Sure. What does it take to maintain 70mph in a compact car? 30hp? 40? The excess goes to the battery. Lift your foot, it all goes to the battery. Downhill, it all goes to the battery.

—

Mark MacInnis: “I think I’ll start to look for a job in Russia. It ain’t any different from what this country’s fixin’ to become…”

I think you’ll be surprised by what you find. And not pleasantly.

2. If the Volt is such a good idea, then we need to get out of the way and let good ‘ol fashioned capitalism work. Visionaries create a product financed from venture capital, who bring it to market, and the market rewards success and punishes failure. If your company can’t raise capital based on it’s current failed business model, liquidate that company and form a new one with a newer, better business model. If the government wants to kick in with subsidies for the R&D, say for example under the guise of possible application to military hardware, that’s OK, we waste so much in the Pentagon most people would hardly notice. But for the taxpayer to be held hostage to completely fund the flier on this technology, with no recourse but Congress or the President to decide when to fold the hand is irresponsible socialism at its most pernicious and corrupt.

I think I’ll start to look for a job in Russia. It ain’t any different from what this country’s fixin’ to become….

“and this commentary tells them to forget about new products and “focus on building the most profitable vehicles left in their arsenal”?”

Yep, totally agree here. All car companies have to stick to making bettter versions of cars that already exist. They should only make “new” cars when the old ones are perfected.

“They’ll put the same engine and transmission in 40 different models, so why not focus on a small displacement turbo diesel to wear the Duramax nameplate?”
I think they would if the emissions laws were not impossible to pass with any profitability.

Wrong. In charge sustain mode the engine will maintain the battery SoC at around 30%. When you put you foot on the pedal you’ll get full power from the engine, some power from the battery, to give full power from the electric motor to the wheels. They’ve already published all this, a year ago.

If you were to drive at high power up a sufficeintly long hill then the battery will overheat or become too discharged, so you’ll be reliant on the engine only. As an engineer I am sure you can work out what sort of hill that would take. Also don’t confuse kW and hp, there’s a 30% difference.

Now they’ve burned through BILLIONS of taxpayer money and what are they doing? They’re closing factories and dealerships, laying off tens of thousands, and dragging out what could have been a singular crisis for the economy to absorb and recover from. And they’re singing about this Volt thing like it’s that home run mentioned well earlier in these comments. FAIL.

It’s sad, because the Corvette, CTS-V, and Silverado are great vehicles. Why can’t they get their act together and translate some of that ability to smaller, more fuel efficient vehicles? They’ll put the same engine and transmission in 40 different models, so why not focus on a small displacement turbo diesel to wear the Duramax nameplate?

Why not compete with these overly complex, uninteresting, actually-worse-for-the-environment-when-you-consider-the-manufacturing-process hybrids and EVs by providing those of us who aren’t tree hugging sycophants or pretentious a-holes seeking solo time in the carpool lanes smaller cars that get 40+mpg on tried and true turbo diesel power?

That GM isn’t finding ways to reduce the weight (and thus mileage) of existing cars, improve the desirability of their less expensive models, and innovate just goes to show they will continue to fail and burn through OUR money as long as it they can.

I thought this was a deathwatch. When are they gonna die already?

Believe it or not, there is an “element” in our society which LOVES that type of product.

Uhmmmm… sounds reasonable and well argued. Good comment.

But: Rover tried just that.

In the late 1980s Rover abandoned any Hi-Tech pretense (and they certainly had that pretense).

Instead, Rover went straight to the Retro Chrome-Wood-Leather-Nostalgia-Patriotism-UnionJackFactorySticker niche.

It did not work. In 2005 Rover went out of business.

Harley Davidson does not need big series to be profitable. Outrageous prices and old technology are tolerable in that market. After all, no one rationally needs a Harley. Owning a bike is a whim.

GM does need big sales to be profitable. And a car is a necessity, not a whim.

My other point remains. For $22K, if the Prius is bought on account of nebulous green fantasies, people can indulge these green fantasies for just $3 to $6K over a “comparable” vehicle. With the Volt, such indulgence will be far more dearly bought. Even the greenies are somewhat price-sensitive.

You nailed it. $22k for a (slightly overpriced) Prius is NOT comparable to $30k for a (WAAY overpriced) electric car from a floundering company with limited mileage. And throw a $19k Insight in the mix starting this year, and the Volt is DOA.

I read the editorial before going to work this morning. My earlier comment was on the Volt, but this line stuck in my head all day –

Sure, I got the bankruptcy bit right. Big deal. Better analysts than I were making that call back when I was playing with Corgi toys (another car company destined for the scrap heap).

I give you more credit than you’re giving yourself with this line. You may not have been the very first to realize GM was headed for C11, but you’ve certainly said it more consistently and frequently (what, 3 times a day, every day :D) than any other journo.

One can only wonder what it would be like if it were possible to read intelligent and truthful analysis in mass circulation daily papers. I have seen BK mentioned in the same paragraph with GM, as long as 4 years ago, but only in a tepid, questioning way, and only very occasionally.

