GXT

Newsflash. This just in. Big 3 get bad press because they are bad. I bet you are wrong. If Toyota is off 21% that is big news and will be reported. The real question is: Will the media start to catch on to what is happening with Honda?

If the new Honda Global Small Hybrid lives up to what has been stated/expected it should be well worth the extra money.

I just hope GM survives long enough to bring it to market and that it doesn't get killed when they are in receivership. One way or another, I want to see what happens. I don't mind being right, but in this case I would be very happy to be wrong.

Here's a question for you: What is in a name? If there is a guy down the block from me named Jesus would that be proof that the Jesus of the Bible existed? Or would he also have to walk on water, be the son of God, have lived around 0 AD, etc.? While initially I did think the Volt was pure PR fluff (still do), I believe I said that they wouldn't be able to produce it based on the specs that they claimed. At that time it was sub $30,000, 40 Mile range, 50+ MPG, mass production in 2010, 10,000 recharges, etc. Here is the bad news that we know of already: Cost looks to be $40,000 or more. 40 Mile range looks to to degrade to 20 Miles quite easily (highway, sligh inclines, AC, etc.) 50+ MPG using range extender is in doubt (it was always in doubt, but even more so now that they are rumoured to be swtiching from the turbo 1.0L 3 Cyl to a NA 1.4 4 cyl). 10,000 produced by the end of 2011 is a bit of a stretch for mass availability in 2010. GM still has no real idea if 10,000 recharges are possible By the time it comes out it may be a $100,000 Cobalt with a 9V and a V8 But I guess if they call it the Volt you will be satisfied? We now know the concept was pretty much an empty shell with a couple of standard car batteries under the hood. So in that regard I think my Back To The Future/Flux Capacitor analogy was not too bad. But it is true that I never thought GM would take the Volt as far as they have.

Not to mention the extremely low volume of 10,000 units produced by the end of 2011 will make it hard to get. Not that I think it would be a good idea to buy one anyways...

Based on the number of old people that have driven Buicks into buildings around here, I have to assume that Buicks suffer the same unintended acceleration. :AH-HA_wink:

Wow. Someone is getting screwed even worse than Canada!

Flint wrote, "But we would be like Britain, which has no British-owned auto companies.". Vauxhall is owned by GM, isn't it?

If GM is banking on the Volt they are really in serious trouble. Low volume and negative profit will not turn things around. Funny that GM is asking for federal help for the battery. They have been claiming for quite some time now that the battery is no longer an issue. I guess you never pass up an opportunity to ask tax payers to pay for your mistakes.

GM should be sitting on a mountain of data from the EV1, but from what they have released about what they have learnt from some of the Volt challenges (e.g. a stereo uses a lot of power, weight vs aerodynamics effect on range) shows that whatever they learnt from the EV1 is extremely limited or didn't get passed on. I think the biggest lesson of the EV1 was not to push technology before its time, and I think the Volt shows that they haven't quite learnt that yet. As for GM's hybrids: 1) Hybrid Buses. The GM hybrid bus fuel saving was hyped as "up to 60%". But as King County has shown even when they are compared to their relatively inefficient Bredas, < 30% is the best you can expect. As others have shown, 10% over a new non-hybrid bus is about what you can expect. 2) GM's BAS systems. In a recent comparative review, the VUE greenline got ~20MPG as compared to ~24MPG for a non-hybrid 4cyl RAV4. The Vue greenline actually got the worst fuel economy and the worst performance of the 5(?) small x-overs tested. 3) 2-mode. With BMW and Mercede's assistance GM has managed to produce a decently performing product. Unfortunately it is still too expensive. All-in-all, not a great record. It looks like the Volt is continuing the tradition of too much hype and being too expensive to be a good solution.

I think the reality is that no automaker is good enough right now to justify 20%, let alone GM. I said it a long time ago and I'll say it again now: GM needs to find a way to be profitable at 12% market share. And perhaps I am even being generous at saying GM can hold 12%. The very scary part for GM is that the market is shifting to the strength of its competitors. It is very likely that these are still part of "the good times" for GM. Well maybe not the "good times", but there are certainly much worse times coming. As for the Volt, I just sit and shake my head at how GM can be so wrong. The Volt makes so little sense for the vast majority of people. A niche, overly expensive product is not going to offset the loss of pickup sales, the lack of a competitive small car, and the lack of a price-competitive hybrid (note that I mean a hybrid that gets good fuel economy for a good price, not one of GM's current hybrids like the VUE that actually does worse that competitor's 4cyls). Yet this is what they are apparently banking on. GM thinks that the Prius gave Toyota some sort of “green advantage”. Maybe it did, but it was Honda’s sales that were way up last month while Toyota languished. GM is wasting valuable time and dollars on a PR-stunt that got way out of hand. While GM is busy working out their Prius-envy on a long-shot niche product, Toyota and Honda are moving in on the mass market with sub $20,000 hybrids. Toyota has already sold over a million hybrids and Honda is planning on 500,000K year by then end of 2009(?). GM is hoping to sell 10,000 Volts in 2011. Toyota and Honda are talking 1,000,000's of units by the time GM hits 10,000 with the Volt. If that weren't bad enough, is spite of all the Volt bluster, it sounds like Toyota only needs to plug in a larger battery pack to match the Volt (see the Hymotion solution). I don't know why more people aren't talking about it, but by GM's own best forecast they have already “lost”. They've apparently bet the farm on a long-shot and even if it comes in, they still lose.

