This is the second year GM hosted an exclusive and decadent event they call GM style, which took place tonight on the eve of the Detroit Auto Show’s first press day.
The event showcases GM’s vehicles as they shared a special stage with famed performers Mary J. Blige, Kid Rock, and Maroon Five. International media were the invited guests, and yours truly got to go.
Quite an interesting and glamorous show, watching the pop stars play their greatest hits, as the latest cars rolled out on stage while models in top designer’s fashions strutted by.
The food was great, the conversation was great, but my favorite guest you can see above.
This entry was posted on Sunday, January 13th, 2008 at 12:01 am and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Jan 13th, 2008 (12:09 am)I hope those models were not pushing it across the stage, but if they were Ill still sign up.
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Jan 13th, 2008 (1:23 am)As I have the site to myself I can also suggest that Bob Dylan drives one across the stage next year and sings “The times they are a changing”.
With his knowlege of american music he may be able to rescore it for hip hop.
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Jan 13th, 2008 (2:16 am)Lyle,
Can you find out if gm will let us test the mules once they arrive (hoping it will be very soon).
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Jan 13th, 2008 (7:33 am)Sporty cars have always been cause for celebrations like GM’s Style Event and beautiful women are attracted to beautiful cars. My Z-28 Camaro was a HUGE babe magnet, and I expect my VOLT will electrify them even more! Bring it on!!!
:):)
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Jan 13th, 2008 (9:47 am)AFS Trinity has a working prototype of an electric Saturn (Vue?) that apparently runs exclusively on an off the shelf electric system for 40 miles, providing 6.9 sec 0-60 performance. This is frustrating, that they have just stepped up and built something that the car manufacturers are saying they would need to jump through design hoops to build. Maybe I am missing something.
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/080113/lasu007a.html?.v=1
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Jan 13th, 2008 (9:48 am)I did miss that the all electric mode did the 0-60 in more than 11 seconds, 6.9 was in full hybrid.
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Jan 13th, 2008 (10:50 am)The AFS Trinity SUV sounds pretty good.
But at the moment it is all talk talk talk.
They can’t mass produce it now and they are looking to license their product. I wonder
how long it would take Toyota to license and ramp up production of this. Could they be out with it before the Volt hits the market?
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Jan 13th, 2008 (10:52 am)Ziv;
Here’s a more detailed report at greencarcongress.com.
http://www.greencarcongress.com/2008/01/afs-trinity-unv.html#more
I’m curious about AFS Trinity’s use of ultracapacitors to buffer energy spikes to and from the battery. This should be a simple way to keep the battery from heating up thus improving safety and lifespan while allowing the use of a more simplistic (and cheaper) “off the shelf” pack.
Seems like an elegant, no-brainer solution to me.
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Jan 13th, 2008 (11:17 am)Now, what if AFS Trinity could use cheap, Firefly deep discharge lead acid batteries in series with ultracapacitors instead of the Volt’s exotic Li-Ion pack!
http://www.greencarcongress.com/2008/01/firefly-energy.html#more
AFS Trinity believes that they can retrofit ANY existing SUV (or pickup) into E-REV-40s for around $8,700.00 (much less with Firefly) including batteries, controllers and electric motors! This SAME system in lighter passenger cars would make them E-REV-80s
GM could get priced out of the E-REV-40 market if they stubbornly stick with expensive exotic batteries without ultracapacitors.
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Jan 13th, 2008 (12:00 pm)Here’s another report at EVWORLD:
AFS Trinity Perfects Plug-in Hybrid Saturn Vue
By Bill Moore
AFS Trinity president Ed Furia briefs EV World on his firm’s breakthrough plug-in hybrid conversion.
http://www.evworld.com/article.cfm?storyid=1386
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Jan 13th, 2008 (12:06 pm)off topic:
I just found a new website/blog that covers all things phev/ev. There’s so much going on in the green transportation world, and so difficult to follow, maybe they’ll be able to slice and dice the information and serve it up so that one doesn’t have to spend 5 hours a day keeping up on this stuff. Check it out.
http://surmonte.wordpress.com/
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Jan 13th, 2008 (1:58 pm)The problem with the AFS Trinity and many other cars like them is that they are only prototypes. Without the extensive testing and engineering that is going into the Volt you can bet the car will not be suitable for mass production.
Come on give me a break, don’t you think GM has been testing every off the shelf solution out there? GM is more that motivated to get The Volt out as soon as possible. If there was an easier way they would use it.
I believe that GM is doing all they can to produce the best vehicle possible as fast as possible. They have the best automotive engineers in the world working it. I have no doubt that they will be the first to produce a quality product. The conspiracy theorists are just plain nuts!
One really scary thought, at least to me, is that a less experienced company comes out with an EV with a big splash and then generates a bunch of negative press for EVs in general when their car has major problems of one sort or another.
I am all for the Mom and Pop startups that push the edge and show great innovation – they are the heart blood of America – but going from prototype to the mass production of 100,000’s of vehicles is a really, really big step. In most cases, the Mom and Pops don’t even know the right questions to ask – much less the answers it takes to go into mass production. Just ask Telsa Motors how hard it is to go into production.
I don’t see any real competitive threats to the Volt except for perhaps Toyota – and only then if they have been working in earnest on a EV in stealth mode for some time.
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Jan 13th, 2008 (6:57 pm)Well, as one who works in Aerospace development programs, I can tell you, some schedules are inevitable. I dont understand all the past history, but I appreciate what GM is doing, with ethanol and with electric. We need every chance to be successful in gaining energy independence. The problem with the battery to overcome will be degradation of the battery with use. I am looking forward to the volt, but in case it must be delayed due to battery issues, cheap ethanol is a good alternative. PS, I noticed hydrogen is produced before the ethanol in to process. What is that about! Hmmm….
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