Well said.

 

They're converting the plants to build small cars because the trucks aren't selling, and they're in the business to sell vehicles. Why aren't trucks selling? Because we're in a recession and people are trying to save money. If Ford Focus is half the price of a loaded F250 Crew Cab, and if you had to sell your boat to make your mortgage payment, you wouldn't have much need for a new pickup now would you. So if you had to buy a new vehicle you'd probably buy a cheaper appliance type small car that happens to get better fuel mileage than a V8 powered pickup. I'm not suggesting for a moment that CAFE is going away. I do suspect that as we move closer to 2015 that the numbers will come down a bit if the US manufacturers can't meet the goals reasonably. However right now its trendy being green and eco-friendly.

Once this recession is over (and it will end at some point) things will change. Yes, CAFE is here to stay, but don't think for a moment that Detroit is resting on their laurels and giving up without a fight.

 

I tend to agree with Eric Bryant. GM is building a CTS-V with the exact same powertrain, and they'll probably sell a couple thousand at least.

Either its a financial thing, or marketing logic. (Why sell "cheap" Z28s when you can sell expensive CTS-Vs?)

 

A CTS-V coupe might be coming out next year.

 

You nailed my observation exactly!

I love Bob to death. He's gotten cars made that would have been even unthinkable not so long ago. He got V8s in the Grand Prix, Monte Carlo, and Impala in short order. He postponed the Lacrosse to tweak design and improve materials, he's been the reason why each GM new GM car & truck that's came out in recent years was a step up in materials, quality, and styling features than the last new GM product before it. He broke the wall down between Holden and GM-NA, and he's the powerhouse that's keeping GM moving ahead on products..... but......

I really wonder about him recently.

He killed the entire RWD Zeta Impala program in it's advanced stage because of a..... 1 mpg difference between it and a FWD Espilon based Impala???!!!!

He's been on a rampage against CAFE, not because it's going to be problematic if customers are continuing to buy (and per-unit, GM profits bigtime) trucks and SUVs, but he's been saying it's going to hurt performance cars with V8s?!!!

Last time I checked, V8s weren't exactly selling in large numbers outside of Mustangs. Even at Ford those 75K+ V8s aren't enough to really effect CAFE...... In fact, Ford even has a Shelby labeled, 500 horsepower, Gas Guzzling Taxed, Monster Mustang that doesn't affect Ford's CAFE number at all because out of the 2.6 million cars Ford sold in 2007, the comparatively flyspeck number of 8,000 Shelby GT 500s barely even registered on Ford's CAFE's richter scale.

I know Mr Lutz is trying to fight a forward defense against new fuel regulations and trying to build support against them. But by resorting to things that aren't exact true and exaggerating the effects on one area and seemingly ignoring the effect it has on others leaves the whole industry to fingerpointing from adversaries who will use it as an example of the auto industry stonewalling again.

I don't feel we can afford that right now.

 

A "drop in the bucket" can mean the difference between meeting a deadline and not. You are making no basic for hitting the insaine CAFE requirements while still saying oh we can sell as many gas guzzling cars as people will buy since we can just sell more cars that do better. Well guess what, even in these days of high gas prices, people still don't particularly WANT to buy cars that do better. They might be forced to financially, but given the choice costs be damned i doubt that's what they'd op for.

 

I think you're missing Lutz's point. He's not just fighting CAFE (unsuccessfully), but he's also fighting public perception. Beyond sales, public perception will drive the next stage of CAFE standards - which some environmental groups are targeting in the 100mpg range.

There's also the product planning aspect of this. Lutz knows that you're going to take YEARS to develop new, lightweight platforms. If you start with Zeta and introduce a 2011 model with a minor mpg hit compared to a production fwd car, you may have to stop production of that car around 2015 because it's a heavy platform and CAFE goes up. Powertrain gains may not be enough on a high-volume Zeta car. But if you develop a new, lighter rwd platform and introduce a 2015 car on it, but get enough of a mileage increase to keep the car and platform around until 2025, then you meet CAFE and never have to pull a successful, high-volume vehicle. I suspect that with Lutz it's all about the long game.

 

I agree. Lutz knows that GM (and the industry in general) would lose a lot of credibility by continuing to fight and lement increasing CAFE standards while at the same time releasing less efficient vehicles (supercharged Z28s, RWD V8 sedans) at the same time.

The strategy here is to put forth the effort (or the best appearance of a genuine effort) to get efficient so that Washington and the "sheeple" sympathize with you. Maybe then they get a decrease in CAFE and/or the loans they'll probably end up asking for.

 

I think that's a good point. You look at platforms like the W-Body and it's clear that when GM goes into something, it is for the long term. So not only do they have the current gas price and CAFE issues, they have to some how predict consumer demand 10-15 years down the road as well.

So, had they went forward with this, they would have a 2020 Zeta Impala which was originally a response to the 2005 Dodge Charger. Will anyone even care then? We could all be driving Volts or Jetsons Cars or something else.

 

It could be. If your image car costs a lot to develop, and the low volume means that it takes a long time to pay back, the need to spend extra money to subsidize the high mileage cars that offset it may turn it from an overall good deal to an overall bad one.

So they're both problems. Since one's in the can already (so to speak), you've no choice but to move forward.

Do we know the context of the quote, by the way? I think the merit in calling attention the to high perf version is that low volume manufacturers will be able to continue building them. The V6 model will be a higher volume car, which the low volume mfrs don't sell.