GM and other companies didn't say it couldn't be done: They said it couldn't be done cost effectively . Price is a BIG part of the equation.

 

When comparing plug-in hybrids, keep in mind that a large part of their energy use simply isn't being counted in the mpg statement. Granted, residential electricity is a lot cheaper than a gallon of gasoline, but its still ignoring that instead of making the vehicle JUST more efficient, you're also messing with the way you are stating its efficiency.

*Disclaimer, My thoughts are that electrical generation is a lot more efficient than ICEs in cars, and that plug-ins, whether pure electric or hybrid are the future. This is just mentioning that messing with numbers is a cheap way to make your numbers say WOW!*

 

There are threads and threads and threads about that, not to mention huge numbers of studies and such.

Nuclear plants are going up in spots in the country - while disposal is expensive, they can dramatically reduce the cost of energy to the consumer. If we went all out nuclear, it would also change how we look at and use waste, and we would be better equipped to deal with it.

What is "cost effective"? If GM needs to drop the profit margins on its large SUV's to still sell them (while increasing price) oh well. Such is the way of the game. There are people out there that will pay huge sums of money for a large SUV because they still want one, even once CAFE is in full swing.

Espicially if people weren't paranoid about nuclear meltdowns. There is a thread about Duke Power and all the plants they are building down south. Want to talk cost/kWh?

 

Cost means that it takes $100k for that hybrid SUV that comes in at $40k normally. We aren't talking profit margins, we are talking what people are willing to pay.

Sure with mass production it would come down, but not enough that people would be willing to pay it. That's what makes the VOLT so interesting, it's supposed to be affordable.

 

I dont know what the thing actually costs GM - to say how much money they are actually burning for every one they sell, but the numbers are important. If thats what the numbers are, great. But speculating on them is bad mojo.

But I'm not talking about just the hybrid one. I'm saying big SUV's in general. Gas guzzler taxes are one thing. Who's to say GM cant add charges in there so they could buy CAFE credits? Heck, who's to say in a decade half of GM's fleet will be doing so well it wont matter how many Tahoe's they sell? Who's to say the CAFE rules wont have been changed or we'll be still using foreign oil like we do?

Its over 10 years away. A lot is going to happen in the next 10 years.

 

My point is... way over your head.

People think with their wallet. Many people would rather save $5k now than to make that money back over the lifetime of the car (if they ever make it back). It's a matter of making vehicles that will sell, not that make you "feel good" since you bought one of the brand that has the car (but not the car itself, as it's too expensive for you to afford).

 

Nope. If they thought with their wallet they wouldnt be living way beyond their means. Which is happening in mass.

The buyers of Hybrids arent normal ones. They are almost never concerned with the cost savings (if any) and if they are, they rarely actually look at them on paper. The "Feel Good" essentially drives the hybrid segment. There is almost no logic or reason to it.

I dont want this to turn into a flame war. We have too many of them on the boards as is. Comments like that are great for starting them. Suffice to say I get your point. You dont get mine. GM cant sell the number of Tahoes it does while CAFE is in effect, their fleet would never pass. Either they physically limit the supply of Tahoes (regular or hybrid) or they spike the cost enough to cover the CAFE penalty they'll hit. And the people that want them bad enough will pay the increase. Total sales will go down. My point is the market will still sell Tahoes, fewer of them, but they will still sell. And their profit margins will be critical in subsidizing hybrid variants and other projects.

*Supposed* to be affordable. When GM has to talk about leasing the batteries to the customer ontop of the price of the car, things change. The Volt is also going to be driven by the "Feel Good" segment. Its NOT going to be cheap.

But this is why we shouldnt be scrutinizing numbers and what is "affordable" or not. If in fact the new Tahoe Hybrid costs GM $100,000 to build and you know this for a fact, great. If not, its a worthless number. Just like the final cost of the Volt.

 

(assuming the fines dont change)

For Grins, that would mean a Tahoe that averaged 15mpg when CAFE is 35mpg over a decade from now is literally 20mpg behind. Thats an $1100 fine per Tahoe sold.

Somehow, a $1100 increase on the sales slip wont scare too many people away from a $40,000 SUV. Some yes, but not all of them.

 

There would be no fine. CAFE = Corporate Average Fuel Economy. Chevy just needs to sell enough 50mpg Volts to balance out the 20mpg Tahoes. The Avg. needs to be 35mpg. The Current domestic CAFE average is around 29mpg, so we only need 6mpg more per vehicle on average.

