siegen

Come on... obviously the 100MPG rating doesn't mean it can drive 390 straight on 4 gallons of gas. the high mileage comes from the fact that in everyday driving, NOBODY drives that far.

Assume that the gas engine gets a (very low for this tiny engine) 20 miles per gallon combined. That means that the car, with 12 gallons, can drive only 240 miles on a tank of gas. But then you look at how you drive it. Say, on an average day, you drive a total of 50 miles a day (average, including trips to/from work and random driving on weekends). if you're charging your vehicle when you park for the night, every day that means that you're only using up 10 miles on the gasoline engine, since the other 40 are done on the battery.

By the time all 240 gas miles are used up, that's 240 miles/10 miles per day = 24 days to use the full tank. In those 24 days, you've also driven those 40 miles average per day. SO that totals to 24*40 = 960 miles. Now you're looking at a total of 960+240=1200 miles on a tank of 12 gallons... equalling? 100MPG.

The point is, if the EPA test is done solely using the gas component, and it got, say 40 MPG, that's much much much much much lower than the typical driver will ever see and the EPA ratings become completely irrelevant. And the few times that the Volt driver does take a trip and sees the lower gas mileage, it's made up for by all the other time spent on normal driving days.

Again, those numbers were made with fairly lame assumptions and calculations, but just for fun:

12 gallon tank, 35 mpg (like the cobalt or whatever) = 420 mile gas range

cost: 12*4 = $48 for a tank of gas

50 miles/day = 10miles on gas per day = 42 days driving = 420 miles on gas + (42*40=1680) = 2100 miles = 175mpg

70 miles/day = 30 miles of gas per day = 14 days driving = 420 gas miles+(14*40=560)=980 miles = 81.7mpg

100 miles/day! = 60 gas miles/day = 7 days driving = 420 gas + 280 battery = 700 mi = 58mpg!

39/miles/day = 0 gas miles = infinite gas mileage!

Surely the few road trips are worth the overall gas mileage... so how do you rate that?

I understand the idea behind this, and I have given it thought before, however I do not think it's correct for the EPA to rate the Volt in this way. It needs to be classified as an electric car, and have a separate figure showing the mileage that the gas engine is capable of using instrumented testing and not averages.

Even the accent and "folksiness" are faked?

Wow! She was almost not annoying to listen to (almost). I didn't realize she was pumping up the folk-talk so much.

Palin works best when her wee head is filled by her programmers for the purposes of rapid-regurgitation; i.e. her Convention speech and her vapid recital at the 'debate'. She really forged ahead capitulating those talking points Thursday night. She has less substance than the air (not including LA, where the air can be chewed and spit-out). She was never meant to do anything beyond glittering brightly and whipping-up the foam-at-the-mouth, children-of-the-corn Bush-loyalists. That, she's good at.

Rapid-regurgitation. I like that. I think it sums up what Palin said at the debate quite well quite well.

I watched the debate.

I literally cannot stand to listen to her any more. Everything she said sounded like it was directly from a script, and she barely pauses between sentences or while talking. She also goes around in circles. I just can't listen to her speak, it's irritating. And the "you betcha" and "yer darn right" bits come off sounding fake and scripted, making them and her accent even more irritating than they already are otherwise. She also comes off sounding air-headed and dumb. I know she isn't. Btw, did she play a part in Fargo? ;-] I literally can't stand her anymore, VP or otherwise. If I was standing in line at a grocery store and she was chatting up the cashier, it would probably drive me nuts. And here she is trying to be the VP. How many times did she say she respected Biden because he respected McCain? I mean, really? How long have you known McCain compared to Biden? Hey, "Can I call you Joe?" Yeah because this is a casual event, and the lady with 2 years of high level executive experience thinks she can magically bring someone with 35 years in the senate and a real education down to her level with that.

She is the last nail in the coffin for McCain.

I am utterly amazed that she didn't get under Biden's skin. Just listening to her is enough to drive a man crazy. I would have been hitting her with a shovel by 10 minutes into the debate.

Agh!

*pulls hair out*

Pretty cool!

Argh, I'm stuck at school for another 1.5 hours so I can't watch the debate yet. Got it recording though.

- Audi year-over-year sales decline in challenging market

- Launch of all-new A4 drives additional interest, sales

- R8 sales up; A5 posts second consecutive record month

- de Nysschen expects Audi to maintain strong market share

Who wrote this? Seriously.

Love their new album.

Is Nissan the Japanese Chrysler?

I keep forgetting that Obama had a tough campaign against Hilary prior to the campaign against McCain.

I've never seen anything as painful as those Couric clips. Anyone on any part of the political spectrum should feel embarrassed for her.

Watching the mad tv and other skits of Sarah Palin are funny, but when the real thing isn't too different, it's unbearable to watch.

The Malibu was within 3000 sales of the Accord, that's pretty impressive (though it did have employee pricing, not sure what deals the Accord had).

Checking right now, and there are no offers available for the Accord. I don't know if there's a way to see if there were any offers in the last month, but if there were they were probably minimal. The Malibu was at a 33% fleet rate earlier this year. That and the employee pricing probably account for close to half of its sales.

The Camry also tanked, and I see that Toyota does have some incentives (not much) on it right now, such as 0% APR and cash-back. Looks like they're based on region. The Malibu and Impala increases were surprising, I wonder if it was employee pricing and fleet sales that helped so much.

