siegen

Getting excellent mileage in a single trip doesn't mean anything though. What matters is your average mileage over the course of a significant period of time, like a year. My car's computer shows that I get 30-34 mpg on the way to work every morning, and 19-21 mpg on the way back (downhill/uphill). That's 26 mpg averaged. If I were to look at just that it would paint a very optimistic picture for my car, as that beats the EPA rating considerably. But, when I look at my average mpg overall, recorded by the computer over the course of a year, I am averaging 23 mpg. Furthermore, most trip computers are optimistic, and mine is no exception. My real manually-calculated mileage over the last year was 18 mpg. So, when I drive to work every morning it is nice to see the trip mpg over 30, but I know that over the course of the week, including stops and other trips, I am really only getting 18 mpg. With that being said, I am still beating the EPA rating of 16/23 and I drive over 90% city. The old rating was 18/25, which is apparently accurate in my case. The new rating would probably be more accurate if I lived in a crowded city.

It's for the best. Even if you could repair it, it would never be the same. Little creaks and rattles, paint mismatches from the replaced body parts, weakened sheet metal from the areas that were bent back, and not to mention resell value for a totaled and repaired vehicle. Getting another non-damaged, factory-painted car is the best way to go.

This illustrates how statistics can be interpreted to support either side of an argument. A normal consumer would read the above statement and could very easily come to a conclusion that the op-ed wants. I may not be a big Volt fan, but the above statements are very deceiving. First, he is coming up with the 33 mile figure based on someone driving 33 miles every day (including weekends), not just a work commute. Secondly, it assumes that every person will drive 33 miles every single day, which is an absurd statement. Even if that was the average, there are millions of people who are below the average. Looking at it a different way: The average American drives a 33 mile round trip commute (coincidentally). The average American works 250 days a year (after you remove a 2 week vacation). That is 8,250 miles a year for commuting, covered entirely by the electric motor, and leaves 3,750 miles for weekends and trips per year. Again, that is for the "average" American. I only have a 10 mile round trip commute, and I put roughly 8,000 miles on a car per year total. GM isn't looking to lease the Volt to every single American. Some will buy, some will lease. If you are someone who drives a lot more than 12k per year, the lease option isn't for you (that's what it is, an option, not a requirement).

Automotive fleet recently (I think) published fleet numbers for the 2009 model year. Their PDFs can be a bit cumbersome, so I compiled the data into Excel and combined car and truck sales. You can download the zipped Excel (2007 or newer) file that you can edit or make graphs from if you want.

Looks really good in that shot. The lighting/shadowing gives it a very low slung stance and it is a great color. It almost makes overlook the cheesy-looking grill and fog light inserts. ;-]

I think this is the next major step for traditional gasoline engines. Not only could it be used to auto-start/stop a vehicle, but it could provide assist during acceleration. That is assuming battery technology improves to where higher capacity batteries can be used in place of regular car batteries without requiring lots of extra space. Above is either the Civic Hybrid or Insight powerplant. Honda's IMA is along these lines and I think as it improves and gets thinner, and as batteries become better, it will be a very viable option for turning all gasoline engines into hybrids without requiring any major reworking. The orange part is the electric motor, which is sandwiched between the engine and CVT transmission. It's amazing how large transmissions are compared to modern 4-cylinder engines. Here is another image showing a closer cut-away of the electric motor.

It's not the non-turbo trim whose real world mileage I am cynical of. It's the turbo. For a journalist to just make the bold assumption that the turbo trim would return better-than-EPA mileage because the non-turbo one they drove did is outright silly.

"Things I have read on the Internet" is not the best way to add backing to your statement. When you say you are drawn to the vehicle, I am going to go out on a limb and assume you haven't seen it or any pictures of it yet. It makes the new TL look good, and very nearly beats the RL in disjointed ugliness.

Since when would this be the default assumption to make? This journalist needs to take his rosy-colored glasses off. I would be surprised if the turbo version does achieve its EPA rating, let alone exceed it, in real world conditions. The constant over-hyping of Hyundai/Kia over the last 10 years has just about sent me over the edge. Every new model that comes out is like "OMG how'd they do it!? This is so amazing! Wowowow!" Give me a break.

Coupe's aren't supposed to be practical, so any discussion of practicality is mute. How well a coupe functions should be based on its handling, performance, and styling. Of course things like driver comfort and roominess do come into play. The test driver didn't seem to like the seats.

Hyundai is killing it. They're going to surpass Nissan before long. Darn that cheap Korean labor! I wonder if their sales will fall off a bit once the economy improves.

30.9 percent increase in power plenum..... ooh shiny.

