Still waiting for GM's city car 'revolution'

First, a confession: I am not much of a car aficionado. I truly appreciate the beauty of sports and luxury cars of different vintages, but when it comes to buying, I think about practicality.

So when I received a media alert on Friday that GM was going to unveil a "revolutionary vehicle to help people move through crowded cities" and solve other urban driving ills, I got excited.

The actual news was a bit of a letdown. GM and Segway showed off a two-wheel prototype vehicle based on Segway's scooter platform that lets two people tool around the city at 35 miles an hour on electric power. GM touted the vehicle's OnStar wireless communications to let people communicate with each other and stay clear of other vehicles.

It's an interesting way to rethink urban transportation. But it doesn't strike me as something that will make a dent on GM's income statement anytime soon.

What I really was hoping for was a GM mini-car. Something that's electric so it reduces in-city pollution. Small so that it can fit into tight spaces and ease congestion. And cheap so people around the world could afford it. That would show some innovation around fuel efficiency and offer proof that GM is serious about weaning itself from selling SUVs and trucks as passenger cars.

In fairness, it's worth noting that electric vehicles are a challenge in urban settings because people typically don't have a garage to plug into. But perhaps the community support automakers are seeking for electric vehicles could take the shape of charging pedestals or municipal fleet purchases.

(Credit: Martin LaMonica/CNET)

We've seen GM tout high-tech solutions before, arguing years ago that fuel cell vehicles were not too far away. GM certainly wasn't alone in that pursuit--which continues today--but hydrogen cars still need major technical breakthroughs to become practical.

The much-touted Chevy Volt, due by the end of next year, has a whiff of this high ambition as well. It's a "no compromise" car with both a battery and an internal combustion engine that will give people "hundreds of miles" of driving range, according to GM executives. An internal combustion engine acts as a battery generator for longer rides. The big battery will give drivers 40 miles on a charge but it takes up the middle of the back seat, making it a four-seater.

The company last week said that the Volt will have clever features like smart charging using its OnStar communication service that will let people schedule charging during off-peak times to potentially get cheaper rates. We can also expect the latest in car gadgetry like multiple displays and digital music services.

A high-volume seller?
Many people are excited by the Volt--the GM-Volt.com Web site, which was started by a Volt enthusiast with no affiliation with GM, has a "want list" of over 47,000 people.

By contrast, government auditors are lukewarm on the Volt platform, which GM plans to use with an Opel sedan in Europe. In its initial findings, the administration's task force said that the Volt was promising but "likely to be too expensive to be commercially viable in the short term."

General Motors hasn't said how much the Volt will cost but executives say that it's already working on a second-generation electric powertrain focused on cutting costs significantly.

Other automakers are placing some or all their bets on the all-electric route. Ford, Toyota, Nissan, Tesla Motors, and Detroit Electric are promising a driving range in the neighborhood of 100 miles or more per charge. In response to a poll I included in an article, over 80 percent of almost 700 readers said that a 100-mile range on batteries suits their needs for either a primary or second car.

Tesla Motors' CEO Elon Musk--who, admittedly, has a strong bias toward pure-electric vehicles--didn't have kind words for the range-extender concept of the Chevy Volt either.

A prototype of a Personal Urban Mobility and Accessibility vehicle, unveiled on Tuesday.

(Credit: GM)

In an interview with GM-Volt.com on Monday, he said that a range-extended electric vehicle is "neither fish nor fowl and ends up being worse (in our opinion) than either a gasoline or pure electric vehicle." Because of technicalities of battery types, the Volt's 40-mile battery pack is roughly half the size of a 200-mile battery pack for an all-electric vehicle, he said.

Certainly, gas-electric hybrids make sense. There are those like the Prius that run mainly on the gas engine and others like the Volt that run all the time in electric mode, augmented by the engine. Bright Automotive this month will unveil a plug-in electric that will get a 100 miles per gallon. Fisker Automotive's forthcoming plug-in electric luxury cars will have a range of 300 miles. Toyota and Ford have both said they expect gas-electric hybrids to be the dominant platform over all-electric vehicles in the years to come.

