OK, seriously, what should Detroit do to get the folks back?

Let's set the political banter aside for a moment.

If you're setting those guys in Detroit straight, what would you suggest they make?

Me, I think they should throw out all their style departments.
Aside from the rare vehicle, like the new Chevy Malibu, most American sedans have been awkward looking, as if they were designed to sit on rental lots. Whenever Detroit comes up with a cool design, like the Chrysler 300, they leave it be for years until everyone is tired of it.

The retro cars are sorta fun, but where's the stuff that lines up with the good stuff from Europe and Japan?

Just my two cents (and I no longer own a car because I don't need one), I think folks are looking for safety, fuel efficiency, comfort, verstatily, and a decent price. I think those who buy primarily on style are a declining minority. I could be wrong. Just my thoughts.

1) I don't think building attractive cars, and making money in the car business are the same thing. Toyota makes stylishly awkward cars, and they're top of the heap. Honda's styling is not great anymore, but they seem to do well.

2) I think a lot of the problems with GM have to do with their enormous cost structure and spread of brands. Toyota and Honda do quite well with one model in each class. Following that idea probably makes a lot of sense. Make one two-seater sports car, one two door, one hatchback, one sedan, one van, one small SUV, and then a line of trucks, etc. But that would mean eliminating a lot of dealers and brands, and that would mean becoming even more unpopular in the marketplace.

3) Reputation and customer loyalty seem to be king now. It takes a long time to build up. Toyota, Honda, Mercedes and BMW have it. Mercedes couldn't "give" their reputation to Chrysler--which shows that it's a hard task. GM had that reputation, but squandered it over many, many years. Is it possible to get rid of a bad reputation? I don't know. (Ask a slutty girl if getting married saved her reputation.)

4) So, I don't think coming out with a magical stylish model or two is going to cure Detroit's ills. Or a good ad campaign. It's going to take real work right down the line: engineering for durability and quality, manufacturing excellence, better dealers and salespeople that don't seem like hucksters, better service and maintenance, being nice to customers and not treating them like numbers.

5) Pretty much everybody I know dreads the experience of buying a car. You feel like you're getting fleeced and pressured every second. The first outfit that makes buying a car as nice as shopping at Neiman Marcus is going to be a big winner. I'll tell you something about business: I get treated a lot nicer going to a nice department store and spending $100 on a sweater, or $50 on cologne for my wife, than I ever get treated spending $800 on service at any car dealership!! Or spending $30,000 on a car!!

Well the cheapest car GM has in there line up is 18K... For starters I think they should focus on the building a car around 10k that has quality second to none...#2 Stand behind the product no questions asked #3 get the cars from development to the street faster..

For starters they can hurry the hell up and put a Camaro in the showroom in my nieghborhood so I can check one out.





She can ride with me if she's gonna be a good girl.

http://www.corvetteconti.com/photo-g...CAMARO-LRG.jpg

I think I'm in love and feel like another Mid-Life Crisis is coming on. Last one got me a Harley Davidson. One before that got me a Les Paul etc.etc.

They could start building guitars.

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Originally Posted by melody

Well the cheapest car GM has in there line up is 18K... For starters I think they should focus on the building a car around 10k that has quality second to none...#2 Stand behind the product no questions asked #3 get the cars from development to the street faster..

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+1!

When the price of an "average" mid-level family car went over $25k they lost me forever. Why that expensive? Pension costs? Labor costs? I don't have an answer but about ten years ago I decided that financing a depreciating asset didn't make sense. Buy used, buy what is easily maintained and pay cash. I avoid all the electronic cellulite that will be impossible to repair or have repaired in 5 years.

My last new car was a '93 T-Bird that left me stranded twice in the first year (almost cost me my job). Then there was a '93 F150 I bought in '95 that cost thousands in AC, driveline and driveability related service costs.

So, my cars, Volvos, are 14 and 15 years old. They have multiple airbags, ABS, structural side impact protection, get >25mpg hwy and still look good. They tow and carry anything I need.

What can Detroit do to bring me back? Build an Infiniti G35 or G37 in wagon form, ditch the electronic luxury items but keep the leather and make it for $17k.

Ain't going to happen.

