CaptainJJack

Popular Mechanics Gets It Wrong on Buick Hybrid

This was article was helpful, although I have to admit that I start with a bias that favors the conclusion that the GM VOLT is all about marketing hype.

GM always seems to want to come out with software engineers might call "killer app vaporware". It starts with being far behind in some new technology or trend because it wasn't thought up at GM.

Then there is the prototype stage where all the off the wall, exotic technologies are promoted suggesting that GM is really making a bold leap.

Finally, there is the reality, which is so disappointing and usually a total failure.

For example, consider GM's fore ray into small cars. First, they scoffed at Toyota and Honda suggesting that small cars were a toy and that the American consumer would always want big and beautiful boats.

Then after the oil crisis hit, we saw all kinds of futuristic designs at car shows, suggesting even electric cars might be on the drawing boards (later we saw the EV in testing).

Finally, we get the Vega, followed by the front wheel drives of the 1980s and 1990s (Remember Roger Smith telling Fortune that GM's front wheel manufacturing will be so far ahead of the competition, with its massive robotics, that nobody will be able to touch their production efficiency?).

In the end, a business professor at Dartmouth figured that GM has spent far, far more than the US spent getting a man to the moon trying to develop a small car, even though unlike the moon shot, GM could go out and buy a Toyota Corolla and use it as a working prototype.

GM finally gave up and started the Nummi plant in a joint venture with Toyota. As I remember it, Toyota became GM's partner in large part to offset the backlash developing against buying Japanese cars.