But for a revolution in city transportation? How about a cheap, small, low-polluting car, even one that's not electric? And why are only auto start-ups participating in the Progressive Automotive X-Prize contest to build a 100-mile-per-gallon car? If 100 miles per gallons is an achievable bar, then incumbent automakers need to learn how to do that profitably.

GM has some very good cars in its portfolio and I have a lot of respect for the people I've interacted with in the past several months writing about GM and electric vehicles.

But when it comes to product design choice, count me as a consumer who is wowed by innovation around fuel efficiency, reliability, and cost rather than the big concepts and bells and whistles. Sometimes high tech comes in a small and simple package.

[markb1967]

GM screwed themselves in the 1990's. Didn't want to make an electric car that didn't need maintenance and lasted 10+ years. So they killed the EV-1 and crushed the cars into a million pieces. stop giving them money, stop buying their sucky cars!

[Dalmatian28]

I agree with you! This thing is a joke! Now everyone that rides this will look like they are handicap. The designers of those handicap vehicles should file lawsuit for design infringement. This is so sad....how low can GM go????

[ddhboy]

I'm sorry if I'm not going to buy into the hype of an electric car.

First, over the grid electricity is remarkably much more expensive than gas power, in NY its about 17.34¢kWh where as gas is like 3¢kWh, not like it would make a difference since the grid is not up to snuff to handle the consumption required for electric cars, plus you wouldn't even help the environment since all that energy would come out of burning gas, oil and coal off site rather than in your car. California, who has really be pushing for electric cars has an even worse electrical market with an average of about 22¢kWh and a tighter limit on over the grid electricity.

Aside from which you can't yet just quick recharge an electric car and be on your way in the same way that you can just go to the gas station and fill up your tank and be on your way. Harping back to the EV-1, the car cost 80,000 dollars to build and while the Volt will probably be cheaper I can't imagine it costing less that 40,000 dollars, more likely 60,000.

Until battery technology advances and over the grid energy is powered by cheap near unlimited resources (Solar energy after a few more decades most likely) the Electric car is not the savior we seek, and like the EV-1, the Volt will ultimately be a financial disaster prompted by government pressure to deliver to the public some tangible evidence of progress on campaign promises made year after year.

[pentest]

I pay less than a penny per Kwh(90% hydro and 10% nuclear), my only reason for not buying this to get to work is that I have to drive on the freeway to get there.

[rfelgueiras]

Your numbers are bunk. Flat out. Plus a lot of NYC's power is bought from Canadian hydro. HYDRO. Clean WATER power from Quebec. How do you mean the grid isn't set up? Are you expecting hundreds of thousands to hit NYC this year? Support can be added when demand is increased.

The EV-1 may have been expensive, but they had them all signed for. Everyone driving one was willing to buy them right out and if development continued, we wouldn't be hitting the stumbling block in battery capacity technology today. Electronic Vehicles would be as much as fuel based vehicles... today. GM did that.

Most importantly, where did you get that number for gas? it's a flat out lie.

SHow your work, hommie, your numbers are off.

[texaslabrat]

