The current GMT920 full-size SUVs from General Motors are very likely to be the last of their kind from the Detroit automaker. Even though new fuel economy standards give the big trucks a break based on their footprint, radical changes are likely for the next-generation models. A fully-equipped Tahoe is well over 5,500lbs and a big part of reducing fuel consumption in the next few years will be weight reduction. One step in that direction will be a shift from the body on frame designs these vehicles have used since their inception over to a uni-body structure. Ford already declared that the next-generation Explorer will be a uni-body and GM has their Lambda platform crossovers which are nearly as large as the GMT920s. Sales of the Tahoe are already down 10.5 percent this year and that trend is likely to accelerate. The next-generation models that are due to debut around 2012 will almost certainly make the jump to a smaller, lighter platform. In fact, a distinct possibility might be an SUV derived from the Zeta platform like the Denali XT pickup concept that was shown at the Chicago Auto Show this year. Without the pickup bed and with a slightly taller roof, this design could likely shave nearly 1,000lbs off the current SUVs. Regardless of the design direction that GM follows, the maxi-sized SUVs and pickups will likely never reach the sales heights they once did, meaning that GM is planning to scale back production capacity. The current 1.7 million annual capacity will probably drop to somewhere around 1 million. GM recently announced plans to cancel one shift at each of four truck assembly plants. Going forward, that production will likely be consolidated to fewer plants.
High fuel prices have surely altered most consumer's driving habits. The gas crunch has gotten bad enough that even police units have found it necessary to change their routines. For instance, in Palm Bay, Florida, Police Chief William Berger has banned officers from allowing their patrol cars to idle. The only circumstances where idling a police vehicle is permissible is when an animal or prisoner is left inside the vehicle. Turning off the vehicle sometimes requires on-board computers to be rebooted and, of course, raises the internal temperature of the vehicle since the air conditioner is no longer running. Other agencies have been forced to park their motorcycle units, which could potentially lead to a lower level of service from the police force. According to spokesman Lt. Andrew Walters of the Brevard County Sheriff's Office, "Our motorcycle unit... will stay intact. It's an integral part of our service, as the No. 1 complaint to the sheriff's office is traffic-related."
One easy way to reduce fuel consumption is to choose a more efficient vehicle, and that's exactly what some agencies have done. "Our fuel usage is actually less than what it was last year because we changed from Crown Victorias to Chevy Impalas. The Impalas get much better mileage," Cocoa's Acting Police Chief Mark Klayman says. The Impala is a front-wheel-drive unibody design which uses a V6 engine while the Crown Vic is a traditional rear-wheel-drive, body on frame vehicle powered by a V8. Seems like switching to the Impala would be an easy choice as opposed to laying off officers or reducing motorcycle units.
There has long been an interesting paradox in the realm of cars. For some peculiar reason, people who buy really expensive cars are willing to make more compromises to the foibles of the car and cut them more slack. How else to explain grief that owners of Italian exotics withstood for decades in terms of reliability, ergonomics and build quality. Buyers of mainstream cars that often have far fewer problems as a percentage of the number of vehicles built have a fit at every little thing that goes wrong. That same paradox exists today. The Tesla Roadster by virtue of its price and performance falls into entry level of exotic cars. Despite numerous delays in getting the car into production, and obvious compromised in terms of its functionality, most people have been willing to cut the car and the company a lot of slack, myself included. In my case my experience in the auto industry allows me to understand the difficulty of the task Tesla had. I never actually expected them to meet their aggressive timing targets and I've written on numerous occasions about the potential problems they might have. Nonetheless most people believed in the company.
General Motors on the other hand faces an entirely different standard with the Volt. In spite having a much more complex vehicle to develop with a much greater level of functionality and a shorter time frame than Tesla, GM seems to be being held to a higher standard than Tesla. At the slightest hint of time slips or cost increases, so many people jump on GM thinking that the car will never happen. Admittedly, we have yet to see a running prototype of the Volt (although they do apparently now exist) but that doesn't mean the company isn't fully committed to making the car happen. GM's task of creating a car that will be an affordable mainstream sedan for four passengers that meets modern standards will strangely mean that customers actually expect it to work all of the time. That's a situation that the much more expensive Tesla won't face to nearly the same degree.
