Northstar

What did you honestly expect him to say other than what he did? Even if he feels that we're doomed because Obama was elected, he's not going to stand up there and say so, making himself looking like a jackass.

A small increase seems ok, but continued increases to the tune of 50 cents is pretty ridiculous. At that point I feel it will do more harm than good, as the price of food and other goods that require transportation (so pretty much everything) will increase. Plus, everything that requires someone to drive a truck (not fuel efficient) will also increase, because there is a demand for those things and the people doing them for a living aren't going to want to lose money doing so.

It's as if GM wants GMNA to fail... why can't we have this car when everyone else gets it? It makes the Cobalt look like it's 10 years old.

Unless it raises cost significantly, it makes sense to put this 3.0L DI into every application that current has the 3.6 non-DI. Malibu, G6, Aura, CTS.

The new lower fascia reminds me of the Sky. I don't really like it too much. What's so different about the center stack?

This is laughable, and I think it shows the root of the current mess the country is in:

I totally agree. It's a pretty easy formula. Give Pontiac rebadged Chevys and fleet the Pontiac's instead of the Chevys (or at least moreso)... as a result the Pontiacs, which will likely have a higher MSRP to begin with, will have by far worse resale value than the Chevy counterpart. Advantage Chevy on price and resale value makes there be less reason to buy the Pontiac. Add in the Chevy versions getting by far more advertising, as we're already seeing (little to no advertising for Pontiac) and Pontiac shows up even less on the radar. Eventually (7-10 years down the road probably) no dealer's are going to see any reason to stock Pontiacs because no one will be buying them and it won't be profitable, and the dealer's will close themselves down, at least the Pontiac part. GM then doesn't have to deal with many dealers when it gets rid of Pontiac. In summary, first Pontiac gets fleeted to reduce resale value, which combined with higher prices, makes there be no reason to buy a Pontiac vs. the almost identical Chevy which has higher resale and lower initial price. Next, we see no advertising for Pontiac, as if it doesn't exist. The public no longer recognizes Pontiac as a brand that offers anything for them, as they are turned off by higher-than-Chevy prices and lower resale, and in addition to that, see no advertising for the brand. Pontiac is no longer a consideration for them when it comes to buying a car. Finally, dealers can't profitably sell Pontiac cars anymore, so they drop the brand. Once a good portion of them close, GM can close Pontiac and won't have many repercussions from dealers. The dealers essentially put this on themselves when they whined and cried for the G5. GM must have been thinking "hmm, if they are happy with rebadged Chevys, why should we waste our money giving them anything else?"

It will not be $35k. You can price a normal GT out to over $34k.

I don't think that is the doomsday scenario... the doomsday scenario would be a worker getting cut because of the higher taxes, leading to more unemployment. If you take a scenario where the worker is let go because of the tax, I believe it would go something like this: Tax on $1 mil under new plan: $396,000 Profit on that $1 mil: $604,000 Profit under old plan: $650,000 Company gets rid of worker who makes $70k a year ($85k with health care etc), does same amount of work (makes same revenue), new tax on $1,085,000: ~$430,000 Now the profit for the company is $670,000, and they can probably hire someone part-time for $25k a year if they need extra help and be able to get as much work done as before, assuming the salaried workers make up for some of the lost work. This is a perfectly feasible scenario and it actually happened at the company my dad works for, 3-4 high ranking people got cut because there was less revenue coming in, the taxes would have the same effect in the end.

Yeah, the WTCC+ was way better looking and more aggressive than the Cruze. Perhaps they thought it wouldn't appeal to enough buyers with it's more aggressive looks.

Since the other two political threads were turning into nonsense, I decided to start one to discuss the second debate and see if we can't have a better discussion than the other two threads... So, feel free to discuss your thoughts on the second debate here.

This thread doesn't seem to have anything worthwhile being talked about anymore. I'll start a thread for the 2nd Presidential debate and see if a political thread can go better for once...

This thread has outlived its usefulness...

2SS/RS would be a nice graduation present to myself in a couple years... there may be something else I want more by then, though.

Pontiac is going on a hiatus, a long, long hiatus. The brand is already dead, now it is just a name on a Chevy with a kidney grille.

And with HUGE spiffs, too. I believe I saw an ad for 0% plus $3k off on Tundras. Probably more like $5k off after haggling.

The Malibu was within 3000 sales of the Accord, that's pretty impressive (though it did have employee pricing, not sure what deals the Accord had).

Might as well keep the employee pricing going. It can't be hurting GM much, especially when you consider GM's losses would have likely been closer to that of the rest of the industry had their not been employee pricing. How is the CTS down with employee pricing? Low supply with the 08 to 09 switchover?

Wow, could it be any worse?

Might as well send it here, though I can't say it looks that great.

I don't know if we ever heard whether or not the Volt uses that, but it sure would seem like a good idea. I can't imagine GM would simply just decide that charging the battery through the gas engine and by regenerative braking were bad ideas, there must be some reason it cannot be recharged. Perhaps it has to do with the battery's size and that they shut off at 50% power.

I am guessing in that case the battery does get recharged slightly, but I doubt the gas engine can recharge it fast enough to really gain any sort of meaningful charge. If the charge is all used up and the gas engine comes on to "charge" it while you drive, it's really not charging it at all because you probably use the charge as fast as it is made.

That is how I always understood it... once the battery runs out the gas engine comes on and produces the electricity but doesn't give you more charge. So people thought that meant that when the battery ran out the gas engine came on and recharged the battery and powered the car at the same time? It does essentially recharge the battery, but only to the point that you have enough electrical power to keep the car going.

Umm, Carter put $40 billion towards training Islamic fundamentalists in Pakistan and Afghanistan. I think that would point to him contributing towards 9/11... And Carter ruined our relationship with Iran, if anything Carter was the reason we got into poor relationships with Middle Eastern countries. Perhaps if his energy plans would have worked, those countries wouldn't have gained as much power, but I'm not convinced that we had the technology then to drastically reduce our oil consumption. Plus, the eocnomy was arguably worse with Carter than it is now, or at least headed that way.

That, and the significance of the car/truck, for example if it breaks new ground in a segment or if a certain company makes a product that's a lot more competitive and shows a big step forward in that segment for the company (part of the reason the Malibu won, I am guessing). I would probably say A4, Mazda6, and XF are the top 3 for cars, and perhaps the VUE, Bluetec, and Tiguan for trucks. I can't see the X6 winning TOTY.