Bob Lutz, GM’s vice president and product chief, told reporters this week that new federal guidelines that require 35mpg fuel efficiency by 2020 (yes, more than a decade from now) are so stringent that it will end up costing an average of $6,000 more per vehicle. “That cost will have to be passed on to consumers,” he then threatened. We can’t help but feel sorry for GM. After all, this whole “better fuel efficiency” topic was only brought up, what, like two or three months ago? And GM only has twelve years to find cost-effective (we’d say “innovative” but don’t want to put too much pressure on such a backwards, fearful company) ways to lighten cars and improve engines.
“We probably have to take a lot of weight out of the vehicles. We will have to use some premium materials like more aluminum, more magnesium,” Lutz said. “Which gets you the weight savings but drives the cost up.”
“GM says new fuel requirements to add $6,000 per car” [Reuters]
(Photo: Getty)
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@warf0x0r: But the cars they’re going to sell in China and India are going to be smaller (and maybe more efficient) than the ones they sell here.
as long as gas stays around $3 per gallon, i don’t give a shit what i’m driving. i’ll keep my 3 suv’s i have parked out in front of my house.
The problem is you can’t repeal laws of physics.
It can’t be built like a tank for safety, get 100 MPG, go from 0 to 60 before you get to your destination, and cost the same as today. Oh, and I remember how reliable and repairable the cars of the late ’70s were with their spaghetti of vacuum hoses covering the engine. And then if there’s a moderate crash, the hybrids become instant hazmat sites, but most other lightweights are totaled, so expect to pay more for insurance too.
Most of the posters were comparing their econo-box with a SUV.
For the same price you will get a very different car. If you want the better car it will cost $6000 more.
Or they will just build them in China, so don’t complain when the last manufacturing job leaves. And assuming you can afford cars when we all work at Taco Bell.
@thatgirlinnewyork: It’s called sarcasm…
@GitEmSteveDave: I think that’s what ShortBus was saying — that nobody “killed” the electric car because nobody really wanted an electric car that badly.
As for me, my ’98 Ford Escort gets 41 hwy/28 city. If Ford could make cars like that ten years ago, and have them still maintain their efficiency, GM needs to stop complaining.
@youbastid:
No one sued the Automakers, the Automakers sued the government and argued against CAFE standards. Toyota included.
Again, the lack of any kind of education about this particular topic astounds me. People are so quick to talk, yet the crap that comes out of their mouths are quite illogical.
@Geekybiker: GM never argued against the mandate. They were also the first company to offer airbags standard in every model BEFORE the government mandate.
Again… educate yourself on the topic before spouting off at the mouth.
@NightSteel:
GM spent about 1.6 Billion in R&D in 2007 and 921.3 million in advertising for the same year.
Source GM.com
Is GM not advertising for cars that get amazing gas mileage, with little kids in the commerical… So how many of their vehicles should technically require that much $$$ added to make that mpg go up.
Also it will probably cost $6k extra per vehicle, that probably includes the giant bonus they get from the oil companies for making vehicles with crappy gas mileage…
yeah bitches! bow down to the web master that is coaster nerd, and don’t even touch that keyboard unless its to leave this room to go educate yo-self.
@ShortBus: @ShortBus: I’ll second that. I grew up in the same area and spent a while as an IT guy working for a fairly small company that made specialized tools that were used by other companies that manufactured auto parts for the big 3. My father worked on the line at GM. His father was a trucker, who transported mostly auto parts and materials. My mother was an accountant who worked at different shops that supplied parts and materials for the big three. All different careers, all reliant on the auto industry.
Sure, that’s just southeast Michigan, but other areas in the country are similar. Assembly is just a small part at the end.
Talk to the coastline of China residents today and they might have a different idea about this glorious future with cars in it AT ALL.
Been here 58 years, never driven a car, never will.
Where’s my rebate? I stand in the rain and catch a bus every morning and have for decades, alone or with folks too poor to do anything else while 50 cars a minute with one person whip by and splash me.
No cars is the only good cars. GM can kiss my ass.
My bullshit alarm is at level 5. What a joke. They’re probably taking this seriously, as well.
@NightSteel:
Free enterprise. All vehicles are advertised. Car companies compete with each other constantly. People know what they need and want.
Sometimes progress takes a little sacrifice. What’s interesting for me is are the other car companies (american of japanese or german) publicly saying anything on the increased mileage? If not, why is GM the only one complaining?
did anyone else hear about the car in india that is only $2500. its supposed to get 40mph on the hwy.
By 2020 GM is going to be called Matsusaka Motor Co. or something like it.
My view of American car manufacturers is very similar to my view towards the RIAA: learn to adapt or just go ahead and die already.
Speaking of fuel efficiency, I would suggest this article:
[www.fastcompany.com]
Ever hear the old tech industry chestnut “Fast, cheap, good…Pick Two”?
