HHR SS Harbinger of CAFE-Driven Market

[JBsZ06]

Maybe as GM suggested earlier it will be a diverse marketplace..

How many Volts does GM have to sell to sell 33,000 corvettes and have no fine imposed?

How many billions can we invest as a nation into hydrogen tanks for gas stations so they sell both?

How many hydrogen vehicles will a manufacturer need to sell to sell a camaro or a large SUV (which might be a dual hybrid getting 20mpg in the city in real life?)

How much it will cost the consumer is the real question many will be wondering and that extra cost might just deflate volume sales..

I really doubt the ferrari buyer will care about the new tax...

The real trick will be to invest in an infrastructure that can support... the various types of vehicles needed for transportation...

Hydrogen looks very promising with just water vapor as an emission..

Plug in true hybrids like the volt are cutting edge and can be the savior for those of us who are performance addicts..

I'll buy E85 or gas for the hot rods I have in the garage as I am sure many other s will as well..

Cellosic at one dollar a gallon is supposedly 5 years away.

We as a nation need to support these technologies and stop giving tax breaks to the oil companies..

Exxon mobil made 11 billion last quarter and can you tell me why we are giving them a tax break?

Thats the question on everyones mind.. ...or at least it should be...

[davidlane]

Originally Posted by JBsZ06

We as a nation need to support these technologies and stop giving tax breaks to the oil companies..

Exxon mobil made 11 billion last quarter and can you tell me why we are giving them a tax break?

Thats the question on everyones mind.. ...or at least it should be...

Are you naive enough to believe that if the oil companies loose the tax break they won't pass that on to the buyer at the pump?

In 2006 ExxonMobil's net after taxes was 10.81% of their gross earnings. If you were keeping 11 cents of every dollar you earned would you keep doing what you're doing? This is further evidence of the ease with which the media misleads people that are a product of the government school system!

[JBsZ06]

11 billion dollars last quarter!

Enough said.. Time for them to stop raping the american people.

Cellosic and tell them to shove their oil up their ..xxx

[davidlane]

Originally Posted by JBsZ06

11 billion dollars last quarter!

Enough said.. Time for them to stop raping the american people.

Cellosic and tell them to shove their oil up their ..xxx

Apparently from your response you are that naive!

"There are only two things that are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I am not sure about the former." Albert Einstien.

Have the two of you met at some time in the past?

[F14CRAZY]

Resale value will go up

[JBsZ06]

Originally Posted by davidlane

Apparently from your response you are that naive!

"There are only two things that are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I am not sure about the former." Albert Einstien.

Have the two of you met at some time in the past?

You know whats great about opinions? We've all got them.

My little fella Maxwell wearing sunglasses(autistic child) here would say I'm one hell of a dad..

Here's me and him.



Lets see a photo of you david and maybe your kid or that car of yours. Always good to put a face with post like yours.

Looking forward to it.

[blkwrxsti]

Originally Posted by davidlane

Are you naive enough to believe that if the oil companies loose the tax break they won't pass that on to the buyer at the pump?

In 2006 ExxonMobil's net after taxes was 10.81% of their gross earnings. If you were keeping 11 cents of every dollar you earned would you keep doing what you're doing? This is further evidence of the ease with which the media misleads people that are a product of the government school system!

1. The government allowed Exxon Mobil to merge despite several antitrust concerns raised in 1999, because they didn't want our oil industry to be at a disadvantage when it came to competing with large foreign oil firms. As far as I know, increased scrutiny and the potential for being split up are all part of the bargain when you ask the government to ignore your little monopoly (or in this case oligopoly). Your statement "pass that on" implies that the oil companies are barely scraping by, as does your comment that only 11 cents of every dollar is kept.

