Electric-sports car maker Tesla Motors plans to go public soon, Reuters reported today, citing two sources familiar with the matter said.
An IPO filing from the six-year-old start-up, best known for its $109,000 all-electric, zero-emissions Roadster, is expected any day, the news agency quoted one of the sources as saying. The person did not give a specific time frame, although IPOs typically take several months.
Tesla spokeswoman Rachel Konrad, in an interview with Green Car Advisor, declined to comment on what she called "rumor or speculation."
Tesla would mark the first public offering from a U.S. automaker since the Ford Motor Co. debuted its shares in 1956. The IPO represents a landmark in the resurgence of electric-car technology that most carmakers had dismissed as impractical until recently.
The company's chairman Elon Musk said early last year that an IPO was a possibility in either late 2008 or 2009.
But the financial market turmoil following the collapse of Lehman Bros. in the latter half of 2008 virtually shut down the IPO market. The appetite for IPOs has picked up since mid-September this year with a robust pace of new filings.
Tesla's IPO would follow the successful debut of lithium-ion battery maker A123 Systems, whose shares rallied 50 percent on their first day of trading on Sept. 25.
Analysts have said that the success of A123, the first green-technology IPO this year, would encourage more venture capital-backed green companies to go public.
More to the point, if Tesla does go public and experiences the kind of financial boost A123 did, the investor acceptable will be a huge shot in the arm not only for Tesla but for electric vehicles and EV-related technologies in general.
In addition to the success A123 experienced with its IPO, Tesla has another good reason to prepare an IPO now: The automaker is flush with cash from recent federal low-interest loans, which makes investors more comfortable than pumping money into a flat-broke startup.
The fleet of new cars and trucks sold to U.S. consumers averaged 21 miles per gallon in the 2008 model year, a modest increase over the previous year, with Honda and Hyundai having the most fuel-efficient fleets in America, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency reported Friday.
New vehicle fuel efficiency improved 2 percent in 2008 from 20.6 mpg for the 2007 model year. The government projected it will improve slightly to 21.1 mpg in the 2009 model year.
The EPA figures are based on real-world estimates for city and highway mileage found on window stickers at dealer showrooms, instead of mileage values developed through laboratory testing.
Honda Motor Co. led the industry in 2008 with 23.9 mpg, followed by Hyundai Motor Co. and its affiliate Kia Motors Corp. with 23.7 mpg, and Toyota Motor Corp. with 22.8 mpg.
Volkswagen AG's fleet averaged 22.3 mpg, followed by Nissan Motor Co. with 21.9 and BMW AG with 21.2.
General Motors Co. led U.S. automakers with 19.7 mpg, followed by Ford Motor Co. with 19.4 and Chrysler Group LLC with 19.3. The EPA projects Ford will increase its fuel efficiency by more than 1 mpg in the 2009 model year and overtake GM.
Concern among some taxpayer and environmental groups that Chrysler's recent decision to downplay development of fuel-efficient electric vehicles violated a pledge used to gain federal bailout funds are unfounded, an administration official says.
----------
Chrysler, which based part of its federal bailout on promised development of electric vehicles such as this "EcoVoyager" concept, has pulled way back on electrification plans since emerging from bankruptcy.
---------
"We obviously would be very happy if Chrysler and GM were making lots and lots of high mileage cars [but] it's not a prerequisite. It's not an obligation" of the bankruptcy bailout funding, auto industry restructuring task force chief Ron Bloom said in an interview with Reuters news service.
"We're completely separating policy from ownership," Bloom said of Chrysler's decision. "We trust that the [Chrysler] board has carefully thought out the various options ... and made judgments on the electric program based on that."
The federal government has extended $30 billion in capital to General Motors and $8.5 billion to Chrysler, representing a 60 percent share of GM and a 10 percent stake in Chrysler.
GM is pushing ahead with its Chevrolet Volt plug-in hybrid program as well as with a number of conventional hybrid models, and is expected to expand the Volt's extended-range, gas-electric system to other models as well.
Chrysler, now controlled by Italy's Fiat, has slowed its previosuly announced vehicle electrification plans and now intends to meet federal fuel-efficiency standards by utilizing Fiat-develped gasoline engine efficiency technologies and adding more small cars to its lineup.
Chrysler and GM both have applied for federal guaranteed loans under the $25-billion Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing Loans Program, but their applications have not been approved to date.
Bloom said that the federal autos task force doesn't intend to dip into matters involving the automakers and the Energy Department-managed loan program.
We think Chrysler is financially constrained right now from aggressively pushing an expensive electrification program and can probably do what it needs on the fuel efficiency front under its new product plan - which includes introducing the dual mode hybrid Ram pickup next year, an all-electric commercial van early in 2012 and a pair of plug-in hybrids for limited test fleet use in 2011.
But we also think the company is playing the expediency game and could wind up surviving for the short term under the Fiat-designed plan only to fall into a deep hole in later years as more and more of its competitors bring well-develped electric vehicle programs into play.
The game, after all,isn't just about improving fuel economy.
Perhaps more important in the long run is reducing dependency on petroleum fuels and slashing emissions - things electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles can do far better than the best gas and diesel internal combustion engines the industry can develop.
Car is Heavier Than Chief Engineer Would Like, but There's Time to Slim Down
Video of Volt battery pack crush test shows just one of the scores of indignities the packs have been subjected to in an effort to find any flaws before they go into production cars.
By John O'Dell, Senior Editor
With a year to go before production begins on the 2012 Chevrolet Volt, General Motors has 80 prototypes running around the country to test the critical battery and power electronics systems and program managers say they're happy with what they re seeing - except, perhaps, around the car's waistline.
There have been problems - mostly small ones that have been resolved - Volt's new chief engineer, Andrew Farah, said in a media briefing this afternoon.
One ongoing concern is weight - the battery pack still weighs in at more than 400 pounds, and the car is heavier than Farah would like. Although not critical to the launch, it's an important issue as every pound of weight eats into fuel economy and battery range.
Farah (left, with pre-production Volt model) wouldn't say what the actual or target weights are for the car, GM's first extended-range, plug-in hybrid.
He did say that efforts to slim down the Volt are ongoing.
Farah also continued to support the company's controversial claim that the Volt could qualify for a 230 MPG city-cycle rating under an early proposal for one of the new federal fuel economy tests being developed for cars that use rechargeable batteries and electric motors some or all of the time.
We continue to shake our heads, suspecting that the claim is likely to come back and bite GM, hard, when real drivers get out there and find that a lot of fancy slow-motion driving tricks will be needed to come close unless then never drive hard or far enough to deplete the batteries and religiously charge them up every night
Among the lesser, and resolvable problems has been that the car's quiet operation in the all-electric mode revealed some noise and vibration issues that would not have been apparent in a noisier car with a conventional powertrain drowning out some of the exterior road and wind noise and mechanical humming and thrumming that affects every vehicle.
Volt plug-in hybrid (right) and Cruze compact sedan will be featured at Chevrolet's 2009 Los Angeles Auto Show display.
Got a Chevrolet Volt on your car-shopping list but don't know where to get one once they become available?
General Motors Corp. says it will announce in two weeks - at the upcoming 2009 Los Angeles International Auto Show on Dec. 2 - the first markets in which it will be selling the extended-range rechargeable hybrid starting very late in 2011 or early in 2012.
The automaker also will unveil the U.S. production version of the fuel-efficient Chevrolet Cruze compact sedan, for which it is claiming highway fuel economy of close to 40 miles a gallon.
Already on sale in Europe and Asia, the Cruze will hit dealer showrooms in the U.S. in the third quarter next year.
GM, which for decades ceded the small car market to Japanese automakers, is aiming squarely at Toyota and Honda with the Cruze, claiming in its early marketing materials that the sedan will have more passenger and cargo space than either the the Honda Civic or Toyota's Corolla.
A few weeks ago, the marketing reps behind the Chevrolet Volt asked the public to submit names for the exterior paint color of the hybrid. Some 13,000 names were submitted.
We think "greenish silver" pretty much describes the paint job you see here, but the Volt folks wanted - and got - more thoughtful entries. Among them: Joule of the Nile, High Ohm Silver!, Kermit the Fog and Bye Bye Foreign Oil Blue!
Well, today the list was narrowed down to three. Yes, one of the following three names will be the name General Motors gives the original Volt exterior paint:
Viridian Joule, submitted by David Thomas of Sanford, Florida.
environMINT, submitted by Matthew Valbuena of Rancho Santa Margarita, California.
EV-ergreen, submitted by Devin McQuarrie of San Jose, California.
If you feel strongly (or even if you don't) about this, you can vote on one of these names. GM promises that the name that receives the most votes will be the name assigned to the paint. The deadline to vote is 8 a.m. Eastern time, Dec. 1.
And what, ask you, will David, Matthew or Devin receive? GM will be sending all three to the Los Angeles Auto Show, where the winner will be announced on Dec. 1. And "the winner will have the chance to drive a pre-production Volt."
Yeah, we think the winner deserves more than that, but hey, GM just posted a $1.2-billion loss. At least the winner will have a chance to turn the motor over. Electricity isn't free, you know.
A recent study evaluating the effectiveness of this summer's cash-for-clunkers program concluded that cost U.S. taxpayers $3 billion and did more to help Japan's three largest automakers than it did the Detroit 3 of General Motors, Ford and Chrysler.
The Japanese companies accounted for only 8 percent of trade-ins but 41 percent of new-car purchases, according to the new study by the University of Michigan's Transportation Research Institute.
By contrast, 85 percent of the trade-ins were manufactured by the Detroit 3 while only 39 percent of the new purchases were GM, Ford or Chrysler vehicles.
Sixty-eight percent of consumers who traded in a Toyota, Honda or Nissan bought another from one of the same from one of the three Japanese automakers.
Specifically, those owners who traded in Hondas bought another Honda 30 percent of the time. Nissan owners bought new Nissans under the clunker program did so 19 percent of the time and motorists unloading Toyotas turned around and bought another Toyota 44 percent of the time.
By contrast, 43 percent of consumers who traded in a Detroit 3 vehicle bought another Detroit 3 vehicle. Chrysler owners bought new Chryslers in 11 percent of the cases, Ford in 24 percent and GM in 32 percent.
As for those who switched, Japan's Big 3 got 38 percent of consumers who traded in a Detroit Big 3 vehicle. Toyota did best, with 18 percent. The Detroit Big 3 got only 12 percent of consumers who traded in a Japan Big 3 vehicle. GM did best with 5.3 percent.
The study made no attempt to determine how much of the money stayed in the United States and how much went to Japan. It should, of course, be noted that many of the Japanese cars purchased as a result of the clunker program were undoubtedly made in the USA.
Although talk of fuel cell electric vehicles from the water cooler to, say, the biggest office at the U.S. Department of Energy generally revolves around how far off the technology really is, the head of General Motors' fuel-cell program has just come out and said the Chevy Equinox FCEV is well on its way to production.
Writing in GM's Fast Lane blog Tuesday, Charles Freese said the "fuel cell program left R&D about a year ago and became part of Powertrain, where it is treated like any pre-production program when it comes to seeking efficiency, cost reduction, design for manufacturability, and other elements of a production program."
He hastened to add that the cost of Equinox "is still expensive, but the costs are coming down dramatically. Our next-generation fuel cell architecture is 220 pounds lighter, uses about half the parts and roughly a third of the precious metals, compared to the still-impressive Equinox demonstration vehicles."
Freese pointed out that the technology that went into the Equinox is only four years ago, and during that time GM deployed Project Driveway -- a fleet of more than 100 Equinox FCEVs that today has more than 1 million miles of accumulated driving by real consumers.
"In some ways, we are a victim our own success," he wrote. "The Chevy Equinox fuel cell is a great car, but it is a demonstration vehicle with aging technology and high cost. The next-generation fuel cell system is much less expensive but is not yet to the point where we have vehicles on the road."
The graphic below shows the significant physical differences and the tale of the tape between the Project Driveway propulsion system and the next-generation system.
Dispelling rumors to the contrary, Honda Motor Co. won't be making a low-cost and presumably fuel-efficient minicar in India to compete with products released by Tata Motors Ltd. and the alliance of Renault SA and Nissan Motor Co.
Instead, Japan's second-biggest carmaker is developing a small car that will cost less than its existing Jazz hatchback model, CEO Takanobu Ito told a news conference today.
The starting price of Jazz is 698,000 rupees (about $15,000) at showrooms in New Delhi.
Ito said the new car will be targeted at countries in Asia, with India as a key market.
"We would like to offer to as many customers as possible, a product at their price expectation level," he said, but didn't give any time frame for launching the new car or a likely price range.
Tata Motors, which controls Jaguar and Land Rover luxury brands, currently sells the Nano minicar (pictured), the world's cheapest car, with starting prices of about 115,000 rupees (roughly $2,500) at showrooms in New Delhi.
The popularity of the car amid rising demand for fuel-efficient, affordable vehicles has prompted other automakers such as Renualt-Nissan, General Motors Co. and Hyundai Motor Co. to announce plans to develop their own low-cost cars.
Renault-Nissan Chief Executive Carlos Ghosn said Tuesday that a new minicar, to be designed and manufactured by Indian motorcycle maker Bajaj Auto Ltd. and distributed by Renault-Nissan, will be the cheapest car in India when introduced in 2012.
The Cadillac Converj plug-in hybrid concept is on the way to becoming a real car, the Detroit News is reporting.
---------- GM Vice Chairman Bob Lutz with the Cadillac Converj concept at the 2009 Detroit auto show. ----------
Citing unidentified insider sources, the newspaper says that General Motors sees the highly styled Caddy, which would use the same technology as the Chevrolet Volt extended-range plug-in, as one way to help generate new excitement around a brand that has been losing sales all year.
Although GM officials, concerned at the time about the company's plummeting financial fortunes, later said they didn't plant to build the car, (a decision the automaker's bankruptcy, federal bailout and new recovery plan may well have changed) GM Vice Chairman Bob Lutz remarked at the show that if the Converj were to be put into production, the retail model would closely resemble the concept.
He also said he saw a market opportunity for a Cadillac plug-in hybrid because it would be easier to pass on to luxury car buyers the cost of the expensive lithium-ion battery pack (estimated at $10,000 to $12,000 for the four-seat Volt, which will retail for more than $40,000 before federal tax credits).
Spurred by factory incentives, replenished stocks and the relative freshness of several models, sales of hybrid-electric cars and SUVs soared in October, easily outperforming the market as a whole.
Compared to October '08 - a month with six fewer hybrid models available - sales of Ford, General Motors, Honda, Nissan and Toyota hybrids were up 12.1 percent, while sales of conventionally powered cars and trucks were flat.
The one-month picture was even rosier, as October hybrid sales jumped 22.5 percent from September's, versus a 12.1 percent hike in sales of conventional models.
Nissan, which has only one model - the Altima hybrid, - and sells it in just the nine states with the toughest emissions standards, was the only hybrid maker to record a sales decline for both periods, dropping 46 percent from a year earlier and 13 percent from September.
As with most hybrids - Toyota's Prius excepted - Nissan's actual numbers are quite small because of low sales volumes. October's sales drop represented just 46 fewer Altima hybrid sales than in September.
Toyota's redesigned 2010 Prius, sweetened by a small factory incentive, remained by far the segment leader, accounting for 55 percent of all hybrid sales for the month.
While waiting for final government approval of its sale of the ailing Hummer brand to China's Sichuan Tengzhong Heavy Industrial Machinery Corp., GM is hoping to give it a sales boost with the introduction next month of a flex-fuel engine for the 2010 H3 and H3T models.
Adding E85 (ethanol) capability is part of the GM calls the brand's "evolution to offer responsible ... more efficient" models that don't sacrifice any of the big trucks' all-terrain capabilities.
The 5.3-liter, 300 horsepower flex fuel V8 is a new engine that, GM says, will be a standard offering across the entire 2010 Hummer Alpha series performance lineup.
GM no longer lists Hummer as one of its models - anticipating completion of the brand's sale early next year - but a slightly higher horsepower version of the same engine in the Chevrolet Tahoe is rated at 14 MPG in the city and 19 MPG on the highway - 16 MPG combined - using gasoline. You can figure a 25 percent drop in fuel economy - but lower CO2 emissions - when using E85.
The larger H2 Hummers got their flex-fuel engines with the '09 model launch and fuel economy for the 6.2-liter V8 got a combined city-highway rating of 14 MPG on gasoline, dropping to 10 MPG on E85.
We're not sure the new H3 powerplant will help that much - if Hummer's got a good market anywhere in this country it's Southern California, and there are only 10 ethanol stations in the entire region.
With sales down more than 60 percent this year after falling 50 percent last year and 20 percent the year before that, adding a biofuel-capable, high-performance engine to the Hummer H3 lineup is sort of like trying to patch the Titanic's hull with bandages from the infirmary.
Oh, wait - there also are three new exterior colors for 2010. That ought to help.
Batteries, solar roofs and engine-driven generators aren't the only places tomorrow's cars and tucks may be getting some of the electrical energy they need to keep running.
GM, which has been working on energy recovery from exhaust heat for decades, has just received a small federal grant to develop a prototype exhaust-hear generator using a class of material called Shape Memory Alloy.
SMA, as it is called, is a metal that shrinks when heated and returns to its original shape when cooled. That activity is motion and motion is energy.
---------- GM illustration of an SMA generator. Click on picture to enlarge. ----------
A loop of wire made from SMA could use its shrink-and-stretch cycles to drive a generator, said Jan Aase, director of GM's Vehicle Development Research Laboratory.
The idea of an SMA "heat engine" has been around for 30 years, said Aase, "but the few devices that have been built were too large and too inefficient to make it worthwhile."
It used metal plates that were welded in a multi-sided collar around an exhaust pipe and created electricity when electrons on the exhaust side of the metal plates were heated and began vibrating, flowing through to the cooler outside of the plates where they were collected by electrodes.
The $2.7 million grant SMA from the Energy Department will enable GM and several partners to develop a working prototype of an exhaust-generator that can provide power for air conditioners, heaters, power windows, stereo systems and other electrical devices on board a vehicle that now drain valuable juice from the battery.
General Motors, concerned that the departure of Volt development leader Frank Weber will worry the faithful - and mindful of its long-ago and well-kept promise to open the doors on the program - is hosting a live Web chat at 4 p.m. Eastern time this afternoon (1 p.m. Pacific) to answer questions and explain how the change in Volt leadership will, or won't, affect things.
Weber himself, along with Doug Parks, who will be replacing him in the Chevrolet Volt program, are hosting the chat.
We're providing a platform, so sign up below for a reminder and come back at the appointed time to follow along and ask questions of your own.
Automaker Says Departure Part of Long-Planned Shift of Duties; Volt Still on Schedule
GM is losing the longtime head of it's Chevrolet Volt extended-range, plug-in hybrid development team but says the departure of Frank Weber (left) to its German subsidiary, Opel, is part of a long-planned leadership shuffle.
Weber, 43, is returning to Opel, where he previously was a top product developer, after heading the Volt project since March 2007.
He is the second top member of GM's vehicle electrification team to depart in recent months.
Bob Kruse, executive director of vehicle engineering for hybrids, electric vehicles and batteries, left in September to start a consulting firm and was replaced by GM engineering veteran Micky Bly.
Doug Parks, chief engineer for GM's compact car programs in Europe, will replace Weber, who is returning to Opel Dec. 1 in a still undefined "senior leadership" post.
Weber's shift comes just as a post-bankruptcy GM, looking for cash and ways to refocus itself on its core products, is scheduled to close its deal to sell majority interest in Opel to a group headed by Canadian tier-one components manufacturer Magna International and backed by Russia's Sherbank.
The Chevrolet Cruze compact that was supposed to get General Motors off to a good start in the 2010 summer selling season will be a late starter instead.
The automaker has decided to push back the Cruze launch date until at least early July.
Initially, GM has planned to start production in April, with sales to follow soon after. But that was an artificially compressed schedule, according to spokesman Klaus Peter-Martin.
It would have meant, among other thing's that the only engine available at launch would have been the a 1.4-liter turbocharged four-cylinder fuel economy engine, capable of delivering an EPA rating, GM insiders suspect, on the order of 40 MPG or more.
Why, we ask, is that such a bad thing? (We know, variety is the spice of life.)
Deal Could Open Employment Door For UAW Workers Laid Off When Plant Closed
By John O'Dell, Senior Editor
As just about the whole world was predicting all weekend, Fisker Automotive and the GM assets liquidator, Motors Liquidation Co., have done a deal in which start-up Fisker will buy the idled Boxwood Road assembly plant near Newport and Wilmington, Del., for production of a new plug-in hybrid.
Fisker, based in Southern California, received a $528.7million federal loan last month to help pay for a production plant and plant refurbishing costs, among other things.
Fisker said the letter of intent calls for it to pay $18 million for the plant if its evaluation of the 52-year-old facility doesn't uncover insurmountable problems. The deal is scheduled to close in four months and Fisker then would spend an additional $175 million refurbishing and outfitting the plant to produce the new plug-in starting in late 2012.
Other details of the deal weren't immediately available, although it sounds as though Fisker apparently will use at least some of the UAW workers laid off by General Motors when the Boxwood Road factory - also called the Wilmington Assembly plant - was idled earlier this year as part of GM's short-lived bankruptcy reorganization, in which underutilized facilities were closed and turned over to the newly created liquidation company for disposal.
It's unclear whether the plant would be unionized - a costly move for a nascent car maker - but in a statement released just before the formal announcement this morning, UAW director Gary Casteel said that the deal gives "UAW local 435 workers the opportunity to partner with Fisker Automotive to create a greener America by building a plug-in hybrid car that will compete globally."
Fisker Automotive appears ready to announce a deal this week to lease or buy a shuttered GM factory in Delaware to use for production of the plug-in hybrid family sedan the company has said will follow its Fisker Karma extended-range PHEV.
Vice President Joe Biden and state and local officials in Delaware are slated to attend an announcement at 10 a.m.Tuesday at the former GM Boxwood Road plant, near Newport, Del., and a spokesman for Fisker said Friday that a plant-location announcement was being scheduled for that day.
The new car, expected to be smaller and less costly that than exotic Karma, has been code-named "Project NINA" by the company, homage to the ship in Christopher Columbus' tiny fleet and signifying, company founder and chief executive Henrik Fisker has said, a "new world" for the auto industry.
The car, as previously described by Fisker, is to be a $48,000 (estimated) extended-range hybrid marketed to upscale families in 2012. The Karma, an $88,000 performance car, is just beginning production by a contractor in Finland, with deliveries to U.S. customers to begin in the summer. Both prices are before any applicable federal and local tax credits or other incentives.
Southern California-based Fisker Automotive received a $528 milllion federal loan last month from the Department of Energy to finance Project NINA and to fund additional U.S.-based engineering and development work on the Karma.
We're sure they've got an in-house name for it, but GM says it will give consumers a chance to come up with the official name for the Chevrolet Volt's initial exterior color - a silvery hue that has a slight color-shift toward emerald when the light hits it just right.
Killerwatt?
The automaker will fly three finalists in the Volt color naming contest to Los Angeles for the 2009 LA Auto Show in December (there are worse places to be that time of year) - they will also get a $400 gift card, two nights at an LA hotel and admission to the show's initial media preview day on Dec. 2.
ElectroLicious?
The finalists will be announced Nov. 16 and the public will be asked to vote on the best name from then until Dec. 1 on a special GM website.
Names can be submitted on the contest site until the evening of Dec. 1, when the winner will be announced.
Shockingly Silver?
In addition to the trip and show, the winning contestant will get the opportunity to test drive a pre-production Volt.
GM says it will spend $202 million to ready its Flint Engine South site to build the 1.4-liter four-cylinder engines that will be used as on-board generators in the Chevrolet Volt extended-range hybrid .
The company originally had planned to spend $359 million to build a new factory on a nearby site at its Flint campus, but its reduced financial circumstances have led it to settle for renovation of an existing plant there.
As has always been the plan, the factory also will build the engines for use in a conventionally-powered small car, the Chevrolet Cruze, which is scheduled to launch in the U.S. in late spring next year. The Volt won't go into production until almost the end of 2010.
The Flint plant, which GM first announced last July, then suspended amidst the financial tumult that led the the automaker's short bankruptcy and taxpayer rescue, is slated to produce 40 engines per day when production starts late next year. Production will hit 800 engines a day by fall 2011, GM officials said.
Pre-production Chevrolet Volt (left) on display at GreenHouse in Virginia; Studio shot of Chevrolet Cruze compact (right).
Because the cars will launch before the factory's running at full capacity, engines for both - a turbocharged 1.4-liter for the Cruz and a normally aspirated version for the Volt - initially will be imported from a GM plant in Austria, a company spokesman said.
For years - and years, and years -automakers in the U.S. insisted that their studies showed that Americans didn't value fuel economy and preferred those fuel-swilling (and profitable) SUVs and pickups over gas-sipping compacts.
But that's not so, says former General Motors economist Walter McManus, now a professor and head of the Automotive Analysis division of the Transportation Research Institute at the University of Michigan.
GM often received outside data in the 1990s showing that people wanted fuel economy, McManus said in an interview with subscription-only Energy & Environment News.
McManus just as routinely dismissed them.
Disbelief
"The survey would estimate that people would estimate fuel economy fairly highly," said McManus. "Being a good economist, I said, 'No, they don't,' and I changed the results."
He said he did not believe the surveys because the preference for fuel economy they were showing was out of line with industry beliefs about consumers' preferences.
(Alert: CalCars tells us this morning that GM has rescheduled the starting time for the Webcast. It's now 3:30 p.m. Eastern, not 12:30. We're sorry or any inconvenience.)
We're not sure if it will be a full and frank discussion of the issues, or a GM promo for the Chevy Volt, but if you have questions we haven't answered already - about plug-ins in general or the Volt specifically - here's a chance to get 'em answered.
The hour-long Webcast begins today at 12:30 3:30 p.m. Eastern, 9:30 a.m. 12:30 p.m. Pacific (and you know what time it will be if you live in one of the other time zones).
The session will be conducted by GM's Tony Posawatz, manager of the Chevrolet Volt project, and Felix Kramer, founder of the California Cars Project (CalCars).
Even as questions about ethanol's role in the energy supply chain continue roiling the industry, cellulosic ethanol pioneer Coskata Inc. unveiled and fired up its 50,000-gallon-a-year "semi-commercial" plant in Madison, Pa., today, pushing itself toward the forefront of fledgling second-generation ethanol producers.
Towering over the surrounding countryside, the 65-ft. structure with an 8,000-degree torch that blasts the wood chips serving as a raw material, the plant is the $50-million result of research and development efforts going back several years.
It moves the Warrendale, Ill.-based start-up closer to the 55-million-gallon plant Coskata anticipates opening by the end of 2012.
"We now have verification of everything that we'd earlier expected, and a tuned message that we can deliver about the costs associated with the build-out of a commercial-scale plant, and eventual operating costs," Bill Roe, Coskata's chief executive officer, told Green Car Advisor.
"This gives us a proof statement and demonstrated capabilities."
Volume Questioned
Coskata already has been delivering small quantities of cellulosic ethanol to General Motors Corp. for use in its test fleet in Milford, Mich.
GM was an initial investor in the company and continues to support its aims, but the volume of ethanol needed in the future is uncertain. Automakers are among the parties raising concerns over a proposal that the federal government increase the ethanol "blend wall" to as high as 15 percent of a gasoline-ethanol mixture from the current limit of 10 percent.
U.S. Trails Asia, Europe in Providing Hydrogen Fueling Infrastructure, Automakers Warn
Automakers aiming to meet California's revised Zero Emission Vehicles mandate requirements have pushed the fuel-cell electric car much closer to reality than many realize, according to a report by Bloomberg news service.
----------
Rendering of advanced fuel station near Los Angeles International Airport touts hydrogen as the fuel of tomorrow. Automakers say that without more such stations, that vision won't be realized. ----------
Not only is the technology almost ready for prime time, reporter Alan Ohnsman found that automakers such as Toyota, Daimler, Honda, Hyundai, Kia, Renault, Nissan and General Motors now believe they can bring fuel cell vehicles to market by 2015 with price premium of just $3,600 over the average price of a comparable midsized gasoline model.
But the technology and price breakthroughs won't mean much if the U.S. government's infrastructure priorities aren't altered to include encouragement of a hydrogen fueling system
If the U.S. doesn't get moving, it will fall behind Europe and Asia - where governments are actively promoting hydrogen fueling - in the race to replace oil as a motor vehicle fuel, GM and others warn.
The cash for clunkers frenzy that pulled many hybrid shoppers into the market earlier than they'd intended in July and August caused a big letdown in September as sales of gas-electric cars and trucks, which had been rising steadily all year, plunged 48.4 percent.
Only 19,977 hybrids were sold in September, down from 38,701 in August. The sales slide was the first in several months and was worse that that of the far larger conventional vehicle segment, which dropped by 40.9 percent from August.
