Bob Lutz, GM CEO, remarks yet again on his lack of business prescience.

[NNadir]

Bob Lutz, you will recall, informed the world a few years ago that hybrid technology was just a passing fad. Now this:

"DETROIT (CNN/Money) - General Motors rolled out its next generation of sport utility vehicles, saying that they will debut with 'significant gains in fuel efficiency, safety, sophistication and design,' but a report quotes a GM executive saying that even with the new vehicle's fuel efficiency the segment's sales will be flat...

... 'It is realistic to assume the segment won't grow,' said Robert Lutz, GM's vice chairman of global development, was quoted by the trade publication as saying....

...'People are still going to buy full-sized sport-utilities at $3 a gallon. But even at $3 a gallon, it's 750,000 people a year. It's not going to go to a million,' Lutz was quoted as saying. 'Two years ago we would have told you the segment is going to go to a million vehicles. It's not going to do that. It's leveled off...'"

Is there some reason, Bob, given that you've been spectacularly wrong about two year projections that we ought to believe your statement, "People are still going to buy full sized sport utilities..."

Right, Bob. Start working on that golden parachute.

[phantom power]

1. No reason to believe him. But he's *got* to say it.

It would be all over for GM, if he got in front of a camera and told the truth: "We here at GM screwed up, and now we've got a product pipeline full of gas-guzzlers for the next few years, while gas prices skyrocket"

He's got to keep his game-face on. For the sake of the shareholders and his pampered ass, if nothing else.

[krkaufman]

7. Yeah, it's all he can do at this point. Hope & pray that...

... gas prices plumment below $2/gallon soon; otherwise, GM sales are gonna tank even further. "Flat" sales my bum; they'll be fortunate if they avoid losing ground.

[sam sarrha]

2. lets face it, theyre deliberately bankrupting to get rid of all the Pensions

when i was 20 i traveled and took jobs that i could learn from, i enjoyed life.. my family and everyone kept saying..'get a job with a Pension.. plan for the future..'

I said..'you got to be kidding, they are not going to give me an money.. they are going to steal it.. what a racket.'

i do come from a long line of clairvoyants.. and i suffer from the Casandra Complex. This is a trend and it will get worse.

we got a Jonah for pResident and we are going down... and there are no life preservers.

[Ruby Romaine]

3. Why don't they sell the Smartcar in the US?

Latest examples of the Mercedes-Benz-owned micro Smart cars are also to be found. With diesel engines, those teeny automobiles can get as much as 60 miles per gallon; and they are easy as heck to park in congested city environments. But, alas, Mercedes-Benz officials confirmed here last week that the company's on-again, off-again introduction of the Smart car in the United States is off again -- at least until the end of 2006, if not forever.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/19/AR2005091900427.html

[sam sarrha]

4. because we are not 'Smart' enough to use one....!!

[toska]

5. Smart car parking

To give you an idea of how easy they are to park, I saw one in our neighborhood the other day (don't know where it came from) that was parked perpendicular in a parallel spot and it didn't stick out.

[phantom power]

6. Economics will drive people to sell this, or something like it.

[Kolesar]

8. A tiny car that would literally get blown off the road by 18 wheelers?

I suppose if you live in a little town and only drive 5000 miles/year that car do. I have to commute on a freeway with a lot of truck traffic from all over the US and Canada.

[phantom power]

9. If motorcycles can share the road with 18-wheelers, why not this?

[Kolesar]

10. That's why I don't commute on a motorcycle, either

I know they get blown around. And what about snow? Can teenie car change lanes at 55 mph with a six inch barrier of snow when the tires leave the grooves? I don't see many motorcycles around here during our long winters, either.

[Ruby Romaine]

11. Smart Cars are legal and sold in Canada

according to web site they handle well in the snow etc.
I'd use it for around town if I could legally buy one.
Now the Chinese car-the Cherry
that's a different story, there will be no problem w/getting that car to market in the US

[phantom power]

12. Good question.

I guess my response is something like "things are going to change." For instance, there may be a lot fewer 18-wheelers on the road anyway, as fuel gets more expensive. Maybe more people will have to avoid freeways, even if it takes longer. Maybe in the winter, people will just have to drive less and/or go slower than 55mph.

Or, maybe they will only be popular as a second car, or only popular in the south.

Or, maybe I'm just wrong, and nobody will buy them :-)

[NNadir]

14. Of course, you can afford to be wrong. You don't run a major auto company

I wonder how much they pay Bob Putz. Probably oodles of money.

[phantom power]

15. They might as well pay me his salary.

There's no way I could be more wrong than he is.

[NNadir]

17. Call 'em and ask 'em. It's worth a shot.

[phantom power]

19. I see a sequel to "Roger and Me" in there, somewhere...

Roger and Me 2, Hybrid Boogaloo

[hatrack]

28. ROFLMAO!

Just finished beating my head on a stack of papers on my desk. Thanks, Phantom Power - I needed that. :toast:

[phantom power]

32. I do what I can :-)

[NNadir]

34. Didja get the job?

[phantom power]

35. Sadly, no.

They told me I looked good on paper, but my lack of hatred for Japanese auto companies disqualified me.