2. If I could keep 11 cents of every dollar I earn, after I pay ALL my expenses, depreciate my car and my house, pay all my taxes, "invest" in capital - yeah I think I'd sign up for that. That means if I make 100K, I get to keep 11K at the end of the year, after I've paid for buying a new car every four years, a new house every 20 years, medical benefits and pensions for my employee, renovations, taxes, utilities, clothes, electronics - you know all my R&D expenses. It's silly to compare an individual to a corporation, but you started it...

3. I don't think the media misleads people any more than say, talkradio. If you really are being open minded, unlike someone who's "been brainwashed by government schools", I encourage you to compare Exxon Mobil's balance sheet with say, GM, or even BP to see if they're really that hard up:

Exxon's "11" cents of every dollar translated to after tax profit of 39.5 Billion dollars last year.
GM lost 2.3 cents on every dollar last year (plus the original dollar).
BP is Exxon's largest competitor ~ half the size, and it only made 8.4 cents per dollar.
Chevron is at 8.8 cents - it's a wonder they're still at it, as you said, would you keep doing what you're doing for THAT?

I know there are industries that are doing much better than this, but to get back on topic, ExxonMobil and GM are the key to solving our oil problem, which is probably why they are being discussed here (instead of the brand new HHR SS, which really is a shame). If only GM had a VP that didn't drown out the drumbeat of a new product launch with his political axe grinding...

FWIW - the House is going to make another silly politically motivated statement and pretend they're trying to pass an additional tax:
http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/...3-23341315.htm

[MelvinJ]

Originally Posted by blkwrxsti

I don't dispute what you're saying, my issue with Bob is that he's the most "visible face of GM". He's apparently decided that his main goal is to somehow convince his customers that the government is screwing them, get them to lead a revolt, and then get NHTSA to roll back the clock on CAFE. I know he's good, but I don't think putting that genie in the bottle is a realistic goal for him.

First of all, I could see a large part of Bob's comments during this HHR SS preview as boiling down to nothing more than, "Hurry, this offer won't last". He's trying to motivate people who admire this type of vehicle to buy it now and not put it off until some point down the road. Whether things will really be as bad as he says doesn't exactly matter in this context, it's Marketing 101 - get people to sign today. Customers with a "someday" attitude are worth much less than customers ready to sign on the dotted line.

As far as convincing people that the government is screwing them, I don't know many industries that invite additional regulatory control, and GM is no different. If he can plant some seeds in the general population that all this regulation won't be good for them either, that's at least a small step in the direction getting legislators to ease up.

Originally Posted by blkwrxsti

It's also a goal that runs counter to his charge to get GM to produce great vehicles, and get the customers excited about GM vehicles and GM in general. This is a great example of how Bob could have spun this to show how far ahead of Mazda, Subaru and VW the HHR SS really is. He could have talked up how the Chevy has more cargo space, weighs less, is faster, and gets WAY better mileage. He could have even played up the idea that they were going to have to somehow find 3 or 4 MPG on this platform in the next 10 years in order to keep selling this under the new CAFE rules (I disagree with your theory that GM would try to use the fuel economy of a specialty car like the SS, selling at 50,000 units per year, to offset in any significant way, their plans to continue to produce 1.2 milliion light trucks 10 years from now) The base HHR does and will get better fuel economy than this - and Bob should already know that most of his customers are just buying the base models of all of these "performance" cars anyway. Altima's have always been faster than Grand Prix, G35s have always been faster than CTS's, Accords and Camrys have generally been faster than Malibu's and G6's. Yet the hallowed GM performance car is the only one that's being threatened by the new CAFE regime, sure Bob.

I know you must know better than this, but all this talk about finding another 3, 4, or 5 mpg sounds like you think that as long as THIS vehicle can average 35 mpg everything will be hunky-dory. The HHR is classified as a light-truck currently specifically to offset other light trucks to meet their CAFE target in the low 20's. From the sound of things, it won't matter much how it's classified since there will be one fleet, but EVERY car in the lineup will have to do everything it can to meet the 35 mpg average for the fleet. If they were selling a couple of thousand SS's in a year, it wouldn't make make much difference, but I definitely disagree that 50,000 units of any model are insignificant to the corporate average. I believe things will be that tight. There's only so much they can do with heavier vehicles, so smaller, lighter ones line the HHR (SS or otherwise) are going to need to get stellar mileage - way over 45 mpg. Will an eFlex HHR be as exciting to drive as the current SS? I doubt it.

