More Prius Hate from GM's Bob Lutz

How about give the credit where it is due? Prius is successful because the car is that good! The original Honda Insight was unique looking as well yet it failed. That's because the Insight required a lot of compromises to get excellent MPG and Prius didn't.

This is what I get from reading it. Volt is built for perception while Prius is built for practicality toward perfection.

 

Yep, he sees the success of Prius due to the perception. In response, Volt was designed to counter the "perceived image". The problem is that Prius' success is due to substance, not image.

GM is raging the image war while the real battle is in the product itself (quality, practicality, cost of ownership and ease of maintenance, etc..).

 

I thought it was a good read. Most of what Lutz says isn't terribly surprising given his position and wanting to be a cheerleader for GM for the press.

 

You believe the Prius costs somewhere in the order of $40k per .... ok, and that's based off of ....

My favorite part is Lutz claiming, "I was the one who wanted to go electric ... but the others ... I knew they'd shoot it down"

I'm not sure which is worse. Blaming "the others" ... or not convincing other board members, if in fact that "drop the dime" statement is even true. It's hard to believe someone after they've lied about even ONE thing in the past ... much less his list of truth twisties.

.

 

even the cheerleader part he did wrong

in that case some body rebuilding needed to be done.
boob job and stuff:cheer2:

 

Lutz is a great man and I wish him the best. He is wrong about the Prius/Toyota here though. Its not like Toyota had problems and put all its eggs in one basket with the Prius. Toyota is one of the top 5 companies in the world. They had the foresight to stick with the Prius when GM gave up with the EV1.

With or without the Prius, Toyota has a very competitive/class leading lineup. GM can't say that.

As for the "halo" yes it helps with giving Toyota a green image but Toyotas do have other class leading cars in regards to MPG, the Rav-4, Camry, etc. Its not like the Camry or Highlander hybrid flies off lots.

If its anyone its Honda who continues to live off a best fuel efficiency claim when their vehicles are average most times with MPG

 

Well said. Lutz wants to go back to the future, hoping for the 50's and 60's to return.

Only thing I see at most GM dealer lots are .....

weeds ... these days. Scary.

 

...and "For Sale" signs. Chevy has it's own halo car, the Corvette. The halo effect brings traffic to the lot so the salesman can try to sell something else.

The Big 3 worked their butts off to not build hybrids and Clinton & Gore were too naive to see what was going on.

GM's only hope is to expand their market share of the shrinking markets they choose to compete in.

 

It's not just a claim if you look at how Honda's does in terms of CAFE results. See CAFE | National Highway Traffic Safety Administration(NHTSA) | U.S. Department of Transportation, specifically Summary of Fuel Economy Performance, March 2009. Keep in mind that Honda doesn't have any vehicles that take advantage of the E85 scam... err incentive whereas the Big 3 have plenty (National Ethanol Vehicle Coalition), inflating their CAFE numbers.

 

Lutz is so pitifully wrong. He still doesn't get it. Hybrids are the right solution at the right time (they won't be forever.) The all/mostly electric car is still not economically attractive for the mainstream yet, while a hybrid is. It's not that I don't want EV's to be the best solution, it is that they are not there yet. Economics-wise the hybrid still comes out ahead. Squeezing the remaining dollars out of gasoline consumption with an EV carries a very hefty price for most buyers--it's a simple case of diminishing returns. Eventually this negative return will fade as battery prices decline, battery tech improves, and fuel cost increases; but this is where we are today and likely for the next few years.

Lutz thinks the Prius is an economic failure when it is not. So his solution is for GM to fall on its sword by betting the farm on the Volt which won't be able to compete with hybrids on an economic return basis for the customer in the near future. This is like watching some unskilled prize fighter throwing haymakers hoping for a lucky knockout rather than settling into a paced rhythm and systematically beating the opponent.

And Lutz thinks the Prius lures in Corolla, Camry and Tundra buyers? Most of us were buying cars/trucks like this from foreign manufacturers for at least a decade before the Prius because they were better engineered and had better build quality/reliability. Two generations have slipped away without dinosaurs like Lutz facing reality. They are still in denial.

Heck, the Tundra was the vehicle that destroyed the last bastion of the Big3, not the Prius. It shot a hole through the full size pickup market, robbing share in a place that the Big3 had locked up previously. And it did so despite massive protective tariffs. (Accords, Camrys, Avalons, and Maximas had already done their part in the mainstream family car market.) The engineers I worked with abandoned their big domestic trucks in favor of the Tundra. Many of us were just waiting for some viable foreign competition in the moribund full size truck market. Once it arrived, the domestics were in deep trouble because they had abused their customers for decades.

 

GM already fell on its sword, and it didn't take the mythical Volt to have that happen