@rfelgueiras

Agreed...his numbers are off, but not completely in an intuitive way. Gasoline provides energy at a rate of roughly 6 cents per kWh (assuming $2/gallon) using a figure of 125 MJ per gal. So, ddhboy's numbers are off by a factor of 2 right there. But that's not the biggest problem...the $0.06/kWh reflects the raw thermal energy contained in the chemical bonds...which then has to be converted to mechanical energy through a heat engine (whose efficiency has a definite ceiling defined by thermodynamic laws), and then further losses through the transmission and other portions of the drive train. While overall losses and engine efficiencies obviously vary a LOT from model to model..a decent rule of thumb is that you can expect around 25% thermal efficiency from a modern ICE-powered vehicle in a cruise state (not counting accessories, aerodynamic drag etc which are common to all vehicles regardless of propulsion tech). So that's another factor of 4. Total mis-representation is roughly a factor of 8...bringing the "usable" price of the power provided by gasoline to about $0.24 per kWh. Electric vehicles can have drivetrain efficiencies approaching 90%, and the charging losses can be negligible with the newest battery technology in conjunction with the high-voltage chargers. The economics are quite clear, if one bothers to actually dig into the REAL facts (as you've already alluded). Not to mention the fact that time-of-day electric rates can drop to as low as $0.05/kWh in many areas that don't have otherwise super-cheap hydro-electric power available. It's a no-brainer if the initial purchase cost can be restrained. And as the coupe-de-grace, one can use federal and local rebates to install solar/wind generation on your home and thus fuel costs are subsidized to be free after a few years....try putting a personal gasoline refinery in your back yard ;)

[rfelgueiras]

@ texaslabrat

Very nice breakdown. Where I am, the max is $0.05/kWh and drops to $0.025/kWh, and as I had mentioned in a comment further down, once you factor in the elimination of engine parts and service and electric vehicle has much more appeal than to just the environmentalists.

[meh130]

Unless the price of electricity has collapsed in the last few months, ddhboy is right. According to the U.S. Federal Government's Department of Energy (http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/epm/table5_6_a.html), New York residential electricity was 17.12 cents per KWh in December. The cheapest electricity in the U.S. was 6.9 cents per KWh in North Dakota.

[texaslabrat]

LOL @ meh130

Even at $0.17/kWh for electricity (which will be the exception rather than the rule for rates paid for charging overnight as more utilities go to time-of-day pricing)...gas is still more expensive on a per kWh basis even when it's $2.00/gal at the pump. So how does that make him "right"? You *do* understand that 24 is bigger than 17, right?

[ITcomposer]

Its called learning from one's mistakes, in the 1990's the rage was SUVs so they catered to that crowd. Look at fine examples of american cars that get praise

2010 Chevrolet Corvette ZR1 "Car of the year" by Jeremy clarkson - top gear
2008 Dode Viper, Beats a Fighter jet in the quater mile
2010 Chevy volt, whats about to be the first mass produced electric/hybrid car, and no the tesla doesnt count.

My point is that they are learning from their mistakes i believe that the CAMARO and the VOLT will save the company from the wolves.

[Maccess]

Camaro, in some editions was a great value for money hot rod. They even had a low cost stripped version with your choice of engine ready for hot-rodding. Unfortunately, Rick "SUV" Wagoneer chose to ignore these classic lines and focus everything on SUVs, where "the margins are higher." In the meantime, the Japanese, Koreans, and the Chines made massive investments in fuel efficiency research, green fuel, and cheap manufacturing respectively.

The VOLT is last year's technology in an outdated design due to be released next year, just as the next generation of electric car technologies hit the marketplace.

[sciontcya]

Oh great, another stupid-looking device nobody but mall-cops will use.
Thanks, but no thanks.
Chapter 11 and get it over with.
I deserve better with MY tax dollars...

[Mergatroid Mania]

I agree. The Personal Urban Mobility and Accessibility vehicle is just about the dumbest thing I've seen so far. Sure, it would be OK for some places, like perhaps Silicon Valley where they could make people leave their cars outside the core area and use these vehicles. However, in most other settings the PUMAV would be just a piece of junk getting in the way of traffic and scaring the pedestrians away.
The thing doesn't even have any doors. You going to drive this thing in the middle of winter? It's more suited to indoor use at airports or something. Maybe Disneyland will buy a few.
As for the Volt, too little too late. They should have gone with pure electric...Oh wait, they did that 10 years ago, but forced all the people leasing them to give them up so they could be crushed and added to landfills. It's time these two companies went though with chapter 11 so they can stop feeding at the public tax teat. They wanted to make more money by selling SUVs, and this is where it got them. Let the archaic dinosaurs die.

