Haven't driven a 4-cylinder lawnmower engine of a car in my entire life, and intend to keep it that way.
They also joined up with other manufacturers to collaborate on major developments (mainly in high efficiency, gasoline-a-like diesel engines).
In short, they found manufacturers that would make golfcart bits.
So yes, there are going to be low-IQ morons like the OP who feel emasculated while driving a 4 cylinder vehicle with better performance, efficiency, emissions, weight and quality compared to the "patriotic American" 6 and 8 cylinder dinosaur lumps that make him feel like a real man - maybe that's why it took Ford so long to move their winning formula back to the USA after finding it worked so well in Europe, but it seems they're finally doing it.
Then Ford should do themselves a favor by replacing their American spokesman with some uppity German. Then hand over the designs to all their large/powerful cars(including the Mustang) over to Chrysler, who still seems to give a care about making cars as Detroit intended - affordable power first, environmentalism last. If they're going to go all Euro, why do a half-job?
It works in Europe because they're used to having golfcart-sized cars(unless you're obscenely rich) and very few straightaways. Overwriting the US lineup with Eurotrash only makes things worse for having blander cars with less power in them.
Ford is doing well over here, and it's not because they're building designs right out of the 70s where more numbers of cylinders = better! manly! rar!
What's wrong with affordable muscle instead of reserving 6 & 8 cylinders for the few? Nothing unless you don't like regular people having something powerful under the hood.
By going to that VW GTI, you gave up a lot of room and two cylinders. If you get rid of the environmental regulations, that gas would be a lot cheaper.
I'd have no problem if it meant that I could have my US-sized behemoth and you have your turbocharged golfcart.
*really?* I remember what industry used to look like - in the first world - back in the heyday of the trade union. Health and safety didn't exist. Good luck if you were black, or Jewish, or gay, or female. If you fell out with the union rep, you were on your own. And in the meantime, you were being tapped for union dues that went to fund a party espousing some of the most fucked-up economic policies the UK ever saw.
While as a consequence from the glorious butchering of the UK's internal job market, you created a worse-off situation with people that have no jobs whatsoever and an increasing propensity to commit crime. Perhaps your Tory deity should have thought about that long-term consequence instead of going like a butcher to unionized countryfolk.
What creates better conditions for workers is economic progress, so that workers don't have to go and work in a paper mill where they lose fingers as a matter of routine, or a shipyard where workers fell from gantries every week.
The problem is that you advocate conditions where businesses would allow those kind of conditions to come back. In addition, you cause a regression to a time where business would be able to be authoritarian with no check against it such as done with labor unions.
Should they try to flee, the government will be more than happy to make it a futile move. Especially given that the US can be anywhere it wants, doing what it wants.
The companies would then be forcibly repatriated, and run by people that won't repeat the same mistake - or sabotage the company.
Which is pretty much why the US, or any other country, shouldn't be dictating what labor conditions are acceptable outside their own borders. Because conditions that are unacceptable in the US are unacceptable due to cultural views and the fact that we can generally afford to quash those practices. This is not true of other countries around the world. Like it or lump it, other places are subject to other, sometimes much more harsh, constraints.
Doesn't matter. Slavery is something that is unacceptable if one wishes to participate in the civilized world, no matter the cultural justification.
"Oh. These are unacceptable working conditions. We can't permit any business with you"... The workers will love you, because they'll have to get shittier jobs for less pay. Or, perhaps, go back to scratching out some existence spending every day raising all their own food. Since they don't have any income with which to buy food, thanks to the smug self-righteousness with which plenty of relatively well off people are willing to declare something is too abusive.
Or the factories could treat their workers with a level of respect known in the First World.
At that point, I'll figure you've actually endured, experienced, and are qualified to make a judgement. Until then, advocacy not judgement thanks. Private advocacy even; leave the public funds out of it.
