Opel already has big plans for its restructuring, despite the minor issue of being short a few billion dollars. According to an interview with Opel boss Nick Reilly in the print edition of Auto Motor und Sport, only a billion Euros of the €3.3b Opel turnaround plan is going to be spent on restructuring. The rest will be spent on new products like a city car, a “mini offroader,” and new high-tech drivetrains. According to Autocar, one of those high-tech drivetrain options is a a pairing that several firms including VW and Peugeot-Citroen already looked into but have yet to bring to market out of concern for the high cost: the diesel-electric hybrid. GM Europe’s Advanced Powertrain Chief Engineer Maurizio Cisternino explains “if you want the best fuel consumption, you have to go with the diesel-electric hybrid.” But there’s a tiny problem: Cisternino wants to get diesel-hybrid prices down to a €1,000 premium over gas-electric hybrids, a goal Cisternino admits “does not work at the moment.” Now if only GM had some government investment in the technology…
The United Nations UNECE World Forum for Harmonization of Vehicle Regulations is likely to adopt many Japanese safety rules for hybrid and electric vehicles as a global standard, says the Nikkei [sub].
Currently, there are no ECE safety standards for hybrid and electric vehicles. Japan has pushed its domestic safety rules to be adopted as international standards. Chances for adoption are good, Japanese companies and rulemakers are the pioneers in the field. Europe, which usually dominates ECE rule making, is lagging behind in the development of hybrid and electric vehicles, and doesn’t have much to lose if the Japanese standards are accepted. (Read More…)
On October the 26th, 2009, Mr E. Niedermeyer asked the best and brightest whether Mazda can catch up on hybrid technologies. If you were a betting person, you’d have probably said no. Partly because Ford had divested a huge chunk of Mazda, which meant they took their hybrid system with them, but mainly because Mazda had no aspirations towards hybrids. It was more interested in lighter materials and stop/start systems. So, can Mazda catch up on hybrid powertrains? Well, the answer, to paraphrase a certain President, is yes they can and Mazda are going straight to the people who know this technology best. Asiaone.com reports that Toyota and Mazda have reached an agreement in which Toyota will sell Mazda key components in which they can build a hybrid car.
In 2007, over 120,000 Civic Hybrid owners had a beef with Honda. So much so, in fact, that they sued the Japanese company. What do you reckon the reason could be? Unsafe cars? Think again. Poor build quality? No, they sued Honda because their Civic Hybrids didn’t get the stated fuel mileage. New York Times’ Wheels Blog reports that 2 plantiffs, John True of Ontario, California, and Gonzalo Delgado of Chino Hills California along with 120,000 other Honda Civic Hybrid owners argued in the United States District Court for the Central District of California that they were only getting 31 mpg instead of the advertised 49mpg in the city and 51 mpg on the highway. The plaintiffs believe that Honda’s advertising led them to believe that the Civic Hybrid would get better fuel economy than is likely in real world driving. Needless to say, the plaintiffs weren’t challenging the EPA methods of predicting mileage, just that Honda, allegedly, deceived customers by not making it clear that they were unlikely to achieve the EPA figures. Honda, naturally, have a different take. (Read More…)
Autocar reports that the next-generation of Smart city car is being co-developed by Daimler and Renault. The rear-engined platform is being described as “modular,” with variable wheelbase and track, and will underpin the next Smart ForTwo and ForFour as well as several Renaults. Initially Mercedes will provide three-pot engines with six-speed manual and seven-speed dual-clutch transmissions. Eventually, the two firms will develop a series of 1.8 liter engines to power the ForFour, as well as the new Mercedes A and B classes and future Renault Twingo, Clio, Modus, Mégane and Scenic models. Both firms plan EV and hybrid versions as well, although the firms have not decided which will lead development of these drivetrains… which can’t be a good sign for Tesla which has a Smart electrification contract with Daimler. Equally undecided is whether Nissan will get a version to match up with Toyota’s iQ. In any case, it’s become clear that what began as a unique-platformed, niche brand was going to have to change. By sharing costs, developing a viable four-seater on the same platform and offering advanced drivetrains, Daimler may just be able to pull Smart’s fat from the fire.
As we saw in the last VBW, the Volt’s range-extender still needs some software work. But efforts to to keep the gas engine from acting like a thrashing, disembodied dervish will have to balance the desire for smooth operation and maximum efficiency. And it’s looking like efficiency in charge sustaining (CS) mode won’t match the hybrid standard-setters. Volt chief powertrain engineer Alex Cattelan breaks the news gently to the true believers at GM-volt.com
You’ve got to understand that all of the decisions that we’ve made around this product are made because its an EV. That is the first and foremost thing that it needs to be. So because it is an EV some of the decisions that we’ve made around engine operation will be different than what Toyota makes in its parallel hybrid. For them they are always operating in hybrid mode so they need to optimize everything for engine operation.
In our case we’re optimizing everything for EV operation and the secondary is certainly going to be better than conventional vehicles, but were not necessarily totally optimizing the system for charge sustaining mode because we don’t want to compromise electric vehicle mode.
