SAmadei

"Proof of Concept" sold comparably with internal combustion for over decade. Thats success, not a proof of concept. I'm not suggesting the technology needs to follow Moore's law... because I already know it can't come close... but you are implicitly suggesting with this inaccurate "version 1.0" label that "version 2.0" will be like a hardware or software upgrade. Its not. Windows 2.0 was considerably better than Windows 1.0. IPad 2 trounces IPad 1. Unless Volt 2.0 comes out with a Mr. Fusion, it will be lucky if it is 20% better (drivetrain only, not interior fabrics and cupholders) than Volt 1.0. Its about managing expectations. Volt 1.0 is great so far. Its much more car than most people ever need, as demonstrated by the Tata Nano. I disagree because there are batteries everywhere, and the same technology can be scaled up or down to run the smallest cell phone or a freight train. The benefits of power to weight, cell life, reliability, energy loss, cost affect all battery applications. Just because the battery is hooked up to a Prius, you can't ignore the 150 years of research it took to get to this point. This research has been slow in coming because the laws of physics simply will only allow a certain amount of energy to be held in a particular structure. And continued battery development is likely to continue to be slow... as Li Ion batteries have energy densities just shy of munitions now. This is in contrast to the internal combustion engine, which appears to have gotten so much R&D now because it was in the public's eye and because it simply started off as such as weak and wasteful invention in the first place. Many of GM's internal combustion engines saw little or no improvements for years, except when they needed to figure out how to make them cheaper. The same goes for electric motors as goes for batteries. They have been as close to 100% efficiency as they are going to get. Go read some of the pages on DIY electric cars. The only thing keeping these people from making passable electric cars in their garages is the cost of the Li Ion battery packs. Cripes, even Jesse James and Orange County Choppers have both built EVs. Also, I'm not suggesting that EVs need more battery tech to go faster... but they do need it to do it cheaper, with fewer dead cells, without overheating, and while extending range to the point where the boat-anchor of an engine can be dropped completely. I'm not debating this further in this thread. Lets get back to discussing the disappointing XTS.

Camino? Ocnblu? Anyone else? For starters, I don't remember anyone saying GM was going to die without Pontiac. Buick-GMC on the other hand, is a different story. In addition, it was never even stated that GMC-Buick would die in 2011... it was stated that without Pontiac, Buick and GMC either have to water down their product to bring in thrifty young buyers or buyers looking for an inexpensive sporty car or would suffer a long slide as the average B-GMC buyer spirals into the grave. The bottom line is that as of right now, GMC-Buick dealers have about as much new product as can be expected, and yet have huge holes in their product lineup. IIRC, with the exception of the Granite, Buick and GMC have long waits now before anything comes out, and its all going to be more of the same... SUVs and sedans. The clock is ticking before the GMC-Buick dealers demand a Buick Spark. Buick and GMC are on an uptick... but so is the entire market. Buick is still a shell of its former glory, sales-wise, and 90% of GMC is what Chevy is selling cheaper down the block... and faces CAFE image problems. Unless Buick manages to start pulling in very young, new blood, the feeling was that Buick-GMC will join Pontiac in the junkyard in the sky by the end of the decade... and the same people will cheer as GM can SAVE MORE money by only making one car and one truck brand... and everyone can buy them in any color, as long as their black. Honestly, without Pontiac, if Buick can't maintain the current sales momentum even with 3-4 year old models, I still see little reason for them to stick around as a distribution channel. The Chevy-Cadillac model will reign supreme. Hyperbole. You only have to go back to 1999 to find a more profitable GM with Pontiac. Actually, it seems to me that since the IPO, GM's health is already faltering again... without Pontiac dragging it down. No, instead, GM is healthier without Saturn, SAAB (as GM ran it), Hummer and the legacy costs they flushed away in the BK. If Pontiac was maintained as a niche brand, they would be selling MORE cars today... because GM could have kept the unique models Pontiac offered, such as the affordable G6 coupe/convertible, Solstice and the G8 and variants. Anyone looking for these kinds of cars simply DO NOT SHOP at GM 2011, because GM offers nothing comparable. Any GM fan celebrating Pontiac's demise has been drinking too much Toyota brand Kool-Aid. For the record, its my opinion (and several well paid financial writers) that if GM fails, it will be because of a perfect storm... the union will continue its greed ways, CAFE will kill off all the larger vehicles and China will eventually finish off GM at the low end.