Also, I have searched this news story to see just where Bob said that ONLY GM performance cars will be threatened by the new CAFE regime, and I couldn't find it. Could you please quote it here? Just because other car companies aren't saying this about their own models, doesn't mean it isn't true.

Originally Posted by blkwrxsti

If GM really only needs to get 5 mpg from this thing to keep building it (10 years from now), they could do nothing more than put a BAS+ system on it, lower the weight by a few hundred pounds, and keep selling this thing till Bob's pension runs out. If they're really planning on keeping this tooling around that long, they should be able to invest in some high quality aluminum tooling for all the suspension and chassis components. Not that I expect them to put their money where Bob's mouth is... The whole thing is just a transparent rant, when the STORY should have been about the winner GM surely has on its hands with the HHR SS.

Although the GM PR people and press kits materials surely covered the competitive points you mention on the HHR SS, I agree that it would have been nice to have Bob listing them too. Then again, do we definitely know he didn't? The writer of this story may have only printed a fraction of what he said.

[blkwrxsti]

Originally Posted by MelvinJ

First of all, I could see a large part of Bob's comments during this HHR SS preview as boiling down to nothing more than, "Hurry, this offer won't last". .

Bob's the best salesman in the world if the board sent him out to say, "Hurry up, because 10 years from now, we're not making these anymore." Either that or he's really scraping the bottom of the barrel for slow customers.

Originally Posted by MelvinJ

As far as convincing people that the government is screwing them, I don't know many industries that invite additional regulatory control, and GM is no different. If he can plant some seeds in the general population that all this regulation won't be good for them either, that's at least a small step in the direction getting legislators to ease up. .

You see an old man planting seeds, the rest of the world just saw a crotchety old man trash the farm because he doesn't think the world needs any more corn. The "small step" is costing the General plenty of goodwill, goodwill that they're buying with Billions of dollars in fuel cell, hybrid, and flex fuel development. Bob's words make that investment an empty gesture to some. You might not care what that group thinks now, but that's how goodwill works, it's only worth something when it comes time to collect. Toyota has it, so now they produce the thirsty Tundra and the even larger Sequoia with impunity.

Originally Posted by MelvinJ

I know you must know better than this, but all this talk about finding another 3, 4, or 5 mpg sounds like you think that as long as THIS vehicle can average 35 mpg everything will be hunky-dory. The HHR is classified as a light-truck currently specifically to offset other light trucks to meet their CAFE target in the low 20's. From the sound of things, it won't matter much how it's classified since there will be one fleet, but EVERY car in the lineup will have to do everything it can to meet the 35 mpg average for the fleet. If they were selling a couple of thousand SS's in a year, it wouldn't make make much difference, but I definitely disagree that 50,000 units of any model are insignificant to the corporate average. I believe things will be that tight. There's only so much they can do with heavier vehicles, so smaller, lighter ones line the HHR (SS or otherwise) are going to need to get stellar mileage - way over 45 mpg. Will an eFlex HHR be as exciting to drive as the current SS? I doubt it..

I don't think you're buying into the fear mongering either. Today, "everyday" cars like Camrys and Accords do not get stellar economy - they just barely get under the CAFE standard. Bob is saying the exact opposite of what you said - He's not saying that the HHR SS will be a relatively small light car in the future, he's predicting that cars will have to be smaller, slower and more fuel efficient than this. If you've ever seen a normal distribution, you know that the highest volume cars will be in the center of the distribution. I see trucks and large vehicles (for those that are still willing to pay for them) as being offset by e-flex and economy cars - not the HHR SS. Let me ask you this, for an e-flex car or a full electric car, what do you suppose the government will use as a combined fuel economy estimate? I've heard numbers as high as 235 MPG, which would offset quite a few 20 MPG hybrid SUVs. Just as Trucks were the CAFE loophole of the 90's, I'm betting that electric vehicles will be the loophole starting around 2015.

