The Teardown Artists...

The designs they are looking at are already years old. Why no books? If I were going to reverse engineer something books are the first thing I would want. Maybe they aren't looking for new ideas, maybe there just curious.

BTW when was the last time GM actually came up with a really great new idea that made it into production? Most likely not since Harley Earl and Ed Cole retired. I see GM as a primarily reactive company that reacts to slowly.

 

I know GM had prototype fuel cell cars, but I thought they canned that program a couple years ago. Anyway, other things that I've heard was that the same people that sit on the board of GM are likely the same people that have financial interests in the oil industry. So for GM owners fuel cells is considered too expensive and doesn't help boost oil sales.

If you're running GM and you only care about the next 5 years of GM it makes total sense, sell cars that burn gas and plenty of it. After all what's more hard core American than driving big trucks that roar and can run over and flatten a whimpy Prius. It's still easier to sell excess, gliitz, sex and muscle to mainstream America than economical and ecological. So if you're running GM there's no way you can make any more profit than over the next 5 years than to just run GM just as it is. But, of course, don't tell the public this. That's just plain bad publicity.

For good publicity to convince Americans to keep buying conventional gas vehicles, make sure you tallk about your token fuel cell program. Also, make sure you advertise incremental improvements in gas mileage on conventional gas vehicles. Make sure you sell a few token hybrid vehicles. Hey, you might as well talk about a new token ethanol vehicle program, now that President has highlighted this. Have you heard about the new hydrogen fusion car that runs on nothing but water and will be coming soon. A gallon of water will be enough to last a lifetime. How soon, aaa aa real soon. Yea Yea that's the ticket. Radioactivity. Oh, hardly any. In fact almost about the same naturally occuring radioactivity as in typical air in a region of the country that we decide.

What happens after 5 years? You'll make a new 3 year plan which once again says that even though your business is declining your best bet for the next 3 years is to continue as is. And if you the company fails or you get fired, you get a nice separation package and look for another job running another large American corporation.

 

lol.. ok.. i started to read this article but i couldn't help laughing. it's as if this 400h crash landed somewhere in Nevada.. and they can't figure out it's technology so they are tagging it and soon they will experiment to see if they can make it hover again. lol... puts it all in perspective. lol

 

I am definately not impressed with the intelligence at work here. Consider this:

So it seems they are willing to pay $2000 for a Navigation System in a car they are tearing apart, but they didn't think that buying the shop manuals might be useful.

 

someone wanted to take the navigation and bluetooth home... company paid the extra.. they get good reliable toys lol... something GM can only provide by buying from Lexus. lol

 

First GM was the leader, and introduced the EV1. Then GM crushed or at least disabled every last EV1 they could find. They state that they'll concentrate on FCV's instead, and don't have time for battery vehicles that the public doesn't want. Next Honda and Toyota come out with Hybrids, and GM claims that Americans won't want hybrids, and that GM will continue down their chosen path. Then recently (last year) we hear GM saying that they'll be at the forefront of hybrid technology... and wil still be the first company to put FCV's into mass production.

Thy mysterious FCV has been GM's continuing reason for NOT putting anything innovative on the road. :sigh:

 

Isn't GM working with Chrysler and the other European companies to create a hybrid system? i saw a post for it a while back. Check to see what you can find.

 

I remember reading a press release that the hybrid system developed by GM and Chrysler will be used by the Chevy Tahoe and the Dodge Durango. Apparently, the hybrid models will be introduced sometime in late 2007.

I believe that when GM claims that hybrids are no good, they are just attempting to stall. For years, GM had nothing to compete in the hybrid market. When GM finally does start producing hybrids for the the consumer market, I am sure that they will begin praising the benefits of their hybrid powertrain. Even if the assertion that Toyota merely used hybrids as a marketing ploy is true, this merely implies that GM is a decade behind Toyota in marketing as well as technological innovation.

The article has one statment that I found kind funny, it mentioned that Toyota was selling "a mere 105,000 Priuses this year". How many fuel cell vehicles has GM sold?

 

No manual? I wonder if they were just too stupid to think about
checking TIS first...
.
_H*

 

Man it is so hard to believe that GM is more willing to buy all these other cars and try to decipher other peoples designs rather than paying for some decnt engineers to come up with something original for themselves. Is it any wonder they are in trouble?? Talk about lack of initiative and imagination.

 

I doubt GM learned anything by taking apart the Lexus that was not apparent from reading Graham Davies website for free -- at least in regards to the mechanicals.

I wonder how effective pliars were in taking apart the ECU's and reverse engineering the programming ? This is where Ford floundered, and I do not think GM can do better.

 

Reverse Engineering on a complex car like Honda Hybrid, Prius or Lexus RX400h is not an easy job. And you can only copy the mechanical parts of their technology....

The true secrets of these cars are kept inside the computer chips that control how the power flows between the motor, the tires and the batery. This is very complicated real-time software that requires huge investments (in terms of time and resources) to be developed. Even if you can develop this type of software, and GM certainly can, you need many years to certify that it is reliable and fine-tuned.

GM and other companies can easily study, copy or clone the mechanical parts of Toyota and Honda, but this is useless unless they develop the necessary software to make them working.

Toyota and Honda were very clever to invest early in hybrid technology and now they are at least 10 years ahead of everybody else. That's why most car-makers try to underestimate the value of hybrid technology...

 

I found that interesting as well. Especially when they followed that up with the comment by the person about people not beating down the doors of Toyota for hybrid cars. Wasn't the extremely long waits (even some waits now, with 100K plus produced) covered so that everyone knew you were not going to be able to buy one off the lot (generally)?

In Lubbock, you can still can't buy one off the lot. I have only seen an unsold one there once in the last 6 months or so.

 

While I agree that the smarts of the system are in the software, I don't believe it will be that hard to reverse engineer the system. GM has a lot of talent in software and systems, some of which was gained when they owned Hughes Aircraft's aerospace units. The modes and variables are known or at least knowable, and the calibration can be determined through modeling and HWIL simulation. It will take a while, but I think GM excels at this sort of job. I would bet the teardowns were more help in determining materials selection and specs for subcontractors to ensure quality and reliability than for their own internal use.

 

Reverse engineering is extremely common in all industries, folks. I would be very surprised if Toyota doesn't do the same.

 

You know, I dissected a frog in high school, and no matter how hard I try, I still can't build one.

Nate

 

ROTFL!!

Doesn't keep GM from trying to build a frog.

 

LOL :lol:

 

This is an excellent point, one I remember discussing with my high school teacher. I argued that we might learn something about the parts, but any knowledge we gained in no way justified killing the frog. I suggested we might learn more about frogs by watching them in their natural environment.

Perhaps GM could learn more about hybrids by driving them, and talking to the people who own one.

Didn't we used to say the Japanese were good at imitating, but not innovating?

Looks like the croak's on us.