Those are words spoken by apologists - as "you don't understand" is a well-known PRC bromide used to quell argument. The First World understands quite well from their own history that Foxconn is doing something unacceptable. I wouldn't be surprised if you are one of those folks paid to guide opinion by the PRC.
How dare anyone sit in judgment of China for trying to better the lives of its people through wealth creation. If you want to judge the government for its assaults on freedom thats great.. but to judge the country because the people want a better life and are doing the same shit we did to make better lives for ourselves.. its bullshit... tired old dogmatic bullshit.
You can start with conditions that are good by the First World, instead of dragging down the world to the Third World's level. The conditions are thus improved and slavery is bypassed.
These factories need to be in much better conditions, and not a moment too soon for apologists like you.
You would have to go back past the 1930's to get a comparison that is like China.
As for China(and like minded places) bringing better workplace safety rights, they're doing everything to ensure meaningful progress never happens. This means that workers are forever subordinated to the business, with the pre-FDR era tradition of disrespect.
Businesses would rather be able to extend the concept of "business friendliness" as extreme as they can, and measure that as competitiveness.
Some of my computers are old enough to where they do have the Made in the US label(circa 2000, at that). Same with the great deal of my components such as the keyboard.
It's not as if there isn't the capacity to manufacture in the US. As an example, look up the TAA (Trade Act) compliant models of IBM-era Thinkpads, where they were made to the same degree in the US that the Foxconn-built bits were made in the PRC. They stretch from when there was actual US manufacturing up to about 5-6 years ago(e.g. T42's, T60(?)'s).
They are owned by Taiwan, employ management from Hong Kong, employ Cantonese labor , and are governed by Mandarin communist party staff.
Makes it easy for the mainlanders to be divided against each other, much like how their military brought in troops from the countryside for the 1989 massacre.
Many workers are happy about their job and working conditions, in Foxconn and other such factories. These factories provide a lot of things (not just money) that they would never be able to dream of: a shelter over their head, varied meals, water, electricity, and more. Many of these people are uneducated and would be jobless otherwise.
That doesn't preclude making conditions good from the start, and not simply good compared to the surrounding countryside.
They need and are happy about these jobs. Your protesting will NOT IMPROVE THEIR LIVES. You will render them jobless (as you boycott these products and companies pull out of these countries) and effectively kill off their means of living.
The same argument that was used to justify slavery. It got abolished, and peoples lives improved
Foxconn doesn't sound as bad as Triangle Shirtwaist Company, or any of the mine towns with the company store and wage-slavery. And people voluntarily went there just as people are voluntarily working at Foxconn.
For having family in mining towns, and being two generations from one myself(on both sides), I'd say that Foxconn is worse. In mining towns of today, I'm not followed by representatives of the mining company's security company for entering the town, lawyers can openly practice against the mining company without fear of death or intimidation, the mining company isn't going to prosecute people that talk about their company, and people can buy things without having to be indebted to the company (such as with Foxconn).
The worst practices by mining companies in the US are saintly in comparison to any company operating in the People's Republic of China. That, and people in those mining towns are treated with a lot more respect.
Naturally I say something bad about Apple, and someone modbombs it. My point was that Foxconn is a lesser evil - in that they only practice a subset of the things other factories would put upon their workers. Despite this, Foxconn still treats their workers with disrespect and distrust; going against the company is lifetime-shortening move as opposed to a career limiting move in the places that formerly did such work (e.g. the US).
One can find a ton of issues but they get swept under the rug when it comes to the final report.
"The Fair Labor Association found that Apple's plant where iPhones and iPads are far better than those at garment factories or other facilities elsewhere in the country. A quote: 'The lead investigator stated "The facilities are first-class; the physical conditions are way, way above average of the norm."' Which leaves the question, what is the acceptable norm?"
Translation: So the manacles are in better condition, they're punished with lifetime imprisonment versus death in other places, and the slaves are kept in slightly better conditions - but are still slaves given that one risks imprisonment or death if you speak out against Foxconn or the like.