Falling sales of the Toyota Prius - they were down 42 percent for the month - contributed heavily to the numeric decline although almost every hybrid model lost ground.
On a month over month basis there were no corporate winners in the hybrid segment as even Toyota - the industry leader with three out of every four hybrid sales - saw a 39.7 percent decline in its Toyota and Lexus hybrids.
And that was the segment's best performance.
Lots of Losers
Nissan, which has been on a tear with its single offering, the Altima hybrid sedan (helped by generous incentives in recent moths), saw its hybrid sales plunge 89.1 percent in September; Honda, the number two hybrid company, saw sales fall 61.6 percent; Ford, which had been rising since the March introduction of its Fusion hybrid sedan, was off 54.5 percent, and GM's hybrid sales fell by 40.8 percent.
Compared to sales at the end of the third-quarter last year- when the financial industry collapse began and the bottom fell out of the auto market, the picture was a little better as hybrid sales last month were down just 4.1 percent from September '08.
In contrast, conventional car sales fell 22.5 percent in the September-September comparison.
Researchers at Brigham Young University claim to have developed a fuel cell that harvests electricity from glucose and other sugars known as carbohydrates using a common weed killer as a catalyst.
Lead researcher and BYU chemistry professor Gerald Watt (pictured) said in an article published in the August issue of the Journal of the Electrochemical Society that carbohydrates are very energy rich and that he and his colleagues sought a catalyst that would extract the electrons from the carbs and transfer them to an electrode.
Watt said he and his colleagues discovered a solution in the form of a cheap and abundant weed killer. He described the effectiveness of the herbicide as a boon to carbohydrate-based fuel cells.
By contrast, hydrogen-based fuel cells such as those developed by General Motors require costly platinum as a catalyst.
The study conducted experiments that yielded a 29 percent conversion rate, or the transfer of 7 of the 24 available electrons per glucose molecule, Watt reported.
"We showed you can get a lot more out of glucose than other people have done before," said Dean Wheeler, who was part of the research team. "Now we're trying to get the power density higher so the technology will be more commercially attractive."
This isn't the first time that a glucose-based fuel cell has been reported. In 2007, Japanese scientists announced they had invented a device that used sunlight to convert glucose into hydrogen to power a fuel cell.
Bob Kruse, who recently led a team that played a key role in the development of the Chevrolet Volt and who crafted the automaker's long-term electric-vehicle strategy, has resigned effective today.
Kruse, executive director of global vehicle engineering for hybrids, electric vehicles and batteries since early last year, left to focus on an EV consulting company he founded last month.
He will provide automotive and vehicle electrification expertise for companies looking to seize a piece of more than $1.3 billion in federal grants available to Michigan and Detroit's major automakers.
"My departure from General Motors has nothing to do with my view of the future success for the Volt," Kruse said. "I've left on very good terms. I have a lot of respect for the leadership of General Motors."
GM spokesman Rob Peterson told Green Car Advisor that Kruse's resignation, coming only 13 months before the Volt's scheduled production launch, "won't have any impact" on the gasoline-electric hybrid sedan.
"There's never a good time to lose good people, but there's a deep bench with the Volt and that team was working together before Bob joined and they will continue to march on," he said.
Kruse's resignation comes at a crucial time for GM, which is banking on the Volt extended-range electric vehicle to help it meet stringent new government fuel-economy rules and to change the public's perception of the company as being an electric-car killer and a proponent of gas-guzzlers.
The second-generation hydrogen fuel cell system (pictured) in development by General Motors Co. is half the size, 220 pounds lighter and uses less than half the precious metal of the current generation in the Chevrolet Equinox Fuel Cell electric vehicle.
And, the production-intent fuel cell powertrain can be packaged under the hood in about the same space as a four-cylinder engine, GM announced in a statement today. It contains GM's fifth-generation fuel cell stack, which the company said could be commercialized in 2015.
Hydrogen-powered fuel cells are a few years away from widespread commercial use because of the need for additional investment and partnership, along with expanded availability of hydrogen fueling stations.
In a statement, Charles Freese, executive director of GM's fuel-cell program, said GM has invested more than $1.5 billion in fuel-cell technology and is committed to continuing to invest, but "we no longer can go it alone... We will require government and industry partnerships to install a hydrogen infrastructure."
Through Project Driveway, a demonstration fleet of more than 100 hydrogen-powered fuel cell electric Chevrolet Equinox crossovers has amassed more than 1 million miles of every-day driving by ordinary citizens, celebrities and others since late 2007.
In recent weeks, a consortium of the German government and leading industrial companies has announced plans to build up to 1,000 hydrogen fueling stations by 2015, about the time several automakers expect to have hydrogen fuel cell vehicles for sale. Earlier, a group of 13 oil and gas companies in Japan announced similar plans.
"Failure to act will insure the U.S. cannot meet its long-term fuel efficiency and greenhouse gas reduction objectives," Freese said. "We know what needs to be done. Now is the time to get started."
General Motors and India's Reva Electric Car announced today that they will jointly produce a battery-powered vehicle for South Asia based on the Detroit carmaker's best-selling mini-car, the Chevrolet Spark (pictured).
Under the alliance, GM will provide the vehicle platform and manufacturing facilities for the zero-emissions car, which will begin production next year, while Reva will supply the technology for the battery, electric drivetrain and power management systems.
They did not provide forecasts for production, but GM has the capacity to produce 225,000 vehicles of all types at its two plants in India and has plans to scale up its factory in Maharashtra state by an additional 160,000 vehicles.
GM, which is also due to launch its plug-in Chevrolet Volt in the U.S. next year, joins a growing list of the world's major carmakers that are due to launch electric cars over the next three years as part of their carbon-cutting strategy.
Some, including Japan's Mitsubishi Motors, have already launched them.
Last week at the Frankfurt Motor Show, Renault announced that it was launching four electric vehicles in 2011-12. Audi, BMW and Mercedes-Benz showed planned battery-powered luxury models.
Lithium-ion car battery maker A123 Systems Inc. increased the number of shares in its initial public offering and priced them for $13.50 apiece, above the estimate range.
The upsized deal helped the Watertown, Massachusetts, company raise $380.4 million, far above what it had expected. On Tuesday, facing strong demand, A123 had raised the price estimate range of the IPO to between $10 and $11.50 apiece, up from the original range of $8 to $9.50.
A123 sold 28.1 million shares, 9.3 percent more than expected.
A123, which was founded by scientists linked to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, develops batteries and battery systems for hybrid electric vehicles, plug-in hybrid electric vehicles, and all-electric vehicles and works with such carmakers as BMW, Chrysler and General Motors.
"The fact that they have received several hundred million dollars from the government and have strong venture backers and corporate partners like Motorola and Qualcomm clearly reveals the confidence in this intriguing cleantech story," said Scott Sweet, senior managing partner with advisory firm IPO Boutique.
A123 won a $249.1 million grant in August from the U.S. Department of Energy as part of a competition for $1.5 billion in federal stimulus funds for companies that make advanced automotive batteries.
The IPO's underwriters, led by Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, have the option to buy another 4.2 million shares, which could bring the deal's total proceeds to $437.5 million.
General Motors announced today that it will create a laboratory in Shanghai to contribute to technological innovation in a number of automotive-related fields for GM both domestically and on a worldwide basis.
The announcement came less than a month after GM disclosed that its sales in China in the first eight months of this year increased 49.6 percent on an annual basis to 1,111,401 vehicles.
The China Science Lab (pictured) will be the first major laboratory established by a global automaker in China. In a statement, GM said the lab's initial focus will be on research related to advanced propulsion technology and joining technology.
But the lab will also focus on battery cells, megacity safety research, advanced vehicle development, and light materials. It will engage in additional activities in accordance with market conditions and its own research capability as it ramps up.
The lab will also carry out collaborative work with universities and government-run scientific institutions across China. It is expected to employ up to 100 staff during its early stage of operation. No specifics were provided regarding the lab's scheduled construction and opening dates or its cost.
Kevin Wale, president and managing director of the GM China Group, said that through the lab, "we will leverage the country's outstanding research talent together with GM's extensive resources to come up with new innovations for the benefit of vehicle users around the globe."
Environmental car data released by a new automotive Website today shows that the latest 2010 range of new cars available in the U.S. is 6.6 percent greener than the 2009 model-year range.
The data supplied by WhatGreenCar also demonstrate that the shift to green is gaining pace. To date, this year's 6.6 percent reduction is more than three times last year's improvement of 2.1 percent.
Comparing model year 2009 cars with the latest model year 2010 line-up, 10 volume automakers are now offering a new model range above the average improvement of 6.6 percent.
The top 10 manufacturers achieving this are: Chevrolet (20.3 percent improvement), General Motors (15.3 percent), Mercedes-Benz (13.6 percent), Lexus (13.2 percent), Mercury (11.6 percent), Kia (11.0 percent), Ford (10.4 percent), Acura (8.0 percent), Volkswagen (8.0 percent) and Suzuki (7.7 percent).
The tables below are self-explanatory, and can be enlarged by clicking on them.
Silicon Valley's venture capitalists believe the Detroit 3 automakers cannot become competitive again unless they scrap their traditional business model and embrace new, innovative ways of doing business.
Speaking of the Detroit 3, Ray Lane, a managing partner at Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Buyers, said that "for years they have been led by accountants and lawyers, not engineers and entrepreneurs. That's OK if the industry isn't changing."
So what do Ford Motor Co., General Motors Co. and Chrysler Group need to do to regain marketplace dominance?
"Start over," said Marc van den Berg, managing director of VantagePoint Venture Partners, which backs upstart electric carmaker Tesla Motors and electric-vehicle infrastructure firm Better Place.
The only way the Detroit 3 can succeed is by completely overhauling the business model, moving beyond just designing attractive cars, Silicon Valley venture capitalists say.
"There is room for business model innovation and technology innovation," said Vinod Khosla, managing general partner of Khosla Ventures.
Khosla said U.S. automakers need to embrace innovation at all levels. He pointed to Better Place, which is building charging infrastructure and battery-swapping stations for electric vehicles.
"Better Place is saying,'Don't let the consumer buy the batteries,' " Khosla said. "That's a business model innovation."
Toshiyuki Tabata spent 30 years as a Nissan Motor Co. engineer trying to make gasoline-powered cars quieter. Now he's consulting music composers to make electric cars noisier -- and safer.
An article published by Bloomberg news service today addresses the efforts Tabata in particular and automakers in general are making to make electric and hybrid cars, with little or no engine noise, safer for pedestrians.
Some of the automakers are simply seeking sounds that resemble conventional engine noises. But as we learn from Tabata, Nissan is doing something completely different.
The company consulted Japanese composers of film scores. What Tabata and his six-member team came up with is a high- pitched sound reminiscent of the flying cars in "Blade Runner" (pictured), the 1982 film directed by Ridley Scott portraying his dystopian vision of 2019.
"We wanted something a bit different, something closer to the world of art," Tabata said.
The article is well worth the time it takes to read it.
Targeting more federal money to support the auto industry, the House on Wednesday approved an expansion of government-led research into making cars and trucks more fuel-efficient.
The House plan would allow the Energy Department to spend up to $200 million more each year on research and development for advanced-technology vehicles and auto parts.
Lawmakers' aides said the additional $200 million would boost government-supported research in this area to around $550 million if Congress, as expected, funds the request later this year.
The measure passed on a 312-114 vote, attracting dozens of Republican votes, even though some GOP lawmakers questioned its cost.
Wednesday's House action represented the latest move by Congress and the Obama administration to aid the auto industry. The White House stepped in with billions of dollars to rescue General Motors and Chrysler and led the companies through bankruptcy, and Congress approved $25 billion last year to help the industry retool assembly plants to meet tougher fuel economy standards.
Congress also created a $3 billion Cash for Clunkers program of incentives that successfully spurred new car sales over the summer.
Fuel-efficient technology is in great demand because of higher gasoline prices and the expectation of tightening auto regulations. Administration officials on Tuesday released plans to raise the gas mileage standards to 35.5 miles per gallon by 2016 and link greenhouse-gas emissions and fuel-economy requirements.
Democratic Representative Gary Peters of Michigan, who sponsored the green vehicle technology bill, said "there is no doubt that in the years ahead more Americans will be driving hybrids, plug-in hybrids, battery electric vehicles, and cars and trucks powered by hydrogen fuel cells."
"The only question is whether these new technologies will be researched, developed and manufactured here in the United States, creating American jobs, or whether this technology will be built overseas," Peters said.
Mercedes-Benz officially unveiled a new B-class hydrogen fuel-cell electric vehicle at the Frankfurt Motor Show this week, but it is by no means the German automaker's first.
More than 4 years ago, at the March 2005 Geneva Motor Show, DaimlerChrysler debuted a B-Class F-Cell that looks almost identical to the one pictured here.
Back then, the zero-emissions model featured an electric motor powered by a fuel cell that put out more than 100 kilowatts -- or 35 kilowatts more than its predecessor.
The last-generation B-Class F-Cell had a range of nearly 250 miles, due to reduced fuel consumption and greater hydrogen storage capacity. Earlier versions had a range of around 150 miles.
If you're thinking Mercedes is spending years improving this technology, you'd be right.
As we reported last month, Mercedes is now sufficiently satisfied with the current version that the automaker will be launching a small fleet of them for real-world testing in the U.S. and Europe.
The cars use an on-board fuel cell stack to convert hydrogen and oxygen to electricity that powers an electric drive system. The cars in the small fleet will deliver a range of up to 250 miles with a top speed of 105 mph.
Fuel consumption is the equivalent of 3.3 liters of diesel per 100 kilometers on the European drive cycle.
In U.S. terms, that would be around 71 miles per gallon of diesel or about 64 miles per kilogram of hydrogen.
As we previously reported, the F-Cell's electric system delivers the equivalent of 136 horsepower and 214 pound-feet of torque. Mercedes says it has performance characteristics equal to and "in some cases far better than" those of a B-Class with a 2.0-liter gas engine.
Opel debuted the Ampera at the Frankfurt Motor Show this week, but one question lingered when the crowd shuffled off to another unveiling: Would the gasoline-electric hybrid -- the Chevy Volt's European twin -- actually launch?
---------- Pictured, Ampera meets the press in Frankfurt. ----------
Or would it be shelved as a result of a controlling share of Opel being sold to Canadian autoparts supplier Magna International and the Russian financial institution Sberbank?
The answer, we learned today, is that the Ampera program is very much a go.
In an email exchange with Dan Pund, who writes for Edmunds.com's Inside Line, Dave Darovitz said the Ampera is still slated to launch in Europe. As communications manager for the Volt and Chevy fuel-cell Equinox, Darovitz would know.
General Motors last week agreed to sell 55 percent of Opel to Magna and Sberbank in a 50-50 split. GM will keep 35 percent, the biggest single stake in Opel, and Opel workers will hold 10 percent.
The deal still hinges on conditions that could take weeks or months to work out, such as final agreement for government financing and union support for what could be painful cuts.
Additionally, Belgium has asked the European Union to investigate the deal to make sure Germany was not violating antitrust rules.
Hyundai Motors' ix-Metro Hybrid city car is one of several dozen 'green' cars and concepts debuting at Frankfurt show.
By John O'Dell, Senior Editor
This week's Frankfurt Auto Show promises to be the greenest major auto show to date - a showcase for fuel efficiency improvements and alternative powertrains that are coming to the forefront as the mainstream auto industry finally begins coming to grips with the need to begin weaning itself - and us - from petroleum.
We strongly suspect the mark had already been passed when GM first started talking about its fuel-cell electric Chevrolet Equinox fleet 'approaching' the cumulative million-mile mark.
----------
Jeanine Behr-Getz, holding daughter Millicent, logged the millionth mile.
----------
But we think fuel cell vehicles are important,so we gave 'em some ink earlier in the week, an now we'll do it again as the automaker says it is now official: the Equinox FCEVs have tallied more than one million collective miles since GM's Project Driveway began at the beginning of last year.
GM says more than 5,000 people have been given short-term loans of the crossover SUVs that are powered by electricity generated on board in a fuel cell that converts hydrogen and oxygen to electrons.
The officially recognized millionth mile was driven by Jeanine Behr-Getz, a Greenwich, Conn. children's books author who told General Motors screeners that the hydrogen vehicle "fit my family, groceries, golf clubs and work supplies with no problem and it drove the same as my fossil fuel crossover vehicle."
As a bonus, she said, the Equinox fuel-cell vehicle's zero emissions status meant she was the only parent "allowed to idle my car in the [student] pickup line at school.
If it already seems to you that China is positioning itself to exercise substantial control over the green-car market through its natural resources -- and you don't like it -- you're not likely going to like this story one bit.
That's because Bloomberg news service is reporting, and we are relaying, that Alcoa Inc., the largest U.S. producer of aluminum, is speaking with unidentified automakers to develop and supply metal for lightweight, energy-efficient vehicles in China as passenger-car sales in that country surge.
"The automobile sector is a strong consumer of aluminum and I believe it will become more so if you combine lightweight and energy efficiency" needs in the future, Chief Executive Officer Klaus Kleinfeld said today. "There are some companies we're talking to, and that's an area we're seeking to build activities," he said, without giving details.
Passenger-car sales in China soared a record 90 percent last month as tax cuts and subsidies spurred demand, bringing the nation closer to overtaking the U.S. as the world's largest automobile market. Rising vehicle sales in China, as well as building demand, will drive aluminum consumption, Kleinfeld said.
"China is ahead of the curve, and I'm positive of things that are going on," Kleinfeld said while attending the World Economic Forum in Dalian, China.
The Asian nation consumes about seven kilograms of aluminum per capita, compared with 35 kilograms in the U.S., he said, according to Bloomberg. Kleinfeld on Sept. 3 raised Alcoa's forecast for global aluminum consumption because of demand from China.
China's demand will rise 4 percent this year, compared with a previous prediction of no growth, Kleinfeld had said. That changes the company's outlook for global demand to a decline of 5.5 percent from a previous forecast of minus 7 percent.
General Motors began deploying Chevrolet Equinox fuel cell electric vehicles two years ago as part of its Project Driveway program to test FCEVs in everyday driving conditions, and yesterday the General reported that the vehicles have passed the million-mile mark.
As Mark Vann, Chevy's FCEV deployment manager noted in GM's Fastlane blog, no other automaker comes close to the number of miles they've logged using hydrogen in real-world conditions "with real people driving these Equinox fuel cell EVs."
In case we didn't know what real people were, he goes on to describe them: "These people are teachers, homemakers, accountants, video game designers and people from many other walks of life just like you, and they were selected based on their passion for the environment and new media prowess."
All good. But it's the lessons he and others associated with the project have learned from all those real people that we wanted to know about, and Vann didn't disappoint:
"We've used these experiences to extend fuel cell stack life and improve the regenerative braking system, which benefited our 2-mode hybrid vehicles since it's the same brake system used on the Chevy Tahoe and GMC Yukon 2-mode hybrids. Plus, we've applied what we've learned about fuel cell thermal design to the Volt battery design.
He went on to say that he and his team could have tested the vehicles at GM's proving grounds, but the opportunity to have real people drive these vehicles "gave us a much higher degree of relevant feedback on the vehicle's performance -- and even more important, it gave us a great opportunity to listen to our customers."
Then today, during a Web chat with the public, Vann provided additional information we believe may be of interest to you.
Perhaps motivated by U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu's proposal last May to slash more than $100 million in federal funding for hydrogen-vehicle research, nine major automakers today issued a joint statement announcing that they had signed a letter of understanding to develop and launch fuel-cell electric vehicles.
---------- A trio of Ford FCEVs get pumped up. ----------
FCEVs use an on-board fuel cell stack to convert hydrogen and oxygen to electricity that powers an electric drive system.
Today's announcement came one day after Chu said in an interview that he will no longer seek to eliminate federal funding for the R&D of hydrogen cars, but instead will work with lawmakers to ensure the money is "invested wisely."
The automakers' announcement states that they "strongly anticipate that from 2015 onwards a quite significant number of electric vehicles with fuel cell could be commercialized. This number is aimed at a few hundred thousand units over life cycle on a worldwide basis."
It continued: "As every vehicle manufacturer will implement its own specific production and commercial strategies as well as timelines, commercialization of electric vehicles with fuel cells may occur earlier than in the above-mentioned expected year."
Beyond those statements, the announcement -- signed by Daimler, Ford, General Motors, Honda, Hyundai, Kia, Renault, Nissan and Toyota -- offered little more information regarding the automakers' plans.
Much fuss has been made this year about General Motors' claim that the Chevy Volt extended-range electric vehicle due out next year will be able to travel 40 miles on electricity only, and the fact (often heralded by GM) that most American motorists drive fewer than 40 miles a day.
The General hopes you'll connect the dots, but he's been saying it loud and clear for more than a year anyway: Unless you drive more than 40 miles between charges, you probably won't need to put any gasoline in the plug-in automobile.
But if you should happen to go as far as the Volt can take you on a single charge, the General says, don't fret. As an extended-range EV, the Volt is packing a small gasoline-powered engine-generator that can keep juice flowing to the electric motor that propels the vehicle.
Now imagine this: You open a report from the Office of Inspector General of the U.S. Postal Service on the feasibility of electric vehicles in the USPS and you read that (1) only about 3 percent of the service's 146,000 delivery vehicles travel more than 40 miles a day, and (2) those vehicles average a lousy 10 miles per gallon.
No doubt your heart would race if you read those factoids, just as ours did when we read the 23-page report, released last week with little fanfare.
Perhaps Discussing GM's Silly 230 MPG Claim for Volt Would Have Been More Productive
By John O'Dell, Senior Editor
Whoops.
Diesel booster and Audi of America President Johan de Nysschen, whose remarks questioning the common sense (or worse) of people who'd pay $40,000 for an extended-range Chevy Volt plug-in hybrid have been all over the Internet today (including an earlier Green Car Advisor piece), says he didn't mean it that way.
In fact, the famously outspoken de Nysschen (left) says in a new posting on Audi's Facebook page that he doesn't recall using the term 'car for idiots' to describe the Volt (what he did say, apparently, is that "there are not enough idiots who will buy" Volts), and certainly didn't intend to disparage electric cars or people who want to buy them.
He'd better hope he hasn't done the latter - Audi is working on an electric-drive car of its own.
In any event, de Nysschen said in his Facebook posting, "if I was unclear on either of those points then I need to eat crow."
What he did want to make clear, he said, is that, in is opinion the Volt, which he believes will be selling for a "50 percent or so price increase...over a similar gasoline car," won't be able to earn back the price difference for owners through fuel savings alone.
Mercedes-Benz has added a small gas engine to its BlueZero E-Cell electric car concept to turn the limited range battery-electric hatchback into an extended-range hybrid in the manner of the upcoming Chevrolet Volt.
The battery-extended Benz, called the E-Cell Plus, utilizes a turbocharged, 1-liter, three-cylinder engine mounted over the rear axle to serve as a generator feeding juice to the lithium-ion battery pack once the initial charge is depleted.
Mercedes says the E-Cell Plus has a range of up to 600 kilometers - 375 miles - including 100 kilometers, or 62 miles, of all-electric drive from its grid-charged battery before the engine-generator kicks in and starts burning gasoline. The original BlueZero concepts were unveiled at the Deptroir Auto Show in January.
The compact concept car uses the same electric drive system as the non-augmented E-Cell, with an 18 kilowatt-hour lithium-ion battery pack feeding a 70-kilowatt sustained output (100 kilowatt maximum) compact electric motor capable of 320 Newton meters of torque (236 lb-ft).
It is capable of pushing the car from 0 to 100 kilometers per hour (60 mph) in "less than 11 seconds" - nothing to write home about unless its way, way less than 11 - and is electronically limited to a top speed of 150 kph (93 mph).
The gas engine in the E-Cell Plus wouldn't improve performance figures as it would be used only to continue generating electricity to extend the vehicle's range to three times the pure-electric model's 200 kilometers, or 125 miles.
----------
Concept shows 1-liter gas engine-generator through cutout in cargo bay floor.
----------
Mercedes says that with a special rapid charger the E-Cell Plus' battery can be brought up to half-full n just 30 minutes and to full charge in just under an hour. Charging could take 6 hours or so with standard household current. On-board electronics would support the billing and information systems used by the electric charging stations that are slowly being installed in cities around the globe to accommodate increased use of plug-in electric vehicles.
Nissan Altima hybrid was one of the stars of August, more than tripling sales for the month despite limited availability.
By John O'Dell, Senior Editor
The federal Cash for Clunkers program may have been good for conventional cars in August, but monthly sales performance was a letdown for hybrids after an explosive July.
Oh, sales of gas-electric cars and SUVs were up last month - a 9.2 percent gain from July, but that pales by comparison to the 35 percent gain the segment recorded in July over June and doesn't stand up well, either, against the 26.6% August increase posted by conventionally powered vehicles (cars and trucks except hybrids).
Overall, however, August 2009 hybrid sales of 38,701 gas-electric cars, SUVS and pickups were up 48.6 percent from 26,044 in August '08 - a significant gain explained in large part by the addition of half a dozen new hybrid models, including the Honda Insight, Ford Fusion and Lexus HS250, that weren't available a year earlier.
Opel announced today that it will debut at next month's Frankfurt auto show the completely updated Astra small family car that will launch later this year.
---------- Right, the Astra in red and Ampera. ----------
The model, which the European subsidiary of General Motors has produced since 1991, will be offered with a choice of eight engines, ranging from 95 horsepower to 180 horsepower, that are 12 percent lower in fuel consumption and greenhouse-gas emissions that the current line-up of Astra engines.
The new Astra has grown slightly to provide a roomier interior and, at the same time, it has benefited from engineering enhancements that allow it to improve fuel efficiency and performance.
Also sharing the stage in Frankfurt with the new Astra will be the Ampera, the European version of its Chevrolet Volt, which Opel unveiled at the Geneva Motor Show in March of this year.
The two extended-range, plug-in hybrids are the same under the skin. The Ampera will be sold in most of Europe starting in 2011 while Vauxhall, GM's British unit, will build and market a right-hand-drive version for the U.K. starting in 2012 (providing GM and its European marques are still a team then).
The Obama administration plans to cut off dealer funding for the cash-for-clunkers program on Monday night after finding that the $3 billion fund is nearing depletion, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said.
---------- CARS' original timeframe had the program ending November 1. ----------
"This program has been a lifeline to the automobile industry," LaHood said in a statement today.
The Transportation Department said today that dealers had applied for $1.9 billion in rebates for voucher payments made to customers.
Government surveys have also sought to determine how large a stockpile of transactions remain unclaimed by dealers.
In a related development, President Obama said today that there have not been "extraordinary delays" in the processing of dealers' cash-for-clunkers claims and that the government has to be scrupulous in reviewing them to avoid fraud.
"This is actually a high-class problem to have -- that we're selling too many cars too quickly, and there's some backlog in the application process," Obama said in a radio interview released by the White House.
Many dealers have complained that they're not getting paid on claims filed as far back as July 27, when the program formally began.
Some have said they're owed government rebates that stretch into the millions of dollars for payments to customers, and that the delays are causing cash-flow problems.
Meanwhile, General Motors Co. announced that will help cash-strapped dealers waiting for clunker rebates by advancing them a 30-day interest-free loan in the amount of rebates that are being processed.
GM said it is providing the money so dealerships will have the liquidity to run their businesses and continue to deliver vehicles to GM customers.
"Our sales performance in the past two months has exceeded our internal forecast by over 60,000 vehicles, largely driven by the CARS stimulus program," Mark LaNeve, GM vice president of U.S. sales, said in a statement.
"We want to do all we can to provide customers with timely new-vehicle deliveries and dealers the liquidity they need to run their businesses," he added.
The New York Times is reporting today something we've been saying for months: That Toyota, maker of the mighty Prius hybrid and the No. 1 automaker worldwide by volume of units sold, is falling behind in the race to bring all-electric vehicles to market.
---------- Right, Toyota sold the RAV4 EV sport ute from 1997-2203. ----------
The article notes that Mitsubishi Motors has begun leasing its i-MiEV and that Nissan is set to leave its EV next year. But when oh when is Toyota's? 2012 is the answer the automaker gives.
The article quotes Masatami Takimoto, Toyota's executive vice president, as saying earlier this year that the electric car's "time is not here."
Electric cars "face many challenges," he said, adding that "to commercialize pure EV's, we need a battery that far exceeds the current technology."
Predictably, the Times reporter turned to EV proponents and analysts who have no experience running an automaker, let alone one that manufactured and sold an all-electric SUV from 1997-2003; that would be Toyota's RAV4 EV, many of which are still going strong and enjoy great popularity with their owners.
Which isn't to say the analysts weren't good for some interesting speculation.
"In a world where vehicles run on electrons rather than hydrocarbons, the automakers will have to reinvent their businesses," Russell Hensley, an analyst at the consulting company McKinsey, told clients in a recent report, the Times reported.
