News: GM promises a 4-seat Smart competitor with better MPG

[MetroMPG]

Take this with a great big salt lick, but apparently part of GM's proposal to the US Congress yesterday includes an A class sized vehicle for the US market:

“The Plan includes introducing this market’s smallest four-passenger vehicle, achieving higher fuel economy than the two-passenger Smart ForTwo, the most fuel-efficient non-hybrid vehicle in the U.S. market today.”

Hm. Chevrolet Beat?



Image: StuBez

[Nevyn]

Looks like they do it by not having air-inflated tires....they just put giant rubber bands around the wheels....... those things look like 145/30R13's!

[SVOboy]

Mehbe if they made such cars they wouldn't need a bailout....

[basslover911]

Originally Posted by SVOboy

Mehbe if they made such cars they wouldn't need a bailout....

Psh yea, but they wount...

GM is lead by a crap team of people. Just look at their history... they will never make any reaql progress unless they get all new managment who are not just interested in their own pockets.


Like the Volt... where is it I ask? ... Oh, did they make it all gasoline now? Probably will have a big v8 and grow 10 ft in size by next january since "the american people dont like small cars"...

.02

[NeilBlanchard]

Hi,

The Toyota/Scion iQ will beat them to market by ~3 years...and I like the looks of the iQ much more than this car.

[Frank Lee]

I think it's sad to know GM possibly has the tech know-how to lead the world in fuel-efficient vehicles but mgmt can't or won't figure out how to make the bidness case for that to work.

[trebuchet03]

To quote someone more wiser than me....

"We'll See"

[cfg83]

Frank -

Originally Posted by Frank Lee

I think it's sad to know GM possibly has the tech know-how to lead the world in fuel-efficient vehicles but mgmt can't or won't figure out how to make the bidness case for that to work.

I agree. From my POV, all they had to do was leverage their international know-how ala Opel and such. If they had taken care of all of the US customers instead of trying to milk us with marketing that told us we needed to buy the biggest and most pri$ey SUV possible, then they wouldn't be in this mess. I think the Cobalt XFE is a prime example of "tuning for MPG" that can work. They could be offering the Ecotec sub-1.8 engines as an option and we would be hypermiling them to our heart's content :

European Engines - GMPartsWorld - General Motors Crate Engines & Performance Parts
1.0i 12v Twinport Ecotec


When the price of gas increased, all Toyota/Honda/Nissan had to do was start importing Yaris/Fit/Versa's that they had already developed for other countries that already have high gas prices.

*sigh*

CarloSW2

[Frank Lee]

^Yup.

[tasdrouille]

Meanwhile Suzuki is contemplating bringing its 1.6 liter 88 hp common rail diesel engine in the SX4 in Canada for next spring...