Despite General Motors'
problems, the company has affirmed, reaffirmed and
swore on its life that the
Volt would hit the highway in 2010 come hell, high water or insolvency. That said, we reckon coming through on that vow is going to get a lot tougher without a few more billion from the United States Energy Department. You see, GM had applied for $10.3 from the entity, and $2.6 billion of that was to be set aside for building the all-electric sedan and two derivatives of it (as well as a third hybrid model, we're told). Unfortunately for it, all that cheddar is being held up due to its inability to pass a "financial viability test in order to simply survive." Not surprisingly, GM is assuring the world that the government's final decision won't stop the Volt from going on sale this November, but it also said that bankruptcy wouldn't be needed just a few months ago. Ahem. [Warning: read link requires subscription]
posted April 13th 2009 12:36PM
It's over...GM will cease to exist as a company by the end of this year.
I doubt it. They may go bankrupt but that in and of itself absolutely does not imply they will be going away. A number of Airlines wen't bankrupt and they're still around in one form or another.
Frankly, we should have let these guys go bankrupt to begin with rather than give them money. They won't cease to exist and the bankruptcy process will allow/force them to legally make the necessary changes/restructuring that may make them profitable again.
Bring on the bankruptcy so the Unions can wither away!
Then GM may actually be able to survive in the future.
@ Weet
+1
So we get our bailout money back right? . . . . . . right?
@ suijin - it seems to me that if GM files bankruptcy, the government LOANs they received [not bailouts] would be subject to renegotiation, just like all their other debt.
the only way you're going to "get [y]our ... money back" is if they stay afloat.
GM = Gimme More
GM = Got Money
GM = Going Mad
GM = Gross Mismanagement
@nat: Just so you know I have a nickname of Sarcastro in some circles.
Best part is thinking back to them asking for the bailout, where everyone was saying there were going to be a ton of lost jobs if we didn't bail them out. I really don't see see how there aren't going to be a ton of lost jobs no matter what. They really can't stay that big and be viable, AKA there will be lost jobs, a lot of them.
No kidding. Jobs in the auto sector will disappear if the Big 3 dies? Forgive me for rolling on the floor laughing, as most auto-related business entities are already half-dead and finished shedding a good deal of their employees! My company sure has cut back on a lot of people, and I'm probably next on the chopping block if we don't get new orders/jobs soon. It's gotten bad enough that they're making the younger electrical engineers, myself included, work on wiring job panels at our shop instead of programming/designing.
** Preston Tucker is laughing from his grave **
No pity. They had an all electric car General Motors EV1 in the 1990s. This is your own faulty GM... time for bankruptcy and to shed the bad parts and hopefully people.
see this is the stuff thats irritating about the american people, they watch a movie that is obviously bias and not telling the entire story, and they hold that biased crap up as straight fact without researching the other side of the story.
Dear pompous non-american [SmilinGoat], please do us the honors and provide the other side of the story. i look forward to it. thanks.
signed,
irritating american
the other side of the story as best I can make it:
"Poor GM, the rest of the automakers, and the poor poor oil tycoons were worried that new technology and better competition would lead to smaller revenue streams. So poor GM and the rest of the little rascals were forced to stifle this technology and innovation so they could keep putting the much needed buckets of gold on their families tables. All the while convincing us that the technology is so futuristic, that is would take years of innovation to be able to get more electric vehicles out on the roads. Poor automakers, they have it so hard."
or... gm is forced to make an electric car to comply CA standards. gm builds a car leases it out as a testing program. The cars cost about $80,000 to make, and GM cancels the program due to it draining money, and no new battery tech developments.
Discovered by the Germans in 1904, they named it San Diego, which of course in German means a whale's vagina.
The EV1's legend is better than its reality. If electric cars were really so great in 1996, why is there no good, cheap electric car even today? Why has Toyota waited so long to make a plug in hybrid, let alone a 100% electric? Why are Tesla and Fisker so expensive?
Stories about the oil companies pressuring GM are silly. GM has been losing market share for 30 years. If they could make a viable and popular electric car that would save the company, there's nothing the oil companies could do to dissuade them.
The early EV1 used lead acid batteries, which would've been useless in cold climates. Later models used NiMH which had trouble in hot climates. Range was low and recharge times were long. Prices for real-world sales would've been high and battery lifetimes would be a couple of years.