And if you buy $20 of gas (reasonable amount), then

390/4= 100 MPG

If the Volt can drive 390 miles with only 4 gallons of gas, then it will earn its 100mpg rating.

But I doubt it.

You mean I can't buy a GT-R at my local Nissan dealer, drive it to Germany, and go around the ring in 7:29???

Just FYI, the subtitle to the thread states Subaru's year-to-date sales, not the monthly sales percentage (which is down 11.8%).

Let's take some wagers. How many months does everyone think they can go without saying best ever. I'm going to say 2 months, and I bet $5 e-dollars. They'll find some way to put a positive spin on December, just wait and see.

Wow. That is an incredibly large drop, even compared to everyone else (I figured Nissan would be on the better side of the negative last month). Did Nissan dealers just close down for a week nationwide?

Impressive given how much the auto market fell. Chevrolet cars are doing well!

Is the Impala heavily incentivized/fleeted?

One good thing about this is hopefully we won't see any more rants by FOG (or anyone) about the Japanese government helping Toyota. Socialist USA apparently does so as well.

The US government would have to help GM a LOT more to even start to be equivalent to Toyota. First of all, they would have to oppose competition from other domestic manufacturers. Then severely tighten import regulations, to keep imported cars to a trickle. Make GM the official auto manufacturer of the country. Then help fund or subsidize Volt R&D. Ok, maybe I'm exaggerating a little bit.

In soviet Russia, road forks you!

No details, just leaked pictures. Head lights and grille inspired heavily by the new Pilot/Ridgeline, and I think it pulls it off well.

Photo Gallery

a video composing a lot of news stations http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQ2DXN3aOSo

Wow, if that wasn't the definition of FUD then I don't know what is, right down to the cheesy music in the background. What WILL we do if Obama is our president? Omg what will we do!? Have mercy!

"Obama can't cut taxes for people that aren't paying income tax already." Do the poor pay no federal income tax even if they are working at a normal hourly/salary job? Do they get full tax credits or something? If what Obama says isn't true why doesn't McCain call him on it during the debate? What percentage of working American's don't pay federal income tax?

As far as Obama putting together "truth squads", it has the potential to get out of hand, but we won't know until it does. It seems to me like the McCain campaign is spouting a lot of lies, this seems like a typical proactive political solution. It won't be any more annoying than the cold-calls you get asking you if you are supporting so-and-so, or when the zealots come knocking door-to-door.

I don't think police are going to come and break down your door because you said something negative about Obama on a blog.

Watch this.....

.....

Obama sucks!! He's going to raise taxes and invade Spain!

......

.... ah crap, a knock at the door already. damn I'm not even in missouri. I hope I can vote for McCain from jail. :-[

Well, considering that Acuras technically are rebedged Hondas or mildly re-engineered at best (TL & Accord) I don't really see how (a new) one could seem so radically different.

The new TSX is technically the new Euro Accord just as the old TSX was the previous Euro Accord.

Me myself? I love the styling of the old TSX; Loathe the new one.

With the exception of the TSX, Acura's technically aren't rebadged Honda's. The old TL wasn't even close to what you would call a rebadge of the Accord, and the new one is even further different. Looking at the current Acura lineup, it's downright silly to think they're just rebadged Honda's.

Have you seen the new and old TSX side by side in the same color? I drive by a very nice last gen TSX in black every day, my neighbor owns one. I remember when they moved in, I thought "damn, there's my car!". Having spent time in and around the new TSX, I can say assuredly that it is a much nicer and substantial looking vehicle, right down to the grille, which looks good on that car.

The 335d has 265 hp and 425 lb-ft of torque and 23/33 mpg, that is better than CamCord 4-cylinder economy, but with Corvette level torque, so it should be quite good.

Corvette torque doesn't equal Corvette performance. It won't be a slow car, but I'd expect it to be a bit slower than the 335i.

And don't forget the cost difference. The 335d is probably going to start in the low/mid-40k range, if current 335i pricing is used as a base. For that money you could get a hybrid Camry, which beats that mileage at 33/34 (36MPG combined real-world average).

The near instantaneous loss of $2.5B in yearly sales is good for GM?

I think not. Heard may have been scum, but he was moving a hell of alot of metal for them...

I'm sure other GM dealers will pick up a large part of those sales. People who want to purchase a specific vehicle will find the next closest dealer. Depending on how close the next dealer is, a large portion of those sales will be picked up, or they could indeed lose a lot of the potential customers.

Well I guess that is your bias. According to Road and Track the Type-S is faster to 0-60, 0-100, 1/4mile, and pulls more Gs on the skid pad than the CTS DI. I guess if the Type-S is "okay" then the CTS DI is sub-ok and the CTS non-DI is unacceptable for anything with a "premium" badge?

The CTS was ~1% faster in the slalom and ~3dBA quieter across the board. That hardly puts the Type-S a "class or two below the CTS".

The Type-S also gave ~12% better fuel economy.

Was the R&T comparison of a 6-speed manual TL-S? The 6MT is going to be quite a bit quicker than the 5AT. As far as NVH goes, I have found that people tend to notice NVH more negatively when they're in a car they already have made a negative judgment on. I couldn't find the R&T comparison to get numbers from, was it a hard-copy only article?