Cars! Cars! Cars!

Two Roads: GM Takes The One Often Traveled

We liked the contrast of these two articles (even though they weren't written to be contrasty or anything):

AutoWeek reports: 2008 GMC Yukon hybrid: Welcome, alien.

The Detroit News reports: Subcompact sales boom.

So in one article we have GM making a big ol' SUV use less fuel and the other we see how, for non-US makers, subcompact sales are booming.

We wonder which strategy will work.

GMC Yukon hybrid: $50k, 21 city/22 highway (2WD)
Subcompacts: $13k+ over 30mpg in every scenario

Speaking of subcompacts, we find it interesting that Nissan seems to be the sales leader with the Versa, yet it takes 69* days to sell one compared to just 22 days for the Honda Fit. According to the article, Honda would sell more if it could make more -- you'd think Honda would make it a priority. Oh, it's also interesting that Honda claims the Fit is not eating into the sales of the Civic. We have to bet that one of Honda's models is suffering (since Honda's sales aren't up that much -- 4.6% for 2007). Wow, the Element is off by 33% this year? Sounds like Honda's gonna have to move them suckas off the lot right quick -- deal time! Sorry this turned into a Honda post.

Anyway, it's interesting to us that GM is pushing a huge hybrid SUV (for $50k!) and many others are doing well with subcompacts.

*Alison, call us.

CAFE? No CAFE?

Man, this fuel economy crap is confusing the hell out of us. And U.S "President" Bush is going to veto it anyway, so what's point? Here are the latest articles:

The Detroit News reports House OKs 35 mpg rule.

AutoWeek reports Big CAFE hike stalls--for now--in Senate.

AutoWeek reports Lutz says 35-mpg CAFE will scuttle GM product plans.

OK, it passed the House, stalled in the Senate and despite the "Automakers, in a historic about-face, support the higher CAFE standards." (from the "Senate" article above), GM VP Bob Lutz says that new standard will mess up GM's future gas guzzlin' machines.

Clearly the Unions are at fault here. Damned unions.

It's pretty insane that we'll have to wait until 2020 to get vehicles with decent mileage. By then the sweet Honda Clarity FCX will be rockin' out everywhere and it won't matter, but the point is that we should be far ahead in terms of fuel efficiency. It's a shame that horsepower and top speed are more important than lowering pollution and lessening our dependence on foreign oil. You'd think some egg-head engineer would get a kick out of the challenge of combining power with fuel efficiency...

Imagine, them walking down the street and bumping into each other: "You got your fuel efficiency in my high horsepower engine!" "No, you got your high horsepower engine in my fuel efficiency!" Hilarity ensues and we all fly up to Heaven to be with Jaysus.

Can you imagine if these two were the egghead engineers? It'd be like: "We have a crotch explosion in sector two! Of the sexiest kind!" Also, Alison.

Volvo And Dumbness?

Autoblog reports: Volvo C30 wagon confirmed by PR spokesperson. Blah.

We love the C30 as is. And the V50 doesn't need competition (sales are down 31% this year). Perhaps we are witnessing the pre-death of the V50, yes?

Actually, most of Volvo is looking like crappola: S40: down 26%, V70: down 35%, XC90: down 6%. A few models are up, but not enough to get excited about.

Yay! Computers Are Bad, Too!

Jalopnik reports: Report: Computer Servers 'as Bad for Climate as SUVs'. This has to be a bunch of hooey. While the always-on server is certainly an energy sucker, it doesn't have carbon emissions and, in a heartbeat, can switch over to solar, wind, etc.

Although, it is nice to have some competition in the pollution game. It's tough feeling like a shit most of the time.

Dudes, Seriously

AutoWeek reports: Feisty VW wants to surpass Toyota.

Feisty? How about "high"? How about "pissed that it's still working on that 50-state diesel engine"?

Don't get us wrong, we're chubbed to see that VW is going to be pushing hard to not only stay in the game, but to head for the top... But VW still has that reputation of being a problematic brand whereas Toyota does not*, so we're not sure this will happen. Meanwhile, VW, pass that over here so we's can have a toke.

*Toyota has been running into some reliability issues, so they could sink themselves. If we had to guess, however, Toyota will quickly correct the problems before its reputation is seriously affected. If Toyota doesn't, then we hope other manufacturers are prepared to pounce. Pounce!

Malibu: Cheapest Lexus You Can Buy

CNN reports: The black art of auto pricing. This article is actually pretty interesting since it talks about how manufacturers come up with prices and how the manufacturer judges the competition.

The only line we did find interesting was (we'll bold, but that's not how it is in the actual article)

Adds [Edmunds.com senior analyst Jesse] Toprak: "When you sit inside the top-of-the-line Malibu, it is like sitting in a $45,000 Lexus."

We wonder what it's like sitting in a $45,000 Lexus, then. It's like a $30k Malibu?

Hey, we're pro Malibu here (despite not getting one dropped off with a driver) and nearly anti-Lexus, but, come on! If the quote had been "... sitting in a similarly priced Honda Accord" we could have swallowed it. We wonder why the reporter didn't take the quote to task and ask why it feels as nice as a Lexus that costs 50% more.

That's a snap of the 2008 Chevy Malibu from our good friend Aaron Gold at About: Cars.