Critics of Chevrolet's upcoming plug-in gas-electric hybrid Volt fail to realize one thing: it doesn't matter if the car isn't perfect. It doesn't even matter if the Volt fails to achieve ANY of its much-hyped metrics: price, range or reliability. It's what happens AFTER GM's Hail Mary is released that counts. If GM can keep plugging away (so to speak) on the Volt, they could, eventually, offer a genuine competitor to the the all-conquering Toyota Prius. One need only look at the fiddly roof still blighting the once red-hot Pontiac Solstice to know the odds of this happening are not high. Or, alternatively, contemplate GM's new product development history vs. the genesis of the Prius.
Back in the late 1980s and early 1990s, academics investigated why Japanese companies in general, and Japanese auto companies in specific, were doing so well. A key finding: while American companies tended to think the choice was between a breakthrough, “leapfrogging” product and more of the same, Japanese companies often pursued a “rapid inch-up” strategy. With the latter, you get a reasonably good product at a viable price to market, learn from the process, then follow up with an improved (if still not perfect) product. Lather, rinse, repeat.
Companies seeking a "moon shot" breakthrough are much more likely to get discouraged, ball up the entire effort, and start over from scratch. They miss the basic rule: companies that aim for and achieve a series of base hits with innovative products often end-up outscoring those that alternate between swinging for the fences and sitting it out.
Japanese companies have had a further advantage: a significant number of Japanese "early adopters." These consumers are willing to buy bleeding edge technology for its own sake. They’ll pay well over the odds for an imperfect innovation– as long as it’s more advanced than any available alternative. That goes double if the new technology can be conspicuously consumed. Lest we forget, the Prius was originally developed for Japan, not for Hollywood.
Are these purchasing decisions rational? In isolation and in strictly financial terms, no. But when people buy a new technology, it gives the manufacturer the learning experience and financial means to launch continuous improvements and, eventually, benefit from economy of scale. The rest of us eventually get an improved, less expensive iteration. So, in the long run, these initially expensive decisions make a lot of sense.
Remember all of the arguments against digital cameras? The same process of slow growth leading to a mass market tipping point applied to the Prius– and could well apply to ALL hybrids. Is the Prius perfect? No. Does offer leading-edge technology at a price many people can afford? Yes, as we approach the third generation, it does.
This is a critical point. Toyota isn’t ready to say, “mission accomplished.” The next Prius, with slightly improved everything, will arrive next year. No doubt work has already begun on its fourth generation replacement.
Compare the Prius' slow and steady march to GM’s failed sprints. Time and time again, they’ve created a car they thought would leapfrog the competition. When it didn’t meet expectations, they cut off investment, often abandoning the model name. GM didn’t learn from the Corvair-Vega-Cavalier-Saturn (or the less ambitious Cobalt). Each time, they failed to quickly follow up with incrementally improved versions until they got the product right. (The exception that proves the rule: the Chevrolet Corvette.)
Seeking a breakthrough, GM spent a billion dollars to develop the all-electric EV1 (while serving pushrods to the masses). When the EV1 failed to set the world on fire, GM crushed it. Despite the looming Toyota Prius, lost U.S. market share and anti-SUV grumblings, there was no EV2.
True, GM does have its “dual-mode hybrid.” Though technically superior to the system in the current Prius, it was introduced in GM’s most outmoded package-—a large, live-axled, body-on-frame SUV. The enormous cost differential would not be insurmountable to early adopters. But what are the chances of buyers of large conventional SUVs fitting that description? Predictably, GM hybrid SUV sales have been dismal.
There will soon be a dual-mode Saturn VUE. The “dual-mode” variant will look much like regular VUEs, and the costly system could send its price deep into the thirties. But it could work. The key question: will GM continue to iterate even if sales remain low— or will they abandon the dual-mode system entirely when the Volt's E-Flex architecture appears? No points for answering that question.
The plug-in Chevy Volt is, indeed, GM's best hope in this most recent technological arms race. It will come in a distinctive wrapper (we think). It will seat four (unlike the EV1). On the downside, it's increasingly clear– thanks to Car Czar Bob Lutz' shrug at a recent test of a Volt mule– that GM's Hail Mary won't be cheap. Again, so what? The more important factor: does GM have the will (and financial ability) to learn from the experience and persevere through the inevitable setbacks to continuously improve upon the initial effort and bring the costs down?
We shall see. Meanwhile, critics of both the Prius and the Volt don’t get it. They knock the vehicles for failing to meet their expectations for a paradigm shift. By so doing, the naysayers delay the very things they claim to want.
Fantastic products rarely emerge from the lab fully-formed, like Athena from Zeus' head. And if everyone waited for perfect products, and criticized anyone who didn’t do likewise, we’d still be riding horses. The best possible products evolve over time when persistent visionary companies team up with technophilic consumers to engage in continuous innovation. At which point the naysayers say, “Now it’s good enough for me,” without the slightest sense of hypocrisy.
Great writing, Michael. There’s a great article linked from Autoblog this morning (originally from the Atlantic Monthly) that gives an in-depth report on the Volt development. Worth a read. GM will certainly learn incredible things and drive innovation with this car, regardless of whether they succeed or not. Just because they have made such a huge PR deal out of this, Toyota, Nissan/Renault, and others have stepped up their electric car development just to make sure they aren’t left behind. The end result will be the paradigm-changing product coming sooner than it otherwise would, whether it comes from GM or not.
Very well written although I can’t agree with a few of your point just yet.
“One need only look at the fiddly roof still blighting the once red-hot Pontiac Solstice to know the odds of this happening are not high.”
One can also look at GM’s Corvette (as you stated), pick-up trucks and full-sized SUV’s and come to the alternative conclusion that GM can lead the field as well. If we were to just simply pick our battles to make our points, then we could simply say that Toyota can’t make a fun subcompact, Acura can’t hold a candle to Lexus, and Nissan can’t build a good full-sized pickup.
I have no doubt that GM can offer an excellent product regardless of who is their ‘Car Czar’. My only wish is that they could simply cut off many of their dealership arrangements without going into Chapter 11. That’s the real source of pain for GM’s predicament.