The newspaper also quoted analysts as saying that Toyota would like to profit all it can from the current technology before shifting to a new one - which makes sense, doesn't it? - especially because the company is facing a second down year after a loss last year of about $4.4 billion.
The Washington Post published an interesting electric-vehicle story on August 8 that nearly escaped our radar detection. Nearly but not quite. Here's how it starts:
Coda Automotive employs 41 people. It has a headquarters in Santa Monica, California, but it doesn't have its own factory. It doesn't have its own dealer network. It doesn't have a coterie of designers. Its chief executive, Kevin Czinger, a one-time college football star and former assistant U.S. attorney, has spent most of his career working in finance.
Yet Coda claims it will beat General Motors and other companies to market with an affordable, all-electric automobile built for the average American. This may not be a completely wild-eyed idea. Czinger was recently driving one of the prototypes - a plain-looking but smooth-running sedan [pictured] - around the streets of Washington.
Inspired by the prospect of a new market for electric cars, Coda and other small entrepreneurial companies are tapping into the expertise of others in bids to launch new vehicle brands featuring technology they say will leapfrog the major manufacturers.
The end-around premise of the story isn't something all of us haven't thought of on our own. But if that lead doesn't inspire you to click on the link above, we encourage you to check your pulse, place a 911 call if necessary, and then click on the link to read the rest of the story.
General Motors announced today that the all-new Buick plug-in gasoline-electric compact crossover it was going to bring to market in 2011 won't be entering the marketplace after all.
The most any of us will likely see of that vehicle is the teaser photo (above) that it supplied with a statement announcing development of the plug-in electric hybrid on Aug. 6.
If you read that statement, you read this:
"Buick has always been at the forefront of new technology, so it is only fitting that the brand should debut our new plug-in hybrid technology in a beautiful new crossover," said Stephens. "This will firmly put Buick, and GM, front and center in the advanced technology game."
That would be Tom Stephens, GM vice chairman of product development.
Well, a funny thing happened to the Buick on the way to market: A bunch of people saw it, said it stunk, and GM killed it before too many more people saw it. Or as Stephens put it in the statement GM issued today:
"We were all struck by the consistency of the criticism of the compact crossover. And what we decided to do in response is a good example of the essence of the new General Motors...acting quickly, and boldly, and listening to feedback from customers, employees, dealers, media and just about anyone else with an opinion."
That's 100 percent quality spin. But wait. There's more:
GM Daewoo today announced that its all-new global mini-car, the Matiz Creative, will begin appearing in showrooms worldwide on September first.
The vehicle, which took 27 months to develop at a cost of $236 million, gets a company-claimed 40 miles per gallon. It has yet to receive a fuel-economy rating from the U.S. government.
Following its launch in South Korea, the global mini will be sold in more than 150 markets around the world, including those in Europe, Asia and North America, the automaker said GM Daewoo, which was established in 2002 and has five manufacturing facilities in South Korea as well as an assembly facility in Vietnam, said it put the Matiz Creative through more than 300,000 miles of weather, durability and crash testing.
The car is equipped with a newly developed 4-cylinder, 16-valve DOHC engine with a displacement of 995 cc that delivers 69 horsepower and maximum torque of 698 pound feet.
The engine features a system that ensures high exhaust gas recirculation, resulting in combustion stability at low speeds and optimal performance at high speeds together with impressive fuel efficiency and ultra-low emissions.
Another first-in-segment application is an automatic temperature controller inside the engine that helps improve fuel efficiency by reducing unnecessary heat loss. A dome-type long-skirt cylinder block narrows the space between intake valves while the application of four resonators reduces engine noise.
Mated with the engine is a 4-speed automatic transmission.
The body of the Matiz Creative is the stiffest in the mini segment: 66.5 percent of it is constructed of high-strength steel, while more than 16 percent uses ultra-high-strength steel. GM Daewoo claims this ensures the highest level of protection in the segment. It has yet to be crash tested in the U.S.
Tesla Motors announced today that Tesla Motors will develop and manufacture electric vehicle components in a renovated building (pictured) in the Stanford Research Park in Palo Alto, California.Tesla, the only automaker that is producing and selling highway-capable electric vehicles in North America, will lease an 350,000-square-foot building on a 23-acre parcel less than 3 miles from Stanford University. The automaker said the new facility will supply all-electric powertrains to Tesla and to other automakers, greatly accelerating the availability of mass-market EVs.
Tesla will also move its corporate headquarters from nearby San Carlos to the site later this year. Roughly 350 employees will work in Palo Alto initially, with space for up to 650 people at the facility.
In an interview with Green Car Advisor, Tesla Chief Technology Officer JB Straubel (left) said selection of the site was based on various factors, among the most important being convenience for existing employees and access to future ones.
He said the location "will give us great access to top engineering and technical talent, and it's also a very central location for all of our existing employees so that we don't have to risk losing some employees just because of moving our headquarters and our operations."
He said the new site will be where Tesla performs powertrain research and development, not automobile assembly. He clarified some reports that suggested Tesla's next model - the Model S sedan - would be built there, stating "We're not going to built the sedan vehicle here. That'll be a separate facility."
"This is more focused on electrical engineering and mechanical engineering rather than something you would traditionally think of as industrial processes," said Straubel, who earned a bachelor's degree in energy systems engineering and a master's in energy engineering from Stanford.
Ford Motor Co. Executive Chairman Bill Ford (pictured), in an interview with Edmunds.com reporter Bill Visnic earlier today, suggested the EPA's methodology for electric-vehicle fuel economy figures was meaningless.
"This question devolves into madness," he said in response to a question regarding General Motors' and Nissan's recent claims that their Chevrolet Volt and Leaf plug-in hybrid electric vehicles will have government fuel economy ratings of 230 and 360 miles per gallon, respectively.
"The government will have to come up with a meaningful number for customers - a user-friendly label. And I think they will. I can't dispute that number, but I'm not sure it's relevant to the customer either," he said.
GM announced last week that it is investing $43 million in a Detroit-area factory that will make lithium-ion battery packs for the Volt. Asked if Ford intends to make batteries for its EVs, the grandson of the company's founder said, "Initially, we should just buy batteries. We don't have any particular expertise in batteries. We'll probably stick to the vehicle-integration part of the puzzle."
On GM and Nissan huge claims for mpg for Volt and Leaf: "This question devolves into madness. The government will have to come up with a meaningful number for customers - a user-friendly label. And I think they will. I can't dispute that number but I'm not sure it's relevant to the customer either."
As more customers buy cars under the cash-for-clunkers program, General Motors is adding more shifts and offering workers overtime at Ohio and Michigan plants to meet the new demand.
The shifts have been added at plants where the Chevrolet Malibu and Pontiac G6 sedans and Chevrolet Cobalt (pictured) compact are assembled, GM spokesman Chris Lee said.
GM's sales of cars and light trucks decreased 19 percent in July compared with the same month in 2008. Analysts had predicted the company's sales would fall 24 percent.
Ford Motor Co. announced last week that it would boost production by 26 percent in the second half of 2009.
Fisker Automotive said today that its Karma plug-in gasoline-electric hybrid vehicle, or PHEV, reached 100 miles an hour without consuming a single drop of gas during the car's public driving debut at Laguna Seca Raceway on Saturday.
The low-emissions, fuel-efficient four-door sedan made only one lap on the famous track Saturday, but CEO Henrik Fisker said today that the lap showed a lot of promise.
"This demonstration represents a significant milestone for Fisker Automotive and PHEV technology. The future of clean cars is bright," he said.
According to him, the Karma will be able to travel up to 50 emission-free miles on electricity from a single battery charge (or 10 miles more than the Chevrolet Volt) and extend its overall range to more than 300 miles with aid from an on-board gasoline-powered internal combustion engine-generator (same as the Volt).
The Karma is scheduled to go on sale in May 2010, with a base price of $87,900.
Only 19 months after being unveiled as a concept car, a prototype of the Fisker Karma plug-in hybrid electric vehicle made its public driving debut today (pictured above and below), silently rolling out of a staging tent and onto the track at the legendary Laguna Seca Raceway in Monterey, California.
Under partly cloudy skies, the swoopy luxury-sports sedan accelerated quickly up hill and into Laguna Seca's famous Corkscrew - a plunging left-right corner - en route to making one lap on the 11-turn course before a large crowd that had gathered primarily to watch the annual Historic Automobile Races, held this weekend.
Like the forthcoming Chevrolet Volt, the Karma will be able to travel up to 50 emission-free miles on electricity from a single battery charge (or 10 miles more than the Volt) and extend its overall range to more than 300 miles with aid from an on-board gasoline-powered internal combustion engine-generator (same as the Volt).
Two 201.5-horsepower electric motors send enough traction through a single-speed differential to reach 60 miles per hour in about six seconds and a top speed of 125 mph. Together, these components make up a powertrain exclusive to both Fisker automobiles (the other being the Karma Sunset hardtop convertible).
In press releases, Fisker Automotive has said the powertrain can deliver fuel economy of 100 miles per gallon. Company founder Henrik Fisker told journalists covering today's event that he believed the powertrain would be capable of achieving 140 mpg.
EPA fuel-economy figures for the Karma are likely to be weeks if not months away.
Henrik Fisker said the Karma is still on track for a May 2010 showroom launch. Initial production is anticipated to be 15,000 vehicles annually, with pricing to start at $87,900.
General Motors Corp. announced today that is investing $43 million in a Detroit-area factory that will make lithium-ion battery packs for the Chevrolet Volt and other extended-range electric vehicles.
---------- Right, GM President and CEO Fritz Henderson announcing the new GM Subsystem Manufacturing facility, south of Detroit, earlier today. ----------
It will be the first lithium-ion battery manufacturing plant in the U.S. operated by a major automaker and it demonstrates GM's commitment to produce more fuel-efficient vehicles.
The automaker said the plant, which will be located in Brownstown Township, Michigan, will provide more than 100 advanced technology jobs and will be part of a wholly owned subsidiary called GM Subsystem Manufacturing LLC.
Local and state incentives, along with Recovery Act funding announced last week by the U.S. Department of Energy, are helping to make the facility possible.
The investment includes renovation and lease costs for the 160,000-square-foot landfill-free facility, new machinery and equipment, and special tooling.
With the exception of specialized battery machinery and equipment, GM will be reusing equipment from other GM facilities. Equipment installation is under way and production will start in the fourth quarter of 2010 to support the launch of the Volt, GM said.
General Motors is planning on adding electric motor development and manufacturing to its list of electric-vehicle specialities that it hopes to bring in-house, in order to further its expertise in the field as the electrification of the automobile continues.
---------- Right, a pre-production Chevrolet Volt is loaded with a lithium-ion battery. ----------
GM reps attending the Plug-In 2009 conference in Long Beach, California, this week said the automaker wants to begin making its own electric motors in-house in order to use its own technology to try and save money, weight, and power consumption, while boosting performance.
The first application of the GM-designed and -built motors is likely to be in the Two-Mode hybrid powertrain system for the upcoming front-wheel-drive Buick CUV that was originally slated to be a Saturn.
Breaking With Tradition
Traditionally, automakers have relied on their varying expertise in powertrains to differentiate themselves from one to the other. GM's expertise in automatic transmissions, for instance, or BMW's in straight-six engines has provided notable selling point discriminators between vehicles that companies can point to as sources of excellence when selling a vehicle.
But with powertrains changing so dramatically with the onset of electrification, a whole new skill set must be learned to the point of expertise - and in some ways, GM is behind.
We Deconstruct the Claim; Remember - Your Mileage May Vary
By John O'Dell, Senior Editor
I've figured out how to get 230 miles per gallon driving a Chevy Volt around the city.
I've also figured how to go the same distance and get only about 40 mpg, with the same car on the same route.
If that sounds confusing, just wait 'til I try to explain to you how GM came up with its 230 miles per gallon city driving figure for the Chevrolet Volt - apparently with the tacit agreement of the EPA, despite the agency's stated inability to confirm GM's news-making fuel economy claim for its four-place, extended-range hybrid.
First off, though, let's get something straight: That the Volt might or might not get the equivalent of 230 miles per gallon doesn't mean it actually would go 230 miles if you put a single gallon of gas in its tank and sent it out to find its way in the world.
That's preposterous.
Despite what GM calls it, we're talking about a gas mileage equivalency, not real miles per gallon.
Infinity MPG?
Under the rational that GM says the EPA applied to the Volt, an ell-electric car such as the upcoming Nissan Leaf or existing Tesla Roadster would have an official rating of "infinity miles per gallon."
In response to a request from Green Car Advisor seeking clarification and confirmation of General Motors' claim that the Chevrolet Volt extended-range hybrid achieves 230 miles per gallon in city driving using tentative EPA test technology, the agency issued the following statement:
"EPA has not tested a Chevy Volt and therefore cannot confirm the fuel economy values claimed by GM. EPA does applaud GM's commitment to designing and building the car of the future - an American-made car that will save families money, significantly reduce our dependence on foreign oil and create good-paying American jobs. We're proud to see American companies and American workers leading the world in the clean energy innovations that will shape the 21st century economy."
We at Green Car Advisor cannot be certain, but we strongly suspect that the person who wrote that statement was waving an American flag with one hand and holding a humongous slice of apple pie in the other. If the writer had used American in the statement just one more time, he or she surely would have qualified for some type of prize.
But seriously, we're still trying to figure out exactly how GM came to conclude that the Volt will get 230 mpg in city driving. And we're wondering what the automaker will say or do when initial Volt buyers discover - probably, but we're hoping we're wrong - that they aren't achieving anywhere near 230 mpg in city.
It's not as exciting as General Motors Corp.'s announcement this morning that its Chevrolet Volt is likely to win a 230-mpg fuel economy rating from the EPA for city driving, but the automaker's plan for charging the extended-range hybrid may be more meaningful.
---------- Engineer Gery Kissel explains GM's dual charging options to journalists at Plug-In 2009 conference. ----------
GM isn't planning on any sort of widespread public charging infrastructure being ready for the Volt, so it is equipping the four-seat car to be charged "at home" with either 100-volt or 240-volt systems.
The latter, GM executives said at a dinner last night held in conjunction with the Plug-In 2009 conference in Long Beach, Calif., is likely to be offered as an option, to be permanently installed in an owner's garage, carport or even an outdoor location.
GM's spent a lot of time talking about the car, its features and its design, "now here's the rest of it," Volt vehicle line director Tony Posawatz said as he pointed to the display stand on which the two systems were mounted.
A Homebody
"We've geared the Volt to be charged at home...if the infrastructure [for public charging] catches up with it, fine, but it won't be a necessity," he told Green Car Advisor.
An advertisement blanketing billboards across the U.S. that features "230," today's date and a smiling electrical outlet, we can now report, is an attention-rousing teaser referring to GM's announcement this morning of the miles per gallon its engineers expect the Chevrolet Volt extended-range hybrid to achieve in city driving using tentative EPA test methodology.
A General Motors spokesman attending the Plug-In 2009 convention in Long Beach, California, told Green Car Advisor early today that the gasoline- and electric-powered Volt four-door sedan will attain a city fuel economy of "at least 230 mpg," based on development testing using a draft EPA federal fuel economy methodology for plug-in electric vehicles.
GM representatives have repeatedly said that the Volt, which is scheduled to start production in late 2010 as a 2011 model, will be able to travel up to 40 miles on electricity from a single battery charge and extend its overall range to more than 300 miles with its on-board, flex- fuel internal combustion engine-generator.
"From the data we've seen, many Chevy Volt drivers may be able to be in pure electric mode on a daily basis without having to use any gas," GM Chief Executive Officer Fritz Henderson said in a statement that repeats clams GM executives have been making since the Volt was introduced as a concept car at the 2007 Detroit Auto Show.
However, it's unlikely many of those attending the plug-in convention - ourselves included - place much credence in the 230-mpg figure.
Several engineers and battery specialists asked about the claim Monday - while it was still a rumor - said that the EPA test figures for EVs are unrealistically optimistic.
GM itself dampened the news with a press release that said "Volt drivers' actual gas-free mileage will vary depending on how far they travel and other factors, such as how much cargo or how many passengers they carry and how much the air conditioner or other accessories are used."
On the other hand, Volt drivers who driver sensibly on unremarkable roads without hauling a carload of people or cargo - and who don't exceed 20 or 30 miles between charges - could avoid having to buy any gasoline for the on-board generator. The generator, a four-cylinder gasoline engine, feeds juice to the Volt's electric powertrain after the battery is discharged..
You've likely seen the advertising blitz featuring the number 230 and a friendly electrical outlet.
Below the number appears two more: "8-11."
And if you're of right mind, you've probably asked yourself: "What the heck is that about?"
The folks at Advertising Age did some virtual sleuthing and believe they know the answer.
According to them, the marketer behind the effort is General Motors. But no one at GM is willing to confirm that.
However, AA quotes an ad man for GM agency Starcom as saying, "I'm glad it's getting out there." He would not elaborate except to hint that all would become clear on Tuesday. As in tomorrow. As in August 11. Make that 8-11.
Since Advertising Age came out with that tidbit, bloggers worldwide have speculated that 230 stands for: the 230-volt outlets from which the Volt will get its juice; the miles it can travel on a gallon of gas (and electricity); and last but not least, something having to do with the Volt and Apple.
The suspense is killing us. We've not been this anxious since the "Who shot Mr. Burns?" Simpsons episode.
High-performance engine design is all about extracting as much power as possible within rigid confines.
So we weren't shocked to learn today that Ilmore Engineering, a British company that has designed and made racing engines for General Motors, Mercedes-Benz and Honda for Formula 1 and IndyCar competitions, had developed a 5-stroke concept engine (pictured) that it says has the power of a diesel engine and the fuel efficiency and low emissions of a stingy gas sipper.
The engine, which displaces only 700cc and yet puts out 130 horsepower and 122 pound-feet of torque, is turbocharged and equipped with a fifth stroke. Yes, a fifth stroke.
Two of the engine's cylinders, running with a conventional four-stroke design, fire and expend their exhaust gases into a third low-pressure expansion cylinder. A fifth stroke then allows those gases to expand, boosting thermodynamic efficiency.
The result: Ilmore estimates a 5 percent improvement in overall efficiency versus a conventional direct-injected engine of similar displacement.
Ilmore is seeking support for a next generation of the concept offering up 150 horsepower and weiging 20-percent less than current engine.
Specifically, Ilmore engineering manager Steve O'Connor says the company is "looking for a manufacturer to back the idea, and the interest centers on its use in a hybrid application, as they tend to need sudden bursts of energy, and that is what this engine does well."
True. We wish O'Connor and the rest of the Ilmore Engineering gang the best of luck in their five-stroke endeavors.
Two of GM's top environmentalists have departed now, while cigar-chomping, horsepower-loving Bob Lutz remains - and in charge of getting out the company's message as it tries to shift into a new era of fuel efficiency and electrification.
Beth Lowery, General Motors Corp.'s vice president for environment, energy and safety, is the most recent to go, announcing her Oct. 1 departure today under an early-out incentive program being offered to thin the automaker's top management herd.
She is following Larry Burns, the General's longtime head of advanced product R&D and one of the domestic auto industry's most vocal supporters of hydrogen fuel-cell technology.
An attorney, Lowery joined GM in 1989 as North American general counsel.
She was named v.p. for environmental and energy policy in 2001 and safety policy was added to her responsibilities in 2007.
It wasn't just a job for her. She believed. Lowery's retirement, like Burns', can only hurt GM, no matter how much money it saves in executive payroll costs.
I can still remember the excitement in her voice as she described the possibilities of GM's then-new "skateboard" platform for fuel cell vehicles to me the first time we met.
Burns, Lowery...
Two don't make a trend. Let's hope no more environmental advocates - a smallish group at most any automaker - are preparing to follow in their footsteps.
Confirming a report
we brought you last month, General Motors Corp. says that its Buick lineup will, indeed, get a new plug-in hybrid crossover in 2011.
---------- "Teaser" photo from GM provides a taste of Buick Plug-In's styling. (Clck to enlarge.) ----------
Speaking at a gathering this morning of auto industry executives, suppliers, analysts and� and media in upstate Michigan, GM product development chief Tom Stephans said the crossover will follow the Chevrolet Volt extended range plug-in due out at the end of 2010 and will use a modified version of the dial-mode hybrid system in us on the Silverado and Sierra hybrid pickups.
The yet-to-be-named 5-seat crossover will be smaller than the present Buick Enclave SUV, Stephans said, and will have a regular gasoline model, powered by a 2,.4-liter, four-cylinder Ecotec engine with a 3.0-liter V6 as an option.
The plug-in model will be positioned a top-of-the-line with a 3.6-liter V6 mated to the hybrid electric drive.
The hybrid will get gets the same lithium-ion battery cells as the Volt but in a package with only have as much energy storage - 8 kilowatt-hours vs. the Volt's 16 kwh battery pack.
---------- GM technician works on Buick plug-in battery. ----------
Because� it has a standard gas-electric hybrid system rather than the Volt's all-electric drive, the Buick plug-in will have only about 10 miles of all-electric range before its gas engine kicks in.
Power stored in the battery pack will be used to augment the gas engine when accelerating, towing or otherwise placing heavy demands on the gas engine.
Although Toyota Motor Corp.. will have a plug-in hybrid in test fleets next year and Ford Motor Co. is presently testing plug-in version of its Escape hybrid, GM said the Buick would be "the first commercially available plug-in hybrid" by a major automaker.
President Obama announced the winners today of $2.4 billion in stimulus grants aimed at spurring the development of electric vehicles and the advanced batteries they need - with Detroit's Big Three securing more than $400 million for plug-in projects.
The cash was divvied up among 48 projects in 25 states, with General Motors Corp., Ford Motor Co. and Chrysler Group LLC together grabbing some of the biggest grants. Still, the Big Three's tally was less than the combined haul of battery makers Johnson Controls Inc. and A123 Systems Inc., who together took home nearly $550 million.
"If we want to reduce our dependence on oil, put Americans back to work and reassert our manufacturing sector as one of the greatest in the world, we must produce the advanced, efficient vehicles of the future," Obama said at an event in Elkhart, Indiana, the hard-hit town he visited six months ago to drum up support for the $787 billion economic stimulus package.
The announcement comes as the administration continues its push to convince the public that the stimulus package has been a success, despite poor employment figures and other economic data showing a less than robust economic revival. As part of the grant rollout, Vice President Joe Biden was scheduled to speak in Michigan and Energy Secretary Steven Chu in Charlotte, N.C., later today.
The $2.4 billion is divided into three separate programs aimed at enticing U.S. manufacturers to produce more plug-in hybrid electric vehicles and the components and infrastructure that will support them. The first $1.5 billion is to help companies produce highly efficient batteries for plug-in hybrids and all-electric cars and trucks; $500 million is for the production of other necessary components, such as electric motors; and the final $400 million is for demonstration projects that evaluate electric infrastructure concepts.
Unlike the separate $25 billion Energy Department loan program aimed at helping retool U.S. manufacturing plants to produce more fuel-efficient vehicles, the stimulus grants do not need to be repaid. The winners do, however, have to match the federal cash with their own investments, mostly on a one-to-one basis.
GM received the largest haul of the major carmakers, receiving three separate grants totaling $241.4 million, most of which was earmarked for the high-volume production of battery packs for the company's plug-in Chevy Volt and for the deployment of a 600 strong demonstration fleet.
Ford received two separate grants, totaling $92.7 million, a third of which will go toward a commercialization project with 15 electric utility companies. Chrysler received one grant for $70 million to develop and deploy 220 advanced plug-in pickups and minivans.
Toyota's Perennial Best-Seller Records 48% Sales Jump For Month; Honda Hybrids Flat
By John O'Dell, Senior Editor
If Cash for Clunkers lit a fire under July's auto dales in the general market, it apparently set off a rocket booster under the hybrid market.
---------- It was blue skies for Toyota as its 2010 Prius rebounded in July. -----------
Sales of gas-electric cars, SUVs and trucks were up an impressive 35 percent in July - for the month and from a year earlier. Almost all hybrid cars best the 22 mph minimum combined EPA mileage that qualifies a vehicle to be purchased using a cash for clunkers voucher. By comparison, sales of conventional new vehicles rose 15.4 percent for the month and were down 13 percent from July '08.
The explosive performance was led almost single-handedly by Toyota's 2010 Prius, which saw its first full month of sales with an adequate supply on hand at dealerships.
"I think hybrids are benefiting from the buzz of new models such as the 2010 Prius and Honda Insight and fresh models in segments other than compact car, as well as from Cash for Clunkers," said Edmunds.com industry analyst Jessica Caldwell.
U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said the Cash for Clunkers program that's become the most visible of the Obama administration's economic-stimulus efforts would come to an end possibly as early as this week unless the U.S. Senate approves $2 billion in additional funding for the program.
"If we don't get the $2 billion from the Senate...we would have to suspend the program next week," LaHood (pictured) said in an interview with C-SPAN's "Newsmakers" show on Sunday.
The 10-day-old program has helped reduced inventories of unsold vehicles at many dealerships to their lowest levels in years, giving Ford, Chrysler and General Motors much-needed cash injections.
Senate Democratic leaders said today that they hoped to bring a $2 billion extension to the Senate floor this week as the program's original $1 billion in funding runs low.
But the additional funding is no slam dunk. At least one senator wants to see evidence the program is reducing automotive emissions -- that and boosting the economy are two of its goals.
And some senators have said they are opposed to extending the program unless it is changed to compel consumers to buy more fuel-efficient cars than is currently required. Those senators include Republican Susan Collins of Maine and Democrat Dianne Feinstein of California.
LaHood expressed support for the program just as it is, but he made clear that if the Senate doesn't approve the funding extension, the administration won't rescue the program.
The program offers government vouchers toward a new car to consumers who surrender for scrapping an older vehicle rated at 18 miles per gallon or less. To get a $3,500 voucher, the new car must be at least 4 mpg more efficient; a 10-mpg improvement is required for a $4,500 voucher.
General Motors, a leader in development of hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles, may have to curtail its cutting-edge work unless it gets another $50 million to $70 million from the government, GM's outgoing research chief warns.
GM just emerged from a painful bankruptcy restructuring in which it cut 1,100 dealers; shed Pontiac, Hummer and Saturn; and lost thousands more jobs. Yet, through it all, GM maintained its hydrogen research program pretty much intact, even though fuel-cell vehicles are still years away from going on sale.
"The program has not slowed down at all," Larry Burns (pictured), GM's retiring vice president of research, said in an interview with USA Today. "The issue is, going forward, do we have sufficient money to operate at that rate?"
You may recall that Burns is one of the auto industry's most outspoken backers of hydrogen technology. He shepherded the Chevrolet Equinox fuel-cell electric vehicle into existence and has helped lead the charge for development of a national hydrogen fueling system to support widespread use of the zero-emissions vehicles.
Trying to seek federal research dollars, directly or indirectly, comes at a sensitive time for GM. As of last month, the automaker had either accepted or been approved for $49.4 billion in government bailout funds. It has not had direct grants from the government for its hydrogen program.
Now, General Motors is in talks with "government and private entities" about grants or partnerships in hydrogen vehicle research, confirms GM spokesman Alan Adler.
Under Burns, GM has become known for its fuel-cell work. "They have done so much original, groundbreaking work in this area," Catherine Dunwoody, executive director of the California Fuel Cell Partnership, told USA Today.
Burns, 58, says he decided to retire to give the new GM fresh research leadership under Alan Taub, 54, who, he says, will continue with the same direction.
Hydrogen is a zero-emission fuel that emits only water vapor through the tailpipe. But fuel cells are costly, few fueling stations exist, and mass acceptance is considered years away.
Energy Secretary Steven Chu cut $100 million from the $168 million hydrogen research budget to focus instead on battery electric cars, which show more short-term promise. There are moves in Congress to restore hydrogen funding.
German luxury automakers including BMW and Mercedes-Benz are close to benefiting from a U.S. concession that will allow them and a few other foreign makers to keep selling cars that emit more greenhouse gases than those made by mass-market rivals such as Ford, General Motors and Toyota.
So reports the Wall Street Journal today in an article (subscription required) that points out better than most how recent U.S. legislation benefits foreign automakers and harms domestic ones.
Under a provision of a plan to curb greenhouse-gas emissions, the Obama administration has proposed to set less stringent standards for carmakers that sell fewer than 400,000 vehicles a year in the U.S. That target defines the major German brands as well as a few smaller Asian manufacturers such as Suzuki Motor Corp. and Mitsubishi Motors Corp.
The easier targets are expected to apply to a limited portion of a carmaker's sales volume, and last for about four years -- unless the government grants an extension.
In effect, the "German provision" would make it easier for Mercedes to keep selling cars like its $147,000, 12-cylinder S600 sedan (pictured), rated at 13 miles per gallon, while GM or Toyota would be required to meet tougher mileage standards with smaller, more efficient cars, the Journal notes.
