G. David Felt

The lower to the ground the harder it is for most people to get into and out of especially once you go north of 5'8" tall.

My drink of Choice is the Xyience Drinks http://www.xyience.com/ http://www.xyience.com/xyience My choice for a natural energy drink that does not have the diet soda aftertaste, but full of vitamin's, L-Carnitine and Glucuronolactone. All important for optimal mental alertness, strength and no sugar drop after 30 min to an 1hr. .

Kindered Spirit! Yup the occasional Red Bull or Xenergy is my drink of choice in thinking about it! Xenergy is now renamed after the parent company of Xyience.

Born and Raised in the Home of Starbucks and I am the rare bird who cannot stand the smell or taste of either. PASS, No Coffee or Tea goes over these lips. Coffee = Tea =

Very Cool, Looking forward to pictures of your new ride.

But the Tesla Freaks will say we have SuperCharging stations where you drive in and they swap in less than 10min the battery pack, depleted one for fully charged one.

You find the rare bird from Canada, but for the most part, their style is not in with American tastes. They can keep it along with the ugly toothpick thin models and a variety of other over rated french things. Probably why Fiat barely sell on the west coast, if it is not american, then asian. Europe not so much cared for by people here except for the overrate German auto's of BMW and MB badge snobs. LOL

Hummer should have never been a BRAND to begin with, it should have been a Special Edition package you get on GMC Trucks and SUV's. This package would have the special 54 to 1 crawl ratio, the beefier suspension system, the extra shock reservoirs. Special undercarriage platting, etc. Hummer should have been the Extreme off road package you add to any GMC Auto.

I totally disagree. Just because you do not find the need to go off into the woods and play, many of us do need a solid built 4x4 SUV and would rather buy something like this from GM than Jeep. What would make this a game changer is build it beefy like all Hummers were with the proper mix of crawl ratio's, protection of the underbelly and yet use a Volt like Power train. Pure Electric power train with a small diesel or CNG generator to give it a 400 to 500 mile range. This way you have a real world off road auto that also will give excellent on road MPG.

I wonder how cold the Electric All-Wheel drive system can work down to? What are the bottom and top limits for use.

This sounds like an inexpensive CUV in FWD / AWD with a Turbo 3 cylinder engine for the youth and college crowd to get around in and up the mountain. Should be fun and if they do keep it between 10K to 20K will allow GM to get youth back into Auto's with a sports activ focus.

BUILD IT AND THEY WILL SELL! Any body good enough to photoshop the wheels and Grill with the Red GMC logo's?

Welcome, Glad to have you here and Yes we would love to see your Auto. Add it to the Garage. Again, welcome, look forward to you posting.

G. David Felt Alternative Fuels & Propulsion writer www.CheersandGears.com Auto's Needing a Diet! Featured on MSN Auto but written by Motor trend I found the story of 15 cars that should go on a diet an interesting read. They do offer their own list of which auto's these 15 should be more like and they are those that lead the segment in lightest weight and why we want lighter auto's. http://www.msn.com/en-us/autos/research/15-cars-that-should-go-on-a-diet/ss-AA8urEK?ocid=UP94DHP#image=1 You can review the story above to see which auto's they compare each one too. I for one am thinking of the question, what other auto's deserve to go on a diet and should be on this list instead of the 15 listed. What are your thoughts? #15 - Bentley Continental GT Convertible - 5400lbs #14 - Lexus RC F - 4000LBS #13 - Mercedes Benz S550 - 4700lbs #12 - Dodge Challenger - 3800lbs minimum with V6, 4000lbs + with V8's and options #11 - GMC Terrain - 3900lbs with 4 cylinders, Denali edition with V6 passes 4000lbs #10 - RAM 1500 - 5100lbs #9 - Ford Taurus - 4100lbs with EcoBoost I-4 #8 - Buick Enclave - 4700lbs #7 - Bentley Mulsanne - 5900lbs #6 - Lexus LX 570 - 6000lbs #5 - Ford Edge - 3900lbs #4 - Dodge Dart - 3200lbs #3 - Hyundai Genesis Sedan - 4100lbs #2 - Chrysler 200 - 3500lbs #1 - Chevrolet Sonic - 2700lbs With the first question asked of what other Auto's this got me to thinking about a few more questions but I will start with my original question. 1) What other auto's deserve to go on a diet and be put on this Bloat List? 2) Do all Auto's need to go on a diet just because of MPG or is there a valid reason to keep an auto heavier? 3) Over the next 15 years, which top 3 materials will make up auto's? Aluminum, Carbon Fiber, Plastic, High Strength Lite steel, etc. 4) Will we come to a point where using lite materials cause more bodily harm than using steel with engineered crumple zones? 5) At what point does weight reduction not play a big role affecting Diesel, Petrol, CNG, or Electric powertrains? 6) Why do other industries not have to become more fuel efficient? 7) When does the Marine industry have to finally start building efficient powertrains like the auto industry? Example many boats consume gallons per hr for a mere nautical mile. Using the Bayliner 215 model, top speed (46.7mph) has the boat consuming 19 Gallons per Hour. At best cruising speed (22 mph) you are consuming 5.2 gallons per hour or the equal of 4.3 miles per gallon. These are just some questions that this brings up. Sound off on your thoughts about the weight of Auto's and their fuel consumption.