“A key finding: while American companies tended to think the choice was between a break-through, “leapfrogging” product and more of the same, Japanese companies usually pursued a “rapid inch-up” strategy.”
The key difference between the two has been the development of lean production vs. mass production, and the level of involvement over the development and assembly process that assembly line employees and suppliers have in this arrangement. GM was widely considered to be the last to abandon many of the older models, and they certainly paid the price. But that as you said was back in the 1980’s to mid-1990’s.
“Fantastic products never emerge from the lab like Athena from Zeus’ head. And if everyone waited for perfect products, and criticized anyone who didn’t do likewise, we’d still be riding horses. The best possible products evolve over time when persistent visionary companies team up with technophilic consumers to engage in continuous innovation. At which point the naysayers say, “Now it’s good enough for me,” without the slightest sense of hypocrisy.”
This is undoubtedly the best conclusion I’ve read from any editorial. I officially give you a TTAC gold star and the unofficial (until RF decides otherwise) quote of the week.
It does seem very promising. But the same was said of the EV1 at the time. There’s a pretty good book about the development of that car called “The Car that Could.” It was chock full of innovations that would supposedly spread to the rest of GM’s products, and boost efficiency across the line.
How much of this actually happened?
I personally think the Volt will have a much larger long-term impact (pun fully intended). But I also wonder if, in thinking this, I’m failing to learn from history. About once a decade (twice in the early 1990s, took a breather in the early 2000s) GM sets out to reinvent the small car. Let’s all hope for more of a follow-through this time.
Steven,
True, GM’s inability to incrementally improve a product, and instead aim for revolutionary leaps, has been concentrated in small cars.
What we’re really talking about though–and as such both the Solstice and Corvette examples are somewhat off-topic (my bad)–is the path to a world-changing product, or at least to one that changes the fates of the players.
“(while serving pushrods to the masses)”
Sigh….another baseless bash against pushrods in an otherwise excellent article. Didn’t expect that from you, Michael.
GM’s moonshot ideology is just one of many systemic cultural problems, most of which are not unique to the rest of the US auto industry or the vast majority of corporate America for that matter.
Toyota began designing the Prius right smack in the middle of the cheap oil, all-hail-the-SUV days of the mid 90’s. The idea that there should be good fuel-efficient cars in the model line-up, let alone something outside the ICEbox, was completely out of the minds of the short attention span theatre that is the US auto industry. They were too busy doing stupid things with their cash like caving to the whims of the UAW and buying prestigious but defunct European marques. With all the profits GM pissed away the fuel celled powered EV could be on the market or Ford could have had their own hybrid in its second or third generation.
But credit where credit is due, at least somewhere in GM there are people willing to really try something different. When was the last time we saw that kind of innovation out of Ford or Chrysler? If those people were better able to move their ideas through GM’s corporate minefield then maybe we would see a very different GM. One that acted more like Toyota and less like one where the really good ideas are kept in a box until the market changes and the bosses go into a panic.
The bash against pushrods isn’t without basis. GM has produced one world class pushrod-operated engine. And the 3800 also had its uses.
But there’s a reason we’re seeing four-valve engines across the line from everyone including GM that goes beyond marketing. Hook such engines up to transmissions with relatively small gaps between the ratios, and you get more power and more efficiency.
This said, I was using pushrods as a shorthand for the huge gap between the powertrain technology GM was putting into its regular cars in the early 1990s and what it did with the EV1.
radimus,
Ford was quite innovative a mere century ago. How about that Model T? (Well, until they failed to continuously improve the product and let GM jump ahead.)
Chrysler–that would be the 1930s Airflow. Which GM used considerable PR muscle to deep six.
This can also partly be blamed on the equity compensation for the Big 2.8’s executives. Being too focused on near-term results that will drive their company’s market cap…results in focusing too much of the company’s attention on SUV’s.
I believe the executives of all the auto companies KNEW years ago that the price of gas wouldn’t be declining in the new future. But due to Wall Street, they said to themselves, “We can’t stop focusing on Truck and SUV sales now. Small cars arent’ as profitable.”
And as a result, theses companies are now facing extinction instead of “reduced, yet sustainable, profitability”.
Steven Lang
“One need only look at the fiddly roof still blighting the once red-hot Pontiac Solstice to know the odds of this happening are not high.”
One can also look at GM’s Corvette (as you stated), pick-up trucks and full-sized SUV’s and come to the alternative conclusion that GM can lead the field as well.
And I would submit that if the Corvette had been introduced by GM in 1993 instead of 1953, and without a “champion” like Zora Arkus-Duntov protecting it internally, it would have been allowed to dry on the vine and already killed due to lack of sales. The same seems to be happening to the Solstice/Sky — when was the last time you saw an advertisement for either and what improvements has GM made to them as they go into their third model year? (They’re actually finishing their third calendar year on the market this summer.)
And you only have to look at the Cobalt, the Colorado, the G6, the Equinox, the TrailBlazer and several other models to see GM’s product development philosophy in action: develop it until it’s somewhat better than the model it replaces (don’t worry about making it the best in its class). Throw it out in the market and only make whatever changes in it from year to year that are needed to keep it legal with the feds or within CAFE standards. Then immediately start working on something to replace it in 4 – 6 years because even the fleets won’t want to buy it by then.
And regarding pushrods, maybe I’m off here but it seems to me that one of GM’s strengths has been to take simple, and perhaps outdated, tech and still do some great things with it. After all, the Corvette still sits on leaf springs and even Clarkson raves about it.
The leaf springs used in the Corvette are nothing like traditional leaf springs. They’re composite, not steel, and run transversely rather than longitudinally.
That said, I’ve heard they’ll be going away because of various inherent limitations.
Great points, except… what innovation was GM pursuing after they axed the EV1? Actually, they appeared to stop supporting the EV1 long before the program was canceled. Probably right around the time they bought Hummer.
Ford was quite innovative a mere century ago. How about that Model T? (Well, until they failed to continuously improve the product and let GM jump ahead.)