[theBike1945]

You'd think this writer would know the difference between this vehicle and a scooter. he doesn't. therefore he's not competent to write about such things.
As for that belatedly "loved" EV-1 that GM produced, we must point out to the many morons who've said things about it (like the historiacally nonsensical film "Who Killed the Electric car?") which somehow has transformed the situation in which GM, Honda and Toyota all built, and then discontinued "experimental" electric vehicle programs into one in which GM controled, by itself, the destiny of the modern electric car. These typical GM-haters are as brainless as their arguments. We all know that the EV-1, Toyota Rav4 electric and Honda EV were useless vehicles that no one could afford (EV-1 leasees - the few that existed in real life- never paid even half the costs of those cars). At no time were more than 2/3rds of the EV-1 on lease. GM didn't kill the program - it was already long dead
before they mercifully pronounced the useless vehicle dead. Not one single magazine article at the time bemoaned anything other than GM's stupidity for sinking that much money into such a white elephant. A car with a driving radius of less than 50 miles is of no value. Certainly not the $45,000 plus that car cost. The batteries alone cost $25,000 and lasted around 5 years or so. In no significant fashion was the EV-1 any advance,ment over the detroit electric circa
1908. In 90 years the electric car had advanced hardly at all.

[Mergatroid Mania]

Get a brain man. Talk to the people who OWNED the vehicles. THEY are the ones to listen to as to whether or not it was a good vehicle, not some guy who never even rode in one let alone owned one.

And if they had of continued producing these vehicles, they would have been well refined and much less expensive by now.

The electric car advanced hardly at all because gas was so cheap that the large auto manufacturers stopped researching them.

Batteries were advancing at the time GM forced all the leasers to give up the vehicles. These people actually offered to purchase the remaining vehicles but GM refused. Why is that? Because they were "useless vehicles"? I can't speak for everyone, but if I leased something that was useless I sure wouldn't be offering to purchase it outright when the lease was up.
GM did everything in their power to kill off the EV1. There was actually a waiting list of people wanting to buy the things, but GM wouldn't sell them. They fought against their own sales team.

It would appear to me that the "typical GM-haters" aren't the brainless morons here.

[mutualin4mation]

Where's the huge consumer demand for an electric car? There isn't one! Politicians and media "experts" bash GM for not making small cars but guess what? Small cars don't sell. GM made SUVs and trucks that people wanted to buy and were profitable to make.

GMs problem isn't that they do or don't make the right car or truck. Their problem is that they have more capacity than they need, legacy contracts, huge debt, too many models and brands and can't shed them easily and they can't turn on a dime and and change up models. GM is big slow fat and poor.

Right now sales are down for all car makers. Does anyone think that if GM had an electric car ready now it would sell well enough to pull the company back?

[pentest]

SUV's and trucks should be limited. They are gas guzzling, dangerous boxes.

Get over your issues and stop over-compensating.

[chili_picante]

You're right: We shouldn't blame the car makers for making the cars that consumers want. But, Congress should have the guts to do the only thing that will make the USA reduce its demand for gasoline: Raise the gas tax so that gas does not fall below $4 a gallon. Painful, but that's reality!

[MadLyb]

@pentest

It's my money and my choice, just as you choose a different path.

Get over yourself and stop defining my lifestyle.

[brandonh33]

GM's main two problems are unions and the government. GM was doing just fine untill the government got involved. They tell them what cars to make, tell them what cars not to make, tax the hell out of everything, tax tax and tax some more on the larger vehicles. Impossible emission and mpg restrictions are put into place. They are then forced to make cars like the Cobalt. Who here actually wants a Cobalt? The cars that were popular like the SUV's are now taxed and not affordable. The free market cannot play its role here as the cars of high demand are being made not available and the cars of low demand are being pushed forward by the government. Then everyone is surprised when GM is in trouble. We are now pumping hundreds of billions of dollars into a company that the government has already focused on corrupting.

