At last, an Auto Industry success story!

I read today, that GM makes a $49,000.00 profit on each and every Chevy Volt produced!! And further more Chrysler/Fiat is making a smooth ten large on those little 500 EV's!!

Reuters: GM Is Still Losing As Much As $49,000 On Each Volt It Builds

Chrysler will lose $10,000 on every Fiat 500 EV it sells, CEO says - Autoweek


uhhhh..........I just re-read the copy a little closer.....(I'm old & slow) Shit! THEY'RE LOSING 49K and 10K respectively!!

sorry. Y'all go on back to what you were doing.

Voodoo math by someone without consideration of reality as to where R&D dollars come from or how they are spent...
The Fiat 500 story is from 2011

I guess Boeing is in big trouble with those Dreamliners then, maybe they should stop selling them .

Regards.

Mike

I took this from the official GM response as a reason for building "to meet future regulatory requirements " Toyota seems to be breaking even with Prius. Nissan's Leaf is blowing in the wind---Trevor

Each Maybach sold was an estimated $500,000 loss.

thruthefence said:

I read today, that GM makes a $49,000.00 profit on each and every Chevy Volt produced!! And further more Chrysler/Fiat is making a smooth ten large on those little 500 EV's!!

Reuters: GM Is Still Losing As Much As $49,000 On Each Volt It Builds

Chrysler will lose $10,000 on every Fiat 500 EV it sells, CEO says - Autoweek


uhhhh..........I just re-read the copy a little closer.....(I'm old & slow) Shit! THEY'RE LOSING 49K and 10K respectively!!

sorry. Y'all go on back to what you were doing.

Click to expand...

I have no idea how much of a loss or profit GM makes on the Volt but each one sold helps GM meet the EPA mandate, does it not?

Yet another example of the government and private industry wasting hundreds of thousands of dollars in early adopter hijinks:

http://en.wikipedia.org/government waste?

More seriously, with respect to the original post the key question appears to be the Li ion battery experience curve. Some sources say it will be flat. Others say we can expect at least a ten fold reduction in prices as production increases. Perhaps even more likely/promising will be breakthroughs in battery technology. Or, maybe just the effects of required improvements on combustion engine technology? I'll put a "stop" there, not wanting to turn this thread into the usual rant about how great cars were before they were also expected to have decent gas mileage.

Wait until the new Volt owners read the small print in the owners handbook:- "batteries not included"

Now, that brought a smile.

I think there's a tangent to this story that has yet to be mined.

Have any of you every actually sat down to watch ANY of the 24 hours of Lemans?

In the last five years or so, the top Prototype teams have all gone to diesel/highbrid technology. Sometimes shaving three to four pit stops from their race runs.

Audi R18 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Also, for the last four years(?) the FIA or Formula one world championship racing has required all teams to utilize a kinetic energy recovery system. Basically, this system harvests energy generated from braking, and converts it into electrical energy. The driver can use this extra energy for a passing opportunity. (usually around 80 BHP is the gain.)

Racing has always played a major role in the R&D for these types of systems. Just Google one name: "Harry Miller" to get an idea of what was developed when.

Now as for me eating (as a taxpayer) $49,00 for each volt? well that's another posts worth of a rant.

smalltime said:

I think there's a tangent to this story that has yet to be mined.

Have any of you every actually sat down to watch ANY of the 24 hours of Lemans?

In the last five years or so, the top Prototype teams have all gone to diesel/highbrid technology. Sometimes shaving three to four pit stops from their race runs.

Audi R18 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Also, for the last four years(?) the FIA or Formula one world championship racing has required all teams to utilize a kinetic energy recovery system. Basically, this system harvests energy generated from braking, and converts it into electrical energy. The driver can use this extra energy for a passing opportunity. (usually around 80 BHP is the gain.)

Racing has always played a major role in the R&D for these types of systems. Just Google one name: "Harry Miller" to get an idea of what was developed when.

Now as for me eating (as a taxpayer) $49,00 for each volt? well that's another posts worth of a rant.

Click to expand...

I figured we were both gear heads...
It is always better to find common ground.
I have walked to the top of Pikes Peak 8 times...
I was there when Audi smoked the record with Michelle Moulton driving an Ur Quattro.
I still have a chipped tooth from a face full of hail and rooster tail from Vantannen.
Good times.
....

Seems to me there is no certainty that (as a taxpayer) you are eating the 49k.

a simple solution if you want to increase gas mileage, use the same emission standards that europe uses. You can buy diesel cars over there that get in the 70's for mpg, here they are in the 40's. Same models.
Why don't we do this?
I say its because our Gov't does not have our best interest at heart.
Less gas tax money?
less desire/market for electric cars?
domestic mfgs don't make a efficient diesel car?
inquiring minds want to know why not allow these efficient diesel cars over here?

klunker said:

a simple solution if you want to increase gas mileage, use the same emission standards that europe uses. You can buy diesel cars over there that get in the 70's for mpg, here they are in the 40's. Same models.
Why don't we do this?
I say its because our Gov't does not have our best interest at heart.
Less gas tax money?
less desire/market for electric cars?
domestic mfgs don't make a efficient diesel car?
inquiring minds want to know why not allow these efficient diesel cars over here?

Click to expand...

Well that would depend on what govt's REAL goal is ?? Is it to provide a way for people to cheaply drive wherever they want ?? Or to DISCOURAGE that form of transport, while generally not developing or providing any OTHER form of transport. In the end you have people that commute by bicycle, and have to accept whatever jobs they can find within biking distance of home.

Bill

GM headed for Bankruptcy again.

General Motors Is Headed For Bankruptcy -- Again - Forbes


Very interesting.

