Comments on: GM Announces its Next Generation Hybrid System: Includes Lithium-ion Battery

By: noel park

noel park — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 22:08:59 +0000

50 Wise Golden:
Well to be fair about it, the new Automobile magazine points out that the cost of the hybrid option on the new Malibu is not much more that the tax credit, "so it’s almost like getting it for free."

By: John D

John D — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 19:40:19 +0000

Wise Golden, the hybrid aura is a great little ride as is! Comfortable quiet (especially at traffic lights w/ the engine off). I’ve seen similar fuel economy during hybrid friendly driving (consistantly). You can pretty much count on 30+ mpg w/ much effort (city or highway). I think with this BAS+ program we will see some very appealing fuel economy numbers at a great cost! I’m excited about everything that GM is pumping out in regards to hybrids.

By: Wise Golden

Wise Golden — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 16:54:03 +0000

GTX – My Saturn Aura Hybrid has achieved 38.1 MPG over the last 14,500 miles.

By: noel park

noel park — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 16:35:46 +0000

36 bruce g:
Well maybe, but the hybrid Camrys are selling like cold cakes here, and Honda gave up on the hybrid Accord.

By: Wise Golden

Wise Golden — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 16:18:58 +0000

This is a major announcement. Currently, GM is the only company that offers a hybrid system that cost less than $2000 as an option, and that is the system that they are talking about here. I own this system and I find that it offers much improved mileage – better than the GM claims, so I’m excited to see that it is being improved to be an even better system. The key here is that the system is not expensive – about the same as a navigation option, and that means that it is affordable, and that will mean that it can be widely applied to lower priced vehicles and even high mileage vehicles. As you know, it’s difficult to recoup the cost of a full hybrid system on a fuel efficient vehicle because, well, they don’t use very much gas to allow for savings. If they can keep the cost of this system similar to the system that is on the Aura (my car,) and Malibu, they will have a system that will produce a payback in about 10K miles, and on a very fuel efficient car like the small Chevy’s and Saturn Astra, they could get the payback in maybe 20K miles. That’s a real home run!