The second problem is the union. It is simple. You cannot afford to stay in business when you are paying your workers $50/hr while Toyota is paying its workers $20/hr. If the CEO's wont suck it up and show the unions who's boss they then go into CH. 11 which solves all those issues. The company can now begin to regrow and be productive. Well, the government decides to step in and once again ruins one of the major steps in keeping a free market thriving.

And here we are staring at this thing. This should be a lesson to you about what happens when you trust the government to run a company. I thought you would learn with the post office but I guess that just wasnt enough evidence for you.

[Art Dir]

@MadLyb;

If your "lifestyle" includes an oversized gas guzzling vehicle you don't need other than to suit your own vanity, then you are forcing your "lifestyle" on everyone else in the form of excessive carbon emissions and dependancy on foreign oil.

As to auto mfgs making cars the public wants, that's a chicken vs. egg issue. The public chooses from what's offered. Offer a fuel efficient car (or one that successfully leaves fossil fuel behind) that saves money and earns a tax credit, and a good portion of the public will want one just as they did the smaller, more affordable cars the Japanese and Koreans offered.

Why should our auto industry let the Asian companies once again out do us because a few cavemen insist auto makers cater to the past?

[Art Dir]

@MadLyb;

If your "lifestyle" includes an oversized gas guzzling vehicle you don't need other than to suit your own vanity, then you are forcing your "lifestyle" on everyone else in the form of excessive carbon emissions and dependancy on foreign oil.

As to auto mfgs making cars the public wants, that's a chicken vs. egg issue. The public chooses from what's offered. Offer a fuel efficient car (or one that successfully leaves fossil fuel behind) that saves money and earns a tax credit, and a good portion of the public will want one just as they did the smaller, more affordable cars the Japanese and Koreans offered.

Why should our auto industry let the Asian companies once again out do us because a few cavemen insist auto makers cater to the past?

[Mergatroid Mania]

There can be no demand for something that doesn't exist.

Make a decent electric vehicle at a reasonable price and watch the demand start and then increase. It would likely start with fleets for corporations looking for carbon offsets, then governments looking to set an example, then taxi companies looking to save money.

It happened this way with hybrids, and it would happen the same way with electric if they were actually available.
If I could have bought an electric at the same price as the car I purchased when I purchased a new vehicle, I would have bought one.

SUVs and trucks should have a huge surtax on them to make the owners pay for using more than their fair share of gas, and polluting the environment more than their fair share. If people were made to pay through the nose for these types of rides, they wouldn't be in such demand. Perhaps governments should start rationing gas, then how many SUVs would be in demand?

[JonFraudCarry]

The sooner GM goes bankrupt the better. The PUMA has to be the dumbest idea yet.

[kimocrossman]

IEEE says there are good reasons to think twice about electronic vehicles -

These guys should know this is the international Electrical Engineers association

http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/mar09/8068

"The base case in our study assumes batteries cost US $1000 per kilowatt-hour of capacity. We looked at cheaper batteries, too, but the base case might be a little bit cheap already. And even at that price, you cannot make up the cost of the batteries in fuel savings over the lifetime of the vehicle. So even though you get to operate it on electricity rather than gasoline more of the time, all the fuel savings in the future don?t add up to what you paid for a big battery up front."

[pentest]

There are more important things than saving many. What happens when the oil supply dries up? It is a finite supply that no one knows how long it will last. Could be as short as 50 years. What about polution? Congestion?

Stop being shortsighted and look at the long term picture. The first few iterations won't be that great, but will improve over time. We won't get there without going through growing pains. We should have started this drive in the 70's and we are paying a high price for that extremely shortsighted decision back then.

[pentest]

many = money

[rfelgueiras]

if you factor in the leaps in technology we go through, the quality and capacity will increase and that cost will come down when mass produced. The reason Batteries are so expensive is because no one has been developing them to power vehicles on a large scale since there was no one developing an electric car for the masses, or - more accurately, those who did - stopped.