I've done the one handed Crtl-Alt-Del for years, using the right sided Ctrl-Alt... but I'll admit, I've got big hands. IMHO, its easier to do the right-side Ctrl-Alt-Del with the left hand, as the thumb hits the Alt, the Index finger hits the Ctrl and your pinkie can easily hit any Del. Granted, this gives you an Alt-Ctrl-Del as your drop your fingers, but that works the same. Problem is that it sounds like they need to use this to fix a locked up interface, and few hot keys or other input methods are going to interrupt the process as well as a good old fashioned C-A-D. In theory, Ctrl-Esc should regain control, but in practice, its not. Perhaps he might want to get a one handed keyboard or a chording keyboard/mouse, such as the Twiddler... handykey.com. Frogpad.com looks interesting, as well... Of course, I would also say that he could always gets someone to rip apart a cheap USB keyboard and build a scratch-made "Red Button" that does a 1 press C-A-D.

Again, I have to ask... did they send that to you out of the blue, or did you have to send them proof? If they did it automagically, I can only assume that in Mass., they can data mine you because the DMV is getting that info at registration renewal time or inspection. In NJ, IIRC, the DMV is not asking for our mileage except at inspection time... no inspection, no data to mine. Even though in theory the data is there to mine for my cars in NJ, I still get advertising for extended warrantee insurance... even though I'm well beyond where they are willing to cover... so even if the data is there, I have to assume NJ isn't coughing it up. I've noticed that Carfax reports are less thorough for mileage in Jersey, too. Just my observations, YMMV.

They are ALWAYS having some sort of tool sale. One near me does quite a few sidewalk sales during the summertime. Unfortunately, they are generally not the greatest tools... or the greatest savings on their tools.

I always loved these checkerboard rims.

Quickly forgotten about? Electrics were a serious player for 20 years! In 1899 an electric car held the land speed record at 65mph. It wasn't until the 1920s that combustion engines finally took the lead for good. And unlike our Apollo program, the technology was not quickly forgotten. It continued to be developed and migrated into industrial use... trolleys, trains, bulldozers, buses, etc. They were not sold, they were leased. In any case, they used modern lead acid batteries, modern motors and regenerative braking. Clearly a version 2.0. Never caught on? Well, they certainly were not for everyone... but GM really didn't want to sell them in the first place. Once CARB backed down from its ZEV requirements, GM had no interest in leasing these. GEM has had no problem selling 40K of their LSVs... and they are handicapped with a 35 mph speed limiter by law. Format? You're comparison of electric vehicles to storage media formats is apples to oranges. Assuming you could get a hold of a running EV-1, you can put a 1906 Baker Electric, 1997 EV-1 and a 2011 Volt on the road and drive them side by side on the same piece of tarmac, with the same type people and the same electric... they all have a storage technology connected to some sort of motor via a control system. Keep in mind, I am all for what the Volt is and can be, even though its current form (4 door sedan) is not my cup of tea. However, its based on technology that is NOT going to follow Moore's Law... and talking "version 1.0" is setting it up for unrealistic future expectations. The public is VERY fickle. One bad batch of batteries could leave any/all of the new electrics as a modern day GM diesel. And all these dreamy infrastructure upgrades are vapor until it happens. Just like those nonexistent Ethanol stations in the Northeast.

And who is paying for this infrastructure? Many of the shopping centers I see are struggling to stay in business.

