GXT

How's that? What exactly is the government's obligation?

The 30 Billion is still a conservative number. GM's new worst-case forecast is still rosier than the current reality predicted by many industry experts. They are also expecting to get concessions on VEBA and from the bond holders that they are unlikely to get. Now we hear that the pension which was previously well funded is $12.7 Billion behind. Plus much of this is based on the Q3 numbers and "for some reason" they haven't released Q4 yet. Who knows what surprises lurk in there? Now we know their plan is to continue to cut jobs, brands, and models. It seems like the US taxpayer is paying GM to do the things they could have done for "free" (or very little) under C11, but the end results are going to be largely the same.

Remeber when a billion dollars was a lot? Now GM is burning through 3 or 4 billion per month. So to put this 1 Billion in savings/year in perspective, that will buy GM perhaps another 8 or 10 days.

For those of you complaining about resale value, you bought a GM, what did you expect? GM resale is just generally bad. As an informed consumer you knew that going in. Don't blame the end of the brand... there are plenty of chevys on the road that demonstrate that the end of a brand isn't necessary. As for the Aurora... what are you talking about? A 2003 Olds Aurora sold for 46,600+ taxes here in Canada. Black book value is now $7,700. That is a loss of nearly ~$40,000 or 83% depreciation. That is horrible! For comparison, a base 2003 accord would have sold for almost $23,000 less than the Aura and yet is now worth $3,500 more! (57% depreciation).

It wasn't even bose. I don't recall the brand, but it seemed like a real pretender to me. That was part of what made the "upgrade" comment even more funny. There was no way they were going to deliver what they promised, but they claimed it was already perfect, yet it could be "upgraded"!

I was watching a show advertising some cheesey "full surround sound" from a single little TV top box. Apparently it offered simply amazing and perfect surroud sound. Plus it could be upgraded via software updates. It struck me that they had just attempted to spin that they obviously believed that their product was imperfect and in need of improvment into a "feature". cletus8269 makes an interesting point. It will be interesting to see people "overclocking" their Volts at the strip. There could be some amazing light shows during failure.

I saw a list of the most recession proof jobs. I believe these were the top three: 1) Public sector 2) Health Care 3) IT

It is a very good solution. No doubt Ford is building on their existing technology. But that doesn't mean if they were starting from scratch they would do it any differently.

Why are you assuming that the power has to go to the batteries? Power the electric motor directly.

The need to hold battery in reserve for high-demand driving is indeed a limitation of the Volt design. But some of that 50% of the battery must be left unused to ensure battery longevity (I'm not sure what %). That would be needed for any vehicle that used that battery. But yes, you can make 20+ Insight batteries for the capacity of one Volt battery. And in many use cases a single Insight will give better fuel economy than the Volt (e.g. highway, after 40 miles of city, etc.). Plus they can be sold profitably, in volume, years sooner, and for apparently 1/2 the price. Plus the Volt has a very limited sweet spot (less sour spot?). Drive much more or much less than 40 miles and you are hauling around a bunch of useless battery. Hybrids with smaller batteries suffer this issue to a much smaller extent. As I've said before, GM picked the range to hit 80% of consumer's needs, but apparently they picked the range in a virtual vacuum as it has result in a car that will have VERY limited market penetration.

According to the Volt's dash it must be an Apple product.

I claimed the drivetrain didn't exist, and that turned out to be true (we now know it was a couple of car batteries and a detergent container under the hood). I believe I claimed that GM COULDN'T build it, and that is turning out to be true if for no other reason than even GM admits they won't hit their sub $30K price (I believe we've been over this before that attaching a battery to an electric motor isn't the challenge. The challenge is getting the range for the cost.). But most importantly I thought they WOULDN'T build it because it is such a bad idea. Leave it to GM... Still, I haven't seen a production one yet. With the state of the company, Bob stepping down, and GM resorting to begging communities to set up special infrastructure the future for the Volt looks bleak. I promised everyone I would stick around and eat crow if the time came. In the meantime I am making my thoughts known so that when GM tells you the Volt was stupid (in PR speak of course) you can apologize profusely to me and wonder how you could have been so blind as to have missed the obvious.

