GXT

Last told by GM it is actually 80 and 30. The ICE will attempt to maintain the minimum 30% state of charge for two reasons: 1) Deep discharges will shorten the life of the battery. 2) The ICE is unable to produce as much electricity as the electric drive will pull from the batteries. This could cause the car to go into a limp mode if there weren't sufficient reserves. Apparently it is still a possibility if you were going up a large hill, but it isn't overly likely to happen (e.g. 50% charge gets you ~32 miles on a flat highway with no AC. Going up a long incline at high speed with the heat on you could chew through that 30% reserve in perhaps 10 miles). Last word from GM is that that Nav functionality will not happen. I believe the comment was something along the lines of, "Are you going to risk damaging your extremely expensive battery to save a couple dollars of gas?" I just re-read my initial post. Perhaps replacing the "Why would you want the gas engine to recharge the batteries?" with the more explicit "Why would you want the gas engine to COMPLETELY recharge the batteries?" makes my meaning more clear.

Do tell. What part of "range extender" involves chargine the batteries beyond what is needed to extend the range?

That assumes it could ever be as optimal as the plug. And if that is the case then why bother with the plug at all? Just use the engine all the time. The goal is to use the gas engine to keep you driving until you get to the next plug, not to replace the plug.

Well that was a very thoughtful response on your part. Care to actually comment on what is wrong with my post?

Sounds like if you pay taxes at all you may pick up the tab.

I'm not sure where most of the problems were. I believe the first auto-related steps taken involved a reaction to the huge negative equity they were taking on lease returns for trucks. I never really understood why auto loans would be affected. I just assumed it was a knee-jerk reaction to the economic situation in general and the fear that many auto loans would go bad.

Gotcha, and good point.

I guess I was wrong about the purse strings not opening. It will be interesting to see if that just gets them into the same trouble again. Not that it was a lot of trouble really, what with Uncle Sam ready to clean up the mess.

"Officially saved?" I'm not sure it matters much. If this is anything like the banks (and appartently it is!) it isn't like GMAC is going to open the purse strings very wide. But at least it takes another excuse off the table for Feb/Mar when GM+Chrysler come asking for more money.

Well that is another excuse gone. So neither GMAC nor GM could satisfy the government's requirements. So what does the government do? It gives them the cash. This is getting silly.

Well I think he is right. The Republicans seem to be taking this as an opportunity to take a shot at orgnaized labour even while they take up residence in Socialistville (population: USA). According to the numbers being thrown around on the news the total labour cost for a vehicle for active workers (hourly wages and benefits) is ~$900. That might be $100-$150 more than at Honda/Toyota/Hyundai/etc. Compared to GM's per vehicle rebates and overall losses that is chump change. Not only that, it sounds like the unions already have made huge concessions that will kick in in the near future. I don't have all the details, but I recall that retirement and healthcare costs have been slashed and wages halved. If you do the math it seems that the little man has just been screwed and GM still will be making a huge loss per vehicle.

Perhaps I misunderstand your point, but what you wrote seems to make no sense. This isn't "short-memoried, fickle and short-sighted". Yahoo News publishes news from various sources (in this case Reuters). They don't edit and publish stories from only one perspective (e.g. Fox News). Therefore you should expect stories with different perspectives.

Start at the top. I can't believe you allow your presidents to do these pardons before they scurry off.

It looks like they are competitive. There are only ~22 hours of labour on a car. That works out to perhaps $100 extra/car for the big three VS the japanese. That is relatively trivial since GM is losing ~$2,000/car and giving incentives in the $3,000-$4,000+ range. It is the large number of retirees being supported by fewer and fewer active workers that is the issue. That was caused by market share loss which should be put at the feet of management, not the UAW. So what you are actually talking about is taking away healthcare benefits from the retired workers. The main reason that is such a high cost is because the US doesn't have universal healthcare like the rest of the western world. That is a failure of the US citizens and the US government.

