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The Nissan Leaf is kicking the Chevrolet Volt’s butt… at least that’s what the online world is saying. Google trends shows the number of searches and stories for the Leaf is double the amount of those for the Volt. As of this writing, the Nissan Leaf fan page has about 70,000 fans while that of the Chevrolet Volt only has about 24,000.
If you think this doesn’t translate to actual sales, let’s take at look at official interest lists for both vehicles. The Nissan Leaf has nearly 130,000 names on theirs; the Chevrolet Volt – about 42,000.
Since neither vehicle is on sale yet, the real question here is whether this predicts actual sales numbers for the Leaf and Volt. Does it predict that the Leaf will be a much bigger success than the Volt (in terms of sales volume)? Probably not. All it tells us – at least right now – is that Nissan’s promotion (read: advertising) team has done a great job marketing the upcoming all-electric hatch. But do these results foreshadow what we should expect in the coming year? Maybe.
Perhaps people are still sore about the U.S. Government bailing out GM. Or perhaps the reason for the large discrepancy in online fan bases is the fact that the price tag for the Leaf is about $5,000 less than that of the Volt (even lower in certain states).
And even though the Leaf is a pure electric and the Volt is a plug-in hybrid that has a (much) longer range (that results in the higher price), consumers may not be able to differentiate between the two models at this point in time.
So how will these online world results affect sales? We’ll have to wait ’till both vehicles go on sale later this year to find out! Bring it, Nissan!
[Source: Autoblog]
If you think the 35.5 mpg corporate average fuel economy (CAFE) standard for the year 2016 is tough, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet! President Obama is leading the charge to set even tougher fuel economy standards for the year 2025. The move keeps the Obama administration in charge of regulating fuel economy standards instead of giving that power to Congress or individual States. It also endows the automotive field with a crucial national standard for developing new technologies while protecting the industry from state-variable fuel economy requirements (ex: California has and was planning to set its own fuel economy criteria).
The 2016 CAFE standard foretold the average fuel economy target for all U.S. auto makers to average 35.5 mpg, although that number is looking to be more like 32.7 mpg. That’s due to regulations giving credits and emissions cuts to manufacturers that change other parts of vehicles, rather than the engines themselves.
After the 2016 fuel economy standards were released in April, auto executives called for a repeat of the process after 2017 and President Obama will then order the Department of Transportation (DOT) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to begin working on new standards for 2025.
[Source: Detroit Free Press]
Charge Point charging station
The Chevrolet Volt plug-in hybrid due out later this year has one problem that’s on the tip of everyone’s tongues: where do I plug in my car if I’m out on the town or live in an apartment building? Besides carrying a 100 mile-long spool of extension cord, a Silicon Valley company has a better solution. Coulomb Technologies is working with Ford, GM, and Smart to giveaway 4,600 ChargePoint Network charging stations for public and home use for free.
The ChargePoint America program is being partly funded by a $15 million grant from the Department of Energy. Nine cities will take part in getting the charging stations: Austin, Detroit, Los Angeles, New York, Orlando, Sacramento, San Francisco Bay Area, Redmond, and Washington D.C. About half of the charging stations will be installed in public areas and the rest will be given to new owners who buy a Chevrolet Volt, Ford Transit Connect EV, or a Smart EV for home use. Coulomb Technologies hopes to install a thousand chargers by the end of this year and the remaining 3,600 by 2011.
Click past the break for the full press release.
Students from Mississippi State University placed first in the 2010 EcoCAR: The NeXt Challenge finals in San Diego on Thursday in San Diego after designing and building this biodiesel extended-range electric vehicle (EREV).
Six days and sixteen tired teams later – the second-annual EcoCAR: The NeXt Challenge in San Diego, California has come to an end. Mississippi State University took first place with their biodiesel extended-range electric vehicle (EREV). Second place went to Virginia Tech with their ethanol-powered EREV vehicle. Third place went to Penn State’s biodiesel EREV.