And when I got back to the parking lot, somebody had spraypainted my Volvo with the instructions "Go home Sweed Loozer!"

[Kolesar]

16. That's a good long view

I can take a longer and slower route like I occasionally take on my bicycle and only take the tank out during the frightful stuff. My gf will have to make do, she gets assigned to projects all over this huge metropolitan area we live in. Driving less sounds like what I have been predicting--I call it an era of deprivation. The air will smell better, though! :sniff:

[NNadir]

20. I have personally noticed fewer Hummers driving around.

I suspect that many are being left in the garage.

The shortage of energy has many silver linings. It will force people to conserve, and it will also force them to face reality about energy.

This bit with the hurricanes is a kind of negative feedback loop slowing the rate of climate change. Lord knows we need all the negative feedback we can get on this subject, because the positive feedback loops are incredibly scary.

[Kolesar]

21. Things will never be the same after Katrina

We will forever have news stories and discussions about energy. Prices will fluctuate with the supply. Greenhouse gasses will actually be decreasing as the real driver of the energy economy, petroleum, plays out. It is sad that it will be too late.

BTW, where are our political leaders on this subject? I saw Hillary Clinton speaking for the Arctic Refuge on cspan while I was eating breakfast, but where are the calls for conservation?

[NNadir]

22. You know though, everyone acts like it's someone else's responsibility.

Each of us, though, has responsibility on his or her own.

[Kolesar]

23. Conservative thought prescribes "personal responsibility"

I imagine it as their solution to aiding people monetarily. I am sure there is more to it than that.

Early in my activist experience, I asked several coworkers to sign cards about wetlands protection that would go to the US EPA. One of my coworkers returned it in a day without signing it. He said that it was something that should not require the government--individuals should take care of the matter. I was baffled, I had no idea what he was getting at, but I just let is drop because I did not want to ruffle a coworker who I could depend upon--and who knew a lot of cool stuff about backpacking.

Two years later, I am still sure that I had the right idea on wetlands protection, but I would surely like to know what he was thinking. There has to be an angle here to exploit to educate and influence the conservatives.

[phantom power]

24. It sounds like textbook neo-con thinking to me.

Their approach to pretty much any problem is: "If enough people think it's important, then they can solve it themselves. If not, then it just doesn't matter."

It's why they want to privatize everything: "if you care about it, then you pay for it"

[NNadir]

25. Here is what I mean.

Collective responsibility cannot exist without personal responsibility. For instance, you were being personally responsibile when you agitated for wetlands protection. You did not wait for someone else to do it, or remark "that's what's the EPA is for." Instead, you educated yourself about wetlands, thought of possible approaches, and attempted to see those options explored. You did not wait for the rest of us to figure it out. You did it yourself.

Personal responsibility need not have anything to do with money at all, although I suppose that conservatives regard money as the only reason to do anything. Personal responsbility, taking responsibility for one's children for instance, sometimes involves the abrogation of self interest.

In the case of SUV's, some people argue that being in a vehicle with large mass will protect them in an accident. One hears this sort of tripe in elementary school parking lots everywhere, if one listens for it. Accepting personal responsibility however, at least as I mean it, means taking a small personal increased risk - by driving a smaller car - to mitigate a much greater global risk, global climate change. The fact is that a kid strapped into a Hummer faces a much larger risk from climate change than he or she does from a putative collision with another SUV.

The fact is that SUV's wouldn't exist without millions of personal decisions to buy one.

I try to make these kinds of decisions every day, but sometimes, frankly, I forget myself. It is good to have one's attention refocused periodically.

[Kolesar]

26. Ok, I see what you were getting at

I still have that broader challenge of figuring out how to leverage a conservative's view. I need a marketer's mind, not a skeptic's mind to do that.

[htuttle]

27. Speed, Acceleration & Efficiency

Chose any two.

Nothing has all three (or will ever have all three unless they devise a 'Mr Fusion' engine someday...).

[midnight armadillo]

31. Au contraire!

The Dodge INtrepid ESX3 concept car, a product of the PNGV, used a diesel electric hybrid engine, got performance equal to that of the regular Intrepid, had a $1500 price premium and got 72 mpg. YEs, you read that right. 72 mpg.

Why doesn't Dodge just roll it out since the technology is on the shelf? Because they're a bunch of fucktards.

Man, am I pissy this morning. Gotta go get some herbal tea.

[Ruby Romaine]

13. I wouldn't want to take a Smart Car (or a Yugo) on the Mackinac Bridge

Two vehicles have gone off the bridge: a Yugo was blown off the bridge during a particularly bad windstorm in 1989, and a sport utility vehicle drove off the bridge in 1997 (this may have been a suicide).
http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Mackinac-Bridge

[amandabeech]

29. I second that!

Back in the day, I tried to cross the Bridge in a 1968 Opel Manta, very tall, narrow and light. I had two other teenage girls in the car--we were returning to the LP after a college shopping expedition to Northern Michigan U. and Michigan Tech.