I think there are lots of examples to the contrary. It is not uncommon for a stock to peak quickly and then tank forever more. The Bre-X stock is good example. What is overlooked is that while your money is tied up with GM waiting for them to (hopefully) turn it around, you could have been making a lot of money off someone else. I'd say there is lots more downside to come.

I seem to recall that something else was sacrificed to bring them to market sooner. Perhaps that wasn't so much something explicit as it was that one had to assume that the money/effort could have been put towards actually making a competitive smaller car.

Shortly after the Lancer came out I was renting a car in that class. I jumped at the chance to try the lancer because I liked the look of it from outside. However once I sat in it I couldn't wait to get out of it. I can't quite put my finger on why I had such a negative reaction to it... I think it was something to do with the seating position (too low?) and the general interior size. Luckily a tire was low and I jumped at the chance to get out of the Lancer and into a mazda.

So does this mean that the civic was the #1 selling vehicle in the US last month? I heard that the Corolla, Camry and Civic outsold the F150. Where is reg-whatever-his-name-is with a snarky comment or two?

Huh... why did GM just announce they are cutting truck production by 138,000 units is they are hurting for units to sell? I had assumed that the strike was a convenient way to cut inventory while not appearing to have to do so. So the question is, is this a $1.8 Billion loss due to the strike, or is the strike a convenient way to pretend that GM's sales wouldn't have tanked $1.8 Billion anyways due to trucks no one wants?

The point is not to sell so many vehicles that use so much gas. A lot of people of who have trucks and large SUVs don't really need them. Also, a lot of large vehicles could be more efficient. At the risk of drawing a poor analogy, are you saying that it is unfair that killers go to jail more than non-killers just because they are better at killing?

I believe the Canadian dollar has been rising for three years. During that time, at least for the cars that I am interested in, the MSRP has gone up EACH year. Oh sure, they play around with the rebates, but the price continues to go up. Maybe I'm just used to buying imports and I'm not used to these rebate games, but I want to buy the car that I want to buy. If I want a G35 M6, I want to pay the US price of $33.4K, not $48K in Canada. What does Infiniti Canada offer? 4.5K off the G35x AWD. Do they have other deals? I don't know. One of the reasons I avoid domestics is to avoid these games. I just don't understand how Canadian dealers think they will be able to get away with selling a 48K G35 when a new one is $33.4K. Do they think they can justify that forever? What about two years from now when a new G35 in Canada is probably 50K and a two year old version from the US will cost ~20,000? Prices will come down in Canada one way or another. And anyone who buys now is paying too much. Computer parts have been for a while now. As I said, I seem to be able to buy lighting on par. All you do is make excuses. It is possible, companies are making the choice not to. Your fuel analogy doesn't make sense to me. Fuel prices go up so the airlines pass the cost along. Got it. Canadian dollar goes up so the cost of goods in Canada should remain unchanged? Maybe GM has been doing a better job of lowering prices. I think it is the lower priced vehicles in general that are closer to par. As I said, I don't have the time to play the games, but your $1,200 seems questionable based on the prices quoted earlier in this thread. You make a good argument for Canadians to not buy cars. Save your money. Earn money on the investment. "Earn" money as Canadian prices drop. Give the automakers all the time they need to adjust prices. Buy now and prove that you are bad with your money.

Apparently. Canadians typically don't have this US hangup about where the money goes and who built the product. We buy pretty much everything from other countries and have for as long as I can remember.

The other day I tried to get a stainless steel Panasonic microwave surround. I believe it was $140 from Amazon.com. But they wouldn't ship to Canada (seems to be Panasonic's policy). Instead I phoned around to the local shops. $199 is the Canadian price. So I paid the ~50% higher price. But it is on backorder in Canada so I continue to wait. This is good business? I managed to find a lighting company in my city that gives 40% off Canadian retail. That happens to be about what I could get the lights for from the US (in spite of the French brochures, being in a very small market, paying Candian wages, <insert bull&#036;h&#33; excuse here>!). They have been around for decades. Business seems to be booming. They have lots of staff and they all seem to be excellent. They are getting thousands of dollars of business from me and I am happier than a pig in &#036;h&#33; to be treated fairly. I should have just paid 100% at the first lighting store I went to instead of being such a dick and shopping around. Clearly what they are doing is impossible and I am a jerk for even taking advantage of it.