The rules are expected to be formally proposed later this year by the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Transportation to enforce the administration's mandate that makers boost the average fuel efficiency of their fleets to 35.5 miles mpg by 2016.
A spokesman for GM -- now majority-owned by the federal government -- said the Obama administration's proposal "creates fewer concerns" than California's policy because it is expected to exempt only a quarter of each qualifying auto maker's fleet, rather than all vehicles sold by those companies. It also would be in effect for only four years, compared with seven under the California program.
Other industry experts and some former government policymakers take a more critical view of the administration's plan.
David Cole, chairman of the Center for Automotive Research at the University of Michigan, said the provision would hand "a distinct competitive advantage" to German and other exempted companies that compete with the major U.S. and Japanese brands in the U.S.
Daniel Becker, director of the Washington-based Safe Climate Campaign, which advocates tougher regulation of automotive fuel economy and greenhouse-gas emissions, said BMW and Mercedes "should be required to meet the same standards as General Motors and Ford."
Also: Illinois, Colorado, Austria announce plans to invest heavily in plug-in infrastructures.
By Scott Doggett, Contributor
When it rains, it often pours. That's certainly the case now, as the U.S. Department of Energy, the states of Illinois and Colorado, and an Austrian utility all announced in recent days that they will invest many millions of dollars to create recharging networks for electric vehicles.
That's wonderful news, because it brings electric-vehicle makers and potential EV makers a step closer to solving one of the two major problems they face: That being a lack of infrastructure to support pure EVs and plug-in gasoline-electric hybrid vehicles.
The other problem remains development of inexpensive, safe, reliable, lightweight and energy-rich batteries to power the vehicles. Many companies and governments are working on a solution to that problem.
The Energy Department on Monday awarded $47 million in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funds to eight ongoing smart-grid demonstration projects. The $47 million investment will add to the $17 million in funds DOE had awarded these eight projects last year, thereby accelerating the timelines for the projects.
Most of the projects relate to technologies to help transmission and distribution systems operate better, but a few are directly related to clean energy. For example, the city of Fort Collins, Colorado, will research, develop and demonstrate a coordinated and integrated system of mixed clean energy technologies and distributed energy resources, allowing the city to reduce its peak electrical demand by at least 15 percent.
Meanwhile, the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago will focus on implementing distributed energy resources and creating demand-responsive microgrids, which are small power networks that can operate independently of the utility power grid. In addition, the University of Hawaii will explore the management of its electrical distribution system to better accommodate wind power.
The Energy Department also just released the first Smart Grid System Report, which examines smart-grid deployments nationwide. The findings show that while many smart-grid capabilities are just beginning to emerge, the adoption of various technologies such as smart metering, automated substation controls and distributed generation are growing significantly.
The report also notes that smart-grid capabilities are socially transformational. As with the Internet or cell phone communications, smart-grid technologies have the potential to dramatically change how we experience electricity in the country, but improvements in physical and cyber security and information privacy will require consumers, manufacturers and utilities to closely follow a range of best practices for the smart grid.
Additionally, the Energy Department has begun the development of a Smart Grid Information Clearinghouse, tapping Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University for the $1.3 million initiative to develop and maintain the clearinghouse Website, which will provide information to the public about smart-grid initiatives happening nationwide. The Smart Grid Information Clearinghouse was mandated by the Recovery Act.
Above, a slide in a Ford presentation Tuesday spells out the new importance the automaker gives green cars.
By Scott Doggett, Contributor
In its bid to survive myriad threats in a volatile automotive industry, Ford Motor Co. is pulling out all the stops.
Perhaps that has never been more evident than it was Tuesday, when the century-old automaker hosted a 2010 model-year news conference and driving event at its sprawling Dearborn Development Center.
Led by Derrick Kuzak (left
), Ford's global product development chief, and Barb Samardzich (below
), head of Ford's global powertrain R&D efforts, the event offered a deep look into the verdant future of Detroit's healthiest automaker less than a month after it unveiled plans to spend $14 billion on advanced-technology vehicles.
The company's recently released EcoBoost engine forms the core of Ford's survival strategy, they said. The engine uses gasoline turbocharged direct-injection technology for, the company claims, up to 20 percent better fuel economy and 15 percent fewer greenhouse-gas emissions than like-sized regularly aspirated engines of similar horsepower.
EcoBoost V6 engines will debut in the 2010 model-year Ford Flex, Taurus SHO, Lincoln MKS and MKT; as we reported, the company provided details Tuesday regarding a four-cylinder version slated to appear in Fords starting next calendar year.
By 2012, Kuzak and Samardzich said, the company will produce a combined 750,000 EcoBoost V6 and I4 engines annually in the U.S. and 1.3 million globally.
The executives also said Ford will offer EcoBoost engines in 90 percent of its vehicles by 2013. It's clear from the figures that EcoBoost engines won't be an option, but rather will constitute the stock engines found in most of Ford's lineup less than five years from now.
And Hybrids!
But there's more to the green 2010 MY offerings from Ford than vehicles fitted with EcoBoost engines. Ford is also offering two new hybrids: the Ford Fusion Hybrid ($27,270 base) and the Mercury Milan Hybrid ($27,500 base), both of which impressed us with their acceleration and handling Tuesday on the development center's high-speed track.
Both hybrids average an EPA-rated 41 miles per gallon in the city - that's 8 mpg more than the 2010 Toyota Camry Hybrid, which starts at $26,150 - making them the most fuel-efficient midsize sedans currently available in America.
Speaking of Toyota: For the first time in the 28-year history of the Global Quality Research System, a study conducted quarterly by the independent RDA Group of Bloomfield, Michigan, Ford, Lincoln and Mercury vehicles recently obtained customer-satisfaction levels on par with the Japanese car maker's.
That's important, because it's one of a spate of recent internal and external studies that show a positive trend in the percentage of consumers with favorable opinions about Ford and growing numbers of consumers who are willing to consider purchasing a Ford product, thanks in no small part to improved fuel economy.
Avoided Bankruptcy
Of course, it also helps that Ford didn't just emerge from bankruptcy, as did Chrysler and General Motors. Those companies now have to win back consumer confidence, while Ford - though driving to improve its ratings - is starting form a much higher level.
The studies also show that vehicles such as the Fusion Hybrid (left, at Ford's Dearborn Development Center on Tuesday
) are bringing new customers to Ford: 54 percent of the hybrid's buyers thus far did not previously own Fords and 66 percent of those buyers are coming out of foreign vehicles, company spokesmen said.
That's crucial as Ford tries to win back some of the market share it's lost to Japanese and European automakers in recent years.
On that chord, it's worth noting that before he assumed his current position as Ford's head of global car development, Kuzak ran the automaker's European small-car operation for five years. People within and outside Ford who are familiar with Kuzak's European efforts say the man knows what Ford needs to do to compete with fuel-efficient subcompacts produced by Old World automakers.
That knowledge includes designing vehicles that not only get excellent mileage, but that are also a blast to drive. Quickness and major fun factor are characteristics Kuzak is constantly stressing to Ford engineers, they say.
EcoBoost Just a Start
But there's more to Ford's fuel-efficiency efforts than EcoBoost.
When you factor in the incremental fuel-saving gains Ford's made with electric power-assist steering (which reduces the load on the engine since a belt-driven power steering pump is no longer required), aerodynamic modifications, six-speed transmissions, reductions in electric-system loads via electric air-conditioners, minute transmission tweaks that reduce friction - and a host of other mileage-enhancers - the fuel-economy benefits of vehicles the automaker has in the works for the short term approach 40 percent.
"We are absolutely committed to delivering new products with the best fuel economy in every segment in which we compete," Samardzich said.
We look forward to posting more Ford green-car news from Tuesday's event later today.
Larry Burns, one of the auto industry's most outspoken backers of hydrogen technology, is retiring in the wake of the company's bankruptcy and announced intent to thin top executive ranks.
----------
Larry Burns introduces the Chevrolet Equinox Fuel Cell vehicle.
----------
Burns, who joined GM in 1969, said in a brief statement that he believes much of the technology he's worked on as head of R&D "is ready for commercialization."This is a good time for me to pass the baton to others who are very qualified to drive technology leadership."
No word yet on his plans for life after GM, but with his credentials, Burns ought to be able to write his own ticket in a number of arenas.
We here at Green Car Advisor hope that he'll wind up in the hydrogen fuel -cell industry, where he could serve as a most eloquent advocate for a technology that ought to be getting as much support from the government as battery-electric, or plug-in, transportation.
Burns (right)
shepherded the Chevrolet Equinox fuel cell electric vehicle into existence - that's the FCEV that GM has been leasing to hundreds of people around the country in a 30-month program slated to end in mid-2010 - and has helped lead the charge for development of a national hydrogen fueling system to support widespread use of zero-emissions vehicles .
Although a proponent of hydrogen, Burns was not a foe of batter-electric technology, and often said -in public and in private -that the two should exist side-by-side as part of the effort to free the country of its dependence on oil.
His department was heavily involved in development of the Chevrolet Volt, GM's plug-in, extended-range electric hybrid.
There wasn't a lot of detail in General Motors Corp. CEO Fritz Henderson's press conference this morning, but he did vow that fuel economy and energy independence will be among the automaker's prime goals as it emerges from bankruptcy.
The company will make advanced battery technology - for hybrids and all-electric vehicles - a core competency, with several announcements about its battery work expected for later this summer, GM said in a statement issued after the press conference.
In his opening remarks in a conference devoted largely to structural changes, Henderson (right) reiterated the the Chevrolet Volt is still on schedule to launch late next year - it will be the first mass-produced "extended range electric vehicle," capable of up to 40 miles of all electric travel. A small gas engine will generate power for the electric drive system once the batteries, charged from the commercial power grid, are depleted.
GM also has promised to build a new small car in the U.S. - we're still speculating in the absence of an announcement by the company - that it will be based on the Spark subcompact initially designed for Latin America and Europe.
Henderson said green initiatives already underway, including the company's work on hydrogen fuel cells, hybrids, biofuels and cleaner and more effcient internal combustion engines, will continue.
And he put to rest,fr now a least, speculation tat the General, hankering for a new image, was planning to change the background color of ts corporate logo from blue to green.
The logo he said, "is not on my desk to change, and I don't have any plans to change it."
We hope though that the company, with the same old logo and much of the same management (although many managemet change annnouncemenmnts are exected in coming week), still will be a "new" GM with a new emphasis on greening its cars and trucks.
For more news and opinion about GM's management and product outlook, check the continuing coverage at our sister blogs, Auto Observer, Inslde Line news and Straightline.
Job Cuts, Bob Lutz, Future Plans, all at 9 AM Eastern Time; Watch It Here
General Motors Corp. has won court approval to begin the process of emerging from bankruptcy reorganization by selling most of its assets to a "new" GM, leaving its problems with a "bad" GM that will liquidate them over time.
To introduce the "new" GM and explain 4,000 white collar departures, including hundreds of top executives - although not 77-year-old Vice Chairman Bob Lutz, whose earlier retirement apparently has been rescinded - and outline the plan to profit by stressing quality and fuel economy, company CEO Fritz Henderson is hosting a press conference at 9 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time this morning, and GM is streaming it live.
We'll be presenting the GM press conference on the video screen above, so come back at 9 a.m. EDT to see and hear how the General plans to move forward, funded with tens of billion in loans and grants from the federal government.
It's your money - your company, so to speak - so don't miss the action.
Just as someone seeking an image do-over might head to a hair stylist to discuss a change of color, General Motors apparently has turned to its chief designer for advice on the image-altering possibilities of a new hue for its logo.
The automaker, which is switching its emphases from gas guzzlers like the Silverado to sippers like the Volt and from maxicars like the Hummer to minicars like the Spark, reportedly thinks changing its familiar blue logo to a green one will signify to consumers that it is a more environmentally conscious company than the one that filed for bankruptcy under pressure from the federal government late last month .
That's what GM's board of directors is considering, according to an Associated Press report.
The news service, citing sources identified only as "people briefed on its plans," said corporate design chief Ed Welburn is leading a group studying possible color changes.
No decision has been made, but we could know what's being planned as soon as the end of the week, the AP story says.
Wonder if offering all cars and trucks only in shades of green is also on the table?
Sale of Saturn Brand, Which Was To Get the New Hybrid, Won't Delay Its Launch
Following up on last month's report
of a possible Buick dual-mode plug-in hybrid in 2011 to replace the Saturn plug-in that was dropped when GM sold the brand:
GM's product development chief has told Reuters news service that the company is on track to bring out a plug-in crossover SUV by 2011.
----------
This Buick mock-up could be the new GM plug-in hybrid.
----------
"I can tell you that I won't lose one day in terms of customers being able to walk into dealerships and actually purchase a plug-in," GM Vice Chairman Tom Stephens said in an interview with the news service.
Stephens also said GM isn't ignoring the idea of a battery-electric city car: "I think there's pent-up demand for the technology," he said of GM's work on electric-drive vehicles. "My job is to get it out there and get it right the first time but then get it cost-effective so that we can do a huge number."
Stephens has been head of GM product development since April, just in time for the Obama administration auto industry task force's examination of GM's business plan -- a review that wound up with the administration pushing GM into bankruptcy last month.
The company's turnaround plan -- submitted to secure operating loans from the federal government -- calls for GM to introduce at least 14 hybrid and other advanced technology vehicles in the next three years.
The Ford Fusion (above) and Toyota Prius help propel hybrid sales gains despite weak economy and credit woes.
By John O'Dell, Senior Editor
Led by strong showings from both third-generation Prius and the gas-electric version of Ford's Fusion, hybrid car sales in June were up 9 percent from a year earlier and rose 2 percent form May's tally to mark the sixth consecutive monthly increase in sales volume for the segment.
Hybrids, which gained traction from the June introduction of the new 2010 Prius and continued consumer interest in the well-reviewed Fusion hybrid that was introduced in March, outperformed the new-car market as a whole - which was down 28 percent from June of 2008 and off 7 percent from May.
It's too early to declare a recovery in the segment, but rising gasoline prices and renewed public awareness of the importance of improved fuel economy in addressing climate change issues seem to be underlying a gradual strengthening of market performance.
"The most important thing is that there have been a couple of new models that are putting some excitement into the segment, said Edmunds.com industry analyst Jessica Caldwell.
"Then there's all the news of government fuel efficiency and emissions initiatives, and some pretty generous incentives in a segment that really hasn't seen many incentives in the past."
Caldwell doesn't think gas prices were a significant factor in June's hybrid market, but says "they certainly are on people's radar, with a broad expectation that they'll keep going up."
California's air-quality authorities are an innovative bunch, and this month they took an unprecedented step toward making the Golden State less hazy by requiring automakers to place a reflective coating on the windshields of cars and trucks purchased in California.
The requirement is one of several that the California Air Resources Board has considered under its Cool Cars program, which is designed, as you likely guessed, to keep vehicles in the sunny state cooler.
By doing that, they reason, Californians won't need to use their vehicles' air conditioners as much, which will reduce the strain on automotive engines, which will decrease the speed with which we gobble up fossil fuels, which in turn will reduce the amount of greenhouse gases we release into the atmosphere.
Green Car Advisor first reported on the program in February, when CARB was focusing on having paint-makers tweak their automotive paints so they'd be more light reflective - as opposed to more light absorbing.
Light-absorbing paints, the king of which is black, contribute significantly to a vehicle's cabin temperature when parked in direct sunlight. Hot parked cars tend to cause their owners to reach for A-C controls the moment they enter their vehicles. Running the air conditioners adds to the workload of the vehicles, which in turn results in higher fuel consumption - you know the story.
The same is true with regard to windshields. When you consider at how much of the surface area of a car's sunny side consists of windshields, you can appreciate how important it is for the glass to be sunlight-reflective to help keep a vehicle's interior cool when parked in sunlight.
The technology used by glass manufacturers to make more reflective car windows has been around for nearly 20 years, said Mukesh Rustagi, director of strategic product management at Pittsburgh Glass Works, the largest automotive glass supplier in North America.
The technology exists and it's not particularly costly compared to, say, wiping out entire species and watching the world's glaciers - water sources for more than a billion people - melt away.
With that in mind, California's air regulators voted unanimously last week for a mandate requiring automakers to include sun-reflecting windshields on all vehicles sold within the state by 2014.
General Motors has announced its intention to abandon its 25-year-old California joint venture with Toyota -- a move the Japanese automaker said would add to its own financial woes -- and Bloomberg has reported that Toyota may produce a hybrid for GM.
Only two weeks ago, Bloomberg reported that GM and Toyota were considering possibly of building Prius hybrids together at an existing plant in Fremont, California.
But in a statement released Monday, GM said it will place its 50 percent ownership stake in New United Motor Manufacturing Inc. -- or NUMMI, the GM-Toyota joint venture that consists chiefly of the Fremont factory -- in the "old GM."
The "old GM" will contain parts of the company that will remain in bankruptcy after a "new GM" exits court protection.
GM filed for Chapter 11 protection on June 1 and plans for its profitable assets to emerge, possibly by the end of summer, as a "new GM" with about $50 billion in financing from the U.S. Treasury.
"After extensive analysis, GM and Toyota could not reach an agreement on a future product plan that made sense for all parties," Troy Clarke, GM's president of North American operations, said in statement.
"Accordingly, NUMMI will end production of vehicles for GM in August, and there are no future GM vehicles planned for the joint venture at this time."
Earlier this month, GM said that production of the Pontiac Vibe at the NUMMI plant would end in August as the Pontiac brand is being eliminated. Toyota builds the Corolla small car and the Tacoma pickup truck at the plant.
In a statement released Monday, Toyota said it was sorry GM was withdrawing from NUMMI, "ending a long, successful partnership spanning 25 years."
"Our hope was for the 50/50 joint venture to continue," the statement said. "While we respect this decision by GM, the economic and business environment surrounding Toyota is also extremely severe, and so this decision by GM makes the situation even more difficult for Toyota. We will consider alternatives by taking into account various factors."
General Motors Corp. is close to announcing its decision to locate a new small-car plant at an existing facility in Orion Township, Michigan, The Wall Street Journal
(subscription required) and The Detroit News
reported today, citing unnamed sources.
GM spokespersons Tom Pyden and Sherrie Childers declined to confirm the location of the plant, but the former said an announcement would come as soon as today.
The automaker had been looking at three plants that were slated to close as part of GM's bankruptcy reorganization: in Orion; Spring Hill, Tennessee; and Janesville, Wisconsin. The Orion plant currently produces Chevrolet Malibu and Pontiac G6 sedans.
The Journal said the Orion plant was chosen in part because the region has many displaced autoworkers and because the facility is already a passenger-car plant, rather than a truck factory, meaning it potentially will be less expensive to retool for a small car, said one of the people familiar with the matter.
The News reported that tax breaks, not retooling savings, gave Orion the edge. According to the newspaper, Orion Township officials recently sweetened an offer to GM that includes a 100 percent tax break on new machinery and equipment for up to 25 years - more than double what was offered earlier this month.
General Motors will build the Chevrolet Volt extended-range electric car in China beginning in 2011 as part of the automaker's plan to roll out its revolutionary technology in a wide variety of vehicles around the world, AutoBeat Asia (subscription required) reports today.
All Volts built in China are to be sold there, according to the newsletter.
But the Volt's chief spokesperson, Rob Peterson, in an email sent to Green Car Advisor minutes ago, wrote:
"The Chevrolet Volt and Opel Ampera will be produced at GM's Detroit-Hamtramck Assembly plant. There are currently no plans to build the Chevrolet Volt outside of the United States at this time. (Note: Volt launches late 2010 in U.S., Ampera launches in caledar year 2011, Volts produced in D-Hamtramck are exported to China in calendar year 2011.)"
Outside the U.S., the Volt will be marketed as the Holden Volt, the Opel Ampera and the Vauxhall Ampera.
As we've previously reported, the Chinese government is aggressively promoting electric and hybrid vehicles as a way to reduce oil consumption and improve air quality in the country's polluted cities. So AutoBeat Asia's report wasn't far-fetched, even if it proved to be wrong.
China wants to have 60,000 alternative-fuel vehicles on the road by 2012, up from virtually none today. Most of the vehicles will be hybrids, but the government is eager to promote pure electric vehicles.
Fortunately for the Detroit 3, BYD's market right now is limited to China, and after the company unveiled its F3DM PHEV to North America. BYD has since announced that it doesn't intend to export the vehicle to America until 2011.
Chevy Volt Vehicle Chief Engineer Andrew Farah takes the first pre-production Volt for a drive earlier today.
After all the spy pics and autoshow rollouts of the so-called Chevrolet Volt, you might have thought you'd already seen the real deal. More than once probably.
But until today, the closest thing to a Volt that General Motors had unveiled to the masses was a mule - the not-so-flattering reference of an autobody married to a powertrain and other systems that aren't Volt-like at all.
The images you see here are an entirely different matter. They are, in fact, the very first photos of the pre-production Volt gasoline-electric extended-range hybrid.
What you see here is what some of you will get, with the exception of a few chiefly cosmetic items such as light clusters that designers and/or engineers are still tinkering with.
And somewhat remarkably - given all the turmoil GM has been through lately - the vehicle was completed a week ahead of schedule. That's right: GM had a July 4th deadline for the pre-production Volt.
General Motors is reportedly seeking from Chrysler full payment of development and production costs related to the two-mode hybrid powertrain that the two automakers co-developed with other partners.
PickupTrucks.com reports that GM has filed court documents saying that Chrysler has promised $173,477 to settle $531,275 in costs associated with the development and manufacture of the Chrysler Aspen (pictured) and Dodge Durango Two-Mode Hybrid SUVs.
You might recall that both of the vehicles were killed after only two months of production.
Calls by Green Car Advisor to Julie Gibson, the GM spokeswoman authorized to discuss the matter, were not immediately returned.
Under Chapter 11, Chrysler's assets and liabilities were assigned to two entities: Old Chrysler and New Chrysler. Italian automaker Fiat, which recently merged with New Chrysler after that portion of the company emerged from bankruptcy, has not assumed the two-mode hybrid contract, leaving it with Old Chrysler.
According to a report by TheDetroitBureau.com, the court documents also state that New Chrysler has assigned all production-related contracts to Old Chrysler.
The Website reported that a source outside Chrysler said that Chrysler is hoping to renegotiate many of its pre-bankruptcy production contracts so they can be signed by New Chrysler under more favorable terms. The two-mode hybrid deal reportedly is one of those.
Ford, Nissan and upstart electric car maker Tesla Motors will be the first auto companies to receive factory retooling loans under the $25 billion federal program to speed production of fuel-efficient vehicles in the U.S., the Detroit Free Press reported
late Monday.
Ford, which had applied for $11 billion in loans under the program, is likely to receive the largest loan. The company wants to retool an SUV factory to use for a new electric vehicle it plans to launch in 2011.
Nissan has asked for $1.1 billion to help retool its Smyrna, Tenn. plant to build electric vehicles that it has said will go on sale in selected areas of the U.S. next year.
Tesla has asked for $350 million to refurbish a Southern California factory, believed to be a recently emptied aerospace plant, for production of its upcoming Model S electric sedan.
General Motors corp. and Chrysler are not eligible for loans from the program until they emerge from their Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings. The loan program is only open to companies that can show they are "financially viable."
In all, 75 companies have asked for $38 billion in loans from the program, exceeding the available funds by 52 percent. A proposal to double the loan pool to $50 billion is pending in Congress.
But a spokesman for the automaker's production division denies the report.
By Scott Doggett, Contributor
Toyota is considering making Priuses at a California plant it shares with General Motors, not a factory in Mississippi where production of the popular hybrid had been planned, Bloomberg reported today, citing two unnamed sources.
But Mike Goss, external affairs manager with Toyota Motor Engineering & Manufacturing North America, or TEMA, said "we haven't changed our plans to build Prius in Mississippi. Nothing's changed."
TEMA is responsible for Toyota's engineering design, research, development and manufacturing activities in the U.S., Canada and Mexico. It operates 14 parts and vehicle manufacturing plants across North America.
The Bloomberg report stated that "given the time and cost to finish the half-built Mississippi facility, it may be easier to make the car at New United Motor Manufacturing," a 380-acre factory Toyota shares with GM in Fremont.
The news service attributed the information to "people who asked not to be identified because the discussions aren't public."
Goss denied that the $1.3 billion plant in Blue Springs, Mississippi, is half-built, stating instead that construction is completed.
"At this point, we've finished the building," he said.
Goss said "the Bloomberg story says something about 'unnamed sources,' but we have not changed our plans."
Volt Fan Site Says Buick Now Gets System Formerly Planned for Saturn Vue
The leading Chevrolet Volt fan site
, GM-Volt.com, which General Motors often uses to launch trial balloons and leak info, says it has learned that the General plans to migrate its plug-in dual-mode hybrid system from the Saturn Vue to a new Buick crossover (right)
expected to be launched in 2011.
Plans for the Vue two-mode plug-in went out the window when financially ailing GM agreed last week to sell its Saturn unit to Penske Automotive, which will use contract manufacturers to build cars after 2011.
Until then,GM has agreed to continue making the Vue, Aura and Outlook for Saturn, but only the conventional models -- there's been no deal yet on the Saturn mild-hybrids, and the changeover to (probably) overseas contract manufacturers under Penske would begin just as the rechargeable two-mode plug-in system comes on-line at GM.
The new Buick, shown when a camera picked up an image of the clay styling model during a recent CBS News interview with GM design chief Ed Welburn (warning, there's a 30-second commercial before the interview video begins), shares the Vue's platform, so is set up for easy installation of the dual-mode system.
Like every other alternative fuel, hydrogen has its fans and foes, its pluses and minuses, its ups and, recently, its downs.
After being the favored ground transportation fuel of the future for most of the last eight years as the Bush administration pushed development of hydrogen fuel cells for automotive use, nature's most abundant - albeit hard to isolate - element has been cast aside by the Obama administration.
The new president's Nobel-winning energy secretary, Steven Chu, has proposed in his 2010 departmental budget to eliminate funding for automotive hydrogen programs - that's $100 million - and instead to focus hydrogen research on fuel cells to generate power for homes, businesses and other stationary power users.
For transportation, his choice of fuel research programs to back is no surprise, he's long been a supporter of biofuels and electric cars.
----------- Honda says its FCX Clarity (below, right) is production-ready, lacking only a fueling infrastructure and lower-priced components that can only come with increased production of such cars. ----------
That's got the hydrogen car crowd - and we confess to a great fondness for fuel cell vehicles ourselves - up in arms and questioning the validity of Chu's apparent decision to "pick winners" by concentrating DOE research finding on biofuels and battery-electric, or plug-in, cars while announcing that his team doesn't see any short-term chance for hydrogen to emerge as a widely available and used fuel.
But Chu, powerful as he is sitting atop the nation's official energy policy agency and operating with the endorsement and backing of the president, isn't all-powerful. He has to answer to Congress, and Congress is subject to lobbying.
So the pressure politics have begun.
Short-Sighted?
With DOE budget hearings about to start, the chairman of the Senate's energy and Water Appropriations Committee - the committee that sits in judgment over the energy Department budget - has come out swinging.
A fan of hydrogen, Sen. Byron Dorgan recently called the DOE's budget recommendation to eliminate automotive hydrogen research funding "a very short-sighted recommendation." Hydrogen and fuel cells "are part of this country's future," said the North Dakota Democrat.
Backing Dorgan in support of restoring at lest some hydrogen programs funding for automotive research are automakers with huge investments in the technology.
They include Toyota and Honda, no slouches when it comes to making informed choices about technologies, as well as Daimler and our own General Motors Corp.
(We say "our own" because as part of the taxpaying public, we now share ownership of the faltering car company with the rest of America.)
Unlikely Allies
GM, in case you've been living in a cave or up in space for the past few weeks, is in bankruptcy now and the government, as its majority owner, has a rather big stake in the company's survival and future success.
Granted, GM hasn't been all that great at picking the proper trends and technologies as it looked to the future.
But this time the General is on the same team as Toyota and Honda rather than turning up its nose and sniffing that the Japanese car companies don't know what they are talking about.
Those fuel-efficient small cars that General Motors now says it can build profitably in the U.S. will be built at a plant the company already has shuttered or is about to close.
Three states with plants that could be recycled for the new small car are Michigan, Tennessee and Wisconsin and all three are top contenders.
----------
New small car GM will build in US could be Chevy Spark introduced at Detroit Auto Show in January. ----------
A decision will be made this month, the automaker said today.
A final decision on the GM small-car plant location will depend on incentives and other inducements the states and cities involved can offer.
GM officials are meeting in Washington this week with delegations from the states to discuss selection criteria.
Possible plant sites are in Orion Township, Mich., Spring Hill, Tenn., and Janesville, Wis.
The Michigan and Tennessee plants are set to end production this fall but will remain on standby, meaning workers can be called back if the company needs to increase production. The Wisconsin plant shut down in April.