I think most of us would agree that we hate the Gov mandating MPG for Auto's. One place I do not agree with is subsidizing new technology. For a limited time using tax dollars to prove alternative concepts work is a good thing. But now that we know EV's can be done, time to get rid of the subsidizing and let the market play out.

Far be it for Germans to admit that the Americans build a superior V8 engine.

Fine with me

Very True, China has been buying up and trying to lock in materials at a very low cost.

No, they should be on reasonable wages. The ones in Dublin only managed to get such high wages because they have a very strong workers' union and they managed to strong arm the local leaders into giving them a lot of what they were asking for. Yet $50,000 Euro's at todays conversion equals $56,220 US Dollars a Year. That is really not that much. Bus drivers in the US here are in the news due to earning $100,000 US dollars a year or $88,936.32 Euro's. That is pretty crazy for driving a bus. Some make even more with the crazy amount of overtime. The $100k ones are usually clearing that after overtime.... that's not their base. Typical base salary in my area seems to be about $60k a year, but starting wage is $17.05 an hour after your training period ends( About $35k a year assuming no overtime) . During the training period, you only make $10 an hour. If you do a lot of overtime because your collegues call in sick... then yes you should be compensated for it. If you're dedicated, never call in sick, and take lots of overtime, I see no problem with a bus driver making $100k... they did the hours for it... pay them. Just saw the Snohomish Bus flyer for new drivers here in Snohomish county where I live. This is what they have listed as hourly pay plus paid medical, dental and vision. Training period of 9 weeks $19.77hr. Year 1 $21.75hr year 5 $27.50hr Flexible schedules and rotating holiday work. So it would seem the bus drivers at least here in washington are making a fair wage for what they do.

If we get to SDC then I expect the US will have to have a large WIFI network coast to coast to allow the auto's to communicate and manage all the merging, driving, passing, etc. to minimize accidents and problems. This will then take all driving away from people who do love to drive.

No, they should be on reasonable wages. The ones in Dublin only managed to get such high wages because they have a very strong workers' union and they managed to strong arm the local leaders into giving them a lot of what they were asking for. Yet $50,000 Euro's at todays conversion equals $56,220 US Dollars a Year. That is really not that much. Bus drivers in the US here are in the news due to earning $100,000 US dollars a year or $88,936.32 Euro's. That is pretty crazy for driving a bus. Some make even more with the crazy amount of overtime.

Like you while I like a properly tuned set of performance exhaust, I have also come to appreciate the silence and in this respect the fast response that electric motors provide.

Yeah, they're supposed to double the global lithium-ion battery production which should bring the cost of such batteries down, but if that would prove to be such a profitable venture there'd soon be a lot of competitors from China getting in as well. Batteries are more likely to be commodities rather than premium products IMO and the US can't really compete in such a market with producers from countries wil much lower workforce costs. Except where you automate the assembly system so you do not need much labor. Ten you can easily compete and China is no longer the world low cost leader of labor. They have a growing middle class that is demanding pay and benefits and like India is no longer the cheapest place to assemble cheap products.

Missed this news from Nov 5th of last year. Their SUV was pushed back to 3rd quarter release at the earliest to allow for more quality testing. http://www.cnet.com/news/tesla-delays-model-x-suv-to-spend-more-time-testing/#! This does explain why their web site has changed so much. Wonder what has forced them to push back? Clearly something did not go right in crash testing, reliability or something. That is a negative in the short term. I see in this same story CEO says they will ship 2000 fewer S models due to upgrades on the assembly line taking longer than expected during last summer. Seems plenty of excuses to explain delays and shortfalls. Interesting story just released on why the Chevy Bolt will not beat the Tesla Model 3 but it is so vague that the only point I see is the gigafactory helping everyone including tesla. http://www.bidnessetc.com/33325-heres-why-chevy-bolt-will-never-match-up-to-tesla-motors-inc-model-3/ Another story just released last week about the Model 3 and how they hope it is not pushed back multiple times like the Model X as that makes it's release some time in 2018 not 2017 like the Chevy Bolt. Here the wonder is if Tesla can stay up with the big boys once they start producing. http://mashable.com/2015/01/14/tesla-model-3-price/ The next 3 years are going to be very interesting to see what really happens with the drop in oil and natural gas, both petrol and CNG auto's have gotten cheaper to drive so it could push off the EV race.

Chevy Bolt could be the Little Engine that Could and end up hurting Tesla. My gut tells me Tesla will end up a supplier to the large auto companies and someone will buy up his portfolio to use it in new auto's where they can deliver a wide spread of product and recover the costs for a profit.