A while ago, under little fanfare, GM announced that it was adding the Chevy Cobalt XFE to it’s product line up. XFE stands for “Xtra Fuel Economy,” and with the XFE’s highway rating of 36 a full 5 MPG better than the next-best Cobalt, it’s certainly not a misnomer. It’s been a while since car companies like Honda and GM went out of their way to build mpg models of their normal cars (remember the Metro XFi? Civic VX/HX?), but ever since GM went live with the XFE I was wondering if we’d see more models.

Traditional automotive speculation would suggest that companies like GM wouldn’t make high-mpg versions of existing cars that might compete with hybrid sales. For example, if the normal Cobalt gets 31 highway mpg, the XFE 36, and the hybrid 40, but the hybrid has a bigger price premium than the XFE, GM would be bound to lose some hybrid sales to the XFE. This idea is often cited when people wonder why European or Japanese product configurations never show up in the US. Who would buy a hybrid when they can get a cheaper car that gets similar mileage?

Either way, it seems GM is bucking the trend. They realize that not only do they need to change their ways, but they can’t rely on hybrids. Their hybrid truck sales have been slow (perhaps due to cost premiums), and people are demanding more change, more quickly. In response, GM has released XFE models of the Chevy Silverado, GMC Sierra, Chevy Tahoe and GMC Yukon. These models will be out in 2009, and even though they only bump mileage up an extra 1 mpg, they’re still a significant effort on GM’s part.

The bigger news here, I think, is that GM is working on better fuel economy across the board, but I know you’re going to want to trash these XFE models for only getting 1 mpg better than their normal counterparts. I won’t stop you, but do here me out. On these vehicles (with a original EPA ratings of 14/20 mpg), the 1 mpg increase means an almost 6% increase in fuel economy. And considering that these trucks use the most gas, that 6% increase will reduce a lot more gas usage than making the Prius 6% more efficient (though, obviously, driving a Prius an not an SUV would be even better).

Baby steps, right?

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Recently, I spent time at HybridFest, a car show dedicated to emerging green technologies and fuel economy. The kind of person who attends HybridFest is that same kind that talks around the water cooler about their MPG and how much money their hybrid has saved them. And this kind of person is exactly who companies like GM need to convince to buy their products.

That’s probably why GM was the #2 sponsor, right after Toyota. That doesn’t explain, however, why GM didn’t show up. Show organizer, Eric Powers, told me that GM representatives were on hand for dinner Friday night to kick off the show, which began officially on Saturday morning, but after that no one saw them.

Instead of putting their floor space at the show to use, GM chose to leave a musty old city bus sitting in the corner looking inconspicuous (see first photo). Not too many people wondered where GM was, but personally, I was excited to see what they’d have at the show to counteract the Toyota party van:

Seeing the GM logo on everything made me sure that at some point I would see GM there. But alas, it was not to be. There was no clash of automotive giants, and no GM reps to talk about upcoming designs with.

So, what happened?

Firstly, let me say that this article is not some cookie-cutter condemnation of GM. I have spent time with GM and discussed their plans, as well as test-driven their HCCI technology, and I can honestly say that there are a lot of smart people at all levels in the company working to rebuild their image and their product lineup as one that is fuel efficient and environmentally friendly.

We all know that GM is going through hard times, posting $15.5B losses and still two years away from releasing the earliest production models of the Volt, which they hope will be their saving grace.

Part of me hoped that GM would come to HybridFest with some surprise mock up of the Volt, or perhaps even one of their drivetrains strapped to the body of another car. I’d also hoped to strike up a conversation with someone from GM about the future of the Chevy Aveo, that small, affordable car that seems to get no media attention and surprisingly bad fuel economy (GM has promised to make it a class leader in 2009 with a total redesign, and I wanted some insight into this).

Another, perhaps pernicious part of me didn’t want Toyota to steal the show. I knew HybridFest would be like a Prius collectors show, but since I knew Honda wouldn’t be there I feared that Toyota would only increase it’s legacy as “the hybrid company.” Obviously, other companies can do it (and Honda did, with the Insight, which was released in the US earlier than the Prius and with better fuel economy), but somehow Prius and hybrid have become pretty much the same thing to some people.

Anyway, one can only assume that all the pressures weighing down on GM right now finally got to them, and caused them to back out. HybridFest is great, but it’s not like the media is buzzing with this story, so there has been little word of why GM suddenly disappeared.

What does this mean for GM?

Well, GM is in a tough place, but this wasn’t the right place to cut corners, I think. As I said earlier, the type of people that go to HybridFest are influencers and pushers. They want to brag about hybrid tech, take their friends on test drives, and change the way people look at fuel consumption. Sure, GM might have only reached a few thousand people, but they missed an opportunity, for just one weekend’s work, to have high-quality interaction with the people they are trying to win over to their side.

By not showing up, HybridFest allowed Toyota to dominate, with the only GM in sight (Honda pun!) being a modified Equinox that showed up with the University of Wisconsin. No one is impressed by a shallow advertising blitz talking about fuel-efficient truck hybrids. What GM needs to do is generate real, meaningful buzz around their products, and they need to do it at the grassroots level or else their efforts will just be passed off as another round of corporate greenwashing.

I will be in contact with the company soon about their future plans, and there marketing strategies, and am excited at the possibility to share that with you, so stay tuned.

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