3-5 years may be too late but its better than nothing. Depends when world oil production starts to decline. As the economy gets worse the chance that these car companies and the public will together be able make the BEV transition seems less likely. On the other hand I know that without the high gas prices we wouldn't have the transition at all. Its a very fine line between an economy too depressed to innovate and an economy too happy to need to innovate. I just hope we can keep on course.

Marcus

Economic slow down does not necessarily means less innovation, it might even be the opposite in some cases. All the industrial revolution in europe happened while people were literally starving, innovation is a way to counter economic depression.

For chrysler, their survival might be at the price of a drastic downsizing, since they have not products with good fuel efficiency ready or in progress for the 3 years to come. The survival of GM and Ford could be at the price of sacrificing Chrysler if the market shrink too much. Will see but Cerebus might loose heart at some point and pull the plug.

With the recent news of China's $$1.3 trillion bad debt problem it appears that world manufacturers are ALL in deep trouble. Which means that little countries that don't actually make much of anything... will do just fine. Like Norway for example. Glad I reside in one.

Sulleny,
How do you figure that? If you make all the food and energy you need, then yes, what the rest of the world does makes little difference to you (unless they completely ruin the earth).
If you make nothing, what will you have to offer to trade for food and energy?

Reference:

http://www.crainsdetroit.com/article/20080704/REG/94817523/1069

Excerpt:

BEIJING (AP) -- Chrysler L.L.C., looking for foreign partnerships to help drive its business as U.S. sales slump, announced a deal with China's Great Wall Motor Co. on Friday to study sharing technology, components and distribution.

Chrysler, the smallest of the three major U.S. automakers, is trying to expand sales in the fast-growing Chinese market and has a deal with China's Chery Automobile Co. to produce a low-cost model for sale under its Dodge brand.

Under the new agreement, Chrysler and Great Wall will look at ways to use each other's distribution networks and component and technology capabilities, Chrysler said in a statement released in the United States.

Chrysler: Great Wall Motor Co or Chery Automobile Co. by another name.

If they have the liquidity to survive the downturn, I suspect many are underestimating little Chrysler.

I don't know what is Chrysler's share of the dual mode drivetrain but the Baltimore factory was designed for 440,000 drivetrains per annum, when in full production.

If Chrysler gets only 100K/year of the drive trains, that enables all Chrysler RWD full size sedans, and its trucks, to get close to 25% of their production being such hybrids, in those market classes. Even Toyota doesn't have that much hybrid capacity.

To date the efficiencies of the dual mode has been only tied to 5500-6000 lb vehicles, ie large SUVs. When it percolates down to the 3500-4000 lb vehicles, the mileage figures it enables will soar. It really is a great engineering advance over the first generation HSD that Toyota uses.

Chrsyler and Bosch have been working on the Bosch mild hybrid system, for several years. And Bosch has been investing heavily in factories to produce them, in large quantiies. Unlike the bigger players Chrysler is used to assigning entire subsystems to out side supppliers. The other guys have a not-invented-here mentality, and prefer to buy only components and integrate the pieces themselves.

Prior to the Mercedes merger, that was how Chrysler became the most cost competitive of the Detroit Three. It appears they are returning to that modus operandi, sans MB.

Chrysler's relaltively small numbers of manufactured FWD cars, would allow them to pull a BMW; and make mild hybridization a standard offering without too much trouble. And do it within the next two model years. You read it here first.

They have the capacity coming by next February, to equip all cars and trucks with either CVT2 or 6 and 7 speed dual-cluch automatics that are more fuel efficient than any manual. By that Fall they will be ramping production of their Phoenix V6 that even Mercedes will be using in large numbers.

Chrysler is still entitled to Mercedes diesels, that will fit well with their Cummins truck diesel arrangements. Chrysler is going to use Cummins for its Truck diesels for its truck lines, and MB for its diesel crossover and sedan lines.

Dodge/Cummins has had a large T2B5 diesel since 2007 for it HD pickups; the firsdt compliant T2B5 diesek in the world. Another smaller Cummins T2B5 is already announced for the smaller trucks.

Jeeps and Chrysler 300 sedans use the Mercedes 3.0 liter diesel. MB has just introduced the T2B5 version of the 3.0 liter, in their M class SUVs, so that is now a modern diesel too; soon coming to Pentastar.

THe only drivetrain area that Chrysler seems behind, is the EREV type PHEV, and even GM won't bring that to market until late 2010, about two years or three model years from now.