Version 3.0 vehicles, more like it. To call these version 1.0 sell the 1900's electrics and EV-1 short. They were viable vehicles at the time. Also calling these version 1.0 implies version 2.0 will be twice as good. I want to know where people think the next huge improvements in electric/hybrid vehicles is going to come from. Its not like battery and motor tech has been stagnant for the past 100 years... they are both mature technologies... and barring a major scientific breakthrough, they are limited by the rules of physics. It won't surprise me if a decade from now, our electric cars and hybrids are barely 10% better than they are today, because battery and motor tech is not coming along at the speed of computers and cell phones, like some people here are expecting. I feel that the biggest breakthroughs will come in slight weight savings... but increasing crash protection will eat that right up. Cost will also go down, but you can't double the battery pack to increase the power without affecting the weight... so cost savings will likely only help the bottom line of electric/hybrid cars.

Did Chrysler send that to you automagically? Or do you have to ask them for it? Very cool form of customer appreciation. I'll leave any snide remarks about Chrysler being shocked their cars would go 200K out of this. What makes them special? Is it just a torx bolt? That's all I've seen. Do a search for security bolts or tamper-resistant bolts. For a Chrysler, you need something like this... Click Here

And now we have a perfect storm of no large cars and truck extinction in the sites of the CAFE people... so you know where to put your money next... Trailers! Sure, that Corolla has no tow rating... but that don't stop Billy Bob from attaching one with duct tape and zip ties.

Yeah, but there is a iPod hook-up, DVD player and two Double Gulp holders for each 400 lb person, so why would you need sports gear? ;-)

I'd like to see the split from Chevy the last few years. Nobody can expect a 100% retention rate, even during Pontiac's '70s heydays. Honestly, with GM's problems the last decade, I imagine any brand would be thrilled to keep 60% retention. It would be interesting to get some info about the people that bolted or stayed GM. I would imagine GM retained more older buyers... but younger drivers bolted. Of course, any numbers I take with a grain of salt... considering that Pontiac sold roughly between 250-500K cars a year in the last decade, to only have 57K respondents is between 1-20% of a year's sales. I imagine diehards still smarting from the loss would have hung up the phone on Polk.

Well, in San Fran, building standards between 1906 and 1950 were virtually non-existent. Many of these buildings still stand and will become a pile of tinder in a real earthquake. Whats worse, from my reading, is that recently San Fran passed laws that any new renovations (for example, to retrofit better quake protection) requires that the owner add parking... which means turning the first floor into a garage. I would hope standards would be better elsewhere, but the Northridge quake was also an eye-opener. While Cali's screwy politics and high costs are one thing, I'm used to much of that in NJ... but Cali's quakes are what keeps me from realistically moving there. Especially considering its been a fairly quiet time the last 30-40 years, and they are overdue for a big one. Toxins that might be found in a Prius battery pack, perhaps? ;-)

And of course back in those days each person had relatively smaller luggage. So a trip to the airport with 6 people had six seated and all the suitcases fit in the trunk. Today, the suitcases are so large, I barely fit 2-3 in the back of my relatively large-trunked Bonneville... so the others go in the passenger area. Nothing like a super cramped 2-3 hour drive from Atlantic City to JFK to deliver 2 and their junk to the airport. If 6 were going, we'd need two cars!

I question why they bother with the 9/10s any more. I bet the 9/10ths was a strike of genius when gas was 19.9 cents a gallon... you are "tricking" somebody into paying almost 5% more. But at 4.99 9/10s a gallon, its 18 cents on a $99.80 fill-up. 0.18%... Granted, that adds up, but I imagine it barely pays for the extra signage, hassle and perhaps the precision of the equipment needed to pass weights and measures.

That looks like it could be morphed into a decent Monte Carlo if you made it a coupe with some appropriate side sculpting. It'll never be a Malibu as the trunk is too long for the current trends.

The show "American Pickers" has what appears to be a pre-2008 Mercedes Sprinter. It has already left the guys sitting by the side of the road once in an episode... and in the same episode the Mike's brother shows up to tow it, and calls it "The old truck", implying that it is considerably older than 2008. They are in Iowa, so a Mexican refugee is unlikely. I've heard some rumor they replace it with a "newer" Dodge Sprinter, but I didn't see that... and I think people may be mistaken.