GM, which was pushed into a Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization by the federal government last week, originally planned to build a new small car in China.
It changed course last month and said it would build the unspecified car in the U.S. instead as a concession to get union leaders to sign-on to a reorganization plan that will reduce some benefits.
The official word from General Motors is that production of the 2010 Chevrolet Malibu hybrid has been suspended, to allow dealers to clean up a big backlog of the slow-selling model.
No word on how cancellation of next year's model will affect a possible 2011 model, but our best guess is the Malibu hybrid is gone, at least with the present mild or "weak" hybrid system.
It's most likely time to start signing "Bye bye, 'bu 'brid."
But GM spokesman Brian Corbett says that service for the '08 and '09 Malibu hybrids that have been sold "will not be an issue" and that there's an adequate supply of batteries in stock to take care of future maintenance needs for that critical component.
The hybrid system, he said, will continue to be covered by the 8-year or 100,000-mile warranty (10 years on the battery in California), and as (if?) dealers sell more of the '09 models, they'll be able to continue servicing them.
We at Green Car Advisor subscribe to many news services, and every so often one of them publishes a headline that stops us in our tracks.
The headline above, appearing in Wednesday's Automotive News Daily Newsletter, was one of them.
Everyone knows you don't put all your eggs in one basket, right? Everyone but the General, apparently.
Yes, yes, it's been said many times that General Motors didn't make small, gutless wonders (that nonetheless got great gas mileage) for the U.S. market because Americans didn't want them (except during the four months or so last year when a gallon of regular cost $4 or more).
And there's truth to that: As GM Vice Chairman Bob Lutz has said many times, Americans want big and powerful vehicles. Those that don't want them, he has said, and said, and said, represent a very small minority.
And because the world's largest automaker by volume (formerly) decided not to spend as freely on small-car development as it did, say, on muscle car development and on perks such as private jets and other "necessities" for its executives, it found itself standing and unable to find an empty chair when the music stopped, so to speak.
But now, says the Automotive News report, GM is ready to tackle small cars. Here's the report in a nutshell:
GM thinks it has come up with a factory method it calls "interbuildability" to build small vehicles profitably in North America.
The rest of the world knows the method as "standardization." In this instance, GM is standardizing its factories worldwide so different models on the same architecture will have plug-and-play component modules, such as exhaust systems and front-end modules.
Now here's the good news (the bad news being that GM hadn't considered this well-known method sooner):
Gary Cowger, GM's group vice president for global manufacturing and labor relations, told Automotive News that a new group of mid-sized cars will be the first to demonstrate the system. That group includes the 2009 Opel Insignia and a new Buick Regal that will begin production in the U.S. next year.
The Chevy Malibu hybrid - a hybrid that really wasn't - soon won't be.
General Motors is killing the car, citing slow sales and a hefty backlog, according to the Wall Street Journal, which broke the news Wednesday night in the subscriber-only portion of its online publication.
We can't say we'll miss it.
The Malibu hybrid is what's called a mild-hybrid, too mild in this case. Its small electric motor isn't really used for much, other than providing instant start-up for the gas engine, which shuts down at stop signs and other situations where a conventional car would sit and idle.
The stop-start function saves a tiny bit of gas and helps cut noxious, smog causing emissions, but does nothing to make the Malibu hybrid competitive with cars like the Nissan Altima and Toyota Camry hybrids - cars that should be rivals but are clearly too superior to even be on the same court as the Chevy.
The WSJ report cites an unnamed GM spokesman as saying the company will continue making Malibu Milds for the commercial and government fleet markets, but not for regular consumer - who don't seem to want them, anyway.
Since it's inception last August, sales of the Malibu hybrid have averaged just 388 a month. Its best month was one of its last - May, with 706 sales, and those thanks largely to fleet buying and fairly big incentives. It's worst month was January, with just 145 sales.
One reason the Malibu hybrid did so poorly that that GM failed to make a compelling case for it.
The car, like its conventional Malibu siblings, is a good one - perhaps one of the best sedans GM has turned out in decades.
But a base 4-cylinder 2009 Malibu costs $22,325 before whatever incentives GM and its dealers are throwing on the hood these days. The 2009 Malibu hybrid, with all the same regular equipment and a few upgrades including its petite hybrid system (batteries, electric motor, regenerative braking to charge the batteries and a beefed-up power management computer to make it all work) comes in at $3,950 more.
Worse, the system delivers just 33 miles per gallon in combined city and highway driving, according to EPA estimates, while the regular 4-cylinder delivers 33 mpg. That's a lot of premium to pay for a 3 percent bump in fuel economy and not much else.
LG Chem Ltd., South Korea's leading producer of chemicals, broke ground today on an $802 million factory that will be used to build lithium-ion polymer batteries for electric vehicles.
The ground-breaking took place in Ochang Techno Park, some 60 miles south of Seoul, with officials from both General Motors Corp. and Hyundai Motor Co. witnessing the event.
Robert Kruse, GM executive director-global vehicle engineering, and Yang Woong-chul, Hyundai president of research and development, were on hand as both automakers have contracts with LG Chem to supply batteries for their electric-vehicle and hybrid programs.
LG Chem will begin shipping LPI batteries for GM's Chevrolet Volt program in November 2010, company officials said. A subsidiary of LG Chem in Troy, Michigan, will assemble the batteries into packs for use in the car.
South Korea's Minister of Knowledge Economy Lee Youn-ho told reporters that the "government plans to grow the Korean green-car industry to be one of the world's Big Four by the mid-2010s."
The government will provide research and development funds to LG Chem, he said. No figure was given.
In a regulatory filing, the company said it expects global demand for EV batteries to reach 3.3 million units by 2013 and 4.6 million by 2015.
The company's revenue from battery sales is projected at more than $1.6 billion by 2015, when the global market is estimated to be more than $8 billion, the filing revealed.
Annual Purchase Total Now $287 Million; $15 Million More Committed For Buses and EVs
The federal General Services Administration said late Tuesday that it purchased $210 million worth of "fuel efficient" vehicles from Ford, GM and Chrysler last week.
---------- Ford's Fusion is part of the government's purchase of more than 17,000 new fuel-efficient vehicles from domestic automakers this year. ----------
The June 1 acquisition follows the previously announced purchase
of 3,100 gas-electric hybrid cars and SUVs from Ford Motor Co. and General Motors Corp. in April.; The purchases are part of the government's economic stimulus program. Chrysler wasn't included in the initial round because it has no hybrids in its retail fleet.
This month's order for 14,105 cars, SUVs and, presumably, pickups, competed the GSA's assignment from President Obama to spend $285 million this fiscal year on new, fuel efficient vehicles for various federal agency - the total actually hit $287 million.
Additionally, the GSA is slated to spend $15 million for an undetermined number of advanced technology buses and electric vehicles by the end of September for use in the federal fleet.
The agency, which does about a quarter of all the federal government's purchasing, is funding the vehicle acquisitions from the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act - that's 0.0003 percent of the total, if you are keeping score.
Until now the only color General Motors has allowed us to view the production 2011 Chevrolet Volt in is silver.
But John McElroy over at Autoline Daily (subscription required) has managed to take some of the first pics of the Volt in another color, as you can see for yourself.
Complementing the jet-black paint is a stingy (some might say subtle) amount of chrome. Some cars look awesome in black, but we think the Volt looks better in the original color.
General Motors has yet to disclose the various colors the Volt will be available in when it enters the marketplace 18 months or so from now.
Below, we've used a photo-editing tool to show you how the car would look in other paint colors, namely metalic copper, misty green and pale purple. Click on the pics for enlargements.
Says Cars Now Dictated by Federal Policy, Not Demand, But Calls Volt Part of the Future
He still comes across as a sort of automotive Neanderthal, convinced that if Detroit just keeps shoving muscle cars out the door people will gobble them up.
But Bob Lutz (left), General Motors' vice chairman and car guy extraordinaire is also the Chevrolet Volt's biggest backer and provided a fascinating look in Sunday's Washington Post at how the Volt came to be and what he thinks of its chances and its ability to help rejuvenate the General.
The lengthy article, well worth reading, explores GM's financial decline, its unwillingness in the early days to see Toyota's funny little Prius as a serious threat and throughout is saturated with Lutz's view of things.
It is, in fact, a fond look at the man who brought us the Dodge Viper as well as the Volt and is preparing to retire later this year at age 77 after 45 years in the auto industry, where he's worked at Opel and BMW in Germany, at Ford, Chrysler and GM, and also spent three years as head of battery developer Exide Corp.
But we digress.
Volt Needed, Not Desired
On the topic of the Volt, Lutz remains insistent that it is exactly the kind of car GM needs to produce right now in order to satisfy political demand for advanced-technology, fuel-efficient cars.
He's not persuaded though, that the Volt or any other green car is what the American consumer is crying out for.
Like an infamous former vice president of the U.S., Lutz divides the country into East and West coast intellectuals and the rest of America, which he says still wants V8 engines and sexy styling.
"When you get out into the marketplace, it's probably just 5 percent of the public that desperately wants something environmentally sound and is willing to pay a premium for it," he said in the interview.
"I would say the East and West Coast intellectual establishment kind of lives in its own world. When you get to the broad American marketplace, excitement [over autos] is still kind of defined in the way it used to be."
General Motors expanded its battery research and development capabilities today with the opening of the largest and possibly most advanced battery laboratory in the United States.
---------- Right, Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm and GM CEO Fritz Henderson prior to press conference announcing the opening of GM's newest battery lab. ----------
The new Global Battery Systems Lab in Warren, Michigan, will lead GM's advanced-battery engineering efforts and expedite the introduction of electrical-powered vehicles, including the Chevrolet Volt, as well as plug-in hybrid and hybrid-electric vehicles and fuel-cell vehicles.
In a statement released today, the automaker described the lab's opening as the latest move in GM's comprehensive battery strategy, which includes ramping up in-house responsibility for advanced battery technology and a broad portfolio of supplier partners.
At 33,000 square feet, the lab is four times larger than the automaker's previous battery laboratory on the same GM campus and will be used by the automaker's thousand-plus engineers assigned to developing advanced batteries and electrically driven vehicles.
Low-cost, lightweight and powerful batteries are widely regarded as the final piece of the puzzle to an affordable all-electric vehicle, so the importance of the lab to GM at a time when the automaker is in deep financial trouble cannot be overstated.
One of the items still to be worked out as Penske Automotive Group and General Motors Corp. finalize the agreement that will make Saturn a Penske property is whether the two Saturn hybrids will stay or go.
---------- Aura hybrid is one of the two Saturn hybrids whose fate is unclear as Penske takes over the brand. ----------
GM owns the technology and while it has agreed to continue building the Saturn Aura, Vue and Outlook models for Penske for the next two years, there's be no deal yet for continued production of the Aura hybrid, Vue Greenline hybrid or the long-promised Vue plug-in hybrid, GM spokesman Steve Janisse told Green Car Advisor.
"'TBD,'" he said. "What happens is 'to be determined' in negotiations over the next 60 days."
Dropping the the Saturn hybrids wouldn't be a big blow sales-wise - they haven't been very popular, accounting for only 1,402 sales so far this year. That's 134 Aura sedans and 1,268 Vues and is just 4 percent of total Saturn sales through May
But the hybrids' fuel economy does help boost Saturn's overall CAFE average.
That could be a help to Penske as federal fuel economy standards climb nearly 30 percent from now through 2015 , but only if GM agrees to sell the vehicles at a cut-rate price.
Electric vehicles may be the first to be built in the U.S. by the new Saturn, says Roger Penske, the race driver-turned-automotive entrepreneur whose Penske Automotive Group has agreed to acquire Saturn from General Motors Corp.
In an exclusive interview with Edmunds.com shortly after announcing the deal in Detroit this afternoon, Penske said that the Obama administration's new emphasis on development of battery-powered vehicles means EVs "will be right at the forefront" and "might be the first produced" by a Penske-owned Saturn.
---------- Vue crossover is one Saturn model that will live on under new deal. ----------
Penske, who has the U.S. distribution deal for Daimler's Smart Car, including the upcoming Smart Fortwo EV, said that Saturn and Smart would be kept separate and Saturn dealers wouldn't be asked to market Smarts.
He said with 3.5 million Saturn's already sold, he's confident there's enough of a loyal customer base to make the brand successful as a stand-alone and that he intends to emphasize fuel efficiency and low price in future models to build sales volume back to the 200,000-a-year level. Saturn sales have slipped to less than 100,000 a year under GM.
Work on Hydrogen Fuel Cells Also Will Continue Despite Company's Bankruptcy
They've said that they don't expect their financial woes to adversely impact their company's various fuel efficiency and clean emissions initiatives, and now that General Motors Corp. is officially bankrupt they're saying it again.
Specifically, in an interview on National Public Radio (which we missed but was picked up by AutoblogGreen) GM's chief financial officer, Ray Young, said that the automaker believes gas prices will rise, that consumers will "demand" more fuel efficient and greener vehicles and that GM is "going to make that commitment [and] make that investment..."
But wait! That's not all!
GM's chief executive, Fritz Henderson, told NPR that the company will continue its research and development work on hydrogen fuel cells, even though it now believes that commercialization of fuel-cell electric cars is "far away."
Having driven GM's fuel cell Equinox (above) and Honda's FCX Clarity, we don't doubt Henderson's contention that hydrogen fuel cells can work in the family auto.
We just hope he's wrong about commercialization being a thing of the distant future (although we must admit that it is a dimming hope as the federal government seems to have turned away from hydrogen to concentrate its R&D funds on plug-in hybrids and battery-electric cars).
It's still 18 months before California's revised zero emissions vehicle requirements kick in, but the lobbying, has quietly begun.
----------
Cars such as this plugin Toyota Prius are needed to meet California ZEV mandate, but increase automakers' operating costs.
----------
Toyota Motor Co. will be most impacted by the rules requiring major antomakers to provide electric and plug-in vehicles for at least 3 percent of their sales in the state from 2012 through 2014, and in an interview with Bloomberg reporter Alan Ohnsman last week a Toyota insider said the company faces $1 billion in new costs to comply.
There's no overt complaining in the article, published today on Bloomberg.com, but Toyota's meassage is clear: $1 billion is a lot of money anytime, and is a particularly sizeable pile of cash to come up with in the midst of a recession that is hurting the entire auto industry including the world's biggest car company.
In addition Toyota, which has the biggest share of the California new-car makert, the mandate would apply to Honda Motor Co., Ford Motor Co., Nissan Motor Co. and pre-bankruptcy General Motors Corp, and Chrysler LLC.
The two domestics have said that major production cuts are part of their recovery plans and if their sales in California drop below 60,000 a year as a result, they would no longer be bound by the mandate
Toyota, according to Bloomgerg's calculations, would have to produce 16,000 plug-in hybrids and electric vehicles to by 2014 to comply with the rules, which require major automakers to make non-polluting vehicles equal at least 3 percent of their sales for the 3-year period.
Magna International Inc. is prevented by an agreement with General Motors Corp. from selling Opel cars in the United States and, for now, in China, according to the chairman of the Canadian auto parts company.
That's significant because Opel has a number of low-emissions, fuel-efficient vehicles in its lineup and more in the works, including the one pictured here.
"The agreement with General Motors does prevent us from selling Opel in the United States," Frank Stronach told reporters at a news conference in Ottawa on Tuesday. A Magna-led consortium has agreed to buy European automaker Opel from GM.
Asked if the agreement applies to China too, he said, "Yes, for the moment, but keep in mind that General Motors - we've been working together for 50 years, we've been great partners, and they still own 35 percent (of Opel)."
He suggested the prohibition on Opel sales in China might be flexible. "If it makes economic sense you might persuade people to change something."
Stronach also said he expects Opel to break even in three years, and to turn a profit in four.
Magna's chairman was in the Canadian capital to seek government funding for a project to produce electrical systems for electric cars and, eventually, electric cars themselves.
Toyota Motor Corp. on Wednesday announced that it would begin leasing 500 plug-in hybrids based on the Prius model globally by the end of this year, primarily for government and corporate use.
Toyota, the world's biggest automaker, said in a statement it would lease 200 in Japan and 150 each in the United States and Europe, including 100 in France.
Plug-in hybrid cars can be cleaner than regular hybrids because they can be charged to run purely on electricity, but the need for more batteries makes them expensive. Many companies are working to bring the price of the batteries down, which in turn would reduce the price of the low-emissions, fuel-efficient vehicles.
Toyota's plug-in cars would be the brand's first to employ lithium-ion batteries, which are costly but can store more energy than nickel-metal hydride batteries used in most gasoline-electric hybrid vehicles.
Among other carmakers, bankrupt General Motors Corp. is planning to launch its much-hyped Chevrolet Volt plug-in hybrid next year.
In the statement, Toyota said it is developing a plug-in hybrid vehicle based on the third-generation Prius and capable of being recharged via external power sources such as household electrical outlets.
A plug-in hybrid vehicle typically operates as an electric vehicle when used for short distances and as a conventional hybrid vehicle when used for medium- to long-distance trips. This means it can be driven regardless of remaining battery power or the availability of a battery-charging infrastructure.
Sales of hybrid cars and trucks outperformed the market in May, giving lie to the belief, popular among mainstream industry analysts and pundits, that Americans are only interested in the gas-electric vehicles when fuel prices are stratospheric.
---------- 2009 Prius was top hybrid with best sales in 7 months. ----------
In a month when sales of non-hybrid vehicles rose 12.9 percent from the prior month, hybrid sales were up 18.2 percent. Incentives were applied liberally to hybrids and conventional vehicles alike during May, reducing the likelihood that cash-back offers or cheap interest rates unfairly boosted hybrid sales.
And while sales of both hybrids and conventional vehicles fell far short of matching year-earlier tallies, hybrid sales were off only 26.7 percent from May, 20008, compared to a 33.5 percent decline for non-hybrids.
At the same time, conventional small car sales fell short of overall market performance, indicating that shoppers had more than just fuel economy on their minds. The hybrid market may be benefiting from increased concern that fuel prices, which have been below $3 a gallon for nearly a year after approaching the $4-per-gallon mark last summer, are on the rise again and may be heading for new highs.
In all, dealers sold 25,693 hybrids last month, up from 21,735 in April but down from 35,042 in May 2008.
With the exception of Toyota's Camry hybrid, the top-selling Prius - which continues to dominate the U.S. hybrid market - and Honda's Civic hybrid, sales of individual models are low enough that it doesn't take much to cause a large jump in percent of increase or decline.
That said, Ford's new Fusion sedan hybrid scored an impressive 75 percent gain from April while sales of the Ford Escape SUV hybrid were up 62.2 percent for the same period.
In yet another effort to overturn laissez-faire decisions by the Bush-era Environmental Protection Agency, a number of environmental groups are petitioning the agency to ban use of lead in the weights used to balance automobile wheels.
The petitioners, lead by the Sierra Club and Michigan-based Ecology Center, are hoping that the EPA under President Obama will be more favorable to their arguments.
Although lead has long been identified as highly toxic, the EPA in 2005 rejected a similar call for a ban, ruling that petitioners hadn't sufficiently documented the risks associated with exposure to lead from tire weights. In humans, lead particles can cause brain damage, birth defects and death.
Instead of a ban, the agency adopted a program of encouraging automakers and tire shops to voluntarily stop using wheel weights made of lead.
The new petition claims that the weights often fall off and onto road surfaces and then are ground to lead dust by passing vehicles. The dust -- an estimated 3.5 million pounds a year -- can easily be washed off the roads in rainstorms and enter the underground water supply.
The petition follows a 2008 California court ruling in which Chrysler and the nation's three largest tire weight manufacturers agreed to stop using lead weights in that state.
One of the reasons General Motors hasn't competed more effectively against foreign automakers in recent years is the difference that exists in their labor costs.
Members of the United Auto Workers union have tended to be much better compensated for their work, which has resulted in higher per-vehicle prices for GM (as well as Chrysler and Ford).
As a result, the White House wanted some concessions from the UAW before giving GM financial aid.
But now the UAW has received a concession from the Obama administration that might well hurt the General's ability to sell small, fuel-efficient vehicles that it's already making.
UAW President Ron Gettelfinger (pictured) boasted on PBS's "NewsHour" last week that "we, quite frankly, put pressure on the White House, the [auto] task force, the corporation" to bar small-car imports from overseas.
GM is also selling its Opel operation in Europe as part of this restructuring, and The Washington Post reports that one of Treasury's sale conditions is that Opel's new owners must stay out of the U.S., and even out of China, where GM's business is strong.
Gettelfinger boasted in the "NewsHour" interview that with the concession "we got the corporation to agree that they would build a small-car platform in this country."
What he failed to see is that the benefits for GM are illusory, because the import limits mean the company will have to spend even more to retool its domestic plants to make the little green cars that President Obama and Congress are demanding.
On Monday, lawmakers started lobbying GM to locate its new small-car plant in their districts.
The company said last week it will retool an idled UAW-GM facility to make as many as 160,000 small and compact vehicles a year.
GM has narrowed its choices to Orion, Michigan,; Spring Hill, Tennessee., and Janesville, Wisconsin, GM spokesman Greg Martin said.
Downsizing Won't Kill Automaker's Initiatives, but Demand for Quick Profits Could
As General Motors Corp. begins reshaping itself in a complex, government-assisted bankruptcy process that leaves taxpayers as its major investor, one thing remains clear -- the automaker's future depends on its ability to develop cars that are both fuel-efficient and desirable.
To do so in an era of economic uncertainty marked by sluggish car sales, wildly fluctuating fuel prices and consumer confusion about the best car-buying strategies as we wait for the new generation of advanced technology vehicles to appear is going to require a degree of discipline that so far has been woefully lacking at GM and other domestic auto companies.
So it was heartening to see this morning that GM accompanied its filing for a pre-planned Chapter 11 reorganization
with the promise that even as it pares expenses to the bone it would "continue and increase its investment and leadership in fuel economy and advanced propulsion technologies."
---------- Chevy Volt "extended range EV' is one of the cars on which GM is betting its future. ----------
The "leadership" claim is a bit much -- marketing never stops.
But the rest of that vow, contained as it was in a statement undoubtedly edited and approved by the Obama administration, shows that GM so far is on the right path, and is pursuing it with government backing.
The Chevrolet Volt, GM's gamble on a potentially game-changing fuel-efficiency technology, will continue on schedule for launch in late 2010, according to this morning's statement.
Additionally, GM said it will continue development of conventional gas-electric hybrid technology, with 14 models due in the market by 2012, and will continue outfitting cars and trucks with flex-fuel systems so that by 2014 a full 65 percent of its vehicles will be capable of using ethanol or other alternative fuels, such as biodiesel.
We know GM also has been working on battery-electric and fuel-cell electric drivetrains and expect that R&D effort to continue as well.
Go Long
There will be many stumbling blocks to be overcome in the GM bankruptcy, but with the purse-string controlling government so far signing off on the automaker's intent to make fuel-efficiency and the development of petroleum-free powertrains a centerpiece of its recovery effort, things are getting off to a good start.
If the Feds succumb, though, to the cult of immediacy that has hamstrung so much of American industry for so long -- the demand by investors and market analysts for ever-increasing growth and profitability at the expense of solid long-term planning -- then all bets are off.
General Motors Corp., which was going to import a new subcompact car called the Chevrolet Spark directly from China when it goes on sale in 2011, now says it will build them, and at least 100,000 more new small cars each year, in the U.S.
---------- Spark Concept at Detroit auto show. ----------
The decision is being billed as a concession to the UAW to get the autoworkers union to sign off on GM's reorganization plan, and that's likely true.
But we suspect it also is part of GM's response to new federal fuel-efficiency standards and the Obama administration's push to wring more small car production out of the U.S. auto industry - now mostly in thrall to the federal government because it is supplying both GM and Chrysler the cash they need to stay in business.
Whatever the reasons, GM now says it will build up to 160,000 new small cars at a previously shuttered plant that it will reopen and dedicate to small-car production.
The automaker isn't disclosing the location of the plant yet. There are many shuttered locations to choose from and the company probably is asking the various communities to vie for the jobs a plant reopening will bring by offering tax breaks and other concessions that will help cut GM's operating costs.
Nor is GM saying which cars will be built at the plant.
We believe the Spark will be one - but as GM was only planning on annual U.s. sales of 50,000 of the three-door hatchbacks, we expect at least one, maybe two other compacts or subcompact models will be built there.
California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger joined the 2009 Hydrogen Road Tour today at Stop 6 of a 9-day, 28-stop, 1,700-mile road trip, telling a group of reporters at the site of the state's first integrated (H2 and gasoline) station that California remains committed to a future where hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles replace gassy rides regardless of what Washington does.
Speaking at a Shell station in West Los Angeles, Schwarzenegger reminded reporters that the California Air Resources Board, which sets vehicle-emissions standards for the state, recently passed a low-carbon fuel standard - the world's first such standard.
It will, he said, ensure that the cleanest fuels, including hydrogen, will always have a strong market in California.
"And the reason why this is so important is that on the federal level, they [politicians] make decisions based on where the oil price is. That means that sometimes the federal government, when the oil price goes up, they go in the direction of renewable energy and alternate fuels. And when the oil price goes down, they abandon those policies," the "Governator" said, his back to a row of hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles made by Daimler, Honda, Toyota, KIA, Volkswagen and Nissan.
"Well we don't do that here in California. We only march in one direction and that is forward. And we're not going to slow down. In 2010, we will have seven new hydrogen refueling stations in California and we will invest another $40 million over the next two years in hydrogen stations."
The governor reminded the automotive press that 20 percent of the new vehicles sold in the United States are sold in California, which is home to 25 million cars and trucks. (Those vehicles, not incidentally, consume 50 million gallons of gasoline and diesel a day and produce 40 percent of the state's greenhouse gases.)
As a result of California's vehicle market share, and that fact that Washington often follows the state's lead regarding tailpipe-emissions regulations, automakers can count on there being a large market for hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles and companies considering investments in an H2-refueling infrastructure can rest assured there will be vehicles requiring the fuel, he said.
The 1,700-mile road trip will begin on May 26 in Chula Vista, Calif. and end on June 3 in Vancouver, B.C. The tour will showcase a number of hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicles from General Motors Corp., Volkswagen Group of America, Daimler and other manufacturers. Though some of the planned events are by invitation, most are open to the public, and some lucky folks will be invited to test drive hydrogen-powered vehicles.
"Fuel cell technology is on the verge of becoming a practical alternative to burning gasoline," said CARB Chairman Mary D. Nichols. "This year's road tour demonstrates how far the industry has come and how near we are to putting these cars in the public's hands."
Given recent budget cuts proposed by the U.S. Department of Energy, the hydrogen sector could use an upbeat road trip to clear its collective head.
On May 7, DoE Secretary Steven Chu proposed that more than $100 million be cut from his department's hydrogen program. The proposed cut in the 2010 federal budget would slash hydrogen fuel cell spending by 59 percent to just $68 million and shift research to stationary power generation from transportation.
Why? "We asked ourselves, 'Is it likely in the next 10 or 15, 20 years that we will convert to a hydrogen car economy?' The answer, we felt, was 'no,'" Chu said in a briefing.
Chu's action marked a dramatic reversal from 2002 when former DoE Secretary Spencer Abraham boasted that "At the Department of Energy, we're not just talking about the hydrogen economy. We're working to make it a reality."
Prototype Demonstrated for Senate Members With Fuel Economy Claims of 33-100 MPG
Plug-in Hummer H3 by Raser Technologies gets battery charge during Michigan introduction in April
.
While there's usually plenty of dirt to sling in the nation's capital, there was none to be seen on the Washington Mall Wednesday as Utah's Raser Technologies put its plug-in hybrid Hummer -- a capable off-roader -- through its paces for members of the Senate.
The company says the gas-electric hybrid, a conversion of a standard four-wheel-drive Hummer H3 developed by Raser and FEV Group in cooperation with General Motors Corp.'s Hummer unit, can travel up to 40 miles in all-electric mode and deliver 33 miles per gallon over the course of a tank of fuel and a few hundred miles of driving.
If driven less on a daily basis -- that first 40 miles on rechargeable battery power and another 25 miles on gasoline -- the hybrid Hummer could deliver the equivalent of 100 mpg, Raser says.
Mileage in between the two extremes would vary depending on the mix of all-electric drive and gas engine use.
If you tuned into Late Show With David Letterman
last night you saw the 62-year-old talk show host do a good impersonation of Sam Donaldson, the longtime reporter for ABC News famous for asking hard-hitting questions.
Letterman's subject: None other than Bob Lutz, the 77-year-old vice chairman of General Motors Corp. The interview came three weeks after Letterman had Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk on the show and the two shared considerable laughter at GM's expense.
In perfect Donaldson style, Letterman didn't pull many punches, asking "Maximum" Bob pointed questions such as why GM seems incapable of building a battery-electric car like Tesla's Roadster and why don't U.S. automakers do the patriotic thing and make more fuel-efficient vehicles so we're less dependent on foreign oil. Letterman all but said American troops are dying in Iraq over oil.
