Didn't they say that 30mpg was impossible and would put them out of business, despite foreign car makers doing it for years?
No they didn't say that. Nor have the foreign car makers been "doing it for years". If you make a big heavy vehicle it is going to get crappy fuel efficiency. US consumers, for better or worse, love big heavy cars. All automakers know how to make more fuel efficient cars but those are not the ones most people buy. Designing more fuel efficient cars without regressing on other features customers demonstrably want is seriously difficult and possibly without much prospect of payback for the engineering cost. Relatively few people buy a car with fuel efficiency as their primary concern. That might change if gasoline were suddenly $7/gallon but that simply is not going to happen.
The reason the automakers fought against increasing CAFE standards was simply cost. The government is imposing an engineering cost on their business without any certainty of additional revenue from their customers to offset the cost. Furthermore when your most profitable vehicles are the least fuel efficient (true for every auto manufacturer) and best selling, that is a major problem.
Toyota and other foreign car manufacturers were just as against raising CAFE standards as the US auto makers. The Toyota Tundra simply cannot achieve 30mpg without some combination of horsepower reduction, weight reduction, better aerodynamics and possibly hybridization. That's physics and has nothing to do with being a foreign or domestic car maker. The engineering challenges are just as difficult for Toyota as they are for GM. I've worked with both companies directly and I promise you Toyota does not have better engineers.
Now, several startups are working to make these high-efficiency engines practical for cars, trucks, and light vehicles — but they're under no illusions that Detroit will adopt the idea.
That's because the primary technology for future auto transport is almost certainly based around electric motors with internal combustion engines moving to a supporting role. There may very well be a market for this sort of internal combustion engine but it is unlikely to become more than a niche product. Internal combustion engines will likely always be around but they really aren't going to get a whole lot more efficient than they already are. I very much doubt that this particular permutation on engine design will be radically better. The engineers in Detroit are not idiots even if the management and union leadership might be.
There are a lot of engine designs out there with unique advantages. The Wankel rotary engine is smooth, simple, and light and has a name that is fun to say. Unfortunately it also has seal problems and consumes fuel somewhat more briskly compared to a V8 with similar power and thus it is only produced by one mainstream manufacturer (Mazda). There are tradeoffs. We use the type of engines we use because the balance of their engineering tradeoffs makes/made sense. For a small weed whacker a two stroke air cooled engine makes a lot of sense. For a sports car, not so much.
I wish these guys luck but they have an unproven model of a product (read not even close to production) with significant engineering unknowns.
However, I have been approached by another company that is much bigger, and they have offered me a pay rise of £7k to do the same job, plus their office is practically outside my front door (as opposed to my current 45 minute commute each way). This would make a massive difference to my life.
Those last two words are the important bit. You need to decide what is important in YOUR life. Quality of life is very important. Rejecting anyone is a painful experience and that includes companies you work for.
If you are going to burn bridges, think hard about whether it is worth it but then make your decision and don't look back. There are no guarantees for you or from either company. If the new job seems like a secure gig and it will improve your quality of life I'd consider it. Look VERY carefully at the corporate culture and the people you'll be working with. That is usually what makes or breaks a job.
Some friends have told me that I'm just being 'soft' – however I think I'm being loyal. Any advice?"
You are being soft though that might not be a bad thing. It means you are probably a considerate and decent person. Don't let that stop you from doing what is best for you though.
Success is getting what you want. Happiness is wanting what you get.
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Are you actually familiar with the intricacies of this topic, or are you just guessing?
I'm a controller (accountant) in my day job and have had to handle HR duties for several companies over the years including my current one. I wouldn't say I'm an expert but due to my job duties I'm more familiar with some of the nuances of HR than I ever really cared to be.
Interesting. I know a lot of employees where I work (aerospace engineering) that are classified as contractors, and indeed are sent there via a contracting agency (that they display on the employee badge), and yet they work there full time, for pretty long (indefinite) periods. And they're exempt from all the politically correct training that directs have to go through.
It's ok to do that but at some point if they are doing similar work to the regular employees with similar experience and time with the company then the company is generally obligated to give them similar compensation. The line for when this occurs is pretty fuzzy. Whether that is a good thing or a bad thing probably depends on your particular circumstance and values.