Basically, no one would have bought the EV1. That's why GM stopped production. If you don't like it, go out a buy an electric car now. At whatever price it costs, and accepting whatever shortcomings it has.
basically, cliff notes are that due to current federal regulations on offering cars, you also have to offer service to these cars for a certain amount of time, electric cars are/were expensive, especially to fix. so when these cars were found not to be profitable, they decided to wait for the technology to catch up (something that might be happening now). If GM *or toyota/honda/ford* just sold the cars they had already made, then they would also be taking the long term cost of producing these rarely used parts for only a few cars. cost would have been very large, instead they decided to scrap them all (all companies did this) they crushed them and recycled what they could.
this is a very basic reason why it happened, also as stated, it was not just GM, it was all major manufacturers, GM just put more money into it, which some how makes them the "worst" at the same time...
@Smilingoat Well you are completely passing over the part where the oil companies lobbied every day against the charging stations/infrastructure that needed to be built to make electric cars usable, instead they were asking for hydrogen stations and infrastructure knowing that the tech was so far off it couldn’t be a threat, which as we all know hasn’t quite panned out yet.
last i checked, oil companies =/= to auto companies.
The battery patents used in the ev1 were bought by oil companies. Toyota uses them in their hybrids and can only be used in conjuction with gasoline engines. Thats what was stopping companies from developing electric or plug-in vehicles. Now they are using different batter technology and lith-ion is coming down in cost.
thats all folks!
How pathetic.
Its sad, the company is not a bad one, made a few HUGE mistakes years ago and people arnt very forgiving. i dont think that Chevy/Cadillac/Buick have to worry much about not being around anymore, however chances are its going to be like UK care manufacturers, only american by original origin. most likely will be Indian or something.
i find it sad, but hell i find it sad that people dont even consider american cars just because they are american, if you do a little research, they are actually very good on average, and some seriously good ones, just like any other region that makes cars (even japan has a lot of sub par cars, and Europe has more than average if your talking reliability)
Time for it to tank. Funny thing, while looking at a new car for the summer, never once looked a GM even though they are in the news so much recently. Hope they weren't trying to use all that news for publicity.
The New 2010 Chevy Volt, the first and last car by Chevrolet brought to you by Dodge.
if only instead of going bankrupt gm would willingly divide itself into three seperate entities.. gm europe (saab, opel, vauxhaull, holden (australlia))... chevrolet (consisting of chevy and cadillac), gm (consisting of gmc, pontiac, buick) and then sell saturn or toss it also into the gm europe since all but 1 model is designed in europe anyway, and then kill off their stupid idea of a brand.. aka hummer.
that would be a way the government would give money and the chevy volt could still be produced :-)
GM thinks it can save it's company by cloning the Prius... There are plenty of new emerging US auto companies emerging with the fail of GM. Fisker, Tesla to name a few. 2 new auto companies w/cool designs and w/o unions.
With GM's fall, the US auto industry has a bright future.
G'bye
I fail to understand why they need so much money for this. Seriously.
A friend of mine built one of those AC Cobra kits on a Mustang frame in 1989. He put in a big electric motor and a bunch of golf cart batteries in the trunk. Thing hit 60 in under 8 seconds, and would go about 20 miles if you drove "normally", less if you put the wood to it. Total cost was about $10,000, since the chassis was from a wreck and essentially free, but the point is, this was a one off project using 1989 battery technology.
Now, the Volt is a different animal, but why it is taking GM so many years to design and build, what is essentially not much different from what my friend built, except it has a gas powered generator to charge the batteries and a computer to control the charging, etc?
This thing is going to be too expensive, and if GM needs $10 billion from the government to make it happen, I say give that money to a hungrier, better run company like Tesla, and GM can keep what is likely to be a steaming pile anyway.
GM, seriously, go bankrupt already. I'll say one thing for Ford, they are making a go of it without sucking on the tit of the taxpayer...
obviously craigj you have never done anyform of research as to what all new technology is going into the chevy volt... it is a whole new beast.. its technology is by far better and beyond that of the prius which the average joe thinks is the greatest hybrid ever (and it isn't).
