pow

From GM-Volt.com...

Congrats! I also drive a Passat... an '02 1.8T: The 1998-2005s have their share of quirks and problems, many of them are minor, non-mechanical, and can be ignored, especially at 140K, while a few are more serious (engine sludge without synthetic oil; a tendency for old timing belts to break, destroying the engine). I'd find a good independent VW specialist - lots here in CA - to determine whether or not things are worth fixing.

Not sure, but it really annoys me how GM are replacing alloys with "fascia spoke" steels. '07 HHR LT1 '08 HHR LT1 http://www.imagehostplus.com/v2/is.php?i=1405324

No, they're quite different.. scientists did the research first, then gore created his film. gm released the volt first, then proceeded to develop it. All i'm saying is that as engineers get closer to the final product, we'll have expectations (volume and price) different from what was touted before the project started, because we now have actual development going on

Your PA emits 4.2 g/mi CO, a "criteria" air pollutant that's different from CO2. According to the first link, 10.23 tons of greenhouse gases (in weighted CO2-equivalent) are emitted per year (15,000 miles). This translates into 619 g/mi CO2. I'm assuming the second link's figure of 9.6 is in metric tons. What they're proposing is identical to the UK's car tax bands... A <100 g/km £0 G-Wiz Electric (0 g/km) Piaggio MPV Electric (0 g/km) Honda Insight petrol electric hybrid (80 g/km) Smart diesel (90 g/km) Smart LPG (90 g/km) B 101-120 g/km £35 Aixam A.751 Diesel (110 g/km) Vauxhall Corsa Dual Fuel (119 g/km) Honda Civic Hybrid (116 g/km) Toyota Prius 1.5 litre petrol-electric hybrid (104 g/km) Smart car 0.7 litre petrol (113 g/km) C 121-150 g/km £115 Fiat Panda 1.2 petrol (127 g/km) Vauxhall Corsa1.2 16v SXi (139 g/km) Toyota Yaris 1.3 (141 g/km) Renault Clio Dynamique 1.2 (142 g/km) Nissan Micra 1.2S (143 g/km) VW Polo 1.2 Litre E (144 g/km) VW Fox 1.2 (146 g/km) Ford Ka 1.3 petrol (147 g/km) Ford Fiesta 1.4 Zetec (147 g/km) D 151-165 g/km £140 Peugeot 206 1.4 S (152 g/km) BMW 320 Diesel (153 g/km) VW Golf 2.0 TDI (154 g/km) Fors Focus Zetex (155 g/km) Vauxhall Astra 1.6 16v SXi (158 g/km) VW passat 2.0 TDI (159 g/km) VW Passat estate 1.9 TDI diesel (159 g/km) Alfa Romeo 159 1.9 JTD (159 g/km) VW Fox 1..4 (161 g/km) Audi A4 3.0 TDI (164 g/km) Renault Megane Dynamique 1.6 (164 g/km) E 166-185 g/km £165 Mini Cooper 3dr (166 g/km) Mitsubishi Colt CZC - 1.5l Turbo Petrol (168 g/km) Ford Focus Ghia FFV / Morrisons E85 (169 g/km) Toyota Avensis 1.8 petrol saloon/hatchback (171 g/km) Vauxhall Vectra 1.8 16v SRI (173 g/km) Vauxhall Zafira 1.6 16v life (175 g/km) Volkswagen GOLF TSI 1.4 Petrol (175 g/m) Ford Mondeo saloon 1.8i petrol (182 g/km) Audi TT 2.0 TFSI (183 g/km) F 186-225 g/km £205 Lexus GS 450h - hybrid (186 g/km) Mini Cooper 1.6L Petrol (187 g/km) Hyundai Santa Fe 2.2 CRTD (193 g/km) Land Rover Freelander 2.0 diesel (205 g/km) Toyota RAV4 2.0 litre petrol (211 g/km) Chrysler 300C Estate (215 g/km) Chrysler PT Cruiser Cabrio - 2.4 petrol (223 g/km) Ford Focus ST2 (224 g/km) KIA Sedona - 2.9 diesel (225 g/km) G >225 g/km £300 Vauxhall Astra TwinTop 1.8 Petrol (228 g/km) Honda Accord 2.4 Petrol (229 g/km) Audi Q7 3.0 TDI SE (282 g/km) Jaguar X type 2.0 petrol saloon auto (239 g/km) Porsche 911 Carrera Coupe 3.6 litre petrol (269 g/km) Ford Galaxy 2.8i (295 g/km) BMW 7 Series 760Li (325 g/km) Porsche Cayenne Turbo SUV (378 g/km) Range Rover 4.4 V8 petrol auto (389 g/km) Bentley Arnage (495 g/km) Ferrari Super America F1 (499 g/km) ... which is an impossibility, given the lack of diesel engines here. The tax doesn't take into consideration differences between the UK/US - for starts, a £30,000 car there is a $30,000 car here. Over there, cars in the G band are sports cars and luxury vehicles; over here, they are family sedans and work vehicles. Gas averages $8 per gallon there; it's much cheaper here.