 

I know the average is the kicker, I'm just saying "worst case" if GM sold nothing but Tahoes its not the end of the world. But thats what doesnt make sense with the CAFE stuff! If GM sold nothing but "gas hogs" in the face of CAFE - and passed that cost to the consumer - you're talking like a 3% increase in price due to the fines! Not a big slap in the face!

Not to mention diesels, biofuels, ethanol, mild hybrid, plug in hybrids, dual-mode hybrids, direct injection, and HCCI will all be a bit more common by then.

I can understand vehicles like the Impala (large volume) cant go RWD because they need to help bring the average up, but its not like Chevy wont make and sell a few thousand ZR1's and Z06's.

 

Take an economics class. You can't just raise the price of something and expect to sell proportinally as many. GM would lose a big seller if they started really ramping their prices on the best selling and highest profit vehicles.

 

I've taken several, thanks. And where did I say proportionally? I didn't.

And "really ramping up their prices"? Where did I say that? Didnt I just show that the full worst-case scenario was an $1100 fine?!?! Thats hardly "really ramping up their prices". Even if its worse than that we're talking nothing more than a couple grand - if that. GM's CAFE average RIGHT NOW is enough they could ride on their current line up without any improvements and not increase price on the Tahoe at all and use their other newer models to pick up the slack.

Let me try this again, cause you keep missing my point.

Some of the bigger SUV/Truck models have profit margins as high as $5000. If GM ignored the CAFE goal of improving economy and just paid the fines, and the fines were not an average, but instead a "per car penalty" then the biggest hit they'd take would be $1100. At that point, they would still have a $4000 profit margin on said vehicle. Do you get why I was talking margins yet? They have a LOT to do with the situation Even on trucks and SUV's with a $2500 or $2000 margin its not enough to require increasing the price.

Why did I mention the margin? Cause GM could take a hit in their profit margin instead of passing that cost to the consumer and retain a similar trend in sales.

Or GM passes that cost onto the consumer (or some of it), which will reduce sales. Thats a complicated game of number crunching to figure out how many they still will sell vs total profit and enough vehicles to support a full assembly line while getting their volume discount on parts from suppliers and paying the overhead cost of vehicle and platform development. Sales will take a hit, but neither you or I could even hope to have all of the numbers to know what would happen.

And in terms of "margins" and "cost effective" those things stem from the fact that the development costs take years and years to recover on these projects - if ever - so "cost effective" includes the media attention and the public image. The hybrid Tahoe got the "green car of the year" award. The prius was sold for the first few years at a loss in hopes of public image.

 

Taking a grand hit on a car is not a good idea when that grand is making up for the other cars that have to be sold at a loss in order to sell them. You telling GM it needs to continue to lose money in order to operate. That's total bull****. The point of a business is to make money and grow! Not lose it and shrink like you suggest.

 

So you up the price to maintain the margins. I kinda said that they could do one, the other, or mix, but you missed that whole comment I made.

Not only that - that $1000 a truck was a worst-case situation that cant even happen. It was an exaggeration designed to prove a point. But you didn't get that either. You just jumped on the literal words and missed the point. Good job.

I'm not telling GM they need to loose money. GM is loosing money hand over fist at this point - without anyone's help. Where did I say GM needs to loose money? And didn't you just say that if they "ramped up their prices" they'd loose huge numbers of sales??? And now you say that if GM takes the hit in profit they'll loose huge amounts of money - the same thing that would happen if they increased their prices. So you're saying I'm wrong either way now. Awesome.

The point of a corporation is to make money for its share holders. Nothing more. It has NOTHING to do with growth. Growth may be one way to increase their profits, but it some cases it is not. Thats in pretty much every economics textbook I've ever seen. Making money is their only goal and everything else is a means to that end.

GM at this point in many ways is too big and cumbersome to function on level with its competition. Shrinking in many ways can be a good thing, which is talked about in "lean manufacturing" and "lean engineering" programs. GM could use some leaning out. GM could use making fewer cars that loose them money.

And before you mention the ****ing hybrid Tahoe - (1) you dont know how much it costs GM (2) you dont know how the design was paid for and (3) even IF it was sold for a technical loss, the public image advantages can be assigned a cost value - thusly making it not actually at a loss.

I'm done here. You don't have a point, this thread is off topic - and you're saying both ways out of the situation are wrong, which leads me to believe you don't have much of a grasp on the direness of the situation GM is in.

 

I agree with a lot of your points, and appreciate you taking the time to carefully articulate them.

I see this 30 MPG SUV as just the tip of the iceburg as to what we can do in the US. I also agree that a lot can happen in the next decade, and a lot will. And I think nuclear power can, should, and will make a big comeback in the USA.