Source? A couple of things strike me here (I saw these numbers on the national news, so you will have to forgive me if my memory isn't perfect): 1) The $70+ hourly wage being reported for the big-3 is in large part because of the shrinking number of working employees supporting the mountain of retired ones. If there were more active workers this number would be much lower. There are fewer active workers mostly because of management decisions that have eroded the big three market share. 2) The average big three worker @~$30/hour makes only a couple dollars/hour more than the Japanese ($~$28/hour). It is ~$40/hour with benefits (I believe that was $4-$6 more than the Japanese.) 3) As per GM's submission to the US government, there are just over 20 hours of manpower put into a car. 4) That means the actual labour cost on a car from the big three is ~$800. 5) GM offers $3,000 to $4,000+ in incentives for cars. 6) GM loses ~$2,000 per car. Geeze, what could be the real issue here? Even if the auto workers worked for FREE GM wouldn't be profitable. What the Republicans and union-bashers are really calling for is cutting off the healthcare for retired workers. We can argue about the benefit/detriment of unions in terms of wages and getting ahead. But there is little denying that the US government has sold its citizen's healthcare to the highest bidder in (what turned out to be) pretend capitalism. Unions benefit all workers, and if they get the US citizens universal healthcare then the average US citizen should get down on their hands and knees and kiss the unions for doing for them what they couldn't do for themselves.

The test drive that yielded the 32 mile extrapolation wasn't in DC and it was a little while ago. But apparently it was still "colder". Not sure how cold it actually was or whether they had the heater on or not. I think the important take-away is that the "up to 40 miles" is most likely best case (city with no AC/heat/stereo).

It is interesting that the author questions the CNN poll's use/accuracy based on a potential lack of an understanding by those being polled and then proceeds to make conclusions based on a poll with the very same issues. And what is this sentence all about?? "Additionally, 77% of Americans say that auto bankruptcy would affect them and their families, if not now, sometime in the future it would affect them immediately.”

Good. It is about time that US citizens started being rightly blamed for the mess that the big three are in. Intentionally cheap gas and lack of universal healthcare have put the big three at an unfair disadvantage. What could possibly be done about this? First we will blame the media; that has ALWAYS worked in the past. Very productive. Second, how about the US goes further into debt to prop up a company or two that are going to fail anyways? Once that is done the US will be in the enviable position of having more debt and not solved the problem. Mission accomplished.

You think that wasn't just a Cruze with decals???? See, Chevy can learn a thing or two from the ricers. :wink: Actually, apparently they only drove it 2 miles. But Lutz did give some information recently from a Volt mules test drive that indicates ~32 miles highway.

I have a (second?) original idea. Why don't you compile a list about all the ways I was right about the volt and all the ways I was wrong? Then compare that to the opinions of the Yes-men and then see who you should criticize for lack of original thought? If you don't want to take the time to look at other threads, why don't you just point out what is wrong with my post #15 in this thread?

I'm not sure that follows. The Prius went on sale in1997 and the EV1 in 1996. That is fairly close time-wise yet they are fairly different approaches. I believe both GM and Toyota were acting in response to pressures/opportunities in their home countries, not each other.

Really? Why? I'm not sure what I wrote that you are referring to. Are you blaming me for believing the now-incorrect GM PR? I think this just confirms what I've been saying, that GM is making up a lot of this stuff on the fly. Yes, crow for me. I never understood what the fuss was about here. Why would you want the gas engine to recharge the batteries? It just means you are using gas to recharge the batteries instead of electricity through the plug. Doesn't that defeat the point of the Volt? Isn't the goal to have the engine run as little as possible? If this was so desirable why not get rid of the plug entirely? But for some reason people are spazzing out because the Volt wasn't going to do something you didn't want it to do anyways. And now people are happy because it does something you wouldn't want it to do. And apparently I'm supposed to eat crow about something. And yes, when the charge runs out the battery is still pretty very nearly 400lbs of uselessness (keep in mind that the usable capacity of the battery to begin with is only 50% so the battery is always at least 200lbs of uselessness). Because contrary to this article GM has confirmed that charging the batteries with the gas engine is undesirable.

The Volt is not a good economic choice even at gas prices much higher than what we saw. The argument for the Volt is about the Volt buyer accepting that they will ultimately be paying more $$$ but using less gas. Regarding range, according to Lutz he got the equivalent of ~32 miles of range out of a Volt prototype at freeway speeds. Time will tell if that will get better or if it will get worse (as GM's hybrid buses did) as it moves close to production. I've believed the 40 miles was a best case number (city, no heat/ac, etc.), so 32 miles on the highway seems more than reasonable.

Much like the cars they support, the website is giving me all kinds of problems. I wanted to know the impact of the big 3's inevitable collapse on Montana but the site gave me this error: "The website declined to show this webpage" Looks like all the impact pages are down... probably for routine sensationalizing.

That could be never! :AH-HA_wink: Well then they may as go bankrupt now. You knew the Volt was going to be a dud as soon as they decided to make "reality" standard. And without Lutz I'm not sure there is any hope for future GM product.