network engineer

Diesel? Lol that was a good one. Diesel is more efficient but it is more expensive, as much as $.70 in my market. As more diesel vehicles get onto American roads, the cost of Diesel will go up even more, eventually getting to a point where it's more expensive to operate than gasoline vehicles. Our oil industry can produce gasoline or diesel from the raw oil. Right now our economy is geared towards gasoline. Ramping up diesel production will reduce gasoline out put and, I can tell you that's not going to happen. So if we can't ramp up diesel production how do we make sure we supply enough diesel? Simple, you raise the price of diesel, so that less people wan to drive a diesel car. GM will have a tough time selling a diesel powered vehicle if the cost of fuel is $5/ gallon. Diesel is not the future, electric vehicles are. There is a quote I like : "The best way to predict the future is to invent it." -Alan Kay And you don't invent the next great thing by listening to your customers or low level employees because : "If I had asked my customers what they wanted, they would have said, a faster horse!" - Henry Ford Improving existing hybrid technology is like building a faster horse. Sure it'll be good for a couple of years, but it'll be a bad long term strategy. GM is predicting that electric vehicles are the future and with the Volt they are inventing it. This vehicle will fundamentally change the auto industry as we know it.

Anyone else find it odd that the Volt was missing from the Chicago Auto Show? They had an entire section in the Chevy display promoting green vehicles, but leave out their trump card?! They also left the hy-wire at home, which I still think is the ultimate future of cars.

How about GM just hires Toyota to build their cars and trucks? Then they could close all of their factories and reduce their operating expenses.

It's amusing that non union auto workers like Toyota's receive better pay and benefits than UAW workers? They also aren't causing more manufacturing to be taken out of the country like the UAW does.

This would support the rumor that GM would like to make Corvette, it's own brand. Rather than eliminate the current Vette, let it evolve into the C7 and simply bring out another Corvette with a different model name. You appeal to both traditional buyers and supercar buyers.

I know! I was thinking the same thing.

Just over 150 mph in an 04 Corvette. It was quite scary. You see a car a 1/4 mile down the road and have to change lanes then, so you don't hit it. My girlfriend at the time(now my wife) was quite terrified and speechless.

110 KW is only 147 horsepower. So it's as quick as a cobalt? Was "powerful performance" relative to other vehicles in its class?

I don't come here for political commentary in the news section. If you're concerned about 4% imagine if Al Gore had won.

A metal alloy that can change shape and color and that is smart?

Wow. IF we take a closer look at the results we see that Isuzu, GMC and Saturn had great months, but almost every other brand was down significantly. What does it mean to GM that most of the other brands wre down so much? Buick was hammered in the recent month and that's really no suprise, as the cars that are currently being offered are simply adequate, but not class leading. I am glad I am not in the marketing department right now.

Easy Key keyless-go. Nice. I've wanted this for a long time.

The thread seems to indicate we'll see the G6 replaced with an epsilon II car and after it has been out a bit we will see a line of rear wheel drive cars similar to the BMW 3 series on a platform called Alpha. What one could gather from the thread is that it will have multiple body styles, of course including a couple, convertable, 4 door sedan, wagon and probably crossover. 4 vehicles that all have great RWD performance, sounds great to me. If you don't know how to drive in the snow in a RWD (Go back to Drivers ED!) then chevy will have a very nice Malibu to offer you!

the small bore gas engine that runs the generator to recharge the batteries.

EV2. Gm will have an electric vehicle there that gets 80 MPG. Surely though the Enclave will be there.

I've done some research and have concluded that you are correct, in that, Ford Motor Company does have significant liquid assets. They have a cash horde of aobut $38 million dollars, when all assets from FOMOCO and Ford Motor Credit are pooled. This is a significant amount of operating cash, which Ford will need, considering they failed to make a profit in the first half of this year and do not expect to operate profitably until 2009. Ford has also decided not to pay dividends to stock holders and instead use the cash to reinvest in Product Development. What concerns me more is near double digit decline in sales in the first half of the year and a stock price currently trading at just over $5/ share which is a decline of about 16% from June of 2006. And while Ford, certainly made plentty of cash in the late 90's with their early adoption of SUV's, Light rucks and now Crossovers, their passenger cars have not improved with the pace of the industry. Despite declaring 2004 "The Year of the Car", the company brought out a much larger portfolio of Trucks. Nothing makes a Chevy Fan into a Ford lover faster than Toyota running up the sales charts, but it's harder to love someone that purposefully does things like run the fusion platfor across all 3 brands.

The article is faulty at any rate. Chrysler is German auto company. The only American auto company bumped out of the top 3 was Ford, and Ford will probably run itself out of business within the next 5 years.

What is Drows and Bunkie? :AH-HA_wink:

Oops my bad. I meant to slap a 9 on the end. 2009 SS (RWD of course). I would think that would be GM's number one priority with this platform is to replace the impala. 09 is realistic, but 08 would be outrageous, but not impossible.

I think we can assume that development was never "really" stopped to get the GMT900's out the door. I think we'll be seeing a 2007 Chevy Impalla SS.

Totally hear you! I plan to write letters to my states democratic representatives to ask them to reverse their policy against nuclear power. Also, It would totally kick ass to hop in the car every morning to find the tank full! How awesome would that be!

Is this on the skateboard platform or have they jammed the fuel cell into the engine bay of a current equinox?

From DARPA's web site The 2005 vehicles were a huge leap and bound over the 2004 vehicles.

I agree. That would kick ass. GM used to do this on a lot of cars. They called them 2 door hardtops. (aka the b pillar was gone) If it still has a B pillar (as most coupes do today) then it is called a 2 door post. Here is a 2 door hardtop Here is a 2 door post The hardtop is a much better looking car, which is why today, nobody wants a post. The hardtop is the car that's really sought after.

I'd like to see it in Piano Black or all Aluminum.