Actually, I have. The point is, for all the research, for all the dollars spent, for all the funding from the government, they are building an electric car that will go (maybe) 40 miles on a charge before the gasoline engine kicks in, which will cost in excess of $40,000 for the owner, probably assuming some government assistance.
Think about that. An electric car that carries it's own generator (just like Diesel locomotives have for a many, many years), which is cool, but can only go 40 miles on a charge. Honestly, I don't care what kind of research has been done, 40 miles in a car that cost $40K isn't acceptable in my book, when you can do essentially the same thing with 20 year old tech for much cheaper.
I did the math on this for my self. I drive 30 miles round trip to work, so the Volt would work for me. My current car gets 23 MPG, so I burn 6.5, call it 7 gallons of gas a week. At current prices that is $14. At $5 a gallon that is $35.
Assuming $5 a gallon, I'd spend about $2,000 a year on gas. My current car is paid for, and the energy and resources used to build it are a sunk cost. To replace it with this would cost about $45,000 including taxes. If we assume that the electricity to charge it is free (in reality it probably costs $.40 to charge it), to recoup my costs would take 22.5 years, with gas at $5. Gas at $2.50 it would take 40 years, and I doubt the car would last that long.
It is far cheaper, and far greener to simply continue driving my existing car.
Now, I will need to at some point replace my current car, but I'm not going to pay $40K for an electric car that only gets 40 miles on a charge and then starts burning gas to generate electricity. My money is on a full electric using lithium phosphate or other advanced batteries that can go 300+ miles on a charge, and can be recharged in under an hour. That I would pay $40K for. Until then I'll just drive the car that I have.
Of course the tech and actual parts do not reflect the cost of production. What the huge over pricing of current electric vehicles coming out of old factories is the overhead of retrofitting. Also the cost of the labor that they use (all unionized workers that have mandated things to enable them to be as slow or fast at their job as they feel) which unionized work cost is ENORMOUS. Also the deeply ingrained oil company money flowing through it. Con Ed is kicking back anything I would guess that helps the wallet get alittle heavier for these execs. Id personally love to see these documents and wonder if they have to be published in their entirety with the library of congress.
A ton of fluff is what this money is for and the way we do business here in america.
*isnt* kicking back....
CraigJ
Your friend did NOT "essentially" do the same thing that GM was doing. His battery was NOT warrantied to last for 10 years/150,000 miles, it did NOT have on board diagnostics to diagnose emissions related problems on the vehicle, it essentially had nothing that car manufacturers have to consider when building any car, much less a car that can propel the wheels with electric motors.
Trying to compare your friends junkyard EV project to a full production vehicle is as smart as standing in water and playing with electricity.
I don't care about all that crap.
Every car manufactured after 1970something has an on board ECU - modern engines won't run without them. An ECU is nothing new. Diesel Locomotives have batteries, generators, and definitely have on board diagnostics. This is most assuredly not new technology, in fact diesel-electric hybrids have been around since the 30s or 40s. The battery pack isn't new either - it's lithium-something (I don't know if it's cobalt or phosphate)
I understand that ramping up production on a new car requires retooling of the production line, and that they need to sell a large number of cars to break even before they turn a profit, but That's the same no matter what kind of car you're making, and while this is new for GM, there really isn't a lot of brand new technology in this car, GM is just putting it together in a new package. A singularly unappealing package IMO.
The point is, that he (friend) built essentially a prototype, in his garage, with a set of craftsman tools, a car that would meet many people's needs. 20 mile range (more with more batteries), reasonably reliable, and fast. And I beg to differ, but the car did, in fact, have a charger/controller that would not allow the batteries to be completely drained, and managed the charging to ensure no overcharge. No, it didn't have an LCD display for the driver, but it worked. All of this was 20 years ago. Why can't GM figure all this out? This car (Volt) is going to have a very limited audience. it's expensive, it only goes 40 miles on a charge, and it will be a first year model, which means that it WILL have issues.
Also, if you can guarantee that the water is 100% de-ionized I have no problem playing with electricity...
GM will likely go into receivership, and it is also likely the Chevy Volt is going to be part of someone else's entourage (design might be sold).