Chrysler–that would be the 1930s Airflow. Which GM used considerable PR muscle to deep six.
Right, but what really innovative thing have they done since? They’ve made some nice cars and all, but it’s really just more of the same.
The Corvair had it’s issues, but it was certainly a stab at something different. The Vega is generally regarded as a big fat mistake, but again at least they tried to do a lot of new things there. The EV1 was a good start to thinking farther away from the same old same old. The Volt is certainly a different tack on the hybrid car idea, but not all that new for GM. They have been building a similar system in their transit buses since 2005.
Anyway, I really hope GM can put the Volt to market and make it work.
True, GM does have its “dual-mode hybrid.” Though technically superior to the system in the current Prius, it was introduced in GM’s most outmoded package-—a large, live-axled, body-on-frame SUV.
That was a CAFE consideration. It is a failure, yes, but it was a CAFE consideration.
Also, while I understand you when you say the application of the dual-mode was nonsensical to the GMT-900, calling the platform “outmoded” was a poor choice of words in my view, as GM puts far more resources towards it than its passenger car line, and it shows. BOF and solid-axle might seem “outmoded” from the standpoint of building passenger cars, but for payload and towing considerations I have not seen its superior.
The leaf springs used in the Corvette are nothing like traditional leaf springs. They’re composite, not steel, and run transversely rather than longitudinally.
Yes, but they’re still LEAF SPRINGS. And GM made them work, and work well for longer than most bothered to. The fact that GM is moving away from them because it no longer suits the application is irrelevent to my point.
GM is unable to compete becuase it is too much of an AMERICAN company to be able to see the forest throgh the trees!
The situation with Electric/ Hybrid car is case in point.
Once upon a time both GM and Toyota were confronted with the whole California “green thing”. How both of these companies handled this situation say it all about them.
Somehow Toyota saw BIG opportunity in Electric/ Hybrid cars and decided to work with the “greens” to give them what they want AND WERE WILLING TO PAY FOR! You do know that that stuff called smog is real!
GM on the other hand decided to run with the stupid popular American mindset of “do nothing” because those “green” folks are a bunch of morons that do not know their a$$ from their elbow. “America is the land of the pick-up truck and apple pie, no ones wants a under-powered, economy minded car with a battery pack in the USA.” “Oh those stupid folks in Californis that didnt want to give of their EV1s….dumb effen hippies!”
Needless to say as Toyota is about to roll out its THRID generation Hybrid GM is talking pie in the sky stuff about how the Flex will be superior to whatever generation of Hybrid Toyota selling when the Flex reaches the market.
GM operates like our government, like a bunch of clueless idiots. Lets not forget that the same feds that have been warning us about the threat of terrorism all thoughout the late 1990s did not even have enough people on staff that spoke and could translate Arabic to successfully analyse the the threats. By the same token it is easy to believe that GM was totally suprised by the rising cost of fuel in the USA today.
I for one am a techy and in some ways am tired of the modern push rod engines. Why in over a hundred years has the modern combustible engine not really advanced? Sure we’ve got chips in them and more pistons, more horsepower…but overall the principle of the modern engine hasn’t changed.
We have phones that have evolved from land lines to cellphones with touch technology, CRT Tv’s to Flat panel TV’s, and gone from analog to hi-def digital. Computers in every household in less than thirty years!!!
To wait all this time for somthing like the Volt to make the market sucks.
I remember when the EV1 came out and my friends and I who were in college thought this is the big breakthrough that would send us all into the future. It was exciting and really really cool! Instead after a few years the EV1 faded away and I always wondered what the hell happened!
Time and time again, they’ve created a car they thought would leapfrog the competition. When it didn’t meet expectations, they cut off investment, often abandoning the model name. GM didn’t learn from the Corvair-Vega-Cavalier-Saturn (or the less ambitious Cobalt). Each time, they failed to quickly follow up with incrementally improved versions until they got the product right.
To be fair, this isn’t the case with their midsize cars in the last 15 years. They have taken an incremental, iterative approach to product development. GM midsize offerings hit a nadir with the 1st Lumina and Corsica (and clones). So laughably behind even the domestic competition that they were clearly phoning it in. The 2nd Lumina and 1st Malibu were vast improvements. The 1st Impala and 2nd Malibu were also great improvements, and actually attracted Taurus and Intrepid owners to GM. The current Impala is substandard but a competitive value, and the Malibu is a class leader.
Slow and steady march in a bread-and-butter segment. Had they not blown so much on SUVs, they could have made that march a lot faster (or also improved their seriously weak small cars), but you can’t say GM utterly lacks that culture.
What happened with the EV1, as far as I can tell, is GM cut everything that wasn’t profitable in a bid to avoid bankruptcy. Nothing much more complicated than that.
Michael Karesh
Japanese companies have had a further advantage: a significant number of Japanese “early adopters.”
I would argue that Detroit had a very large group of “early adopters”, but has managed to alienate them with such stellar offerings as the Cheby LUV, Vega, X cars, Cry-co K cars, AMC Gremlin (superb name!), Pacer and last, but not least, the Ford Flambe (err, Pinto).
There are plenty of American “early adopters” still out there, as the electroinics industry well knows, but Detroit has more then used up its goodwill with this group of people.
Bruce
I think that the Volt illustrates everything that is wrong with GM, and then some. It is the ultimate expression and indicator as to why I think that they are f*cked.
GM is in serious trouble, the company is in a crisis. But it doesn’t behave like a company in crisis, everyone at the top is behaving as if all is well, and we’ll be turning a corner shortly. It’s largely business as usual, we’ve landed in Detroit where it’s 78 degrees, sunny and the local time is 1964.
GM has no reputation for innovation. Getting that kind of reputation takes time.
If GM was profitable, the company would have time to develop this reputation. But right now, GM has no time to mess around. It need solid core products that regular people will buy right now and tell their friends about, so that they can bring in the cash that will keep them going over the next several years.
The Volt only appeals to the diehard domestic fans who would beat their chests about a Cobalt with an extension cord if that’s all GM could produce. The real question is whether it will stir up enough attention to keep stable market share and bring in new buyers, and I think that it’s safe to say that it won’t.