So this organization is only a whitewash group for Apple.
Part of the reason is they're finally selling vehicles that they sell in Europe, like the Fiesta and the Transit
Which are part of the problem when they canned the American-sized cars, they're golfcarts compared to their properly sized predecessors. Let me know when I can get a RWD V8 without going to the luxury tier, instead of these golfcarts. Even a large RWD V6 under the same terms would be OK.
FWD/AWD == harder to maintain due to the transmission being in a very unholy spot - the side of a car.
The problem could be better solved by reinstating the platforms they killed (Panther, E* vans) and simply allowed people to order from other countries if they wanted a European golfcart. Everyone wins.
And the US market is getting the revamped 2013 Fusion (Modeo outside the US) before the rest of the world, for the first time.
Which has no American-sized engine option (read: V6) but looks like a 4-door Aston Martin done in the worst way possible.
They've been building much better cars in recent years.
Why yes, they have made plenty of improvements to their behemoth-sized cars. Shame that Ford dropped what made them American, and opted to become a foreign car company with a US name.
This sounds like Pwn2Own taken to the next (and otherwise illegal) level. In this case, it looks like they were auditing physical security amongst other things.
Part of the brilliance of the OpenXC strategy is that not only is Ford effectively getting free R&D from the open source community, by letting developers in locales far-flung from Detroit have a go with the system, Ford will learn what consumers want and need in a variety of geographic regions.
Ford would be doing a great disservice by disregarding the desires of those in the US market. Oh, wait, they already are given their un-American car lineup.
Not going to fret about the car issues, me, I only like their exterior colors, but I hate the interiors. Since it is really easy to paint the exterior compared to stripping out the insides, they lose out.
Compared to GM, they look quite spartan for an equivalent tier of car. Chrysler has a bit of the same issue, but at least they give you a V6 under the hood for less money than their competitors. That, and the European influence stays in the Fiat brand unlike GM or Ford.
If things get bad enough with GM, I'll end up going with Chrysler. Less global exposure is an asset when you make cars for the US market.
Putting in OpenXC just looks like windowdressing. All you get is a box that sits on the CANBUS network, and no real way to do anything more than sanctioned reads.
My position on such devices: Forced induction as a supplement to an already high-powered/displacement engine == good. Forced induction as a replacement to cylinder count due to overzealous environmental regulations == unholy.
I'll take a well-powered 6 over a turbo'd 4, a well-powered 8 over turbo'd 6, and look at a turbocharger if I really wanted to improve a well-powered 8. Forced induction might please the folks doing emissions testing, but all it does is cut corners for modern-day cars. These aren't the days of the turbocharged Grand National, where forced induction was applied properly, but where it is used to replace cylinders in a not-so-effective way.
Yes, those cars are Eurotrash, especially given that they look and function much like the junk you see across Europe - and the rest of the 4-banger-and-satnav-world. Trying to diminish my argument does nothing when the evidence is out there to see - Ford makes Eurotrash, and all you have to argue about is the wording.
I have a pre-bailout, ~2 ton, no-turbo, 6-cylinder Aurora tyvm. I make no apologies as to its American-sized fuel consumption, nor do I support any tax increases or fees to make it harder to drive what I, a US citizen amongst many with a similar preference, truly want. At least Chrysler and GM are willing to make cars for the citizens that want US sized power that is affordable to all, without having to raid the depreciated luxury tier.
It'd be kind of nice if I didn't have some environmentalist from Aspen strongly advocating me to drive some Trabant with satnav while they drive an SUV convoy.
Slashdot Mirror
Cart does not push self, it pulls itself in this case.
(Apologies to TF2's cart-push gamemode)
Haven't driven a 4-cylinder lawnmower engine of a car in my entire life, and intend to keep it that way.
