Suaviloquent

Well it is a real life photo, not a image processed and refined to look great in a press release. I am underwhelmed everywhere so far with this. Maybe fully uncovered it'll be better. I do though like the wood trim, it looks just like the base model S-Class wood trim. And I like shiny, like Jaguar's or Volvo's transmission toggles/dials. The front end - they should have kept the inlaid hood. Moving the cut-line back is a very premium design trend, and it's one that Lincoln should have kept. The problem I see with this car is that there will be demure versions of it. That's not what I expected. I expected more to compensate for some of the shortcuts taken. In any case, it's clear that it doesn't bode well for Lincoln upsetting any future Volvos. And the new Lacrosse looks to be a formidable competitor in many ways even though some say they just don't compete (some reasons which I agree with), it's the Cadillac CT6 or Genesis G90 to Lincoln's S-Class. And finally a part of me really wanted the blue interior to make it to production. It's not like other's don't have it, the CTS has a blue option...but it really looked nice. Nice as in one of the few tasteful ways of having blingy chrome. Almost Escalade bling nice if it made it to production.

If it's quality assurance better now to sort out the process before having to rely at quality at source methods or after production inspections for items that can only be secured during critical points. Sometime you just have to wait, but this is a product worth waiting for. It's the segment best.

Much want! (As I return to work)

See, this is the kind of post I was trying to elucidate. But don't Prius buyers hold on to their vehicles until the battery has completely rotted? And yeah, I agree, tech does need to go forward. But still the point remains. GM can claim the FE advantage all they want for this hybrid. But it'll be quite naive to believe that just the increase in FE is all that's worth considering - because the intention there is very much to tout the frugality. Once you go down that road, like I said, people should really be indifferent towards the efficiency ratings of the Malibu and competing hybrids. Buy what they want, don't buy the ratings.

I downgraded from auto to bicycle. I posted a pic of it before. It's a red menace, raging blood lust. Actually it's a 1994 Giant Perigee Custom build with original/stock equivalent drive-train but everything else performance upgraded. Yup, I reduced, reused, recycled and reduced. I made the ultimate beneficial choice in terms of carbon emissions, and that means outlays of funds for maintenance of this lifestyle are few and far between. You need a nice tofu smoothie and a 2016 Camaro SS or Mustang GT to calm your nerves. Have you been on Santa's lap yet this yerr? Hey meng the money I save goes to Camaro SS and Cadillac CTS-V fund..

Chevy isn't the first to do that. The Camry hybrid and Accord Hybrid (now defunct) run 0-60 in the low 7s. But I'll never understand the hyprocrisy of quoting a hybrid for brisk acceleration that only degrades it's true metric of performance of intended function - efficiency. a hybrid with good performance, though, helps justify the higher sticker. If you price the hybrid like they are and its as slow as the base car or even slower, then for sure its gonna sit on lots. Well I would not say it justifies the price but it does make it more attractive to more customers. For too long a lot of Hybrids were not always the fastest or offers performance equal to other cars. Today they can offer more performance and not handicap the gains made in efficiency. As for cars like the Ferrari and Porsche Hybrids they are using these systems to not only make the cars more efficient but to boost performance to levels not able to be achieved easily before. As I saw one story on these cars it stated clearly that these systems will save the super car as with out it they would die in the future. ​Ferrari did not make a La Ferrari just to be fashionable but they did it to help meet future regs that would have killed these kinds of cars. In the future you will see on all V8 and larger and most V6 cars some hybrid system. Odds are good even most 4 cylinders too. You can only cut so much size, weight and cylinders so you have to get the added range some how. The first of all these systems will not be cheap but as in the Malibu the prices will start to fall. In places like Europe Green is a major thing. Not only are they a force in Politics with their own party but even as consumers. I can remember Michelin gave us their prototype of the Green tire back in the late 80's. It was intended at first for Europe and to get more MPG and be environmentally friendly. It was first targeted at Germany. Now even in America there is a larger consumer base that buy to be green even at an added cost to themselves. Most are based near salt water on a coast like the west coast and the north east. Actually the proof is outside of GM. The competitors cost less and provide mostly the same efficiency. And driven carefully, you can squeeze the mpgs higher than the ratings suggest in any hybrid. Great, so fast cars all easily sellable. Someone remind me why the take rates on V6 and the large turbo engines in midsize sedans are not higher than the base or lower engine options. Go back to acquisition cost and operational cost. Again, it's hard for me to understand why people think this car is special when it does nothing groundbreaking in this class. Sure it's got a meager advantage in efficiency that beguils its price disadvantage.

Well, the only opposition to my argument never actually specifically talked about the facts relevant to this thread. Anyways. Aside from willful ignorance of the primary reasons why hybrids are purchased... Malibu will garner praise from the media like any decent hybrid out there.

