start stop on a traditional engine only produces more wear and tear and it can also cause alot of cooling and lubrificating problems

and all belts produce alot of friction!!!

This is low hanging fruit. It can be produced NOW without waiting for some break through like battery-prices. It can give up to 10% reduction of gas consumption NOW. And a combined starter-motor and generator maybe will increase cost $100 or less than a separate generator and starter-motor.

Only when battrey prices has dropped 75% will plug-in hybrids become common.

So µ-hubrid is good, regardless of what some people here write. I think this will be come standard in Europe within three years.

Repeat after me:

“AUTO STOP-START IS NOT ‘HYBRID’”
“AUTO STOP-START IS NOT ‘HYBRID’”
“AUTO STOP-START IS NOT ‘HYBRID’”
“AUTO STOP-START IS NOT ‘HYBRID’”

Thank you.

-2010 Chevy Hybrid Malibu 24-25k EPA 26-mpg city and 34-mpg highway

-2010 Chevy Malibu 22k-23K but LTZ cost more…. EPA 22 city & 30-33 highway

So the point here is the Two-mode added about 2k to the cost & gave consumers no real gains in highway mpgs & marginal returns for city driving.

Looking at other Hybrids (2010 Ford Fusion Hybrid, Camry Hybrid, & Altima Hybrid) you can see no real mpg gains in highway miles but city driving gave 7 to 15 mpgs more from these competitors. See http://www.caranddriver.com/reviews/comparisons/09q1/2010_ford_fusion_hybrid_vs._camry_hybrid_altima_hybrid_and_malibu_hybrid-comparison_tests

All have similar pricing for their hybrid models. I’m not sure if these other hybrids do or do not have donuts but you can see GM failed at justifying added costs to consumers who were in the market for hybrid sedans.

The next gen of Two mode has to be better or else again it will fail. Cost is a issue too. We seen this on some of GM’s SUV models the mild-hybrid added 6-9K more. Also before the death of the current two-mode system there really was little improvement in efficiency or cost (larger SUV’s) over the time frame of this system. I think the Malibu is a great car but as others have said I don’t think consumers are being fooled by poor attempts at hybrid branding. This is why again I don’t understand the attempts to find out consumer preferences before investing millions into R&D that ends up being a wash. For GM I’m concerned that management doesn’t get it, they are wasting money into projects consumers won’t buy or don’t care about (eg. E85 or Hydrogen) & I doubt GM will have the capital to invest into improving the Volt or finding ways to reduce its cost. There are people in the auto industry that are 100x smarter than I but I wonder sometimes if they really get it or are some just living in a bubble?

But I’ll start with the question that has been posed by others — why did GM fail so miserably at marketing cars with this technology? I think it’s a matter of failure of imagination and failure to package the technology correctly.

I’ll take my own experience — a year and a half ago, I was starting the process of planning to replace my car. I looked at my various options and one of the vehicles I looked at was a Chevrolet Malibu Hybrid. Not a bad car at all, but it came in a nearly one-package-fits-all configuration that lacked some really necessary things for me:

1) it lacked passenger handles;
2) it lacked a power seat (later remedied by GM);
3) it lacked a hands-off cell phone system unless you switch to GM’s integrated system with OnStar (which required getting a new phone number); and –
4) worst of all, it lacked a spare tire, apparently to save weight; rather, it used a “tire repair kit,” which made me thoroughly uncomfortable about driving the car on a lengthy commute that passed through rural areas.

(GM should not be blamed alone for that last misstep; Honda did the same thing with the Accord Hybrid, which eventually the market rejected as well.)

In essence, the Malibu Hybrid, as I said above, isn’t a bad car, but it paled in comparison in experience with the other options that I looked at (which included the Toyota Camry Hybrid and the Nissan Altima Hybrid). Ultimately, I decided to wait for a Ford Fusion Hybrid (since I liked the conventional Fusion but wanted to get a hybrid). I am about 12K miles into the vehicle, and the Ford Fusion is simply far nicer as a car.

And that leads back to the issue why I think the technology ultimately is a losing one as a “hybrid option” as opposed to “conventional ICE option” in the marketplace. GM might have marketed it poorly, but there was only so much they could do with it. To have even an appreciable fuel-efficiency gain that would even catch people’s attention, they had to find ways to reduce the weight — and that led to the ill-advised no-spare-tire configuration. GM also opted not to go with an electric HVAC system — which might not be viable without a sufficiently large battery — which meant that the efficiency gain was even more marginal when HVAC is on. Sure, one can leave the HVAC off entirely for more efficiency in any car (that includes the electric HVAC systems in the Fusion, the Altima, and the Prius), but that ruins the driving experience.

Another carmaker might do things differently, and as has been noted elsewhere online, the BMW 1-series can be considered a mild hybrid in some ways (although BMW avoided calling it one), and is doing moderately well. But the 1-series provided an extremely small fuel efficiency gain compared to its similarly-sized brethren, and BMW would have failed miserably marketing it as a green car, since it wouldn’t look like one at all when one looks at its fuel efficiency figures. I am all for incremental gains as far as efficiency is concerned, but it will draw no traction in the marketplace when the efficiency is not appreciable in numbers. (And for me, the 1-series was too small and too expensive (for its size, that is).)

Yes, I would applaud Mazda’s stop-start system even if it brought no MPG improvement figures; it will simply be good for the environment incrementally. But it is not a replacement for hybrids and other technology even more efficient than hybrids.