Seems it's quite easy to count someone as a contractor.
It is. And that is generally a good thing. But if the company abuses it they open themselves to lawsuits. And believe me, someone will eventually sue.
So what exactly stops all the other employers out there from just classifying their employees as "contractors" and thereby ignore the entire labyrinthine system of employment law?
Because there are laws which determine whether a contractor is de-facto an employee regardless of what the employer chooses to call them. There are a set of criteria which are easy to find which are used by regulatory agencies including the IRS. Microsoft actually lost a class action lawsuit a few years back for trying to classify a large percentage of their work force as contractors when they were effectively full time employees in every meaningful respect otherwise. Cost Microsoft quite a bit of money in back pay and benefits as I recall.
FYI, it's against US Employment law to ask any applicant any age related question other than to verify they are 18 or over.
Actually that's not quite true. There are questions which an employer should not ask because they create the actionable legal perception of having discriminated against a protected category of people. However there usually are simple ways to get the same information with perfectly acceptable questions. Furthermore it is perfectly legal to conduct a background examination of a job applicant in most cases and while you may not ask about their exact age, you can usually come up with a reasonably accurate guess without landing in legal hot water.
Since an actor is essentially a Contractor and not an employee, they are hired on the merits of their qualifications -- once again age has nothing to do with it, only their appearance and ability to do the work.
Problem is that their age may have a meaningful effect on their appearance and ability to do the work. You aren't going to hire a 40 year old to play to the part of a teenager unless they are some sort of genetic freak of nature. There exists case law supporting that for some jobs appearance does matter. When it is a "bona-fide occupational qualification", it is often legal to discriminate. A maker of women's makeup is going to be allowed to discriminate against men when hiring models for their products.
So please, feel free to elaborate how the act of not disclosing her age to the public at large is "lying"
Let's see, you could easily make the argument that it is a lie by omission, a lie in trade, bluffing, puffery or even a white lie. It might be acceptable behavior for her to not reveal her actual age but that makes it no less of a lie.
Despite attempting to remain anonymous, this is the best way to ensure information about this person's age gets widespread media attention.
Let's not forget that Apple came back from a far worse shape than this in the late 90s.
Apple's come back had much to do with returning Steve Jobs to the helm. Without putting to fine a point on it, RIM does not appear to have similarly competent leadership at this time. I agree that a come back is not remotely out of the question for RIM but they have far less cash than their primary direct competitors (Nokia, Microsoft, Apple and Google). RIM has also managed a pretty spectacular string of mediocre-at-best products, operational screw ups and strategic blunders. I cannot see them surviving as an independent company without some pretty immediate changes in top management and strategy.
Our new game, "Dragon's Tale," functions exclusively in Bitcoins. It's a gambling MMORPG based...
Saying it is a gambling game using bitcoin is a redundant statement.
Choosing Bitcoins means that I never have to worry about PayPal freezing my account, or about $25 chargeback fees, or making Mastercard a 2.5% partner in my business.
I guarantee you that using bitcoin costs you FAR more than 2.5% in lost revenue alone since very few people are going to be willing to use bitcoin. Not to mention the transaction costs, exchange rate risk, counterparty risk, accounting complexity and other issues.
But that isn't even the problem. I transferred some cash to BitCoins and back on Friday and it was paid out to me on Sunday. By the time I got the transfer, it had lost almost half of its value.
This should not be remotely surprising. You used an illiquid, thinly traded medium of exchange. Such assets are inherently prone to volatility. You can speculate on volatility and might even get lucky but anyone who expects bitcoin to be a stable currency anytime soon is an idiot.
Now imagine if that would constantly happen with your real money.
It does. The only difference is the volatility isn't usually as bad. But hyperinflation and debt defaults can cause fluctuations in "real" currencies of similar magnitude.
Apple's refusal to sell non-glossy screens and poor value hardware is fueling anger from professional Mac users
So buy a screen from someone else. Not as if Apple even makes the LCD themselves anyway. Plenty of good screen options out there.
Just sayin'... rear doors in a coupe is a wee bit of a contradiction ;)
If you want to get pedantic about it it really only has the one door split into two parts. There is no B pillar in the car. It's just easier to say rear door.
