Big Ad's by GM in today's paper.

[hill]

Today in the O.C. Register here in So. Cal, I found TWO big ads:

http://usera.imagecave.com/w4abj/gmAD.jpg

Ostensibly, one would think they were for new model cars. Then I noticed one was non existent. The Volt concept. “Wow” I thought, they’re advertising nothing. So is that just for ‘Green’ P.R. ??
A couple pages later I found the second GM ad, for a hydrogen car that will be delivered to NY, Washington and L.A. as fleet vehicles. The ad says they reduce our dependence on petroleum? Where do they think the hydrogen comes from? Isn’t most hydrogen supposed to come from electricity, created mostly via natural gas, and coal? Creating hydrogen from electricity takes a TON of power from ‘somewhere’. Here are the rough “apples to apples” calc’s I came across:

1. Electricity to hydrogen via electrolysis to fuel cell (not counting compression energy) to propel a car uses four times the energy as electricity to battery electric vehicle to propel the car.

2. The electricity to compress hydrogen to liquid form (how hydrogen is transported to fueling stations) uses so much electricity that this amount of electricity would propel a battery electric vehicle (without using the hydrogen) about the same distance that the hydrogen would propel a fuel cell car.

Then there’s the thing about hydrogen cars STILL costing about a million bucks. So regarding these ads, doesn’t that beg the question, “Hey, Gm, what are you saying?”

[echase]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(hill @ Sep 21 2007, 08:27 PM) [snapback]515996[/snapback]</div>

“Hey, Gm, what are you saying?”
[/b]

I think it's "Hey look at us, we are green, high tech, and more "manly" that those prius wussess"

Most of the public doesn't little little things like "science" and "facts" mar thier impresion of an advertiser. It's all about image, I doubt they are very interested in actually selling either of these vehicles.

Follow these links to wikipedia's entry on the "Halo Vehicle" for more insight, or the "Halo Effect" for an intro to this kind of marketing.

[john1701a]

All this recent advertising of concepts, rather than actual vehicles you can buy, isn't just making the Prius supporters crazy. Someone on the big GM forum provided a very fitting summary of the situation, along with some advice...

Another name for "transparent development process" is "engineering by press release." Just shut up and make the car already!

It's propaganda, making vague promises that will be extremely difficult to fulfill. The "series" hybrid will carry a hefty premium compared to the "full" hybrid, similar to the aftermarket augmentation price for Prius. Do those seeing the advertisements really understand that? Do they understand just how complicated making hydrogen readily available and cost-competitive with gas really will be? And what about reliability concerns? The consumer apprehension delay caused by waiting for real-world data impairs large-scale rollout plans for years.

Then there's the issue of Two-Mode. Isn't this series & hydrogen advertising wrecking their own emerging market? It seems to sour the appeal of their upcoming plug-in Vue-Hybrid even before it debuts. And it certainly puts the GM community at odds with each other.

Oh well. At least it gives us quite a bit to discuss.

[vuapplepudding]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Greenkeeper @ Sep 21 2007, 09:07 PM) [snapback]516037[/snapback]</div>

I think it's "Hey look at us, we are green, high tech, and more "manly" that those prius wussess"

[/b]

I think this ad is focused that people can feel good about driving a BIG GM vehicle knowing that it is OK to burn a bunch of fuel because somewhere someone else in a GM vehicle is burning less or nothing at all. The fact is that the VOLT does not exist and they hydrogen car will make no impact, but this does not matter to most people. As long as they have one small footnote of an excuse to continue to drive gas guzzlers they are happy.

I've heard jokes about gas guzzlers saying that they are glad people drive Prii so that they can drive their gas guzzlers.

By future standards, my PRIUS will probably be considered a gas guzzler.

But for now I cannot afford an electric car, so I have to live with the TOYOTA ads that tells me to be happy driving a PRIUS.

[hyo silver]

I don't understand the hydrogen hype. Electric cars seem the obvious solution, and the hydrogen fuel cell can only be a colossal waste of time and money. Maybe we should start a whydrogen campaign!? Think again, GM, we're not buying it.

[9G-man]

On I-85 S. into Atlanta is a HUGE billboard with a GM advertisment.......GAS FRIENDLY TO GAS FREE.
Everyday I see that and just shake my head. Who do they think they are fooling? None of their cars/trucks/suvs are really that gas friendly ( I don't know of anywhere you can get E-85 for the FLEX-FUEL suv's, and gas free is just a pipe dream.

[patsparks]

I like this, I stole it from http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0619-23.htm

There are two main methods for making hydrogen. The dominant commercial method uses natural gas and steam to produce ultimately hydrogen and carbon dioxide. In this process, called steam reforming, less than 80 percent of the input energy is left in the hydrogen; then another 15 percent or more is lost converting the hydrogen to liquid or compressed gas. Thus, at most only two-thirds of the original energy ends up as useful hydrogen. Moreover, natural gas is an expensive non-renewable fossil fuel that is in short supply. Furthermore, natural gas has many other important uses, such as heating our homes and serving as a feedstock for many chemicals.

The other main way of making hydrogen is by electrolysis. This process is straightforward, but costs three times as much as steam reforming to make the same amount of hydrogen. It uses an electrolyzer, in which a current is passed through water, to split the water into hydrogen and oxygen.

An electrolyzer is essentially a fuel cell operating in reverse. But the electricity must first be produced from a primary energy source. At the very best, only half as much electricity can be obtained from the hydrogen as is consumed to make it. If electricity from the grid were used to produce the hydrogen, over 50 percent of the electric energy would come from coal-fired power plants, which are the most polluting source. If hydrogen produced by electrolysis were used as fuel, the president's statement should be amended from a "pollution-free car" to a "pollute elsewhere car." [/b]

Hydrogen isn't the answer. Hey hybrid isn't the answer either but it's closer than hydrogen.

[cwerdna]

GM's been running multipage ads like these in car magazines like Car and Driver for months.

[rudiger]

The ads are designed to get people into the showrooms and inquire about the non-existant cars. Then the salesmen put the pressure on to buy something else while they're there. It's called 'bait-and-switch' and one of the oldest car sales tricks in the book.

It's amazing how GM (and the other domestics) continues to be all about marketing, not product, which is seemingly the complete opposite of how the Japanese brands sell cars. The domestics' mantra has always been that it doesn't matter how shoddy or ill-conceived the product might be, they'll be able to market the hell out of it and that alone will be enough to sell a sufficient amount to turn a profit. The saddest thing about it is that it still works. Hopefully, not quite as well, though. Maybe even get some backlash from people who are wise to such shady, old-school tactics.

[Topgas]

It's actually sad watching this whole process of GM going under. They can't build market leading vehicles anymore, just illusions of it.