Hudson

It's actually the same "speculation" that industry insiders are using...nothing "piss poor" about it. Spring Hill is the only one that kinda surprises me, although this is not the first place I've heard this. Spring Hill is new and large, but it's not close to GM's core plants and that hurts. Flint builds the big GMT800s, like you pointed out. THAT is why it's not on the block. Hamtramck, when up to speed with the Lucerne, should run near capacity. And Wilmington...poor, Wilmington; if the additional models due for that plant work out, Wilmington could be producing 150,000 (perhaps even 200,000) units in the next few years.

CAFE is unaffected if built in North America AND domestic content is over 70%. This all changed since NAFTA was ratified. Before that, Canadian-built vehicles (like the Ford Crown Victoria...the reason production moved to Ontario) were "imported" when averaged into CAFE ratings. There are three CAFE averages: domestic cars, import cars, and trucks.

But the Corvette had the LS6 in the Z06 model as recent as 2004.

Battery life is guarranteed for eight years. Simple statistical analysis would imply that the average battery life in a Prius would far exceed that. And Toyota "claims" EPA estimates! These are the only numbers Toyota's even ALLOWED to advertise...and when was the last Prius (or Highlander Hybrid) advertisement you saw that actually used the numbers? Toyota's not making up gas mileage numbers.

I don't understand what Toyota "did not live up to" or any "figures that were overly inflated." All fuel economy numbers used in advertising are the only numbers they're ALLOWED to use. Nothing's been changed by Toyota.

The hybrid issue is NOT all hype. Toyota hybrid models do in fact get much better gas mileage than non-hybrid models...and better than their competition. You can get extremes in gas mileage in a hybrid without driving "down hill for 30 minutes straight," but you do have to change the typical lead-footed driving pattern most car enthusiasts have. And magazines don't do this. As for Toyota making promises "for every day driving," note one place where they said that you could get "50mpg" (or anything like that) in every day driving. In actuality, car companies can ONLY advertise EPA estimates in advertising in the US. They cannot say "in our testing, our car gets 30 mpg." And EPA estimates are NOT altered by the car companies...they are based on a strict test in a given routine. If the Prius excels at this, that's the government's problem...not Toyota's. And I don't recall any of Toyota's TV ads for hybrids actually showing these estimates...they just say that these vehicles are good for the environment, which they are by polluting less and using less gas.