It's not really theft.
Actually it's pretty easy to argue that it is theft. It was not his, he knew it was not his, he intended to deprive the rightful owner of it permanently, it had value, he moved it physically thereby taking possession of it, and it was taken without consent. I believe the proper term is larceny. By fulfilling all those criteria, he committed theft.
Obviously it is up to the courts to decide whether or not it is theft and what the punishment should be (if any) if it is determined to be theft. It sounds like in this case the court determined it to be theft but considered the offense to be rather minor in nature. Sounds roughly appropriate to me.
Is it really less efficient? As I understood it, the rotary engine gives an equivalent HP compared to a piston engine at a fraction of the displacement.
Power to weight the rotary is excellent and they are very smooth and compact but those are not the only things that matter. Rotary engines tend to be relatively poor with regard to fuel consumption (not awful but bad enough to be a meaningful disadvantage) and always had problems with leaking seals and oil consumption by virtue of their design. There also are network effect problems. Not as many mechanics are familiar with them and there are cost issues for the manufacturer due to the lack of economies of scale.
I'll miss the RX8. Drove one a few years back. Good car, fun to drive, looked nice and had some nice features. The rear doors in a coupe is a great feature that should not be lost.
But to put Steve Jobs in the same league as people like Alan Turing, or Ada Lovelace, or Charles Babbage seems... very wrong.
Why? You don't know any more about Turing, Lovelace or Babbage than you do about Jobs. You're engaging in the same sort of hero worship you seem to be railing against. All of them did important work on different pieces of the technology puzzle. You might be more interested in the work of Turing (which is fine) but that doesn't make him more or less worthy of admiration. Jobs couldn't do what Turing did and Turing couldn't have done what Jobs did. Most of us only have the vaguest third-person idea of what sort of people they were so we can only really judge them by their works.
Didn't any of you read Ender's Game? Remember how, among other things, Ender often longs to just be a kid?
You are using a fictional story about a prodigy written by someone who was not a prodigy and likely has no special insights into raising one as a guide? Should we next consult the Fellowship of the Ring for advice on raising an adopted nephew?
Seriously, your point about exposing him to other things is fine but using Ender's Game as a parenting guide is beyond ridiculous.
With ebook prices falling and some readers even unwilling to pay more than 99 cents for an ebook
A lot of ebooks aren't worth even $0.99. Same with a lot of printed books. Most books are simply not going to sell well and won't command much of a price.
some authors are starting to consider a move back to the patronage model that was successful in providing them with a living before the widespread use of copyright.
Never been anything stopping them aside from finding a patron. Of course patrons usually tend to sponsor people with, you know, actual talent. Just because you want to be an author doesn't mean you automatically deserve to make your living doing it.
There's a disconnect here. If people are buying big heavy cars which aren't fuel efficient, why did the US auto makers need a bailout?
There is no disconnect here. In 2006 almost 17 million cars were sold in the US. In 2009 10.4 million cars were sold. They needed a bailout because they have huge fixed costs which were draining their cash reserves and nearly half their revenue was wiped out. The only way for any large manufacturer to deal with that sort of business environment is to have large cash reserves, cut costs as much as you can and then wait for a recovery. Everyone lost money, foreign AND domestic alike. The only difference is that the recession happened before the US manufacturers could get their high labor costs back to competitive levels. Their balance sheet wasn't in good enough shape going into the recession and it was more than they were able to absorb. Frankly the bankruptcy is probably the best thing that could have happened to GM and Chrysler because it sped up their recovery and made them competitive more quickly than they might have otherwise been.
Because consumers were still buying cars, they just weren't buying the cars the big three were making.
The actual data shows that consumers weren't buying cars from ANYONE. Even Toyota had their first full year loss in decades to the tune of several billion dollars. Toyota, Nissan and Honda sales in 2008 fell more than Ford or GM that year. It was a bloodbath across the board, foreign and domestic alike.
Why, then, does my 1982 S-Class Mercedes with power everything that weighs 3450 at the curb get 30 mpg on the freeway?
First off, the plural of anecdote is not data. We're talking about FLEET averages, not individual cars. Every auto maker is perfectly capable of making cars that get better than 30mpg and most of them have.
