Link: http://money.cnn.com/2006/12/26/news/companies/gm_fuel.reut/index.htm?source=yahoo_quote
GM slams possible fuel economy changes.
Auto manufacturer says standards would place an unfair burden on Detroit and would essentially surrender the market for trucks, SUVs to Japan.
DETROIT (Reuters) -- A proposal to increase U.S. fuel economy standards would force Detroit-based automakers to "hand over" the market for trucks and sport-utility vehicles to Japanese manufacturers, a senior General Motors Corp. executive said.
Bob Lutz, GM's vice chairman and the head of the company's global product development team, said the proposed changes to the government's Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards would represent an unfair burden on the traditional Big Three automakers.
"For one thing, it puts us, the domestic manufacturers, at odds with the desires of most of our customers, namely larger vehicles," Lutz said in a year-end posting on a Web site maintained by GM.
He added: "That effectively hands the truck and SUV market over to the imports, particularly the Japanese, who have earned years of accumulated credits from their fleets of formerly very small cars."
Lutz, a long-time critic of government fuel economy regulations, compared the attempt to force carmakers to sell smaller vehicles to "fighting the nation's obesity problem by forcing clothing manufacturers to sell garments only in small sizes."
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Link: http://fastlane.gmblogs.com/archives/2006/12/seasons_ranting.html#more
By Bob Lutz
GM Vice Chairman
Hello, everyone. The original purpose of the post was to send the warmest of season’s greetings to all of you, and wish you a happy and healthy 2007. But, as usual, there’s more on my mind than that.
So while the holiday greetings from us to you are first and foremost and sincere, I also feel the need to comment on recent talk centering on possible revisions to the government’s Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards. There is now a team of "independent CEOs", most of them in the transportation business, that has recommended a 4% per year increase in the standard.
My feelings on CAFE are well-known; I’m the guy on record who compared forcing automakers to sell smaller cars to improve fuel economy with fighting the nation’s obesity problem by forcing clothing manufacturers to sell garments in only small sizes.
So it’s no surprise to most that I fail to see the wisdom, or the fairness, in this particular recommendation. For one thing, it puts us, the domestic manufacturers, at odds with the desires of most of our customers, namely larger vehicles that we wouldn’t be able to supply in the numbers needed.
That effectively hands the truck and SUV market over to the imports, particularly the Japanese, who have earned years of accumulated credits from their fleets of formerly very small cars. They can afford to go bigger, which they’re doing now by the way, and they’d be able to move up and fill the segments we’d be forced to vacate.
There is no technological bag of tricks that enables much better fuel economy than we have today. We already have maximum aerodynamics, active fuel management, six-speed transmissions, electric power steering, direct injection, and hundreds of dollars (per vehicle) of other technology that saves a tenth of a mile per gallon here, two-tenths there. Despite what alarmists may think, we don’t have any magic 100-mpg carburetor that we’re holding back because we’re in bed with the oil companies.
We are working daily toward real alternative fuel solutions to reduce our dependence on petroleum, using the most advanced technologies available, and some that haven’t even been invented yet. Stay tuned for the North American International Auto Show in Detroit in January to hear more of what we’ve been up to in this area.
In the meantime, and I’ve said it before, the most effective way to drive market behavior is through the market mechanism; we saw the quick move to smaller vehicles when gas hit $3-plus recently. While we aren’t advocating higher fuel prices, we have to face it: The reason Europeans drive very small cars is that gasoline costs so much more. That’s what the market demands there, and that’s what we provide.
Higher gas prices have done dramatically more to reshape consumer buying trends than any regulation. As long as it's around $2/gallon here, people will exercise their freedom to buy the vehicle they want, V8 engine and all. Forcing us to alter the fleets to hit some theoretical average won’t change what consumers want, or what they’ll buy.
The real way to save fuel is the widespread adoption of bio-fuels, produced domestically, like E-85 ethanol (GM is the world's largest producer of cars and trucks capable of running on domestically produced bio-fuels) and the pursuit of the electrification of the automobile, as announced by Rick Wagoner in L.A. recently, such as in plug-in hybrids, fuel cell electric cars and other electrical technologies. The Japanese government is spending huge amounts on advanced battery research. It would be nice if our government would do the same.
