The Big Three Are Back...

[HardRockCamaro]

The reception to the new models from the Big Three at the Detroit Auto Show have been excellent and the sales figures are on the up and up...  

Ford have overtaken Toyota to grab the number 2 spot in the sales figures, quite the turnaround for the Japanese who were set to pass GM (never happened, GM retained the no1 spot even though they went into bankruptcy).

The Chevy Volt has taken car of the year honours for 2011.
GM have upped their development budget back to $7 billion after making huge cuts of $5 billion in 2008, worried that they're a year behind they're accelerating the development of their new trucks (don't f**k it up GM by going a half a**ed job!).


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[Shifty]

Quoting: HardRockCamaro

The Chevy Volt has taken car of the year honours for 2011.

Ow this is pathetic,

01/01/11 the first advert I see on TV and its for the new Nissan "insert name here" POS electric car being advertised as COTY.....

How can this be....? it's only the first day of the year. How can something be voted as the best the year has had when the year isn't anywhere near the end.

And now Chavy are doing it with the volt..... what a joke.

At the end of the year when the real COTY gets voted on and neither of these fuel of Satan vehicles are the winner (I can only hope) both companies should be given a good seeing to for false advertising.

I do believe the soap box is now warmed up........




"edit"

Ow and sales don't make prizes, profit makes prizes, and I believe Toyota (sadly) are still winning that one.

[HardRockCamaro]

It would seem not....

3rd quarter results from the automakers came out last week and:

Profit - Year to date (Jan 1 - Sep 30):

1. Ford - $6.37 Billion
2. Honda - $5.34 Billion
3. VW - $4.9 Billion
4. GM - $4.77 Billion
5. Daimler - $4.49 Billion
6. Toyota - $4.46 Billion

[Roadkill]

I agree the Volt is a stupid Hippy-Happy-Ploy . . . . No one really wants to see cars go that way do they ?



Good to see Detroit sorting themselves out - I don't think they'll ever churn out anything I like again but I'm ever hopeful.

[HardRockCamaro]

Cars like the volt are the future.

Unless the US get lax on emissions laws diesels will never take off over there, hybrids of some description, possibly followed by full electrics and then perhaps fuel cell cars are the way it's going to go.  Aerodynamics will dictate the shape more than ever (a la Prius) and CVT or multi gear transmissions geared for optimum mpg, not top speed, will be the norm.
They will never build 'em the way we like.  But seriously, with petrol likely to go past £2 per litre within 10 years (imho slightly less than that timescale) would you really want them to stop making those hybrids (or whatever) and start making big block cars running carbs and weighing over 2 tons?  When would you ever get to drive it?  Or more to the point, when would you get to go visit friends etc.  Very limited life.

Let's just keep the cars we like for weekend fun and use those new cars for getting to work etc.  the cheaper they are on fuel the more money you'll have left over for fuel for your weekend toy.  

[Incursus]

Quoting: HardRockCamaro

Let's just keep the cars we like for weekend fun and use those new cars for getting to work etc. the cheaper they are on fuel the more money you'll have left over for fuel for your weekend toy.

Fortunately I only live 3miles away from work.  So at the moment...

[EDGE]

Quoting: Incursus

Fortunately I only live 3miles away from work. So at the moment...

i work at home and im still PISSED that fuel is £1.30/litre !!!

electric cars are the way ahead imo, once they become more advanced the technology will become cheaper and it'll be very, VERY quiet on the roads....

[Roadkill]

I agree electric cars are cheaper to run - which is good.  

The thing that irritates me is all these tree-huggers claiming it's better for the environment - like electricity literally grows on trees . . . . . . then there's the batteries themselves - you may as well run the cars on toxic waste - It'd probably be better for the planet.

But because it avoids petrol the hippies are happy.

Idiots . . . F*cking idiots.

[EDGE]

oh

i agree with that... pastey faced lentil eating tree hugging tossers

[F Body]

The thing I like about the Volt is that you can't run out of electricity

I've been trying to bag a drive of one of the two in the UK for some time, but me thinks you need to be some what further up the GM Management tree

NB : Pun intended

[Roadkill]

Quoting: F Body

The thing I like about the Volt is that you can't run out of electricity

No ?

