Where will gm go from here?

[RH77]

Originally Posted by zjrog

Bring back a car like the Omni...

I second that motion! The "Trapezoid" was a good car, and had the perfect drivetrain for the "New" Minivan in '84 (another area where GM has dropped the ball in nearly every game).

Look at the history of the Cavalier. Wasn't it like 11 years before they redesigned it, from the ground-up? I'm not saying it was a bad car, it just didn't get the attention it deserved.

The most notable failure was the Cadillac Cimmaron. One of my parents worked at a GMC/Pontiac/Olds/Cadillac dealer in the early 80's. The comment was, "that looks like a Cavalier with leather". What they didn't realize: people who could afford gas, wanted a big car regardless. The Lincoln brand skyrocketed with sales.

GM's board of directors will consistently be the end of their own doing. Lutz is merely a tool of that group. They had better start 'yesterday' on saving their own butts, or the General will likely be defeated.

As for the other 2 -- Ford's International connections should pay dividends, if they know where to utilize them. Chrysler is looking very grim. They need something more than the Avenger or Caliber -- that's for sure. To not continue the legacy of the Neon was a true failure.

If it were just the 3 of them here, it would be different. They keep scrambling to catch up with the foreign makes. Where does the R&D money go? Right, the CEO for doing such a great job. 2 thumbs down.

RH77

[Big Dave]

GM’s first foray into hybrids – hybrid SUVs – makes sense from their standpoint but it is only a first step. Hybrid SUVs were the first step because their existing customer base likes SUVs and since the first hybrid necessarily is an add-on, the SUV offers lots of space for add-on equipment (motors, batteries, etc). Also an SUV normally goes for about $40-45,000. All that hybrid equipment probably demands a $10,000 premium. The first time I ever saw a Honda Insight, I (as an engineer) appreciated what a little jewel the thing was but all that machinery screamed “$45,000!” at me. But the price tag was much less. It was a “loss leader.” Honda lost their shirt on every car, but made a few to burnish their “Mr. Clean” image and sell regular Civics and Accords. This is why you don’t ever seem to find enough Priuses. Toyota is not making anything on them but they are great for getting in to buy a Camry. It will always be easier to make a profitable big vehicle with hybrid power because people will pay more for a big vehicle. Most people do not appreciate that big vehicles cost very little more to make than small vehicles.

GM’s next step is to hybridize their larger cars. It might be a short step from a SUV to a rear wheel drive sedan like the G8. You might see a comeback of large sedans (like the old Caprice) as a substitute for the SUV. You might chuckle, but a Caprice with a T-56 and 4.5 diesel models out to 35 MPG EPA and probably over 40 for even a mediocre hypermiler. Hybridize it and gain another 25%. That’s nearly 45 MPG (EPA) with no aero cleanup at all. That is a car that GM’s customers will buy.

No matter what the price of gas gets to some people flat out will not buy a small car. I recently had a line on an Insight that I could buy and get back on the road for about $5,000. Like I said, a high-MPG little jewel and I could get a car worth $45,000 (my estimate) for a song. Super bargain, right? Wrong! The Insight’s 38 inch headroom completely defeats me. I felt like Shaquille O’Neal in it (but I still cannot dunk). I would have had to cut a hole in the top. I am hardly the only person to have that problem.

The real future of improved MPG lies not in the extreme vehicles but in the average-sized vehicle that a family can buy one of and still fulfill multiple missions. IMO that is the direction GM will go.

[Big Dave]

I think we may be on the brink of a viable electric car or at least hope so. It would be nice to reduce oil to a mere petrochemical feedstock. When somebody comes up with a suitable energy storage system, the auto industry will begin making such cars as fast as they can re-tool. What worries me is the question: “When are we gonna get all that electricity?” People on this site are bright enough to realize that electricity does not come from a receptacle on the wall. (It might astonish you the number of people – some with Ph.D.s – that think exactly that.) there is a whole supply, generation, transmission, and distribution industry behind that. According the Dept. of Energy about 35% of US energy resources (coal and nuclear, mostly) is consumed in generation of electric power where roughly 45% (almost all oil) goes to transportation. If we peel off ships and aircraft, a sudden shift to electricity for land transportation would require the US to double it electrical generating capacity as fast as the cars get sold. In today’s regulatory climate that is not to be done. The permits alone require a decade. The US Steel and heavy machinery industries are atrophied to less than a quarter of their capacity in 1975. Imports won’t help. The US already imports power from Canada. If you live in New England there is a fair chance some of your power already comes from Hydro Quebec. They really don’t have a lot more to offer unless they import coal and generate it along the Great Lakes. The US power grid is down to single-digit reserves.

