According to Bob Lutz, General Motors has known how to make a hybrid for years, but held off of building one because they projected that they would lose as much as $250 million per year building them. What they hadn't counted on, though, was that a huge perception gap would grow in the public eye between GM's technological know-how versus Toyota's, a gap that would end up costing the company much, much more than $250 per year. So Lutz is now clear they won't make that mistake again. "We won't make a dime on this car [the Volt] for years, and the board is OK with that." The unanswered questions remain: just how much is the Volt going to cost, and how much of a loss will GM take on each one? The answers to those important questions will surely make or break the future of the range-extended plug-in hybrid project from GM.

[Source: The Detroit News]

In commenting on the battle royal taking place on the testing benches at GM between two contending battery suppliers, "Maximum" Bob Lutz said Tuesday it was a "horse race. An apt analogy in a sense because the two teams, Continental Automotive Systems, using cells from A123 Systems Inc., and Compact Power Inc. who are using cells developed by its parent, LG Chem seem to be neck and neck in performance. No one has stumbled as the two sprint down the final stretch to the, oh, what's that? The finish line has been moved? O rly?

Apparently, GM feels the need to hold off on making the final battery supplier decision, that had been announced for April, as it continues to weigh the pros and cons of each product and conduct more testing. In light of the postponement of mule day, I suspect there is something they aren't telling us. Regardless of the exact timing of the conclusion of this contest, we are now taking bets in the comments section.

[Source: CNN Money]

Remember when GM's Bob Lutz called global warming a "total crock of sh*t"? Well, that comment wasn't a slip and the blowback sure didn't cause Lutz to apologize or somehow say, "see, what I meant was..." It's awful difficult to equivocate after a remark that direct, anyway. Lutz wrote on his blog Thursday that his personal opinions on global warming don't mean that GM isn't totally serious about building cars so they don't play any role in the environmental debate.

You can read the whole thing over at Fastlane, but I wanted to highlight his opening line, which says, "It amazes me sometimes what kinds of things seem to 'catch on' out there." If Lutz was in any way surprised that calling global warming a bunch of sh*t will get people mad at you, maybe he shouldn't be in charge of trying to educate people about GM's green message. By saying he was surprised to find out that global warming is a topic people care about, Lutz proved - and now continues to prove - he's the wrong man for the job.

[Source: Reuters, Fastlane]

Bob Lutz often makes a lot of sense. The GM vice chairman is saying the right things about the Chevy Volt and where GM is going in the future, but there's a line in this story from Automotive News (subs req'd) that doesn't make sense to me. Apparently, while speaking at the Automotive News World Congress yesterday, Lutz said that, "We refuse to let the price of fuel rise gradually in the United States and therefore we fail to induce change in consumer behavior." Huh? The last time I checked, the price of gas has risen gradually, especially since the mid-1990s. That's what the DOE says, anyway, as you can see in the graph after the jump. What's it like at your pump?

Now, in a discussion of long-term prices, Lutz has a point. The real cost of gas today is just under what it cost in the late 1970s. And I certainly cannot disagree with him when he says that European-level gas prices (~$8 a gallon) will cause Americans to rethink the types of cars they drive (I should point out that Lutz didn't call for a gas tax or anything like that). But is Lutz right when he says that's the only way this contemplation will happen? I doubt it. We don't need $8 gallons of gas to force a change, especially if that change comes over the next ten years. You'd see one hell of a shift to small cars if gas were $5 a gallon two weeks from now. It's the slow increases that keep us in our big cars and SUVs. We see the prices go up over time and just swallow and insert the credit card. A quick jump will reframe the debate.

[Source: Automotive News]

Ten months ago, Bob Lutz said GM cars would be $5,000 more expensive if the Bush administration got its way with fuel standards by raising fuel economy 4% every year through 2017. Bush didn't get his way, but Congress did with its newly-signed-into-law energy bill that requires automakers have a fleet average of 35 MPG by 2020. According to Lutz, that's going to be even more expensive: "This is going to be a net average cost of $6,000 per vehicle, which will have to be passed onto the consumer."

Lutz said that the premium would actually range from $4,000 to $10,000, and that "it won't come all at once, because 35 mpg doesn't kick in all at once." No one said that saving the world was going to be cheap -- but $6,000 per vehicle? We look forward to figuring out which vehicles will bear the brunt of the plan. Add $10,000 to the price of a ZR-1 and no one's really going to notice. Add $6,000 to the price of a CTS and, depending on how much more expensive its competition gets, things could get interesting. Add $4,000 to the price of an Aveo and you've probably sent a fair number of buyers elsewhere.

[Source: Detroit News]

Dashing hopes Don Esmond will ever collect his $100, Toyota's research and development chief Kazuo Okamoto told Reuters "while we'd love to be first, we're determined to be best" when it comes to hybrids. As we wrote about recently, Irv Miller of U.S. group vice president for communications wrote the Volt's batteries "don't exist." These statements are fine but the bread and butter source for great quotes is still GM's vice chairman Bob Lutz. Are you ready for this one?

"People have a very simplistic way of organizing things: Toyota, because of the Prius, are saving the planet from certain destruction, whereas General Motors, which produces the [Hummer] H2, is the anti-Christ that's trying to plunge us into the abyss."

"It's totally ridiculous. ... The only way we can get out of that is by being more environmental and leading with more environmental technology than Toyota," Lutz added. Wait a minute... did Lutz just call us stupid?

[Source: Bloomberg]

Over at the Truth About Cars site today Robert Farago dumps all over Bob Lutz and General Motors over their emphasis on fuel cells. Farago takes issue with Lutz's efforts to direct even more development resources toward fuel cells. The article goes on to discuss how GM has lost much of its technological development prowess. Where he makes his best points is discussing the fact that while GM is putting all it's eggs into the baskets of hydrogen and developing their own unique hybrid drive-train at the expense of developing more fuel efficient smaller engines, particularly diesels for smaller cars. Although, he is largely correct on the lack of small diesels - which GM and all the other makers really need as the best near-term hope for serious mileage improvement - he does miss that GM is actually developing their hybrid system jointly with DaimlerChrysler and BMW. The system they are developing also has some very interesting elements that may take it a step beyond current hybrids. Also in-spite of the hurdles, hydrogen at least potentially provide the best long-term way of reducing or eliminating carbon emissions.

Perhaps the biggest mistake GM is making is focusing their hybrid efforts on the SUVs which are really a dead end anyway. Since they have already announced that the Zeta rear wheel drive platform will be built from the 2009 model year, they should refocus on developing a hybrid version of the Camaro and whatever else they build on that platform. This would give them a tech and potential economy advantage over the Mustang and Challenger. How about a diesel Camaro? Pony cars have always been about torque and this is where diesels shine. Since most Camaros have traditionally been sold with automatic transmissions and GM has 6 speed auto-boxes now with more gears to come, mate one with something like a refined 4.0L turbo-diesel V-6 as an efficient alternative to the V-8. If a diesel can win LeMans, why not a drag race?

[Source: The Truth About Cars]