TCC confused the 2011 VUE Plug-In with the 2011 Volt. The VUE will use A123 cells packed by Cobasys, the supplier in question. The Volt will use two different suppliers: A123 cells (iron phosphate) packed by Continental (first pack arrived 1/31/08) and LG Chem cells (manganese oxide) packed by CPI (third pack arrived two weeks ago).

Toyota has sold over 1.2 million hybrids; GM has sold just over 10,000. The two-modes in 2008 will add another 10K, while the future of BAS AURA/Malibu availability is uncertain due to supply issues (regular production '08s halted because of leaky battery, now this news about Cobasys). Future hybrids/plug-ins announced so far (2009 VUE Two-Mode, 2011 VUE Plug-In, 2011 Volt) are also limited production. Meanwhile Toyota, too, plans to expand their hybrid lineup. The Volt project is real, and I'm confident GM can do it -- they have to. But I think we have to readjust our expectations after all the initial hype. Remember Volt was nothing more than a hastily-created, PowerPoint-engineered design concept at 2007 NAIAS, with theoretical specifications and, later, unsubstantiated production claims (<$30K and 60K first-year volume). Faced with reality and what GM has learned during actual development, these claims and expectations have inevitably been lowered. But the Volt will arrive nevertheless.

'Cause the energy bill mandates 15 billion gallons of corn-only ethanol to be made by 2022. You can thank big ag for that.

Apparently it's both a hatchback and a sedan: you can either open the trunklid or the entire tailgate. I'm getting a 1980s-Me-Generation-yuppie-Saab vibe... ... but I still think it fits the needs of US buyers better than the Passat.

My beef with the "large" LaCrosse is just how space inefficient it is. A well-designed car smaller than the LaCrosse can be roomier and lighter - I'm just as comfortable in a Jetta, which the Excelle currently competes against.

The Eclipse, Mustang, G6, and Altima are kinda crude, and they'll depreciate like last year's laptop. Apart from the Mustang, which can be timeless in the right spec, I don't think they will age well. The RX-8 is interesting, but it's not exactly practical or well-suited for everyday driving. For the long haul, I'd get the 128i or Accord coupe, both of which I can imagine still being desirable after five years. The Accord is comfortable, well-made, economical, and reasonably priced with the 4-cylinder; the V6 six-speed approaches $30K, and at that price, I'd get the more entertaining 1-series. The BMW is the quickest of the bunch, is rear-drive but has stability control (something you can't get in the Mustang) as well as the uncompromised engineering you'd expect from a premium marque: 50/50 weight distribution, aluminum rear suspension, complimentary scheduled maintenance, and so on. It's $5K less than a 3-series, and like all Bimmers, you can get European Delivery on it ($25,245 ED invoice, including destination). It does have an image problem, being a new BMW and all. An Audi TT gets around that problem...

Yes, because all people who listen to Metallica are nonconformists.

Yummy. Just make sure it's from Japan. Some of the less expensive, quickie places use eel from China.

Salmon with marinated artichokes?

:rotflmao: You're right... I always thought CO2 was genderless.

Thanks for returning C&G to "normalcy" again.

It's not so much mass but height mismatch. The Blazer/TB overrode the Accord's stiff bits, leaving nothing but the B-pillar to fend for itself. Among vehicles of similar height, the stiffness and rigidity of the passenger cell is more important than weight. Some European superminis are so stiff that they punch through heavier cars, using the oncoming hood as a crumple zone. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nr5nRHV5Z9E

Maybe OJ drives a FF F-150 now?

Or instead of the base 3.6 V6 and five-speed, a direct-injection 3.2 (like in the Alfas) with comparable power, better refinement, and increased FE. Mated to a six-speed, auto or manual.