With the car industry it goes something like this: “Powerful, efficient, safe…pick two”.
I just bought a Toyota Yaris, Toyota’s cheapest car and the second cheapest new car on the lot. It gets over 35 mpg. GM could undoubtedly make a fuel efficient car without having to up the price $6000. The problem is convincing Americans they don’t need huge cars.
I would have loved to buy an American car (I loved my ’95 Dodge Neon that was just getting to expensive to maintain), but I went with the car that seemed to have the best mpg at the cheapest price.
If this is how out of touch the head of GM is, the future will continue to be bleak.
Three letters. EV1
@coaster.n3rd: I was referring to this lawsuit:
[www.environmentalleader.com]
So why doesn’t GM simply give usa checks for $6000, payable to Toyota, so we’ll all get Priuses. Being that, you know, they can’t meet a rudimentary engineering challenge that’s twelve years off.
@gingerCE: I know two of the big German manufacturers, BMW and Mercedes, are bringing their common-rail diesels to the US. The BMW 335d gets at least 40mpg highway, and Mercedes’ BlueTec (why do I want to call it BluTec? Feh on you, Sony!) engines deliver roughly the same mileage.
The car mags that have driven the 335d all praise it; what’s not to like about ~280bhp and ~420 lb/ft of torque while delivering 40+mpg (besides a 4k rpm redline and automatic transmission)?
@coaster.n3rd: Tee hee. Coaster is so adorable, being completely oblivious of the role, effectiveness and results of multi-billion dollar advertising campaigns.
Or, the “perfect” (read: sheeplike) consumer.
@youbastid:
Toyotas can be cheaper because they dont have to pay mediocre union workers like $75.00/hr to do a job that a trained monkey could do like glue windshields on cars. THAT is why GM cars cost so much. If they would fire all the union employees and hire a whole new staff that actually had an incentive to do a great job for like $25/hr (you cant get fired when in a union unless you kill someone so nobody puts out any extra effort) then GM cars would be MUCH cheaper
@snoop-blog:
Yeah I also hear that it was slightly larger than a bike , and the body is made from cellophane instead of steel
It’s sad they want to complain about this, when the technology has been around forever to accomplish this goal. Not to mention my wife’s 2002 Nissan SE-R SpecV (which is considered a Pocket Rocket, Rice Burner, Tuner Car, whatever), can get over 35 MPG on highway trips. GM, you are full of crap, and just trying to prop up a business model because you presented an unsustainable business model all those years ago, by promising all these retirement benefits to retirees. Those old pension plans are being paid for by the current generation to this day.
They don’t call him Maximum Bob for nothing. He’s a blow-hard, and lots of the statements that he makes are extreme. There are 2 issues here. 1 is that CAFE is indeed a bit brain-dead. For example, the way it’s calculated they get more benefit from raising a vehicle from 15 mpg to 20 than from 30 to 40. The other issue is that Bob Lutz likes to make threats, say it’s the work of the devil, say they’re going to have a totally new product the day after tomorrow or he’ll quit, etc.
If Bob Lutz says it’ll cost $6000 per vehicle to have cars out by 2020 that get their fleet average highway mileage at 35 mpg, figure it’ll cost $600 per vehicle to meet that goal in 2015.
The $6000 is in 2008 dollars, Even Lutz can’t see into the future. Regardless, As several have said, this is the same whining GM said when they wanted passed the clean air act, asked for seatbelts, airbags, Sulphur-reducing catalytic converters etc. etc. etc. As ‘techno’ put it best Honda has continually pushed these envelopes forward when everyone else said it couldn’t be done.
In 1970-72 GM executives testified before congress that the proposed emissions requirements couldn’t be met, They were ‘impossible’ without a catalytic converter that could run on a car, which didn’t yet exist. The head of Honda, then said, not only is is possible, but we can do it w/o a CC… Then Honda revealed the CVCC engine, and the rest is history. Lutz should shut up and start using those engineers to do something useful.
@ripple: ah life is overated anyhow.
@CaliforniaCajun:
Thats a great way to think about it! Best thing I read all day!
The new fuel economy standards are a load of shit, I don’t want some asshole in washington dictating that I must drive a small fuel efficent car, let the economy do its work and gas will become more expensive then I will CHOSE to drive a more efficent car.
Does anyone else see the irony that the most inefficient and wasteful organization in the world (the goverment) is forcing us to be more efficent.
I will say this.
What Europe has done with diesel is incredible.
Saturn is looking at a diesel car in 2009 (based on their partnership with Opel in Europe).
A recent article in Popular Mechanics outlines the possibility of using clean diesel to power cars and trucks that get 60-70 MPG.
So I can understand some of the treehuggers here saying that the technology has been around to make this happen. When they make a diesel F-150 that gets me 50 MPH, by golly I’m going to buy one to replace my gas guzzler.