Ultimately, the Volt is a bad distraction that actually takes GM off course because all of the energy and money that is being committed to it could be going to something else that could actually make them money.
The fact that Wagoner has obviously decided that their small car future lies with Daewoo shows you how out of touch he really is. It’s as if he forgot that Daewoo was available on the cheap for a reason — like GM, it also was a failure at making small cars that consumers want. What makes him think that he’s going to do any better with it?
Largely agree Michael.
The problem is not the concept.
The inexplicably ridiculous schedule claims, track record with innovation (part. reliability, the 1st gen Prius was not perfect but it wasn’t a day to day pain in the rear to it’s owners, very reliable new tech is easier to take a chance on), and cost are all problems.
With you on the “pushrods” issue.
I don’t actually object to the style of valve acctuation, the problem is the adherance to two valves and their breathing/efficiency limitations.
The two valve head is the new flathead and cancelling their new V-8 program will hurt GM in the long term.
Cheerio,
Bunter
Fantastic article, I’m continually impressed with your articulation of subleties and nuances, Michael Karesh. (and I owe you thanx for picking up my Prius/SUV argument the other day, after I made it clear I was done posting on the subject.)
I especially liked…..
“Though technically superior to the system in the current Prius, it was introduced in GM’s most outmoded package-—a large, live-axled, body-on-frame SUV. The enormous cost differential would not be insurmountable to early adopters. But what are the chances of buyers of large conventional SUVs fitting that description? Predictably, GM hybrid SUV sales have been dismal.”
When the two-mode came out, I was all over the blogs commending it. It really is a great set-up, tho it took what 4 mfrs to come up with it? (Am I incorrect in believing this was the product of the GM, MBZ, Chrysler, BMW mash-up?) Yet despite its technical prowess, the million or so of us that jumped into Priuses won’t touch these things with a ten foot pole. Big SUVs and trucks need advanced technology probably moreso than average vehicles, but in the infancy of this technology thats not where the action is. What were they thinking??? And throwing it in the Vue is not gonna help. How about hybridizing the vehicles people (presumably) want, the Lambda quads? Or getting rid of that ridiculous mild hybrid and throwing a version of the two-mode (maybe it only needs to be a one-mode) in the Malibu/Aura/G6? No that would be way too rational. Instead, go ahead and put cutting edge technology in the most arcane vehicles you sell. Nice. Only GM (and soon Chryslerbus) would try to pull that one off.
So based on this track record, I dont put much faith in the V(aporware)olt. But I loved the EV-1, so if GM can do it, I will be first to eat all my negative words. I wish them luck, they’re gonna need it.
“With the latter, you get a reasonably good product at a viable price to market, learn from the process, then follow up with an improved (if still not perfect) product.”
Which, by the way, pretty well describes how Microsoft does business!
Best editorial on TTAC in a long time and a breath of fresh air. Great job Mr. Karesh.
Many blame GM for the death of the Electric car. What about Honda’s EV’s? Why did they crush all those nifty EV’s? What about Toyota? What ever happened to Toyota’s program for EV’s? Does anyone know? Sounds to me like they just gave up on it like everyone else. Seems hypocritical to condemn GM for giving up on the EV-1 when Toyota, Honda, and Ford did the exact same thing. So why does GM get all the blame. Bias perhaps?
Let’s face it. The EV1 was a huge money-loser. The thing had a price tag around $100,000(that was almost 10 years ago), was as practical as a Triumph, and wouldn’t even meet crash standards after 2002.
You think they’re having trouble making the Volt affordable because of the battery pack? The battery pack in the EV1 was at least 3X the capacity and over 3X the cost.
But yet, it’s all GM’s fault for killing the EV1.
The thing to remember about GM, historically, is that it’s a company steered by accountants, rather than engineers. The accountants have a hard time justifying ANYTHING new. Most of the experiments of the sixties — the rope-drive Tempest, the turbo Jetfire, the Toronado, arguably even the Corvair — were essentially the corporation indulging some hot young engineer like De Lorean or John Beltz with a pet project. They were not serious attempts at changing the game, they were just perks for up-and-coming execs who were being groomed for bigger things.
A car like the FWD Toronado was not a GM car, it was a John Beltz car. Beltz didn’t invent the “Unitized Power Package,” he didn’t style it, and he was certainly not its sole architect, but I think the only reason it reached production was that Beltz pushed hard for it over an extended period (more than five years). Had he relented or left, there might still have been a Toronado, but it probably would have been a conventional RWD car.
It makes me wonder whose car the Volt is.
But credit where credit is due, at least somewhere in GM there are people willing to really try something different. When was the last time we saw that kind of innovation out of Ford or Chrysler?
Chrysler has done many innovative things after the Airflow… Torsion bar suspension, pioneers in unibody design, electronic fuel injection (1957!), Hemi-headed engines (first generation in the 50’s, then the 426 from 1964-71), turbine engine development (1957 to about 1981, although most people only remember the Turbine cars of 1963-65), ABS brakes (1972-73 Imperial). Chrysler also pioneered the minivan. Lately? Not so much. Cerberus surely has the R&D department on a pretty tight leash budget.
I’m not so up-to-speed on Ford’s accomplishments, but they had first use of the MacPherson strut suspension (1949), they developed a turbine-powered transport truck engine which they actually sold briefly, the (original) GT-40 which had superior performance to Ferraris at the time, and the hide-away hardtop which has made a recent resurgence of popularity.
I would agree that the problem with Volt is not the car itself. When I read criticisms of the Volt is seems that they are more aimed at the greenwashing aspects, bullshit aspects, and “aren’t we grand” aspects of the program. When the car finally arrives, it will be hard pressed not to be tarred and feathered for not meeting the hype or deadlines.
The reality is that GM uses the Volt program in wholly inappropriate ways for PR reasons that will likely hurt sales and may destroy the program if it isn’t a homerun on the first at bat.
