HUD Display in GM cars from 1988 ?

[lezonebay]

I just had a customer requesting a new HUD style windshield for his 1992 Bonneville. I laughed but then I was shocked. Not only he has a HUD in his car but after 200k miles and 16 years it works perfectly good.
he needs a new windshield but besides that a car is as good as it was in new condition.

so this is where GM has lost its mojo. They used to LEAD the world, and they used be THE car to get. Now its a shame to be seen in a GM car. All they focused on in the 90's was the TRUCKS and CORVETTE.

If they would have spent just 1/3 of the money of they spent on dumb trucks and cars like Aztek and SSR on a fuel efficient Hybrid, they could be still the top-dog.
the 80's weak cars and the 90's gas guzzlers trucks doomed the General along with the union rules.

go bankrupt get rid of the management - Rick WAgoneer and his buddies and shred the union deals. then hire a business person and his team, not a car person to lead the way out of the trouble.

once clear of bankruptcy and have money in a pocket then hire a car enthusiast person and lead the way back to the desirable cars. Until then the corolla's Camry's and Prius's are the future. Boring economical and good cars.
the road is full with them. this is what the american public wants, they do NOT want CTS-V and CORVETTE Z06, they want a CAMRY and PRIUS.

[Mark in SBA]

Uh, the Chevy Volt?

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Last time I checked, nobody else has a true electric available in volume.

[newmexicomatt]

until they can get it to go at least 100 miles on a charge it'll only be for the very wealthy Hollywood types who can go on TV to say how green they are by driving the Volt. Matt
'94 850CSi #37 Individual tobago blue
'01 750il Midnight Blue Highline Edition
'03 Z4 3.0ia Sterling Silver/Dream Red
'08 X5 4.8i Space Grey/Tobacco
'56 Continental Mark II

[lezonebay]

that car is a joke. more like a golf cart then car. 30-40 miles range ? for what ? a Hybrid is a dead end in my opinion but does it matter ? people love it. so make it !
I personly hate them and I have a very good reason for that but aside from my reasons (I supply shops with parts and the hybrid is the most complexly fabricated piece of thing) they don't make much sense.

reason explained better : everything is expensive on them and everything is tiny bit different then on a regular car. horrible to service them and they cost 3x as much in case of an accident. I should love them as the more expensive the part the more money we can make but the truth is the people who buy them are CHEAP hence the fact they buy a HYbrid. so they get into a shock when they see the prices on the parts. Then they want used parts which is not available and aftermarket parts neither...

the battery pack is so heavy I had a pleasure to lift one a few weeks ago out of a 2007 Lexus RX400 and took the air out of me when I moved that thing around.

The truck was oke to drive, I guess I even enjoyed the extra power but the parts are so expensive it will take 20 years to get a savings.
at that point most Hybrid parts has to be changed and therefore the savings will be a big spending.
I can see the close future when the Priuses are setup for a 1.8 or 2.0 engine conversion and the Highlanders and Rx400's for a scrap yard.

[Mark in SBA]

A lot of places don't require 1/2 day commutes at 80 mph. Volt is not intended as a cross country transport, merely a city car like the Smart Car. Home-work-home, maybe some groceries or soccer practice.

Jeez guys, you blast GM for not doing it, and when they do it, you blast them.

[rrmusante]

I don't want one, I have a Mini before any of the above.<table><caption align="bottom">Tigard,Oregon
2007 335ia Barbara Red
2007 MB R350
2003 325xi Sports Wagon
1991 850i (Dinan:Chips,Springs,Camber plate,K-Bar,SS Brakelines 3.91ls diff,17" Throwing Stars)
1987 325is "Dinan Stage II" Track Car

[rrmusante]

Personally I like the look of it and wouldn't mind leasing one. I wouldn't own for many year b/c technology will change so fast in a few years this will be a dinosaur.
On the other hand, how far will a Volt go in Febuary in Detroit with the heater on full blast, lights on, and cold batteries.
I lived for 3 years in a fully self sufficent solar powered home and I can tell you keeping lead acid batteries warm was a must.
Now in LA this won't be a problem but for the North East it will. If the range is 40 miles in summer I bet they only get 20 in the dead of winter sitting in a blizzard.
As Mark said most people don't drive this more than 40 miles a day so It should be succesful.
Rob<table><caption align="bottom">Tigard,Oregon
2007 335ia Barbara Red
2007 MB R350
2003 325xi Sports Wagon
1991 850i (Dinan:Chips,Springs,Camber plate,K-Bar,SS Brakelines 3.91ls diff,17" Throwing Stars)
1987 325is "Dinan Stage II" Track Car

[lezonebay]

the emergency things ?


