The Chevrolet Volt.

Remember the moon rover on the later Apollo missions? It was a gas engine from being a serial hybrid.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Stev0 @ Jan 7 2007, 11:19 AM) [snapback]372062[/snapback]</div>

Ditto.

I think the value of GM in the economy is part of a larger issue. For the past decade, and at an accelerating rate, the US has been hemorraging jobs that require education and generate tradeable export goods, and has been kept afloat almost entirely by growth in service sector jobs that that don't require eduction and don't generate anything that we can use to pay for our imports.

In part, I realize this has to happen as the post-WWII US hegemony over manufacturing erodes. And as international fiber optic cable makes outsourcing knowledge work that much easier. At one point, we were the only industrialized nation with undamaged manufacturing capacity, and the only way to get the work done in a timely fashion was to be here. But I still fear that, when my kids grow up, there won't be such a thing as a new engineering job in US manufacturing. And I think that would be a shame, not just in a nostalgia sense, but because if we don't produce tradeable high-value-added goods with which to pay for our imports, then we'll end up paying for them with low-value-added foodstuffs and commodities, just like a 3rd world nation. And that our standard of living will slip accordingly.

I'm astonished that GM's management stays in place, while GM does what it does. And I realize that the people who run GM don't much care what happens to me. Yet, yes, I would be bothered if GM went bankrupt.

I guess what I find most disturbing about the trends in the car industry is that it looks like, on average, it's dumb people who are keeping US auto manufacturing afloat. if you look at who owns what, you find that ownership of US-badged vehicles is a strongly declining function of education. Looking at the 2001 National Household Transportation Survey, looking only at owners of US or Japanese cars, you find that of survey respondent who never graduated high school (or got a GED), 19% own Japanese cars. Of people with postgraduate degrees, almost half own Japanese cars. In between, ownership of US cars is pretty much a straight-line declining function of level of education. Clearly, that's a one-dimensional view of things -- education and income are highly correlated, for example -- but it sure makes it look as if your smarter (higher-education-level) customer is shying away from domestic cars in a big way. I guess that's not telling anything the posters here didn't already guess, but I certainly wouldn't rejoice in that.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(clett @ Jan 8 2007, 06:47 AM) [snapback]372394[/snapback]</div>

Sounds sweet. When they have one for sale, and it's been out a year or two for GM to get the bugs out, I'll buy one, unless some other car company has something better. I keep wondering though, if this design is so great, why isn't some other company already selling it? Are the companies that convinced folks don't want to plug in their car?

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Delta Flyer @ Jan 7 2007, 10:51 PM) [snapback]372341[/snapback]</div>

Can you name me one concrete reason why you would label the present management team at GM scumbags? I know they are a very easy and huge target but I would appreciate someone naming off some recent relevant reasons.

Secondly, toyota would never take over the abandoned Gm or Ford plants. It woul ddefeat there business model. Buy a cornfield in a rural area with a very cheap, non-union workforce. Use US and state governent subsidies to construct the plant and import most of the high dollar components and engineering over form Japan. This is why the middle class is being torn apart in this country.

How about someone list fo rme all of the great things toyota is doing for the US economy, the US environment, and the US consumer. I will grant you they have helped GM raise the quality bar over the last 10-20 years. Other than that please list them off for me. As for the savings from the Prius hybrid, the GM hybrid buses have conserved far more fuel etc than all of the Priuses ever have. I'm waiting.

 

Toyota gaining on GM


http://carsguide.news.com.au/story/0,20384...9-21822,00.html

excerpting a bit:

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(chogan @ Jan 8 2007, 08:04 AM) [snapback]372418[/snapback]</div>

There are many reasons for those statistics. Urban vs rural, car vs truck, loyalty and probably the fact if you work on assembly line or in a plant of some sort you might be more sensitive to the origin of a product than if you work in a governement office of some sort. I am always facinated driving through a state office building parking lot. It is impossible to see a domestic car and very tough to see a domestic truck or SUV.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(darelldd @ Jan 8 2007, 12:02 AM) [snapback]372346[/snapback]</div>

It is great to hear that Panasonic EV battery packs are doing so well. It is more comforting to have Panasonic HV battery in our Pri.

I am not sure the EV pack in RAV4 would meet the requirement for Volt implementation. First the range will be about 1/4 of Rav4 EV. Therefore, the EV pack will be 1/4 weight and size. But the specific power (discharge output) will need to be 120hp or whatever their target to get 0-60 performance of 8.5 sec. This means we need a battery pack that can output about 4x more than of Nimh. Can Li-ion fulfil that requirement? I believe so...

Dennis

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(clett @ Jan 8 2007, 06:47 AM) [snapback]372394[/snapback]</div>

Prius is not completely a parallel hybrid. It also has series benefit that you described. For example, ICE charging HV battery while parked. Prius ICE can also charge the battery pack while driving at ideal condition as well. The computer takes care of that balacing act and it is the secret for HSD achieving high MPGs. One can argue that if Prius were a completely series hybrid, the ICE can be down-sized even further and get better fuel economy. That might be true but the battery pack will need to be much bigger (11 times higher capacity and 4 times output power). The expense of that battery pack will not probably justify the extra 10mpg(?) gain.

When 04 Prius came out, such a battery pack didn't even exist. I think Toyota did a great job at R&D and used Nimh with series-parallel hybrid design in HSD. Not only they can get Prius with a great fuel economy, the battery pack is small enough to keep the costs down.

Since the key is the battery technology for Volt to become a reality and you pointed out the series hybrid configuration can not be patented anymore.... therefore, the battle to the next level of hybrid is in the battery itself... it won't be hybrid design anymore. HSD will still be the best "bang for the buck" design depending on how cheap Li-ion can get.

