El Kabong

It's on my bucket list. Go down to Scottsdale and buy some old hooptie with credit-card money...

That moment when you realize that binge-watching Barrett-Jackson is probably beyond your abilities.

The Ridgeline and I go back a long way... all the way back to the days of the AWCC. All hail the Guabi, devourer of Ridgelines! Ridge will be lined no more! ...car forum nostalgia is the WORST

Your comments on Cadillac are exactly why I'm not concerned with comparing profits relative to size of the company. Throwing big cash back into R&D will always blunt quarterly or even yearly results, but it's a long term investment in stable growth and profits. People often forget that some of GM's most profitable years were when Roger Smith was at the helm. But nobody wants to go back down that road.

Ridgeline remains a baffling machine. If I read correctly it's still a Pilot with a bed. The Tacoma showed that body on frame is the way to go, even in the recreational truck segment.

Problem is that Ford does have vehicles in these segments-GM just beat them to the punch in bringing them here. The EcoSport and Global Ranger may well have been winners for Ford if they had been brought to NA. For me personally, the biggest drawback in relying on fleet sales isn't so much that profit margins suffer, but rather that if you're selling product to a computer then you're not really in touch with someone interested in making a more fun vehicle.

If you can print a complete car in 17 hours then you will have the capability to match what GM Oshawa was doing circa 2007 with Impalas. But that would require a LOT of printers.

Even ten years is a bit ambitious IMO. Using Omega as an example: you could theoretically replace the aluminum castings as often as you find advances. But you still have to make new dies for those castings, and you wind up bonding them to the same steel passenger cage, which will inevitably become the flimsiest component for chassis tuning purposes. By way of another example: the C6 platform in Z06 trim was around for eight years but towards the end was being criticized for tricky limit handling, in part due to things like steering components. Assuming that the batteries will be a part of the floor for all EV apps is also limiting in its own fashion: packaging for batteries is so flexible that the floor may not always be the best way. If you have a hardcore rock-crawler e-Wrangler, do you really want to have a skidplate protecting some pretty volatile battery chemistry?

I just don't like stupidity, and give zero craps what others think about my dislike of stupidity. It can be a bit nihilistic, but fifty percent of the time it works every time.

Essentially, the article states that by emphasizing retail sales while still outstripping domestic competition in sales, GM is setting itself up for better sales and profits. Seems legit. More at the link: http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2016/02/06/general-motors-is-still-crushing-ford.aspx

Technology is advancing quicker than ever before. Therefore, it stands to reason that any twenty year-old platform will feel like a twenty year-old platform. Also, platform development and showroom experience need not be mutually exclusive. Ideally, it's a synergistic kind of thing.

Doubling the lifespans of the platforms ain't gonna work. The rest may have some merit, but investing in "various facilities" is a bit vague too. Probably not a good idea overall.

Drew instituted that policy back in the days when the Abominable Trollman used to lurk 'round these parts. It was a necessary evil.

It's a fun, niche kind of vehicle. It ought to be fun to read a road test on it, and it'll make a few wealthy Marty McFly wannabes happy.

IMO the article does a very good job of analyzing the underlying issues with Tesla and their business model. Nobody can deny that the Model X has been a royal pain to get to market, nor can they reasonably say that it hasn't hurt development of the Model 3. And the Model 3 is, realistically, the car that will make or break them as a viable mainstream automaker. Every moment they waste to larger manufacturers with more sophisticated dealer networks (and if they're cynical enough, a "profits come later" pricing scheme) is critical.

So stop playing the role of wings and READ THE ARTICLE. I read the article, and it presents some nice points. But Musk himself is always frank and blunt. That's also how he's different. The thing is, all is done and now they're stuck to it. You're asking an all-new automaker to be perfect. The closest they can get to that is winning awards all over and getting car of the year type accolades. They've done that, so they're not lacking in product, and they still don't carry the baggage of the incumbent brands. Wrong. I'M not the one demanding Tesla gets it right 100% of the time. The financial model they operate on demands that. I have no hate-on for Elon Musk. I just know that he's bitten off more than he can chew. And he has. Simple as that.

