These guys can’t win from losing. I mean, first GM seeks to evade responsibility for its cratered bsuiness by claiming that “no one” could have forseen the sudden spike in gas prices (or, God forbid, planned for that contingency after, what, two previous oil price shocks). And now GM Car Czar “Maximum Bob” Lutz is telling the LA Times that low gas prices threaten its plug-in electric – gas hybrid Volt-shaped Hail Mary. “We may hate high fuel prices, but they’ve been driving us in the right direction when it comes to fuel economy,” General Motors Vice Chairman Bob Lutz told the Times. “The company’s leading cheerleader for its $500-million program to develop an electric car” said “If we suddenly went to $1 or $1.50 a gallon, that would be really bad.” Don’t get me wrong. Lutz is right. As he was when he called federal Corporate Average Fuel Economy Standards a “crock of shit.” No wait; that was global warming. Anyway, the thing of it is, stop bitching Bob. As someone who’s followed Lutz’s career at GM– listening to every excuse for his employer’s dismal performance short of “the sun was in my eyes”– I would like to officially go on record saying that GM needs to builds vehicles, not sound bites. That is all.
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Besides, GM doesn’t build cars, they build trucks.
–chuck
Point taken. Text amended.
Here’s a thought, ‘ol Lutzy: Have a product portfolio that is broad (and focused) enough to handle fluctuations in demand.
It’s sad. Rather than be a leader, GM’s excuse pile gets knee deep. We’ll be in over our heads by next year (if there is a next year).
Okay, I am not officially on the “Bob Lutz is nutz” bandwagon. Can’t this guy simply keep his pie hole closed? He’s not helping anything.
How is it that GM can relentlessly overhype a niche vehicle and then say as an aside, “never mind.”
How’s development on the Volt going, Bob? Getting cold feet when comparing it to the competition?
lewssalem, Almost. GM must be flexible enough to meet demand shifts more dynamically. If I understand correctly, Honda can build almost every vehicle they make on a single line. I also understand that they can build certain vehicles by interleaving them along the line in any order. Civics not selling all that well? Shift to 10% more Ridgelines!
By the way, it doesn’t look like low gas prices will kill the Prius. I doubt they will kill the Insight II, either.
Well, this is good, considering they didn’t really want to, nor did they intend to, build it in the first place.
It’s perfectly all right for Lutz to think stuff like this, but to back away publicly from one of key provisos of the bailout is, well, incredibly stupid. It also makes GM’s decision not to have a balanced product portfolio all the more incredible: they just can’t, or wont, plan for contingencies.
Corporate ADHD, indeed
We all need to remember that the longest term Ricky Bobby look ahead is for 1 year max – that way they plan golf outings, commercials and bailouts; thus never prepared for changes to their industry and it is a valid excuse for their companies. Good thing we are bailing them out to make fuel efficient cars at the tune of $25B, possibly bailing out the customers who should have never bought their cars but for “loose” credit policies just to get a sale to the tune of part of the $700B, and the possible $5B walking money GM is begging for to use at its own discretion – ya know like dividends and executive bonuses.
Memo to Lutz:
The higher mandated CAFE standards aren’t going away, and I’d regard the current reduction in gas prices as a welcome respite but not a long-term trend.
Gas falling under $3. The crisis is over people. Take your name off the Prius waiting list, and remove the Volt bookmark in your browser. Nothing to see here, just keep moving about.
Maybe GM could raise the billions they need by having Lutz put $10 into a coffee can every time he says something stupid. This crazy uncle role is getting increasingly annoying.
Robert Farago:
Point taken. Text amended.
Mr. Farago, I was being facetious, not editorial. My point was that GM gave up being a “car” company (other than rental-fleet quality crap and the Corvette) about 15 years ago. They bet the farm on trucks and SUVs.
Good bet in the short term, but completely moronic now. (Compare to Lutz’ whipping boys at Toyota, who have a complete portfolio of vehicular offerings.) Why the execs at GM still have jobs is beyond me. Their flight path: Tango Uniform.
–chuck
Kill the Volt?
Toyota kicked off the Prius in 1999. Remember 1999? That was the year everyone was griping so hard about gas being $1.80 during the summer peak that gas stations put up signs saying it wasn’t their fault, talk to Exxon. They stuck with it for years of low gas prices and won big time.
GM needs some vision, some understanding that even if the Volt is not going to take off (as if it ever was) right off the block, having a well developed and stable plug in platform will ultimately be very valuable to the company.
If they live, of course. This talk just indicates they realize they promised the moon and the sky by 2010, and dropping gas prices gives them a graceful excuse not to deliver.
Oh no the price of gas went down better ditch the cars and start cranking out the SUV’s again. Oh wait no one can afford them or is dumb enough to fall into that trap again, darn.
The Volt is screwed and DVDA screwed if the price of gas is low or lower than it is now. And the Prius and Insight will sell good because they will save people money when they don’t have a lot to waist. To spend $40,000 on a Volt will look just plain stupid.
Who will be able to afford on of these after the initial influx of cash buyers without leasing?
Finally!!! GM is apparently practicing good business sense and planning for the future as SUV’s make a resurgence due to low gas prices….Why look….they already have their dealer lots full of them….What great foresight and management by Rick & Bob….bonuses all around!!!
“If we suddenly went to $1 or $1.50 a gallon, that would be really bad.” – Maximum Bob
Why even mention gas in the $1-2 range? That is just so not going to happen.