A source close to GM’s truck project has told us that General Motors still holds no plans of launching the rumored 4.5 liter Duramax V8 diesel engine. This comes as a contrast to recent reports quoting chief engineers pondering the plans to launch the engine (though never actually claiming that GM will go forward with the plans at all).
Though the engine was an in-house project that was very close to being finished, it still is – for all intents and purposes – not going to come to market… at least to the current model offerings. Perhaps the next-generation GMC Sierra and Chevy (Chevrolet) Silverado trucks will see the engine that boasts 310 horsepower and 520 lb.-ft. of torque (with 25 percent increase in fuel economy compared to a gasoline V8) as an option.
As the unofficial GM Authority truck guy I can say that I can agree with The General for once this time around and am perfectly okay with this. Yes, the 4.5 liter sounds great. That is until consumers have a good look at that certain omnipotent measure that really tends to heavily influence a sale: the price.
Diesel engines are not cheap, especially when it comes to the almost $8,500 extra cost for the 6.6 Duramax option in The General’s new Heavy Duty trucks. Sure, this mini Duramax could be a few grand less than the powerhouse 6.6, but who wants to fork over a (potentially) extra $6,000 for an engine option when they could instead maybe get a Sierra/Silverado Hybrid or deck out the trim level?
In all seriousness, just how many folks will actually purchase the 4.5 liter if GM decides to offer the engine? A couple thousand? It’s hard to make a case for an expensive Duramax engine if it can’t move in large volumes. However, there is currently a market segment that GM trucks do not serve. That segment is of course, off-road performance.
Sure, you could argue that the Z71 package is some sort of competitor to the Ford SVT Raptor that happens to be selling much better than anticipated. You could also argue that the Z71 can compete with the Ford’s aggressive looks, 550 horsepower engine and off-road racing suspension. You could argue these points, but you wouldn’t get very far. General Motors has a much better chance of generating sales volume by selling a true rival to the Ford SVT Raptor, for which there is an unforeseen high demand. GM can also make use of the available 403 horsepower 6.2 Vortec and 556 horsepower LSA engines. This type of truck can even pick up where Hummer left off.
In what is easily the biggest executive shuffle of the year, General Motors has repositioned dozens of executives in product development and – most importantly – appointed new heads of global product planning, powertrain engineering, and quality.
The biggest news of the shakeup is that CEO Ed Whitacre will take the responsibility of global product planning from Tom Stephens, who will retain control of product development, design, engineering and purchasing. Interestingly, nobody was removed from the company as a result of this top-down reorganization.
Steve Carlisle moves from his position of VP of U.S. Sales Operations (a position he held since only March) and replaces Jon Lauckner as VP of Global Product Planning. Carlisle, who will report to Whitacre, holds previous experience in The General’s product planning department in markets outside the United States as well as GM’s truck group. Lauckner will become the head of GM’s new Venture Capital Unit and will report to Vice Chairman Steve Girsky.
As for Carlisle’s old position, it will go to Don Johnson, GM’s International Operations VP of Marketing. Johnson will report to GM North America President Mark Reuss.
Onward to Jamie Hresko, who is replacing Don Hancock as the VP of Global Powertrain Engineering. Hresko, who will report to Stephens, was the VP of Global Quality since September 2008. Hancock will take on an all-new position as VP of Global Strategic Product Alliances, focusing on joint ventures and partnerships with other automotive companies. He will report to Stephens. Dan Nicholson, the former Executive Director of electronic integration and software, has replaced Hresko and will also report to Stephens. Nicholson will be replaced by Kent Helfrich. (more…)
After seeing a 439 percent increase in sales over the same time period last year, General Motors will ramp up production of the reborn SRX crossover. The production increase will most likely happen sometime in the fourth quarter of 2010 at GM’s Ramos Arizpe plant in Mexico, where the Theta Premium-based SRX is produced.
The increased popularity of the SRX may not be the only factor responsible for the production ramp up, since GM has reopened nearly 500 dealerships that were denied reordering privileges for the past year. Currently, inventories of the 2011 SRX are at a 57-day supply, vaguely below the preferred 60-day target. As more orders come in to more dealerships, the 57-day supply may quickly run dry.