But, if I won the lottery I'd probably find a Cherokee SRT8 just for entertainment.

TT

1) reduce the brands
2) reduce the redundancys
(do they need a chevy, a cadillac & a GMC pickup?)
3) make (engineer / build) 'em good, make 'em cheap,
and give good sevice
4) don't punish people for buying thier products

I think it might be too late.

My wife's father was the service manager at a Ford dealership and she won't go near an American car. She hasn't had an American car since her Mustang Ghia debacle in the late '70s.

I first looked to foreign cars for sportscars- MGs. I liked a Pontiac for general use and an MG as a toy. Then I tried an imported car as a daily driver and got hooked. I switched back to a Jeep Cherokee for a couple of years and replaced it with a Honda CR-V as soon as I was able to.

Considering the track record of of our recent Toyota, Hondas and Mazda, I don't think we'll ever have another American car.

My wife and my votes don't count for much anyway as we've had one of the Hondas since we bought it new in 1994 (it replaced a Toyota that my wife bought new in 1983) and the Mazda since 1998 (it replaced an MGB). We don't buy often enough to matter.

This happened several years ago, but a GM exec told the board "they were no longer in the automobile business, they were now in the "entertainment business".
That should have been the writing on the wall.
I do love my little '92 S-10 however.

Part of the responsibility for the downturn in auto sales is the American consumer's demand for a better (ie: more durable) vehicle.

I don't think there's any dispute that Detroit has made some real reekers in the past. But the quality of recent domestically-made cars has indeed improved dramatically.

Thus, folks are keeping their cars longer than ever before. In 1984 the average length of ownership for a GM car or truck was around 42 months. Today, we see people keeping these vehicles for eight or ten years (even longer in some instances).

As a result, dealers see repeat customers far less often than before -- which in practical terms means less annual turnover of inventory. The import brands are in this same boat -- the cars are better-made, folks tend to hold onto them longer, and the dealers deliver less units per model year.

Do I have the answer? Nope.

But the above factors are a significant part of the equation and need to be given their due.

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Originally Posted by juniorspecial

2) I think a lot of the problems with GM have to do with their enormous cost structure and spread of brands. Toyota and Honda do quite well with one model in each class. Following that idea probably makes a lot of sense.

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This issue has been over-simplified

Toyota brands include Scion and Lexus and the corporation is part of the Toyota Group. Toyota also owns majority stakes in Daihatsu, and 8.7% of Fuji Heavy Industries, which manufactures Subaru vehicles. They also acquired 5.9% of Isuzu Motors Ltd. on November 7, 2006 and will be introducing Isuzu diesel technology into their products.

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Originally Posted by Don

I think it might be too late.

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I agree with Don. I don't know if they can re-tool Detroit to head in another direction either. I saw an online gallery of deserted and dilapitated factories in Detroit and it was the most post-apaclyptic (sp?) set of images I've seen in a long time.

A real reviatalization of Detriot would cost more than I can even possibly imagine....

I think they should declare bankruptcy and go through a painful, but necessary restructuring. Taking the guvmint handouts... oh, sorry... bailouts... is only kicking the problem down the road a bit.

The foreign manufacturers are eating their lunch because it costs them a helluva lot less to make a good car.

If Detroit didn't have the crushing labor-related financial obligations, then maybe they could innovate again.

I'd love to buy an American made product. But I get far more bang for my buck with Toyotas.

Personally, I think we need to get away from the "Made In America Sucks" mentality and buy American.

We love USA Guitars dang it. ( I ain't got all the answers but ....)


Totally Bored = proud owner of a 11 year old Jeep Cherokee. Extremely dependable and reliable vehicle.

1. Get some engineers in there do some WEIGHT REDUCTION!!!

2. Bring back manual transmissions.

3. Rear wheel drive.

4. Make the engines as good as they can be and share it across all the cars. Have a 2.0L I4 that puts out 150hp (for comparison, the 2.0L euro market bmw 1 series I4 is a 2.0l engine that puts out 170hp!) that you put in ALL of your cars as an option, and an 3.0L I6 that puts out 250hp that you put in ALL of your cars as an option, and have a nice big 4.0L v8 that puts out ~400hp that you can put in the suvs and halo cars. You can even have a supercharger on it for your corvettes and cobras. Detroit makes the cheap cars crappy on purpose to try and make you buy up and they have horrifically underpowered 4 cylinder engines, I just think people look at the 4 cylinder engines the japanese and germans make and laugh at detroit. Obviously the trucks need their own engine, so they can have one.