Many blame GM for the death of the Electric car. What about Honda’s EV’s? Why did they crush all those nifty EV’s? What about Toyota? What ever happened to Toyota’s program for EV’s? Does anyone know? Sounds to me like they just gave up on it like everyone else. Seems hypocritical to condemn GM for giving up on the EV-1 when Toyota, Honda, and Ford did the exact same thing. So why does GM get all the blame. Bias perhaps?
Toyota reversed course as the RAV4EV program came to an end, and let owners purchase the vehicles, including parts support for repairs down the line. I still see RAV4EVs relatively frequently around Los Angeles, and my employer has a number of them, many with over 100,000 miles on the original packs. Should the pack fail, a (large) check drafted to the neighborhood Toyota dealer will get you rolling for another 100k.
Honda took the middle ground. Their EV was probably the least competitive out of all from that era (except perhaps the Nissan AltraEV). They didn’t have the waiting lists like the EV1 and RAV, and didn’t use the most common charging device (MagneCharge), like GM and Toyota did. Honda allowed lessees to keep the cars past their original lease date up to the point where their battery packs no longer had usable capacity. Many Honda EV+ lessees kept their cars for double the original term. Honda used body shells that were in good condition to launch the FCX program in the early ’00s for fleet testing.
GM ignored their waiting lists, let brand new cars rot in the San Bernardino sun for nearly a year while thousands waited for a car, ignored their customer base, fought like hell to get the SCAQMD and the CARB to rescind the EV mandates, took all the cars back and smashed them, and seemed to have learned virtually nothing from the entire operation. They had the most access to the best NiMH tech, but sold out their rights to Chevron/Texaco, and are now fighting to spend more money to acquire Cobasys, the current maker of their defective, leaky NiMH packs in the Vue, Malibu, and GMT900s.
So…
Toyota kept existing customers happy, learned from the project, collected data on high-mileage NiMH batteries, and avoided controversy. The lessons learned went into making the Prius effective and dead reliable.
Honda kept their customers happy, but ultimately took the cars back in the end. They learned a lot from their program and had the first fleet fuel cell cars, and the first production fuel cell, based in part on the original EV+. Battery and motor/controller data led to the successful launch of the Insight and two Civic Hybrid models. Three more hybrids stemming from those programs on the way in the next 12 months.
GM spawned a fake EV1 recall on a $0.20 part to get the original cars back, held new Gen II cars hostage, held old cars hostage, pissed off all of their customer base, and the whole debacle concluded with them smashing lessees’ highly-coveted, completely usable cars in a spectacular fashion for the world to see. A Hummer-sized middle finger solute, if you will.
Is it any wonder GM is so far behind in the technology game?
-Drew
The one thing nobody ever mentions about electric cars is the electricity. And just where will all of it come from? We already talking about shortages of electricity and the inability to plan and build the power stations that we are “projected” to need, even without electric cars. So is that going to be a coal burning plant in your town or would you prefer nuclear?
The electric cars were never a serious endeavor. They were designed as a demonstration project to the California Air Resources Board to prove that CARB’s deadlines and expectations were unrealistic. When the automakers got what they wanted, they stopped their programs and moved on to other stuff.
In other words, the electric programs were really designed to fail. They wanted to show the state that even under the best of circumstances, the vehicle could not succeed.
In this instance, GM and all of the other automakers were right. Just as long as an electric car can’t have a reliable range of about 200 miles and can’t be recharged in less than five minutes, they will fail. There was no point in pursuing an electric program in earnest when these problems can’t be fixed anytime soon.
However, Toyota was smart to develop a vehicle that could overcome the range and recharge time problem, but get some of the benefits of the electric. GM didn’t have the vision to explore that compromise, obviously.
Your missing the point galaxygreymx5. Every single automaker ended their specific EV program once the CARB requirement was lifted. The CARB requirement was a dumb idea to begin with. “If you don’t build this type of vehicle, you’ll get taxed errr… fined.”
And again, the EV-1 was a $100,000 vehicle almost 10 ago. There was no way the EV-1 could ever been a viable vehicle.
Your missing the point galaxygreymx5. Every single automaker ended their specific EV program once the CARB requirement was lifted. The CARB requirement was a dumb idea to begin with. “If you don’t build this type of vehicle, you’ll get taxed errr… fined.”
Well you’re missing my point. The automakers were all, obviously, forced into a program none of them had any intention of following through with.
Toyota and Honda kept their small, enthusiastic EV customer base happy by modifying the original program to do so. At the same time, they learned a lot about batteries, motors, controllers, and software to launch successful hybrid initiatives.
Toyota and Honda turned lemons into lemonade, while greenwashing their image, allowing them to grow their market share on conventional and hybrid models with knowledge learned through their (forced, non-starter) EV programs.
GM did their best to piss off CARB, SCAQMD, and their customers, all while relinquishing any forward progress they made on battery technology rights to an oil company. GM brownwashed their image and now, when a non-enthusiast car buyer thinks of a green, efficient, technology leader to buy a car from, GM is about dead last on their list. Market share followed in lock step.
That’s my point.
Great article, but blaming GM’s PR efforts (in the comments section) for the Airflow flop is a bit much. The car was considered VERY unattractive in its day – especially the front end. People hated the styling, especially the lack of a distinctive “grille”.
When Ford introduced the streamlined Lincoln Zephyr for 1936, it was careful to include a pointed “prow” for a grille, so that it looked “normal” to customers, and the car sold reasonably well.
The bash against pushrods isn’t without basis. GM has produced one world class pushrod-operated engine. And the 3800 also had its uses.
Let’s see, Michael…how many millions of cars have been powered by small block Chevy V8’s and 3800s (which were essentially 75% of a SBC) in all their iterations?
Just within the past two decades we’ve seen L98s, LT1s, LT4s, LS1s, LS2s, LS3s, LS4s, LS6s, LS7s, and LS9s, and all the 6 cylinder variants, including turbo and supercharged iterations….
My point being, they have all been at least competitive, if not class leading motors, and all of them OHV. Excellent fuel effiency and compactness for a given torque output, low cost, reliable, and lighter weight/lower CG than most, if not all the competition. Say what you will about the shortcomings of the cars they’ve been put in, but the pushrod GM motors themselves have been a bright spot in the company’s otherwise erratic history.