Bottom line, just like processors, flash drives and many other electronic devices ? the technology will get cheaper, faster, lighter and more readily available if properly invested in. In the mean time I guess Electric car owners will have to just make due with never needing to service the engine or replacing it's parts. No belts, oil chainges, hoses or gaskets. That should return some money in your pocket.

[ddhboy]

Pentest, you certainly won't fight pollution by using an electric car. You'd just use the grid's power sources to a greater extent which means that they would have to create more power. That means that they'll be burning more coal, oil and gas. Again, Electric cars and Solar Panels are wonderful things, but they just aren't in the position to take over and any argument to the contrary based on scare tactics like the "foreign dependency on oil" bit are impratical in considering economic factors.

People were complaining when gas was 3 bucks, do you really think they'd justify paying twice as much to drive as they do now?

[pentest]

The electricity in my area is 90% hydro and 10% nuclear, so you are incorrect.

[TogetherinParis]

I just bought a .7 Kwatt-hour battery (LiFePO4 with BMS and free charge system) from red China for $355.00. And that price included delivery from China to Florida by express mail! $1000.00 per kilowatt-hour is double what I paid last month.

[Mergatroid Mania]

The point isn't just to save money on fuel.

Why don't you people get it? Fossil fuels are destroying our environment.

THAT'S THE POINT, no whether or not you like electric, not how much they cost, not what you will save over gas, and not that you "should have the right to drive whatever you want".

When you're right to drive whatever you want means you are a larger contributor than everyone else to destroying the environment, then everyone else's right to a clean environment trumps your right to a gas guzzling ride.

All these arguments you people are spouting off are the exact same arguments that got us in this mess in the first place. I don't hear you coming up with any better ideas.

Even if electric vehicles were overall more costly than gas (which is arguable) it doesn't matter because we have to do something to save the environment, not your own personal wallet.

[ScottMercerx]

"A car with a driving radius of 50 miles is of no value"

What an idiotic statement. 80% of all car owners drive less than 50 miles per day. OF COURSE there is market for electric cars. Okay, not EVERYONE will want one, but there are more than enough people who will! The reason that they have not sold up until now is that a major car maker has not offered a pure electric car in 90 years. The EV-1 was on a lease, not sold. The Ford Ranger EV was only sold to fleet purchasers. The Honda EV was never promoted or advertised.

When a major auto maker sells a pure EV, all you naysayers will be proven wrong. When the Chevy Volt comes out, it will be just as successful as the Prius. If GM doesn't go bankrupt by then.

The other thing about the PUMA: first you deride GM for not thinking outside the box, then you criticize them for not building a "real car"! The whole point of the PUMA is that people who live in large cities don't NEED a "real car," it's a waste of space where space is at a premium. Yes, this looks stupid, but I think a lot of people are going to consider it if it costs 25% of a real car to buy and operate it.

[grossph]

So what you are saying is that people will need to own two cars...an electric for driving the less then 50 miles a day and another car for when they drive more then that....

Electric cars are not the answer...Bio-Diesel and CNG/LNG are...we have an infrastructure already in place to support it...car companies will not have to retool to produce cars that run on it...and the supplies are renewable or abundant ... ....

[pentest]

Just rent in the rare time(for most people) that they need more than that.

[csg7]

An electric version of the Smart car would be great rather than this stupid looking version of a two seater vehicle.

[Hunnter2k3]

THIS! Just convert Smart cars to full electrical.
They have the looks and space with a slight addition of weight.
The weight might seem bad, but when you consider that extra space can be used for either a bigger battery, or a 2nd battery that could be charged on negative elevations / slopes and braking, it more-or-less vanishes.

Hey, even better idea, why not do this, but also add a pedal wheel, exercise WHILE driving! It's a million dollar idea!
BRB, going to the patent office with an actual decent invention. Shame it wouldn't even be used that much, damn lazy society. :(

[Seaspray0]

@hunnter2k3. Save the trip to the patent office, it's been done. They called it a moped.