They also joined up with other manufacturers to collaborate on major developments (mainly in high efficiency, gasoline-a-like diesel engines).
In short, they found manufacturers that would make golfcart bits.
So yes, there are going to be low-IQ morons like the OP who feel emasculated while driving a 4 cylinder vehicle with better performance, efficiency, emissions, weight and quality compared to the "patriotic American" 6 and 8 cylinder dinosaur lumps that make him feel like a real man - maybe that's why it took Ford so long to move their winning formula back to the USA after finding it worked so well in Europe, but it seems they're finally doing it.
Then Ford should do themselves a favor by replacing their American spokesman with some uppity German. Then hand over the designs to all their large/powerful cars(including the Mustang) over to Chrysler, who still seems to give a care about making cars as Detroit intended - affordable power first, environmentalism last. If they're going to go all Euro, why do a half-job?
It works in Europe because they're used to having golfcart-sized cars(unless you're obscenely rich) and very few straightaways. Overwriting the US lineup with Eurotrash only makes things worse for having blander cars with less power in them.
Ford is doing well over here, and it's not because they're building designs right out of the 70s where more numbers of cylinders = better! manly! rar!
What's wrong with affordable muscle instead of reserving 6 & 8 cylinders for the few? Nothing unless you don't like regular people having something powerful under the hood.
By going to that VW GTI, you gave up a lot of room and two cylinders. If you get rid of the environmental regulations, that gas would be a lot cheaper.
I'd have no problem if it meant that I could have my US-sized behemoth and you have your turbocharged golfcart.
Suicide vans.
*really?* I remember what industry used to look like - in the first world - back in the heyday of the trade union. Health and safety didn't exist. Good luck if you were black, or Jewish, or gay, or female. If you fell out with the union rep, you were on your own. And in the meantime, you were being tapped for union dues that went to fund a party espousing some of the most fucked-up economic policies the UK ever saw.
While as a consequence from the glorious butchering of the UK's internal job market, you created a worse-off situation with people that have no jobs whatsoever and an increasing propensity to commit crime. Perhaps your Tory deity should have thought about that long-term consequence instead of going like a butcher to unionized countryfolk.
What creates better conditions for workers is economic progress, so that workers don't have to go and work in a paper mill where they lose fingers as a matter of routine, or a shipyard where workers fell from gantries every week.
The problem is that you advocate conditions where businesses would allow those kind of conditions to come back. In addition, you cause a regression to a time where business would be able to be authoritarian with no check against it such as done with labor unions.
Should they try to flee, the government will be more than happy to make it a futile move. Especially given that the US can be anywhere it wants, doing what it wants.
The companies would then be forcibly repatriated, and run by people that won't repeat the same mistake - or sabotage the company.
Which is pretty much why the US, or any other country, shouldn't be dictating what labor conditions are acceptable outside their own borders. Because conditions that are unacceptable in the US are unacceptable due to cultural views and the fact that we can generally afford to quash those practices. This is not true of other countries around the world. Like it or lump it, other places are subject to other, sometimes much more harsh, constraints.
Doesn't matter. Slavery is something that is unacceptable if one wishes to participate in the civilized world, no matter the cultural justification.
"Oh. These are unacceptable working conditions. We can't permit any business with you" ... The workers will love you, because they'll have to get shittier jobs for less pay. Or, perhaps, go back to scratching out some existence spending every day raising all their own food. Since they don't have any income with which to buy food, thanks to the smug self-righteousness with which plenty of relatively well off people are willing to declare something is too abusive.
Or the factories could treat their workers with a level of respect known in the First World.
At that point, I'll figure you've actually endured, experienced, and are qualified to make a judgement. Until then, advocacy not judgement thanks. Private advocacy even; leave the public funds out of it.
Those are words spoken by apologists - as "you don't understand" is a well-known PRC bromide used to quell argument. The First World understands quite well from their own history that Foxconn is doing something unacceptable. I wouldn't be surprised if you are one of those folks paid to guide opinion by the PRC.
