GMs Rise & Decline
 

I hope the link works.

http://images.businessweek.com/ss/09...paign_id=yahoo

Ron

I find it iteresting that they end the article talking about fuel mileage. I just had a Chevy Impala, daily rental car in Ohio this week. I did mostly highway but I was also in quite a bit of stop-and-go city driving so it was an 80-20 mix. I drove at about 70 mph (not 55 or 60) on cruise control on the highway and the car's computer was indicating an average of 35 to 36.5 mpg most of the time.

It only took 10.5 gallons to do 323 miles which works out to 30.8 mpg overall. I have no idea how many miles were put on the previous full tank of gas before I picked it up at the airport but it is safe to assume around 20 miles (customer fills up, drives to airport, rental company takes car to be washed, etc, car is moved back to the airport garage). So an additional 20 miles on that 10.5 gallons would give 32.7 mpg combined highway and city driving.

I think that is excellent mileage for a full size car so GM is doing some things right.

Wayne

Now if the Govt. will just not start running it into the ground like they do everything else.

Ron

Wayne,

GM management was a little short-sighted. But there is certainly nothing wrong with the GM engineering teams. Chevrolet, in particular, produced cars and trucks that were lighter and more fuel efficient than any other manufacturer, bar none. Yet the products met full service capacity in reasonable size and weight handling.

The 2000 Impala FWD evolution met a lot of media criticism for the marketing decision to go FWD from the just previous popular RWD performance model. But the FWD engineering team did a marvelous job. The 2000 Impala featured an aluminum cradle for the front drivetrain, making it very stiff and solid, yet light. Not exotic enough, yet, it also featured a very stiff, light magnesium cowl brace, something not found on cars a three or four times the price. Sure, a Mercedes is a more durable car, but for the money, it won't outlast the three Impalas that the same money will buy.

The 2000 Impala set a small milestone in fuel economy. It was the first car with a V6 (3.4L) to exceed 30 mpg in EPA ratings. I'm about to sell one that has hit as high as 34 mpg during touring cross-country with 4 adults and a full trunk. It still runs great at 104K and everything works. It's had proper maintainance though.

GM engineering built the amazing C-5 Corvette, for a shoe-string budget, at a time when GM was thinking of killing the brand ...again. The basic car still kicks butt to all comers in the form of the C6, in spite of costing far less. Unless you believe the hype in Motortrend, Car and Driver or Road and Track. Lately they are somewhat changing their tune as they realise what may happen to their magazines if "American Made" fades away.

GM engineering built the much-loved high tech EV1 electric car until GM marketing carefully sabotaged the initial first wave of electric cars.

And why would they kill electric cars? Why does Lutz still pretend that Global Warming is a non-issue? It's not because GM or Bob are dumb. I think the answer is found in the last paragraph of Ron's link:

The stakes for this risky experiment in industrial policy are high. Failure would be not just a political and economic catastrophe for the Obama-ites, it also could hurt America's long-term prospects and erase a swath of the nation's industrial capability. We are at one of those pivotal moments in history when one technology (the internal combustion engine, in this case) is poised to give way to another (electric motors or even more exotic alternatives). Team Obama clearly thinks the risk is worth taking because an America without its own 21st century auto industry would be a diminished America. The government has given GM and Chrysler a fighting chance. The question is whether they can win over car buyers and get through the next few years of hardship without failing and being carved up or displaced by foreign-owned powers.

The problem is that auto manufacturers don't build cars ...and haven't for some time. Probably 95% of American cars are vendor parts, including the knobs that fell off in the '80's. Major American auto manufacturers do build internal combustion engines ...and sometimes automatic transmissions ...and that's it. When the standard ICE, along with hydraulic trannies, are gone, and replaced by a generic electric motor, the manufacturers are toast and they know it. The petroleum industry is also toast if they can't still be the prime energy distributers, such as hydrogen vs powerlines. This is the basis for all the "smoke-cloud" propoganda against change in these hand-holding twin mega-industries. IMO, anyway.

Wes

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