Chrysler is not that far behind. If they can only devote some resources to finishing the engineering, and refining their vehicles, and vehicle interiors, reversing cost cutting that Mercedes mandated.

Cerebus has made that a prime directive for some time. Sooner or later those investments have to start to show.

haha...it never fails! There will always be at least one belly-aching nut case who will say "it isn't enough".

Chrysler could have announced that they developed a car that runs off of CO2 in the air + sunlight, price it at $1500, and it is fully autonomous so it will never crash and somebody here would post, "it isn't enough, it should be $1000 and only require moonlight".

All of you "it isn't enough" people should go hide in a cave and abandon all technology - don't use fire to cook your food either nor use anything that is made of materials which had to be mined, smelted, and cast (or forged)...don't chop down that tree! You best stick to rocks for hunting and gather wild veggies and fruits (wouldn't want to damage natural vegetation with farming...damnable farming is too atrocious!)

more blabla from Stas Peterson that is pure fantasy.

The truth is that Chrysler has nothing on the plan to release any fuel efficient vehicle in the next 4 years. the dual mode hybrid more efficient than the Prius platform you said ? we have heard this so many time and still seen nothing to prove that. So keep it for yourself until we can se it, and even if it is true, chrysler engines are so poorly efficient that their dual cluch stuff wont make so much of a difference.

The end of the US auto industry is at hand and it is the lite in the brain politicos like you, Stan, who killed them.

We all wanted to see the Volt hit the streets, but GM might not make it through this year. A true legacy for you and the incompetents you put in office. You’ve got real nerve to begrudge our desire to save what little you and your kind have left us. Sarcastic criticism is your trade and delusion ….. What’s the use?

stas:

Improved gas guzzlers with 10+ gears will not be enough for Chrysler to survive.

Made in China, much lower cost, Chrysler's PHEVs and BEVs may be a better idea. Chrysler USA may keep one (or two) centrally located plants as paint shops for automated clear coat finish and storage. Alternatively, that could be sub-contracted.

"to save what little you and your kind have left us."

No longer xenophobia, the doomers are now dispensing out and out racism. A pathetic admission from purportedly "enlightened" beings.

@ Sulleny

The stupid, ignorant, and arrogant can be found universally in all races. I am a equal opportunity hater.

doomers are now dispensing out and out racism.

"kind" (n.)
"class, sort, variety," from O.E. gecynd "kind, nature, race," related to cynn "family" (see kin), from P.Gmc. *gakundiz (see kind (adj.)) Also as a suffix (mankind, humankind etc.).

"racist" noun [C] (UK OLD-FASHIONED racialist)

- someone who believes that other races are not as good as their own and therefore treats them unfairly:
Cambridge English Dictionary, 2008

EP and others: Misanthropy (and its defense) rather than righteous, reveals prejudice and mind fully qualified as "racist." Language and its use defines character.

Characterizing people by their "kind" implies the inclusion of a group of people.

Sulleny, maybe you should spend more time reading what was written instead of the dictionary? NutCracker explicitly defined the "kind" he was referring to:

"lite in the brain politicos"

"A true legacy for you and the incompetents
you put in office."

This entire "race" nonsense is a strawman of your own creation. You would honor yourself by submitting an apology.

It appears the author of this attack against "you and your kind," used exactly the same language in another post to GCC recently. In both cases the implications and prejudice are clear and will not be cleansed by feeble defense.

In fact, each defender of Nutcase's hatred joins him in the cesspool of fundamental bile. Shame on you.

Chrysler may not be in business 3-5 years from now. This is a nice announcement, but it is like announcing dancing in the ballroom on the Titanic after it hit the ice berg.

Was late to these verbal wars.

Yes, we're all getting scared....

The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation....Thoreau
The internet gives voice to that quietness.

Chrysler management made a big committment to be the big engine, lots of power car company several years ago, its reflected throughout their product line and has consequently (with oil prices) put them in a real bind. I would totally love to see Chrysler produce this vehicle (or variants thereof), but I doubt they have the money for long term investments in this technology - the Titanic analogy fits the situation pretty well. They've got to get some fuel efficient vehicles out there that fit the market (i.e. bail the water as fast as they can) before bankruptcy and its pieces are sold - forget about large amounts of money for things like this.