Maybe it is time to buy battery stocks.

Dennis

 

Gasoline, gasoline, gasoline...

Hasn't anybody at GM ever considered using a diesel? Or maybe a micro-gasturbine? Jeeze, these guys just can't seem to think outside the box.

 

I know I shouldn't feed the trolls, but this one is too easy to pass up.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(malorn @ Jan 8 2007, 10:20 AM) [snapback]372449[/snapback]</div>

Having a business model of building POS cars is the major reason. Yes, they are the largest car-seller, but it's going down (does anyone have historical data for their sales, or even better, their income? Google didn't help me). Their stock price certainly is (yeah, it went up last year, but it's still only half of what it was a few years ago, and it looks like it's starting to sink again). All that is 100% the fault of management. That just makes them idiots; to go to the scumbag territory, see the next paragraph:

You mean Toyota is building brand-new state-of-the-art car plants, giving business to Americans, bolstering the U.S. economy. GM is closing U.S. plants, giving the execs huge bonuses for "cost savings", by ruining the U.S. economy. THAT is why they're scumbags.

The US economy: Toyota is hiring U.S. workers. GM is laying off U.S. workers.

The environment: I'm driving a reason!

The US consumer: Offering well-built, reliable low-cost cars.

As for "raising the bar", I agree, Toyota has. But the only bar GM execs are interested in is the corner bar to celebrate their new bonus for laying off yet more workers.

As for that last comment, assuming that's true, I drive a car, I don't ride a bus (I wish this country had good public transportation and I could, but that's another topic).

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Stev0 @ Jan 8 2007, 10:40 AM) [snapback]372480[/snapback]</div>

Every market share Toyota gains in the US costs us all 18,000 upper-middle class jobs. Those jobs are still around there just in Japan or some where else in Asia. Toyota creating jobs in this country, if you really believe that you will believe anything. i suppose next you will tell me how Wal-Mart has created alot of great jobs in the US over the last 20 years. did they tell you that when you bought your Prius? I ahve done some mystery shopping in the last year and what I hear on the toyota sales floor is mind-boggling. "GM and Ford build their cars and trucks in Mexico and toyota builds hteir cars and trucks in the states creating thousands of jobs" Unreal.

toyota has built some great cars and trucks but created jobs? C'mon!

 

Documentation on GM execs:

- Last year Mr Wagonner was on NPR for twenty minutes to discuss GM's turnaround plans - Nineteen minutes on new and improved pickups and SUVs, then as time ran out - by the way we have ten cars that get over 30mpg. {sigh}

- Article on Bob Lutz complaing if fuel economy standards get tightened > http://money.cnn.com/2006/12/26/news/compa...sion=2006122613 .

- Another recent Lutz article: "We need more Hummers" > http://money.cnn.com/2006/09/28/news/compa...dex.htm?cnn=yes

- GM dismissing the hybrid until a couple of years ago. Now they are going to hybridize some models - none of them cars (unless you disagree with Art Spinella the Volt concept car is really a hybrid)

- Certainly not limited to GM, but the blantant marketing to power and inadequacies to sell SUVs - esp. the Hummer. The pulled "Restore Your Manhood" sticks out and for some reason GM's marketing was clueless to the backlash that would come.

"Scumbag" may have been too harsh, but things like this do not give me faith in the GM management.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Delta Flyer @ Jan 8 2007, 02:23 PM) [snapback]372541[/snapback]</div>

Which compares quite well to the toyota "Adrenalitis" commercials... cos ya know, owning a Tacoma is the only way you can experience an adrenaline surge.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(TonyPSchaefer @ Jan 8 2007, 12:07 PM) [snapback]372531[/snapback]</div>

Why do you dwell on the small exception? GM sells 4 million plus vehicle in the Us every year and you dwell on the Aveo. Same thing happened to me when I mystery shopped a couple of Toyota dealers. Massive disinformation.

As for the articles, Toyota ads 1000 jobs to a plant as a two or three Ford or GM plants close and several thousand jobs are lost. Great economic plan.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Jonnycat26 @ Jan 8 2007, 12:41 PM) [snapback]372549[/snapback]</div>

Just to prove it's not only Detroit that tries to sell a truck or SUV as a male enhancement product...got to mention the Titan ads too.

BTW, I drive a Honda "Enzyte" and I feel like a complete man. It's what Smiling Bob sells.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Delta Flyer @ Jan 8 2007, 01:52 PM) [snapback]372558[/snapback]</div>

Praise Bob!

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(malorn @ Jan 8 2007, 12:44 PM) [snapback]372553[/snapback]</div>

How many good jobs do you think this deficit has caused to be lost forever??

$1,357,000,000,000

US Trade Deficit with Japan since 1985. Do you think it is a fluke? Or part of a plan? I read Godiva's post about the Japanese and planning.

For some scale, the total US Fiscal budget for 2007 is about 2.8 trillion.

 

Speaking of debt, imagine the billions in oil would not pay we would not have paid OPEC countries if over the past 20 years, Americans did not ditch sedans for SUVs because Detroit marketed them so aggressively. If forced to choose between sending my money to Iran or Japan - it's going to be Japan.

To verbalize the obvious question: why can't Detroit make sedans that can compete with the Japanese so buying American is a win-win situation?

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Delta Flyer @ Jan 8 2007, 01:27 PM) [snapback]372584[/snapback]</div>

I have seen some fairly aggressive marketing from Toyota on trucks and suvs lately. Does toyota get a free pass on this as well?
As for Detroit building great cars, There are many right now. The impala is a fantastic vehicle as is the new Saturn Aura and Ford Fusion. It would be interestin got host a test drive with no way to tell the vehicles apart and see what consumers actually liked the best.