5. Hire the guy designing the nissans. Pay him as much as you have too. Especially whoever designed this newest maxima.

6. Remember that maximizing profits in the long run is not maximizing short term profits, but rather building good cars that get people to come back and buy 3 or 4 of your vehicles over their lifetime. Make the plastic nice, make the seats comfortable, make the cars fun to drive and realistically affordable and people will come and buy the cars.

I guess if they're not going to make this:

http://lowdownlowdown.com/greenboy/M.../Canyonero.jpg

then they could try this:

http://cache.jalopnik.com/assets/res...6/TheHomer.jpg

me, i'd prefer this:

http://www.blog.speculist.com/archiv...flying_car.jpg

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Originally Posted by redb

5. Hire the guy designing the nissans. Pay him as much as you have too. Especially whoever designed this newest maxima.

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Those guys are working right here in La Jolla CA. Just up the road from me.

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Originally Posted by redb

3. Rear wheel drive.

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Why rear wheel drive? It's great in sports and muscle cars, but in econoboxes?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Totally bored

Personally, I think we need to get away from the "Made In America Sucks" mentality and buy American.

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I would, and will, as soon as the odds of getting a great American car are about as good as the odds of getting a great imported car.

It's too late for my wife, though! She is very prejudice when it comes to this topic.

They should start headhunting the people from Ford!

Overlooked in all this US car manufacturing bashing are the facts that Ford turned down any bailout money, and pointed out that they are in a good cash position. Then they reminded people they are among the top manufacturers in the world for customer satifaction.

Quite the paradigm buster.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Don

Why rear wheel drive? It's great in sports and muscle cars, but in econoboxes?

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improved weight distribution. bmw and merc have been making affordable (relatively speaking to the rest of their line and considering their quality of components) commuter cars in rear wheel drive like the merc c class and the bmw e46 3 series for a long time. There is also the issue of sending more than 200hp to the front wheels being bad. All of the electronics limit the power, if you were going to do that, get a smaller engine since youll save on the gas mileage.

right now there arent very many cars more in demand than the compact german cars; so build that, but american.

it doesnt have to be the same luxury level, just make the car's driving ability that good.

red, you can't re-write the laws of physics. The car turns around it's center of mass regardless of the drive. I actually studied wheeled vehicle dynamics, and had to figure out Ixx, Iyy, Ixy... for a racecar.

Perfromance cars are builr RWD for acceleration, not handling.

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Originally Posted by Offshore Angler

red, you can't re-write the laws of physics. The car turns around it's center of mass regardless of the drive. I actually studied wheeled vehicle dynamics, and had to figure out Ixx, Iyy, Ixy... for a racecar.

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yes and rwd shifts the mass backwards? you are right, this is not technically the drive type doing it, but it is the effect.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Offshore Angler

Perfromance cars are builr RWD for acceleration, not handling.

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Rear wheel drive vs front drive for handling has HUGE implications on actual application--maybe not on paper--but certainly where the rubber meets the road.

There are many other benefits to rear wheel drive inluding much cheaper engineering, fewer moving parts, better serviceability and durability due to those factors, plus others.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by redb

yes and rwd shifts the mass backwards? you are right, this is not technically the drive type doing it, but it is the effect.

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Nope, the mass is fixed.

The best handling racecars are 4WD, but the complexity results in weight and reliability issues so it's rare, or outlawed.

Anybody remember the six wheeled F1 cars? Or the 4WD Indy cars?

Here's a cool thing about a racecar - any point on the outside edge of a tire on a car going 200mph goes from 400mph to zero mph about 45 times a second!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Offshore Angler

Nope, the mass is fixed.

