GM's answer to Katrina, Code-Name GMT900
"Too many gasoline blends, an outdated fuel economy test and too many large vehicles, have contributed to making the nation's gasoline supply vulnerable in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina", according to AAA. (Full Press Release)
If automakers are unwilling to make more fuel efficient vehicles, then AAA urges Congress to force automakers to act via stricter CAFE requirements, which have become a loophole for the most fuel-inefficient vehicles. "As Hurricane Katrina has reminded us, we are never more than a disaster away from this type of crisis."
Of course don't expect changes anytime soon from the likes of GM, which "delayed some mid-sized car programs in order to speed the launch of its full-sized SUV and pickup programs, code-named GMT900," according to AutoWeek.
Good to know GM is doing its share in the aftermath of Katrina.
I couldn't believe how many Hummer commercials I watched this weekend. The Nation is facing a gasoline crisis, the President has asked Americans to conserve gasoline, yet GM advertises the Hummer. How about advertising their fuel economy vehicles for a few weeks in the wake of Katrina? How pathetic.
Congress refuses to act on this issue claiming market forces will resolve the problem. If so, why is GM still a couple years away from its first hybrid cars? Ohh, excuse me, its first hybrid land yachts.
Labels: hybrid cars
posted by Dahcredyns @ 9:24 AM
5 comments
5 Comments:
You sound a little angry. Can't you afford a land yacht? And the fuel to fill its tank? Maybe a different perspective is what you need. I could buy 3 honda hybrids, hire a couple of guys to drive them, and charge you three times as much for your kitchen remodel. By the way, the 3 hybrids would produce about the same amount of emissions as my one truck. Can you say "Three times the traffic." We'd all be moving a little slower, thereby producing even more emissions. "Oops", three times the insurance, I almost forgot to add that to the price of your remodel. Did you have trouble with mathematics during your education?
The 1:1 comparison of hybrid vehicles(cars) v. gas or diesel burnig vehicles(trucks, land yachts) does not account for the 2-5x greater payload(humans) as well as the 10-25x greater towing capacity(commodities).
Mathematics? Are you kidding me?
So now everyone in America is a contractor, huh, togoofy? Everyone driving a land yacht either transports several people or a large payload?
That's a pretty ridiculous assumption that is most certainly not based on fact.
So, am I also saying that there shouldn't be any semi's on the road, and instead they should break their load into a fleet of Escape hybrids? Please.
I sound angry? Your assumptions sound silly.
Drive on the freeways in Southern California and land yacht after land yacht isn't in the HOV lane, even though HOV lane is empty.
Why aren't they taking advantage?
Is it because only one person is in the vehicle, so they don't qualify? Oh, I guess all those people dressed in suits heading into downtown LA are carrying huge payloads to worksites, huh?
Anybody who has a legimate use for a large vehicle should use a large vehicle.
Angry, yeah I'm angry.
If GM had gotten off is its ass in the 90's and used its part of the billion in tax dollars the government gave it to develop fuel efficient technologies, you could have your land yacht and less foreign oil dependency as well.
Instead, GM spends billions of dollars every year on marketing gas-guzzling rather than investing in fuel efficient technologies that would cost less than their marketing campaigns.
But apparently you don't mind your tax dollars being wasted on complacency and shareholder greed?
30,000 GM employees with no job because of corporate ineptitude, no bother to you, huh, goofy?
Year after year of increasing foreign oil dependency with ever more gas profits being directed into the hands of dictators and terrorists doesn't bug you either, goofy?
Oh, by the way, so you can be a better hybrid critic, hybrids aren't cheap. Most hybrid drivers can afford land yachts.
Sorry we're a little angry about the state of the world and we use our consumer decisions to try make a change.
Most of us don't live in a world where terrorism, foreign oil dependency, pollution, and wasted tax dollars don't affect us.
Electric plug-in cars and solar rooftop systems can replace all of our overseas gasoline imports without building one new power plant.
gm once had a gas-free car, and refused to allow the public to buy it; they crushed them, refusing $25K each.
Oil is going to increase in price, but that's not the real tragedy; the current perceived need for overseas oil leads to foreign entanglements, expense and hidden subsidies to the oil companies.
general motors now faces disaster for helping the oil companies kill Electric cars; it's a well-deserved death. Good riddance!
Toyota had the honor to sell us the excellent Toyota RAV4-EV, and Toyota has delivered customer satisfaction.
gm is "dead-company walking", imo.
Attn. Mr. Boone Pickens
BP Capital Management, L.P.
