Lithium Valley, California

[Rmay635703]

In a way, had GM stick to some of its momentum they would have won the hybrid market like Ford / Toyota did back then. At least GM is coming back strong with Volt and Bolt, and the EV market is really here.

Yep, GM already had an efficient chassis that was more efficient than the 70mpg Honda Insight and already designed to accept a variety of drivetrains.
The trouble was they hand made the vehicle out of billet, they could have easily hit the same price points as Honda had they spent the time to make the chassis production intent.

Instead of fighting the mandate they should have pushed to modify it so momentum wasn’t lost, they could have continued to make a very small percentage of BEV alongside a larger percentage of 90mpg diesel hybrids and even sold a stick shift econo box using the same platform, no doubt 60 or 70mpg highway would have been possible in plain form .

Instead they discontinued efficient vehicles leading to their bailout when fuel prices rose, if they had ready to sell efficient cars (EV1/Impact had both 2 and 4 door versions) they may have weathered the downturn and given Toyota competition during the fuel+financial crisis

Producing hybrids and BEVs has greatly reduced battery cost, we could have been several years ahead of the curve if the general would have even sold compliance numbers of EV1 hybrids

 

[PandaBear]

Yep, GM already had an efficient chassis that was more efficient than the 70mpg Honda Insight and already designed to accept a variety of drivetrains.
The trouble was they hand made the vehicle out of billet, they could have easily hit the same price points as Honda had they spent the time to make the chassis production intent.

Instead of fighting the mandate they should have pushed to modify it so momentum wasn’t lost, they could have continued to make a very small percentage of BEV alongside a larger percentage of 90mpg diesel hybrids and even sold a stick shift econo box using the same platform, no doubt 60 or 70mpg highway would have been possible in plain form .

Instead they discontinued efficient vehicles leading to their bailout when fuel prices rose, if they had ready to sell efficient cars (EV1/Impact had both 2 and 4 door versions) they may have weathered the downturn and given Toyota competition during the fuel+financial crisis

Producing hybrids and BEVs has greatly reduced battery cost, we could have been several years ahead of the curve if the general would have even sold compliance numbers of EV1 hybrids

To be fair I do think it is a bigger corp culture thing than just 1 or 2 product. Toyota's product is designed for worldwide sales, Domestic aren't, so they couldn't just scale up like Japanese do. They also didn't get rid of the union contract and job bank until after the bankruptcy, and IMO the bankruptcy is good for GM and Chrysler in the long run despite the pain of loss of their shareholders and unions. Their old business model of guaranteed production to guaranteed jobs and retirement is not sustainable in 2021 and beyond.

I think GM and Ford caught up pretty well for now, maybe they will be ahead but hopefully not too far behind in the future. Chrysler and Mazda though I am not sure how well they can proceed forward if the political climate are against gasoline and diesel all over the world (and based on what we see it seems to be the direction in the future). What are they going to sell?