I think I took your analogy correctly, just not in the way you intended. Batteries will come down in cost, but that still doesn't mean that the Volt is the right use for them. The Volt will be the P4 of electric cars. More flash than substance. Bested by cars like the Insight and the Prius in terms of economic sense, fuel savings, volume, profitability, etc. There probably will be a small moment in time where it will make sense and then the all-electric car will make it obsolete.

I don't think the Volt has to make "economic sense", but it should make sense on some level. When you really consider the Volt, you have to ask "what sense does it make?".

Yeah, but then came the P4, and that was a disaster. Mostly PR with a lack of substance. Luckily it was replaced by Core. I guess not all "technological leaps" are created equal.

That is really too bad. From the outside looking in it appears he was pretty much the only thing that GM had going for it.

Perhaps since Ford said this and not Toyota we can deal with the content rather than the messenger: http://gm-volt.com/2009/02/06/exclusive-fo...d-explains-why/ Combine this with Ford's earlier statement that a battery about the size of the Volt's would cost ~$20K and you can see why the Volt was less "technological leap" and more baby step off the side of a bridge. That's why no one was seriously following. But it is unfortunate that so many were compelled by the PR to "make pretend". I've posted elsewhere how this distraction could has cost the US many billions of gallons of fuel by 2015... and that is if the Volt actually even delivers what has been claimed! GM, why don't you just build the RIGHT product rather than the gimmick? There must be treatment options for Prius Envy.

I agree. Another plus is that we would be investing for future generations rather than stealing from them to buy vehicles we don't really need.

No one is perfect. But Honda has the best fleet fuel economy by some 10% over the second best, has best or near best resale ratings according to the ALG, according to the IIHS they are pushing safety the most, and they have the best or near best RELIABILITY (not QUALITY). That they happen to be generally well thought out vehicles and don't have the suspension of a Buick is also a bonus (even if you feel the road because of it). You add all that up and even a few rattles can't sway the end result. The "engine not starting" was admittedly a bit melodramatic of me. Cars tend to fire up these days... the question is whether that check engine light comes on shortly afterwards. Don't get me wrong, I would agree that some Honda's tend to have too many rattles. I've nearly sworn them off a few times because of one rattle in my TL that comes back whenever it is -20 degrees C or colder. But then I think that seeing as how that is all I have to complain about, that isn't really so bad. My wife's lease is up this summer and she keeps commenting on the Camry. It makes me cringe, but then she came from a family where the sign of a good car was if the experience was more "sitting on couch" rather than "driving".

I know you have an illogical hate for the Accord (did one kill your mother or something?), but even for you this is baseless. Take it from someone who lives in a place with real winters (perhaps a dozen extended periods of -40 to -50 degrees C weather per year), a place where you actually do have a chance of dying if your car doesn't start, that the Accord handles winters very well. In spite of your "expert" opinion, I've never had any chassis or suspension issues with any of my Accords or my TL and I don't know of anyone who has. Perhaps you aren't used to fully independent suspensions and it is confusing you? Perhaps a Buick or some other car where you don't even know whether or not you are on the road would be more to your liking?

As I understand it they immediately lowered their criteria for borrowers. That was December. So the money should have been flowing again all January.

It was originally going to be a 1L 3cyl turbo.

With all this "us vs them" and "we are better than them" talk I think it is worth considering that the US has engaged in actions for decades that could very well be considered much worse than 9/11. By that measure if you feel justified in attacking them for 9/11, then 9/11 was also justified.

Looks like Canada will be taking one back. 15 years old at the time of imprisonment. Nearly shot dead by the US. Apparently guilty of killing a US soldier with a grenade (I guess when the US goes to war you aren't allowed to fight back). No meaningful evidence. Confession extracted via torture. I don't know if he was guilty of anything, but thanks to the US' methods I think he is guaranteed to go free.

+1 It is just nice to see a president taking sane actions based on reason. I'd almost forgotten what it was like after so many years of Bush being "The Decider".