Stomv,

I'd have to say the opposite would be true for me. As an example, instead of going to a giant superfood store to buy my local & organic food, I go to a smaller coop. Even though the huge store has more food, their percentange of the type of food I want is much less. On the other hand, going to the coop I know that a high percentage of the food there is what I'm after.

So, going to a GM lot they may have loads of cars, but most of them I don't want to have anything was so ever to do with. On the other hand, half the cars at a Honda lot I'm be intersted in.

Just a different way to look at the same thing.

A better metric would be the % of cars sold in some time period, like the 1st 6 months of 06 or whatever.
But at least GM are mentioning MPG which is a good thing.
It will take some time to turn around a huge oil tanker like GM, but once it starts moving, it will have considerable momentum.
If we assume their engineers are as smart as the ones in Honda and Toyota, once they get the right direction from marketing, they will achieve great things. Lets hope they can do it quickly enough.

This is very positive news, concerning GM. This says that their company, as a whole, is contributing more to cutting our dependence on oil. Toyota/Honda lovers may argue the fact that it isnt fair because Toyota/Honda dont sell an equal amount of vehicles. But that is exactly the point! Bottom line according to this report, is GM is "doing" more in the consumers hands. Its OK to talk high numbers, and greater efficiencies, but if you cant put them in consumers hands, then its a mute point.

That being said, everyone should vote with their pocketbooks for their choice of efficient vehicle, foreign or domestic, and make the automakers drop the inefficient guzzler models they try to sell.

I really think Chrysler is going to be in trouble soon. They have jumped hard on the "hemi", "guzzler", "consume while burning rubber" mindset. Consumer trends will turn away from that quickly and leave Chrysler in the dust if they do not do something about it quickly. I fear they will drag Mercedes down with them. But thats a different story.......................

And don't forget that the fuel economy document has some curious gaps--like the missing Scion xA and xB, both members of the "over 30MPG club".

The xA was also missing from last year's doc., but the xB was there.

What gm does have that is not the norm is a fair number of LARGE cars that get over 30 mpg highway.

And when we are looking at a car the first thing that counts is... does it fit me and is it confy. Not gona commute to work in a painful contraption just to save a little fuel.

Just announce the intention to add 10c / gallon of all types of fuel per year for 10 years.
The people with economical cars can gloat, and the rest have enough time to buy more suitable cars before the tax really kicks in.
Companies have enough time to design and market economical cars.
We have considerable fuel taxes in Europe (especially the UK) and society is still intact.
You might exempt biofuels from this, in proportion to the carbon offset, but this is debatable. The outcome is to get people into more economical cars (of whatever technology - we do not know or care) to protect the enviromment and the security of the oil consuming nations.
If you don't reduce demand with local taxes, the price goes up due to demand and you end up paying the money to the oil producers (which, I assume, we do not want to do).

These percentages are not altogether useless, they are quite useful. True, many, myself included, will look at a few particular vehicles and compare them in their choice for an automobile.

But I like these averages because they paint an excellent picture of what the corporate policies and priorities of each company are. With the averages I can see clearly that Honda is a green company. With principle and conviction, as much as any cut-throat and competitive business envorinment will allow, Honda agressively and pro-actively pursues green and sustainable policies, R&D and production of their products.

It's a matter of what and who do I want to support with my money: a company that is big and fat after a hundred years and can put the most models on the road at present but has some pretty horrible company policies and changes its mind and statements at every expedient moment, or, to support a company that is not as large (who cares) but that consistently over their history has shown excellent overall company policy and protects the environment in the overwhelingly vast majority of its choices?

Looking from the perspective of these larger averages, which give a good picture of corporate policies and priorities, I don't know how anyone could say GM is "doing more." Well, that's not entirely fair: they are doing more than Ford and Chrysler acc. to these figures, so they don't deserve all the blame here. Looks like Chrysler is very culpable here!

And the companies don't "put the cars in the consumer's hands." We do. So it's not a [moot] point to talk high mileages and averages, even GM has put a sudden smile on its face recently and talks about fuel mileage these days. You can stay informed with these averages, as long as they're not twisted. The questions become: what do we do with those broad portraits painted for us with these percentages? What motivates us when we purchase a car? Are we short-sighted or do we look at the big picture (also)? Are we simply pragmatic or are we principled? I don't mean to sound so absolute here, it's not a simple either-or choice usually, I know that. Just something to think about.

Christ asked His disciples once: who gave more, all the rich poeple who give large amounts (but small percentages) out of their "abundance," or the widow who gave only two mites, yet which was her whole livelihood? The answer was: the widow.

Ha ha, now I'm not saying Honda's Christian, or connecting the two in any way, I'm just pointing out the principle is the same. Honda does more with what it has than Toyota or GM. GM does more with what it has now than Ford or Chrysler. This should be a factor if we would be conscientious in our buying habits. And don't make fun of the guy who is trying to be conscientious to protect this good God-given creation we still live in. It's egg on your face if you do.

Of course these percentages don't talk about quality of build, or longevity, or service, or aesthetics, or up-front cost, etc. These are also factors in our purchasing, just to be balanced. And we are all affected to some degree by those factors as well.

I am curious, do any of the GM supposed mileages take advantage of the E85 CAFE loophole?

The other problem I have with all this is that the bar is just too low. For a start, these are theoretical fuel consumption figures measured using an unrealistic model. Everyone knows you hardly ever get the quoted mileage. This is fine if you use the numbers just for comparison but hardly accurate to get a true idea of mileage. In Europe, where I am originally from, 30mpg was (10 years ago) considered a gas guzzler.

Paul: I agree the bar is too low. I was driving cars that got 30 mpg 30 years ago. Granted, a stick and no air. If the auto companies can't do better than 30 mpg after 30 years and at least 3 gas "crises" then we are in sad shape.

Nobody spends 100% of their time on the highway, that's absurd. At the very LEAST the measuring stick should be the EPA combined score, which is 55% city, 45% highway, IIRC. Even better would be to just look at the city figure alone since for the majority of people the city figure is a lot closer to their overall average fuel economy for the lifetime of the vehicle. EPA City (and the real world) is generally where GM gets killed on fuel economy.

Why? GM makes nice fuel efficient cars. Chevy Aveo or Pontiac Vibe, for example.
Just kidding.

Covered all this for the prior MY in this thread:

http://www.greencarcongress.com/2006/05/sales_of_fullsi.html
post -- May 3, 2006 8:47:16 AM