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Old 07-22-2008, 02:29 PM   #1 (permalink)
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GM Teams With Dozens Of Utilities on Plug-In Cars

It looks like GM is finally getting serious about bringing out electric cars (albeit plug-in/serial-hybrids).

Wall Street Journal

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Old 07-22-2008, 03:04 PM   #2 (permalink)
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Sounds like PR BS to me. GM is desperate for some good news to move up its stock price. What exactly do they need to "integrate"? You plug in the car like any appliance and let it charge over night. Build in a timer into the car if you want it to charge at off peak hours. Next we're going to hear that the toaster oven industry is teaming up with utilities in order to integrate toasters to the power grid. Give me a break.

Heres the facts. GM will run out of money before the Volt hits the market in 2010. Their credit rating is toast, they are burning through cash much faster than they can earn it and whats left GM will or chopped up and sold before 2010. Even the $15b plan they announced last week isn't enough to see the company through the end of 09. The stock is trading below book value.

Theres no doubt in my mind that the Volt will make it to market but by that time the Chevrolet brand will probably be owned by Volkswagen or Nissan/Renault. Both companies have cash on the books and are looking to increase their US market share.

This is a model of the Production Volt. Its built on the Chevy Cruze platform (AKA the Cobalt replacement)

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Old 08-12-2008, 04:20 PM   #3 (permalink)
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Interesting 'take' on where GM is headed... for the sake of the US auto industry, maybe the auto industry as a whole, I don't disagree but I hope you are wrong.
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Old 10-02-2008, 01:01 PM   #4 (permalink)
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New Car Reviews, Ratings & Pricing, Auto News for New Models – TTAC

Has many many articles written on Gm and the state of the Big 3

See "GM Death Watch" series of articles

Good Reading IMO
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Old 10-02-2008, 11:24 PM   #5 (permalink)
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GM? Uncontrollable laughter

BwaaaaHahahahHahahahHA hahhahahhaa

Do the math...After 100,000 miles, a Chevrolet Volt will cost you much more than any high mileage gasoline car made today.

The batteries are a dream so far and will eventually be made by an outside supplier. Unproven technology. GM will not crib from Tesla out of pure GM long standing stupidity. 40 miles on a charge...laughter starts again. The gas engine will be larger than needed and the luxury items mean you will mostly use gas operation.

The car is like a brick...heavy, new-rough and will have a lot of "teething" problems...like almost all new offerings (and certainly a new offering from GM)

Lets face it...any of the American car companies could put their engineer's and designer's jobs on one year notice and have a very economical, stripped down 50 mpg automobile on the street in ONE YEAR.

Ford, GM and Chrysler have all lost money on every car sold for over a year now...please submit any additional info on this phenomena.

Any successful company would have fired all these clowns years ago. They have been suckering the American public through patronage, patriotism and heartstring appeals with chrome, poor build, low quality, luxury laden vehicles and fancy financing...America is finally waking up.

Chrysler came out with three (3) NEW (Hulllabalooooo) electric cars...yeah, right! 3 doctored over standard models with unproven technology that yield 1910 performance and awful gas mileage...watch them brag up these dead horses. Lots of sucker ads coming our way.

Watch Out!

Duck!

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Old 10-14-2008, 05:43 PM   #6 (permalink)
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I can't wait to get one of these.
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Old 10-16-2008, 09:38 AM   #7 (permalink)
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What's being integrated it is a means of automatically determining the current price of electricity and charging when it's cheapest for the user as well as using that electricity in the event of a brown out, when prices are highest, instead of diesel generators for short term auxiliary power production. Using this buy cheap charge, sell high charge, users can make money from the electric company and the company can decommission some auxiliary generators. The user might just be driving for free under the right conditions. This is no toaster! Your toaster can't resell the heat it creates with that electricity.

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