Comments on: Big Three CEOs: You Are What You Drive

By: Paras Kalra

Paras Kalra — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 15:26:24 +0000

i say electric vehicles are epic fails. they don’t pollute, but their battery only lasts to give you about 80 miles and then they take hours and hours to drive. i think hydrogen powered with a fuel cell generating energy to the electric motor is the way to go. u fill it up with hydrogen just like u fill a normal car up with petrol and the hydrogen in the fuel cell is mixed with the oxygen in the air so the only exhaust is water. And the total mileage on a full tank is the same as a normal petrol car.

By: cocoa

cocoa — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 22:02:10 +0000

i belong to a toyota prius forum. not sure about what u are talking about as i have only heard of one case of a battery going bad before its time. (this was from the earliest models) batteries going bad are so few that they are almost unheard of. to be honest- the industry does not know how long these batteries will last. there is a taxi cab owner in canada that has driven his cars over 200k miles. in the forum we talk of our problems & solutions & toyota seems to be watching & listening. most prius & civic hybrid owners LOVE their cars. in the production of anything, there can be a lemon. look at how many american lemons have been made!! i dont meant to discount our wonderful american technology, but toyota & honda have been doing it right & i hope that our american auto industry can learn from them…..just as japan learned from us.
but if i did have my prius battery run out on me…toyota will absorb the expense of the tow & the battery replacement for 8 yrs or 100,000 miles. thats their guarantee and it works for me.

By: Cocoa

Cocoa — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 21:39:20 +0000

i am really impressed by the measures that ford has made. in my family we have only owned one ford; and it was not very good. my last 4 cars have been from japan, & they were great. if ford continues its work in making better cars that are more efficient, then i would consider buying one. & that says a lot!! i do love my prius very much. it is everything that i have ever hoped for .. still looking & doing well after 3 yrs. but i do love my country- & i would do all that i can to help save jobs for americans & their livelihoods.
gm has been the choice of my family. but their half hearted attempts have done nothing to show me that they are truly willing to help save themselves. i am truly sorry for the american auto industry. instead of being great leaders & inventors, they are now mere reminders of yesteryear….only to be forgotten.

By: owldog

owldog — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 05:41:21 +0000

If most of the energy lost in the internal combustion engine is in the form of heat, why not make a “hybrid” that also scavenges heat from exhaust manifolds, etc. to power a steam engine to drive an alternator that generates electricity?

By: Bryce

Bryce — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 08:53:30 +0000

mellie, your first and second points don't exactly go together. If a Volt, for example, but any electric car really, can't be charged then why, as suggested by your second notion.....would the gas go stale. In an environment where electric charging were either not cost effective or not feasible at all, wouldn't this gas have been spent.......just though that was funny.

However, your third point is a viable and reasonable question.

Depending on where you are from, your energy can come from varying sources. In the south for instance, it is likely to come largely from Coal, maybe a little hydroelectric and nuclear. In the west and northeast, it is more likely to come from natural gas, nuclear, and hydroelectric. (growing ammounts of wind and solar as well.....o, and texas too....lots of wind there) Given, where the Volt will be primarilly offered, (west coast, northeast, and maybe a few other high population areas) I believe we can safely say the electricity generated for our Volts (and mine.....as a California resident) would be in bulk from natural gas, followed by nuclear and hydroelectric with increasing ammounts of solar and wind. Of course it would vary in other countries, and I cannot accurately answer to you what their sources of energy are, (the Volt will be a global vehicle, much the likee the Cruze to be sold in all markets that GM is active in) atleast not off the top of my head, but either way the efficiencies, in cost effectiveness to the consumer, atleast in price of fuel, and in ammount of pollution per consumer are better for an electric than your run of the mill ICE driven auto.

I hope that answers that a little.

By: Rickw

Rickw — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 00:21:38 +0000

I hope that if congress approves bailouts for any of the companies, that they also mandate that all executives and board members for those companies are fired (with the customary– for workers at least– 2 month’s severance pay). After all, its those executives and board members that are responsible for the mess those companies are in.

By: Miss Mellie

Miss Mellie — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 20:56:52 +0000

Wow, I'm so impressed at your ability to hate Toyota, Bill. Does it know no bounds?

Here's a couple of honest questions for you on your beloved "hybrid":

1. Where's the infrastructure going to come from for you and your fellow Volt lovers to plug in on a family road trip? Do you honestly think the Howard Johnson is going to let you charge up your car for free whilest you sleep? I hope you plan on carrying an extension cord in your trunk. Yes, yes, I know about the "gas tank" on the vehicle and, speaking of which...

2. In regards to the small onboard gas tank, are you, as a responsible owner, going to make sure that the gasoline is used in a timely manner before it goes stale? If you inadvertently forget to drain the tank and the gas goes bad, are you, as a responsible owner, going to dispose of the gas properly?

3. Oh and by the way, where do you think the electricity you're "fueling" up your Volt comes from? Do you know or even care?

By: Bill cosworth

Bill cosworth — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 20:07:24 +0000

Volt Races Prius in washington

Volt wins!!

http://gm-volt.com/2008/12/05/volt-one-step-ahead-of-the-prius/

By: AP

AP — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 16:20:36 +0000

geo NH, everyone old enough to remember knows that we've been here before. We (as in consumers) said, "we're not going to let that happen again." Our conservation in the early 1980's left OPEC selling only 1/2 the oil they could produce.

With the resulting cheap oil, people started buying trucks, because CAFE was less stringent for them, and people could get more equipment, etc. on them. Soon, the SUV became mainstream, thanks to CAFE. The imports, who didn't have them on the shelf for their home market, even went whole hog into it.

Detroit's marketing must be better than I thought if they could convince Toyota, Nissan, and BMW to sell these vehicles that "nobody wants!" Face it, when gas is cheap, most US customers don't care about conserving it.

Congress (not any automaker) created the SUV market with cheap gas and stricter mileage standards on cars. That's the problem with CAFE, and making it tighter on trucks just makes trucks that are worthless for farming and construction. We need a higher fuel tax - not stricter CAFE.

So don't blame the domestics for "forcing" you to buy them by supposedly brainwashing people. What are you, sheep?

By: geo NH

geo NH — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 13:43:57 +0000

Quote: "There is no excuse whatsoever for the carmakers to not be leading the way with high mileage vehicles. The "reason" they use is consumers want the big SUVs. That is true if they see nothing but ads about how virile it makes one or how you can drive over the polar ice cap in one."

Perfect! They advertise SUV wasteful vehicles b/c they stupidly make them, and then put special low interest financing with them, BECAUSE they realize they made mistake and must move them out - sell to unknowing gullible consumers.

Time to allow production of the features the engineers are very capable of designing! Management has held them back. They are all in bed: tires, fuel, car companies. The MORE philosophy.

Didn't we all who are a little observant, see all this crap 10, 20, 30 years ago?