According to Dr. Lyle Dennis, the founder of the GM-Volt.com fan site, over 20,000 people are on the "Chevy Volt Waiting List." For comparison, the Mitsubishi i-MiEV online petition currently has just 1,350 signatures calling on the Japanese company to sell the electric jellybean here in the U.S.
The Volt waiting list, though, isn't a declaration of an intent to buy or a place to put down a deposit. Instead, it's a grassroots way to let GM know that you're interested in buying the Volt when it comes out in late 2010. Still, I don't doubt that many - most, probably - of the people signed up would gladly fork over the money ($40,000? $35,000?) for the car. Wanna add your name to the list? Sign up here. More details after the jump.
Gallery: Detroit Auto Show: Chevy Volt Live Reveal
We gave a pretty detailed write-up last summer on GM's new light-duty diesel V-8 that will premiere in 2009. The new engine was specifically designed to fit within the same package dimensions as the long-running small-block V-8. As such, the diesel can potentially be installed in any GM vehicle that currently carries the V-8. GM has announced that the new 4.5L engine will have output of 310hp and 520lb-ft of torque. The Duramax 4500 will also provided a 25 percent reduction in fuel consumption compared to the similarly powerful gasoline engines. That puts it on a par (when comparing combined city/highway numbers) with the two-mode hybrid system when it debuts in the Chevy Silverado and GMC Sierra pickups next year.
When the engine debuts for the 2010 model year it will be the first GM diesel to use selective catalytic reduction (SCR) to reduce NOx emissions. SCR is also known as urea injection. Vehicles with this engine will meet Tier 2 Bin 5 standards and be fifty-state legal. In order to fit the dual overhead engine in the space of the cam-in-block small-block, GM engineers reduced the angle of the block and reversed the intake and exhaust flow through the cylinder heads. The intake valves are now on the outside of the heads and the manifold feeds air in from the top. The exhaust manifolds are now in the valley of the block along with the turbocharger. Previously, GM has also indicated that this engine would also go into the Hummer H2 which would do a lot to improve that vehicle's mileage.
A month ago during GM's monthly sales conference call, it was revealed that the company had sold a measly 843 hybrid vehicles in the first three months of 2008. Although I don't partake in the most recent sales call, one of the readers over at TTAC did listen in this month and someone specifically posed the question of how many hybrids GM managed to move off dealer lots in April. As usual GM didn't break out hybrid sales in the overall numbers but when questioned, Marketing boss Mark LaNeve did acknowledge "over 1,100" sales with over 500 being the Tahoe and Yukon hybrids. The remainder were assorted mild hybrids of the Malibu, Aura and Vue varieties. That's still nothing to get particularly excited about, but it's a move in the right direction - unless, of course, profitability is the desired outcome. GM is undoubtedly loosing a significant number of dollars on every two-mode hybrid and selling more will only make things worse financially. It will be interesting to see if GM actually makes more of a push to sell the two-modes when the Escalade hybrid launches later this year at a significantly higher price.
Chevrolet recently launched a four cylinder version of their mid-sized Malibu sedan which is combined with a six speed automatic transmission. The six speed unit is only offered in the top LTZ model for now and replaces the four speed that's offered in the LT and LS versions. GM is still ramping up production of the six speed and will expand availability as volumes go up. In the meantime, Jim McCraw had a chance to take a road trip in the new 6 speed LTZ model which performed quite well.
McCraw went 500 miles from Detroit to Gary Indiana and back along US 12 which is a mix of cruising and stop and go and managed nearly 30mpg. The LTZ comes equipped with a wide array of standard equipment like heated leather seats, steering wheel mounted audio controls, and pretty much everything else available. It's not a bad deal at $26,545. The four banger's 169hp isn't going to excite enthusiasts but it's enough to haul a mid-size car around without straining. Interestingly that 30mpg on the road is better than the 26.5mpg I managed with the Saturn Aura Hybrid last year which is built on the same platform.
In another of the ongoingrounds between diesel versus hybrid we bring you two heavyweight contenders, the Chevy Tahoe hybrid, which we had in the AutoblogGreen garage, versus the Mercedes-Benz GL320 CDI. Actually, it's brought to you by the good folks at Edmunds who took it upon themselves to give these two a through shakedown. As I'm sure you've already noticed, these are two humongous SUVs that we don't consider especially green but for those folks who need to tow large trailered objects or haul large families they are relatively more green than their forebears.