Same difference in the context of my reply. Fantastic. Except there is more to it than your list, and appearance is just one of them. A designer of ANYTHING overlooking that is tragic. There is also familiarity with the design, expected repair costs, layout, etc. For example, you can't expect to stack a high roof van to the top... top heavy vehicles are a PITA to drive... are hard to sort through and some cargo cannot be stacked that high. A high roof van is also hard to put ladder racks and such on top of. I never said that was the primary reason, only a consideration. That said, the guy with a 800K tricked out tow truck might have his priorities mixed up, but he's still making money hand over fist. What does this have to do with anything? Everybody on the road is a jackass... including you and me. When I courteously let someone out of a parking lot into traffic, the guy behind me calls me an asshole. In NYC, there are plenty of Sprinters, Transit Connects and other oddities driving like jackasses, so I can't say the E series and Express guys stand out any more than anyone else. Those guys have to earn a living at the client's location, not sitting in traffic behind an asshole who is asleep at a green light reading his text messages. There are enough people out there burning them in traffic because "they don't want to be behind a truck" everyday that I can't blame them for burning others before they get burnt. Welcome to the jungle... don't like it, move to North Dakota. Getting back on topic... we can put DodgeFan down for 1 Dodge Doblo.

Whats REALLY funny is the same people who claim people don't care how their trucks look are the same ones waiting in line for a certain stylish MP3 player or cell phone. I agree the current E series is somewhat awful looking, but the basic shape is simple and attractive... only the tack-ons are lousy looking. Its not ugly to the bone like the Doblo and Ducato. I fell the Express is decent enough in the looks department... but its no '66 Chevy SportVan. As for driving... I haven't driven a post '96 GM full size van, but the E series I drove recently drove like every E series I've driven... like a truck... driving a work truck is part of work... its not supposed to be a Cadillac or Porsche. Again, sorry, I have to disagree. I know guys who sold their high-roof vans because they were too "dorky" looking. No disagreement there. There have been people wanting an updated Astro/Aerostar van for some time. The Transit Connect is successful without being mistaken for a minivan. Even if it has ribbing stolen from a 1996 Pontiac Transport, it looks worlds better than the Doblo.

Holey moley. What sizes are you looking for? The last time I priced Assurance TripleTreds for the GP and Fortera TripleTreds for the Caprice, I was looking at $600-$650 for each car.

For some, not for others. I think the problem here is simple... the Sprinter and euro-influenced vans are simply not masculine enough for the American workman. This is a contributing factor in the Astro and Transit Connect's success... they may not be super manly, but have enough machismo for contractors to buy them. In 8 years, have seen few Sprinter contractor vans. As mentioned, this can be fixed with some well thought out sheetmetal updates... trouble is, more often than not, there will be NO changes when this comes over except for the emblem and possibly the grill. But there is more to the box than its shape... there is also its construction and motivation. My worry is that the euro-influenced vans will not have the power or capabilities that American workmen expect, which in some cases is on par with the monster payloads that high end pickups have. I was reading on the Econoline Wiki page that the current E series is dead after 2014... to be replaced with the European Transit... which I find alarming. Few people missed it when the fullsize Dodge van disappeared after being around for 31 years... but the E series is a serious seller still, to the best of my knowledge. And I can only imagine GM will quickly cancel the Express and bring over some awful Opel because "Thats what everybody else is doing, and they are smarter than we are". Just another reason why I better be happy with Dad's GMC van... and should paint it "A-Team" colors as soon as I can. I suppose soon the only thing distinctly American on American roads will be pickup trucks.

Its a knee-jerk reaction. People are irrational beings. They always come back to their trucks (or large vehicles) after they realize that the gas savings are not worth the compromises.

5 years is hardly worth calling something a "reunion". Some bands like putting 5+ years between albums. It will be nice to hear something new from System of a Down, though. Now for a REAL reunion... The Cars are reuniting and releasing a new album in May called "Move Like This". The tracks already posted are fairly good.

GM's motto has become "Absence makes the heart grow fonder"... too bad most absence ends up being forever.