GM: Battery glitch cuts hybrid sales

[baloo]

With gasoline at $4 a gallon and the Toyota Prius flying out dealership doors, General Motors' mild hybrid vehicles are stuck in neutral because of battery-pack failures.

GM had to use 9,000 battery packs to replace leaking ones it recalled, a company spokesman says. GM diverted those batteries from new hybrids for sale this year.

GM planned to sell about 27,000 mild hybrid vehicles this year, possibly more given the sharp rise in gasoline prices. But insiders say GM will fall far short of that goal because of problems with its Michigan-based battery maker, Cobasys, a joint venture of Chevron Technology Ventures and Energy Conversion Devices.

GM discovered an internal leak in the nickel-metal hydride batteries that Cobasys made for GM's 2007 model hybrids. The leak caused the hybrid powertrain to shut down. The vehicles could still be driven, but not with the hybrid system.

The vehicles affected were the 2007 Saturn Vue Green Line and Saturn Aura Green Line hybrids. A GM spokesman says the company recalled about 9,000 vehicles to replace battery packs. That slowed the launch of the 2008 Saturn hybrids and the new Chevrolet Malibu Hybrid.

More here:
http://www.autoweek.com/apps/pbcs.dl...3383/1530/FREE

[I-Love-Pontiac]

This hasn't been a very good news day for GM. Plants closing. Sales way down. Hybrid problems. Very sad..

[AMERICA 123]

With gasoline at $4 a gallon and the Toyota Prius flying out dealership doors, -

Another AN product times a negative piece of news concerning GM - WITH THE MANDATORY erronious push for Toyota.

Prius sales are down for MAY 2008 by -39.8% and are up only 2.2% on a dsr basis for the year.


...........MAY'08...MAY'07...%ch....YTD'08.....YTD '07.. %ch

PRIUS.15,011.. .24,009.. -39.8... 79,675.. ..76,747.... 2.2

You can't take'm seriously anymore - if they screw up that one - the rest's in doubt as well.

Just look at all their bad reporting this week. Cerebus/Chrysler, who outsold the F150 etc.

Beyond embarrassing - probably to deflect attention away from Toyotas unexpected results AND DISAPPOINTMENTS.

[baloo]

To be fair, the Toyota sales figures only came out today. At best they're a couple of hours older than the article, maybe they even came after the article, and last month the Prius was way up.