The competition between these two was pretty tight for a while. Pricewise, the Mercedes was only $480 more than the Chevy for the base model though the Chevy became a pretty good bargain once the options came into play. Both of the beasts excelled at acceleration (8.5 second, 0-60) with the Tahoe ahead by the slimmest of whiskers as long as they traveled in a straight line. With the cones set up, the Mercedes superior agility really shone, whipping through the course at 60 mph while the Tahoe had more waddle than a flock of ducks on the hoof. Also, in the all important fuel economy category, the diesel pulled decisively ahead, at one point returning 26 mpg during a stretch of highway driving where the Tahoe could "only" eke out a 21.9 figure over that same stretch. Advantage diesel. To watch these two duke it out auto à auto, hit the jump.
The continuing ramping up of fuel prices and ramping down of the real estate market has taken a toll on sales of big trucks. GM has announced their response with plans to cut production shifts at four factories that build big trucks. With gas at and beyond $4 a gallon and credit getting tighter, people who in recent years have bought or leased full-size SUVs for personal transportation are increasingly looking elsewhere. And with the market for new houses in free-fall in much of the country, contractors aren't buying new pickup trucks. All that adds up to too much production. For a change GM is being proactive and cutting production before they have to start stacking trucks in parking lots around the country. Starting after the summer shutdown in July, one shift of production will be eliminated at the Flint and Pontiac MI plants and the Janesville, WI plant. In September, one shift will be eliminated at the Oshawa Ont. factory. The Oshawa factory will begin producing the Two-Mode hybrid version of the Silverado and Sierra pickups this fall, but it seems unlikely that will be enough to revive the extra production.
Last week, Holman W. Jenkins, Jr. got space in the Wall Street Journal to question "whether GM is a genius or a dolt for developing the Volt." Jenkins suggests that gas prices might drop again. If this happens, then GM can say goodbye to consumers who want the Volt, Jenkins says. A big drop in gas prices is unlikely, based on recent trends and predictions, but not impossible. Jenkins' argument is one reason that an artificial floor on fuel prices - through higher gas taxes or a set minimum on oil prices - would secure the industry's investments in green cars. Jenkins is also unimpressed by GM's willingness to lose money on the first Volts, but he does see one strategy where GM "bribe(s) consumers to drive Volts off the lot. That is, if doing so frees GM to build and sell other cars bigger and more powerful than the cars its rivals can afford to build under the CAFE rules."
In the end Jenkins doesn't answer his own question. To be fair, this chapter is far from finished and an answer can't be declared just yet. While we're still a long way from Job 1, I think it's pretty easy to answer that the real dolt move here would be to not try to create a car like the Volt.
Faced with increasing CAFE standards in the coming years, Chevy has tweaked the mildly interesting Cobalt models (coupe and sedan) to get better fuel economy. The XFE versions - that stands for extra fuel economy - get an EPA estimated 36 mpg which is between three and five miles per gallon better than the non-XFE versions, according to Chevy (I assume 36 mpg is for highway driving). The official EPA numbers for next best Cobalt - the 4 cylinder, 2.2 L, manual 5-speed - are 33 mpg on the highway and 24 mpg in the city. Our friends at Autoblog mention that the fuel economy gains were achieved through upgraded engine mapping, the use of lower roller resistance tires and maybe some gearing adjustments. The XFE models will be branded with a little XFE badge. Any LS and 1LT five speed manual transmission Cobalts that were ordered on or before March 17th will be XFE versions.
Scott over at PetroZero had the opportunity to pose some questions to Bob Lutz the other day and, as always, the responses were interesting. First off is the idea of the E-Flex platform operating entirely free of batteries, with the engine/generator simply running continuously and feeding electricity to motor. While this is certainly technically possible, the current E-Flex system is not architected for that possibility. The generator has no direct connection to the motor, rather it feeds the battery. The engine is designed to run at constant speed and wouldn't achieve anywhere near the efficiency if it had to provide transient operation. Because the motor requires more power on demand for acceleration, the engine would have to speed up. In this usage scenario, the efficiency losses of converting mechanical to electrical and back to mechanical power would come in to play as described by Toyota and others when they criticize the whole concept. A conventional parallel hybrid would actually be preferable in this case. The whole premise of improved efficiency from E-Flex is built on the idea that the vehicle will run off grid energy the majority of the time.
