GM Uses RAN’s Blog to Call Toyota Nazis
Yeah, so this is almost too crazy to be true.
Yesterday Brant blogged about his run in with Toyota executive Bob Carter at the LA Auto Show and included a nice video of the encounter.
In the comments someone using the name “fugazi48″ wrote that “Toyota is a money grubbing company. Buy a car from them is like supporting the third reich as they try to overtake Europe.”
OK, so that’s not just extreme, but actually offensive.
My first guess about who wrote such a thing: a Toyota PR flack trying to make our supporters look like total extremists.
But no, it was written by someone on a General Motors-owned computer in Detroit.
See, thanks to the magic of the internet we can actually see when employees of big corporations use company computers to post on our blog. In this case, the post came straight from General Motors.
So my question: What’s stranger, GM employees using RAN’s blog to call Toyota Nazis or the fact that the person posting the comment seems to be a fugazi fan?
5 Responses to “GM Uses RAN’s Blog to Call Toyota Nazis”
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November 16th, 2007 at 4:53 pm
Whoa….We’ve definitely got some concerns with Toyota’s green credibility, but calling them Nazi’s….that’s a whole different ballgame.
I have to say, its been shocking this week to walk around the LA autoshow and see the automakers knock cameras out of my colleagues hands as we ask simple questions and witness some of the biggest companies in America publicly bash each other.
More than ever, it makes me wish they would stop fighting each other, us, and the climate and invest that energy in just doing the right thing. How about it? Stop beating up climate activists and start building clean cars.
November 16th, 2007 at 5:12 pm
The internet has rule about this sort of thing. The reductio ad Hitlerum argument signals the end of rational debate. It’s now officially time for the automakers to stop talking and start doing.
November 18th, 2007 at 9:08 am
30 years ago, GM and all the other American carmakers, as well as the US government, got a big wake up call, that they better be putting out a car that doesn’t run on any kind of petroleum product. The gas crunches of the late 70’s should have terrified them into getting their engineers, scientists, and designers into the labs, to come up with a car that ran solely on electricity, hydrogen, water, whatever. You’d think, with all the money and brainpower at the Big 3’s disposal, that sometime within the last 30 years, they’d have managed to come up with a car that runs on a charge of electricity, as long as today’s cars run on a tank of gas. And, with all the lobbyists at their disposal, you’d think they’d have gotten the government and power companies to make as many stations where you could recharge your car or truck, as there are gas stations now. The fact that I could see this, 30 years ago, when I was all of 19, and could see the great potential for profits (what were the Big 3’s profits and sales,last year, compared to overseas car companies who are by and large making more fuel efficient cars?) as well as public good will, and apparently GM, Ford, and Chrysler AND the government, couldn’t, astounds me.
And face it, with all the things made out of petroleum products, oil companies will never be hurting for profits.
November 28th, 2007 at 11:40 am
Yeah, this is a very very cool blog. ;-)
I just added you to my favorites.
Thanx,
Mikey
January 17th, 2008 at 9:14 am
I think that that this is a good article and the RAN should keep up the pressure