How dare anyone sit in judgment of China for trying to better the lives of its people through wealth creation. If you want to judge the government for its assaults on freedom thats great.. but to judge the country because the people want a better life and are doing the same shit we did to make better lives for ourselves.. its bullshit... tired old dogmatic bullshit.
You can start with conditions that are good by the First World, instead of dragging down the world to the Third World's level. The conditions are thus improved and slavery is bypassed.
These factories need to be in much better conditions, and not a moment too soon for apologists like you.
You would have to go back past the 1930's to get a comparison that is like China.
As for China(and like minded places) bringing better workplace safety rights, they're doing everything to ensure meaningful progress never happens. This means that workers are forever subordinated to the business, with the pre-FDR era tradition of disrespect.
Businesses would rather be able to extend the concept of "business friendliness" as extreme as they can, and measure that as competitiveness.
Some of my computers are old enough to where they do have the Made in the US label(circa 2000, at that). Same with the great deal of my components such as the keyboard.
It's not as if there isn't the capacity to manufacture in the US. As an example, look up the TAA (Trade Act) compliant models of IBM-era Thinkpads, where they were made to the same degree in the US that the Foxconn-built bits were made in the PRC. They stretch from when there was actual US manufacturing up to about 5-6 years ago(e.g. T42's, T60(?)'s).
Or they're imprisoned.
They are owned by Taiwan, employ management from Hong Kong, employ Cantonese labor , and are governed by Mandarin communist party staff.
Makes it easy for the mainlanders to be divided against each other, much like how their military brought in troops from the countryside for the 1989 massacre.
Many workers are happy about their job and working conditions, in Foxconn and other such factories. These factories provide a lot of things (not just money) that they would never be able to dream of: a shelter over their head, varied meals, water, electricity, and more. Many of these people are uneducated and would be jobless otherwise.
That doesn't preclude making conditions good from the start, and not simply good compared to the surrounding countryside.
They need and are happy about these jobs. Your protesting will NOT IMPROVE THEIR LIVES. You will render them jobless (as you boycott these products and companies pull out of these countries) and effectively kill off their means of living.
The same argument that was used to justify slavery. It got abolished, and peoples lives improved
Foxconn doesn't sound as bad as Triangle Shirtwaist Company, or any of the mine towns with the company store and wage-slavery. And people voluntarily went there just as people are voluntarily working at Foxconn.
For having family in mining towns, and being two generations from one myself(on both sides), I'd say that Foxconn is worse. In mining towns of today, I'm not followed by representatives of the mining company's security company for entering the town, lawyers can openly practice against the mining company without fear of death or intimidation, the mining company isn't going to prosecute people that talk about their company, and people can buy things without having to be indebted to the company (such as with Foxconn).
The worst practices by mining companies in the US are saintly in comparison to any company operating in the People's Republic of China. That, and people in those mining towns are treated with a lot more respect.
Naturally I say something bad about Apple, and someone modbombs it. My point was that Foxconn is a lesser evil - in that they only practice a subset of the things other factories would put upon their workers. Despite this, Foxconn still treats their workers with disrespect and distrust; going against the company is lifetime-shortening move as opposed to a career limiting move in the places that formerly did such work (e.g. the US).
One can find a ton of issues but they get swept under the rug when it comes to the final report.
"The Fair Labor Association found that Apple's plant where iPhones and iPads are far better than those at garment factories or other facilities elsewhere in the country. A quote: 'The lead investigator stated "The facilities are first-class; the physical conditions are way, way above average of the norm."' Which leaves the question, what is the acceptable norm?"
Translation:
So the manacles are in better condition, they're punished with lifetime imprisonment versus death in other places, and the slaves are kept in slightly better conditions - but are still slaves given that one risks imprisonment or death if you speak out against Foxconn or the like.
So this organization is only a whitewash group for Apple.
