LET ME HEAR IT..

Now they stand to expand further. With the recent announce of four GM-technology-based hybrids – it sounds like Chrysler is firmly behind electrification of transport too. The combination would be the world’s largest automotive company focused on building cars that “take petroleum off the table.” Now that’s got to be a bad thing for some of us. Because we all know it should be Zap or Zip or… Chery that’s building the future green world. Not the bums who killed it!!!

Meanwhile, I’m going shopping for one of those Saturn VUE plug-ins that’ll get 10 mi ALR. It’ll be one of the first plug-in hybrids and it can hold my whole family of plant people – plant loving people. And it’ll look great next to my new hotel on Park Place.

Absorbing Chrysler would be a fine master stroke for GM, save for the management attention required. But GM is doing fine around the World, outside of NA, and Chrysler’s foreign affiliations are just about jettisoned.

So that is an advantage to the merger. The Chrysler merger is essentially a North American issue. Chrysler’s radical downsizing over time has eliminated virtually all its old facilities, so what manufacturing capacity remains is actually pretty modern, and located in North America where due to Exchange rates, these are now the cheapest sources in the developed world and preferred manufacturing facility locations.

If GM exchanges paper to acquire Chrysler, it has a MAJOR benefit in that its senior management has past Chrysler executives aboard. Many mergers turn out badly because of “surprises” that the acquiring firm does not appreciate or perceive. That is not the case here. Bob Lutz KNOWs where the Chrysler bodies are buried.

There are several attractive Chrysler assets, that can be gotten for the price of printing some paper securities. Jeep is present in the smaller platforms that Hummer never had. Killing Hummer and replacing it with Jeep is a major attraction,or adding a big SUV to Jeep from the Hummer line, would complete the product offering lineup, for off-road vehicles. Toyota offers the Land Cruiser and Jeep has never had an answer. But The Hummer is nothing but a re bodied Tahoe,so a dual-mode si ano-cost product extension ot Jeep. Perhaps more trouble than it’s worth.

Chrysler also dominates a market sector where GM has never been successful, and has now abandoned. Its Minivans are an attractive new market segment, that is worth half a million of what are additional sales, annually. The only thing they need is comparatively tiny, already budgeted, developed, and coming. These are modern v6s, and I4 turbos with 6 speed transmissions. And a T2B5 diesel that GM has available, would help too. Along with a hybrid option, too.

So adding an uncontested market segment to its sales with only minimal expenditures for product development in the next half decade is a very good virtually free addition.

The Chrysler mid-sized “D” class vehicles are modern and not obsolescent. They are simply unfinished; and are underdeveloped. They are not refined, and GM can either replace them with fine Malibu- based offerings, or simply spend the pittance to refine them. The platforms are not deficient in any other way. Certainly cheaper than redesigning from scratch with new platforms that is wholly unnecessary.

One of the oldest platforms in the GM lineup is the large car platforms. There, start and stop development leaves GM with a problem. And a compromise of using obsolescent Australian Holden RWD platforms, is at most a rank expediency.

GM wanted to go RWD, but the added weight, and 2007 CAFE law concerns, scrapped those platforms in mid-development, and preclude doing that, on a large scale. Chrysler’s E-Class based RWD platforms of the Chrysler 300/Charger, and the newer successor generation, are well sorted out chassis, and can provide a platform for a specialty RWD vehicle for all it lines. These won’t be mainline designs as the CAFE will still require a FWD platform for the the large numbers of large sedans as GM is now doing for the future DTS, La Cross etc.

But the Dual-mode hybrid setup, and especially the Dual- mode Gen II, in the works already, would certainly make these RWD designs a very saleable next generation specialty product. Toyota does this with its combined Lexus FWD and RWD offerings. The RWD offerings to satisfy the enthusiasts and auto mags; and the FWD designs for every one else seeking good handling in rough weather, along with reasonable room, and economy.

From an infrastructure standpoint,
Chrysler does have some intriguing additions to the GM repertoire that are or can at minimal expense, be attractive to GM. GM’s Ecotec I4 family in the range of 1.8 – 2.4 liters are very fine engines. With the swing to smaller platform power plants, GM production capacity for I-4s doesn’t quite meet demand. The Chrysler GEMA “World” engines are modern, DOHC,VVT, all-alloy, with beefy wall sizes, designed for turbocharging, and with HCCI in mind, needing and finally getting GDI to already available turbo charging. These engines the have been wrongly tuned for max power, giving them a noisy reputation. This was done to cover a Chrysler power deficit in the small V6 range, and obsolescent 4-speed transmissions.

All they need is some TLC engineering, to complete the job, detune the engines like Huyndai and Mitsu do, along with the arrival of large numbers of 6 speed DSC transmissions. Money that Chrysler has been forced to budget parsimoniously, and drag out development, nevertheless that is now already done. Chrysler/GEMA production facilities are constantly winning awards for efficiency and low cost of manufacture. Chrysler and GEMA can provide lots of modern I-4 engines to GM. Many of the present obsolescent GM I-4 lines can be retired. Then all GMs big I-4s will all be fully modern.