And I betcha that if the automakers bring that clean diesel technology to the game, people will want to buy them. That’s capitalism, and that’s how it should work. Instead the automakers are going to whine about the added costs, end up using technology that currently exists, and charging us $6000 extra anyway. Then they will lose out to the foreign companies, and end up finding strategic ways to save and then will finally sell us these high-mileage cars at a decent price. That’s capitalism too.
The technology is there. And it is enough to even make these hated SUVs fuel efficient. And just as powerful.
*bows to Buran*
However, once this happens, will the SUVs still be a target even though they will be fuel efficient?
@trai_dep:
Yeah… sheep like. Sure… Will it suit you if i was like most of the commenters here? What if I sounded like this.
“My toyota gets me so far on a single tank, nevermind the recalls.. Toyota is perfect. Lurve tOyota… duuuuurrrrrrrrrrr…..”
Is that better? How about this:
“GM GO BANKRUPT… duurrrrr..”
I want to be just like you. i figure all I need is a labotomy and some tights.
Good thing I won’t ever buy a GM vehicle, lol. But really, if you can’t figure out the whole 35 MPG thing by 2020 then somebody better call the WHAAAmbulance.
wow, btw i didn’t get the whambulance reference from HRHKINGFRIDAY in the Merrill Lynch post. It was just too much of a coincidence to not say anything about it.
So that means the Tata Nano costs $-3500 to build?
Ignore it. These idiots whine and complain about every single safety innovation but manage to keep building cars that are priced fine.
They did this with seatbelts, too, for instance…
The same argument was raised against standardizing closed-caption decoders into TVs. What happened? The price dropped like a rock due to economies of scale and now a decoder chip for a TV, TV decoder card, or other widget costs a few cents over millions of units.
A couple of things here:
One : GM probably WON’T hire 2-3000 more engineers to meet these new standards.They WILL however, hire a bunch of lawyers and lobbyists to get the standards changed.
Two: Bob Lutz is as full of shit as a christmas turkey.Lutz (and his employer GM) would love to keep selling their 22 foot long profit boxes and when the fuel gets too pricey,just send a few thousand “volunteers” to die in some God forsaken desert to make it cheaper.I hope all of you assholes tooling around in your Escalade realize that our miltary is paying with their lives for your damn lifestyle appliance.
@youbastid:
I believe Coaster Nerd was referring to this news tidbit.
[www.greencarcongress.com]‘
As a consumer I am sick of listening to the US automakers whine about long term change. Our current newer car is a VW that gets 35 and it is a larger 4 door. So far it has been more reliable than our US gas guzzler.
When we were car shopping we found that getting a TDI diesel VW was nearly impossible and Prius were usually a waiting list. At the same time the GM dealerships are begging people to take their SUVs off their hands and offering all sorts of rebates.
GM claimed that nobody wanted to buy the EV1 electrics. There were waiting lists and people hanging outside of the recall factory picketing trying to keep their cars pulled back when the leases ended. If they were anywhere in the range of new car prices and I was ready to buy a new car I would be all over it.
Were already seriously considering buying a SMART car.
@snarkysnake: Please, don’t invite me for Thanksgiving dinner.
And for those of you complaining about US Consumers being sheep, this was an interesting post about Toyota’s halo effect on Consumerists sister site [jalopnik.com]
GM is welcome to price their cars $6000 more than their competition.
@coaster.n3rd: Quotations for lines you “borrow” from films.
(I want to be just like you. i figure all I need is a labotomy and some tights.)
Which one was that again anyway?
@ripple: Or you could look at it this way: If the US had a system of universal health insurance and a more generous form of public pensions, like in Japan, then those costs would be spread across society. Instead, US automakers are saddled with legacy costs that add a couple thousand dollars to the cost of each American car.
Also, why scapegoat union workers? They negotiated for their pay and benefits, and what they have is what GM is willing to give them. What’s wrong with that? GM is certainly willing to charge what the market will bear for their cars…why shouldn’t the UAW do the same with their labor?
@coaster.n3rd:
41.4? Really? The EPA on a ’06 Cobalt is only 22 in city and 31 on highway.
[www.fueleconomy.gov]
@ad8bc: I didn’t know all that about diesel — that’s great.
And I think you’ve adequately explained one of the biggest problems with free-market capitalism: theoretically, yes, companies should recognize that it’s in their best interests to provide fuel-efficient cars, and do so on their own.
Unfortunately, we aren’t running on theories, and in reality, sometimes companies are run by whiny morons who need a boot in the ass to get them to recognize their own best interests.
I don’t like government intervention much, but if the alternative is letting GM slowly drown in its own concentrated stupid, I suppose I’ll take it.
6K per a car if fine GM.
anyway my prediction for headlines in 2021. “GM goes bankrupt, closes doors.”
@randotheking: exactly what i said when i read the headline. This sounds suspiciously influenced by oil companies to me.