GM

General Motor’s chief climate denier (he prefers skeptic) is finally on his way out the door.

GM just announced that it is retiring Bob Lutz as vice chairman for global product development. He’ll be replaced on April 1 and fully retired at the end of the year – if GM lasts that long.

We hope Lutz is the last of that model to emerge from Detroit. Last year, we called for his resignation as a condition of the Big Three bailout.

The case for GM Bob Lutz's resignation as part of the $15 billion US auto industry rescue is getting stronger by the day -- thanks to verbal klutz Lutz himself.

Click on play above to watch the GM Vice Chairman talking to Fox News about how Americans actually want big SUVs and trucks, and how producing small cars is bad for business. The transcript, via Think Progress:

LUTZ: Let me just get one thing straight here: You know, there’s a lot of talk about, well, General Motors doesn’t make the right kind of cars or General Motors built trucks too long. At $1.50 a gallon, the American public wants sport utilities and large pickup trucks.

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• Stacy Feldman's blog
• 1 comment

As a matter of immediate concern, I think the U.S. legislators contemplating this bailout package should demand Bob Lutz's resignation before dribbling a single dollar into GM's leaky pockets.

Jim Hoggan, DeSmogBlog, 12-6-08

If everybody in America doesn't know who Bob Lutz is, they should. He's GM's denier-in-chief. Nicknamed "Maximum Bob" for being the champion of cars like the Dodge V-10 Viper and the 1,000 horsepower Cadillac Sixteen, he also gained notoriety for calling global warming a "crock of (expletive deleted)." Now, he's out front for GM as the booster for the Chevy Volt, the electric car on which the company is staking its turnaround. Good grief.

GM news of the day: SolarWorld, the Germany-based maker of solar photovoltaic systems, has unveiled plans to take over the German factories of the Detroit automaker's troubled Opel unit. The goal: to convert the cash-starved Opel into "Europe's first green automobile maker," focusing on creating the next generation of fuel-efficient, low-emissions vehicles.

The announcement has "stunned investors in Germany," said CNN.

America’s long love affair with the SUV is officially dead, it seems.

This morning, Toyota announced that it’s dumping plans to produce the Highlander SUV at its brand-new plant in Mississippi. Instead, the factory will churn out the next generation of Prius Hybrids.

The decision reflects the exploding demand for hybrids and the plummeting market for SUVs and trucks, said Toyota.