Similarly the GM 3.6 High Feature is a fine V6, but GM is capacity limited in this engine. The new Phoenix v6 and its modern production facilities will help solve that bottleneck very cheaply. GM would love to rationalize is v6 engine families. Right now it is stuck with several obsolescent v6 families; some going back to the original Citation designs in response to the 1970s fuel crisis. Buick’s v6s, carved off the Buick 1940s era v8, dates back even earlier, to the early sixties. GM can retire these older v6s families, and replace with nothing but modern HF 3.6 v6s and Phoenix v6s, and have modernized its entire v6 engine offerings on the very cheap. All will be DOHC, VVT, GDI, all-alloy, turbo ready, and then HCCI ready.

GM can also scrap all the other Chrysler V6 engine families and find some substantial cost savings to the merger. Savings will accrue from the retirement of these older GM engine facilities as well. Tangible savings.

GM is also capacity limited in 6 speed DSC transmissions. Chrysler is adding massive quantities of that 6 speed in a few months. The new factories have been built and starting to manufacture initial quantities, where they are being final-debugged in EU Dodge Journeys. This is the “quality approach” the Japanese used to assure a quality image in America, by making Japanese consumers the final debuggers before releasing the designs to America.

The Malibu has been shown to be a very nice platform with an Ecotec I-4 and a 6 speed DSC, but numbers have been limited. Making many more of these available will be well received. Migrate the “mild hybrid” setup to this drive-train, and GM will have met the CAFE 2020 targets for Malibu “D” class conventional vehicles, on the very cheap. All without spending a real dime.

Finally, GM budgeted expenditures have precluded some investments. GM Family 0 very small I4s, from 1.0 – 1.4 liter, are not the most modern power plants, although they have been thoroughly updated. GM just didn’t have the money to start with a clean sheet of paper. After the proposed merger, it might be able to address a new Family 0 engine line. Since all its other engine developments costing large sums could be substantially minimized. GM could undertake to develop a modern DOHC, GDI, VVT, all-alloy, turbo and HCCI ready small I4 engine family, to replace the Family 0, that it’s now prevented from doing by money concerns.

A Gen II Volt would profit from such a development.

I don’t know if I am late to the party. But I have to tell everyone that this is a very sad news for GM fans. What does GM always have to find the way to humiliate itself? What does Chrysler have and GM does’t?

As a GM guy, I have to say that I am very disappinted with GM. Holden, Vauxhall, Opel, Saab, Hummer, Daewoo, Saturn, Buick, Caddy, Chevrolet, Pontiac… are not enough?

I really don’t know what to say. I just don’t get it. What is GM’s problem that cann’t be fixed internally with all the resources GM have? What’s wrong with GM?

I’m with you. I don’t get it either.

It’s called “acknowledging reality.” The next step is to do something constructive about reality. When enough people stop whining about “liberalism” and acknowledge reality, we can move on to that next step.

Gary: “The new Malibu 4-cylinder with 6-speed transmission has the best fuel economy of its class.”

Bully for it. However, the last I checked, they didn’t put that transmission into the BAS vehicle and I referred specifically to it. I am led to the conclusion that even GM thinks their BAS system is worthless. Too bad… as I have said, the concept is a good one, but GM’s price and execution leave a great deal to be desired.

#85, Grizzly, I wondered when you’d get around to whining about trade policies. Go to Japan. See if they drive anythying like what GM builds. Then you’ll know why there’s no market for GM’s cars.

And Japan’s yen is depressed because Japan has some difficult fundamental problems. Of course, Japan faces their problems and Japan is not as badly mismanged as the US has been, lately.

As for the Escape, you are mistaken there, too. Ford has problems delivering hybrid Escapes at a reasonable cost, so they build only about 2500/month. There’s a waiting list. On the highway, its fuel economy gains are not impressive but it delivers the goods in city driving. Even the original models. You are welcome to check the EPA web site where you will find 13 Escape hybrids registered and they averaged 31mpg. No regular SUV comes anywhere near that.

“It’s sad how Americans have been brainwashed to hate themselves.”

*** *** ***

It’s called “liberalism” and it’ll never get us out of this pinch. Consumer confidence is everything and they just want to destroy it. It is not what built this country and certainly not what we need now. To those that “hate this country” I’d suggest you’ve got about 170 other choices to relieve us of your burden.

Long live the U.S.A. and long live the VOLT!

It’s sad how Americans have been brainwashed to hate themselves. It’s like having a sports team told by their coaches that they suck and will never win. Why is something from a far away exotic land always considered better? Here’s a good one: Fiji Water (http://www.fijiwater.com/). Somehow people think that water bottled in locally isn’t good enough. Noooo, instead it has to be shipped all the way from from Fiji because the way that the Hydrogen and Oxygen atoms are combined there makes their water taste so much better. How ignorant can people be?!?

Americans see themselves in a black light, probably because of all the crap going on around them, namely waging unnecessary wars all over the world, which essentally throws taxpayers hard-earned money into a big money pit.

That’s a bit of an exaggeration. The new Malibu 4-cylinder with 6-speed transmission has the best fuel economy of its class.