I'm not going to guess whether an e-flex will be faster than an HHR SS, and I'm guessing that 500+ hp cars might become rarer than they are now, but cars will always be advancing. In 10 years we could all be driving around in auto-driven cars with 100 channels of HDTV in them - I'm not going to be holding on to some dinosaur just to make a point to my government. BTW, E-flex could easily be faster than an HHR SS = A car with wheel motors (like GM's skateboard) for braking and driving needs to be able to generate at least 1.1 g (braking), so the motors would already be sized to make any car potentially accelerate like an AWD viper (if you're willing to give up range and the controller was designed to accomodate it).

BTW - does the HHR SS weigh less than it's competitors, does it have a 6 speed trans, or a DSG? Does it have even a MILD hybrid system just to shut the engine off at traffic lights? I'm really thinking that 5 MPG in the next 10 years is not going to be as difficult as some people think. I think with 8200# "light" trucks off the highways and advanced composite materials, it will become easier to lower energy absorpsion requirements for the average car.

Originally Posted by MelvinJ

Also, I have searched this news story to see just where Bob said that ONLY GM performance cars will be threatened by the new CAFE regime, and I couldn't find it. Could you please quote it here? Just because other car companies aren't saying this about their own models, doesn't mean it isn't true..

This is my point - they're using Bob as Sierra Club chum. They are not immune from the laws of physics, they must figure their customers already know about them.

Originally Posted by MelvinJ

Although the GM PR people and press kits materials surely covered the competitive points you mention on the HHR SS, I agree that it would have been nice to have Bob listing them too. Then again, do we definitely know he didn't? The writer of this story may have only printed a fraction of what he said.

You're right - these quotes are so out of character for our man Bob. I'll bet he never even gave this interview. The writer of the story probably is quoting him out of context, if he ever bothered to talk to him in the first place. This is so not like Bob.
The same magazines that have been falling all over themselves to recommend a thirsty little car like the Mazda 3, can now barely get themselves to admit that the HHR SS is now "at least in the same ballpark"? Bob ought to be ripping THOSE guys a new one and leave the political grandstanding to the lobbyists and the PACs (you now the same ones that have been doing such a good job squashing CAFE for the last 20 years).

[Hitman1970]

Just because of the title I will say this. While I was going to the gym after work today there was a black HHR SS in the lot. It was gorgeous. The front seats looked fantastic. I loved the tires and lower profile. It looked fast just sitting there. Great job GM.

[The Cruck]

Originally Posted by Hitman1970

Just because of the title I will say this. While I was going to the gym after work today there was a black HHR SS in the lot. It was gorgeous. The front seats looked fantastic. I loved the tires and lower profile. It looked fast just sitting there. Great job GM.

That`s the kind of reply I like to see.
I don`t know what kind of cars will be on the road in 2015, but I do know that I want to be happy with the car I have to drive in the mean time.

"Live and let DRIVE"!!!

[JBsZ06]

The HHR SS is a cool ride. Not expensive and has enough room to satisfy those who feel the need to carry a lot of stuff..


GM's got a cool small car and truck lineup..

Just wish that no lift shift logic was used not only in the HHR SS but the entire turbo 4 lineup...ie solstice.. gxp /sky redline ..

Thats pretty cool technology..

BTW maybe lutz had a grand plan to reinvent GM and now with CAFE standards etc...the board is saying ...."BOB < WE WOULD BE CAFE STANDARDS WONT' LET US" and maybe Bobs just letting off some steam because he really wanted to make a cool USA GM lineup of performance vehicles?