Anyone have info on the old GM "Precept" car?

As far as I know, the only version of the Precept was the diesel-electric hybrid. I suspect that the photograph showing "108 MPG" was doctored and the text under the photograph is a fabrication, or the result of some bad information. How would you even rate a fuel cell vehicle in MPG? Shouldn't it be MPP (miles per pound)?

In addition to the GM Precept, Ford developed the Prodigy and Daimler Chrysler developed the ESX3. Both of these cars were also diesel-electric hybrids, although their fuel economy was only 72 MPG. All three automakers met their obligation to design and build a high efficiency vehicle, but they never promised that they would put them into production. Their claim was that a hybrid car would be too expensive for the consumer.

 

PNGV was killed when the administration changed. As a result, those projects died.

Of course, the vehicles weren't realistic. The price was totally out there.

You could basically do the same with Prius anyway. Replace the steel & aluminum to significantly reduce weight... which increases MPG, but also cost rather significantly. The special seating and lack of outside mirrors contributed to the same problem.

 

GM Corporate administrators being what they are, created this as one of those fantasies that everyone would want. Then you wake up and see you need to change your sheets
Conclusion by the board:
No one wanted it, so we secretly destroyed the 5,000 person waiting list (which would have grown even larger had we not closed the list) and made more giant SUV's in stead. Or was that one of the many other cars they touted, then pulled the rug out.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(F8L @ Nov 16 2007, 11:30 PM) [snapback]540866[/snapback]</div>

In a few years people will be asking the very same question about the Volt, and the answers will be similar to those above: GM will claim nobody wanted it, people will point out that it would have cost too much, and of course the real reason will be that GM (like all the Big 3) owns stock in Big Oil and makes more money on fuel and service than it does on the sale of the car, and will fight tooth and nail to (1) present the impression to the public that it is "trying to do something" and (2) prevent people from moving away from fossil fuel.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(daniel @ Nov 17 2007, 12:19 PM) [snapback]540936[/snapback]</div>

Yeah, exactly. Why do they have to design a whole new car called the Volt when the Precept was supposed to be so great? Because they don't really exist and never will. If they threw out the plans for the Precept and it really worked, they're too stupid to be in the car business.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(JackDodge @ Nov 17 2007, 01:43 PM) [snapback]541020[/snapback]</div>

See, that's just it: They're in the car business as a sideline. Their real profit comes from the oil they sell to run those cars, and the service charges for fixing them when they break down. Gas-guzzlers make them money, less from the selling price of the car than from what it costs you to run it.

According to a recent article in the New Yorker, the Precept, and the cars from the other big car makers, were designed after Clinton pressed them to design high-efficiency cars, which were supposed to be diesel hybrids. Bush killed the plan because, of course, he's an oil man. He came up with the hydrogen boondoggle, because it can't ever be built economically, and because, if they did succeed, most of the hydrogen would be made from fossil fuels. Fortunately for us (according to the article) the Japanese never got the word that the Big 3 never intended to actually build the cars, and so Honda and Toyota designed and built hybrids that were economically feasible, high-quality cars.

To anyone gullible enough to still believe that GM is sincere, or that they will ever build a gas-saving car, I ask this question:

Since by their own admission, fuel cells were at least a decade away, Why didn't they build the Precept to fill that ten-year gap? The answer, of course, is that the Precept, like the Volt, was always intended to fool the public. It was never intended to be a production car.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(TonyPSchaefer @ Nov 18 2007, 09:41 AM) [snapback]541208[/snapback]</div>

GM sold 51% of GMAC to Cerberus who then bought Chrysler. GMAC's ResCap turned out to be heavily invested in subprime so the once bullet proof profits of GMAC aren't looking too good any longer. GM hasn't made money in the car business in a lonnnng time. So what are they going to make money on from now on?

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(F8L @ Nov 16 2007, 11:30 PM) [snapback]540866[/snapback]</div>

Because it's GM. 'nuf said...

 

My question is.... where is it? There are articles about journalists test driving it...

 

Since this thread is 12 years old, they’re probably long gone.

 

If it isn't in a museum, it has been recycled.

 

Back in the day a few got to drive one

Driving GM’s Precept - The Car Connection

Too bad the body itself wasn’t used for something else, great aero

 

OK... but which museum?

And apparently there wasn't just a Diesel-Electric hybrid Precept... they also built a Fuel Cell Precept, according to this page: 4. Concept Vehicles | Review of the Research Program of the Partnership for a New Generation of Vehicles: Sixth Report | The National Academies Press ,a US federal govt review of the PNGV program, and confirmed here at GM's Heritage Center website, GM Heritage Center Collection | GM Fuel Cell Vehicles

Interesting that the GM Heritage Center site doesn't even mention the Precept Diesel Electric Hybrid, only the Fuel Cell version, even though both clearly existed.

I wonder if it's fate was similar to the Fuel Cell electro van, which per 1966 GM Electrovan - First Hydrogen Fuel Cell Vehicle | Hydrogen Cars Now, sat in a warehouse for years before being brought out again for an event, General Motors' fuel cell pioneers are gone - mlive.com

 

Like some of the posters.