Maximum Bob’s real problem is that with gas at $2.80 – $3.50, a $40K Volt is an absurdly uneconomic proposition and prices might remain in that range until the Volt hits the streets. It’s difficult to cost-justify the Volt at fuel prices under $5 per gallon and even at higher prices if time-value-of-money is included in the evaluation.
Sure, the Prius might, technically, be uneconomic at $2.80/gallon gas but it’s only $22K of uneconomic and about the same price as a lower-trim Malibu.
I believe there’s a big difference between affordably and unaffordably uneconomic.
I think lower gasoline prices might just be the only thing that could actually save the Volt and save GM. Lets face it, most car companies and the whole economy have not benefited from the relentless rise in oil/gasoline prices, especially GM with their truck heavy portfolio. Their cars, by the way, with their old tech pushrod engines and four speed autos are quite good on gas for what they are. The key is what GM does now. They need to not loose interest in the Volt. They need to keep working on it, bring it out, sell it for cost, work on it some more, keep improving it and establish a reputation for quality and innovation. (as Toyota has done) They need to ignore the short term blip of lower ($2.99 is cheap!?!) oil prices. If the lower gasoline prices can allow them to sell their current portfolio at a profit and put they put all of that capital into high tech projects like the Volt and they allow that innovation to trickle down to every other car from the Aveo to the Suburban, then they may have a chance to pull out of this. But if they will not have another chance if they crush the Volt like they did to the EV-1 because although Bob may have not seen $4.00+ gas coming way back in 2007 I bet that we will see $4,5,6, 10 and $20 gas in the next 100 years. (Kind of like $0.15-$4.15 from 1908 to 2008)
If anyone stops believing that we’re one terrorist act away from $8 gas…
(Edit: Or, a natural disaster, or Russia’s expansionist leanings of late…)
KixStart – Why even mention gas in the $1-2 range? That is just so not going to happen.
I paid $2.49 the other day.
Could it be the whole thing is a sham to get even more government cash using Volt production as an excuse?
Remember, they can’t run a car company worth a shit, they must be good at something. This is their talent. They are setting the stage for government relief. They are going to snow the government the same way the snow the board of bystanders.
I Don’t know what people are talking about low gas prices. I just paid $3.47 the other day. that may not be peak but it’s still damn high.
Perhaps Bob should ask the government to raise the federal gas tax!
What Bob “the dog eat my homework” Lutz failed to mention of course is that even at $4/gallon an $ 40 K Volt would never make economic sense.
At a $ 20K mark up compared to the Cruze, even if you could sqeeze 12000 all electric miles a year out of it , and the batteries would last a 120K miles, you had no extra maintenance cost for the electric drive train, and you had your electricity for free it would still take a $7/gallon fuel price to break even.
That’s a $ 250/barrel oilprice. It would take a full scale war in the middle east to get to that level. So maximum Bob may luck out yet. Since Iran is less than 2 year away from getting it’s nukes and subsequently shifting global jihad in high gear the Volt may yet be the hottest item of 2011.
Unless of course his present backtracking signals he is not going to do the Volt at all and it was all just a PR exercise to get his hands on the tax payers money.
“the sun was in my eyes”
reference to “the Stranger”?
hope so
good book!
Bob Lutz has mentioned a batteryfree version of the Volt that could allow it to be released as a series hybrid.
Most people get caught up with the hoopla on hybrids as them being the product of two sources of energy, however they can also be the product of two forms of power.
The conversion of gasoline-derived mechanical power into electrical power can give most of the advantages of hybridisation but allow the motorist to avoid the cost and reliability issues surrounding the exotic chemistry of Li-ion at the present time.
Despite the despair expressed regarding PHEVs with which I also concur, any North American designed and built hybrid at the moment will get plenty of takers. I am convinced that even an $80k BEV like the EV1 would find buyers in the light of those patient souls still seeking the unobtainium Tesla.
T2
1996MEdition, I meant that in the sense of $1.00<gas<$2.00. Around here it has been in the upper $2’s. At that price, I’m filling all my gas cans, sport bottles, empty juice cartons, the bathtub… I find it hard to believe it will ever dip below $2.00.
1138, Your price may vary. On a recent 1000 mile trip, I saw prices from $3.15 to $4.29 in a single day. The lowest price was here, at home in the land of sky-blue waters, where we have just recently raised the gas tax. Go figure.
Gas is running $2.59 in most of Minnesota. I can imagine a real recession pushing the price down a lot further.
Wow.
I paid $3.63 last night (91 octane) and called it a bargain!
gas is in the low threes in the Boston area.
One source tells me it’s not going to go over $4 for a sustained period in the foreseeable future without some sort of tax on it, because there are lots of potential substitutes–tar sands, oil from coal, more biofuels, etc. Nonetheless, it’s probably not going to stay way down for a sustained period, and carbon taxes, or higher gas taxes may come, especially with a demo admin.
But sheesh, GM should at least build a hybrid competitive with the Prion. Oops! What am I smoking today? Or maybe Simon (owner of the cafe) put something in my espresso this morning.
Maximum Bob & Maximum Vaporware:
Perfect together!!!
Have GM merge with Exxon. .80 cents a gallon fuel and 14mpg high margin SUV’s and trucks(And $4/gal diesel to fend off the euro cars!).
I seriously cant wait for European diesel cars and suv come over here to get rid of the hybrid trend. If it was used for a technological breakthrough that is one thing but a hybrid making less than 30mpg? That is a joke.