Part of the reason is they're finally selling vehicles that they sell in Europe, like the Fiesta and the Transit
Which are part of the problem when they canned the American-sized cars, they're golfcarts compared to their properly sized predecessors. Let me know when I can get a RWD V8 without going to the luxury tier, instead of these golfcarts. Even a large RWD V6 under the same terms would be OK.
FWD/AWD == harder to maintain due to the transmission being in a very unholy spot - the side of a car.
The problem could be better solved by reinstating the platforms they killed (Panther, E* vans) and simply allowed people to order from other countries if they wanted a European golfcart. Everyone wins.
And the US market is getting the revamped 2013 Fusion (Modeo outside the US) before the rest of the world, for the first time.
Which has no American-sized engine option (read: V6) but looks like a 4-door Aston Martin done in the worst way possible.
They've been building much better cars in recent years.
Why yes, they have made plenty of improvements to their behemoth-sized cars. Shame that Ford dropped what made them American, and opted to become a foreign car company with a US name.
This sounds like Pwn2Own taken to the next (and otherwise illegal) level. In this case, it looks like they were auditing physical security amongst other things.
I'm actually trying to be reasonable with what Detroit has produced for the masses. You on the other hand, are not.
Confusing that with entitlement to a poorly made European luxury car is not even close to what I'm talking about here.
Part of the brilliance of the OpenXC strategy is that not only is Ford effectively getting free R&D from the open source community, by letting developers in locales far-flung from Detroit have a go with the system, Ford will learn what consumers want and need in a variety of geographic regions.
Ford would be doing a great disservice by disregarding the desires of those in the US market. Oh, wait, they already are given their un-American car lineup.
Not going to fret about the car issues, me, I only like their exterior colors, but I hate the interiors. Since it is really easy to paint the exterior compared to stripping out the insides, they lose out.
Compared to GM, they look quite spartan for an equivalent tier of car. Chrysler has a bit of the same issue, but at least they give you a V6 under the hood for less money than their competitors. That, and the European influence stays in the Fiat brand unlike GM or Ford.
If things get bad enough with GM, I'll end up going with Chrysler. Less global exposure is an asset when you make cars for the US market.
Putting in OpenXC just looks like windowdressing. All you get is a box that sits on the CANBUS network, and no real way to do anything more than sanctioned reads.
(Score:-1, Troll)
I'm thinking that someone hates American cars enough to not come up with anything of substance other than modbombing.
My position on such devices:
Forced induction as a supplement to an already high-powered/displacement engine == good.
Forced induction as a replacement to cylinder count due to overzealous environmental regulations == unholy.
I'll take a well-powered 6 over a turbo'd 4, a well-powered 8 over turbo'd 6, and look at a turbocharger if I really wanted to improve a well-powered 8. Forced induction might please the folks doing emissions testing, but all it does is cut corners for modern-day cars. These aren't the days of the turbocharged Grand National, where forced induction was applied properly, but where it is used to replace cylinders in a not-so-effective way.
You're just an Anonymous Coward, so you are equally likely to not be a shareholder as well.
Yes, those cars are Eurotrash, especially given that they look and function much like the junk you see across Europe - and the rest of the 4-banger-and-satnav-world. Trying to diminish my argument does nothing when the evidence is out there to see - Ford makes Eurotrash, and all you have to argue about is the wording.
I have a pre-bailout, ~2 ton, no-turbo, 6-cylinder Aurora tyvm. I make no apologies as to its American-sized fuel consumption, nor do I support any tax increases or fees to make it harder to drive what I, a US citizen amongst many with a similar preference, truly want. At least Chrysler and GM are willing to make cars for the citizens that want US sized power that is affordable to all, without having to raid the depreciated luxury tier.
It'd be kind of nice if I didn't have some environmentalist from Aspen strongly advocating me to drive some Trabant with satnav while they drive an SUV convoy.