JT64

http://www.motortrend.com/roadtests/hybrid..._midsize_sedans Those American hating editors at Motortrend bashed the Aura. They even dared to publish the Aura Hybrid's 0-60 mph time of 10.5 seconds. "the Aura hybrid is also a stop-gap measure, a place-holder until its next-generation model receives a version of GM's highly anticipated two-mode hybrid. Think of it as a lure to tantalize bargain-hunters. And as with all bargains, the question is whether it's false." "the Aura Green Line is a low-profile hybrid that drives almost identically to its conventional-propulsion self. In other words, it's supple riding and crisp steering, drastically vacuumed of chassis feel, hindered by an antiquated four-speed automatic, and subjectively built to an intentionally lower price-point than the other two cars."

Saw the 2008 Malibu. Nice white/gray interior. Omissions: 1. No overhead grab handles for any seat. 2. Rear seat cupholders made to spill every drink. 3. NO REAR SEAT CENTER ARMREST (Are you kidding me?) 4. No manual driver's seat height adjustment.

strange that the same source pegs the regular 2.5L Altima at 8.3L/100km. http://www6.autonet.ca/Spotlight/TestDrive...177200-sun.html A hybrid burned more gas than a competing non-hybrid... 2007 Saturn Aura Green Line Competition: Toyota Camry Hybrid, Nissan Altima Hybrid Strengths: Value, looks, a solid car all around, the easy hybrid to get into Weaknesses: Disappointing economy, ho-hum acceleration

1 - nightstalker 2 - aurora 3 - cold blood 4 - mystic 5 - black 6 - oblivion 7 - swamp gray

As you can see from its images, the Prius is very round and smooth. That is a possibility.

On a separate note, the Toyota Prius is the vehicle with the absolute lowest CO2 emissions for sale in the UK, lower than any gas or diesel microcar available. http://www.vcacarfueldata.org.uk/informati...bles.asp#petrol

I'm referred to truck and SUVs, for people who need those vehicles.For instance, GM began by offering its hybrid Silverados for sale to commercial fleets only. That is one possibility to keep them out of the hands of show-offers. Even if show-offers buy them, at least it's not a gas-only truck/SUV. Which is still a gain. How will you convince show-offers to stop buying a truck of any kind? There is a large gain in dropping a full hybrid into a truck; 40% for city, as GM stated. ________________________________________________ With massive investment by the industry to go hybrid, this technology is well researched. What will you do to stop GM, Chrysler, Ford, BMW, Mercedes, Toyota, Honda, and the licensee Nissan? These articles say a battery replacement is $3,000-$8,000, but the failure rate is near 0%. http://hybridcars.about.com/od/hybridcarfa...batterycost.htm http://www.hybridcars.com/technology-stori...ment-costs.html http://www.greenhybrid.com/discuss/archive...php/t-5847.html Please provide more links you find. The articles attribute "failures of batteries" to 2 things: 1. Actual battery failure due to Honda's manual transmission use - hybrids require computer control. 2. Corroded terminal - which shouldn't cost much to fix, but people who handled it were dumb or greedy. The high cost and resistance by mechanics to repair seems to be from lack of training. The customers, after much stressful arguments, have been sucessful to reduce to cost to <$1,500. The technology is sound, but people still try to weasel money out of customers. That has nothing to do with the hybrid technology itself. Perhaps some new, to-be-drafted fraud laws could cover these things. Perhaps laws can force hybrid makers to increase warranty on the battery to 200,000 miles (currently 100,000 miles / 150,000 miles California)... :AH-HA_wink: Toyota expects the batteries to last 15 years... it'd be nice if they warrant that. 15 years/200,000 miles... That would be nice to see. Write your congressmen! GM just signed 2 contracts for advanced development of lithium batteries. Do you think the scientific community and GM is that stupid? To compare, it'd be interesting to look up the average life span of gas vehicles. Engine failures, transaxle failures... there's plenty of costly repairs on regular vehicles already, limiting their lifespan. This undated article says the average non-hybrid lasts a mere 145,000 miles, 13 years, assuming without any major part replacement. http://www.safecarguide.com/gui/new/neworused.htm This is possibly what the California law is based off of. Calculating US non-hybrid 13 years, 12,000 miles = 156,000 miles lifespan. UK data is 13.95 years, 8000 miles = 112,686 miles lifespan. http://www.cfit.gov.uk/docs/2001/scot0122/scot0122/02.htm Overall, as Toyota predicts, if the battery fails, it's time to junk the car. And that's no earlier than non-hybrids. ____________________________________________________________ Note that the diesels to come to America are new, experimental techologies on demo cars. Not the diesels of old. The Prius and Insight were demo cars for hybrids. Now come Mercedes' and Honda's diesel demos. The new diesel technologies haven't been tested for long, and will take a while before they demonstrate their durability and become widespread. Not even one model year of the new diesels have been tested by the public yet. What is their failure rate, and what does it cost to repair those newly designed drivetrains? The hybrid demo, the Toyota Prius, went on sale in 1997. It's been in public test for 10 years to demonstrate the technology.

