For all these reasons, the auto industry is committed to building fuel cell-powered vehicles for China as soon as possible. While it would be nice if those vehicles were also acceptable to buyers in Canada, America, Europe or Japan, it isn't really that important in the short run.
No company has made this point more directly and forcefully than General Motors, from chairman Rick Wagoner on down. GM's plan is to do whatever it has to in terms of rebates and other marketing efforts to maintain or grow share in the developed markets in order to keep its plants operating and its coffers full while it turns itself into the world's leading vendor of fuel cell cars.
By re-inventing itself by, say, 2015 or 2020 as the world leader in alternative fuel vehicles, GM will then have also re-invented itself as a stock market darling and hold on to the number one spot in the auto industry.
That is the GM theory, at any rate, and the reason why the company showed off China's first hybrid-powered bus in Shanghai this week, along with the HyWire concept car that is the working model for the firm's fuel cell-driven future.
For the rest of the world these things might be interesting debating points in the discussion over alternative fuels in a mature market. In China they're course corrections away from that iceberg.
No company has made this point more directly and forcefully than General Motors, from chairman Rick Wagoner on down. GM's plan is to do whatever it has to in terms of rebates and other marketing efforts to maintain or grow share in the developed markets in order to keep its plants operating and its coffers full while it turns itself into the world's leading vendor of fuel cell cars.
By re-inventing itself by, say, 2015 or 2020 as the world leader in alternative fuel vehicles, GM will then have also re-invented itself as a stock market darling and hold on to the number one spot in the auto industry.
That is the GM theory, at any rate, and the reason why the company showed off China's first hybrid-powered bus in Shanghai this week, along with the HyWire concept car that is the working model for the firm's fuel cell-driven future.
For the rest of the world these things might be interesting debating points in the discussion over alternative fuels in a mature market. In China they're course corrections away from that iceberg.