[tetsuyo]

The idea is to make electric cars and then let the public build the infrastructure to support them. That is what happened with gasoline cars. It is a weak excuse to say that there is no market for it or that the technology is not ready. The whole idea is to be at the forefront of the technology so that our economy gets the benefit from any subsequent technology advances. We achieved that with the advance of the Internet and if we get our heads out of our ***** we can do the same thing with solar energy and electric cars. If we can only think long term instead of short term for a change we might be able to make some progress instead of going from one devastating economic bubble to the next.

GM needs to pay the price for its lack of ability to think long term and change with the times. Why bailout a company with no vision? When they killed the EV-1 it was a sign of poor vision when they could have asked for government subsidies to keep the program alive if need be. When it comes to corporate handouts, I want to see my taxpayer money being used for forward thinking ideas, not to subsidize stupidity like we are seeing now with these corporate bailouts. Invest the taxpayer money into solar energy grids and electric vehicles and then lets sell that know how to the rest of the world. That is the way forward to building a new US economy.

[esix]

A couple of thoughts, considering cost, time to street, and simplicity. A short time ago I read about an Opel racer of GM's which exceeds 110 mph at better than 110 mpg (I don't remember the exact numbers). The car reportedly uses a 3 cylinder diesel engine. What kind of mileage would this engine deliver in a sedan at highway speeds? Why isn't GM considering using this AVAILABLE technology in their vehicles? Another curiosity, I have a GMC diesel truck which gets an average of 18mpg highway with the engine running at approximately 2200rpm. I had a Suburban which had a MUCH smaller gas engine which ran at 1500 rpm highway. I often wonder what mileage the truck would get with an appropriate matching of transmission to engine.

[Seaspray0]

Most likely EPA emission regulations prevent it. Diesel engines have a rough time with EPA standards.

[megustansalchichas]

why can't i just buy an effing tata nano in this country? i thought this was the home of the free? f gm! if they can't plan to pay their retirees they deserve to go out of business. don't tell me those costs are unreasonable -why the f do you hire people with the promise of paying their retirement if you're not going to fund it? this is the same thing that's happening with our social security and guess what -we're all going to have the same problem, but worse, because there will be no one to bail us out except our grandkids.
it's like nobody thinks of the future here, it's all about now me now, and then wonder why other people hate the fat entitled americans.

[sanenazok]

Hahaha "home of the free." That ended with Roosevelt and of course the NEW New Deal for us today. The Nano will never pass safety and emissions tests in the US. Even the Yugo needed 2 years of re-working before it could be brought here and it wasn't much of a departure from smaller cars already on the market.

[ddhboy]

Simple, because in its current form, the Tata Nano would not past the government safety test, and it would do atrociously on the insurance highway safety test, making insurance on the vehicle high. Tata wants to make a US build of the car, but that will inevitably mean that the sheet metal and plastic frame would have to be replaced with more studier materials, radio would have to be standard for the market, and the engine would need more torque because it would be expected that this thing at least make highway speed and the car would weigh more because of the change in framing, also the wheels would have to be changed to accommodate the higher weight capacity. So yeah, would cost more upon a US release, maybe $10,000, and it probably wouldn't sell very well either because of its styling.

[kcotham]

A series hybrid like the Volt makes a lot more sense than the parallel hybrids like the Insight and Prius. Electric motors are more efficient than gasoline engines. And since most people drive less than 40 miles in a day, then the gasoline engine will almost never even have to come on. I agree that car manufacturers, especially the American ones have to take the plunge and go all electric, like Tesla has. They've squandered hundreds of opportunities to become world leaders in this realm. If they had taken advantage of the economic problems of the 1970s, this would all be a moot discussion. We'd be driving electric vehicles with battery technology far beyond what we have now. But the price of gasoline fell and there was no incentive to invest in alternative power. This is the disadvantage of a market driven economy, it's extremely short-sighted. Instead of playing catchup, the Big Three would be in the lead.

