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General Motors held a press conference Monday November 11th. 2007 at the Madinat Jumierah Arena meeting rooms to show off the Tahoe Hybrid to the Middle East. GM also previewed their road map to and described how they plan to reduce dependency on oil build more vehicles that have a lower impact on the environment and create less emissions overall. John Ferris: E-Flex Program Planning Manager and Mike Duhamie: Chief Engineer of Advanced Hybrids for GM fielded some pretty heated questions after their informative presentation. Think about the reaction from this group of 50-plus media and press positioned dead center in the area of the world that produces the lion's share of crude oil for fuel products. Here are a few of the more challenging questions from the Middle East Media and Press:1. Is the electric car REAL technology that will go into production? 2. Where does diesel fit into the GM road map?3. Is a solar-powered vehicle on the GM road map?4. With much of electricity generated by oil-driven generators how does an electric plug-in vehicle reduce the carbon footprint and reduce emissions and dependency of oil?And the real banger question was: Is GM trying to displace the oil industry with electric vehicles?Someone from the Middle East press HAD to ask this one... and the answer was no from GM. I think the press in their flurry today over this hot topic forgot that PEOPLE will need to buy drive and/or replace around 800 million cars in the world today with electric/hybrid or other designs before oil-based-fuel driven vehicles become obsolete. This would take a while so the oil companies can relax. 1.2 billion is the estimated number of vehicles on the planet by 2030 and the percent of electric cars will depend on the buyers not the producers.
And how will expats living in Dubai and in otherMiddle East countries react to eco-friendly vehicles. I met a selfprofessed "Jumeirah Jane" yesterday and describes her as a woman of European / American / South African /Australian / New Zealand / (insert 50 other countries here) origin,which usually drives either; * A gas guzzling SUV * A gas guzzling Mercedes * A gas guzzling BMW * A gas guzzling (insert other expensive brand here)Theytravel by car for several hours to the most inconvenient shoppinglocations in Dubai usually hold memberships to one or more overlyexpensive beach/health clubs fill their days with the ludicrouslydifficult task of driving 3 minutes down the road and picking upchildren from school in said gas guzzling vehicle spend at least 3hours a day on sites like expatmum com or britishexpats com and theother 21 hours writing letters to newspapers under the alias of Maria complaining about the "extreme" levels of noise coming from theconstruction site across the road from the extremely underpaidlaborers which ruined their coffee morning with other said JumeirahJanes. Dubai is plagued with a cloud of smog due to heavytraffic and the fast increase in the number of vehicles whichcontributes to terrible traffic problems as well. YUK reminds me of s before they cleaned up their act. Will Jumeirah Jane buy the Chevy Hybrid or other eco-friendly vehicles? GM's Vice president of Design for North America. Ed Welburn gave apress conference on what is happening with the GM global design teamsand eluded to projects the secret Design Studio X team has worked onincluding such secret projects as designing top government securityclearance only presidential limos. He also shared how he has multipledesign teams within GM compete against each other to come up with thebest new model designs. On display was the 2008 Cadillac CTS the Concept,and a 1953 Cadillac Deville. (pictured). Ed shared the vision GM hasusing the following adjectives: craftsmanship refinement strong,edgy sophisticated dramatic angular flair bolder warmerinteriors competitive emotional fuel efficient aero dynamic,fashionable and trend setters. I chatted with Ed Welburn (who owns a Classic 1969 Yellow Camaro anddoes drive it to work from time to time) and he had quite a bit to sayabout keeping the new design production model close to the conceptvehicle. His passion about the pending introduction of the all-newCamaro really came through brilliantly. Ed Loves Camaros and can'twait to get this vehicle onto showroom floors! I took a test drive ofthe Camaro a few months back and bet this one will be a winner,especially for classic car lovers as this will give Camaro lovers thebest of both worlds. ( '69 Camaro and new Camaro concept pictured). We were all treated to a lovely buffet luncheon featureing Dubai's popular choice foods withseating on the patio at the Madinat Jumierah Arena Center. I met threefascinating women who run popular Middle East women's magazines thatcame to cover the auto show. Pictured: Neven M. El-Shater of Kuwaits’ . Jocelyne Aouad of Lebanon's and Siham Tuni of Lebanon’s and chatted with several Middle East dealership employees and GM people about their operations and how the Middle Eastern philosophy andchallenges of working with their customers. Just for funGold: Dubai’s most famous market of all is the gold souk where narrowstreets are lined with shop windows glinting with bracelets necklaces,and earrings in 18-. 21- and 22-karat gold. Bars of 24 karat in anyform and weight and bullion coins in 22- and 24-karat are alsoavailable. Prices are very reasonable and largely determined by weight,rather than design and craftsmanship so after lunch I had a bit of freetime and took a city tour stopping at the local Dubai Harley dealershipto shop for some gifts to take home and made my way to the gold souk tolook and shop for 22-karat-gold jewelry. There is no sales tax here ashopper’s paradise!I want to share some photos taken of some of the beautiful mosques here too.
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