Jim Lentz, president of Toyota Motor Sales USA, sure seems to think so. “I think long-term, Prius as a nameplate could even outsell Camry as a nameplate, into this next decade,” he tells Wards Auto. When asked if the Prius’s success would trade off with the Camry, he replied in the negative, saying “I think Prius will become just that much stronger.” But it’s been a long time since a Prius-sized vehicle, let alone a hatchback, has been the best-selling car in the US. And perhaps Lentz was merely making the case for a full line of Prius-branded vehicles, an idea he says has not been approved, but remains his “dream.” Prius will need something to push it past its larger sibling. Both models set their all-time annual sales records in 2007, when the Camry sold 473,108 units, while Prius sold only 181,221 units.
The “Two-Mode” hybrid system jointly developed by GM, Chrysler, Daimler and BMW is turning out to be quite the albatross. Chrysler’s Two-mode Durango and Aspen were discontinued before Bob Nardelli had the chance to drive one to last year’s bailout hearings. GM’s hybrid Escalade has been dead in the water, and BMW and Mercedes have said that only their X5 and ML SUVs will receive the expensive, overly-complicated drivetrain. Now Mercedes is signaling even further ambivalence toward the technological dead-end by announcing [via Autoblog] that the ML450 Hybrid will be a lease-only option. The 21/24 MPG ML Hybrid will be available at $659 per month for 36 or $549 per month for 60 months. Since this is the only vehicle M-B will sell with the two-mode technology, the limited number of batteries needed was a major factor in driving the cost up. “We are offering this vehicle as lease only due to a limited supply of batteries available. We felt a lease only program offered the best option for customers,” say Mercedes spokesfolks. The real message: the billion-dollar Two-Mode development program has been a colossal waste.
Enthusiasts have been adamant that GM’s decision to sell a police-only version of its RWD global Lumina platform (Holden Statesman) creates a fantastic opportunity for GM to return the Impala to its RWD roots. Such a decision would seem to make sense from a business perspective as well, adding civilian sales volume to what otherwise would be a fleet-only platform. No such luck though. Bob Lutz tells Inside Line that the forthcoming Impala replacement (due in 2014) will be based on GM’s global FWD midsized architecture (Epsilon II). The rationale for this decision appears to be fuel efficiency: Lutz mentions the need to compete with the Ford Taurus’s efficiency achievements as a factor in the decision. By going FWD, GM also hopes to be able to shoehorn the two-mode hybrid system from the discontinued Vueick CUV into a future Impala. In addition to forgoing an opportunity to leverage the Caprice police special architecture, this decision also adds to GM’s epic midsize FWD sedan bloat. From the Malibu to the Buick LaCrosse and Regal, from Impala to the Cadillac XTS “flagship,” GM’s default decision seems to be to base all of its sedans on a single platform, making pricing and content differentiation an ongoing challenge to its product strategy. Vive le sameness!
There’s a backlash a brewing over Chrysler’s decision to axe its EV and hybrid program. The move makes sense from an business point-of-view; the company doesn’t have enough money to chase sky pie. Politically, it’s all kind of nuts. Lest we forget—and even the normally automotively absent-minded USA Today doesn’t—ChryCo trotted-out alt power vehicles to secure some $12.5 billion (plus) in federal bailout bucks. And while the zombie car company will import the fuel-efficient Fiat 500 to trigger a hidden-at-the-time clause which surrenders more ChryCo control to Fiat upon selling a new, high mileage vehicle in the U.S., that precious little jewel is NOT what the democratic party’s four-wheeled-oriented tree huggers had in mind. Surely pretending to continue develop the battery-powered vaporware would have been the better bet. That way, when Chrysler returns to the federal trough, they could have played the green card. Now? Fuhgeddaboutit. Which only leaves the jobs card, vs. popular sentiment against more bailout bucks. Methinks the move to kill the ENVI program means that Chrysler is doomederer than before. You?
Sitting in the new Toyota Prius, I suddenly blurted out, “Open the pod bay doors, Hal,” half expecting something to happen. Alas, I was still entombed in the resin chamber that passes for an automobile interior. If Ralph Nader had been an engineer, this is the car he would have designed, a vehicle for people who loathe automobiles.
Saw this ad on TV for the first time whilst fantasizing about a Rachel Maddow vs. Bill O’Reilly death match (rules upon request). The first thing that struck me: the Aptera is the only car in the world with less sideways visibility than the 1938 Bugatti Type 57SC Atlantic Coupe. Second, what is that hulk those guys are washing, and does the man from Griot’s Garage wince every time he sees that paint-scratching action? And lastly, I reckon the Volt has had its day in the sun. It’s not a profound Insight, but by the time Chevy’s not-so-slammed electric/gas hybrid appears, the Volt’s gee whiz factor will have drained off into the gestaltosphere. The Volt will have to compete with real cars in the real world, offering real advantages to real buyers. As you may have noticed, GM isn’t so good at reality. Still, where there’s a will, there’s an Uncle Sugar. The feds are lining up some $10k worth of tax credits for GM’s Hail Mary. Per vehicle. Is it enough? And will the clock run out before The General can even send in the special teams? Your guess is better than theirs.
The vocabulary used to classify hybrid drivetrains has been lagging considerably behind new developments, as Wikipedia’s article on the matter proves. The old parallel, serial, mild and plug-in hybrid categories do little to illuminate public understanding of the underlying technology, and much to confuse it. Enter the BYD Dual-Mode, VW “Twindrive” and, now, the AVL “Turbohybrid”. With cooperation from BMW, Bosch and LuK, AVL has developed a mild-ish hybrid drivetrain. The consortium claims it’s cheaper and more fun to drive than a “full hybrid” while offering nearly the same efficiency. Care to deep dive?
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