Vehicle Tested: 2008 Pontiac G8 GT 4dr Sedan (6.0L 8cyl 6A) MSRP of Test Vehicle: $32,745 Price It!! What Works: Fast, nimble and comfortable, and an awesome value besides; Pontiac builds the poor man's 5 Series. What Needs Work: Soft brake pedal; no redline on the tach; exhaust is too quiet. Bottom Line: This is the Pontiac we've all been waiting for. Pontiac Reinvents Itself By Scott Oldham, Inside Line Editor in Chief Date posted: 02-21-2008 The conversation went something like this: "Hey, Steve, come by with the Bee. Let's see how it stacks up against this 2008 Pontiac G8 GT." Motorhead Steve lives up the street. His dad was a Dodge dealer back in the 1960s. The guy knows option codes from the muscle car era like they're his kids' names and has a tattoo on his left forearm that reads "Mopar is Mom." More important, he just bought himself a screaming yellow 2007 Dodge Charger SRT8 Super Bee. We knew he wouldn't hesitate. "Now?" he asked. "Now." "Be there in five." Ten minutes later we were lined up. Declining Numbers at an Even Rate Honestly, we didn't think we had a chance. The 2008 Pontiac G8 GT is powered by a 6.0-liter V8 rated at 361 horsepower at 5,300 rpm and 385 pound-feet of torque at 4,400 rpm. Steve's Mopar, a virtual twin to the one we tested a few months ago, is packing a 6.1-liter V8 pumping 425 hp and 420 lb-ft of torque. We clicked off the Pontiac's traction control with the clearly marked button ahead of its shifter and brake-torqued the big V8 to 2,000 rpm. To our right we could hear Steve do the same. On the count of three we went for it. Both cars left clean, with just a turn or two of tire slip. Then Steve pulled a fender on us. No surprise considering his Bee's torque advantage. But that's all he had. Past 60 mph the Mopar was still just a fender ahead. The Pontiac's six-speed automatic clicked off clean, crisp gearchanges just before its 6,000-rpm rev limiter, and kept pace with that Charger well past 100 mph. We raced again. And again. And again. It was like a scene out of Woodward Avenue circa 1969, only we were in sedans, with sunroofs and heated seats, on a deserted, burned-out industrial section of downtown Los Angeles. Every race was a carbon copy of the first. We lost. But not by much. Steve wasn't happy. His Mopar had more power, louder paint and many more stickers than the G8 GT. It also costs more than the Pontiac, which carries a base price of $29,995 and tops out at $32,745 with our red car's sunroof, leather and big wheel and tire option. No, Steve wasn't happy at all. Let's Do the Math Doug Houlihan, GM's global vehicle chief engineer based in Melbourne, Australia, told us his car should run from zero to 60 mph in 5.3 seconds and cover the quarter-mile in 13.8 seconds at 101 mph. Seemed about right. The Super Bee we tested ran to 60 mph in 5.3 seconds and the quarter-mile in 13.6 seconds at 106 mph. We hadn't tested this red 2008 Pontiac G8 GT yet, but Steve's Bee had us by a fender at 60 mph and 105 mph. The next morning at our test track, the G8 GT ran as expected, perfectly splitting Houlihan's numbers and the Bee's previous performance. The Pontiac launches to 60 mph in 5.4 seconds and covers the quarter-mile in 13.7 seconds at 104 mph. "How's that?" you ask. "The Mopar packs so much more muscle under its hood. Why doesn't it smoke the Pontiac?" Honestly, we're not really sure. At first we figured the Pontiac was just lighter. It sure feels that way from behind the wheel. But it isn't. At 4,106 pounds, the 2008 Pontiac G8 GT weighs only 56 pounds fewer than that Bee we tested. Transmission? Maybe. The Pontiac's six-speed automatic is an absolute performance advantage over the Bee's sluggish five-speed. We also have to consider the Mopar's heavy 20-inch rims and rubber, which don't do it any favors on the dragstrip. The Pontiac's optional 19-inch wheels and summer tires are certainly lighter, which makes it easier for the car to accelerate. These things matter, but don't fully explain how the G8 keeps up. Or why the Bee isn't quicker. Plus the Pontiac has more gear in it. The rear-wheel-drive G8 GT manages this miracle with a 2.92:1 rear axle ratio. At 80 mph in top gear, its tach reads a lazy 2,000 rpm. Put some shorter gears in this sedan and Steve would've been looking up the G8's four exhaust pipes. Think down the road, and the G8 GT should run with the Challenger SRT8, which shares its drivetrain and platform with the Super Bee SRT8. And the Camaro SS, which is based on the G8's underpinnings, should have no problem keeping up with the Challenger. More Than Just Thrust And when the road turns, things get even better. All G8s, V6- or V8-powered, get the same suspension tuning. GM calls the setup FE2, and it delivers a ride and handling compromise that falls just short of perfect. With our test car's optional 245/40R19 Bridgestone RE050A tires providing the grip, this big, heavy sedan is fast on a mountain road. Very fast. But it also rides right, with proper compliance, buttoned-down body motions and a tight overall feel. The one misstep is a rear suspension that can feel a tick underdamped over some surfaces, especially when the G8's huge 19.2-gallon fuel tank is full. With that tank topped off with premium (GM recommends regular but says premium maximizes performance), our scales say 51.4 percent of the G8's weight is carried by its front tires. Pontiac says that evens out to a 50/50 split when there's a driver and a passenger aboard. We flogged it with an empty right seat and found the G8's balance to be ideal. There's good turn-in, slight understeer at the limit and power oversteer when you want it. Even with its standard stability control off, the G8 GT is fast, stable and just plain fun to toss around. So there may be a bit more body roll than there should be, and the steering wheel feels a bit large at first, but neither gets in the way of the fun or the pace. We also have to thank Pontiac for the G8's soft rev limiter and the rev-matching downshifts of the six-speed automatic. Together they add to the G8's lick on a mountain road but not necessarily in our handling tests. At the test track, the G8 GT circles our skid pad at 0.85g and zips though our slalom course at over 65 mph. These numbers are behind smaller cars like the BMW 335i and the Infiniti G35 S, but all but match the performance of the Dodge Charger SRT8 and the last BMW 535i we tested. The G8 GT's four-wheel disc brakes are also worthy. They help produce a stopping distance from 60 mph of just 109 feet with excellent fade resistance, and they can hang with the best from Germany. But they're also activated by a soft pedal that provides little feel. It's the one real dynamic flaw in an otherwise impressive package. No Sunfire Required Unlike the most recent GTO, the Solstice or the laughable Grand Prix GXP, the G8 GT feels like a fully finished automobile. This is a car that's actually ready for public consumption. The entire public. No double-wide trailer or Sunfire ownership required. This time Pontiac's engineers cared how their car felt, not just how it performed. For the first time in a long time, they decided to sweat the details. And the result is a Pontiac without any goofy missteps, colossal blunders or overtones of trailer-park style. They even resisted the temptation to put a big silly wing on it, leaving the G8's two hood scoops and four real exhaust pipes to state its case. Restraint also found its way to the G8's interior. When you consider its well-shaped seats, simple white-on-black gauges and three-knob climate controls, it's clear that Pontiac's designers didn't take any unnecessary risks. Instead they built an honest, interesting interior that doesn't try too hard. Even our test car's optional red-on-black interior fails to feel overdone. Pontiac obviously looked to Audi for the overall look and layout of the interior, and the results are a real argument for such acceptable plagiarism. Tactile feel is high and the interior's simple layout works. The driving position is also spot-on thanks to a tilt and telescoping steering wheel and a height-adjustable driver seat. No, it's not perfect. There's no redline on the tach, in manual mode the shifter is still pushed to upshift and pulled to downshift (only BMW and Mazda get this right), and those digital gauges on the center stack must have been borrowed from a 1982 Datsun Z. The exhaust is also just too damn quiet. Yet forgivable all. These are just misdemeanors from a car company with a long list of felony offenses. Rear seat room is also worth mentioning. You can play volleyball back there. And the trunk? Huge: 19.4 cubic feet. Better Than the 6000 STE And so we're smitten. Won over. The Australian-built 2008 Pontiac G8 GT is the best Pontiac since John Z. invented the GTO. No, not that GTO. The first GTO in 1964. You know, the one Ronny and the Daytonas immortalized in song. The one that started the whole muscle car thing. The Tiger. No, we're not kidding. The G8 GT is better than the 6000 STE, the Bonneville SSEi, the Grand Prix GTP, the G6 GXP and the Aztek UGLY. It even makes the Solstice feel like a half-ass effort. When it hits dealers in early March, the 40,000 examples of the G8 being shipped in from Down Under will reinvent Pontiac along the way. Pontiac needs a win and the G8 is it. Just ask Motorhead Steve. Link, with video: http://www.edmunds.com/insideline/do/Drive...topanel..1.*#26 [/img]