Edmunds does their share to help explain hybrids. http://www.edmunds.com/insideline/do/Featu...rticleId=120205 Hybrid diesel: Ok for Europe only. Europeans are used to paying $10,000 more for their cars than Americans. That includes the extra price of a diesel. So they merely pay the "hybrid" premium to get a "diesel hybrid". America can't get that, since Americans would have to pay a premium to go from "gas" to "diesel", and another premium to go from "diesel" to "diesel hybrid". Americans are not used to paying an extra $7,000. So the USA is stuck with gas/E85 hybrids. The GM buses are hybrid diesels. The premium is acceptable if you're a big metropolitan city. CPO subcompact: People need big SUVs and trucks. Hybrid SUVs and hybrid trucks. Even if people want a car, there's plenty of people rich enough to get at least a midsized hybrid sedan. As we can see with the Prius rebates, mass production is dropping the hybrid premium, and with the decades of research costs paid off. CPO subcompacts reserved for the poor. You'd want more room if you have money. Which makes hybrids a go for all vehicles. With Toyota, Honda, GM, Chrysler, BMW as the main producers, it's hybrid vehicles for the next 10 years. Honda is trying small city car Civics as hybrids (city mpg), and large highway cruiser Accords as diesels (highway mpg), since they both have equivalently large premiums.