8117 Preston Road
Suite 260
Dallas, TX 75225
V: 214-265-4165
F: 214-750-0216
E: info@bpcap.net
RE: Energy futures and oil peak, a radical solution with 500 mpg plug-in hybrids
Dear Mr. Pickens,
Your assessment of oil's future (on CNN Dec. 24) kept coming back to the same problem: it's not easy to visualize much more than the 85M barrels per day we currently need -- and produce.
Many of the "peak oil" theorists miss your point that it won't be a radical break. Oil prices will gradually rise, encouraging petrol-free alternative energy sources such as solar, clean coal, wind, nuclear, natural gas, bio-fuel, etc.
You stated that while technology will help, it can't make a dramatic difference; I ask you to read on.
There is one technology that can change the picture, one breakthrough that might change the parameters and conclusions.
Electric cars are anathema to the oil industry and the Auto Manufacturers' Association ("AMA"), which financed campaigns to crush all of them.
Electric traction power is, all admit, superior to internal combustion engines. Fewer moving parts, better traction control, much higher efficiency. Existing Electric cars routinely travel over 100 miles on the energy equivalent of a gallon of gasoline (about 35 kWh). The big question has been how to get electric power to a mobile device such as a train or car.
With trains, the first solution was electrifying the rails, and then development of the diesel-electric generator. This is now the standard for large mobility; issues of control and the clutch preclude diesel or gasoline engines from running trains directly.
The same progression can happen with Electric cars.
Our Toyota RAV4-EV travels up to 120 miles on the energy equivalent of .8 gallons of gasoline. But for long trips, we usually drive a gasoline car. Perhaps 90% of our driving relies on electric power, and only 10% on gasoline cars at, say, 35 mpg. Thus, our total fleet driving achieves 350 miles per gallon. But it relies on having two cars, one for driving locally most of the time, and one for occasional long-distance trips.
The serial plug-in hybrid Electric car combines both "missions" in one vehicle.
Charged by plugging in at night, when electric is cheap and plentiful, the EV travels up to 100 miles on electric alone, just as our RAV4-EV. If we forgot to charge the batteries, or on longer trips, a small engine/generator fires up, used only to charge the batteries or run the EV directly. A 40 hp engine/generator is more than enough to generate the 28 kW needed to run an EV at 80 mpg for long distances.
There is more than enough unused off-peak electric capacity to replace gasoline with electric for all our miles driven in the USA; an amazing fact, easily calculated from public information. But we don't have to replace all gasoline, and we can also use our roofs to help out the grid.
Even our modest solar rooftop system, 4.2 kW, generates electric in the daytime, when the grid needs power. The credits we receive for this generation are more than we need to run 3 EVs, so in our case, we drive mostly free of oil and also free of cost.
The synergies between solar rooftop distributed electric Photo-Voltaic ("PV") generation and Electric plug-in hybrid cars mean that each driver actually helps the grid and also virtually eliminates use of gasoline, helping reduce our dependence on overseas oil imports.
Why not finance the development of such a car? There is a company, ACPropulsion.com, which makes Electric cars using technology originally developed for the General Motors EV1 Electric car. With just a modest funding, and with a steely-eyed manufacturing engineer to cut costs, a demonstration program showing how we can radically reduce our use of mideast oil can be a benefit to all -- and a credit to the patriot who manages it.
Instead of watching oil go up in price, you could effect a change in the parameters and results.
This is not a secret, and not a nutty-professor sort of thing. Some very powerful conservative thinkers, such as Woolsey, Friedman and Boot, have proposed the plug-in hybrid on www.SetAmericaFree.org to call attention to how we can increase our national security by its development.
A group of EV drivers formed www.PlugInAmerica.com to demonstrate the success of EVs and PV solar generation.
There is a prototype plug-in Prius, developed by Greg Hanssen, an engineer for EDriveSystems.com, which routinely gets better than 100 mpg, and up to 180 mpg. A production version would do even better.
Please consider this idea; you are a proven patriot, and someone with powerful resources needs to make this known to the general public.
Sincerely,
Doug Korthof
1020 Mar Vista
Seal Beach, CA 90740-5842
562-430-2495
email doug@seal-beach.org
Nice posts Doug.
Regardless of Boone's position on technology, I think he is correct in noting that technology won't do it in the short term - which makes it a great stock speculation.
While that stock speculation might help some investors, it won't help the American people.
In terms of pure technology, we just can't make fuel efficient technology happen fast enough.
That's not a defeatist statement, but a reason why it is even more important for America to start acting now.
Energy problems are only going to cause greater problems for America if our answer to energy consumption is filled with foreign oil answers.
In reality, the spike Katrina caused was only a prelude to what is to come.
If America's new war is terrorism, then America's most important battlefield should be foreign oil dependency. The technology to end that dependency - as you point out - exists now.
If Boone Pickens can help in that battle, all the better for America. Please write of any progress.
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