Recent Comments:
GM may divorce trucks and full-size SUVs {Autoblog}
May 9th 2008 1:34PM I like your thinking. The folks blathering about needing to tow their boats, RVs, ATVs, trailers, and their egos will still have choices in hauling all of that stuff around. They'll just have to pay for it. Buy a Suburban or a HD Silverado.
GM is being smart about producing a mass market vehicle that is closer toward what people use it for everyday.
GM may divorce trucks and full-size SUVs {Autoblog}
May 9th 2008 1:28PM The smallest engined 2008 GMC Yukon (RWD) gets up to 19 highway mpg, according to fueleconomy.gov. The same site shows that an '08 GMC Acadia (FWD) gets up to 24mpg on the highway. The unibody 'utes CAN get significantly better mileage.
As far as towing goes, you'll probably see some correction in that too. Folks will either get smaller items to tow (smaller boats, RVs, trailers) or those items will eventually be streamlined before they're produced out of the same necessity to reduce costs.
If you own this, you should probably be ordering the salad {Autoblog}
May 9th 2008 12:43PM It's about time they got around to this. All that my friends have had to look forward to previously was the interior door pulls...and when they didn't have that, between the legs of slackers who didn't wash their Dockers.
Chrysler criticized for $2.99 gas, Suzuki jumps on bandwagon {Autoblog}
May 7th 2008 4:58PM Probably because they aren't proposing a gas card plan that has few claims of saving drivers money--in terms of improving gas mileage so that gas price itself (amongst larger environmental concerns) isn't as much of a burden.
I doubt they're playing favorites as you assume.
Chrysler criticized for $2.99 gas, Suzuki jumps on bandwagon {Autoblog}
May 7th 2008 4:54PM I call bull. Chrysler built a small car that regularly got over 30mpg and FWD cars that could approach that number on the highway less than ten years ago. They instead chose to replace them with thirsty RWD cars and a small 'entry level crossover' with the mileage of a large car.
It's not that they can't do it, it's that they don't want to spend the money to do it...or to do it RIGHT.
Strike forces GM to suspend truck and SUV orders {Autoblog}
May 7th 2008 4:34PM In an all too quick, oversimplified explanation:
Do a quick Wikipedia search on the Industrial Revolution of the late 1800s-early 1900s. Much of the growth of mass production in factories took place in the north and midwest. People in the South, ravaged by the end of the Civil War, took whatever job creation it could get (largely from companies still based in the north).
Just not the same historical context for organizing workers against employers.
Strike forces GM to suspend truck and SUV orders {Autoblog}
May 7th 2008 4:27PM While I tend to side politically with unions, I can't really fault GM for looking at this as a temporary 'problem that took care of itself', so to speak. Truck and SUV sales are down dramatically and they aren't losing out on sales that didn't have much of a chance being made.
Then again, I'm also crazy enough to think that the strikers themselves know what they are doing. By striking on an easy target like slow selling SUVs, they can get GM to the negotiating table BEFORE they threaten to shut down production of the cars they'll increasingly need.
The strike carries some merit for both sides.
GM discusses brand strategy, opens bag, releases cats {Autoblog}
May 3rd 2008 12:45PM You sound like one of the last folks to realize that the housing foreclosure crisis would affect them. Hope you don't have a relative working in Sears, Kmart, or Linens 'N Things...
No, the U.S. won't fall into collapse through one big corporation going out of business. It happens. But if GM were the corporation shutting down, it's going to have an affect on you and your neighbors somehow. Guaranteed. Even if you drive a Honda.
I'm not saying that for some "buy American" spiel, I'm just trying to bring some logic to your version of reality.
By the Numbers: April 2008 {Autoblog}
May 3rd 2008 12:32PM Huis: Imagine how the Focus would be selling if it was actually cool.
Well, CBS News reported on Friday that sales are up double digits, so folks can apparently live with its initial shortcomings.
New info on Nissan's Ram-based Titan pickup {Autoblog}
May 3rd 2008 12:20PM I don't see how it's stupid, considering you'd decry the same badge engineering decried by GM amongst in-house products. Even GM puts more individual design into its shared platforms, so you couldn't share quarter panels with an Aura or a G6.