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having rear wheel drive means the differential is at the back of the car instead of the front, ie mass has been shifted towards the back. the center of mass moves toward the side that is relatively heavier, so in 50/50 its directly in the middle, in common FWD cars its 60/40 and the center of mass is towards the front, and in mid engined sports cars its closer to 45/55 and the center of mass is towards the back.

once everything is bolted onto the car it wont move, I guess, but I am 95% sure you knew that I meant that the weight distribution in a RWD car is more twoards the rear of the car than in FWD cars.

at this point we are soooooo far off of my point, which is that RWD would improve the way the cars handle and get more people interested and buying american.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Wilko

This issue has been over-simplified

Toyota brands include Scion and Lexus and the corporation is part of the Toyota Group. Toyota also owns majority stakes in Daihatsu, and 8.7% of Fuji Heavy Industries, which manufactures Subaru vehicles. They also acquired 5.9% of Isuzu Motors Ltd. on November 7, 2006 and will be introducing Isuzu diesel technology into their products.

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Perhaps. But here is GM's list (US only): Hummer, GMC, Saab, Cadillac, Buick, Pontiac, Chevrolet, and Saturn. All of which they own 100% of. And they have lots of little stakes in little things all over the world. (Some of their foreign brands include Vauxhall and Opel.)

Now, I don't know about you, but I can tell a Scion from any other car on the road from 300 yards away. It has a strong product identity.

Can you tell a GMC SUV from a Buick SUV from a Cadillac SUV from a Chevy SUV from a Saturn SUV from a Pontiac SUV? OK, so Hummer sticks out in this class. It has a strong identity. And I don't think Saab sells an SUV (I may be wrong on that). But the rest kind of run together, don't you think?

Therein lies my point...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Offshore Angler

Here's a cool thing about a racecar - any point on the outside edge of a tire on a car going 200mph goes from 400mph to zero mph about 45 times a second!

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I don't understand this. You're saying the outside edge of the tire stops 45 times per second? Sounds like a bumpy ride.

Please explain.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by juniorspecial

Perhaps. But here is GM's list (US only): Hummer, GMC, Saab, Cadillac, Buick, Pontiac, Chevrolet, and Saturn. All of which they own 100% of. And they have lots of little stakes in little things all over the world. (Some of their foreign brands include Vauxhall and Opel.)

Now, I don't know about you, but I can tell a Scion from any other car on the road from 300 yards away. It has a strong product identity.

Can you tell a GMC SUV from a Buick SUV from a Cadillac SUV from a Chevy SUV from a Saturn SUV from a Pontiac SUV? OK, so Hummer sticks out in this class. It has a strong identity. And I don't think Saab sells an SUV (I may be wrong on that). But the rest kind of run together, don't you think?

Therein lies my point...

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I think they need to stop with the move up selling programs where they use chevy to get you into a buick into a cadillac or a ford into a mercury into a lincoln.

just have your main brand and make some decent cars. maybe you have a "luxury" brand that makes cars to compete with germany and the better japanese cars.

and pontiac needs to go away for good.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by juniorspecial

I don't understand this. You're saying the outside edge of the tire stops 45 times per second? Sounds like a bumpy ride.

Please explain.

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just going to guess here but I think when the point actually comes in contact with the pavement it rapidly decelerates to 0 and then as it pushes against the pavement to move the car forward it accelerates VERY rapidly.

probably wrong but Im not sure how else it could happen.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by juniorspecial

I don't understand this. You're saying the outside edge of the tire stops 45 times per second? Sounds like a bumpy ride.

Please explain.

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Easy, the tire is rolling around it's cotanct point on the road. Since the tire isn't slipping on the road it has zero velocity there. At any instant in time, if you look where the tire is rolling on the ground there is no relative movement between the tire and the road, right? Next, the car's axle is moving the same speed as the car - which makes sense too. So we can show that the center of the rotation is where the tire meets the ground, and velocity of any part on the tire computed as the tire's angular velocity times the distance from the center of rotation, which is the contact point on the ground.

So, we know the tire is not moving where it contacts the ground, we know the car is going 200, and we know the top edge of the tire is twice as far from the center of the rolling as the axle, so the top of the tire is going 400 mph.

You can see this on any wheel if you look. Another easy way to see it is on a tank tread. The tread is laying on the ground motionless and the top of the tread is moving forward at twice the speed of the tank.