The other possibility that Lutz mentions is eliminating the engine/generator and going battery only. This is actually not a new idea and was discussed as a long-term possibility back in late 2006 when GM held the first background briefings on the Volt prior to its auto show debut. The idea is that if battery technology progresses to the point that a Volt type vehicle could provide a reasonable electric range without a range extender just by using a bigger battery, it could easily be done. The idea is mentioned in the first E-Flex technical description I wrote here. Finally, Lutz indicated that within the next two weeks he will be taking an initial test drive in a real Volt prototype. According to Scott this is an actual Volt prototype not a Malibu-based mule. I find that unlikely at this stage. A mule drive is almost a certainty though.
Update: Rob Peterson at GM confirmed that it is only a mule that Lutz will be driving. Actual Volt prototypes are still many months away.
Since its debut last fall, the 2008 Chevy Malibu's four cylinder engines have only been available with a like number of transmission speeds. If you wanted a six speed gearbox you had to opt for the top-end LTZ model with the 3.6L V-6 engine. No more. You still have to opt for the LTZ to get the six-speed, but now you can get the smaller 2.4L engine paired with it. GM has been ramping up production of the new 6T40 automatic transmissions since last summer and there are now finally enough to merit the new drive train combo. The result is a Malibu that gets the same 22mpg city rating as the existing 4 pot, 4 speed variant, but highway mileage jumps up 2mpg to 32mpg. By comparison, the V-6 only gets 17/26mpg. The mild hybrid Malibu squeezes out an extra 2mpg city for 24/32.
Now if only GM would add the six speed transmission to the base LS and mid-level LT models it would be more appealing to those who may not want every luxury bell and whistle on the LTZ. Similarly, if GM replaced the four speed in the hybrid it might be a little more appealing than the current unit. Maybe for 2009.
When GM Vice Chairman Bob Lutz speaks, controversy usually follows closely behind. Unlike many high ranking executives Lutz often wanders off the defined script such as when he recently commented on global warming being a crock of .... I sure wouldn't want to be one of the PR handlers having to spin his words. In his latest chat with Detroit News columnist Manny Lopez, the electrification of vehicles was obviously front and center as it often is these days at GM. The EV1, of course, comes up and the accuracy of Lutz's claims will certainly seem open to debate. As recounted by Lutz via Lopez, GM tried and tried to find buyers for the EV1 but no matter how much they dropped the price, only about 800 people were willing to step forward. That was the reason for leasing the vehicles, according to Lutz. That statement seems highly dubious if EV1 fans are to be believed.
Certainly the market for the EV1 was extremely limited because of its practical limitations and the high cost, but it sure seems like more than 800 people were interested. Or maybe its a case of the hindsight that revealed there were actually 40 million people at Woodstock. Lopez and Lutz apparently also talked about how out of touch some (actually most, based on my own experience) people are with the realities of building a car. That's an area we try to address here on ABG regularly by discussing the technology that makes these modern machines go and what it takes to make it happen. One-off prototypes are easy to build but they aren't going to cut it when you have to meet modern customer and regulatory expectations. On a final note, Lutz revealed that the first Volt mule is now running with a lithium battery pack in it.
Hybrids help you save gas at the pump, this is something we all know. We also know why burning less gasoline is good: fewer greenhouse gases are emitted to the atmosphere, it reduces our dependence on foreign oil and we spend less money at the pump. However, there is always the question about what is the overall impact of using a hybrid versus using a non-hybrid version. There are currently 17 hybrid models available in the U. S. market and all but one have a corresponding non-hybrid counterpart to compare with. As part of our Earth Day coverage today, we took a closer look at the following two questions:
Question #1: How far can we drive with a hybrid powertrain compared to a non-hybrid?
Question #2: When will the hybrid investment pay for itself through gas savings?
Before we go to the complete list let me explain the criteria we used. First of all we chose the "economy" powertrains, when we had the option. Therefore we'll be comparing mostly 4-cylinder models. In the case of SUVs, we chose the AWD/4WD versions. For a few models, we've compared them to the European diesel versions data, although this should be taken with a pinch of salt due to the EU's different driving cycles. Finally, we used $3.5/gal as the price of gasoline and added the car's MRSP price. Don't forget that some of these vehicles will qualify for various tax breaks, so you might have to recalculate our numbers for yourself. Got all that? Good, let's see the results (after the jump).
_thumbnail.jpg "Beijing 2008: BYD e6")
