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.

[wy]

Hey, the HMMWV is a perfectly good vehicle if you need to add on a ton of armor and operate in terrain that may include rubble, small plants, boulders, up and down hillsides, etc.

[wy]

You want to start the apocalypse, or shall I?

[tropism]

We could just get them all to move to Detroit...

[deirdremoon]

I cannot afford to hold my breath over this, but dude-- if it proves true, I am SO holding a "get drunk for Gaia" celebration.

[wy]

(= We need excuses for those?

[kadyg]

I read an article in Wired a couple years ago with the head of GE about their plants going green. He straight up said that he wasn't too hyped about environmentalism, but saw the transition more as the direction that business would be going in and he wanted to be at the forefront.

I don't care what the motivation is, the fact that they are doing it at all is way cool.

[ngarewyrd]

another interesting tidbit, The Ford F150 truck has, for the first time in many years, lost it's 'best seller' title for the last month

They're small waves, but that is how a tsunami starts out =8D

[natetg]

Really, this is a continuation of a trend where imports make inroads on the US auto market. At minimum, it's been happening since the 70's.