2008 Malibu Hybrid Spied

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(JackDodge @ Oct 1 2007, 11:43 AM) [snapback]519844[/snapback]</div>

Come clean Jack. Now you are very defensive. What exactly is your relationship to toyota? It is common knowledge that Toyota has undercover reps on all these forums and all the competitiors forums and has for years. The Prius in the American flag and the name"JackDodge" should have tipped me off.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(malorn @ Oct 1 2007, 12:58 PM) [snapback]519852[/snapback]</div>

Malorn,

What exactly is your beef with the Prius and Toyota? Short of an entirely electric vehicle (which wouldn't work for my range requirements, but 450+ on 10 gallons does) the Prius is one of the top cars in owner satisfaction and fuel economy. I was a die-hard Chevy fan until I finally woke up and realized the following:
1. Chevrolet and GM do NOT care about the environment.
2. Toyota is making the Prius because it makes money (the fact that it is better on the environment than any GM product I have ever owned is the icing on the cake).
3. GM does not care about customers (my '01 Blazer went through 2 complete sets of ball joints in 6 years and it was rarely driven off road; count carefully, that is the original 4 OEM ball joints and a complete set of replacements in 110,000 miles).


A list of vehicles that I have owned in the past and their problems:
1982 Pontiac Grand Prix (water pump problems, oil pump problems, head gaskets blew twice)
1984 VW Rabbit GTI (no problems, but g/f rolled it soon after I got it, so not a fair comparison except the local body man bought it back from the insurance company after they totalled it and fixed the dent in the roof and it is still being driven around in my hometown)
1988 Dodge Lancer (decent car, very few problems except for the stupid talking!!)
1987 Chevy Blazer (okay truck but body rusted out in 1996, engine oil pump stopped working and the idiot light never lit up, fried engine)
1991 Pontiac Grand Am (Good vehicle except for the two to three quarts needed between changes)
1989 Chevy S-10 pickup (body fell apart and I got rid of it within a year)
1996 Saturn SL2 (fun car but it threw a crank bearing and when I asked the dealership about it, they blamed it on the fact that I didn't park it in a garage at night and that the oil was too cold when I started it. The people that remanufactured the engine said that is the most common problem on the first two generations of Saturns because the oil journals are TOO SHALLOW) After over 75 years making engines and GM still doesn't know how deep oil journals should be??
2001 Blazer (decent truck except for the suspoension issues listed above)
2007 Toyota Prius (best car I have ever owned so far and I expect it will outlast every other vehicle I have ever owned, although I thought something was wrong the other day when I heard a clunk under my seat, when I looked it, it was a baseball that my son had left on the backseat floor)

My final point, whenever I needed service on my other vehicles there was a wait to get work done (they were busy fixing other vehicles). My Prius (oil changes only so far and no wait). Why no wait (they can get me in and out within 30-45 minutes with NO appointment, because they don't have to work their butts off trying to keep up with stuff that breaks since Toyota's vehicles don't break down as often or as severely as GM's products)

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(RinMI @ Oct 1 2007, 03:13 PM) [snapback]519949[/snapback]</div>

Some of you question the value of the Prius? Toyota manufactures the Prius and magically Toyota "cares" about the environment. Have any of you ever really worked out how much fuel you save by driving a Prius over say a Chevy Malibu? Tehn factor in the fuel used to transport it from Japan and the unknowns of all those extra batteries and what goes into manufacturing the batteries.

As for your other points on "quality and reliability" today GM has better quality top to bottom than Toyota does and that will show in the long-term surveys in 3-5 years. This fact is especially true when it comes to powertrains(engine and transmission). GM has been second to none for three years now.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(malorn @ Oct 1 2007, 04:46 PM) [snapback]519962[/snapback]</div>

I say that Toyota cares about the environment because they were willing to make a commitment to getting more fuel efficient vehicles on the roads and they followed through on it instead of doing things like paying off legislators so that vehicles like the Hummer would be exempt from being included in the fleet fuel efficiency standards and GM also pulls crap like instead of making an engine run cleaner upon startup they add a little known air pump into the exhaust system that quite literally is there to dilute the crappy air coming out of the exhaust pipe as a workaround for the emissions standards (My '01 Blazer had this).

For what it's worth, I also include Ford in my list of companies that give a crap about the environment before it was "fashionable" since they were willing to produce the Escape Hybrid even though people told them it would not sell well.

The fact is, GM had the opportunity to leap ahead of the competition in this field years ago and chose not to go down the path until others forged their way first. They instead chose to put their efforts toward other avenues and are now reaping what they have sown.