“They all want SRXs right away,” said Kurt McNeil, Cadillac’s U.S. Sales Chief in an interview with Automotive News.
GM introduced the redesigned two-row, five-passenger CUV last summer and had the Lexus RX 350 and Mercedes ML350 directly in its crosshairs. The standard engine is (a rather anemic) 3.0-liter V6 good for 265 horsepower. The up-level engine is a 2.8-liter turbo that makes 300 horsepower. AWD is available, but no matter what engine you opt for, electronic tilt or telescoping steering wheel is not even an option – a rather disappointing fact for a Cadillac.
We recently got some wheel time behind Caddy’s new lineup – including the new SRX, CTS Sport Wagon, and Escalade Hybrid – at the Cadillac Culinary Challenge Test Drive. You can see our initial impressions of all three models here.
[Source: Motor Trend]
Click the image to watch the video
Update: press release from GM added.
Here’s the latest on the entire Chevy vs. Chevrolet debacle. This time however, it’s coming straight from the lips of Alan Batey, Vice President of Sales, Service & Marketing for Chevrolet. Before we get into the details, yes, you can absolutely positively use Chevy to refer to Chevrolet.
So, Alan – can GM Employees use Chevy?
“Of course we can. Chevy – what is Chevy? Chevy is our nickname. Where does it come from? It’s come from selling vehicles here in the U.S. for 100 years. We love it when people call us Chevy. It means they’re very attached to us, they’re very close to us, and we’re like a friend so they use our nickname Chevy. There’s nothing wrong with that at all. And we love that – in fact we love people talking to us in that way.”
Okay, so what was the whole memo thing all about then?
“Let’s put it into context. Chevrolet is one of the fastest growing brands in the world today. We’re selling now in over 130 countries. For every vehicle we sell here in the U.S, we’re actually selling two vehicles overseas – so we really are on a great momentum and a great march. But it’s also ture to say that Chevrolet is at an early stage of development in many of these [international] markets. So the ability for us to use our Chevrolet brand name, as we do on all of our vehicles, in all of our dealerships in all of those countries, just gives us the ability in this global world we live in today to get the maximum amount of leverage. And that’s really all it’s about.”
And you know what I hope? I hope in ten years time in twenty years time – in all of these countries they’re talking about Chevy as our nickname because what does that mean – it means we’re close to them as we are here in the U.S.and it’s jsut a great palce to be.
You know, Chevy is a great nickname and I love it and I don’t want it to distract from it.
After the break, catch the video of what you’ve just read. (more…)
General Motors has officially priced the 2011 Chevy Corvette, which remains unchanged for the 2011 model year. The 2011 ZR1 saw an increase of $2,920 for a total of $110,750 while all other trim levels saw a $20 increase.
While this answers most of our questions about the 2011 model year bow tie super car, it leaves the pricing of the Z06 Carbon up in the air. Recall that the Z06 Carbon slots right between the Z06 and the ZR1. As such, logic would peg the price of the Z06 Carbon at more than that of the Z06 but less than the $110,750 ZR1. Keep reading about 2011 Corvette pricing…
General Motors is recalling 1.53 million cars and trucks worldwide due to a fire risk. The problem involves an optional feature offered by GM through the 2009 model year that heats windshield washer fluid called HotShot. The recall affects Buck, Cadillac, Chevrolet, GMC, Hummer, and Saturn vehicles mostly located in the United States.
GM will disable the heating mechanism in the washers and will pay owners $100 for each vehicle as compensation for removing the heated windshield washer feature. The feature can’t be replaced because the supplier for the components – Micro-Heat – is out of business.
This is not the first time GM has run into problems with the heated windshield washer feature, having recalled 944,000 copies of the mechanism in 2008 for repairs. That recall cost GM between $20 and $25 million. The General asked Micro-Heat bear the costs of the recall, but was unsuccessful. In 2008, GM received five reports of fires caused by components of the heater – prompting today’s action. NHTSA has been investigating the flaw before GM issued the 2008 recall. (more…)
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