Saying that GM has produced “one world class pushrod operated engine” is like saying “Apple made one world class MP3 storage device.”
jl1280:
The one thing nobody ever mentions about electric cars is the electricity. And just where will all of it come from? We already talking about shortages of electricity and the inability to plan and build the power stations that we are “projected” to need, even without electric cars. So is that going to be a coal burning plant in your town or would you prefer nuclear?
Actually, I’ll have solar panels on the roof, largely paid for by tax credits, thanks. Self-sufficiency is a wonderful thing.
Now someone should kvetch about the environmental impact of battery production so we can discuss the impact and lifecycle of various nuclear fuels and/or “clean coal.”
Seriously, energy is something we need to address on myriad fronts and the very-slowly-ramping-up grid drain from plug-in hybrids and/or electric cars is (and will continue to be) the least of our problems. If you want to attack electric cars, you need to find a more sustainable argument.
radimus wrote:
Yes, but they’re still LEAF SPRINGS. And GM made them work, and work well for longer than most bothered to. The fact that GM is moving away from them because it no longer suits the application is irrelevent to my point.
I think the fact that your initial post used the phrase “After all, the Corvette still sits on leaf springs and even Clarkson raves about it.”
is what Michael was clarifying. Saying that the Corvette still sits on leaf springs implies that it is no more advanced than a 1967 Camaro or a pickup truck, when in fact the transverse composite leafs in C4/C5/C6 Vettes are a very high tech solution to designing a suspension in a low slung sports car.
I suspect from your comments that you already know this, but most people who mention the Vette “still” uses leafs (and pushrods, for that matter) usually need a bit of an education that a Vette is indeed a refined, world class high technology showpiece, and not Chevy’s version of the comparatively crude Viper.
Yes, doctor, I know it’s not the same kind of leaf springs as you find on a school bus. :)
I was reviewing the design on Wikipedia earlier. Amazingly simple.
AlmostFamous:
Many blame GM for the death of the Electric car. What about Honda’s EV’s? Why did they crush all those nifty EV’s? What about Toyota? What ever happened to Toyota’s program for EV’s? Does anyone know? Sounds to me like they just gave up on it like everyone else. Seems hypocritical to condemn GM for giving up on the EV-1 when Toyota, Honda, and Ford did the exact same thing. So why does GM get all the blame. Bias perhaps?
Let’s face it. The EV1 was a huge money-loser. The thing had a price tag around $100,000(that was almost 10 years ago), was as practical as a Triumph, and wouldn’t even meet crash standards after 2002.
Let’s get the facts straight.
1) The EV1 had a price tag of about $40k, not $100k.
2) Honda never really stopped its EV’s. After the original EV retired in 1999, it’s renamed the FCX and focused on fuel cell. There isn’t even a single time gap there. Right now, Honda is leasing out the second gen FCX in CA. This will be Honda’s trump card in a few years to compete with Toyota for the world’s top auto maker title.
Michael Karesh: Meanwhile, critics of both the Prius and the Volt don’t get it. They knock the vehicles for failing to meet their expectations for a paradigm shift. By so doing, the naysayers delay the very things they claim to want.
I really don’t understand this line.
The traditional critics of hybrids have used an argument that has pretty much exploded in their faces: hybrids are bad for the enviroment; hybrids have toxic batteries; the batteries will die soon; hybrids don’t justify their costs;
hybrids are ugly, etc….These folks have expectations of a paradigm shift?! A paradigm shift for them would be if the world suddenly popped back to 1964. So how are they delaying the things they claim to want?
If you’re talking about the Volt vs. Prius naysayers, you’re talking (mostly) about the classic “teams” or “tribes” lining up behind their standard bearer (GM or Toyota). But I still don’t understand how their critiques of the other’s product “delay the very thing they claim to want”.
BTW, I’m not a critic of the Volt; I’m a critic of how the poject is being handled, in the usual dumb GM way. I think the Volt will work fine, sooner or later. And it will be a good addition to the coming fleet of hybrids/plug-ins and EV’s. I do think that the Volt’s approach (range-extending EV) is not what I would have done (a good parallel hybrid and a pure EV). It’s trying to do both, and will have to live with the resultant compromises.
I was truly excited when the Volt was announced, but GM’s mishandling makes me nauseous.
re: “…it doesn’t matter if the car isn’t perfect.”
well, maybe it does. i cannot confirm the absolute truth of what i am about to share with readers here but, for what its worth – i was speaking casually, and frankly, with a relatively new aquaintance in my neighborhood just this morning.
our conversation eventually turned to cars and the prospect of things to come. then to electric cars, and then i asked him if he had seen the movie, ‘who killed the electric car?’ he hadn’t – but without missing a beat, the guy tells me his uncle was heavily involved in the development of that car and then he asks me if i knew why gm took them all away?
i said no and he said: the biggest problem, from gm’s point of view, was that almost nothing ever went wrong with them!
GM is just too damn incompetent to produce the Volt, let alone turn it into a commercially viable product.
DOA, if it ever gets that far.
Been a long night in North GA but I’ll respond with my own quick pair of copper heads…
“And you only have to look at the Cobalt, the Colorado, the G6, the Equinox, the TrailBlazer and several other models to see GM’s product development philosophy in action:”
This has only been a recent turn of events for GM. In fact, the groundwork for the ‘musical marques’ got it’s first infusion with the Jack Smith era and has been given a ridiculous level of traction in the Wagoneer/Lutz era.
It has cost them plenty… but it’s definitely not their history.
GM actually has a better history with keeping names and (trying) to build equity than any of the big three… by a very wide margin.
If you want to compare the Corvette to anything in the market… try the Mustang. A car that has managed to have been given only minor modifications for usually over a decade before a ‘redesign’. GM has manged to put plenty of money into the Corvette despite the fact that the Mustang’s niche would have likely been a far rosier and more profitable one given enough investment in the Camaro.