The pieces of Chrysler won't be worth much.  Who's going to want a V8 engine plant when everything is either ethanol-boosted Otto engines or switchable 2/4 cycle diesels and needs no more than 4 cylinders... maybe 3, or only 2?  Who needs a truck plant when the market for trucks is down 70%?

We need to convert those plants to building something we can use, like wind turbines.

EP.....I love small vehicles. I love lots of people in bigger vehicles too. What were gas guzzlers with 1 person driving, can be efficient commuter vehicles that carry 4, 6 , 8 or ? people to work. One employee at my wife's company got 6 people to take a Community Transit van to work. That engine must be fairly substantial...maybe a V-8? Eight cylinder engines are inherently the smoothest operating ICE. We can use 'what we got' to solve problems 'we don't need'.

Do you have an 8 cylinder gas guzzler? Use it to run an efficient commuter vanpool.

The jammed up stop & go traffic on our highway is....unjamming in this day of $4+per gallon fuel.

Even the van's engine is only lightly loaded at cruise.  The van could do most of its mileage on just 4 cylinders... and with cylinder deactivation, lots of them do just that.  But it still carries the burden of their weight and friction 100% of the time.

With an ethanol-injected turbo 4, you can have the power of a V8 out of 4 cylinders WITHOUT the weight and friction.  With a small diesel which can switch from 4 cycle to 2 cycle, you have the same:  power of a big engine on demand, with the weight and bulk of a small engine.  As we work to save fuel, the V8 just isn't needed for 90% of the things it did up to now.

I don't understand what doomers are so afraid of?

We are out of Oil?
Not for a few hundred years, at least. The US alone has sources for that long, exploitable at these current prices. I agree that we shouldn't use all those supplies of useful chemical feed stocks to simply burn. We won't do so, for many more decades, before moving on, to better things, when ready.

The World will burn up?
Not at 0.5 degrees per century, it won't. And what if the temperature went up a few degrees? It varies more than that daily. And its been warmer than now in other Good Times.

BTW, it hasn't warmed any in the last ten years, half as long as the temperature climbed to create the doomer fears, in the first place. Now Miskolczi's theories have pulled down the the final theoretical underpinnings of the whole AGW hypothesis.

The World is polluted?
Hardly. In the developed West the air and water are getting better, to some degree, even in diesel stinky EU. The real toxics are down. And the USA is cleaner, than everyone else,and leading the way.

The World is Over Populated?
I see no evidence that we can't handle ten billion, and now its NOT growing wildly like it used to do. Its stabilized; and will then decline somewhat.
Lots more minds to conquer lots more problems; and write lots more poems. Lots more hands to build wonderful things, and a better world.

The Chinese are an environmental cesspool?
What is new? So were all the other Marxist countries. There are a lot fewer of them than before, and people are cleaning up after the incompetents are gone.

We will all drown in rising seas?
Hardly. For the whole post Wisconsin glaciation, the sea level has been slowly rising, but its not speeding up any. Sealevel has lately actually, slowed, stopped and dropped, as it periodically does.

The World is in danger of Nuclear weapons?
It's been since 1989, or so, that the World receded from a 20 minute End-of-the-World WW III scenario. From 1955 until 1989 that WAS a nightmare Possibility.

The World is in danger from nuclear Proliferation?
We have arranged to incinerate 15,000 nuclear weapons. If dingbats would let the World build some more of the necessary, specialized, incinerators, the job would go faster. If the dingbats don't reverse him, Mr.Bush has managed to have 34 being built, without anyone noticing. When, not if, the crazies get a weapon, we may lose a city or two, but not civilization, as would have happened at anytime, between '55 and '89.

We are running out of Energy?
Hardly. Reality is forcing us to turn to perfected LWR nuclear plants. Fusion is drawing closer. Despite opposition, the ITER will be built even if Obama-san and his followers, don't want to have clean inexhaustible, energy, all that we will ever need.
Mr. Bush has set up the international consortia this time, so the tree-hugger Dems, can't sabotage this ITER, like they did to their own President Clinton's ITER, once before. This time, the world will simply build it without the US. Then go on to design and build the next step, the first commercial Fusion power plant. Our grandchildren will then simply have to buy imported power plants, like we buy Mideast Oil, hat in hand.

So what and why is all the gloom and doom?
There is no reason. The world is much better off than it has been for a long time.

The World is full of fools?
Certainly. More than ever. But we will survive all the Stupidities and Venalities of the would be tyrants. We always have.