How does that work then ?

I won't pretend I read all about it but have I missed something ?  

[HardRockCamaro]

The Volt is recharged at home and has a battery pack large enough to power the vehicle for up to 50 miles (depends on traffic etc like anything else) at even highway speeds.  The Prius by contrast can only travel 1/4 mile on battery alone, and at speeds below 28mph and with gentle acceleration only.

When the charge runs out a small engine kicks in to produce electricity (but not to charge the battery) to keep feeding the electric motor so you are never stranded.

The idea is to charge it at home as the commute for most Americans is just 27 miles (total).  So you would never need to use petrol unless you were doing more than your daily commute/shop.  With the cost of electricity and how far it travels on said electricity the running cost works out the same as a car that does 230mpg (200 and something anyway) on petrol.

[Roadkill]

Indeed but what alot of tree huggers seem to forget is where electricity comes from . . . it isn't a gift from mother nature - it's generated by power stations . . . Dirty, polluting, evil power stations (the things tree huggers hate).

My point was, yes, indeed you CAN run out of electricity - many power stations are still run on fossil fuels - and even nuclear stations aren't without their pollution and risk.

But it's O.K - the hippies see electricity as something the pixies put magically in your wall sockets . . . everything's fine.



The 50 miles range is a good idea - It will suit most Americans and, in fact, most commuters in most countries.

The complete (apparent) ignorance as to the source of electricity is what p!sses me off.

[Titsy]

Quoting: F Body

The thing I like about the Volt is that you can't run out of electricity

We are still headed for a national electricity crisis within 4 to 5 years as we don't have enough power stations to cover our predicted needs, and older coal and nuclear stations are being decommissioned... So yes, electricity can run out... Although to be fair, if there's no electricity I doubt many people will need to travel to work...

[philoldsmobile]

and the tree huggers want it all..

clean safe new nuclear power stations (or best bet for reliable power generation for the next 50 or more years) will take 12 years to build

the are busy sabotaging coal and oil power stations that can be on line sooner

wind solar and wave power simply are not yet ready.

what we need from greenies are some suggestions - not what we shouldn't do, but right now what we should do, we cannot continue pretending the problem will go away on its own.

[Roadkill]

Quoting: philoldsmobile

we cannot continue pretending the problem will go away on its own

Indeed.

We need to ACT NOW and exterimate all Hippies immediately - Before it's TOO LATE !!

[HardRockCamaro]

The benefit of electricity is that you can get it in many different ways.
Biofuel aside, petrol is kinda limited to drilling for it and burning it and it's fairly dirty to burn.
Electricity can come from many things, burning coal (bad), nuclear (clean but spent fuel is dangerous and you have to keep it safe for like 50,000 years, not good), wind (clean but unreliable), solar (clean but damned expensive), wave (practical issues), hydrogen fuel cells (clean, hydrogen is plentiful but energy intensive to get at).
The thing is, once the car is running on electricity you have options.
You can either put a hydrogen fuel cell in it and fill up (so you have to centrally produce the hydrogen and then distribute it, but relatively easy to convert existing petrol stations) or you can feed the car off the grid by letting people charge at home (easy and relatively cheap to add a socket if need be), at work (not a stretch for companies with car parks, but not universal), or on the street (expensive as would have to be built out).
Or you could have micro generation, where a town or even a home has their own electricity generation system (eg a hydrogen fuel cell on site that powers the house as well as the car).

Everything has a financial cost to it and technical difficulties and maybe even dangers.  And making something (eg making a wind turbine) uses raw materials and requires energy, but once you've made it hopefully you get many years of output from it, as opposed to spending money buying expensive oil from dodgy nations and burning it.  Investing in the future as it were...

[HardRockCamaro]

Quoting: philoldsmobile

what we need from greenies are some suggestions - not what we shouldn't do, but right now what we should do, we cannot continue pretending the problem will go away on its own.

Agreed.

Sadly they'd say live in a mud hut and grow your own potatoes.
They want to live in a pre industrialised world.
Where child mortality rates were high, life expectancy was low, no-one ever travelled anywhere or experienced anything and each day was a struggle and effort just to survive.