"Follow the money." -Mark Felt

Like I said: rookies building cars, using an R&D model that doesn't exactly work well with cars. But by all means go to my thread on the issue and read the article I posted.

So stop playing the role of wings and READ THE ARTICLE.

That's why smart CEO's listen to the financial guys before they listen to the peanut gallery. It's easy to be Bob Lutz when it's other people's money you're spending.

The problem with your counter examples is that they precisely prove my point. Chrysler DID own the minivan segment for nearly a decade, and Ford didn't relinquish its ponycar sales dominance for a long time either. GM will get to market first, with way more experience building cars and a dealer network more than up to the task of moving cars in the required numbers. The Tesla? Debut delays and troubled launch of current product are both very troubling signs. Their insistence on fighting legal battles to sell cars in Michigan will just wear them down even more. They're in huge trouble. No you're just heavily cheering for GM. The new market is heavily competitive. There's no protection for domestic makes from the foreign competition. GM will not gain any advantage, especially if gas prices fail to cooperate. I can for sure give GM a pity point for head a start of a few hundred to a couple thousand in sales. Pony cars sold in the hundreds of thousands, in the millions in the first few years they came out. That isn't going to happen for electric vehicles. The Volt was meant to transform GM's alternative vehicle footprint. It did in a sense, but now it's in dire threat by another Chevy, and by making a conventional Malibu hybrid - the Volt will be in even more scrutiny. Even the famed Prius is no longer going to be the top-seller Toyota as the company predicted. GM isn't going to win here. No one will, not at first. And because of inertia and bounded rationality, I can easily bet ham over fist that people will definitely wait just a few months more to get the Model 3. So anyways, go see my new thread on the subject and discover why I believe what I believe. Because Elon Musk admitted it himself.

The shortcomings of rookies building cars, laid bare: "Tesla, like most Silicon Valley companies, uses most of its revenue to finance research and development for new products. Rolling out new products with minimal required development is crucial to this strategy, and the Model X began its development as a taller version of the Model S. The shared platform would allow Tesla to conquer new markets without having to develop a complicated, new vehicle. "Then, because Elon Musk doesn't know how to just phone it in, he turned the Model X into a complicated, new vehicle. "Now Tesla is saddled with a very expensive project that wasn't exactly, um, planned. Development took two years longer than initially expected, as the platform changed and new technology was added. Speaking candidly about the Model X's development, Musk said, 'If we had known the true engineering costs and the amount of complexity associated with it I think we would have probably done fewer new things.' "The result is a car that's impressive in almost every way, but entirely inconsistent with Tesla's stated mission. Instead of moving downmarket, the Model X is even costlier than the Model S, with a base price of $80,000. It also loses the range and efficiency competitions to the Model S, thanks to its bulk. CUVs are a growing segment, but wouldn't a smaller car... fit more nicely between the Model 3 and the Model S?" More at the link: http://www.autoblog.com/2016/02/05/tesla-model-x-mistake-opinion/

If your entire beef with the Camaro is with a movie than it is what it is. The current Challenger looks mostly great. But it is a bit thick through the middle. Just saying. The Mustang, as per your own observations, is invisible. Probably a bit too corporate, if I were to guess. And nobody beyond the hardest of the hardcore is going to buy or build a Pro Touring car.

I'm picking up what you're laying down. I just don't understand the genuine disappointment among some that it isn't a radical departure from the last one style wise. I mean, it was the sales leader multiple times during its run, what more do they want? And I know you're really pulling for an affordable V8 variant. But even up here in post-oil crash Alberta, the three examples I've seen were all loaded SS2s, and one of those had aftermarket rims that were five figures all by themselves.

My point was your GM fanboy-ism saying "trust me" weighs little when you're trying to hype up a GM vehicle. Put the two next to each other and I doubt 2 non-car-people would be able to differentiate the two or pick which is the new one and which is the old one without looking at the interior. I don't. But hey, it's all good. It either succeeds or it doesn't. But if we are to judge its chances of success or failure based on its styling, it's going to be just fine.