I can see this happening :

cell phone rings our save-a-lot Ed picks it up, his wife is on the phone :

"...Oh honey can you pick up the kids at soccer my SUV just broke down... Well honey I would love to bu the thing is my car, you know that little thing that runs on battery, just about to be dead and I got 5 more miles to go, so that would be a big negative. ... WHY THE HELL CAN'T YOU DRIVE A NORMAL CAR YOU MORON ? ... umm, love ya ? Honey ? ..."

[cruppelt]

1) Volt is electric PLUS 1.4 l gas engine/generator, which means in practical terms it's a plug-in hybrid rather then a true electric car (=Prius with bigger battery). You CAN drive a few hundred miles with it. The idea is to use the at home electric charge for commute, but you can still drive a lot more if you want/have to.

2) Volt looks like a golf cart? I would very much like to see the golf cart you are talking about!

Now I think the car is still over prized, thanks to li/ion pricing, but I also think this is definetly a good step in the right direction.

http://www.gm-volt.com/galleries/

http://gm-volt.com/2008/08/28/breaking-production-volt-spied-the-real-deal/
Chris R
1991/850i

[lezonebay]

I referred as golf cart. Have you ever got lost and could not find your way back to the main road ? Miles adds up fast.
if you can drive 100-120 miles then maybe but still for a strictly city car ! I don't know why I like the safety of adding fuel or power anywhere and anytime.

any car that is restricted to an area is a no for me.
using that term, BMW's Hydrogen car is a good idea too ? that is also a dead end imho. -267F or the stuff evaporates in a few hours ? what if the cooling is no longer possible, then you are stranded on a highway ? no thank you, not for me. not when the gasoline is 1.49 at least !

I drove my ATV longer then 30 miles one way :-) on a full tank of gas on off road at 1/2-3/4 throttle all the way !

[newmexicomatt]

not to mention, rechargeable batteries lifespan decline over time. How long before they start going dead at 25 miles, then 20, then dead. The Volt is cool looking car, but until it can go at least 100 miles it won't be a very practical car. Just my .02Matt
'94 850CSi #37 Individual tobago blue
'01 750il Midnight Blue Highline Edition
'03 Z4 3.0ia Sterling Silver/Dream Red
'08 X5 4.8i Space Grey/Tobacco
'56 Continental Mark II

[lezonebay]

another car they LOOSE money, but thats oke.

http://blog.wired.com/cars/2008/11/the-chevy-volt.html

sure, to loose money on a car is oke for a company that has zero money...


the new camaro could have been a hit had it been in the market 3 years ago ! we have seen that car in 2002 and it is still not on the market. 6 years is needed for a camaro ? The development team must be on melatonin.
after that time they will release the car which will need updates and revisions in 2 years due to early production glitches.

GM must face bankrupty to get rid of the current head and management. its starting to smell already

[cruppelt]

You need to re-read the wired blog page you have in your post above... It tells you that it will likely run 40 miles on charge alone. It also tells you that it has a 4 cylinder gas engine in it that will kick in to continuously recharge after the 40 miles is reached.

My point was that it will have a final range that will be in the hundreds of miles when you add a full gas tank to the original charge. Even with continously driving with getting charge through gas it will have very decent gas mileage comparable to a Prius or possibly even an Insight. My point is that the whole point of not having enough range when getting lost is a moot one.



Chris R
1991/850i

[cruppelt]

one advantage of Li/Ion batteries over other types is that they usually have a warrantied charge cycle of at least 1000 when you recharge back to 100% everytime after you get down to 20% charge.

Now on the Volt the plan is to already start recharging when the battery drops to 50% charge (planned to be at the 40 mile mark), and they will only recharge it to 80%, which means they are stretching the possible charging cycles and keep the batteries good for more then 7000 cycles. That would mean this battery pack could be good for up to 15 years or so depending on your driving habits.