You could limit your argument to "Saatchi & Saatchi Japan guys are idiots." Which would be accurate. The article noted Saatchi & Saatchi Japan didn't do proper market research, and use numbers relevant to the target market. But the &#036;h&#33; about hybrids will hit the fan when pigs fly. Perhaps you can engineer us a flying pig? Now we come to hybrids. Hybrids are all that. Hybrids use less gas than gas engines. Hybrids emit less CO2 than gas engines, Hybrids emit less CO2 than diesel engines. But not better by 1 tonne compared to select vehicles. (This was the advertisement's numerically false claim.) On buses, hybrids save up to 55% of gas, and reduce emissions by up to 90%. http://www.gm.com/company/gmability/adv_te...hybrid_bus.html Hybrid buses "produce up to 60 percent fewer oxides of nitrogen emissions and 90 percent fewer particulate, hydrocarbon and carbon monoxide emissions. " http://www.gm.com/company/gmability/enviro...rid_032906.html On a 4000 lb SUV, hybrids save up to 45% of gas. http://www.gm.com/company/gmability/adv_te...008-113006.html On a 5500 lb SUV, hybrids save 25% of gas. http://www.gm.com/company/gmability/adv_te...ahoe_10906.html http://www.gm.com/company/gmability/adv_te...s_fullsize.html GM continues to claim, "Because the architecture can be scaled to fit multiple vehicles and adapted to gasoline or diesel engines, the two-mode full hybrid can be applied globally. In Europe , for example, where diesel engines are common in passenger vehicles, it can provide a significant reduction in fuel consumption, which would help automakers meet the region's ever-stringent carbon dioxide emissions standard." Hybrids give everything better mileage and reduce emissions, whether a gas or a diesel engine. "Batteries and electric motor reduce the use of the internal combustion engine. Therefore, the vehicle does not need as much fuel, creating better gas mileage and saving money at the pump." For the future, GM comments, "It will take approximately a decade until safe, affordable hydrogen fuel cells are widely available. In the meantime, GM will offer a range of hybrid cars and trucks and continue to improve the internal combustion engine." http://www.gm.com/company/gmability/enviro...ry_message.html So for at least 10 years, hybrids are the best solution. GM will push hybrids, as potential customers, such as you, come to understand hybrids. "If customers embrace hybrids as an environmentally sound alternative - and we believe they will - GM could sell more than a million hybrid cars and trucks over the next several years." During the hybrid's life, hybrids "allows the internal combustion engine to use less fuel, producing fewer emissions." GM continues to explain how, even at the end-of-life of hybrids, hybrids are environmentally friendly: "[Batteries] can be fully recycled. In fact, the batteries on all GM hybrids will have a sticker on them directing you to the web site, www.recyclemybattery.com, which will tell professional dismantlers how to recycle the hybrid battery." http://www.gm.com/company/gmability/edu_k-...on/hybrids.html So before you dismiss hybrids, try dismissing Saatchi & Saatchi Japan, and see if that solves the problem. Or you can give us the flying pig. Which would be cool too.

http://www.trollhattansaab.net/archives/20...wheel_driv.html I love this car. For me, it just completely blows away the 2008 CTS. I liked the pre-refresh 9-3 already, but with the exterior fixup, it's just rocking. Interior is suppose to remain the same, which was great anyways! I love the aircraft styled interior. Makes you feel like you're flying a JA 37 Viggen. Ok, there's no resemblance, but it's a feel! I'm addicted to buttons!

This hybrid just sucks. Autoblog tests 25 mpg in city stop and go traffic - the setting hybrids are suppose to do best at. http://www.autoblog.com/2007/06/08/in-the-...ura-green-line/ That's the mpg of a hybridless I4. On paper, ok. In action, somebody screwed up in the engineering department.

I like the Sebring, TOP TRIM, inside and out... except maybe a little nitpick for the the butt. The butt looks a bit too rounded, but it's ok. The problem is that Chrysler strips all the interior trim pieces if you don't buy the top model. So then it looks like unfinished junk. Stolen, stripped vehicle recovered by the police. I check out the Nitro. It made me run and never come back.

reg stop the internet rumors... what made you decide to start that one? http://carspyshots.net/zerothread?id=21005&page=9 http://www.canadiandriver.com/articles/pw/07tundra.htm The Tundra has 3 timing chains. Apparently this is how you get a full-sized truck from 0-60 in 6.0 seconds.

Here's GM's event where the Silverado wins all tests, graded on the criteria set by GM, on the courses designed by GM... http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/artic...ION03/706070350 http://info.detnews.com/pix/photogalleries...rucks/index.htm

This helps people understand why hybrids of all vehicles, including large trucks are great. As this story says, 13,000 hybrid buses = 500,000 Priuses. http://autos.msn.com/advice/article.aspx?contentid=4022529 But it doesn't take away the fact that hybrid small cars are great too. The Camry: 24 mpg--> 34 mpg --> 184 gallons saved over 15,000 miles. 10 mpg difference. The Prius: 30 mpg --> 48 mpg --> 184 gallons saved over 15,000 miles. 18 mpg difference. The Prius's savings is equivalent to, if the non-hybrid Prius were a 30 mpg compact car. (Something between the size of a Honda Fit (29 mpg) and a Toyota Yaris (32 mpg)).