Pretty cool, eh. Think about that next time you're driving.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by juniorspecial

Therein lies my point...

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I totally agree with you. I was just pointing out that most reporting of the issue oversimplifies, including your own post where you said they each have one of each model. It just isn't true.

I agree that the US makers are horrific at it. I blame wall street for that. They are forced by being "public" companies to show growth.

Geeze they even have Jaguar making entry level cars. It's not ok to just be a good luxury car maker.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Totally bored

For starters they can hurry the hell up and put a Camaro in the showroom in my neighborhood so I can check one out.

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My wife is a former Z-28 owner. She liked what she saw at Sebring a few weeks ago (Chevy had a nice exhibit at the race). Me, well I guess I'm not into muscle cars. It looked a bit too massive for my tastes but it was far from ugly. It just didn't appeal to my sporty car sensibilities.

I think Detroit could compete if they shed all the baggage from past union contracts. There's no reason they couldn't build a car like my 3-series BMW for a decent price.

As for the comment that FWD doesn't affect handling, I disagree. Torque steer and the steering boost required to tame it makes the front end feel numb. Power changes result in feedback through the steering system. We had a '93 Probe for a number of years and it handled pretty well but it only had about 160HP. We no longer own any FWD cars.

Our only "Made in USA" is my 16 year old Nissan PU truck. Maybe some day that will change........Bill

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Offshore Angler

So, we know the tire is not moving where it contacts the ground, we know the car is going 200, and we know the top edge of the tire is twice as far from the center of the rolling as the axle, so the top of the tire is going 400 mph.

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That's kind of meaningless though. It's like saying that if you jump off a cliff, you're not falling because relative to yourself you're not changing position. Or relative to someone falling with you, you're not moving.

(Of course, when falling off a cliff, it's not the falling that's the problem. It's the sudden stopping.)

If the car is going 200mph, the tread of the tire is moving at 200mph, minus whatever small percentage is lost to slippage and friction on the ground. And, after an hour, the tire, even though you contend that it stops in relation to the ground, will be 200 miles away. From that spot on the ground.

Some stoppage!

junior its just taking advantage of looking at time in a very discreet way and looking at movement from one discreet moment to another an infinitely small increment and saying that at one point the tire is going 0 mph relative to the ground and at the opposite extreme it's going 400 mph.

you could also look at it and say that if you count one revolution (a fair time period) the point is going 200 miles per hour because in 1 hour at that speed it will cover 200 miles of ground.

you can play a lot of tricks by stretching the view of time as discreet and continuous. for instance a very fundamental question in macro economics about the speed at which a curve moves along another to reach equilibrium can be answered as "infinitely fast" if you game tiem right but that's not a particularly useful or even correct answer.

I dont mean to imply OA is incorrect at all, he is not. Nor am I implying that its not useful or good information, because I am not. Just saying.

The fact remains that the outside edge of the tire will go from zero to 400 mph relative to the ground every revolution.

It's simple physics.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by juniorspecial

If the car is going 200mph, the tread of the tire is moving at 200mph, minus whatever small percentage is lost to slippage and friction on the ground. And, after an hour, the tire, even though you contend that it stops in relation to the ground, will be 200 miles away. From that spot on the ground.

Some stoppage!

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Nope as noted before, ( and proved by the math ) the tread of the tire is changing velocity.

The reason you don't feel it is because for every differential piece of the tire that is decellerating, there is an equal and opposite acceleration Pi radians away, so the net effect is that the center of mass off the tire - coincendentally it's axle - is moving at 200 mph. You can't argue with the physics and math. It is what it is.

That is why rolling is not the same as spinning! The axis of rotation is where the tire meets the ground. Which makes perfect sense, because when we study the dynamics of a road vehicle, it is how it interacts with the ground that matters.

You're example of how far the tire travels over time would be a due to the tire's speed, not it's velocity. The tread's velocity will vary sinusoidally from zero to 400mph 161,344 times over the trip.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Don

...and the Mazda since 1998 (it replaced an MGB)...

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Funny, I'm going through a long drawn out process to replace a toyota with a MGBGT

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Offshore Angler

The fact remains that the outside edge of the tire will go from zero to 400 mph relative to the ground every revolution.