I read somewhere the Mini never did made any money for BLMC.
Read it somewhere as Ford wanted to build a car similar to that. They dissected it and found the costs cannot be contained so they didnt bother to build another one only to lose money.

GM & Chrysler will shortly be owned by the UAW, hope it can work out, some say dont be too excited yet, as United Air Line was owned by workers did well initially but in the end there’re conflicts there to make it unworkable.

“I know! It’s a flying car!”
-
Show me the last groundbreaking vehicle ANYONE made that really hit the mark.

No one wants to give even a small nod to the Ford Thunderbird and Pontiac GTO?

The gas engine WILL only charge the batteries.

The numbers can be confusing because motors don’t function like engines. Any electric motor has 100% torque starting at 0rpm. You can go online and see an electric toyota drag racer beating all gas cars and setting new track records.

The HP ratings are deceiving much like those of a diesel engine. For example the Peterbilt PX-8 diesel is rated 240 – 330 hp – low uh – but it has 1000lb-ft of torque. Oh yeah.

In my opinion 2 things are killing the American car industry: cynical management and health care.

The first can be seen in the SUV which exploited a legal loophole to avoid cafe and safety standards. It was so profitable they stopped developing cars (something the japanese never did). When you ask why the Cavalier was around so long that’s the reason.

regarding health care: every modern industrial country has national health care so the companies aren’t burdened with this additional cost.

When people (TTAC always it seems) criticize the workers who build the cars we love, for high wages the truth about workers wages (TTWW) is that don’t earn nearly the $75.00/hr that is always quoted – but rather a third of that is health care costs GM is responsible for.

For those ranting on the “republic of Obama” remember the billions Bush gave to GM for the development of hydrogen cars. That was cynical. Where is that money – where is the car?

One last thing: The idea that government should make a profit has no validity. It isn’t producing a product so where does the profit idea come from. The government is there for other reasons: protection of citizens via military, environment, etc..
(see flu vaccine before you jump on this).

What this purpose is is the great debate – but profit isn’t part of it.

Pickups and SUVs…that’s IT. But not just ANY pickup- no, these have to be “CRUDE, RUDE, and In-your-face!!!”

In other words, GM has to take the GMT900 into the demographic currently driving Dodge Rams.

The Volt won’t be $30K, it will be closer, if not over, $40K. Even with a $7.5K tax credit, it will still be about $10K more than the 2010 Prius.

At the moment, I don’t need a car and my wife doesn’t want a car payment, so no Prius for me.

But I get my oil changes done at the Toyota dealer, so I grabbed a salesguy while I was waiting last year, told him there was zero chance I would buy a car that day and asked for a test ride.

He still wanted to sell me one. They had plenty of $22K variants and were offering them for $21K.

It’s a nicer car than the Corolla and has the interior room of a Malibu. Like menno says, it’s only small on the outside. Inside, where my fat @$$ goes, it’s plenty big.

My other point remains. For $22K, if the Prius is bought on account of nebulous green fantasies, people can indulge these green fantasies for just $3 to $6K over a “comparable” vehicle. With the Volt, such indulgence will be far more dearly bought. Even the greenies are somewhat price-sensitive.

In short, an expensive car with a shrinking range and hence more frequent limp home episodes is not a recipe for high resale value, or long term success. No matter how cool it looks. As per usual, Detroit executives made a decision based on testosterone (“If they can do it, why can’t we?”) rather than logic. It will cost them dearly. Again.

Who Killed the Electric Car II ?: This time we’ve got DNA!

Gas will eventually get more expensive, and we are not about to give up our 2.3 cars per household. We need to find a good way to develop better technology. Maybe the better way to use the bail out bucks is to give the $$ to Ford specifically to develop competitive technology. Otherwise, we will be buying it from Japan, Korea, or India.

And, maybe as mentioned before, it starts at the top of the price field, and works its way down. That must be what Telsa is hoping for.

HAHAHA :)

Sorry, I don’t agree with that. If GM is to survive as a mainstream automaker, then it should become innovative.

But what is needed is a candid admission that GM is currently not innovative. It has built its business on options packages, branding and tailfins, not technology leadership.

It claims to be a technology leader, but that’s a lie. Look back through their product lineup, and it’s clear that GM tends to be a laggard, not a leader.

All of the major automakers should be working on these alternative platforms. The deception comes in with GM pretending that the car will be ready on time, when it won’t be, or that the car can singlehandedly save GM, when it can’t. The Volt is guaranteed to lose money out of the gate; it might be a good halo/ marketing platform, but a cash generator it won’t be. GM is not Toyota, and that’s GM’s loss.

Yes, I’ve said it before many times – GM should NOT even ATTEMPT to be a so-called “technology leader”. No, leave that to the others. You’re not fooling anyone anyway, there GM. We see how you take modern technology and “CRUSH” it like a grape under your powerful (at one time powerful, that is) combat boots.

No- stick to carburetors, mud flaps, 4×4 pickups, push rods, …i.e. GM needs to become the “Harley Davidson” of the automakers.

Pickups and SUVs…that’s IT. But not just ANY pickup- no, these have to be “CRUDE, RUDE, and In-your-face!!!”

Believe it or not, there is an “element” in our society which LOVES that type of product.

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