G. David Felt

Failed due to Stupid GM Marketing not marketing the SUV. You rarely find these on the used auto lot because the people that bought them love them and the average 22mpg they get. GM Failed itself to sell what was and still is a great Hybrid. At this point, GM Needs to upsize the VOLT system and get it into many different CUV's and SUV's. Exactly! LOVE the idea of a hybrid Tahoe. As far as Fiat goes, for the 500, we already have flashlight batteries, so this should not be a problem. Given the 500's nature as a sorority chic car, perhaps making it run on a cell phone battery would be more appropriate. Eh, I think the sorority chick car is fairly accurate for the regular 500 but around here you see a ton of Abarths and they are all driven by guys. I wonder what the sales split is between the 500, 500 Turbo and Abarth? Those would be some interesting numbers to see. Fiat 500 is a failure, I suspect you see a bunch of them in certain select areas but I rarely see them and the dealerships in Washington is sitting on hundreds of them. They even put other auto's out front of the dealership since they do not sell. Does not matter how much money you put on the hood. They are terrible small blow over auto's that are just sitting. MPO

Mud

I agree, Mini is past date and they need some new auto's like a Triumph or some other small roadster. I do not expect Mini to grow market share till they diversify their product line up.

Grey Market

Baby Powder BLue 1975 Chevy Luv. It needed some love with all the scares on the body, but was still kicking.

GM needs to get the VOLT system into the Chevy Equinox and GMC Terrain. They would have a sweet FWD CUV and if possible to do it with AWD they would clean up.

Plenty of people that do not want a muscle gas guzzling car but want a fun to drive luxury coupe.

Glad to see they can move forward putting this behind them. GM CEO Mary Barra is my favorite CEO GM has had to date. She truly is driving change for the better at GM and hopefully other American companies will notice it also.

Notice there is no 2.5 liter 4-cylinder on the coupe as there is on the sedan. Thanks Drew, Great point I had overlooked. That would cause a lower price but I doubt they would sell many or initially they would but people would not be happy with it.

Not so sure about that, they are popular here in Ohio. The Tesla is an amazing piece of engineering. Yes it is a great piece of Engineering, but how many can afford a $100,000 electric car.

The luxury gold carts like the Leaf seem like a green solution but in reality produce even more Green house gas and toxic waste. I believe that they are over blown sales figures for the EV market. They talk about how many are sold and yet you still do not see many of them. Seems most are bought by gov agencies and sit around. EV's have their place to help reduce immediate pollution in large congested cities, but outside of that they are not very practical.

Boys

Playboy

Now your splitting hairs as the upper BMW and MB have the same stuff as the lower units. So I really see no difference between what Cadillac does and the Germans.

Interesting that the coupe is more expensive than the 4 door sedan, so does that mean ATS prices for the coupe on the 2016 4 door ATS are going up?

G. David Felt Alternative Fuels & Propulsion writer www.CheersandGears.com According to the news story on MSN, GM is recalling 2.7 million 2014 Malibu sedans according to Jeff Boyer, GM's Safety Chief to fix a problem that affects brake lights, headlamps, power brakes and windshield wipers. GM will take a 200 million charge this quarter to cover this. Full story can be found here. Great read with very good info and good to see that the GM CEO is not waiting but attacking these small issues head on. http://news.msn.com/us/gm-recalls-27m-more-cars-industry-on-record-pace

They could have charged this if they had done a mid size Luxury AWD CUV with the VOLT system. That would have been far better than a car.

Boss

Good to hear they want a real SUV not a coupe poser SUV. Be interested to see what they bring out as their concept was ugly. Could this be the new SUV that the Upper 1% go to rather than the G Suv from MB?

Be interesting to see if they develop their own Hybrid system or follow Ford in licensing from Toyota their Hybrid system or a mix. I love that GM built their own with the VOLT, They just need to get it into CUV's, SUV's and trucks.

I strongly feel as an Independent Middle of the road that the people of this country need to revoke all current politicians and force change on the Gov to be held accountable to an actual budget that takes the specific tax dollars and puts it into the proper Infrastructure and defense of this country. The political system has had long enough to properly fix and remove a General fund so that the areas such as Roads, police, fire departments and schools get funded. Also where in our constitution does it say that we will defend the world, Police the world and pay for everyone's life style. {rant} In regards to the Mass proposal I strongly am leaning more towards removing ALL Gas tax and have a mileage tax. Driving just like cell phones, internet and TV are Privileges you earn, not Rights! As such, level the playing field and have everyone pay a standard much like we need a income tax system that tax's everyone equally rather than allowing for certain groups to make millions while paying little in tax's compared to the average person. 2 to 3 cents per mile tax would work out well. State, Regional and Federal collection of Gas Tax Amounts through 2009 http://www.gaspricewatch.com/imgs/popup.html?motor_fuel_rev.gif More current info seems to be here: http://www.api.org/oil-and-natural-gas-overview/industry-economics/fuel-taxes.aspx Current copy of the first quarter 2014 fuel taxes here: http://www.api.org/oil-and-natural-gas-overview/industry-economics/~/media/Files/Statistics/state-motor-fuel-taxes-report-summary.pdf Detailed tax on fuel by state, a break down that shows the federal, state, county, city taxes for a gallon. Pretty interesting. http://www.api.org/oil-and-natural-gas-overview/industry-economics/~/media/Files/Statistics/StateMotorFuel_OnePagers.pdf Chart of the above PDF for quicker comparison. http://www.api.org/oil-and-natural-gas-overview/industry-economics/~/media/47E397E1D3B14F61BAADCB6CA56A9F84.pdf It would seem that in federal tax collected it runs depending on the site and report from 68 billion to 78 billion in tax's collected and this is before the states add their tax's on, so when you consider like Washington state, the 18.5 cents in federal tax plus the 41 cents state tax, they do collect billions and yet with going into a general fund, it really is lost on going back into the roads as it should. As such, remove the gas tax and charge everyone the same fee, 2 cents per mile tax. Semi trucks would be something else that would have to be tackled. How do you properly charge trucks moving between states, estimated miles based on delivery, require all trucks to stop at the border and report / pay? I see how this would be a brain twister for some but I think it would balance out in the end with all registered auto's semi's etc in the state paying a per mile tax. For cross country trucks, you have a permit fee to come into Washington. Thoughts?

I challenge this to wonder how much of this is based on political posturing, old habits of I scratch your back, you scratch mine and that the new GM is not wanting to play these games now. By no means do I imply that GM is perfect as all companies are far from that, but I suspect Reuters is not reporting the full story as there is clear holes in their story.

Cake Boss

Thanks, corrected it as I totally misread the story.