Lutz responded with his usual song-and-dance, variously blaming the U.S. government for stupid regulations, and successive administrations for making bad policy -- such as keeping the cost of gasoline in America low and yet expecting Detroit to produce fuel-efficient vehicles when little demand exists for them.
But perhaps sensing that Letterman wasn't about to let him off the ropes, Lutz said something he's not wont to say unless pushed:
"Let's face it. During the '70s, '80s and up through the early '90s, the U.S. car companies built some really bad cars. And a lot of people still have that memory from their family -- 'My dad said don't ever buy an American car because they're all crap.' -- and of course that was true at one point but it's no longer true."
The House energy and climate bill would double a $25 billion Department of Energy loan program designed to help automakers produce more fuel-efficient cars and trucks.
The provision increasing the DOE pot to $50 billion was tucked into this week's substitute bill after being absent from both House Energy and Commerce Chairman Henry Waxman's original March draft and Friday's revision.
The substitute, released Monday, was quickly followed by news that President Obama would dramatically ramp up the speed at which carmakers will need to achieve better fleetwide fuel economy.
The DOE program was established in the 2007 Energy Bill to provide loans to automakers and parts suppliers to retool their U.S. plants for making advanced technology vehicles to meet new corporate average fuel economy, or CAFE, standards.
But Congress did not provide funding to back the loans until late last year as Washington scrambled to throw a lifeline to the battered auto industry, and DOE has yet to provide the first batch of loans.
The Energy Department cash is separate from billions of dollars already given by the government to General Motors Corp. and Chrysler LLC to help keep the two carmakers operating while they undergo sweeping restructuring, downsizing and, in Chrysler's case, bankruptcy.
Auto Industry Lines Up To Praise National Program Idea, Now the Hard Work Begins
By John O'Dell, Senior Editor
The auto industry, tired of being seen as the bad guy whenever fuel economy and emissions regulation is on the table, is wasting no time lining up in support of tomorrow's White House announcement on development of a national carbon emissions and fuel efficiency program.
A cynic might think this doesn't bode well for the ultimate result of the rulemaking process that President Obama will outline at a press conference in Washington Tuesday morning: That the auto industry figures it has enough clout left to wring the life out of any effort to significantly improve fuel economy.
But we think it simply shows that an industry on life support and dependent on government largess here and overseas has finally read the writing on the wall and realizes that this is as good as it is ever going to get and that if it doesn't play ball it will have no say in the rules it eventually will have to live by.
Automakers also have been caught in a trap of their own making. They've been fighting California, the national leader in establishing greenhouse gas controls on motor vehicles, insisting that individual states shouldn't be able to set carbon emissions rules and that a national standard is needed.
Now the Obama administration has stepped to the table and said, as the president is wont to: "Okay, let's develop a national rule."
To oppose that would be political suicide.
In that vein, the two lobbying groups representing almost every car maker that does business in the U.S. have jumped on board and are voicing support for the so-called National Program for Autos.
One week has nearly passed since Energy Secretary Stephen Chu proposed slashing more than $100 million from Uncle Sam's hydrogen research and development program, and all of us should still be mystified and bothered by his proposal.
In other words, Chu's litmus test for funding a technology that might avoid or at least delay the catastrophic effects of global warming is that the technology must be developed within, say, the lifetime of an old house cat.
If Health Secretary Kathleen Sebelius applied the same rationale to drug research, she'd propose slashing federal funding for cancer, AIDS and influenza research, because cures for them are probably 20-plus years out. But tossing in the towel on those problems would be nutty, wouldn't it.
And just think where we'd be today if the Wright brothers, Ladislo Biro, Stephen Poplawski, Willis Carrier, Percy Spencer, and the banjo-playing, 3M engineer Richard Drew decided not to invent anything because it'll take too much time. We might never know airplanes, ball-point pens, kitchen blenders, air-conditioning, microwave ovens and, God forbid, Scotch tape.
Other things that took years to invent include: the telephone, the light bulb, the cotton gin, the sewing machine, the personal computer, television, the camera and, lest we forget, the automobile.
Shucks, a whole lot of things that shape the lives we lead today took a long time to develop.
Confession: I can understand, maybe even cogently explain, how an internal combustion engine works, how hybrids function and how a fuel cell functions, but automobile transmissions have always left me scratching my head in wonder.
---------- What's not to understand? Cutaway of GM Hydra-Matic six-speed for rear-wheel drive vehiclesmakes it all so clear! (click on illustration to enlarge.) ----------
I know what they do, but am confounded at every turn when I try to understand all the technical stuff.
I'm not even good at following visual aids, so I let the guys at the shop fiddle with my cars' trannies, manual or automatic, when work is needed.
I do know, however, that if done correctly, transmissions get more efficient with more "speeds" or gear ratios, which is why automakers are coming out with six, seven and eight-speed manuals and automatics, and even with gearless "continually variable transmissions," or CVTs.
We recently had frequent contributor Robert E.Calem take an in-depth look at transmissions and fuel efficiency for us, and if you are car shopping I highly recommend reading his piece before hitting the showrooms.
If you are a visual type, though, there's a decent (albeit quite promotional) video available now on General Motors Corp.'s FastLane blog that explains, with some neat 3-D action graphics, how the company's six-speed transmissions work.
They've got 9 variations and use 'em in a total of em in 40 models now, with more to come. (Equal time clause: Ford Motor co. has 6-speeds in about 15 models and says they'll be 98 percent of its cars and trucks by 2012.)
The short GM video illustrates an article by the automaker's global chief engineer for transmissions, Jeff Lux and after viewing you can hop over to Fastlane to read Lux's text.
Though he's best known for his screen exploits
, Tom Hanks also counts himself as a green car guy.
He still owns a Toyota RAV4 electric vehicle (like the one shown here) that has crossed 50,000 miles on the odometer. We know this courtesy of a letter that Hanks recently wrote to The New Yorker.
Hanks explains that he still has the car, which is driven daily (albeit by one of his employees) and that the vehicle still has its original battery.
Hanks wrote the letter to the editor to clear up a mistake made when Peter J. Boyer recently wrote about the country's financially troubled automobile industry. In his The New Yorker article (registration required), Boyer incorrectly stated that Hanks once owned a General Motors Corp. EV1.
Hanks said that there were no EV1s to be had in 2003 when he started looking for an electric car.
"Instead, I found what was purported to be the very last electric car available for sale in the state of California -- a Toyota EV," Hanks wrote. "It had four doors, a rear hatch, room for my family, including a dog in the back, power windows, A/C, a great sound system, and the fastest, most effective windshield defroster known to mankind. When the car companies collectively, and, to some, diabolically, decided to take these cars back, the electric vehicles disappeared. But not mine."
When the Obama Administration unveiled its proposed 2010 budget last week, Energy Secretary Stephen Chu had penciled in a proposal to cut more than $100 million from Uncle Sam's hydrogen research and development program.
Chu's rationale for cutting hydrogen funding by 59 percent to just $68 million? It's unlikely that the technology will become significant player during the next two decades.
In contrast, the California Fuel Cell Partnership in February predicted that 4,300 fuel-cell electric vehicles could be traveling California roads by 2014, and that the the hydrogen-powered fleet could grow to about 50,000 vehicles by 2017 as more manufacturers introduce their zero emission vehicles.
What's more, the partnership believes that, by 2017, Californians will be able to fuel their Honda FCX Clarity and other fuel cell vehicles at between 50 and 100 hydrogen refueling stations around the state.
'"Fuel cell vehicles and hydrogen stations are at the cusp of transition into the early commercial market," according to the organization's report that is titled "Hydrogen Fuel Cell Vehicle and Station Deployment Plan: A Strategy for Meeting the Challenge Ahead."
So it's not surprising that the CaFCP, which counts auto manufacturers (including Toyota Motor Corp., Honda Motor Co. and General Motors Corp.), energy companies (Shell and Chevron), fuel cell technology companies (Proton Energy Systems) and government agencies (including the DoE, which is a dues-paying member!) on Friday called for Chu to reconsider the proposed budget cut.
"Hydrogen fuel cell vehicles have progressed to the point where some automakers are ready to begin early commercialization," said CaFCP Executive Director Catherine Dunwoody. "Stopping federal investment at this point is like a coach pulling back an Olympic athlete who has trained for years, just as the trials begin. We can't wait for the next round. We're ready to go."
(Note: Updated 5 p.m. 5/7/09 to include link to Hydrogen and Fuel Cell groups' joint statement.)
By John O'Dell, Senior Editor
In a huge blow to backers of fuel-cell electric vehicles, the nation's top energy official said today he sees little promise of the technology becoming a significant player in the nation's transportation system within the next two decades.
---------- Honda's FCX Clarity, now being tested in Southern California, uses a hydrogen fuel cell to provide electric power. ----------
As a result, Energy Secretary Stephen Chu is proposing that more than $100 million be cut from the Energy Department hydrogen program in the 2010 budget the administration is submitting to Congress.
The proposed budget slashes hydrogen fuel cell spending by 59 percent to just $68 million and focuses on programs for stationary power generation rather than for transportation.
"We asked ourselves, 'Is it likely in the next 10 or 15, 20 years that we will covert to a hydrogen car economy?' The answer, we felt, was 'no,'" Chu said in a briefing today.
The National Hydrogen Association and the U.S. Fuel Cell Coalition quickly issued a joint statement criticizing the program cuts.
Engineered Bacteria, Yeasts Can Slash Costs, Hasten Commercial Development
Cellulosic ethanol developer Mascoma Corp.
says it has achieved a breakthrough in enzyme development that moves the industry "years, or even decades" closer to low-cost, high-volume processing of biofuels from non-food feedstocks.
The New Hampshire-based company, in which General Motors Corp. is a key investor, is working on what is called consolidated bioprocessing, or CBP, which uses laboratory-engineered microorganisims to produce the otherwise expensive commercial enzymes needed to break down cellulose into a substance that is then processed into ethanol and other biofuels.
Mascoma said in an announcement today that its "major research advances" will permit the production of both the so-called cellulase enzymes and the resulting ethanol in a single step.
A few days ago we moaned that General Motors Corp.'s decision to sell the Saturn brand would kill the company's planned Vue plug-in hybrid and reported that GM people were saying the company didn't have plans to quickly shift the technology to another brand.
We were right about the Vue plug-in, and are now thrilled to report that GM says it will do a replacement plug-in hybrid for either the Chevrolet, Buick, GMC or Cadillac brands (all that will be left after the company completes "Reorganization II: The Come Back").
It will be used on a compact crossover SUV and be entered into fleet service in 2011, according to GM Vice Chairman Tom Stephens, who disclosed the plan Tuesday on GM's FastLane blog.
Stephens didn't say so, but we'd expect retail sales of the new GM plug-in hybrid to follow sometime in 2012 unless the fleet operators have a terrible experience with it.
What he did say was that GM plans to offer 14 hybrid and electric vehicles by 2012 -- the "electric" apparently being the Chevrolet Volt, which GM insists on calling an extended range electric vehicle.
Unlike the Volt, which actually is a type of plug-in hybrid that uses only its electric motor for propulsion, the unnamed 2011 plug-in won't run solely on electric power but will use its electric motor to augment the gas engine (the Volt, due at the end of next year, uses its gas engine as a generator to provide electricity when the battery pack's charge is depleted).
Because it will use a more powerful battery pack than a conventional hybrid carries -- a grid-rechargeable battery pack - the new plug-in also will be able to provide a certain amount of all-electric drive before the battery charge is depleted and it reverts to operating like a conventional hybrid operation until it is plugged-in and the batteries are charged-up again.
Stephens said the plug-in will use a version of the GM dual-mode hybrid system now employed on Chevrolet and GMC hybrid SUVs and pickups.
Today's diesel-powered automobiles aren't your father's diesel-powered automobiles.
That's one of the core messages Volkswagen Group of America Inc. hopes to deliver in a new (and sufficiently quirky, given the company's advertising heritage) marking effort that includes a website where light-footed VW owners are boasting about extreme mileage accomplishments.
The pro-diesel push comes at the same time as a new "Meet the Volkswagens" ad campaign that pairs Max, the restored black VW Beetle that speaks with a German accent, with "Bus," an immaculately restored white and red 1968 Microbus (whose voice is supplied by actor Thomas Haden Church).
VW has a simple message in each instance: its autos are fuel-efficient, green and safe vehicles that won't break the household budget. And, to ensure that the message has a chance of being heard, VW plans to keep its 2009 advertising budget at the same level it was in 2008.
That is a serious commitment given that VW reportedly raised last year's spend by 45.7 percent over the 2007 level. The Nielsen Company reports that the overall automotive sector cut overall 2008 advertising spending by 15.5 percent to just over $10 billion.
VW's U.S. marketing chief, Tim Ellis, told USAToday that "When we invest in marketing, things happen. We think it's important to stick to our roots and stick to our value message. We're getting a higher percentage of the dwindling marketplace. And when this crazy situation comes straight side up again, we'll be positioned to increase our share even further."
VW isn't escaping the auto industry carnage. The Herndon, Va.-based company saw April sales tumble by 16.1 percent to 16,289 vehicles. Full year sales for 2008 declined by 3.2 percent to 223,128.
The automobile industry's global slump underscores the bold nature of VW's American gambit. Last year it announced plans for a $1 billion production plant in Chattanooga, Tenn. that will produce 150,000 vehicles annually - 30 percent of which will be powered by VW's TDI (turbo direct injection) engines.
On top of that, VW has boldly set a U.S. sales goal of one million vehicles by 2018.
To reach its lofty sales goal VW knows that it must persuade Americans (the emphasis is on younger consumers) that diesels aren't the clunky, smoky and noisy engines of yesteryear.
A gleeful General Motors Corp. says that preliminary tests using the same protocol the EPA employs shows that its redesigned 2010 Chevrolet Equinox crossover SUV will get 32 miles per gallon on the highway.
The figure, moderated by a 30 percent lower city cycle of 22 miles per gallon for overall fuel economy of around 26 mpg, is for the front-wheel drive model equipped with the 2.4-liter direct-injected four-cylinder engine (right)
.
The ailing automaker, desperately in need of new models that will bring buyers into its dealerships, said the official EPA ratings are due "shortly." The 2010 Equinox is scheduled to hit showrooms in June.
The Equinox' chief rivals in the midsized crossover, four-cylinder SUV segment are the 2.4-liter Honda CR-V, which received a 2009 EPA fuel economy rating of 20 mpg in the city and 27 mpg on the highway (23 mpg combined), and the 2.5-liter Toyota RAV-4, with an EPA rating of 22 mpg city and 28 mpg highway (24 mpg combined).
Mindful that growing numbers of shoppers now are demanding fuel efficiency as well as utility in their SUVs - and that it has to meet that demand or die - GM had vowed when it showed the redesigned Equinox at the Detroit auto Show in January that it would get at least 30 miles a gallon on the highway.
General Motors Corp. should have known it was in for a rocky ride on April 29 when late-night talk show host David Letterman used his monologue to describe the CBS Late Show as "the Pontiac of comedy."
It got decidedly worse for the struggling automobile company after Letterman invited Tesla Motors founder Elon Musk to sit down and talk about his upscale Tesla S electric sedan that's slated to be introduced late in 2011.
For most of the ten-minute Musk segment, Letterman talked like a real car guy (which he is), displaying an understanding of EVs, electric motors and lithium ion batteries. Musk was equally serious, comparing green car development to the evolution of cell phones that began as a rich guy's status symbol but now are an integral (and affordable) part of life.
Musk told Letterman that his firm has taken orders on about 1,300 of the upscale "S" sedans (right)
that will (before tax breaks) be sold at a base price of $57,400. Toward the end of the segment, Musk's associates drove a gleaming model onto the set. (Letterman promptly pretended to be getting electrocuted after reaching into the car and grabbing the steering wheel.)
After rehashing the ups and downs of electric-vehicle R&D in this country, Letterman complained that "we should be so much further ahead on this curve, much farther ahead than we are now."
Hybrid sales in the U.S. rose in April for the fourth consecutive month and posted the highest monthly volume since October 2008.
---------- Honda's 2010 Insight was one of the bright spots in the U.S. hybrid market in April. ----------
The bump illustrates the influence that novelty and price still have on the market: Honda's new Insight, Ford's new Fusion and a heavily incentivized Honda Civic hybrid overcame slumping sales of many other gas-electric models to account for the gain.
But in a month when car and light truck sales overall still fell well below the one-million mark, the performance of the hybrid segment wasn't much to get excited about.
The month-over-month increase wasn't strong enough, for example, to put April's hybrid sales in contention with April 2008, when gasoline prices averaged above $3.50 a gallon, car buyers were scouring the market for fuel-efficient models and recession hadn't begun wreaking havoc with the economy.
The fact that General Motors still makes vehicles sometimes gets lost amid all the news and speculation about the fate of GM as an ongoing business.
But it does make cars and trucks and one of the newest is the 2009 Chevrolet Silverado dual-mode hybrid pickup, which Edmunds.com Engineering Editor Jason Kavanagh recently drove and reports on today in a First Drive review for Inside Line.
We recommend you jump over and give his piece a read, but the short version is that Jason liked it, found that it is a good, full-service pickup with plenty of towing and hauling capacity, great acceleration, good road manners and 20-mpg fuel economy.
The downside is the roughly $4,000 hybrid premium, which would take more than a decade to earn back with fuel savings at today's $2.05 a gallon (national average) gas prices.
The pay-back period, of course, would get shorter as gas prices rise, which we expect will happen.
Besides the economics, there's also the environmental benefit -- harder to measure but worth considering. Driven 15,000 miles a year, the non-hybrid 5.3-liter Silverado annually would burn almost 190 gallons of gasoline more than the hybrid, and would produce about 1.5 tons more CO2.
And that's worth considering when making a choice.
Saturn Vue 2-Mode Hybrid, due this year, and plug-in Vue due in 2011 now appear dead.
GM says it will kill Saturn to help make some of its financial woes go away, and we expect the beleaguered automaker and its federal minders have done the number crunching and know whereof they speak.
But in killing its most fuel-efficient brand, GM also will be ending plans for several new Saturn hybrids, including dual-mode and plug-in hybrid Saturn Vue crossovers.
We figure that with its dramatic new restructuring plan also calling for the end of Hummer, Pontiac and Saab as GM brands, killing Saturn and its hybrids (it already markets the Vue Greenline mild hybrid and the Aura full hybrid sedan) won't damage GM's average fuel economy standing. Loss of the less-efficient Hummer and Pontiac brands will cancel out loss of Saturn and Saab in the annual corporate average fuel economy (CAFE) computation.
But GM tells us that it doesn't have plans to quickly shift the Vue hybrids -- existing and planned -- onto surviving Chevrolet, GMC, Buick or Cadillac platforms, and that's a shame. It would seem to run counter to the government's goal of getting a million plug-ins on the road by 2020.
As the once-favored hydrogen highway becomes a mere side road on the route to oil independence with the Obama administration's push for rechargeable hybrid powertrains as the new favored alternative to the conventional gasoline engine, hydrogen pioneer Honda Motor Co. says it, too, will begin to pursue the way of the plug.
In an interview with Bloomberg news last week, Honda Motor Co. President Takeo Fukui said his company still sees hydrogen as the best long-term replacement for gasoline in the effort to slash automotive emissions of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases tied to global arming.
Fukui, who is stepping down in June as part of Honda's regular executive shuffle, has in the past has been outspoken in his disdain for plug-in technology, calling it an unnecessary intermediate step form gasoline to pure electric power.
Honda has developed a hydrogen fuel-cell sedan, the FCX Clarity, that it leases to select customers in a Los Angeles-area test program, and isn't planning to abandon the effort.
But, Fukui said in a Bloomberg news wire article published this morning, the automaker also will accommodate the perceived preference of the U.S. government for plug-in hybrid-electric cars and trucks.
Unlike a conventional gas-electric hybrid that charges its batteries from on-board power sources such as regenerative braking, a plug-in hybrid gets its initial charge from the commercial grid, by "plugging in" to a wall socket or a special rapid-charging station
Plug-ins use larger battery pack than a conventional hybrids. They store enough power to permit the vehicle to be driven for an extended amount of time on all-electric drive before the grid charge is depleted and the gas engine kicks in.
Although others, including General Motors, Mercedes-Benz, Hyundai and Volkswagen are developing fuel-cell vehicles, Honda has been the only major automaker championing hydrogen above other technologies and so far has stayed out of the rapidly developing race to bring plug-ins to market.
While federal support of hydrogen development has all-but evaporated in the U.S., the government is providing billions of dollars for battery development programs and for federal tax credits of up to $7,500 for purchasers of plug-ins.
The Obama administration probably can make good on its heavily publicized campaign goal of putting one million plug-in hybrid vehicles on U.S. roads by 2015. But automobile companies aren't likely to turn a profit on the rechargeable vehicles in the process.
That's the opinion of electric vehicle and battery experts who spoke on Wednesday during a panel discussion at the Society of Automotive Engineers World Congress in Detroit.
Bill Visnic reports at Edmunds' Auto Observerthat "none of the panelists would directly say the first electrified models or battery contracts will be profitable, but they did mostly agree the president's mandate for 1 million plug-in hybrids by 2015 could happen."
Panelists were pretty much in agreement that manufacturers will struggle to turn a profit from the next-generation of hybrids, plug-in hybrids and extended-range electric vehicles (including General Motors Corp.'s heavily promoted Chevrolet Volt), the rpeort says.
That prediction also holds for developers and manufacturers of the more-expensive lithium-ion batteries that will be needed to make the next generation of green vehicles possible.
Visnic notes that Minoru Shinohara, senior vice president of Nissan Motor Co., "expressed a hope that making money on early electrified vehicles might be possible."
AutomotiveWorld.com reports that General Motors Corp. and Shanghai Automotive Industry Corp. Group (SAIC) have extended their partnership to include the launch of SAIC's Shanghai Brand Fuel Cell Vehicle, which is powered by GM's latest fourth-generation fuel cell propulsion technology.
----------
SAIC will use the same fuel cell system that powers GM's fuel-cell electric Equinox.
----------
The report says that the SAIC vehicle will use the same GM-developed 700 bar (10,000 psi) high-pressure hydrogen fuel cell system used in the Chevrolet Equinox Fuel Cell. The ten fuel cell vehicles to be built will be used by GM and SAIC to shuttle guests to and from the World Expo 2010 in Shanghai.
AutomotiveWorld quotes GM Group Vice President and Asia Pacific President Nick Reilly as saying that the vehicles "will be featured in the most extensive fuel cell demonstration program ever conducted in China.This follows the government's call for the creation of a sustainable transportation system."
Reilly also is quoted as saying that the partnership is "in line with our overall strategy of in China, with China, for China."
Fuel-cell cars and SUVs convert hydrogen and oxygen to electricity through an onboard electro-chemical reaction. The electricity is then used to power the vehicles' drive motors.
Early in 2008, Chevrolet launched a test fleet of about 100 hydrogen-powered Equinox Fuel Cell vehicles that are on the road in New York City, Washington, D.C., and Southern California.The fleet is part of "Project Driveway," which GM bills as "the first large-scale market test of fuel cell vehicles with real drivers in the real world."
John Waters, the brains behind the battery pack system that powered the General Motors EV1 electric vehicle in 1999, thinks he's got another bright idea - design and manufacture a 100-mile-per-gallon plug-in electric hybrid light-duty truck, sell it exclusively to fleet operators and call it the Bright IDEA.
Indiana-based start-up Bright Automotive brought a working concept model of the IDEA to Washington, D.C. on Tuesday morning to show it off. The privately held company plans to introduce the IDEA truck late in 2012 and be producing 50,000 units annually by 2013.
The company did not state a base price for the vehicle or say where it would be manufactured. (Several locations in midwest states are being considered.) During a Tuesday morning teleconference, Waters also declined to identify Bright Automotive's investor base.
The Washington, D.C. introduction wasn't by accident. Bright Automotive is lobbying hard for $450 million of the $25 billion in economic stimulus funds that the Obama administration is making available to automobile companies. Waters today referred to the stimulus money as the "green car fund" - and voiced his opinion that entrepreneurs should get the lion's share of the cash.
Not surprisingly, the IDEA leans heavily on ideas that were incorporated into GM's EV1: lightweight materials, low-resistance tires, an aerodynamic shape and a highly efficient battery and drivetrain.
Here's how that technology adds up to a bright idea, according to Waters. Low-resistance tires can improve fuel economy by from six percent to nine percent. A ten percent weight reduction brings a seven percent improvement in fuel efficiency. Those savings, Waters said, will allow Bright to incorporate smaller, less-costly batteries, which will cut both vehicle weight and the retail cost.
Bright Automotive believes that its vehicle would save a vehicle operator ten cents per mile and $6,000 per year in fuel costs. Waters said his firm is targeting fleet operators, including the U.S. Postal Service, which operates 160,000 neighborhood delivery vehicles with an average fuel economy of about 10 miles per gallon.
Automakers Need Rechargeable Hybrids, EVs, Task Force Consultants Say
The Boston Consulting Group, hired by the Treasury Department to analyze recovery plans being submitted by General Motors Corp. and Chrysler LLC to the administration's Automotive Task Force, says it stands by the accuracy of its January report on the prospects of the electric vehicle segment in coming years.
The global consulting firm's analysis came under fire last week from Felix Kramer, founder of the influential plug-in hybrid and EV advocacy group California Car Initiative, or CalCars.
He said in a lengthy posting on the CalCars website that he feared the consultants had based their finding - that electrified vehicles are too costly still to be competitive with internal combustion engine vehicles without a wide range of government incentives - on flawed data.
Kramer's concern is that while the Obama administration has said it wants to encourage development of plug-in electric vehicles with a goal of seeing a million on the road by 2015, the consulting group seems to be downplaying rather that supporting the idea that such a goal is attainable.
Kramer linked the consulting group's January report to the the task force's finding, when it rejected GM's inital recovery plan last month, that the Cvevrolet Volt plug-in due out at the end of next year will be too pricey to be commerically viable in the early years. He appears to be concerned that this is an indication that the task force is getting advice to tell GM to drop or delay the project.
But GM has said it will move ahead with the Volt and in a short statement provided Green Car Advisor today, Boston Consulting said that its Janauary report did not single out the Volt or any other specific model and that, indeed, it believes rechargeable, or plug-in, hybrids and all-electric vehicles need to be part of every automaker's fleet.
Here's the statement:
"Our January 2009 report, "The Comeback of the Electric Car? How Real, How Soon, and What Must Happen Next," discusses the prerequisites necessary for widespread adoption of electric cars in general, and not of specific models.
"The report's analysis was based on information from a wide range of sources and on a modeling of the propulsion-market evolution in Western Europe, North America, Japan and China, incorporating regional differences in average mileage, carbon dioxide regulations, taxes and likely acceptance of technologies.
"According to our projections, [global] sales of around 3 million electric cars and 11 million hybrids by 2020 are realistic under reasonable incentives and fuel-cost assumptions, with ICE-based cars still making the majority of the market.
As the report makes clear, our view is that all automotive manufacturers need to include rechargeable, or plug-in, hybrid-electric vehicles in their fleets. But unless governments intervene with strong incentives for car makers, power companies and consumers, key auto markets will remain dominated by ICE-based cars.
Since the report's publication, numerous informed parties - including many OEMs, suppliers and battery makers - have reaffirmed the validity of our estimates and conclusions. We will provide future updates as our research unfolds."
Advocacy Group Thinks Panel's Consultants Use Flawed Arguments to Downplay Technology
It's great that the Obama Administration is trying to do something to save the U.S. auto industry, but a bit unsettling that the right hand doesn't seem to know what the left is up to - a common Washington problem in general, we imagine, and in particular a problem in a new administration trying to grapple with half a dozen catastrophic events simultaneously.
----------
GM's Chevy Volt is seen by consultants as too expensive to be commercially viable in the nearterm.
----------
The issue we're talking about is the seeming disconnect between the president's oft-stated goal of promoting development of rechargeable, or plug-in, hybrid-electric vehicles - with a goal of having a million of them on the road by 2015 - and the administration's Automotive Task Force's apparent reliance on a consulting group that hasn't seen much future in plug-ins.
Felix Kramer, founder of the plug-in hybrid advocacy group California Cars Initiative, raised the alarm in a piece posted this week on the CalCars.org website.
It seems that the Obama administration, whose task force is charged with helping figure out how to save the U.S. auto industry, has awarded the Boston Consulting Group a contract worth up to $7 million for an analysis of the prospects of General Motors Corp. and Chrysler LLC.
Both automakers have said in the restructuring plans they've presented to the government that plug-in vehicles - hybrid and "pure" electric - will play a big role in their futures.
But Boston Consulting, Kramer says, has relied too heavily in the past on "business as usual" assumptions and "flawed data" in assessing plug-ins.