I do give GM credit for finally doing something with hybrids but even that is offset by their push for corn based ethanol which has been shown to not be viable yet. Statistics also show that we could possibly generate right now ethanol much cheaper if we are willing to use perennial grasses like those burned offf every year in the praries since there is absolutely NO cost in that crop except for harvesting. It grows every year naturally and requires no fertilizer or management other than cutting. Just watch an ad for E85 and it depicts rolling hills of corn. Once again, GM is lining pockets to further it's deception of American's at the expense of our countries ecological well-being.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(malorn @ Oct 1 2007, 01:46 PM) [snapback]519962[/snapback]</div>

That's a Red Herring from the thoroughly debunked CNW "study."

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(RinMI @ Oct 1 2007, 04:05 PM) [snapback]519973[/snapback]</div>

I am not 100% sold on ethanol. But, if you are correct I continually wonder why the oil companies are fighting so hard to stop it. If ethanol takes more energy to produce the ethanol than it yields wouldn't the oil companies be supporting its development in a huge way?

Here is a link to a recent article. I know firsthand of the effort and money big oil is expending to slow down E85 in my home state.

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/conte...week+exclusives

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(IsrAmeriPrius @ Oct 1 2007, 04:25 PM) [snapback]519989[/snapback]</div>

So hauling thousands of pounds, thousands of miles does not burn energy? Is water more efficient than the ground when it somes to hauling cargo? How much fuel would it take to haul even one Prius across the country on a trailer? I know there are some economies of scale but still, it does not make sense. As for the studies, we all know studies can say whatever the company paying want them to. Who is the Pacific institute.

 

I got rid of my '01 Malibu to buy the Prius.
I don't care if a Malibu creates its own fuel, washes itself, and does my dishes... I won't drive one again.
It was the most uncomfortable cars to drive any distance in, and it did NOT handle anywhere as well as the Prius.

And, my MPG is double with the Prius what it was with the Malibu. Double.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(malorn @ Oct 1 2007, 02:45 PM) [snapback]520000[/snapback]</div>

It does, but that amount of energy is insignificant in comparison to that consumed by the automobile during its years of intended use.

Surely you know how to use Google, or don't you? Besides, if you bothered to read the study and check the footnotes you would have seen that those energy use figures are attributed to an MIT study. You have heard of MIT, haven't you?

You are not going to win any converts to your cause with your Smart Alec (I had another word in mind here, but did not care to be censored) attitude.

 

Tolerant of the many insults, the false accusations, and patient enough to wait, the time has come to reply...

Figures are now available and they are beyond disappointing (missing goals by quite a bit). Vue-Hybrid sales dropped significantly; April last year was 2,683; April this year only 326. Neither Aura-Hybrid nor Malibu-Hybrid ever took off. In fact, the entire GreenLine production has only seen 9,000 purchases since debut in early 2007.

True, the recall just issued will basically halt both production & sales now. But shouldn't the sales have increased up to that point? Or could it be that we ("full" hybrid owners) were right about consumer acceptance of this "mild" hybrid approach?

Can we finally get a constructive response instead of an emotional defense of GM products? That would be a great change.

Goals usually placed upon hybrids are:

• significantly better MPG than its traditional counterpart
• significantly better EMISSIONS than its traditional counterpart
• price competitive based on anticipated gas expenses
• price competitive based on other technologies available

.

 

Since the Vue-Hybrid just started coming into production in April (they did a model switchover) your numbers aren't really valid. Nice example of cherrypicking.

 

Ignoring the total of 9,000 for all of GreenLine is an example of what?

Of course, the Vue-Hybrid distraction has absolutely nothing to do with sales of Aura-Hybrid and Malibu-Hybrid anyway.

.

 

Being John1701a!

 

Afraid to abide by your own standards, eh?

.

 

Not at all... show me where GM stated a goal?

 

An Edmunds article quoting a GM spokesperson (Green Car Advisor - GM Hybrid Sales Hurt by Recall of 9,000 Faulty Batteries)

Seems like GM would be envisioning more than 9K hybrids across 3 different models when they are getting killed for the lack of a green image.

However, other articles certainly give the impression that GM is not meeting it's targets/goals.

GM: Battery glitch cuts hybrid sales - AutoWeek Magazine

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/31/business/31hybrids.html?n=Top/News/Science/Topics/Global Warming

(

 

They may well not be meeting their goals...

But as you pointed out for me, they really haven't stated any goals to the public.

 

Actually, they did. 10,000 was stated as the 2007 goal for all GM hybrids combined. Not coming close to that the following year does indeed say something.

Regardless, none of the BAS offering were stiring interest before the recall. Sales of only 1 per-dealer per-month is disappointing no matter how you spin it.

.

 

Link?

Let's look at this deeper... BAS cars are hard to come by (trust me, I know). Now, if GM didn't meet their goal, and the cars are hard to come by... clearly something's wrong with production. Since GM wants to buy Cobasys, it's pretty clear that they're not getting enough batteries.

I think the demand is there, and clearly GM wants to produce the cars... they're just not getting enough battery packs.