I say let Ford, GM, and Chrysler sink. They did it to themselves. If we truly have a capitalistic economy, then let the unfit fall by the wayside. Give that federal bailout money to companies like Tesla and other innovative companies that can really do something good. Instead we're feeding the juggernaut. Huge corporations are like the Titanic, they'll take forever to change course. Invest in smaller, more nimble companies, that's where the future lies.

[BtmnHatesRbn]

These will be re-called after a few folk are pancaked to death while in an accident. You'll see.

[amadensor]

We can fix this now. Every time the cops see anyone driving an SUV, or anything else that gets less than 25 MPG, pull them over. The tow truck comes, and tows it straight to the crusher, no questions, no exceptions. Immediate reduction in fuel consumption!

[sciontcya]

Obama, is that you?
You can't hide here, commie.

[jwissick]

You can try. Except that the tow trucks would be the first to go.... they get even worse than any SUV.

[brandonh33]

Go ahead and try, but just remember, I am clinging to my guns and religion. So when you try and take my truck you can first cope with my gun I am "clinging" to, you can then cope with god.

Sidenote: No this is not a threat you can calm down, just a little humor.

[pretenderkc]

the remaining TARP should be given to Tesla Motor Corp. they got a cool electric car that looks cool and give you a decent range.

the cost is a bit high for average consumer.
of course, this is true for all new technology.
but with the subsidy from the government, they can mass produce the vehicle and sell it at gasoline counterpart vehicle.

Obama just visited Tesla plant recently.
hopefully, he'll make the right choice.
talk about American pride....let us not miss the boat on this one.....AGAIN!!!

[jwissick]

Tesla. Electric cars for the RICH only. They have no plant and their cars cost more than 120K!!

You say it is a "bit" high in cost. I don't know anyone who can afford 120k for a frigging car. Tesla is a non-starter.

[Jadefa]

You boneheads are all gonna be walking soon 'cause in your zealous crusade to remove all traces of human existence from the universe are going to force the extinction of the combustion engine long before you idiots scratch the surface of hydrogen powered cars. Has anybody thought of the consequences of counting your chickens before they hatch, or spending your tax return before you get it? You green fools are only green because of the amount of dope that's required for you to smoke to keep you aloft in the parallel universe of environmental worship.

[Mergatroid Mania]

People like you are the ones who caused this problem in the first place.

[mutualin4mation]

I've never owned and SUV and have only owned honda civics. My wife and I share one car and I take the bus to work. My next car will be a motorcycle that will get 70+mpg.

None of which negates the fact that electric vehicles and/or small fuel efficient cars would have saved GM. It wouldn't have.

[meh130]

I saw a Smart Car on the road the other day an thought, "God help them if they ever get into an accident".

Today I see this thing and think, "You gotta be kidding me." This is not a car. It should not be street legal. And it is too big for the sidewalk. This is a joke.

Electric cars may make sense in a France-like, 80% nuclear electric world. Personally, I would rather see electric buses, electric trains, etc. first. Alcohol fuel cell and biodiesel internal combustion engine powered cars, and plug-in hybrids of those may make more sense than pure electric cars in the near term.

[jwissick]

Surprisingly the Smart cars do rather well in crash tests against walls. Of course if they get hit by a semi, nothing will be left to even show that the car even existed.

[tetsuyo]

Anything that gets hit by a semi is in trouble! I do not buy a car in the hope that it will survive a crash with a semi. Again we need to get out of this short term type mentality and start thinking of the future. We need to stop placing all of our problems on future generations. We would not have a country or be here if our pioneers and founding fathers thought like that. Every generation needs to make sacrifices for their country in some way. Thank God that we do not have to fight major wars to survive, but what we do have to do is to set this country up to be independent of foreign oil and to develop the next new economic engine that will drive our economy. By moving to solar power generation and electric cars we can do that. The result is that people will adapt and live closer to where they work. Our lifestyles will change for the better as we become a more independent and efficient society. Our space program will improve with the relevant new technology, and thus make way for even greater technological breakthroughs.