Greenfield Village is one of the most unique outdoor museums in the world and it’s also considered the largest. It was originally developed by Henry Ford as a showcase for the homes and small enterprises that developed during the early part of the 1900′s and changed the world. You can walk along the original footsteps of the people who became giants in industry. Names like Webster (dictionary fame), the Wright brothers, Edison, Firestone, Abraham Lincoln and Henry Ford himself.
It was recently upgraded to bring it to the standards of a world-historical showcase. As part of “The Henry Ford” (whatever that is supposed to mean) the land is also home to the Henry Ford Museum which is in-and-of-itself a destination for folks all around the world.
Of course, since we live less than 20 miles away, we almost never visit it. But that’s no excuse as we learned during our recent trip there. Much has changed since our last visit–all for the better.
A month after Tesla Motor’s founder Elon Musk snivels his way through a David Letterman show, Bob Lutz from General Motors explains the real world of electric cars to Letterman.
Bottom line: It’s relatively easy to build an expensive high performance car (example: The Musk Mobile). The real engineering and manufacturing occurs when folks take sophisticated technology and create a car for the masses.
Kudos to both Lutz and Letterman for setting the record straight.
David Letterman had Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla Motors on his show during 2009 April 29. Letterman has shown his serious misunderstanding of other electric cars, especially the GM EV1 and the upcoming Chevy Volt. Musk, in his smartass way, eggs on Letterman which is a shame considering that this is the CEO who dumped millions into Tesla Motors with his team of Silicon Valley “engineers” before realizing that he had been had? Now he’s hired Detroit automotive engineers to get him out of the mess. With all of their hard work, Tesla expects to start making money sometime in the future on their $100,000 car. They’re presently losing money on every car sold. You’d think that Musk would rein-in how smart he believes that he is in light of the actual facts of his own firms difficulties.
Letterman, as to be expected, is clueless. He misstates the Chevy Volts range as “40 miles” when in fact the Volt can travel much further–the 40 miles he states is simply its full electric range. Since it’s a hybrid, range will not be an issue–even for Letterman’s implied 20 mile long east-coast driveway (see the Youtube video).
Before you dismiss the entire idea, hear me out–especially all of you who love a good conspiracy theory.
With the sad downfall and bankruptcy of Chrysler last week, one of the most interesting aspects of the Chapter 11 reorganization is Fiat’s part in it. Fiat’s game plan in a potential Chrysler deal is to basically pay nothing, assume no liabilities and come out of all it with a management position in the company, a chunk of stock and an in-place distribution network through the remaining Chrysler dealership structure.
Metro Detroit in the USA and Windsor, Ontario in Canada were originally envisioned as a city-pair in the early parts of the 1900′s, to the point that the main international airport was designated in the region’s master plan as Windsor International Airport (Airport designation: YQG) in Canada, not what has now become Detroit Metropolitan Airport (Airport designation: DTW). But that was all before World Word II and as you’d expect, many plans changed following the war.
Today, the two cities, divided by the Detroit River, are a city-pair of sorts. In just about any other city-pairs divided by a river, you’d see numerous river crossings by bridge and tunnel. Not in this region. Helped by Michigan state government and metro Detroit politics, the two largest trading countries in the world allow passage over a river by a single bridge and tunnel. But this particular issue is for another time and another venue.