If you believe that can I interest you in a Bridge in NYC? They say it is popular and I can give you a real good deal. ​Blu we are just one major middle east conflict away from prices spiking over night. The Saud get bombed and their oil gets cut off or invaded by Iran the price on globally traded oil commodities would go crazy. ​I hope you are joking on the BU. I know you are smarter than that. Actually, I think that was a joke intended to be salient towards your standpoint.

I downgraded from auto to bicycle. I posted a pic of it before. It's a red menace, raging blood lust. Actually it's a 1994 Giant Perigee Custom build with original/stock equivalent drive-train but everything else performance upgraded. Yup, I reduced, reused, recycled and reduced. I made the ultimate beneficial choice in terms of carbon emissions, and that means outlays of funds for maintenance of this lifestyle are few and far between.

How is the C.O.E going? I read the whole thread. Neat stuff. Once it's running, is it going to see work like payload or anything?

All these systems are stepping stones as each generation makes gains. These are technologies that have had to be put in play to make it so companies outside GM would invest to make better systems and more advances. Kind of like LG and batteries. If GM did not make the Volt there was a snowballs chance anyone would have invested in the battery for a car that was not going to market. This is kind of like the space program where the goal was to make it to the moon but the real mission was to simulate the companies into making and building technology for it that could be transferred to other things. This is a slow grow and low profit deal now but as time and technology grows it will make thing better, cheaper and profitable. Most new technologies are like that. Even the first home computers really did not make money and did not really work all that great. Yet still you're avoiding my main point. So you mean people should be willfully blind and buy a vehicle even though it doesn't actually save money over competitors when that's the main purpose - to keep operational costs to an absolute minimum? I'm a ruthless consumer and I expect the very best. There would be no problems with the value equation if this Malibu was priced the same as a Fusion or Camry hybrid. Same as the Accord Hybrid and its dubious value. And how will the future of this vehicle get to the moon? The best markets for hybrids in the U.S. have already set 2050 as the year to ban any vehicle with an ICE. I understand this decision was made long after the development of this vehicle was done. But it's just another problem for hybrids - like gas cars, their days are also numbered. If this there was an electric Malibu, that'd be a real breakthrough - a clean sedan, not some plump toaster that is the industry standard for the affordable electric car.

Convincing people not to eat meat is the same as for them to give up their cars. Ain't gonna happen unless the economic incentives are savage. I myself use alternative transportation, so I guess I'm carbon neutral, even my implement is 20 years old...???

The front end just kind struck me as a carbon-copy. But yeah, family hauler, 5 seats and a slab-sided exterior. Good grief it'll be ugly as sin if it's basically a miniature Nissan Quest with Ford Edge front grille...

This entire time, I have never said this car will not sell. I have never said it wasn't good. Well, I'll be old hat and watch hybrid sales eat at each other rather than outpacing the growth of vehicles that aren't nearly as efficient. And I'm certainly not going to gorge upon every opportunity to praise GM or any brand in particular. The point still stands. If you want to save money, getting the latest and greatest doesn't always work. You can get other hybrids which are just as competent family haulers for less even though they are slightly less efficient. But with the marginal increases in FE and fuel savings not being as big with higher mpgs, you'll have to sit on this car for too long. But I'm narrow-minded because I certainly have never praised this vehicle or that it's a great car, but you're not missing by going elsewhere. Heck, you gain in savings. If hybrids are not about saving money, then that just defeats the purpose.

Is it VW's electric version of this?

So it's ridiculous to talk about a car's supposed value proposition when this thread is about it's price in the competitive marketplace? And surely if I recall correctly that I didn't go too much into some tangents about CAFE strategy and other automakers that simply don't compete with models against this car. I kept it about the vehicle itself and its merits. No one has yet to give me a good reason why anyone should buy this vehicle knowing the advantages of minutely better efficiency at a significantly larger upfront cost. I even provided one avenue of success - to sell this car to potential Volt buyers that would never charge the car. All I see is Chevy slicing the pie into smaller chunks rather than enlarging it.

Yeah, and some recent new crossovers are pretty aerodynamic as well. Cost might be a reason, but then there's a RAV4 hybrid, which makes perfect sense, and Ford did the bewildering thing of relinquishing the segment that it utterly owned with a wrought, I mean err.. cast aluminum fist. Fusion hybrid is decent in sales and so the Camry. And this product will surely sell. I'm not confusing sales for the merits of the vehicle folks. But it's merits are again a wash. You pay more up front, but that only means it has to fit your expected service life to make sense. Otherwise over the efficiency ratings people should actually be indifferent and just buy the vehicle for other features they are more salient to, and potentially offering better incentives like manufacturer rebates for being an older in-stock unit. I'll give Fusion a clean win in style, with the Accord props for livability with excellent visibility.

And that's what matters. They never had a chance of success here when they debuted the first Genesis, and yet here they are with a plan for 6 models in total, and they're going to continue to build these in spite of criticism. Genesis will build luxury quietly without trying to raise a fuss about what anyone else thinks of them. That's the way to push forward.