In the meantime, Toyota’s nixing the Supra, Mazda and Nissan’s constant state of euthanasia with their models (killing em’ when the market dies down), and Honda’s languishing of the NSX is considered to be… a fluke? Sorry but whether we like it or not, ALL of these companies focus far more on the bottom line than any of their PR departments would ever like to admit.
Meanwhile we have the Solstice and the Sky. They have the nerve to be in their third season when… wait??? Toyota built the Tercel and Echo for how many years without a redesign? Don’t tell me the lowly Dodge Neon, Ford Escort, Chevy Cavalier and Saturn S-Series regularly kicked them right in the sales charts for how many years?
Yep, thought so. I’ll say it once and probably a thousand more times before this is all over. GM’s problem is not based on marques, or quality, or even management. It has to do with having to manage too many brands, and legacy costs that effectively put Detroit behind the eight ball with every car and truck they make. Until those issues are fixed for good, GM will continue to struggle.
It will also likely take a subsidization of the American auto industry, and possibly even a few successful legal challenges to our nation’s franchise laws, for GM’s North American operations to become successful in the long run. If anyone here would like to hem and haw about that, feel free. In the meantime, it may be worthwhile to find out how Japan’s Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI) helped Toyota become a dominant manufacturer in the first place.
By the way, the promoting of the Prius was also done in correlation with an SUV and truck strategy for North America that completely missed the boat on fuel economy. I certainly wouldn’t blame them for missing it since virtually the entire developed world was largely unable to see what was brewing in the energy industry.
Well okay… perhaps Soichiro Honda and Elvis may have figured that one out. But of course we know that they’re too busy throwing darts in a heavenly bar somewhere near the pearly gates.
Michael,
Great article! This is a major problem for all of the Detroit automakers and one of the main reasons they’re losing out to Toyota, IMHO. Instead of iterating their products they cost save them to death until they can’t even use the name anymore or they scrap whole platforms and start over. When they do focus all of their energy on a hot product, they usually do well. Detroit has the engineering talent to make great products, but a complete lack of managment discipline and vision.
The one thing nobody ever mentions about electric cars is the electricity. And just where will all of it come from?
FUD. Cars charge at night, when the grid isn’t under load. If you need an official source, the DOE says we can have 180 million electric cars charging at night with the existing grid.
So is that going to be a coal burning plant in your town or would you prefer nuclear?
I, for one, would love a nuclear plant in my town. The NIMBY and FUD attitudes of the rabble will work to get me cheap electricity rates.
Steven Lang: This has only been a recent turn of events for GM. In fact, the groundwork for the ‘musical marques’ got it’s first infusion with the Jack Smith era and has been given a ridiculous level of traction in the Wagoneer/Lutz era.
It has cost them plenty… but it’s definitely not their history.
GM started abandoning nameplates during the Roger Smith era, when Pontiac and Chevrolet began ditching names like Malibu, Nova and LeMans. The practice spread to Oldsmobile in the mid-1990s. Buick and Cadillac started abandoning nameplates in the late 1990s and early 21st century.
The era of badge-engineering really started in the early 1970s, when every division except Cadillac got a version of the Nova – the Pontiac Ventura, Oldsmobile Omega and Buick Apollo. The main distinctions were the grille and taillights. The great downsizing that began in 1977 accelerated this process…by the mid-1980s, all GM divisions except Cadillac were competing more with each other than with the import competition.
Steven Lang: GM actually has a better history with keeping names and (trying) to build equity than any of the big three… by a very wide margin.
If you want to compare the Corvette to anything in the market… try the Mustang. A car that has managed to have been given only minor modifications for usually over a decade before a ‘redesign’. GM has manged to put plenty of money into the Corvette despite the fact that the Mustang’s niche would have likely been a far rosier and more profitable one given enough investment in the Camaro.
In the meantime, Toyota’s nixing the Supra, Mazda and Nissan’s constant state of euthanasia with their models (killing em’ when the market dies down), and Honda’s languishing of the NSX is considered to be… a fluke? Sorry but whether we like it or not, ALL of these companies focus far more on the bottom line than any of their PR departments would ever like to admit.
GM and the best of the Japanese are mirror images of each other. GM has done a better job of keeping the specialty stuff – Corvette, Camaro – on target, while letting the bread-and-butter models languish. It also rolls out a new name each time a new model in one of these segments is introduced.
Since the early 1980s, in one critical segment, Chevrolet has gone from the Malibu to the Celebrity to the Lumina to the Impala. Today, the NEW Malibu fills the segment that used to be occupied by the old Citation. Through it all, only the current Malibu has matched the class leaders.
Honda, meanwhile, has stuck with Accord since its 1976 introduction, and worked very hard to keep it at the top of its class. Same for Toyota, which has stuck with the Camry. But they have been quick to abandon the niche models – Prelude, MR2, Supra.
Steven Lang: Meanwhile we have the Solstice and the Sky. They have the nerve to be in their third season when… wait??? Toyota built the Tercel and Echo for how many years without a redesign? Don’t tell me the lowly Dodge Neon, Ford Escort, Chevy Cavalier and Saturn S-Series regularly kicked them right in the sales charts for how many years?
The concern with the Solstice/Sky isn’t that it has gone three years without a major change. The question is whether GM will once again abandon a promising model that it didn’t get quite right the first time, instead of building upon its strengths and correcting its flaws with a second-generation version.
The Solstice/Sky is like the very first Corvette – a promising model that needs a fair amount of work to really shine. The promise is there…will GM follow up on it? Can GM AFFORD to follow up on it?
Steven Lang: In the meantime, it may be worthwhile to find out how Japan’s Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI) helped Toyota become a dominant manufacturer in the first place.
Realistically, Toyota’s basic philosophy and approach to car making are more important than any government aid.
Steven Lang: By the way, the promoting of the Prius was also done in correlation with an SUV and truck strategy for North America that completely missed the boat on fuel economy. I certainly wouldn’t blame them for missing it since virtually the entire developed world was largely unable to see what was brewing in the energy industry.
