GM slams possible fuel economy changes

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(TonyPSchaefer @ Dec 27 2006, 11:40 AM) [snapback]367207[/snapback]</div>

$2.09 in parts of LA and East TX is the cheapest I've seen. I bet it's cheaper in GA or other states with low gas taxes.

Honestly, I don't see people in middle America giving up their full-sized pickup trucks for compacts or even car-based SUV's. Most mid-sized SUV customers are going to crossovers anyway. Those most likely to go to smaller cars are the full-sized sedan drivers. In case no one's noticed, full sized sedans (except maybe the Crown Vic) are a lot smaller than they were 20 years ago. Cadillacs used to be all boats. The DTS is still way smaller than a Fleetwood of old.

GM is actually telling the truth when they say most Chevy cars (especially the ones with the 4 cylinder) engines get 30mpg by current EPA estimates. Most mass market midsized family sedans do. (Accord, Altima, Aura, Camry, Fusion, Insight, Impreza, G6, Mazda6, Malibu, Milan, Passat, Sebring, Stratus, etc.) The most fuel efficient pickup is the compact Ford Ranger (not the mid-sized Nissan Frontier and not the mid-sized Toyota Tacoma).

With the Insight gone, the Prius is the king fuel sipper until the Smart Car hits dealerships.

 

If the CAFE standards are the same for foreign or domestic....what more of a level playing field do you want? Feel free to make the foreign brands ONLY count the MPG's of cars sold in the US.

 

so...

they whine and bitch about how hybrids get such great mpg and how it's obviously inflated and impossible to get in real life, which means hybrids somehow cheat the epa...

the epa takes cue from increased criticism and redesigns their testing system, which as far as i understand will decrease mpg all around...

and now they whine and bitch about how they need to increase fuel economy to meet higher standards, all before the new epa testing hits them even harder...


talk about a case of biting oneself in the nice person.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Tideland Prius @ Dec 27 2006, 01:43 AM) [snapback]367069[/snapback]</div>

Ugh; I *am* old enough; the only thing I can think is, "everything old is new again."

--Henry Ford II and safety belts (1956) "Putting safety belts in automobiles will scare the average consumer...by implying that driving is dangerous."
--Henry Ford II and economy cars (1971): "Americans buy cars by the pound, not by miles per gallon."

And let's not even get into unleaded fuel and the catalytic converter. Ugh!!!

Detroit had a repreive in the late 70's, and again in the late 80's/early 90's...and now, here we are again.

If they'd have spent more money on engineering CARS rather than (as far as Ford is concerned) rebuilding the Rouge River plant (that model of early 20th Century vertical integration of manufacturing) with --- gack --- grass on the roof...perhaps they wouldn't be so far behind the engineering curve now.

Building full sized pickups isn't the way to flex the R&D muscles...and now they've atrophied (the muscles, silly).

 

The true crime in all of this is that Bob Lutz's golden parachute and retirement plan is more than the lifetime wages of an entire assembly line of workers. And we wonder why GM is in trouble?

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Schmika @ Dec 27 2006, 11:25 AM) [snapback]367272[/snapback]</div>

Huh? I'm confused by your last statement. The only thing that counts towards CAFE #s ARE vehicles sold in the US.

See http://www.nhtsa.gov/cars/rules/CAFE/overview.htm for an overview of CAFE. There are 3 separate fleets and all of which must meet the CAFE # for that fleet: import passenger cars, domestic passenger cars and light trucks (which includes SUVs, pickups, minivans, some vans, and even a few cars that I wouldn't call light trucks like the Chrysler PT Cruiser). Read above URL for more discussion about calculations and credits.

Read http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/how_tested.shtml and http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/fe_test_schedules.shtml for how they're tested. Do keep in mind the unadjusted/unfudged #s are used to calculate CAFE mileage, whereas the fudged (down) numbers go on your window sticker.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(TonyPSchaefer @ Dec 27 2006, 06:21 AM) [snapback]367120[/snapback]</div>

To follow up to this and what Allargon says, I don't think GM has made the claim "9 of 10 GM vehicles achieve more than 30 MPG". They've made that claim that on TV and on http://www.chevrolet.com/ that 9 out of 10 cars that Chevy sells have an EPA est 30 MPG or better. That's not that tough and it obviously EXCLUDES all their light trucks (SUVs, minivans, pickups, etc.).