Wait... you have an Aztek and a 500?

The Volt was primarily a PR stunt and on that level it seems to have succeeded (for now). GM was already making commercials before they had half a clue about the vehicle (see their recent announcements about aerodynamics and stereo power usage). Even on this board so many seemed to have no sense of what was actually going on. Most of the misinformation has come from Lutz. I would really love to know what is going through his head when he spouts off. Does he think he is telling the truth? Does he think he has a responsibility to wait for accurate information before speaking? I have to assume that there is so much bull swirling around the Volt that it is hard to know what is fact and what is fiction. Perhaps the guesses are officially part of GM's agenda. Speaking of which, this is a humorous interview with Dee Allen, "Bob Lutz’ communication guy". What a joke GM and the Volt have become! http://www.gm-volt.com/2008/02/29/more-det...icing-the-volt/ How was GM to know what kind of electrical power draw a car has? I sure hope GM can figure out how to solve the massive power draw of an 8-speaker stereo.

I think systems that have the "ultimate MPG" and pay for themselves are worthy goals. The BAS system that GM offers today is neither. It offers tiny fuel economy gains and doesn't pay for itself. The next version may be mildly better, but the current is a complete and total disaster. Take the Aura. The hybrid carries a $2395 premium. For that you get a minor 2MPG or 10% better fuel economy. I don't know what analysis you have done, but at 12,000 miles per year and $3/gallon gas the hybrid aura will save you $163/year and therefore take just under 15 years to break even. As the battery probably won't last that long, you will never break even. If ultimate MPG is your aim, the Prius is under 22K and you can expect 45MPG. (Compare to the Aura hybrid at $22,790 and 24MPG.) Even the Camry Hybrid, which has a premium of 5,600 over the non-hybrid (but you also get thousands in extra features such as Vehicle Stability Control, Push Button Start, Remote Keyless Entry, Leather Wrapped Steering Wheel and Shift Knob, Power Seat, etc.) gets 33MPG vs 21 for the non-hybrid. At the same 12,000 miles per year, $3/gallon gas you will save $623/year and break even in 9 years. Based on the Aura and the Camry, it would appear that Toyota's system offers a 500% greater increase in fuel economy compared to the GM system and a ~40% sooner breakeven point.

What is interesting is that this will be available 2010 yet uses a completely different battery/supplier than the Volt... even though GM indicates they have examples of the Volt's batteries and they are exceeding expectations and the Volt is supposed to be released 2010. You'd think they would want to use similar batteries. The current non-hybrid aura gets 22MPG, the hybrid 24MPG, so this nex gen should get just under 26MPG. Still not really competitive with what has been available for years now. For comparison, even today's Escape hybrid gets 34MPG.

Hybrids are about city driving, not highway driving. That would change your payoff date by a few years in favour of the hybrids. However Hybrids are not yet been about economic payoff (except for cabs). And although hybrids haven't been about economic payoff, at least they are getting close. The Volt, on the other hand, isn't. Take the Volt and compare it to the Corolla. GM has indicated that pricing will be above $30K. Let's say $33,000. That is 18K more than the Corolla. Corolla apparently gets 32 MPG. Let's say that you manage to drive the Volt ONLY on electricity. That will cost you just under a $1.00/day for electricity, or $365/year. At $3.50/gallon and 375 gallons/year for the Corolla, that is $1,312.50/year, or $947.50 more per year than the Volt. That is a 19 year recoup on car with a $10,000 battery that is spec'd to last only 10 years. So the Volt makes a Hybrid look like a good investment. That would be no problem if the Volt were, like a Toyota or Honda hybrid, sold as being about all the benefits of using less fuel. Except that Lutz has spent so many years building cars like the Viper. And GM has spent the past years maligning hybrids. Now they are pretending to have a magical about-face on the issue, and I think they were even having some success with this Volt PR-stunt. That was when Bob was shooting off his big mouth with Volt lies such as 100,000 Volts in the first year, sub $25K price, etc. He should have stuck to those as GM could continue to quietly follow behind him and backtrack. But these comments, correct or incorrect, bring Viper-Lutz and Hybrids-Are-Stupid-GM back to the forefront. They are a smear on GM's attempts to play pretend-Toyota. I, for one, think this is a refreshing change to the misinformation that he has been spewing for months now.