Hello Bob,
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Originally Posted by bwilson4web
Worse, GM has little or no practical experience with hybrid vehicles except for a hundred or so buses. Dating serious hybrid-electric from 1997 when Toyota introduced the NHW10 in Japan, GM has been all but 'marking time.' GM doesn't have a fleet approaching 1,000,000 vehicles to draw operational experience. Heck, if it weren't for the Freedom Car initiative, we'd be all but ignorant of how these vehicle work in the real world.
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I could debate with you about GM's level of understanding of hybrid technology and applications from now 'til sundown and we'd both leave holding the same opinions, so I won't go there. I'll simply say you under-estimate what GM knows about hybrids. I have 2nd hand knowledge of what GM taught Toyota. (I worked on a different project for the guy who taught them).
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Originally Posted by bwilson4web
Ford started catching up in 2004 with their Escape. Curiously, when Ford was doing their 2005 'employee pricing' sale, the Escape hybrid was excluded. Ford was suffering the same problem Toyota continues to suffer from: customer demand far outstriping supply.
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Or looked at another way, why provide employees and customers a discount on a product that you lose money selling? Don't get me wrong, I applaud Ford on the development and marketing of the Escape Hybrid. It's an excellent product. But the fact that they purchase the hybrid components from Aisin (a keiretsu of Toyota) the overall vehicle is sold at a financial loss until they can engineer in cost improvements.
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Originally Posted by bwilson4web
BTW, one of the last documents from Al Gore's "high mileage vehicle" program was a GM proposal to use hydrolic motors and a nitrogen charged, pressure vessel to handle regenerative braking. I thought, still think, this is an interesting idea that scales well for larger vehicles and utility size trucks. But that GM proposal died with the H(2) fraud.
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I'm not certain whether it did or did not die. GM had a joint venture on hybrid development with Toyota. When it was determined that the resulting product would be inferior to a product derived from basically scaling down the bus hybrid system (I'm grossly over-simplifying) the joint venture was terminated and GM focused on the 2-Mode concept. The 2-Mode Hybrid Tahoe and Yukon will be the first products to use the resulting system. My point is, it is logical to believe that on the way to refining the Al Gore "High Mileage Vehicle", a better development path was discovered and followed. Happens all the time in my world.
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Originally Posted by bwilson4web
I have nothing against GM employees, engineers or anyone else. But I can't buy inefficient vehicles and GM has not figured that out. You'd have thought they would have tracked the size of the lines at the Toyota dealers since 2001 and gotten a clue but . . .
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How efficient GM and Toyota vehicles are on a product by product basis is VERRRRY subjective. On small cars (Corolla and smaller) Toyota has a distinct advantage. As soon as you get into the Camry / Malibu / Impala / Avalon sized vehicles I can scope comparisons to favor either company. The Camry is basically a Malibu sized vehicle, but the base V6 version of the larger Impala gets better fuel economy and has more horsepower than the base V6 version of the smaller Camry. Beyond a certain point, it's all spin, baby
Peace,
Martin
I am NOT the official voice of GM with respect to Hybrid issues
I am NOT the official voice of GM with respect to Hybrid issues
I am NOT the official voice of GM with respect to Hybrid issues