Chevy isn't the first to do that. The Camry hybrid and Accord Hybrid (now defunct) run 0-60 in the low 7s. But I'll never understand the hyprocrisy of quoting a hybrid for brisk acceleration that only degrades it's true metric of performance of intended function - efficiency.

Why it is in the most popular highest volume segment getting MPG greater than just about anything else and it is not priced over $30K when the average price of a car let alone hybrid is over $35K. ​Well the sun may be shinning on the low gas prices now but that could change in the matter of day if not hours once OPEC stops flooding the market to drive the new oil out and bring back their oil at their prices. ​The regulation are there and even the Republicans now say they will not back them off into the future. So do you really think GM can average 53 MPG with out the use of just small cars alone? If you want anything of greater size and not limited in price or of higher cost you will need to find different ways to gain MPG. As for better I would expect it to be better than any of the older models. The weight savings alone of 300 pounds is amazing in this segment as no one else has done it to this point. Weight savings is tought to do and not add to the price or compromise strength, stiffness and safety. It adds more performance, better handling and better stopping. Cutting mass does more than adding any kind of HP Lotus taught us that years ago but they never got the reliability part down. The whole point here is to offer a car that get good MPG, Safe, looks good, has good utility features and room for 5 comfortably All at a price that most families can afford at least the ones not buying CUV models now. This is not a sport sedan nor is it intended to compete with any other upscale brand. It has a main job to target Toyota, Honda and Ford. It has the tools to do that. It may not be the class leader in sales but if marketed and priced right it should be in the top three. With the better transaction prices GM should make good money here and sell a lot of cars. Also cutting of the fleet sales has helped resale values on many models and this one is already targeted to continue to avoid large fleet sales. The old car will carry that on for a while longer and eat the resale hit. If you want to not like this car that is fine. But to dis this car with false statements is just a difficult way to present opposition. You know you are not speaking to an average group of auto observers here and most of us know better. So if you want to play that card save it for the novice. The funniest thing is, that you believe I don't like this car. You can go check in the recent C/D test thread, where I did do say I like the new Malibu. I like it. But it's not spectacular. It's no Mazda 6. It's toe-to-toe with Accord and fresher and maybe a nibble better than a Fusion. All I'm saying is that there's a large price premium over other hybrids, and you could probably haggle of even more on those too. That's pretty significant. You're paying more for less value unless you have a very long ownership in mind. If it's weight savings really panned out the light Malibu, would crush the Accord V6 in 0-60 and Chevy's 2.0T with 8 Speeds wouldn't suck gas just like any other turbo engine hounded by the press. Again, do the math. Someone find out how long it would actually take for the price premium to be paid off. Are you really telling me people buy hybrids because of intagibles like marketing? Fair point, Toyota has cornered the most, but for those who discriminate, wouldn't they do the math? And I'm going by MT's logic. Whenever they did a diesel vs gas engine car comparo they quote the recent monthly average or so of national prices. But they aren't novices. You can call me what you like, because I don't bite. Anyways It's a good car, but in a sea of goodness, it's hard to look exceptional.

I just can't understand why people think this car is so special. It's not. It's just another competitive midsize sedan hybrid. And most other midsize sedan hybrids are cheaper to start out. If a person is truly looking at a vehicle for the sake of it being miserly, they'll do the math to figure out at how many miles it'll take for this vehicle's premium over others on it's gas savings to get paid off. At these gas prices and OPEC being how they are, you can expect atleast a good portion of a lease being gifted with low gas prices in the short-term. And to suggest that this vehicle is somehow tremendously better built than a Fusion or Accord Hybrid, that's just insane. At most it's equal or slightly better than the older Ford. But not by some margin that somehow makes this vehicle a luxury car in comparison. And in base trims - C/D was pretty straightforward. This isn't a Buick, it's a Chevy. You get what you pay for.

Tesla Zealots. Well how about this one... I've already mentioned plenty of times how I don't like electric vehicles or hybrids. So much for that one. Haterz of this car? Nah, I just mentioned how all hybrids and EVs sales are going down the drain. But if you want to invite Tesla then by all means.

To be honest, I forgot the complications of the setup, but yeah, circles. And the circle is now complete. Circles, circles, everywhere.

You'll have to guess which 'nincompoop' it was. But I'll divulge just this much. I don't think highly enough of this thread or its topic to think it even deserved the mercy of a change in title.

In a way it the new Lacrosse does look like it could be the next generation Lucerne rather than the next generation Lacrosse... And let us not forget that the 2nd gen Lacrosse replaced both the Lucerne and the W-Body Lacrosse/Century/Regal... Wow...Buick has come a loooong way since 2008/2009....full circle... The circle is now complete ( OK OK...Ill spare you folk with the needless Star Wars plugs) I me some re-imagined Buick Lucerne. Holy $h!. I have a sudden craving to get the new Lacrosse, and just change the badge on the back to Lucerne because the feels. Again, I think I've mentioned it before...I really like Buick and just the stealth wealth that it used to be. I like stealth. Lacrosse GNX FTW!!!