Shocker: GM exec admits they ignored consumers' demands for efficiency

[Old Mechanic]

Originally Posted by some_other_dave

Where do you get those numbers from?

-soD

Next Energy in Michigan.

EPA hydraulic hybrids documents.

The military Hummer losses, see attached photo.

The most efficient manual transmission is about 90% when they use low viscosity fluids.

Conventional ring and pinion differentials are fairly lossy.

regards
Mech

[dan765]

GM's problem was in their gameplan. Instead of making vehicles that people would want to buy (like the japs did) they made vehicles however they wanted and tried to sell them to people by offering incentives, rebates, etc.
Who know that making products that people want would be such a groundbreaking idea?!

[NeilBlanchard]

Hi,

I think that the root of GM's problem (and much of the rest of the auto industry) is they got into the financing of auto loans, and then they built cars to be obsolescent and pushed "new" models every year; that had zero functional changes.

They also had umpteen divisions that each tried to carve out a market niche -- what was the real difference between Chevy and Pontiac and Buick and Oldsmobile and Cadillac and GMC and Saturn and Saab ... They had more than 125 different models -- gimme a break!

Cars should be built to last, and designed to function well, and changes should only be made when they are needed to improve the function. Yearly changes are stupid.

Saturn had the single best idea to come out of GM, that has been taken up by Scion: no price negotiation and à la carte options.

[cfg83]

NeilBlanchard -

Originally Posted by NeilBlanchard

Hi,

I think that the root of GM's problem (and much of the rest of the auto industry) is they got into the financing of auto loans, and then they built cars to be obsolescent and pushed "new" models every year; that had zero functional changes.

They also had umpteen divisions that each tried to carve out a market niche -- what was the real difference between Chevy and Pontiac and Buick and Oldsmobile and Cadillac and GMC and Saturn and Saab ... They had more than 125 different models -- gimme a break!

Cars should be built to last, and designed to function well, and changes should only be made when they are needed to improve the function. Yearly changes are stupid.

Saturn had the single best idea to come out of GM, that has been taken up by Scion: no price negotiation and à la carte options.

Yes. All the different nameplates were separate car companies at one time.

I wish I had the article in front of me, maybe someone else posted it. Before the gas crunch, the GM divisions "competed" against each other as autonomous entities. When they tried to consolidate in the 1980s, they did it backwards. The different divisions offered very similar external designs with very different internal drivetrains. Instead they should have offered near-identical drivetrains with external style differentiation. This would have saved a lot of $ and allowed them to perfect the drivetrains for reliability.

Because of internal politics within GM, Saturn withered on the vine after the S-Series, which was basically the same car for 12 years. Saturn was quietly "Oldsmobiled" and ceased to exist in the early 2000's.

CarloSW2

[Christ]

Saturn was originally different. When Scion came to the foreground, GM took over and stopped the "forward" thinking that Saturn execs were doing, because it was breeding more competition from other manufacturers.

If I were the GM execs, I'd have seen the competition as a complement to the ingenuity of the forward thinking dealerships of Saturn, not as a reason to take over and stop it altogether. Someone really needed to wear underwear that weren't quite so tight.

[Old Tele man]

Originally Posted by Christ

If I were the GM execs, I'd have seen the competition as a complement to the ingenuity...

...unfortunately, foresight hasn't (obviously) been a strong-suite of GM management in a long, long time.

[cfg83]

Christ -

Originally Posted by Christ

Saturn was originally different. When Scion came to the foreground, GM took over and stopped the "forward" thinking that Saturn execs were doing, because it was breeding more competition from other manufacturers.

If I were the GM execs, I'd have seen the competition as a complement to the ingenuity of the forward thinking dealerships of Saturn, not as a reason to take over and stop it altogether. Someone really needed to wear underwear that weren't quite so tight.

Hmmmmmm, I wouldn't put Saturn and Scion in the same box. Saturn was dead as an innovator before Scion came into existance. Scion does have "no haggle", but I think Scion mostly plays to the tuner crowd in the sense of aftermarket/SEMA crapola up the ying yang. Toyota was going after a young "hip" demographic. Just look at the Scion commercials. Saturn commercials (see YouTube) were "quirky Americana". Saturn never was able to make it in the tuner arena and they never really made a "hip" car, IMO.

Saturn was definitely eating Chevy Cavalier sales. But Saturn was also getting the demographic that usually would buy "good value/high MPG" Civics and Corollas (like me).

CarloSW2

[roflwaffle]

Originally Posted by Old Mechanic

The most efficient manual transmission is about 90% when they use low viscosity fluids.

Conventional ring and pinion differentials are fairly lossy.

I've read ~88-92% at high and low loads, and 95% at medium loads for newer manual FWD transmissions, er, transaxles technically.

[Old Mechanic]

In the old Nissan rear wheel drive 4 and 5 speeds, 4th "gear" was direct drive (input shaft and main shaft coupled together). It would work without any other gears or even the counter shaft or the counter shaft drive or driven gear. Basically a shaft from the clutch to the prop shaft.

If the trans axles are the same with one gear that is direct drive then it would be the most efficient in that gear.

Sounds like 90% is fairly close when you average the variables together. Another way to figure it out is to dyno the engine then the whole car. In either case the load will change the efficiency. Dynoing the whole car will give you a pretty good idea of losses through the whole power train. Probably in the 15-20% range for RWD cars. It would be lower if the tranny used ATF like the 60s Mopars.

Drag racers like the old power glide because it lost the least amount of power to the rear wheels.

At highway speeds with low engine power 90% is probably fairly close in a trans axle.

regards
Mech

[Old Tele man]

...most of the FWD transaxles have a "fractional" 4th or 5th "high" gear these days.

...our Vibe/Matrix automatic has 0.700:1 as "overdrive" 4th (high) gear.