GM's Tinge Of Green - And The Rest Of The North American Show - LA Times

[hatrack]

EDIT

In sum, it was the greenest Detroit show on record. So why was I so depressed? Because all the alt-fuel, green-car progress is being made at the margins, while the vast bulk of the U.S. market — represented in the acres of floor-groaning vehicles in Cobo Hall — motors on as if there were no crisis.

Consider the trends: U.S. fleet average fuel economy has been stuck at around 20 mpg for several years, as technical improvements in fuel efficiency are offset by steady increases in vehicle size and horsepower. Cars are, on average, about 800 pounds heavier than they were two decades ago. Virtually every car on the market gets bigger over time. That goes double for trucks. The revised, dimension-based corporate average fuel economy calculations for light trucks, going into effect in 2011, will actually create incentives for manufacturers to build bigger trucks that will jump into bigger size brackets, with lower CAFE expectations. To stand beside Toyota's new Tundra CrewMax half-ton pickup and consider a rule-skirting, super-sized version, à la Ford's Super Duty, is to wilt in fear and frustration. It is true that sales of trucks and full-size SUVs were way down in 2006, but that development didn't translate to significant improvements in fuel consumption, which remains at near historic levels.

Hybrids? Even with considerable tax incentives available for the purchase of the vehicles, and allowing that not all hybrids are hair-shirt, high-mileage runabouts (the Lexus GS450h, for instance), hybrids tallied about 250,000 vehicles sales last year, in a 16-million-unit market. Not nothing, but hardly enough to make a dent in our 783-million-gallon-per-day gasoline habit. What efficiency technologies there have been — things like direct-injection, continuously variable transmissions and optimized aerodynamics — have been outpaced by the escalating horsepower wars. Sedans and coupes with 400- and 500-hp engines are commonplace. The new Dodge Viper unveiled at the show sets an American production-car record of 600 hp. Can the Chevrolet Corvette leave that number unchallenged?

EDIT

As the Detroit show glamorously illustrates, deep dysfunction and disconnects remain on the matter of fuel efficiency and consumption. Manufacturers are joyfully exploiting a loophole in CAFE regulations that gives them extra credit for building flex-fuel vehicles, even though the fuel itself — E85 — is all but unavailable. At the same time carmakers crow about their new environmental consciousness, their D.C. lobbyists and lawyers are battling with states over the power to regulate greenhouse gases. I'd be more willing to celebrate all the achievements of the auto industry if these achievements would, at last, move the needle in the right direction.

EDIT/END

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/highway1/la-hy-neil17jan17,1,645281.story?coll=la-news-highway_1

[AX10]

1. Detroit is going to go into ruins. They don't understand the need...

for more fuel efficient vehicles. Also, they need to build a better vehicle too.

[Moby Grape]

2. the GM Volt, is serious, or not?

IMO, if the batteries are there,
somebody will build an electric car

BTW, batteries are getting close

[Porcupine]

3. It's right there with the Hydrogen Hummer.....

which is to say that it will never see a production line. Sorry, but a reasonable plug-in-hybrid vehicle could be built today with lead acid batteries and a Geo Metro engine. Even greater fuel savings would happen if one of the 3-cylinder micro diesels they make in Europe or Japan was installed.

If I had a truck that could have gone 60 miles per day on charge+motor assist I would have been able to do my daily work for the past 3 years with a hybrid. Many days I would have never turned the engine on.

They don't make these vehicles because they would last longer and be more reliable than current makes. In short there would be fewer replacements needed and less of a parts market.

[Moby Grape]

4. GM, not the only car company, in the world

somebody will build electric cars,
when the batteries get here.

[hankthecrank]

5. Links to sites that offer electic kits

I want the diesel hybrid also. Here are some links to sites that offer kits and info on electric and hybrids.

http://www.electric-bikes.com/ev-auto.htm

http://www.electroauto.com/sitemap.shtml

http://www.didik.com/ev_build.htm

http://labshelf.com/electric-car-conversion.html