Be careful what you ask for. You might just get it.

[johnpr]

Originally Posted by Big Dave

GM’s next step is to hybridize their larger cars. .

thats ok, i would sport a hybrid camaro (especially if it was a v8 hybrid )

[Bror Jace]

"GM is doomed ... they have never moved beyond the 70s. They hate change. Listen to the CEOs of GM over the last 30 years and they are a bunch of crusty old men, their mentality/attitude is stuck in 1965."

If we were having this conversation 5+ years ago, I'd probably agree with you. Now? I'm not so sure ... and even have some hope for the coming years.

I think GM sees the high fuel prices and the change in customer attitiudes as a chance for people to 'jump on' to their brand and their newer, more energy efficient vehicles they are offering or are in the works. Their ads are green, green, green!

However, they still have some old clunkers in their line-up (along with Ford and Chrysler).

The problem today is not the price of gas, it's the suddenness of the increase in price. I wish gas had started going up sooner (say, in the last 90s) and had gone up more gradually. That way the domestic manufacturers wouldn't be so lopsided with current gas pigs (which buyers wanted when gas was $2 or less per gallon).

But that's the market for you, I think it's the best allocator of resources ... but it's a rather stern master.

[ebacherville]

GM and the rest of the american car manufactures are doomed .. GM has all these green car commercials.. yet there best MPG car sucks.. there "VOLT" is a pipe dream still and there marketing the heck out of it.. not to mention its a aerodynamic shiny version of a brick..

the one thing that i do see if crash test standards are insane, now adays you can drive a new car into a brick wall at hiwayspeeds and walk away.. thats all good but.. these standards have made it so i cant choose to buy a very light weight fuel efficient car that may not have as good of a crash rating..

There are tons of light fuel efficient cars that we cant get in the us due to there mandated standards.. Yet i can go buy a older car thats got no air bags and is light and efficient and or a motor cycle..

My opinion of the way this will go down either well start seeing motorcycle cars.. aka three wheel cars as there considered motorcycles.. or well see some of these imports that arnt legal in the USA being allowed in.. Or in a idea world, new process for carbon fiber production etc allowing weights to go down and MPG's to go up.

However, on top of all this.. it still shocks me how every american complains about fuel prices .. and then floors there suburban it to pass me at 57mph in a 55mph zone.. Americans are to big for there britches in my opinion... they need to get of there high horse and make some sacrifice in there lifes.. it's been a decade of more big cars big houses , biger and better than the neighbor.. time to slim down a bit... do you really need a 7-9 passanger SUV or minivan to drive your single butt to work.. Sincy you have 2 kids, do you really need a 7 passenger vehicle? If you need cargo space isn't a small trailer a good option or a station wagon?

I remeber in 83 my dad bought a new cavalier station wagon, ordered from the factory specifically for MPG, got a 5 speed wagon with the only option being cruise control. he hauled more crap with that, chest freezers inside of the car all the groceries you could imagine etc.... and he towed our 24 foot fiber glass boat behind it with no problems.. and the thing got near 40mpg.. too bad the body rusted out way before the engine died.. the only thing that he ever had to do to it was a clutch.

As for the cars of the past.. yeah bring back the horizions and omni's or better yet redesign then but keep them light and fuel efficient.. keep there heritage.. dodge really shocked me when i went to the website and the best MPG car they had was 32 mpg.. next was the diesel sprinter van at 30mpg.. I think with dodges lifetime warrantee and a 50mpg car they would sell like hot cakes..

But then again im not a SUV loving gas sucking average American either.. I like to spend money on things besides cars and fuel.

[johnpr]

Originally Posted by ebacherville

the one thing that i do see if crash test standards are insane, now adays you can drive a new car into a brick wall at hiwayspeeds and walk away.. thats all good but.. these standards have made it so i cant choose to buy a very light weight fuel efficient car that may not have as good of a crash rating..

heres a pro for crash test standards, last fall i hit a metro from the rear, i was in my trans am, on my car all that was messed up was the bumper cover, the bumper assembly the hood, the headlights, and the airbags. the metro hit the car in front of it, a new toyota solaris?, the damage to the toyota was the rear bumper cover. the metro was squished, if there would have been any rear seat passengers they would have suffered serious injuries, the rear axle was pushed right behind the front seat, and the front was crushed completely (maybe 9 in between front of car and windshield) i wish i would have taken a picture of the accident because my words only convey so much, by the way i was traveling at 30 mph when this happened and the metro just came to a stop, i fear that if i would have been in jeep 2 that day, well the accident wouldnt have happened because i would have seen the stopped car infront of him that he didnt notice until the last second, damn his heavily tinted windows.