Second, did you really want to use Mercedes as an example? They have worse fuel economy than Ford or GM across their fleets. In fact aside from some small luxury car makers they have the absolute worst overall fleet fuel economy of any major auto manufacturer who sells cars in the US.
The same cost is applied to all automakers. Well, those who haven't already made efficiency a priority; it won't cost them anything.
That could not be more wrong. They all have to spend money as a result of CAFE, the difference is when and why. The Asian manufacturers who had low labor costs and thus competitive small (low margin) cars are obviously ahead of the game but they still have to invest to keep their lead in small cars. They also want to get into bigger (higher margin) cars which hurts their fuel economy averages unless they invest in the same technology as the US and European makers. The US and European manufacturers with their historically higher labor costs and resultant product lineups with larger (higher margin) cars have a different problem trying to get people to buy smaller vehicles from them. Basically US and Europe are tying to go small while Asian makers are trying to go big. End of the day they all have to invest a lot of extra engineering money to meet mandated fuel economy standards.
I've worked on both types of vehicle directly and I promise you that Toyota has better engineers.
And I've actually worked WITH their engineers in their manufacturing plants. I've helped design assembly lines where the products of both companies are made and sat in design reviews of products. The difference in engineering talent are negligible. The differences in management talent are rather more significant. There is a huge difference between knowing how to engineer a great product and actually being allowed to do it.
... OK, so why is it bad that we're making them do these things?
Didn't say it was bad. Just said that it's physics.
They won't be at a competitive disadvantage if all the other players are doing it too
Depends very much on their cost structure. The short version is that the labor costs for US manufacturers historically have been too high for them to compete effectively in smaller, more fuel efficient cars so they didn't put a lot of effort into them. This means that if fuel standards were raised they were at a potential disadvantage because their fleet averages were worse so they'd get hit with more/bigger penalties which compounded their cost disadvantage. Now that their labor costs are something approaching competitive this dynamic has shifted somewhat.
I'd prefer they raise the price of gas until the changes are driven by consumer demand, but that's politically unpopular.
I completely agree that it is a much better solution but like you said, I just can't see it happening in the US anytime soon.
Perhaps they should invest in tooling that does not require a massive investment to make a simple change?
Go ahead and do it. Fame and fortune await you. Clearly it must be very simple for someone so bright as you to create tooling flexible enough to accommodate any conceivable design change without increasing cost. That must be very easy to do. [/sarcasm]
Because when technology is purchased, it is considered an asset, and appears so on the balance sheet.
True but it also costs something so you have less of another asset, usually cash which is more fungible. You are typically trading a current asset for a (hopefully) future asset.
Internal research and development organizations, however, are viewed as liabilities, since they have payroll and other continuing expenses.
Actually R&D is expensed, not a liability though perhaps that is what you meant. Calculating it is often complicated.
It's an accounting advantage when outside technology, either in the form of entire companies or just their IP, is purchased.
Not necessarily since you have to carry goodwill on the balance sheet which can be subject to writedowns if the value of the property acquired turns out to not be as expected. This is fairly common with R&D and intangible assets purchased since it is very difficult to predict future financial benefits from R&D activities. In fact that difficulty is precisely why internal R&D is not permitted to be treated as an asset - management would be sorely tempted to misstate their assets based on imaginary predictions of future benefits expected.
Said another way, the external technology has a value that is explicitly recorded on the balance sheet.
Subject to periodic review and possible writedowns.
The man claims that the scooters he wants to build for India will consume 25 to 50 percent less fuel while being cheaper, lighter, and adaptable to every fuel from diesel to ethanol with a trivial change in the piston spacing.
Let's assume for a moment that his engineers can achieve all that. (HUGE if but...) He still has to prove that they can be produced cheaply, are sufficiently reliable, have no design showstoppers, are safe, can mass produced, and can scale in size/horsepower without screwing up any of the previous items.
Of course an electric motor does the same thing and can use solar, nuclear, wind and coal in addition to liquid fuels.
If the man can't get people to listen to him it's because he's not telling the whole story and he doesn't have all the problems even nearly worked out. I just can't imagine a more likely alternative.
The guy has a model engine and is trying to raise money in Silicon Valley. What isn't mentioned is that Detroit engineers have worked with pretty much every type of engine over the years, including this type. Maybe this guy's engineers have made a breakthrough but he'll have to prove it first.