Kramer cites one recent report from the company, co-authored by one American- and four German-based analysts, titled "The Comeback of the Electric Car? How Real, How Soon, and What Must Happen Next." (Click here to download the 10-page report.)
The press release issued by the company to promote the report when it was released in January was headlined "Electric Cars Are Unlikely to Help Carmakers Cut CO2 Emissions Significantly by 2020," a less neutral approach that alerts you to the one of the report's conclusions.
We've no axe to grind with a hard-nosed assessment of the facts, but Kramer argues that the consulting company's analysis of the plug-in EV scene uses outdated, excessively high battery costs and ignores the impact of recent U.S. funding programs for battery development.
Green Car Advisor hopes to get Boston Consulting to comment, but two days after taking our request under consideration (with the remark that it would be unfair of us to write about Kramer's concerns without including BCG's response) the best the company's been able to come up with is a "no comment at this time."
Cadillac Converj concept uses GM 's extended-range plug-in system for all-electric drive.
It's time for the "will they or won't they" game to begin.
Motor Trend magazine says that GM insiders have leaked word that the Cadillac Converj extended-range hybrid has been given the green light for production.
General Motors Corp.'s official response is that the Caddy version of the Chevrolet Volt is still jut a concept undergoing, as do many concepts, ongoing review for production possibilities.
"We'll provide details if the status changes," said GM spokesman Rob Peterson - a statement that could be taken, if you were so inclined, to mean that GM at least is holding out the possibility that the status will change.
(A Cadillac spokesman said approximately the same thing Thursday to Inside Line's Straightline news blog, which interpreted it as an outright denial.)
The Converj, which would use the same "EFlex" extended-range series hybrid system as the Volt, was a big hit at the detroit Auto Show and would give GM the opportunity to sell a premium-priced version of its plug-in hybrid to help recoup come of the development costs.
But, of course, financially crippled GM is still working with the feds on a plan to stay alive and its ability to spend big bucks to get a car like the Converj ready for production is an even bigger question mark than its desire to do so.
If the Converj were to be slated for Cadillac dealers' showrooms, it likely would be a 2012 model, with a hefty price tag: The Volt, due out at the end of 2010, is expected to carry a sticker of somewhere between $35,000 and $45,000 and a Converj could easily double that - or more.
The battery wars heated up again today as Michigan awarded four $100-million tax credit packages to a quartet of advanced battery projects that could lead to the creation of thousands of new jobs in the economically distressed state. One of the $100-million tax credit packages is contingent upon state legislators passing enabling legislation.
The credits awarded by the Michigan Economic Growth Authority are part of the state's bid to build an advanced battery industry that, by 2020, would lead to the creation of 40,000 new jobs.
A123 Systems Inc. of Watertown, Massachusetts, which on Monday said it had drawn another $70 million in capital from General Electric, plans to build a plant in Livonia. Last week, A123 announced that it would supply batteries for Chrysler LLC's upcoming line of electric vehicles.
KD Advanced Battery Group, which is a joint venture between Dow Chemical, Kokam America and Townsend Ventures, has yet to say where it would build its planned facility.
Korea's LG Chem-Compact Power, which has a contract to provide batteries for General Motors Corp.'s Volt, was awarded a $100-million tax credit package that is contingent upon additional state legislation being passed.
Plan Includes 2,500 Hybrids and $15 million for EVs, CGN Vehicles and Hybrid Buses
Despite giving Chrysler just a month and General Motors Corp. only 60 days to finish figuring out how to save themselves without potentially devastating bankruptcy filings, the Obama administration continues showing its commitment to the U.S. auto industry by agreeing to spend $285 million to purchase 17,600 fuel-efficient vehicles from the domestic three by the end of May.
The federal vehicle purchases will include 2,500 gas-electric hybrid cars that are to be acquired by Wednesday (the same day federal income taxes are due).
----------
Ford Fusion (top) and Chevrolet Malibu (bottom) hybrids are among the vehicles the federal government will be purchasing in coming weeks.
----------
In announcing the plan, President Obama said that the Government Services Agency also will spend $15 million on a pilot program to purchase and test an undisclosed number of new alternative fuel vehicles including compressed-natural gas vehicles, electric vehicles and hybrid buses.
The total isn't huge, representing only about 2 percent of last year's U.S. new car sales total and 29 percent of the government's average annual new vehicle purchases, but it will help brighten an otherwise woeful 2009 sales picture for GM, Chrysler and Ford Motor Co., the only carmakers eligible to participate in the plan.
The hybrid purchase marks the largest government order of gas-electric vehicles to date and will benefit both GM and Ford.
The Personal Urban Mobility and Accessibility vehicle from General Motors and Segway.
By Robert E. Calem, Contributor
General Motors Corp. and Segway Inc. today officially introduced their jointly developed PUMA (Personal Urban Mobility and Accessibility) prototype vehicle during a press conference in New York.
As we reported yesterday, the PUMA is a two-passenger, two-wheeled, battery-powered "balancing machine" based on Segway's Personal Transporter. It is intended for use on crowded city streets. Its lithium-ion batteries fully recharge in eight hours and provide enough power to keep the vehicle going for 35 miles at speeds up to 35 mph.
Segway is providing the technology that makes the PUMA vehicle move, while GM is contributing expertise in communications and connectivity technology related to OnStar and the company's work with intelligent transportation systems (ITS).
At the press conference, Larry Burns, GM's vice president of research and development and strategic planning, shared the stage with Segway's president and chief executive, Jim Norrod, and other GM and Segway executives also were present. These included Dave Rand, GM's executive director of global advanced design, and Philip LeMay, Segway's vice president of planning.
Hundreds of design sketches of prototype PUMA vehicles have been made since the two companies started collaborating approximately 18 months ago, Rand told Green Car Advisor. It remains unclear which, if any, of those designs will ever be brought to market.
However, Rand added, GM is confident that "the [sales] potential is huge." There is pent-up demand for a vehicle that "makes living in New York or any other major city in the world that much easier," he said. "It's not like this is a niche market."
Undoubtedly, the press conference was aimed at burnishing GM's image as the company struggles to survive. GM remains under pressure from the federal government to increase its roster of economical and environment-friendly vehicles as a condition of ongoing financial support.
While he was on stage, Burns commented on the importance of "Project PUMA" to GM's future:
"If you listen very carefully to what President Obama said last week, he said the United States is going to work with General Motors to be a viable company, and he said we want a company with vision, we want a company that can bring forth the technology that can deal with energy and environment issues that automobiles face. And this truly embodies that kind of technology."
File this bit of news in the "when it rains, it pours" category.
The Detroit Free Press is reporting that, at least for now, General Motors Corp. and Chrysler LLC are prohibited from receiving any of the $25 billion in federal loans available to help automobile manufacturers and parts suppliers retool factories in order to bolster production of fuel-efficient vehicles.
Automakers and parts suppliers have submitted $44.6 billion in loan requests. GM asked for $10.3 billion and Chrysler requested $6 billion.
This pool of funds differs from the $17.4 billion in loans that the two automakers received as part of Washington, D.C.'s massive economic stimulus package and the additional loans they are seeking. But the two pools are linked in a couple of ways.
For starters, Department of Energy rules limit the $25 billion loan pool to companies that "demonstrate a reasonable prospect" of being able to make principal and interest payments. Applicants must have "a net present value which is positive, taking all costs, existing and future, into account."
Last week, of course, the Obama administration rejected restructuring plans submitted by the two financially troubled automakers. GM was given 60 days to present a credible plan and Chrysler was given a month to complete a partnership with Fiat.
In today's edition, the Free Press quotes GM spokesman Kerry Christopher as saying that federal officials "can't give us the additional loans until all other issues are worked out." The newspaper also reports that GM is working with DOE and the Treasury Department to do just that.
The Personal Urban Mobility And Accessibility Vehicle from General Motors and Segway
By Robert E. Calem, Contributor
When it comes to driving in crowded cities where traffic rarely tops 20 miles per hour, such macho measures as 0-60 MPH are irrelevant. At those speeds, even a SMART car can be more machine than a person needs to navigate from point A to point B.
That is the thinking behind an 18-month collaboration between General Motors Corp. and Segway Inc. that has produced a two-wheeled, two-passenger, covered vehicle dubbed PUMA - the Personal Urban Mobility and Accessibility vehicle.
The partnership and its first prototype vehicle were unveiled to Green Car Advisor during a closed-door meeting on Monday in New York City by Larry Burns, GM's vice president of research and development and strategic planning, and Jim Norrod, Segway's president and chief executive.
The companies did not state a sales price or a production schedule -- and it's too early to determine what might happen to the PUMA concept should GM be forced into bankruptcy.
The rest of the world will hear about PUMA during a joint press conference on Tuesday morning in New York. Here's a bit of what we heard earlier today.
"The DNA of the automobile has been pretty much the same for about 100 years," Burns said, adding that vehicles have been "powered by an internal combustion engine, energized by petroleum, driven mechanically, and controlled mechanically or hydraulically."
The PUMA concept vehicle attempts to reinvent the automobile through "the marriage of electrically-driven vehicles" (such as Segway's Personal Transporter, a two-wheeled, single passenger machine) with "connected vehicles," Burns said. The goal is to "reinvent how we move around, how we interact, in cities and in towns."
PUMA isn't simply an effort to reduce congestion, Norrod said, because cities also are saddled with CO2 emissions, noise pollution and a paucity of parking spots.
Hence, the PUMA., which Norrod described as a zero-emissions "balancing machine." It is powered by two Lithium-Ion batteries, capable of traveling up to 35 miles on a single charge and can reach speeds as fast as 35 miles per hour.Though a price tag has yet to be set, GM and Segway estimate that operating costs will be 25 percent to 33 percent of the total operating cost of an average automobile (which is estimated to be 55 cents per mile).
The covered passenger compartment will accommodate two seated passengers - unlike the Segway Personal Transporter, which carries a single,standing rider. And it is small enough to go just about anywhere and appears to be narrow enough to travel through an open doorway.
The steering wheel telescopes in and out to drive the vehicle forward or backward, slower or faster and to remain balanced at a standstill or to enter what's called "park mode." And, just like the Segway Personal Transporter, the PUMA can literally spin 360-degrees in place for ultimate maneuverability.
Ford's SmartGauge features a multitude of displays to help people become more fuel-efficient drivers.
By Robert E. Calem, Contributor
Regardless of the kind of car you drive, one of the keys to improving fuel economy and reducing greenhouse gas emissions is to drive smarter - don't hammer the accelerator pedal, don't brake harshly and do steadily maintain just enough speed to keep up with the flow of traffic without passing everyone in sight.
These often are not easy tasks.
To help, automakers have begun rolling out new features and technologies that call attention to uneconomical driving behavior and offer "rewards" for fuel-efficient driving.
Some of these features are passive, like instrument panels that change color as fuel economy improves.
Others more actively engage with the driver, such as an accelerator pedal that pushes back when pressed too aggressively.
Some automakers are even working on technologies that will be able to take the driver out of the fuel economy equation by allowing the car to practically drive itself with best mileage in mind.
Read on to learn more about the driver training features and technologies in cars you can buy today, and be able to buy tomorrow.
Smart Gauges Make Smarter Drivers
"The whole idea is coaching the driver, but as a good coach you don't want to preach," says Sonya Nematollahi, driver information engineering supervisor at Ford Motor Co. in Dearborn, Mich., while describing the "SmartGauge with EcoGuide" instrument cluster in the 2010 Ford Fusion and Mercury Milan hybrids.
Conceived by Ford in collaboration with IDEO, the design and innovation consultancy that also devised the Swivel 'n Go seating in Chrysler minivans, SmartGauge consists of two 4.3-inch, high-resolution color LCD screens - one on either side of the analog speedometer - that display a collection of digitally rendered gauges accessed through multi-layered menus.
SmartGauge with EcoGuide, fashioned by Ford Design Studio with features input from the industrial design firm Smart Design, uses the menus and gauges to offer increasingly detailed information in four modes: Inform, Enlighten, Engage and Empower.
"Like a good coach, we designed modes into SmartGauge to engage drivers at their experience levels and then guide them to new energy-efficient behavior," says Steve Bishop, global lead for sustainability at IDEO in Palo Alto, Calif.
----------
Green leaves 'grow' on fusion instrument panel as visual reward when fuel economy improves.
---------
"Video games engage their users in a similar fashion with levels. In fact, when we observed hybrid drivers, we found they were going for high scores, a gaming behavior that has never existed in cars before. We designed to accommodate it."
Steering-wheel mounted directional buttons are used to navigate through the modes, and the driver can customize the displays in each mode by adding or removing gauges.
It's no secret, hybrids haven't been doing well lately, on dealers' lots, in the media, or in a lot of political arguments. Sales data that comes in on a monthly basis shows hybrid sales sinking faster than auto sales as a whole. And there's nothing pretty about auto sales as a whole.
Indeed, looking at March's tally shows that the 21,433 hybrid cars and trucks sold in the U.S. last month represents a 43.9 percent drop from hybrid sales in March of 2008, while sales of all other types of new passenger vehicles, on a March-vs-March basis, were off "just" 36.5 percent.
So, the argument goes, hybrids can't hold their own, they cost too much and people don't really want them.
---------- Nissan Altima hybrid was one of only two models posting a first quarter gain. ----------
But we've never been big on the idea that a trend can be made, or broken, in a single month.
One could also argue, for instance, that March hybrid sales were up substantially from February and recovered more than did all other segments combined.
On a sales-per-day basis, to account for the shorter February selling period, March hybrid sales were up 20.9 percent, versus an 11.6 percent increase from February in sales of other types of new cars and trucks.
Does that mean that March sales show that people have changed their minds and are flocking to hybrids in droves?
Note: The quote about Ford and Honda in the third paragraph was from an article in The Los Angeles Times, and was incorrectly attributed to Rush Limbaugh.
The gospel according to Rush Limbaugh now includes another chapter in what we'll call the green car conspiracy.
Here (from a transcript on the Excellence in Broadcasting network Web site) is what Limbaugh had to say on Tuesday about why vehicle manufacturers are scrambling to design and produce fuel-efficient, cleaner vehicles:
"The Ford and Honda hybrids due out this month are among dozens planned for the coming years as automakers try to meet new fuel-efficiency standards and please politicians overseeing the industry's multibillion-dollar bailout."
(That's probably news to Ford, which has just said 'no' to bailouts, and Honda, which doesn't qualify. And it might be news to the million motorists worldwide who've purchased Priuses and prodded Ford to introduce the Fusion Hybrid (left) and Honda to market the Insight Hybrid.)
And why are the auto companies kowtowing? Because the president is in cahoots with environmentalists who stay awake nights trying to figure out how to get us back to the good, old days when a gallon of gas cost more than $4.
Ah, but the evil-doers in Washington, D.C. (and their cronies in Sacramento) can't fool steely-eyed consumers when it comes to hybrids.
"Nobody's buying 'em," Limbaugh said. "Nobody wants them! The manufacturers are making them in droves to satisfy Obama! Sorry for yelling. Nobody wants them!"
(As of March 30, Americans had purchased 1.3 million hybrids since the first one -- a two-seat Honda Insight -- was sold in December 1999. Hybrids accounted for 2.51 percent of the market in March. That's the fourth-best monthly market-share showing ever, even with the lower gasoline prices. To be fair, though, hybrid sales did fall by 44 percent in March from a year earlier, and that's a worse showing than the 37 percent drop in the overall market.)
Successfully Restructuring Auto Industry Isn't Something That's Entirely Up to Detroit
There's an old Caribbean folksong in which a son calls his father's effort to explain the birds and bees "as clear as mud, but it covered the ground."
That pretty much describes the Obama administration's early direction to General Motors and Chrysler as it rejected the automakers' initial restructuring plans this morning and said they'd be given financial support for a limited period to come up with better plans.
In both cases, the President said in his televised address on the auto industry restructuring this morning, that means a plan to be economically viable while building and selling "the fuel efficient cars and trucks that will carry us to an energy independent future."
America's automakers, Obama said, should "lead the world in manufacturing the next generation of clean cars."
He covered the necessary ground, but without much clarity in terms of just how those goals are to be achieved. That's to be left it up to the automakers and the administration's auto industry restructuring team.
Even in Turmoil, Automakers Cannot Afford to Ignore Environmental Concerns
So Rick Wagoner's gone - or will be as soon as an official announcement of his widely reported resignation as GM's chairman can be cobbled together.
---------- Rick Wagoner is expected to resign as GM chairman at White House's behest. ----------
He took one for the team as politicians in Washington demanded blood in return for an increased effort to save General Motors Corp. from years of missteps, and, worse, no steps at all.
Wagoner is generally considered to have been one of the best and brightest to sit at General Motors' helm in the post WW II years and however sad that may be, we don't disagree.
But he suffered from a case of the GM ego that has blinded so many of the company's top executives, and that was compounded by the fact that he was piloting a behemoth that required early and decisive action to effect a change pf course, and he was loathe to slam on the brakes and crank the wheel hard.
Wagoner - as have many in Detroit - finally recognized that change was coming, that political and social pressures were building and that the auto industry needed to begin responding to growing demand for cleaner, greener vehicles if it was to remain competitive.
But, like too many in Detroit, Wagoner's epiphany came too late and he didn't underestimated the speed at which his company was entering that 180-degree turn.
Still, he might have made it but for the economic collapse that has thrown much of American commerce into a sideways skid.
It was on Wagoner's watch, after all, that GM admitted it had made bone-headed mistakes in killing the EV1 electric car and in not moving quickly to developing hybrid gas-electric technology, thereby ceding that segment of the market (and the adherent reputation for greenness) to the Japanese for nearly a decade.
It was Wagoner's team, too, that came up the Volt, which has the potential to vault GM back into the green game as a leader - if the company can survive its other ills and emerge from the economic crunch in any sort of fighting shape.
Reams and volumes will be written in coming days and weeks about Wagoner, his faults and failings, contributions and conquests.
Our contribution is to comment that, on green issues, he had the stuff to compete and the vision to see that wholesale change was needed but was too infected by the 'GM knows best' virus to see that the change needed to be made now, not later.
Wagoner's replacement is likely to be named Monday - nature, government and corporate analysts all abhor a vacuum - and a lot of money is riding on former chief financial officer Fritz Henderson, who just recently was named president and chief operating officer in what was widely believed to have been an anointing as heir apparent.
So the chairman is (figuratively) dead, and long live the new chairman.
And may he learn from his predecessor that all the greatness that once was GM means little in today's rapidly changing and incredibly challenging world.
We're not convinced that either Congress or the White House can fix things either, and hope the auto industry "rescue" plan to be announced Monday by President Obama will leave room for ongoing participation by people who actually know something about the industry.
One thing we are sure of, however, is that the green agenda is going to continue to be pushed, and pushed hard, whoever is running the show.
Washington wants it, a growing number of people want it and Detroit - however reluctantly - has seen and understands that like it or not, fuel efficiency, reduced emissions and, finally vehicles that offer freedom from oil is now a critical ingredient in the recipe for success.
Even when green, politics make for strange bedfellows.
As in the National Wildlife Federation's decision to support General Motors' bid to receive additional federal government bailout funds.
The show of support for GM by the Reston, Virginia-based environmental group with 4 million members came in a March 24 letter that NWF President and Chief Executive Larry Schweiger sent to President Obama's automobile industry task force.
Referring to GM's federal loan "application" in which the automaker pledged to make development of fuel-efficient, low-emission vehicles such as the Chevrolet Volt plug-in hybrid paramount in the future, Schweiger wrote that "when you consider that GM's plan is a critical step in confronting global climate change, then our involvement is not only expected, it is required."
The nation needs "to make investments in companies like GM who will deliver the technologies critical to achieving that clean energy economy," the letter said.
Schweiger reiterated what he said on March 17 when he and GM Chief Executive Rick Wagoner appeared together on behalf of the U.S. Climate Action Partnership, a coalition of companies and environmental groups that are lobbying Congress to establish a cap-and-trade system for controlling carbon-dioxide emissions.
Porsche Cars North America (PCNA) has added a 327-module solar panel array on the roof of its Porsche Logistics facility in Ontario, California. On a typically sunny Southern California day the installation will generate 135,000 kilowatt hours of electricity, which is enough to cover 30 percent of daily energy consumption at the facility that has about 44 employees.
----------
Porsche has installed a solar electric assembly atop its logistics facility in Ontario, California.
----------
The installation, which cost just under $1 million, will cut carbon dioxide emissions by more than 50,000 pounds annually, said Tony Fouladpour, a spokesman for Atlanta-based PCNA, which is the exclusive importer of Porsche sports cars and sport-utility vehicles for the United States.
"It is a fairly significant move for us," Fouladpour said. "We have the capability of supplying more power but we've not made a decision yet on expanding it." Porsche did not receive government assistance for the module, Fouladpour said.
Porsche isn't the only car company looking to turn sunshine into electricity. Last year we reported on two massive solar projects undertaken by Toyota and General Motors.
Toyota has installed 10,000 photovoltaic modules atop its sprawling auto parts distribution center in Ontario. The installation that covers 242,000 square feet of the building's roof can produce 2.3 megawatts of electricity daily -- enough to supply 3.7 million kilowatt hours, or 60 percent of the building's power needs
One more note on Obama talking green during his California visit, this from his appearance last night on The Tonight Show.
Host and noted car buff Jay Leno reminded the president that General Motors was testing hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles and that he (Leno) was one of the people who have been driving one.
To which the president replied that he believes vehicles like the Chevrolet Equinox Fuel-Cell Electric Vehicle represent the future of the auto industry.
"That's where we're going to win back manufacturing," Obama said. "But right now we're behind. These batteries are being made in Japan - just like wind power is being made in Europe. We need to bring that here, and that's part of what my budget and part of what our Recovery Act is all about."
For more on the president's auto-related remarks in his exchange with Leno, check the post by Edmunds' AutoObserver Editor Michelle Krebs.
General Motors, fighting to persuade federal watchdogs that it can survive with a lot of help from taxpayers, is hoping to repay some of the debt it owes us by launching the Chevrolet Volt plug-in hybrid on time and following up that achievement with a few more extended-range EVs.
That was the word Wednesday from a phone-in press conference held by GM's top battery and plug-in hybrid gurus.
There was no big news in the 75-minute event, but GM did release some crash-test photos to reassure us that the Volt's batteries would survive a 35-mph frontal crash, and provided some additional info about the battery pack for the 4-seat car.
Bob Kruse, GM's executive director for global hybrid, electric vehicle and battery engineering programs, assured reporters that the Volt was on schedule for a November 2010 launch - as a genuine retail vehicle, not a limited-production, test-program car.
GM crash test photos show little damage to orange-colored Volt battery pack after a 35 mph frontal collision.
Kruse also said that while the economy is in the trashcan and car sales are slower than they've been in decades, GM remains confident that, helped by the $7,500 federal tax credit the car is supposed to qualify for, Volt sales will meet the first year-goal of 50,000.
He also repeated earlier comments that GM is working on next generation versions of the Volt (or similar vehicles using the newly named Voltec powertrain). And not just Generation 2 vehicles, but Generation 3 as well.
Daimler AG
says that its Mercedes-Benz Hybrid LLC subsidiary will build a research and development near Ann Arbor, Mich. that will focus on conventional and alternative propulsion systems.
Government officials in Michigan said that the project will include a $9.9 million investment and create 223 direct jobs and an estimated 231 indirect jobs.
The Michigan Economic Growth Authority earlier this week won Daimler's decision to locate the center in Michigan by approving a $7.5 million,10-year tax credit for the 65,000-square-foot R&D facility Government agencies in Ann Arbor are expected to consider abatement of local taxes on the R&D center as part of the incentive package.
Officials in Michigan said that Daimler opted for Michigan over a competing bid from Greenville, S.C.
What led Daimler to choose Ann Arbor?
"It was the Detroit workforce," a Daimler spokesman told The Detroit News, a reference to the thousands of skilled but jobless auto industry workers in the area.
Daimler has until June 15 to select a specific site for the facility and has said an Ann Arbor locale depends of local tax breaks.
As our sister blog Edmunds AutoObserver reports, the German automaker already is working in the Detroit area, in cooperation with General Motors and BMW, on the two-mode hybrid technology already used in GM's full-size SUVs and pickups and slatled to be offered in upscoming BMW and Mercedes-Benz SUVs.
The new center likely would be dedicated to hybrid systems for Daimler's Mercedes-Benz passenger cars and, possibly, for its large commercial trucks as well.
Hopes for widespread introduction of clean, fuel-efficient diesel cars and light trucks in the U.S. over the next few year are diminishing as quickly as most of our 401ks.
---------- Diesels such as Ford's 65 mpg Fiesta ECOnetic aren't seen as marketable in the U.S. ----------
The latest casualty seems to be the once-promised Nissan Maxima diesel sedan, Senior Editor Billl Visnic reports in our sister blog, Edmunds' AutoObserver
.
The 3-liter V6 turbodiesel originally slated to launch here later this year is most likely on hold and well could be canceled, Visnic says, victim of the economic meltdown that has made spending on pricey technologies such as clean diesel a difficult decision for both automakers and consumers.
General Motors Corp. last week said it has shelved plans for a new diesel V8 for its pickups and SUVs, Ford Motor Co. has been grim about the outlook for diesel cars here, Toyota has canceled a diesel engine development program and Honda Motor Co. last year said it was ditching plans to launch a diesel Acura model in the U.S.
As Visnic points out, only the Europeans - heavily invested in diesel technology because of fuel economy and greenhouse gas emissions policies over there - are still big backers of diesels for the U.S
Volkswagen already sells the new diesel Jetta here; Audi launches the diesel-powered Q7 late this spring, followed by the diesel A3 in the fall as a 2010 model; Mercedes-Benz has three diesel-powered U.S. models, the ML-, GL- and R-Class, and BMW currently offers a diesel-engine 3-Series sedan and a diesel-powered X5 crossover here.
Sales of hybrid cars and SUVs continued falling in February but their plunge was slowed somewhat by a strong updraft of incentives.
---------- Camry hybrid sales were down 50 percent from February '08 but with incentive spending rose 82 percent from January ----------
While new car sales overall were down 41 percent from a year earlier, hybrid sales were off just 28.5 percent with 16,020 vehicles sold, down from 22,411 in February 2008.
The gas-electric cars cost more than their conventional counterparts and haven't been doing well as the economy tanks and gas prices remain relatively low.
Sales also have been slowed as interested consumers hold off in anticipation of the new Honda insight compact 5-passenger hybrid and the redesigned 2010 Toyota Prius, both due to hit showroom floors soon.
One Gainer
February saw only one gain - the Lexus RX400 hybrid crossover SUV was up 31 percent from a year earlier - but several models posted smaller declines than the segment as a whole.
The Lexus RX400 hybrid was helped by significant incentive spending, as Toyota's luxury division poured an average of $6,338 into each vehicle, according to Edmunds.com's True Cost of Incentives data. That was up from just $503 per vehicle incentive spending on the RX400 hybrid a year earlier and was $1,300 more than Lexus was spending on RX400 incentives in January.
Both the Ford Escape hybrid and the Toyota Camry posted big gains for the month. The Escape, with 1,172 sales, climbed 55.6 percent from January and the Camry, with 2,080 sales, was up 82.3 percent.
Camry sales really show the power of incentives: the car was among the worst performers in comparing February '08 and '09 sales, down almost 50 percent.To get the big January to February improvement, Toyota pumped up incentive spending on the model to $1,495 per vehicle from "virtually nothing in January," said Edmunds.com industry analyst Jessica Caldwell.
Our recent article on GM's new dual-mode hybrid full-size pickups didn't explain the extent of the differences in standard features between the conventionally powered Chevrolet Silverado 1500 LT crew cab and the Silverado (right) and GMC Sierra hybrids when questioning the economic justification for the pricier hybrids.
In addition to standard equipment they have in common with the LT 1500, the hybrids come with 18-inch wheels, a towing package, side-curtain airbags, a soft tonneau cover and GM's "EZ lift tailgate," as well as the automatic climate control and Bluetooth features mentioned in the article.
A Silverado 1500 LT with the base 4.8-liter V8 engine and all of these options checks in at a shade over $33,000 (before destination charge.)
That compares more favorably with the hybrid's approximate base price of $38,000 that the $31,000 unadorned LT 1500 were used in our original comparison.
Throw in the hybrids' $2,200 federal tax credit, and their $5,000 premium over the comparably equipped conventional 4.8-liter LT 1500 shrinks to less than $3,000.
The typical conventional full-size truck buyer probably wouldn't require all of the add-ons, but even if the options are limited to significant functional upgrades - towing package, side-curtain airbags and special tailgate - the 1500 LT comes in at over $32,000, narrowing the pre-tax-credit gap to about $6,000.
The Devil's in the Dollars With '09 Chevy Silverado and GMC Sierra Dual-Mode Hybrids
GM's hybrid pickups can tow and turn in good mileage -- for trucks -- but cost thousands more than conventional models.