They asked for a loan of $10.3? Never imagined R&D was that cheap these days :)
Recession must be hitting them hard ;)
Private small companies are making electric cars that are almost getting 300 miles per charge with NO gas motor. GM dropped the ball a LONG time ago on electric technology and innovation. Instead they pushed ugly designs and MOSTLY low quality cars out. Its sad, I live here in Detroit and grew up in Flint. In the end though, it will have been the greedy union and employees, that brought this company down. Why didn't someone look at this a long time ago and realize this was factory labor workers making 3 times what most other factory employees made, AND they had the best benefits of anyone in town. That may work when you are on top of the market and swimming in cash, but its not sustainable. How can you innovate, when you have to overpay your employees and pass the costs on to the consumer?
Now we have the greatest company in US history on the brink of collapse.
+1.
I wouldn't buy a GM because they are, as you say , ugly, and generally poorly made compared to other manufacturers. The Corvette is fairly well made and a nice car, but since GM took tax payer money I wouldn't even consider buying one, just on general principals.
If Ford get's off their ass and builds something decent, I might consider it.
Hmm that's strange, Buick holds the top spot for quality at JDPowers. How is that such a poor quality built is holding up so well?
@sk That was where the "mostly" came in. All of our US automakers have SOME decent cars, but in the end that might not be good enough. Unfortunately they have had horrible ones as well, and for many years they go on unchanged. A lesson could be learned from a company like Subaru that doesn't have a single low quality or low rated car in its entire line up.
not only buick is classified as one of the best vehicles.. but if you look at there general line up in the past few years they have become very sleek looking cars and in the last half-decade to decade they have improved the quality of all their vehicles. heck most of their cars are ranked better then their european counterparts... now mind you i traded off 2 gm cars for 1 vw about 3 years ago (i only did so since gm was running through their money so quickly i could see that they would be in some severe financial hurt and the resale to both of my cars would be all but gone)
Buick only has 3 models. I am sure they are all comfortable, they always have been, but I wouldn't want any of them. Maybe the Enclave for $8k less than the $35k asking price.
At $75k a year, I might not be Buick's target audience. Too rich for my blood.
So what was the point off all the loans they gave to GM. Wouldn't it just be smarter to have forced them into bankruptcy last December. Now when they go bankrupt and can't reemerge a viable company, what will happen to to the loans? They may sell off their assets, but will it be enough to pay all of their creditors?
This is GM's fault and the governments fault. GM has focused on SUVs for far too many years. They killed off the EV1 and choose to produce SUVs. If they had been like Toyota and made cars that people wanted to buy they would not be in this mess. Moral hazard should have been at play when they first showing signs of failure; however the opposite happened, the government started giving them loans and thus rewarding idiocy in on the GM board of directors. In the end who gets stuck with the bill, the American public.
I don't get why the focus on the Volt - the car sucks - even in theory for MPG. I'd much rather have a honda, lexus or toyota hybrid. I'd much rather have a tesla (despite the transmission issues) or fiscar all electric. I'd rather have a moped than any vehicle made by GM. I cringe every time I get a rental car at the airport that is made by GM- I can't hate them enough. How the hell the company has survived to this day is stunning to me. Perhaps 40 years ago they made good vehicles but their ergonomics, technology and build quality are wretched. My last rental had 280 HP and yet my ford escort from 1984 could blow this vehicle off the line and got much better gas mileage and I would say comfort wise they were about equal. What the hell is Chevy doing that people other than rental places would ever consider a purchase? My only guess is nostalgia for when a cadillac or a corvette was an iconic vehicle.
So you much rater get stranded in a Tesla when the battery is empty than having an on-board backup generator that keeps your batteries constantly above 30% charge.
sk - pretty sure you could easily get stranded in either. I don't think the head of GM would have had a team of mechanics following him during his brief part of the ride from detroit to DC in this vehicle. If you read the article he was only trapped behind the wheel a very brief portion of the drive. He was transported by other means until the very final part of the trip. If the head of GM doesn't want to be stuck behind the wheel of this vehicle - what poor schmuck wants to be that fool?
And this is on Engadget because... ?
To prove that most posters on engadget don't understand or know anything about the automotive industry or business in general.
It would be nice if the headline and writeup were correct, but they aren't. When that is the case and the technology behind it isn't explained at all, it is better off just being on autoblog.