Honestly, given their situation, I'd strongly advise trying to work their way into some of the Tier 1 suppliers. It should be a lot easier than approaching the Big 3 directly (I really wouldn't expect them to give this startup the time of day).
I absolutely guarantee they won't give them the time of day. Really though that is just fine. You DON"T want to be a Tier 1 supplier. When the Big 3 want to cut costs the first thing they do is cut payments to the Tier 1 suppliers. Unfortunately the Tier 1 suppliers frequently cannot pass on the cost reductions to the smaller Tier 2 and below suppliers without killing them. My company is a Tier 4 on a GM product and we certainly could not afford a significant price cut. Tier 1s are basically the big auto makers bitches.
Didn't they say that 30mpg was impossible and would put them out of business, despite foreign car makers doing it for years?
No they didn't say that. Nor have the foreign car makers been "doing it for years". If you make a big heavy vehicle it is going to get crappy fuel efficiency. US consumers, for better or worse, love big heavy cars. All automakers know how to make more fuel efficient cars but those are not the ones most people buy. Designing more fuel efficient cars without regressing on other features customers demonstrably want is seriously difficult and possibly without much prospect of payback for the engineering cost. Relatively few people buy a car with fuel efficiency as their primary concern. That might change if gasoline were suddenly $7/gallon but that simply is not going to happen.
The reason the automakers fought against increasing CAFE standards was simply cost. The government is imposing an engineering cost on their business without any certainty of additional revenue from their customers to offset the cost. Furthermore when your most profitable vehicles are the least fuel efficient (true for every auto manufacturer) and best selling, that is a major problem.
Toyota and other foreign car manufacturers were just as against raising CAFE standards as the US auto makers. The Toyota Tundra simply cannot achieve 30mpg without some combination of horsepower reduction, weight reduction, better aerodynamics and possibly hybridization. That's physics and has nothing to do with being a foreign or domestic car maker. The engineering challenges are just as difficult for Toyota as they are for GM. I've worked with both companies directly and I promise you Toyota does not have better engineers.
Now, several startups are working to make these high-efficiency engines practical for cars, trucks, and light vehicles — but they're under no illusions that Detroit will adopt the idea.
That's because the primary technology for future auto transport is almost certainly based around electric motors with internal combustion engines moving to a supporting role. There may very well be a market for this sort of internal combustion engine but it is unlikely to become more than a niche product. Internal combustion engines will likely always be around but they really aren't going to get a whole lot more efficient than they already are. I very much doubt that this particular permutation on engine design will be radically better. The engineers in Detroit are not idiots even if the management and union leadership might be.
There are a lot of engine designs out there with unique advantages. The Wankel rotary engine is smooth, simple, and light and has a name that is fun to say. Unfortunately it also has seal problems and consumes fuel somewhat more briskly compared to a V8 with similar power and thus it is only produced by one mainstream manufacturer (Mazda). There are tradeoffs. We use the type of engines we use because the balance of their engineering tradeoffs makes/made sense. For a small weed whacker a two stroke air cooled engine makes a lot of sense. For a sports car, not so much.
I wish these guys luck but they have an unproven model of a product (read not even close to production) with significant engineering unknowns.
However, I have been approached by another company that is much bigger, and they have offered me a pay rise of £7k to do the same job, plus their office is practically outside my front door (as opposed to my current 45 minute commute each way). This would make a massive difference to my life .
Those last two words are the important bit. You need to decide what is important in YOUR life. Quality of life is very important. Rejecting anyone is a painful experience and that includes companies you work for.
If you are going to burn bridges, think hard about whether it is worth it but then make your decision and don't look back. There are no guarantees for you or from either company. If the new job seems like a secure gig and it will improve your quality of life I'd consider it. Look VERY carefully at the corporate culture and the people you'll be working with. That is usually what makes or breaks a job.
Some friends have told me that I'm just being 'soft' – however I think I'm being loyal. Any advice?"
You are being soft though that might not be a bad thing. It means you are probably a considerate and decent person. Don't let that stop you from doing what is best for you though.
Success is getting what you want. Happiness is wanting what you get.