As I said earlier, I am not sure I'd personally buy one soon, but I did read up on the Volt development every so often since I'm a geek (mechanical engineer). I think they have done their possible best to make this car as practical and competitive to a standard hybrid.Chris R
1991/850i

[cruppelt]

if you recharge the batteries once every single day (7000cycles/364days =19.23 years). I would think that would be more then sufficent in any possible way...Chris R
1991/850i

[Mark in SBA]

A guy over on the Rolls board posted a truly great piece of forum writing regarding the quality "gap" between U.S. automakers and the rest of the world. He sources instrument panels for both the Big Three and several foreign carmakers.

His name is Richard Vaughn, and here's his post in its entirety:

<blockquote>Wow, this is quite the hornet's nest! However, I'll attempt to the questions about the low rent interiors on US cars versus the better executions in import brands. First I should say that this area...what we in the industry call "perceived quality" is actually my area of expertise. I spend about 90 percent of my time on it and at any given time I am working with five or six OEMs on this very focused area.

Perceived quality has nothing at all to do with actual quality. Some of the worst cars have the best perceived quality. For instance, VWs are some of the most unreliable cars money can buy, yet they have extremely high perceived quality and therefore; are thought to be better cars than say, a much more reliable Ford.

The Detroit car companies have foisted some pretty awful interiors on the buying public. This is no secret. It should also be noted that there is considerable brand bias against domestic cars. I recently overheard a conversation in when I was in a Starbucks in which a woman was comparing two cars she was considering. She commented that the Toyota dashboard (we call it an instrument panel) was made of much better materials than the GM car she also considered. I laughed because I happen to know that they were made of exactly the same material. Her perception was clouded by the brand issue. Fortunately, there is a very interesting way to measure the effect of brand and thereby factor that in or out of the design process as needed.

It also works the other way. Many people will more positively rate identical materials in a much more highly regarded brand. Mercedes is a good example of this. Many Mercedes cars are no better executed than the average Nissan Maxima or Audi A4, yet people perceive them to be better because of the brand.
Case in point: the Cadillac CTS vs. the MB E-Class. The interior of the CTS is better in virtually every way. It uses vastly more expensive materials in almost every area. When debadged and tested with consumers, people are in love with it. When tested with a Cadillac badge, it is suddenly cheap and plasticky.

So why are most of the US interiors so bad, you ask. It's because of cost. The Detroit car companies simply cannot afford to spend the money on a good products. The reasons are many, but one of the biggest issues is the cost of health care. The import brands do not have to cover the cost of health care for their employees in thier home countries. This costs the US car companies about $1200 per car! That $1200 is the difference. This is why when you look at a European Ford car or at an Opel from GM, they are so much better than their US counterparts. I can't tell you how fantastic the interior of the European Ford Focus is compared to the unrelentingly awful US version. It's because the European Ford operation isn't paying for healthcare and they are spending that money on the product. My company makes both interiors and I can tell you that they're night and day in terms of cost and perceived quality.

Lets talk about China. Buick is one of the top cars in China. In fact, I designed the interior of one of the big Buicks in China. It's absolutely nothing like the US version of the car. The Chinese version is simply miles ahead. The US verison is crap. Why is that? The very rich Chinese government invests in the car industry. SAIC, the Shanghai Auto Industry Company is the joint venture partner for GM and VW in China. ShanghaiGM and ShanghaiVW are rich and powerful companies. Who owns SAIC? The Chinese government.

The Detroit companies have made some astoundingly bad management decisions. That cannot be overstated. However, it is not an even playing field. We allow anyone to bring their cars here and sell them at will. We cannot sell our products in their home countries without adding massive duties. In Korea, import cars are less than 5% of the market because the import duty makes it impossible to buy one yet Hyundai can ship anything they want to here virtually duty free. In China, the import duty is 100%!!! When the Chinese domestics arrive here in the US in a couple of years, we will open the doors for them and roll out the red carpet. When we want to sell a Ford in China, we have to invest hundreds of millions of dollars to build a new factory in China and employ Chinese workers rather than just shipping cars there from western Europe or from North America.

All of the folks who are so upset about the prospect of helping the car companies should really take a minute to understand that there are external factors that dramatically tie the hands of the Detroit 3 and that most of them are because of our healthcare and trade policies. Again, they have made tons of unbelievably stupid decisions…the UAW contracts, etc...yet those poor decisions are like a bug on the [Oops!] of the world compared to the $1200 in healthcare costs and the unfair trade situation we have.</blockquote>