Right now, the federal government owns 500,000,000 shares of GM, or about 26% of the company. It would need to get about $53.00/share for these to break even on the bailout, but the stock closed at only $20.21/share on Tuesday. This left the government holding $10.1 billion worth of stock, and sitting on an unrealized loss of $16.4 billion.

Click to expand...

I really doubt there is a government conspiracy to take away your F350- US and Euro diesel standards SHOULD be the same, but if they were, the same people who are complaining that they are different would probably be telling stories about Blue Helmets and Black Helicopters.

The fact is that we have different standards for a lot of reasons, none particularly sensible, but none of great interest to Art Bell- we have isolationism on the part of US politicians, we have wonky scientific disagreements, we have US standards mostly evolving from the relatively unique situation of the LA basin, and we have different compositions of oil as its pumped, here as opposed to in the Middle East.
A historical mishmash, which evolved without overall Federal planning- Basically, California, in particular the Southern California Air Quality Management District, leads the pollution regs in the USA- So-Cal has historically been the most important auto market in the world, and it has had nasty pollution problems- so, on their own, they came up with a plan. It actually would have been better if the Feds had stepped in and rationalized it all, but instead, the Feds usually follow the local decisions made in So-Cal.

US and Euro standards, particularly for diesel, are wackily shooting at different targets, with different standards for particulates, Nox, and CO2 and Carbon Monoxide, and different emphasis on what is important.

Personally, I think it would be great if we had ONE world standard for emissions, for both gas and diesel, so everybody built to the same standards. But, on the other hand, that would probably mean diesel Hondas and VW's would clean the Big 3's clock, and we would lose jobs to the Ford Ranger plant in Thailand, which makes great little Ford Rangers with 4 banger diesels that get 40mpg.

There aint no free lunch.


The loss per Volt is another issue altogether- part political boondoggle, no doubt, but also part R&D, which may pay out in the future. Its not a lot different from how the first color copiers cost $65,000 each, but now I can get a color laser printer/copier/scanner for $200 at Office Max. If the technology matures, and oil keeps going up, the per car price can come way down- and eventually they can make a profit on em. Auto design and sales is always a crap shoot- Ford lost millions on the Edsel, and it wasnt that big of a technological jump. Every auto company takes risks, some pay off, some dont. In this case, as mentioned, losing money on the Volt may allow them to make MORE money on Escalades, if it allows their overall score to be low enough to sell more gas hogs.

Most Euro cars do not meet US safety standards without modification.
For instance, in Europe, they just assume you are smart enough to wear a seat belt.
Here, we require every car to be safe even for morons who wont buckle up- since we seem to have so many of them- so US cars require much more passive protection, airbags, and so on.

there are a lot of other differences as well- this article says of the 43 main rules, only 11 are the same between the US and Europe, and many require major structural redesign.
Automakers find safety in U.S. doesn

We have different roads, different markets, different consumer expectations.
European bumper standards are designed to avoid killing a pedestrian if you hit one. US standards are designed not to hurt your bumper, so its cheaper for the insurance company to fix.
The Europeans dont allow blinking red turn signals- they have to be amber over there. The Japanese dont allow daytime running lights.
Again, if we all agreed on one standard, it would be better in some ways, but cut into local manufacturing in many countries, as bigger foreign firms with lower costs could take over markets. Plus, if we had one, global standard, that would require one, global body that set standards- which many in the USA find to be scary.

Well an article here on PM about a book was very interesting re the Japanese auto industry. They totally restructured their industry and the rules about imports in their country for the goal of dominating imports into the USA.

But setting that aside, airbags seem to be an International effort not an American one, and in fact most US airbags now will NOT work if the seatbelt is not fastened. They are a supplemental safety device that only works IF the seatbelt is used.


This is wiki with the standard wiki disclaimer.

Airbag - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The development of airbags coincided with an international interest in automobile safety legislation. Some safety experts advocated a performance-based occupant protection standard rather than a standard mandating a particular technical solution, which could rapidly become outdated and might not be a cost-effective approach. As countries successively mandated seat belt restraints, there was less emphasis placed on other designs for several decades.

Click to expand...

I didnt say airbags were american- merely that the Euro standard approach is different from the US one, when designing airbags.
Euro airbags are smaller, and explode less forcefully, because their engineers assume that they will always be used in ADDITION to a seat belt.
US standards are written to assume that the occupant will NOT be wearing a seatbelt, and the airbag must be large enough, and fast enough, to save a life of an unbelted occupant.
When tests are done, the Euro crashtest dummies wear seatbelts. Ours do not.

This makes for two different results, and that is why standard Euro legal cars are not able to be directly imported.

If you give an engineer a different goal set, he or she will design a different product. The US and the Europeans have different philosophies about what a car is, and should be. So we end up with mutually incompatible products.

Ries said:

I didnt say airbags were american- merely that the Euro standard approach is different from the US one, when designing airbags.
Euro airbags are smaller, and explode less forcefully, because their engineers assume that they will always be used in ADDITION to a seat belt.
US standards are written to assume that the occupant will NOT be wearing a seatbelt, and the airbag must be large enough, and fast enough, to save a life of an unbelted occupant.
When tests are done, the Euro crashtest dummies wear seatbelts. Ours do not.

This makes for two different results, and that is why standard Euro legal cars are not able to be directly imported.

If you give an engineer a different goal set, he or she will design a different product. The US and the Europeans have different philosophies about what a car is, and should be. So we end up with mutually incompatible products.

Click to expand...

And I said, some american airbags do NOT deploy unless the seatbelt is worn. Not sure which vehicles, or how to even find that out. But in at least SOME american made cars, no seatbelt= no air bag.

Also I think you are incorrect about crash tests NOT using seatbelts in the US

Frontal offset test information

Word is they shut down the Volt plant. Rumour is it's finished , official story is 'retooling for a next years model' . ---Trevor