(Note: Please see updated cost-comparison information, here.)
ByJosh Sadlier, Associate Editor
There's something undeniably impressive about a 5,341-pound pickup that can accelerate to 29 mph solely on electric power. That's just one of the neat tricks packed into GM's new-for-2009 two-mode hybrid trucks, the Chevrolet Silverado 1500 Hybrid and the GMC Sierra 1500 Hybrid.
Equally impressive are EPA fuel-economy estimates of 21 miles per gallon in the city, 22 on the highway and 21 mpg combined for the two-wheel-drive models, a 4-6-mpg improvement over their conventionally powered GM brethren and an unprecedented achievement for full-size trucks.
That's the good news.
The bad news is the bottom line. These crew-cab-only hybrids start at $38,000 and change, although a $2,200 federal tax credit will help -- a little.
Big Price Spread
Their closest non-hybrid relative, the Silverado 1500 Crew Cab LT with a 4.8-liter V8, goes for just over $31,000, and if you miss the hybrids' standard dual-zone climate control and Bluetooth, they can be added to the LT for a pittance.
In other words, unless gas prices get really high and stay there, there's no economic argument to be made in the hybrid trucks' favor.
The $7,000 price difference (before tax credits) would take 12.5 years to earn back if gas stayed at $2 a gallon, and 7.8 years to recoup with gas at $4 a gallon. Payback periods for trucks purchased with the hybrid tax credit would be 8.6 years with $2.50-a-gallon gas and 5.4 years with gas at $4 a gallon.
What's more, the conventional LT's 10,600-pound towing capacity dwarfs the hybrids' 6,100-pound rating.
Dull Interior
You can't argue that the hybrids are more pleasant inside, either, unless you're talking about the absence of engine noise in electric mode.
General Motors unveiled the European version of its Chevrolet Volt at the 2009 Geneva Motor Show today and all we can say is how come they get the best-looking sibling!
The two extended-range, plug-in hybrids are the same under the skin, but the Opel Ampera, well, a picture really can be worth a thousand words. Take a look at both (that's the Volt below) and we'll bet most of you agree with us that, from the front at least, the Opel is by far the better-looking car.
It will be sold in most of Europe starting in 2011 while Vauxhall, GM's British unit, will build and market a right-hand-drive version for the U.K. starting in 2012 (providing GM and its European marques are still a team and still around then). The Volt is slated to launch at the end of 2010.
Citing the possibility of an ongoing increase in sales of larger, less-efficient cars and trucks as one factor, General Motors Corp. has revised its future average fuel economy numbers sharply downward in its most recent application for federal aid.
---------- Small cars like the future Chevy Spark may not help GM meet next decade's fuel economy standards. ----------
The automaker's revisions could also signal a growing belief within GM that it may fall short of meeting the federally mandated corporate average fuel economy, or CAFE, standards for 2020 - a fleet average of 35 miles per gallon.
The New York Timesreports today that GM said in its application last week for an additional $12 billion in federal aid that it expected its 2013 model-year passenger cars to be averaging 33.7 mpg and its light trucks for the same model year to average 23.8 mpg.
In its original aid filing, in December, the automaker estimated calendar-year 2012 fuel economy at 37.3 mpg for cars and 27.5 mpg for trucks.
The revisions represent a 9.6 percent drop in passenger car fuel economy and a 13.4 percent decline in light truck efficiency.
Weight, Price Penalty for 40 Miles of All-Electric Range Is Prohibitive, Researchers Say
By John O'Dell, Senior Editor
In a report sure to be a blow to GM's hopes for its upcoming plug-in hybrid, researchers at Carnegie Mellon University have found that the extra cost and weight of the
----------
Researchers say vehicles like the the Chevy Volt may be too much of a good thing.
----------
batteries a vehicle such as the Chevrolet Volt must carry to achieve its targeted 40 miles of all-electric range make it too expensive to be cost-effective transportation for most people.
The report, to be published in a future issue of the journal "Energy Policy," doesn't identify the Volt by name but compares a plug-in hybrid with its basic characteristics to conventional hybrids, other plug-ins with less electric range, and even conventional vehicles.
"Large-capacity PHEVs sized for 40 or more miles of electric-only travel are not cost-effective in any scenario," the report's authors insist.
Bloomberg News issued the first report on the study today.
Fuel Savings Not There
General Motors Corp. has designed the Volt to travel up to 40 miles on a fully charged battery pack before its auxiliary gasoline engine-generator kicks in.
The automaker says that because the average American drives less the 40 miles a day when commuting or using the vehicle for normal household errands, the Volt will be highly fuel-efficient and will run as a zero-emissions vehicle for much of its time on the road.
That may be true, the Carnegie Mellon researchers say in their study of plug-in hybrid cost-effectiveness, but if an owner hopes to recoup ownership costs from fuel savings, a rechargeable hybrid vehicle capable of that much all-electric range isn't the answer.
"Forty miles might be a sweet spot for making sure a lot of people get to work without using gasoline, but you're doing it at a cost that will never be repaid in fuel savings," Jeremy Michalek, an engineering professor who led the study, told Bloomberg News in an interview.
Cellulosic ethanol pioneer Mascoma Corp.
said Wednesday it has begun producing the alcohol-based fuel from wood chips at its demonstration refinery in New York,
The company, which has benefited from investments by General Motors Corp. and a number of heavyweight venture capital firms specializing in green energy, uses a genetically modified bacteria to break down the usually hard-to-digest cellulose in wood chips and other biomass.
The fermented biomass is used to produce so-called cellulosic ethanol (because it comes from cellulose).
Mascoma' $30 million demonstration refinery in Rome, N.Y., has the capacity to produce up to 200,000 gallons of ethanol a year, and the biofuel is to be used by General Motors in its test car fleet.
Mascoma says it wants to use the same technology in a commercial plant it is planning for Northern Michigan, where chips from nearby lumber mills would provide the necessary biomass.
But the company says its process also can be used to break down the cellulose in other materials, including portions of sugarcane and corn stalks, that are not part of the human food chain.
Mascoma says the 40-million-gallon Michigan plant would cost at least $200 million to build and that it still is attempting to raise the necessary funds.
Opel Ampera plug-in hybrid is among the green stars of the upcoming Geneva auto show.
By Nick Kurczewski, Contributor
When the Geneva auto show opens its doors to the media March 3, the exhibition halls will be jammed with a wider range of smaller, smarter and more fuel-efficient cars than ever before.
Green vehicles were once a sideshow, with headline-grabbing debuts of outrageous supercars and luxury sedans in the main ring at Geneva. But like easy credit and cheap gasoline, those days are gone.
Intelligently designed, fuel-efficient, low-emission vehicles are now the key to survival for the world's car manufacturers.
Even high-end manufacturers like Bentley Motors are getting in on the act. Rather than its usual lineup of sport-tuned touring cars that gulp gasoline the way a band of rugby fans down lager at a pre-game fest, the English luxury brand will unveil a bio-fueled concept -- albeit one with more than 600 horsepower.
Other stars of the show will include the Opel Ampera, the European version of the Chevrolet Volt; Mitsubishi's i-MiEV Sport Air, an electric sports car concept; and the shape-shifting Rinspeed iChange electric vehicle.
Green Car Advisor offers an advance look at these and other soon-to-be-unveiled eco-stars of the Geneva show.
Opel Ampera
As General Motor's European subsidiary, it makes sense that Opel would get a version of Chevrolet's much-hyped Volt hybrid.
Luckily for Opel, the Ampera also seems to have gotten the good looks in the GM family tree. While the Volt has been criticized for a somewhat bland exterior, the Ampera has a more aggressive and modern design that better lives up to the promise of the state-of-the-art drivetrain.
Like the Chevrolet Volt, the Ampera will be capable of running up to 40 miles on electric power alone, before switching to a small internal combustion engine that recharges the battery pack.
Opel says that the Ampera's lithium-ion battery pack can be charged from a standard European 230-volt outlet.
The Volt slated to arrive in U.S. showrooms near the end of next year, so expect the Ampera to make its European debut in 2011.
Mitsubishi i-MiEVs
Mitsubishi will debut a European version of the i-MiEV electric car it expects to launch in Japan later this year. Both are based on the Japanese company's tiny "i" city car.
The i-MiEV uses a 47-kilowatt (62-horsepower) electric motor that draws power from a 330-volt lithium ion battery pack. Range is estimated at 100 miles.
The European model will be slightly wider than the Japanese model, and perhaps a bit more powerful -- to cope with European safety standards and higher speed limits.
A U.S. version of the i-MiEV, if we get one -- and we think we will -- is likely to be based on the Euro model.
A sport version of the i-MiEV will also break cover in Geneva.
Very little is known about the concept, called the Sport Air, though we expect it likely will be a closer-to-production version of the huggable-cute i-MiEV Sport concept seen at the Tokyo auto show in 2007.
Chevrolet Spark
Not every important green car in Geneva will have an electric motor or hybrid power plant under its hood.
At first glance, the Chevrolet Spark looks like another sharply styled little Euro-hatch.
That's the point.
Frugal and attractive small cars like the Spark are key to the survival of General Motors -- and to weaning many American car buyers from opting for the super-size option in their dealers' showrooms.
The five-door Spark hatchback first appeared as the Beat concept car during the New York auto show in 2007.
The production version looks almost identical to that concept. When it goes on sale in Europe in early 2010, the Spark will feature a choice of economical 1.0- and 1.2-liter 16-valve engines.
U.S. sales are to follow in 2011.
Tata E-Nano?
A spokesman for India's Tata Motors told us to expect a surprise in Geneva.
Known for basic and cheap economy cars, Tata -- India's largest auto manufacturer -- is unlikely to pull a dust cover off some supercar.
Our guess: the top-secret news is the unveiling of an electric-powered version of the company's subcompact Indica hatchback, or the Nano city car (left).
Tata Motors has been working hard on developing electric versions of its current lineup for the European market. The company last year bought a majority stake in Miljo Grenland Innovasjon, a Norwegian company specializing in electric car technology.
The collapse of the global auto industry has hit Tata Motors hard, especially now that it owns struggling British luxury brands Jaguar and Land Rover, but we're not counting it out of the electric car sweepstakes.
The four-door Nano hatchback will be the cheapest car in the world, priced at roughly $2,000 when it goes on sale in India later this year.
A low-speed battery-electric version suitable for urban centers or gated communities could be just what Tata needs to get its toe into the European or U.S. markets.
Rinspeed iChange
Rinspeed's annual dream machines in Geneva have been capable of hovering above land and water, tilting, running on bio-waste, and adapting the cabin environment to match a driver's state of mind.
The wacky Swiss company is now ready to debut its latest crazy creation, a shape-changing electric car called the iChange. Power comes from a 130-kilowatt electric motor.
This concept car's most intriguing feature is the adaptable seating arrangement. The iChange has what Rinspeed refers to as "1, 2, 3 seating," courtesy of an "electronic trick tail."
The exterior body-panels of the iChange can be reconfigured depending on how many passengers are on board.
Rinspeed says the result is not only a zero-emission car, but one whose ultra-low aerodynamic drag helps reduce power consumption from the electric motor to give it more range. Details to come at the show, we hope.
Bentley BioFuel Car
Bentley couldn't simply unleash a bio-fuel car onto the world. It had to make it the fastest Bentley ever.
We can live with that, considering the speed and grace of this strangely alluring yet contradictory concept. Sneak preview photos provided by Bentley show a car very much resembling its current gas-powered Continental GT.
Larger lower intakes and outlets in the hood now feed extra air to the W12 engine, reconfigured to run on a mix of gasoline and ethanol.
Oomph is estimated to be well in excess of 600 horsepower.
Ethanol helps raise the octane level of the fuel, which boosts power and gives this bruiser Bentley the performance credentials needed to keep its blue-blood clientele happy.
If the ethanol comes from biowaste instead of valuable food crops, those Bentley bluebloods may even be able to claim they are turning blue-green.
EDAG Light Car Open Source Concept
German engineering firm EDAG will display a high-tech car that is completely recyclable, electric powered and featuring state-of-the-art LED technology.
From the sneak peeks of the car we've seen, the finished product looks great. Too bad EDAG slapped a painfully awkward name onto this otherwise very promising concept car.
The body of the Light Car is constructed of lightweight basalt fiber. As strong as pricey carbon fiber commonly used in race-car construction, the basalt-fiber platform is cheaper to produce, provides high levels of occupant safety, and is entirely recyclable.
Power for the Light Car is provided by small electric motors located in each wheel.
The car's headlight and taillight housings aren't real hardware but instead are projected onto the exterior using LEDs. According to EDAG, owners can customize the shape and size of the lights (though there was no word as to the legalities of this clever option).Here's a company video animation that explains how it would work.
LEDs in the tail provide vehicles that are following the Light Car with information that could include driving tips like the Rinspeed's braking force (back off, I'm hitting the brakes HARD) and public service info like real-time traffic updates.
Peugeot 3008 Hybrid
French automaker Peugeot will show its new 3008 MPV, a small crossover that employs a 2.0-liter diesel-electric hybrid powertrain and four-wheel drive. The system should be available in European models of the 3008 by 2011.
Sized to compete with small sport-utes like the Nissan Rogue, the 3008 hybrid will combine 36-hp electric motor with the diesel engine. The electric motor will provide power to the rear while the engine drives the front wheels.
Peugeot has no sales presence in the States, but we wouldn't be shocked if the 3008's hybrid system shows up here in another automaker's cars someday.
Keep in mind, the standard gas-powered version of the 3008 (above, left) uses the same 1.6-liter motor as the BMW Mini Cooper. A hybrid/all-wheel-drive version of the Mini Crossover Concept (a Mini-based sport-ute shown at last year's Paris auto show) sure makes sense to us.
It happened, just as we said it would earlier today
: General Motors Chairman and CEO Rick Wagoner (right
) met with Democratic Representative Henry Waxman of California, chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which among other things can make life sweet or bitter for automakers doing business in the U.S.A.
GM - and Ford and Chrysler, probably all automakers come to think of it - hate being heavily regulated. For at least the past couple of decades, the Big 3 have fought efforts to regulate automotive emissions and fuel-economy standards that would force them to make cleaner, more fuel-efficient cars and trucks.
Chief among the members of Congress who've wanted tough tailpipe-emissions and fuel-economy laws is Waxman, who is a strong proponent of letting California and other states set emissions and efficiency standards, for automobiles sold in their states, that are much higher than those of the federal government.
We'd hope we'd get some colorful description of the Wagoner-Waxman sitdown, but following the meeting Waxman and his staff zippered their lips on the subject.
Wagoner spoke briefly to reporters after meeting, saying it lasted about 30 minutes in Waxman's Capitol Hill office. The discussion included talks about climate issues and other auto issues, he said.
"I appreciated the chance to sit down," Wagoner said. "Obviously, the chairman is very well-informed on the issues."
For more than half a century, Democratic Representative John Dingell of Michigan (right
) has been the Big 3's biggest lobbyist in Washington.
He has fought virtually every bill the automakers have opposed, from seatbelts and airbags to tailpipe emissions and fuel-efficiency standards.
Dingell's position as chairman of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce for 14 years - to say nothing of his other 38 years on the committee - has given him enormous influence over such matters.
Not by sheer coincidence, General Motors, Ford and Chrysler donated at least $650,000 toward his re-election efforts during his term as chairman.
Democratic Representative Henry Waxman of California has been on the same powerful committee since 1975, listening to Dingell decry efforts to regulate harmful tailpipe emissions and the like.
Waxman (left
) bided his time until this past fall, when he was able ride a national surge for change and unseat Dingell from his perch atop the committee by a close but decisive House vote.
It was a major change at the top, to put it mildly. Waxman has been so at odds with Dingell and the Big 3 that he didn't receive so much as a dollar from the automakers in all the years he served on the committee.
It's probably a fair bet that Waxman is despised by the men who run the Big 3 - or rather, the Detroit 3 now. Certainly, Waxman doesn't hold the men in high regard.
So it would be wonderful to be a fly on the wall today, overhearing what GM Chairman and CEO Rick Wagoner (lower right) and Waxman say to one another when Wagoner pays the new chairman of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce a visit.
Word of the meeting was supposed to be hush-hush, but it leaked out. As for the subject matter, it remains confidential.
But one thing is certain: Waxman vehemently supports efforts by California and other states to impose emissions standards that are tougher than the federal government's.
GM, Ford and Chrysler paid millions of dollars lobbying members of Congress and the Bush administration trying to crush the states' efforts. Thus far they've succeeded, but the battle isn't over.
We'll relay whatever information we're able to glean from today's Waxman-Wagoner powwow.
We suspect that GM product guru Bob Lutz' announcement today that he will retire at the end of the year is being greeted with cheers in much of the environmental world.
The 76-year-old former Marine Corps pilot, who still chews expensive cigars and flies a vintage fighter jet for fun, has been no fan of the green community, famously ridiculing the idea that the automobile has anything at all to do with global warming, if - and he insists that it is a big if - global warming even exists.
"A crock of sh*t" is how he recently described it, surely to the chagrin of an awful lot of GM insiders who have been laboring mightily to make the company at least appear to care.
But amidst the cheering is at least a little appreciation for a man who, despite his own convictions, has been willing to push for change of a greener kind.
True, Robert A. Lutz never gave up on the idea that Americans want lots of horsepower and big, hulking SUVs - he loved the Hummer brand, reveled in the success the Cadillac Escalade has had among the music and sports crowd, and brought the Pontiac GTO back to life, albeit an ill-fated one, in his search for fast cars to please the speeders among us.
But Lutz, who's career spanned increasingly important posts at Ford, BMW and Chrysler, came to GM at age 69 from a position as chairman and chief executive at Exide Corp. He'd joined the battery maker after retiring from the auto industry the first time, from his post as vice chairman of Chrysler.
And as a bit of a battery guy, Bob Lutz the horsepower honcho also was Lutz the 'lectric lover, champion of the Chevrolet Volt plug-in hybrid that, if it makes it to production next year as planned (entirely dependent on GM being in any kind of decent financial shape by then).could go down in history as the car that began changing the way America drives.
Lutz, often accused of being out of touch with the present generation of car buyers, actually did see the handwriting on the wall and understood earlier than many of his contemporaries that no matter how well the Corvette sells, there is a growing place in the market for vehicles that don't use gas and don't spew exhaust fumes.
He regularly disparaged environmentalists; felt they were attacking his industry because it was an easy target rather than a real threat. But he also fought internally to get the Volt (right)
made, arguing that even though it made no practical sense to him - or to many others within the company - it made great public relations sense.
It was the car, he often said, that would enable GM to wrest the green leadership mantle away from Toyota.
Time will tell whether Lutz was right or not - and a lot depends on the people he's stepping aside for.
As Roland Hwang, vehicles policy director for the National Resources Defense Council wrote in his blog today, whether Lutz is remembered as an obstructionist or an unwitting environmentalist "depends on whether GM is willing to move beyond its 'just say no' attitude towards fuel economy and global warming pollution regulations" and work with rather than against the new political and public majority.
We suspect that Lutz, as he prepares to head off for new adventures, probably doesn't much care how he's remembered and already is laughing at the earnest discussions of legacy his impending retirement has wrought.
But we're hoping that it is the Volt, and more cars like it, that defines Lutz' legacy - for our sakes, not his.
Nissan Motor Co. announced today that it is seeking a federal loan under a U.S. program for fuel-efficient autos.
The decision means that it is competing for U.S. funds with numerous American companies, including General Motors Corp., Ford Motor Co. and electric-car start-up Tesla Motors Inc.
The announcement came the same day as Nissan, Japan's third-largest automaker, said it intended to cut more than 20,000 jobs worldwide and shift production out of Japan as part of a broad new effort to weather the economic downturn.
Nissan, which suffered a net loss of $908 million for the quarter that ended in December, today projected a $1.92 billion operating loss for its year ending in March.
As for the federal loan, the U.S. Department of Energy may disburse some of the $25 billion in low-cost loans to successful applicants in coming weeks, Energy Secretary Steven Chu said Friday.
Rules for the program were set in November and the agency received 75 applications for projects totaling $38 billion, Energy Department spokesman Phil West said. Of those, only 26 were "substantially complete," he said.
U.S. officials notified Nissan that its application met initial requirements, and the request entered the second of four approval stages, according to Alan Buddendeck, Nissan's U.S. vice president of communications.
Unlike the $17.4 billion in emergency federal loans GM and Chrysler LLC won to avoid bankruptcy, the $25 billion are part of 2007 legislation creating tougher fuel-efficiency rules. Any manufacturer can apply as long as the money is used to make autos at U.S. factories that produce cars with at least 25 percent better fuel economy.
Company Says Time is Right to Begin Marketing Kits to Add Natural Gas Capability to Conventional Vehicles
By John O'Dell, Senior Editor
A California-based company that has played a major role in popularizing bi-fuel cars and tucks in Europe and Latin America is bringing its technology home.
IMPCO Technologies, manufacturer of a bi-fuel conversion system that can enable cars to run on natural gas or propane as well as gasoline, plans to announce this morning that it is establishing a new U.S. automotive division to take advantage of what it sees as a growth market for technologies that can help reduce greenhouse gas emissions and dependence on petroleum.
The company's Automotive Alternative Fuels Division initially will concentrate of the fleet market with conversion kits for popular domestic pickup trucks and vans, said Tim Standke, IMPCO's director of automotive operations. The company also will show a converted Chevrolet Impala sedan - a popular government fleet car - at its press conference today.
IMPCO - a subsidiary of Fuel Systems Solutions - could expand its product line into the general passenger vehicle market if demand is there, Standke told Green Car Advisor in an interview earlier this week.
"Our goal is to open up to all markets," he said. "We want to be there, to be ready, when gas prices go up and the demand for alternative fuels grows."
The company already manufactures conversion kits for a wide variety of passenger cars sold in Europe and South America, including vehicles from Ford Motor Co. and General Motors Corp.
The big drawback to a widespread introduction in the U.S. passenger vehicle market is the cost of testing and certification, Standke said.
It costs about $50,000 to perform the tests needed to obtain federal Environmental Protection Agency certification for a kit for a specific model, he said, and almost $500,000 per model to gain certification from the California Air Resources Board, which requires far more testing than the EPA.
CARB certification is a necessity if the company wants to be able to sell its product in states that use California emissions rules rather than federal standards - the list includes many of the country's most populous states.
The company's system (left)
consists of a separate fuel injector rail, a control valve, fuel filter, new fuel lines for the under-the-hood portion of the system, pressure and temperature sensors and an injector control module that works with the vehicle's original engine control computer to permit seamless switching from gasoline to natural gas or propane.
Customers also must purchase pressurized fuel tanks and tank-to-engine bay fuel lines, typically from a licensed IMPCO installer.
The entire system, which is added to the vehicle in parallel with the existing gasoline fuel system, can run from $7,000 to $8,000, with the cost of the fuel tanks and pressurized fuel lines representing more than half the price.
No surprise, hybrid sales in January went down the drain along with the rest of the industry.
The gas-electric cars, pricier than their conventional counterparts, typically don't do well when gas prices are cheapish, as they are these days.
---------- Lexus RX 400h was one of only two hybrids to post a gain over January '08 sales. ----------
Add in a recession teetering on the edge of depression and the picture is grimmer.
Piling on, Toyota and Honda -- the industry's hybrid sales leaders -- have new models coming out in a few months, a situation that doesn't do much to promote sales of models that are soon to be outdated.
The only good news is that, as a percentage of an overall abysmal market, hybrids gained in January, rising to a 2.33 percent market share from 1.97 percent in December and 2.14 percent a year earlier.
In terms of market share, January was the seventh-best month for hybrids since the first model went on sale in the U.S. in 1999.
Good market share in a bad market isn't much to cheer about, though. In terms of sales volume, January was the worst month for hybrids in almost three years.
Total sales of 15,393 hybrid cars and SUVs were down 12.8 percent from December and plunged 31.2 percent from a year earlier.
The last time sales were lower was February 2006, when only 14,957 hybrids were sold.
Gains
As usual, Toyota's Prius was the month's volume leader with 8,121 sales -- almost 53 percent of the total.
The Prius also was one of only five hybrid models of the 16 tracked by Edmunds.com to post a gain from December, up 3.3 percent. Prius sales were down 28.6 percent from a year earlier, though.
The other January gainers were:
The Lexus 400h crossover hybrid, up 6.3 percent with 1,556 sales;
Toyota's Highlander hybrid SUV, up 10.6 percent with 984 sales;
Honda's Civic Hybrid, up 3.8 percent with 1,076 sales; and
The Mercury Mariner Hybrid SUV from Ford Motor Co., up 19.8 percent with 127 sales.
Despite the one-month gains, the Civic Hybrid was down 38.3 percent from January '07, the Mariner was off 28.7 percent from a year earlier, and the Highlander was down 54.1 percent.
Potential buyers holding back in anticipation of the improved 2010 Prius and Honda's new 2010 Insight Hybrid, both due later this year, didn't help any of the January-over-January sales comparisons, said Jessica Caldwell, Edmunds.com's manager of industry analysis.
"Hefty price tags combined with the promise of newer, more-efficient models to come within the next few months have really hindered hybrid sales in January," she said.
Two hybrid models did post gains from their year-ago, marks, though.
---------- Nissan Altima Hybrid joined Lexus in winner's circle with an increase from January '08 sales. ----------
The Lexus 400h was up 28.3 percent from 1,211 sales a year earlier -- the only model to gain for the month and the year -- while Nissan's Altima Hybrid, with 644 sales last month, was up 36.1 percent from 473 sales in January '07.
Big Losses
The rest of the pack lost ground, although most are such low-volume sellers that the losses didn't make much impression on January's total sales picture.
General Motors Corp.'s hybrid cars and crossovers were the biggest losers, percentagewise, all but one falling more than 50 percent from December (none were in the market a year ago, so there are no January '07 numbers to compare to).
The Chevrolet Tahoe Hybrid SUV was hit hardest, down 69.5 percent with 299 sold versus 981 in December.
The Chevy Malibu Hybrid sedan was a close second in the loser column, its 145 sales a 68.1 percent decline from 454 sales a month earlier.
The GMC Yukon Hybrid SUV (a twin to the Tahoe) was down 62 percent to 168 sales from 442 in December; Cadillac Escalade Hybrid SUV sales fell 56.8 percent to 132 from 306; the Saturn Vue Greenline Hybrid crossover was off 54.7 percent with 153 sales, down from 338; and the Saturn Aura Hybrid sedan was down 44.1 percent to 19 sales from 34 in December.
Sales of Ford's Escape Hybrid SUV fell 27.9 percent from December, to 753, and were off 41.9 percent from January '07, and Toyota's Camry Hybrid sedan dropped 39.6 percent from December, to 1,141 sales, and was down 49.7 percent from a year earlier.
In Toyota's luxury stable, the Lexus LS 600h L hybrid sedan posted 33 sales, down 34 percent from December and 68.6 percent below January '07 sales, and the Lexus GS 450h crossover hybrid dropped 19.6 percent from December, to 41 sales, and was off 35.9 percent from a year earlier.
Although the new models from Toyota and Honda could pump a little excitement into the hybrid market later this year, Caldwell and other analysts don't expect much improvement before the latter part of the year.
It's no big secret that GM needs to score a hit with its Chevrolet Volt right out of the gate, so it is no surprise that the financially ailing automaker is using a launch strategy of "wealthy coastal areas first" for its much-hyped plug-in hybrid (left).
While details are lacking, the strategy became clear this week as General Motors executives attending the Washington Auto Show said they are working with key players in cities such as San Francisco and Washington to set the state for the Volt roll-out.
No on-sale date has been disclosed for the Volt, which is supposed to be capable of traveling up to 40 miles on its grid-charged batteries before a gasoline-fueled engine kicks in to serve as a generator to provide a continued flow of electrons for the car's electric drive motor.
But GM has vowed, repeatedly, to launch the Volt by the end of 2010, so we're anticipating that at least one retail model will be sold somewhere in the U.S. between November 30 and Dec.31 of that year.
GM says that it is working with government and public utility officials in select cities such as San Fransisco (we're betting that oh-so-green Portland, Or., is in the mix, too), as well as with various state and federal agencies, to make sure that when the Volt is ready, so are things like consumer incentives, public and workplace charging systems, "consumer-friendly electricity rates and renewable electricity options" and government and corporate vehicle purchase programs.
The automaker also would like to see states offer carpool lane access to single-occupancy Volts.
The car already qualifies - if GM's performance claims are true - for a $7,500 federal tax credit, which will help mitigate what is expected to be a pretty steep $40,000-plus retail price.
In San Francisco, which recently helped form a coalition of Bay Area cities intent on becoming ground-zero for encouraging use of electric vehicles, Mayor Gavin Newsom said his city alread
Electric-sports car maker Tesla Motors plans to go public soon, Reuters reported today, citing two sources familiar with the matter said. 