It was a windy November day, with winds coming WNW. The guards at the toll plaza near ST. Ignace had us wait until a fully loaded semi came along. We proceeded across the bridge at 35 protected by the semi. We were safe, but scared completely out of our gourds. It was the only day I've driven when I thought semis were great.

The smart car would be great as a second car for city driving, or as an only car for 1-2 people who also have good access to mass transit for longer journeys.


On edit: Lutz is a complete moron. Billy Ford is doing a much better job--and a realistic hybrid vision for the future and a competitive small car. Ford needs to build a hybrid bus that will whip GM's ass.

[Bamboo]

18. I'm to sexy for my car.

I read that women prefer the round speedometer with a needle over digital displays.Men like to see how high the speedometer reads and a digital display spoils the fantasy.A digital display is cheaper and more accurate than mechanical gauges but this did not lead to the extinction of the analog mechanical speedo since the customer in chief demands it.

A vehicle is more like a girlfriend/boyfriend than a wife/husband so settling for second best is not an option until life gets in the way.The shape of the SMART is androgynous,it is not centerfold sexy or a thug.The SMART points out the absurdity in the vehicle choices people make,the first rule of fight club is to not talk about fight club.

In America the car is a bodyguard and the turn signal is a sharp elbow.SMART wants to get along but does not realize as a freshman what high school is all about.Rockstars marry supermodels because they can-people who buy less car are going against the system,spending less just means you are poor and we have used cars for those people.

[happyslug]

30. EPA rating of 37mpg is why.

By law the only mileage that can be used for a car is the Mileage done by the EPA. When the EPA did its test for the SMART car it came out to be 37mpg.

Now I believe the reason for this is the test itself is geared to cars of the 1970s i.e. big V-8s. The V-6s and 4 of the 1980s did well on the test but once you decide to reduce performance below the ability to sustain 50 mph the EPA test are no longer valid but mist be used on any road legal vehicle with four wheels.

The SMART car and other similar "Bubble Cars" are NOT designed for use at that speed (i.e. 50 mph). Given that today the AVERAGE Speed on most Freeways is less than 25 mph, designing cars for 50-60 mph should be discouraged. Now some people believe their need a car that can go 50-60 in America, but you can NOT improve mileage over 35 mph without cutting back performance (Even Toyota has says its Hybrid are NOT getting anywhere near the EPA mileage do to the errors in the Test that boost hybrid's mileage compared to the real world, even worse than most other cars).

The Smart Car with its 800cc liter engine should get getter mileage than 37mpg, but I believe the EPA test force the engine to over-rev and lose fuel economy. Smart has not been smart enough to put a regulator on the engine to keep the speed down to 40 mph (Thus forcing the EPA to do something about their test for example declaring the test invalid for cars with engines below 1000cc). I know the maker of Smart Cars wants the car buyers to be able to get up to speeds over 50 mph, but Smart need to force the issue and the only way is to put a regulator in the car and force the EPA to test the vehicle within its most efficient band NOT 50 mph.

For more on the Smart Car and its fuel economy see:
http://www.ebusinessforum.com/index.asp?doc_id=7209&layout=rich_story
http://hybrids.autoblog.com/entry/1234000613057737
http://forums.vwvortex.com/zerothread?cmd=print&id=1123844

[NickB79]

33. It's a catch-22 situation with subcompact cars

They get great gas mileage, are fairly cheap, and fill 95% of your driving needs. However, they're so small that people are scared to drive them on the same roads with SUV's. So people go for the supposed safety aspect of a larger vehicle and sacrifice fuel economy.

In order for subcompacts to really take off, we need to get SUV's and the fear they perpetuate off the roads. People won't give up their SUV's until everyone else does because of their fear of other people's SUV's. It's like unilateral disarmaments proposed in the Cold War. Someone has to have the courage to do it, but neither side is comfortable doing it.

Screw that, I just pass up SUV's in my Scion while still doing 35 mpg :-)

[Bamboo]

36. Convert your labor into a pile of auto parts.

The total cost of transportation includes the initial purchase plus fuel,insurance,maintenance and depreciation.SUVs seem to be the most expensive in all of these categories while hybrids and microcars have a savings point(s) which make the others less painful.

One thing about the Prius and new cars that bother me is that replacement parts are sold as assemblies which makes maintenance more expensive.The radiator and a/c condenser is a single unit,so a new radiator requires recharging the a/c.

With the shrinking middle class total cost will be a factor so cars will need at least one or two savings points to be in demand.There is no spare tire in the SMART,I am talking about the driver since the owner's manual specifies the passenger weight as 150 pounds.

If you live near Atlanta there is a museum that displays a SMART,admission is free but add the cost of gas to get there and the entry fee goes up to $200.http://www.microcarmuseum.com/tour/smart.html