Non-political news

[baxil]

In among the barrage of Obama/Clinton coverage today, you might have missed a quiet piece of interesting news: GM is going smallThey're closing four pickup truck and SUV factories; throwing brand weight into their smaller and more fuel-efficient cars like the Cobalt; talking seriously about their battery-operated Volt; and -- shock -- may drop

Comments

[packbat]

I saw that in the BBC! Here's hoping they'll hold things together long enough to start making it work...

(P.S. Flipping through your article, I'm surprised to see that the Volt has a gas engine to recharge the batteries -y'know, I think I remember someone saying that that was the optimum setup for a hybrid...)

[roaminrob]

I posted a comment to your LJ a while back describing a delivery vehicle built in 19-oh-something that did exactly that.

[packbat]

Ah, I had completely forgotten that - I should look it up.

[tropism]

Yeah. Gas engines can be very, very efficient -- if you tune them for one specific RPM. That's impossible to do with a direct connection to the wheels, but when the connection's only electrical, it works very well.

[packbat]

Exactly. :)