It says right in there that they sold 59,571 vehicles to fleet. That is roughly 30% of their monthly sales. If anyone is curious, here are 2008 model year fleet numbers and percentages by manufacturer. A little outdated, but that appears to be the most recent data available.

Thank you. I was going to comment (like I do every month) on GM's core brand spin, but you have saved me the trouble! GM is bouncing back. I wonder where they want to be sales wise. Considering they sold around 400,000/month a number of years back, they are still about 50% down from their peak. I don't anticipate they'll regain that in full, unless they took over the Hyundai/Kia market. Quality over quantity is a better way for GM to proceed into the future.

It would be vary stupid, since that wouldn't get them any pity, just more negative press. I don't see anything weird about this. Toyota has quality problems and it's shining through.

True, the average price on Autotrader may indicate what the average asking price is, but it doesn't tell exactly what people are able to buy the vehicles for. You could perhaps look at the average incentives on vehicles.

On the contrary, I think you're protracting an argument where I am not trying to make one. GM sells more SRXs than Acura does MDXs. However, when comparing the SRX to the MDX, or even the SRX & Enclave to the MDX, the MDX sells at higher transaction prices and has a much higher start price/MSRP. Are the sales proportional to the higher price? No, since GM is a much larger company and there are far fewer MDX's on the lots relative to its sales. The initial point is that GM is proclaiming how the SRX beat all these other crossovers in sales, yet it is a less expensive vehicle.

To get some perspective, I did an Autotrader search for new 2010 vehicles: 2010 SRX 5,619 results Low: $30,995 Avg: $43,094 High: $66,919 2010 Enclave 4,504 results Low: $31,352 Avg: $44,026 High: $57,990 2010 Acadia 3,826 results Low: $24,165 Avg: $40,513 High: $70,976 2010 MDX 3,361 results Low: $39,998 Avg: $47,374 High: $55,305 Interesting results. Just about anything can be derived from them if you look at only the things you want to look at. What I get from this is that the Buick is indeed right up there with Cadillac, even higher than it actually. However, the MDX still sells on average at a significantly higher price, and has a much higher entry point (I'm sure in large part due to the lack of a FWD option). All 4 vehicles can certainly be cross-shopped, though it is a bit disingenuous to get excited about the SRX outselling the MDX, when it is at a lower price point. I could also come to the conclusion that if the Cadillac or Buick did not offer cheaper FWD trims, they would probably be much closer to the MDX in terms of starting and average price. But they also wouldn't sell as much. Perhaps they'd (together) still sell more than the MDX... it is difficult to say. Regardless, the only point that can be made here is that the MDX doesn't sell as much as the Cadillac and Buick, but it is also sold at a higher price. I would also like to add that Acura doesn't have the old people market like Buick does. Zing!

Small SUV's very popular with the ladies. I bet 99% of them could get by just fine in a sedan, while getting 25% or more better FE and not blocking my view on the road as much.

Prius, definitely a Prius.

You're crazy; Buicks are for old people who want sedate, comfy generic transportation but don't want a Toyota Avalon. I used to own one, I would know!

This is so tiring looking at this argument once again. It seems like every comparison that has anything to do with sales and GM incurs this argument. I would just like to say that I do not care about Buick or GMC (or the Escalade for that matter). Cadillac is a direct competitor to Acura. If you want to throw in GMC and Buick, you might as well throw in Honda and Chevy while you're at it. Then you can show how GM sells more crossovers overall than Honda, which certainly isn't a surprise and completely ignores the original point I was trying to make, which I don't even know anymore. I suppose it is that the MDX starts at a much higher price point than the SRX and doesn't offer a base FWD model. This is what I'm talking about. The huge percentage number is meaningless. GM PR is annoying. And before you say "but everyone does it". Not everyone is going from dud products to good products and has the option to use ridiculous percentage numbers in their marketing. We'll see I guess if the next RL is going to be as good as they're saying it will be. It could see 300% sales increase or something.

GM built a good CR-V here. Would like to see more comparative, objective information, instead of the typical cherry-picking. Of course the SRX is going to see huge increases in sales percentages and residual values; the last gen was a dud. If the next gen RL saw huge increases it'd be the same story. The SRX outsold the MDX last month by a few dozen units (and sits a couple thousand ahead year-to-date), yet the MDX starts $10,000 higher and only comes in AWD. And don't forget the RDX, since the SRX takes on both vehicles simultaneously. On a side note, the Cadillac website is horrible. Just as bad as the Chevrolet website. WTH is GM doing?

ROFL. You mean she is taking out a loan on a depreciating asset? You must be even dumber than I thought!

I bought my 5-speed Civic before I even knew how to drive manual (then learned it over the weekend so I could drive to work in the morning). :]