Exactly. By ignoring warning signs, arrogantly dismissing them, and doing nothing.

... cause the long-term survival of the automobile relies entirely on minimizing its environmental footprint and solving our energy concerns. I like cars, and I want to keep driving them, so that's why I want reduced emissions, improved safety, and so on. If GM can, say figure out a way to keep cars from bumping into one another or to keep freeway congestion at a minimum, the personal automobile can continue to be an appealing and viable form of transport. And speaking of wipers, according to Lutz, GM is "working on low-voltage draw windshield wipers" for the Volt...

Not at the moment, or as an '08. The only regions getting the several hundred (VDUs) are... 1. Los Angeles 2. San Francisco 3. New York 4. Washington D.C. 5. Boston 6. Seattle 7. Chicago 8. Philadelphia 9. Phoenix 10. Sacramento

Interesting... which is the one that Edmunds tested out? I hope we're at least getting the same grille and headlight arrangement (I like the pattern) and retro-fridge-style opening rear door.

It certainly seems that way. The '08 Malibu Hybrid was all over LAIAS (huge billboards lining the entrance), advertised in magazines, on GM's greenwashing site ("GM's Commitment: Offer one of the broadest portfolios of hybrid vehicles in the industry"), and made available for the press to drive, yet they don't exist yet for actual consumers.