The Wall Street Journal has been known to be a bit cynical when it comes to the Chevy Volt but does it really think GM is using a whole program just to angle cash out of Washington? That seems to be the what Holman W. Jenkins, Jr. is arguing in his article, "What Is GM Thinking?" According to the author, because GM's stock is at historic lows and the idea that the public would change their minds about the kinds of cars they want because fuel costs are rising is "crazy," the only reason GM would be pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into a car that is "guaranteed to lose money on every unit" is because the company can use the environmental cache of the Volt to give law-makers political cover to throw cash at the iconic American brand. We think that, while this kind of wild-eyed speculation is all very well and good for some amateur car blog to delve into, this is written up in the respected Wall Street Journal.

Although the main premise of the piece may be slightly awry, we can surely take heart that the writer knows a little about the vehicle he is writing about. Let's look at a few of his facts assumptions.

• "GM is saying now the Volt may need a sticker price of $45,000"
• "The car will be lucky to get 15 mpg under gasoline power"
• "A car with the Volt's narrow usability to sell would require an unlikely revolution in consumer behavior"

Hmmm, interesting. We know what we think of these statements but we'd like to know what you think. Try out our new and improved comments section to let us know.

[Source: Wall Street Journal]

In the past couple of decades the bicycle industry in the North America has focused mainly on fancy mountain bikes with full suspension and fast road bikes. While both of these styles of bikes are fairly well suited to their intended applications, the reality is that most people don't find them very comfortable to ride.

Now manufacturers are starting to turn back to what are called comfort bikes. These are the style of bikes with longer wider handle bars and where the rider sits more upright. Comfort bikes are becoming increasingly popular with older riders as the idea of leaning over the low handle bars of a mountain bike just isn't that appealing anymore. The Wall Street Journal had a recent piece on new enhanced comfort bikes with features like disc brakes, shock absorbing seats (to protect our ever-growing back sides) and even electric hybrids like the $549 iZip Urban Cruiser.

[Source: Wall Street Journal via TreeHugger]

This'll teach me to stare at news feeds all morning. At 7:39 AM EDT, the Dow Jones Newswire reported that the Organization for Petroleum Exporting Countries agreed to cut oil production by 1 million barrels per day (about 3 percent). As a result, early electronic trading saw the price of crude oil futures rise back up above $60 per barrel before the New York Mercantile Exchange rang its opening bell. At the time of this writing, it was at a $1.45 increase.

By the time I was about to submit a post this matter turned into a bit of a mess. At 10:30 AM EDT new news came out saying that OPEC president Edmund Daukoru denied the announced reduction. This article (subscription required) in the Wall Street Journal quotes a senior cartel official saying, "All I can tell you is that you should listen to what the OPEC president is saying; he is the one authorized to speak for OPEC."

So was it all just a sham by some "unnamed OPEC governor"? Maybe not. Daukoru says, "We each have an idea of what is an appropriate response... We agree that something needs to be done. We will have to agree on how much, how soon and how we distribute it among the member countries."

The WSJ article also points out that last Thursday there was an unsourced report in the Financial Times saying that OPEC has formally agreed to cut output by 4 percent in the coming weeks to defend the $50 to $55 price per barrel range. When two unofficial leaks converge in this fashion, a certain substance forms that's difficult to discount.

Reuters also reported on the alleged oil production cut. In their original article, they speculated that further cuts may be incurred at OPEC's next meeting on December 14th.

I'm sure we'll be hearing more about this quite soon.

Note: The rise in crude oil futures have since dropped to +89 cents on the day, still trading above $60 per barrel.

Late update: Crude oil futures for November delivery settled up 62 cents at $60.03 per barrel. Intraday trading saw the price rise as high as $60.97.

[Source: Wall Street Journal, subscription required]

A diesel-hydraulic passenger car that gets 80 mpg? A hybrid garbage truck? These are two vehicles built and tested by the EPA in recent years, and it is finally time for one of their prototypes to make it to the streets. The first will be the garbage truck, which is 30 percent more fuel efficient. The hydraulic-hybrid-transmission system will be made and sold by Eaton Corp. and will be installed in garbage trucks by Peterbilt. Peterbilt has already begun trying to line up sales of the trucks and said that Chicago, Houston and Los Angeles have indicated the greatest interest among American cities, according to the Wall Street Journal. Other possible buyers include the Chinese government, which may use the technology in a fleet of hydraulic-hybrid buses during the 2008 Olympics. The WSJ article shows how the EPA's test department's work is finally paying off in the real world as high gas prices and high consumer interest in green technologies have finally convinced automakers to give different power systems a chance.

[Source: Wall Street Journal]

Thanks to increased demand, and the ability of making the batteries and other hybrid components smaller, Toyota will likely build future Prius models in the United States, Toyota Vice chairman Fujio Cho said in a Wall Street Journal article published today and caught by EV World.

The challenge will be if Toyota's engineers can shrink the key components by a half or even three-quarters, Cho said. Toyota had considered building the current-model Prius cars in America, but because most of the hybrid technology is bulky and made in Japan, it would have been too expensive to do so. Cho said Toyota plans to sell about 3 million cars a year in America by 2010, and about 75 percent of would be domestically built.

[Source: The Wall Street Journal via EV World]