Originally Posted by ebacherville

My opinion of the way this will go down either well start seeing motorcycle cars.. aka three wheel cars as there considered motorcycles.. or well see some of these imports that arnt legal in the USA being allowed in.. Or in a idea world, new process for carbon fiber production etc allowing weights to go down and MPG's to go up.

i would love cheap cf, but its more likely that we will see an increase in 3 wheeled vehicles.

Originally Posted by ebacherville

However, on top of all this.. it still shocks me how every american complains about fuel prices .. and then floors there suburban it to pass me at 57mph in a 55mph zone.. Americans are to big for there britches in my opinion... they need to get of there high horse and make some sacrifice in there lifes..

dont use the term "every" im an american, i own a jeep, and alas i probably drive slower than many (yep thats right 50 in a 55, 25 in a 35, im bad, i know it ) anyhow my mother in law is realy hard on her gas pedal and hard stops but she never complains about gas prices (she drives an alero so she probably doesnt notice as much of an impact as an suv would, she also has a 45+ mile daily comute)

Originally Posted by ebacherville

If you need cargo space isn't a small trailer a good option or a station wagon?

trailers are not always an option, i cant have one at my apartment building. also i tow other vehicles quite frequently and in a station wagon i would have needed to make 4 trips yesterday compared to my 2. also i tend to worry more about the interior appearance of cars (station wagons) than i do with the jeep, because 1: my jeep has no carpet and other than the doors no plastic trim 2: its a jeep so no one comments about scrapes in the paint, or the tear i have covered with clear tape in my rear window. im also helping local water usage by not washing it verry often compared with my honda which gets washed every other weekend.

so sadly in conclusion, there will always be a demand for suvs which get roughly 19 mpg but hopefully there will be an increase in safe fuel efficient cars. also just a thought, why was it necesary to make a fuel efficient honda have 140 horses compared to the 70~ hp that the old ones had, i used to have an oldsmobile cutlass which weighed alot more than my honda and it did fine with only 120 hp (probably less because it was in sad repair when i purchased it) i think that is the real culprit against FE

[ttoyoda]

do you really need a 7-9 passanger SUV or minivan to drive your single butt to work.. Sincy you have 2 kids, do you really need a 7 passenger vehicle?

B-b-but without the latest huge vehicle, how will I maintain my status relative to my neighbors and coworkers who DO have the latest new huge vehicle? How will my id (footnote 1) survive the deprivation?

Trailers? YES! I still have the trailer I bought in 1987. For $600. Rated for 2200 lbs.. Have had 3600 lbs in it when the gravel yard messed up and overloaded it. Still got it home behind my toyota alltrac station wagon, although my stopping distance was noticably longer.
I used to tow with a toyota starlet before that (about the size of the CRX) and brought home a trailer load full of granite cobblestones.
The starlet did break a tooth off a diffirential spider gear a while after
that, though.

Cost for the trailer has been a new coat of paint, new tires when the old ones dry cracked all over the sidewalls, new timken bearings, seals, and those bearing buddy greaser things.

Footnote 1:
id :
the part of the psyche, residing in the unconscious, that is the source of instinctive impulses that seek satisfaction in accordance with the pleasure principle and are modified by the ego and the superego before they are given overt expression.

[Arminius]

Freudianism and car talk. What's next?

[ebacherville]

Originally Posted by johnpr

so sadly in conclusion, there will always be a demand for suvs which get roughly 19 mpg but hopefully there will be an increase in safe fuel efficient cars. also just a thought, why was it necesary to make a fuel efficient honda have 140 horses compared to the 70~ hp that the old ones had, i used to have an oldsmobile cutlass which weighed alot more than my honda and it did fine with only 120 hp (probably less because it was in sad repair when i purchased it) i think that is the real culprit against FE

Yes I agree I have a 1 ton dually crew cab chevy truck, however I dont drive it every day, some times not for months, only when I need a BIG truck.. its for towing our 30 foot trailer.
Also mine is a diesel and gets better mpg than a gasser too.. that big beast will pull down 22mpg not loaded.. better than some sedans today.. thats sad..