GM slams possible fuel economy changes.
Auto manufacturer says standards would place an unfair burden on Detroit and would essentially surrender the market for trucks, SUVs to Japan.
DETROIT (Reuters) -- A proposal to increase U.S. fuel economy standards would force Detroit-based automakers to "hand over" the market for trucks and sport-utility vehicles to Japanese manufacturers, a senior General Motors Corp. executive said.
Bob Lutz, GM's vice chairman and the head of the company's global product development team, said the proposed changes to the government's Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards would represent an unfair burden on the traditional Big Three automakers.
"For one thing, it puts us, the domestic manufacturers, at odds with the desires of most of our customers, namely larger vehicles," Lutz said in a year-end posting on a Web site maintained by GM.
He added: "That effectively hands the truck and SUV market over to the imports, particularly the Japanese, who have earned years of accumulated credits from their fleets of formerly very small cars."
Lutz, a long-time critic of government fuel economy regulations, compared the attempt to force carmakers to sell smaller vehicles to "fighting the nation's obesity problem by forcing clothing manufacturers to sell garments only in small sizes."
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Link: http://fastlane.gmblogs.com/archives/2006/12/seasons_ranting.html#more
By Bob Lutz
GM Vice Chairman
Hello, everyone. The original purpose of the post was to send the warmest of season’s greetings to all of you, and wish you a happy and healthy 2007. But, as usual, there’s more on my mind than that.
So while the holiday greetings from us to you are first and foremost and sincere, I also feel the need to comment on recent talk centering on possible revisions to the government’s Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards. There is now a team of "independent CEOs", most of them in the transportation business, that has recommended a 4% per year increase in the standard.
My feelings on CAFE are well-known; I’m the guy on record who compared forcing automakers to sell smaller cars to improve fuel economy with fighting the nation’s obesity problem by forcing clothing manufacturers to sell garments in only small sizes.
So it’s no surprise to most that I fail to see the wisdom, or the fairness, in this particular recommendation. For one thing, it puts us, the domestic manufacturers, at odds with the desires of most of our customers, namely larger vehicles that we wouldn’t be able to supply in the numbers needed.
That effectively hands the truck and SUV market over to the imports, particularly the Japanese, who have earned years of accumulated credits from their fleets of formerly very small cars. They can afford to go bigger, which they’re doing now by the way, and they’d be able to move up and fill the segments we’d be forced to vacate.
There is no technological bag of tricks that enables much better fuel economy than we have today. We already have maximum aerodynamics, active fuel management, six-speed transmissions, electric power steering, direct injection, and hundreds of dollars (per vehicle) of other technology that saves a tenth of a mile per gallon here, two-tenths there. Despite what alarmists may think, we don’t have any magic 100-mpg carburetor that we’re holding back because we’re in bed with the oil companies.
We are working daily toward real alternative fuel solutions to reduce our dependence on petroleum, using the most advanced technologies available, and some that haven’t even been invented yet. Stay tuned for the North American International Auto Show in Detroit in January to hear more of what we’ve been up to in this area.
In the meantime, and I’ve said it before, the most effective way to drive market behavior is through the market mechanism; we saw the quick move to smaller vehicles when gas hit $3-plus recently. While we aren’t advocating higher fuel prices, we have to face it: The reason Europeans drive very small cars is that gasoline costs so much more. That’s what the market demands there, and that’s what we provide.
Higher gas prices have done dramatically more to reshape consumer buying trends than any regulation. As long as it's around $2/gallon here, people will exercise their freedom to buy the vehicle they want, V8 engine and all. Forcing us to alter the fleets to hit some theoretical average won’t change what consumers want, or what they’ll buy.
The real way to save fuel is the widespread adoption of bio-fuels, produced domestically, like E-85 ethanol (GM is the world's largest producer of cars and trucks capable of running on domestically produced bio-fuels) and the pursuit of the electrification of the automobile, as announced by Rick Wagoner in L.A. recently, such as in plug-in hybrids, fuel cell electric cars and other electrical technologies. The Japanese government is spending huge amounts on advanced battery research. It would be nice if our government would do the same.