Very true…I’m always amazed at the pass Toyota gets because of the Prius. Meanwhile, it has been pursuing the full-size truck and SUV market quite avidly. But Toyota did keep the Camry and Corolla up to date, so that when the truck market went south, it wasn’t caught completely with its pants down…
The worst thing that can happen to the Volt is GM letting it sit for 10 years without updating like they have a habit of doing with some models. (Here’s lookin at you, Saab)
Uh, it’s hard to honestly credit GM for the Volt when at the beginning, it was clearly being pushed as more FUD to try to keep people from buying Priuses until gas prices got cheap again.
Now that they’re apparently serious, it’s too late. They’re going to be behind the new Hondas and the next-gen Prius; they don’t have a prayer.
The lesson is: Cut out the FUD. Only a monopolist can get away with it, and even there it’s unethical; anywhere else it’s just stupid.
Steven, you’re way too quick to apologize. The key difference between Toyota and GM is that Toyota still wanted to sell you a small car if you wanted to buy one. GM would rather you dropped dead. (Even now!)
Toyota doesn’t make sports cars because unless you can sell them for really large amounts of money (Ferrari, Porsche), sports cars usually aren’t profitable. There was no profit in the Supra, so they didn’t make a new one just to have a snazzy sports car. Toyota doesn’t do loss leaders. This is why they make a profit of approximately ten billion dollars every year.
This leads me to believe the Prius is actually profitable (as Toyota claims)-otherwise they wouldn’t make it. It’s probably not as profitable as some of their other models, but income from sales of it are definitely greater than Toyota’s costs.
This is the problem for GM to overcome with the Volt: The next gen Prius will probably have a very limited plug in range (less than twenty miles, maybe less than ten). But it will cost the same $20-25 thousand that the current Prius costs. GM won’t sell many Volts unless they price it in the same range-and it appears that GM’s cost per Volt will be double the list price of the Prius. So, either GM loses $20k or more per car, or the things won’t sell. This is probably why there is talk about a lower-end Volt with a 20-mile plug-in range (instead of just the standard model with a 40-mile all-electric range)-so they could have a product with a price point closer to the Prius. But then it loses it’s unique advantage of the longer all-electric range, and just becomes a GM copy of the Prius.
Also remember that the Volt is a compact, four passenger sedan, while the Prius is a midsized, five passenger sedan. The new Prius will probably be slightly larger than the existing one. The bigger size is another plus for the Prius over the Volt.
However, if a 40-mile Volt costs the same as the new Prius, it will sell very well indeed. It might sell so well that it will help push GM into bankruptcy (since it appears they will lose tens of thousands of dollars for every one sold). Of course, they will probably severely limit production to reduce losses, which means that the dealers will probably slap $10k mark ups on the few that GM actually makes.
Since the Volt probably will be a limited production item, it can’t, by definition, be a game changer. If it’s not mass produced, it’s merely a PR exercise, like the EV-1 was. And, considering how poorly GM handled the PR for the EV-1, it will probably be a costly PR disaster in the end.
I can’t understand why the Volt will cost double the Prius. If it’s a smaller car the body/chassis will cost less. The ICE should be about the same. The Volt’s transmission should be cheaper (Serial cheaper than Parallel). That leaves only the battery pack. If the Volt’s Li-Ion batteries are still too expensive by launch date, can’t they just use NiMH batteries like the Prius? The Volt should be *cheaper* then.
Maybe it’s that moonshot mentality Michel was talking about.
It’s apparently the batteries, and the fact that the Volt needs a lot more of them than the Prius. Plus, GM has stated that they took apart a current Prius and determined it would cost them more than the MSRP to buy all the materials it took to put it together, and then said, “So, Toyota must be losing money on them”. Of course, Toyota’s costs could be (are) lower than GM’s.
When the Prius was first released in the US Toyota did admit that they were selling them at a loss. From this article:
http://www.autofieldguide.com/articles/100302.html
I found this:
“At this point, there is an oft-heard objection regarding Toyota selling the Prius at a loss and subsidizing the cost of the vehicles. Here’s Masao Inoue, Prius chief engineer, Toyota Motor Corp.: “Toyota has largely recovered its initial long-term investment in the first-generation Prius.” Here’s Dave Hermance, executive engineer, Regulatory Affairs, Toyota Technical Center, U.S.A.: “The product is profitable.” How profitable is a question that’s unanswered. At least at this point in time. Presumably, in the years ahead, that will be something that should become clear.”
These statements were made around 2004, so the phrase “largely recovered” could very well mean that they are still taking a loss on these. That really doesn’t surprise me. Japanese companies often operate that like. They’ll spendi 10 years or more to build a new market or become a major player in one they are not part of, loosing money in it the entire time, learning from each failure or mistake, until they eventually show a return on it.
The only companies I have seen in the US that operate like that are outfits like Microsoft and many of the dot-coms.
Every vehicle, when first sold, sells at a loss, frequently for months or even years, because you have to recover start up costs (design, engineering, tooling, etc.), which can be very large.
My point was that GM was saying that, ignoring those fixed costs, their costs to buy the materials alone that made up the Prius were higher than the MSRP. Toyota’s costs on said parts are clearly much lower.
Plus, a lot of the initial investment in the Prius was in the engine. That investment is now spread amoungst all of Toyota’s (and Lexus’s) hybrids, not just the Prius.
Toyota makes money on the Prius, and not just in a public relation sense. They have recovered their fixed costs and their variable costs to build each vehicle are less than the amount they sell it for.
I have no issues with the Volt or the technology. I want the Volt to succeed. My problem is with that mouth, Lutz and every-other GM used car salesman screaming Volt this Volt that. Volt is better than Prius, Volt will be 30k, Volt will be a total revolution…..
Just built the dam car already and STFU!!!!
If the Volt is not all conquering and make the Prius look like a 1970’s car then GM has failed and will loose even great market share.
The EV1 and Prius are not comparable. EV1 was an attempt at an electric car. Prius is a compromise conventional and electric. GM failed because battery technology fell short of electric car demands. Ford also dabbled in an electric vehicle. A year ago, refurbished Ford Ranger electrics were for sale in Sacramento for $25k. Not a Ford offering. Toyota Prius sales are limited by battery production. GM doesn’t have a production plant to my knowledge and 2010 is real close.