YTD, GM has sold 737K Chevy cars and 1.46 million light trucks in the US. Virtually none of those light trucks even get EPA 30 mpg highway. It looks like the the HHR is rated at 30 highway but it seems to be a copout/cheater vehicle (in the same vein as the Chrysler PT Cruiser "light truck") since it's based on the Cobalt. I'm guessing they stuck it there to boost their light truck CAFE #s.

http://www.gm.com/company/investor_informa...veries_0611.xls has GM's sales #s if you're curious.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(JackDodge @ Dec 27 2006, 08:30 AM) [snapback]367166[/snapback]</div>

i worked in Redwood City, CA and we had 5 of those things. even in stop and go city driving, we got almost 40 mpg on them 45+mpg on the freeway. this was in the mid 80's... my its amazing how far backwards we have gone

 

Come to think of it, I drove a company Ford Festiva for just a little while; I think it had a three cylinder engine and also got over 40mpg on the highway, with a manual transmission. It was kind of like the Geo Metro.

Really, though, the thing probably weighed barely more than half of what a Prius does, and I don't recall it having any airbags or anything, either.

It sure was 'thrummy,' though; fun to wind out the teensy little engine (it made surprisingly nice sounds for such an inexpensive car, I thought at the time, and it was lots more maneuverable than my '80 Cadillac Seville).

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Tideland Prius @ Dec 28 2006, 10:32 AM) [snapback]367698[/snapback]</div>

not as good and the reason why is that the Geo's we had ran on a yamaha 900 cc, 3 cylinder motorcycle engine.

slow you think??

not at all. they were 5 speeds and a kick in the butt to drive. i loved them. they were the perfect vehicle for the ungodly bay area traffic hell. unfortunately i spent HUGE amounts of time buzzing up and down Mission Blvd which ran from San Jose to South San Francisco and it was nearly always bumper to bumper, light to light, traffic.

there were some models that had that monsterous 1100 cc engine available as well

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(DaveinOlyWA @ Dec 28 2006, 08:24 AM) [snapback]367661[/snapback]</div>

Well, it's not so much that we've got backwards, it's that vehicles have undergone a lot of weight and size gain over time. What model year were those Metros? According to MSN Autos, the last year there were Geo Metro (they later became Chevy Metros when the Geo brand went away) was 97.

Per http://autos.msn.com/research/vip/spec_Ext...o&trimid=-1, the 97 Metro weighed 1832-1936 pounds. I think they have their auto and manual transmissions curb weights swapped (they've had numerous mistakes here before as manuals almost always weigh less).

So, looking at this, a manual 3 cylinder Metro weighs ~1000 lbs less, is ~25 inches shorter and 5.3 inches narrower, and 3.4 inches lower in height than an 06 Prius.

BTW, I've driven a 4 cylinder Chevy Metro before for ~1 day. Man, what a piece of crap it was.

http://www.caranddriver.com/columns/11310/...g-minicars.html was a good article about the size bloat that we've been seeing over time.

FWIW, I used to drive 91 Toyota Camry w/156 hp V6 and it was EPA rated 18/24. I sold it when I got an 02 Nissan Maxima. Despite the Maxima having a 255 hp V6, weighing ~200 lbs more and being larger, it was EPA rated 20/26. Although that EPA rating wasn't THAT great for a V6 medium sized sedan of the time, it was amazing to me that it got better mileage despite the 99 hp extra.

 

i believe they were 1982-3....something like that. i started at that job in late 84.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Tideland Prius @ Dec 26 2006, 07:10 PM) [snapback]366912[/snapback]</div>

My $0.02

This is typical behavior for everything "new" that GM and all US auto makers must adopt by law. Then, when they actually have implemented it, they will use it as a selling point. Whoever posted about the big three crying wolf is correct, IMHO. More wolf cries here.

What do I have to say to it?
Too bad. See this post.
And this one
They should stop P&M "ing" about it and learn that responsible and successful corporations put things like customer satisfaction, quality, and global stewardship first instead of the "bottom line." With those things first, the bottom line would follow, IMHO.

I found it particularly interesting that in our local paper's article about the story in the second URL, when asked about GM, Toyota refused to "diss" GM. They simply stated that they, Toyota that is, needed to work on beefing up quality controls.

 

This article is 15 years old, but I assume nothing has changed; if anything, I assume it's gotten worse:

If I were paid 5.3 million dollars for making crap, I wouldn't want to change anything, either.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(DaveinOlyWA @ Dec 28 2006, 12:47 PM) [snapback]367783[/snapback]</div>

You're talking about Geo Metros, right? You sure about 82 or 83? Per http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geo_Metro, the first Geo Metros weren't sold until 1989. You sure it wasn't another Geo like the Nova or the Chevy Sprint?