Comments on: Is The Chevy Volt Just More GM Greenwashing?

By: tim

tim — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 05:43:01 +0000

they’re clearly betting the Volt will _fail_

to markedly reduce their mpg average by pushing back this bill. wtf?

By: tim

tim — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 05:41:00 +0000

let me get this straight….
they’re using money they could otherwise spend to make the bill a non-issue for them to lobby on a bill, and in the process, arguing the bill they’re squandering their R&D dollars from by funneling it into lobbying against this bill… is a bad bill… because it would funnel money away from… R&D to lower the mpg… because it would require… R&D… to do this?

huh?

By: Frank Rizzo

Frank Rizzo — Thu, 23 Aug 2007 13:34:47 +0000

Don’t be surprised if we get new CAFE standards, and then oil consumption doesn’t go down a lot. People will drive more in a car that gets good mileage. Same thing with more energy efficient houses; improve efficiency standards, and people will buy bigger houses and set the thermostat to a more comfortable setting.

By: Felix Kramer

Felix Kramer — Fri, 27 Jul 2007 18:11:18 +0000

GM does seem to want to have it both ways. I believe the company is trying to get the Volt to market quickly. But it won’t acknowledge the implications of this car.

The Detroit Free press has a story that backs up Joe Romm and the Wall Street Journal report cited: http://www.freep.com/ apps/ pbcs.dll/ article?AID=/ 20070727/ BUSINESS01/ 707270345

To which I had the same general response as Lou Grinzo: I posted:

it’s ironic that GM points to the plug-in hybrid Chevy Volt as a placeholder for future technologies and therefore somehow as an argument why 35MPG isn’t possible by 2018. This is a car GM hopes to have in production as early as 2010.

With Toyota saying that it will have hybrid options for its whole line in a few years, and its entire fleet mostly hybrids by 2020, and Ford starting to come around on plug-in hybrids. the whole industry could significantly exceed 35MPG within 10 years.

– Felix Kramer, Founder, The California Cars Initiative (CalCars.org)

By: Lou Grinzo

Lou Grinzo — Fri, 27 Jul 2007 17:05:58 +0000

I have one question for the Big Three: If plug-ins are “the” answer and inevitable and being developed as quickly as possible, then why would they object to higher CAFE standards that plug-ins would easily leap past?

If it’s a short-term concern, then surely they would be willing to sign on to a plan that says the CAFE standards stay the same for the next 3 or 4 years, to give the companies time to get PHEV’s to market, then rise much more dramatically than anything planned today. Unless, of course, they’re just blowing green smoke…