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In instantaneous speeds yes. I also agree that it does so sinusoidally, and that at any point on the rotation of the wheel a point will have a related point 180 degrees away that has the same absolute value velocity.

But most people dont have the math background to really grasp that concept in a good enough sense to really appreciate what you are saying.

The average person thinks of speeds, velocity and even acceleration as one concept and in averages. If you go 60 miles in an hour you were going 60mph, even though you may very well have gone 0mph for 30 minutes and 120mph for the other 30 minutes.

Ill share a real life example of how the "average person" has trouble with these things. I regularly tutor people in my major (especially on mathematically involved classes like micro or labor) and one of the most common misunderstandings I see is that people think that solving a derivative at one point on a graph gives you the slope of the ENTIRE curve which may (or most likely, may not) be true because they dont understand the difference between slope at a discreet point, overall slope and average slope.

FWIW I think its a very interesting discussion.

The physics sub thread here is interesting. Not being an engineer my layman's thought is that at a steady vehicle speed, the driven, powered wheels are in a constant state of deceleration (the vehicle is working to slow the rotation of the wheel by it's inertia, aerodynamic drag and rolling resistance) and the free wheels (not having power applied) are in a constant state of acceleration as the contact patch works to hold the tire in place but the momentum of the vehicle causes the tire to rotate.

Back to the point of the thread, if Detroit can make it so their wheels simultaneously accelerate and decelerate longer than those on my old Volvos, at a lower cost and transport me in a comfortable, quiet and safe interior for under $20k, I might consider a new car again.

Here's the thing. A few years ago I bought what was then a 12 year old car. A Volvo 940 Turbo wagon with 110,000 miles on it for under $3,400. Perfect condition. Four wheel discs, dual airbags, cast iron block, rwd, leather, heated seats, electric windows, mirrors etc. I've been half way across the country twice in it and it's a daily driver. I'm 6'1" and can stretch both legs straight out in it while on CC. The seats are good enough that I'm considering putting a salvage yard seat on a pedestal and making an office chair. It handles mountain roads very well, accelerates very quickly for something this size and weight and cruises effortlessly at 80mph while returning 24mpg and is cheap to insure. It would be everything I would look for in a new car so why would I consider spending $25k or more? It's also extremely easy to maintain yourself. Fwiw, my '88 740 turbo had over 210,000 miles on it, original turbo too, before I sold it because of a move.

The ultimate incentive plan to stimulate car sales? A $5,000 per year, "Obsolete Vehicle" registration surcharge on anything out of OEM emissions or restraint systems warranty. I'm not suggesting it, just waiting for it.

TT

Part of the problem is that the great minds of the US Congress have been trying to force vehicles not suited for our roads and lifestyle upon us.

A little FWD 4 cylinder car is wonderful in Tokyo, GB, or Singapore, but here in the US we have much different driving conditions. As an example, the full-size pickup - a staple of american sales, truck didn't exist in Japan.

The other problem is mileage standards. Congress can pass all the mileage standards the want, but they can't change the laws of thermodynamics. There is a finite amount of energy in a gallon of gas. You can play with the stoichiometry only so far and then you start loosing efficeincy.

Case in point, When the Wright Brothers flew they went about 20 or 30 mph. By the 60's airplanes were going a couple thousand miles and hour. 40 years later, airplanes aren't any faster. They reached the technological limits. Cars are there now too with respect to MPG from fossil fuels.

Electric cars - you only shift the production of energy from the vehicle to some other source and then accrue the the inefficiencies of power transport. Where the car itself uses less energy the total energy required to run it is greater, albeit cheaper. Next, what are the envioremental effects of creating, maintaining and recycling the batteries?

Plus, electric cars are death traps. I personally don't want to be in an accident in a vehicle with 300 Amps coursing through it.

I pride myself on being somewhat of a car nut. I know what I like in a car and I know what I don't like. I also have an idea of what the auto manufacturers THINK we all like. Here are some suggestions in no particular order:

1) ALL new domestic automotive designers and engineers should be required to spend a minimum of two years at a dealership making warranty repairs and dealing with customer complaints, PERIOD.

2) A new car should NOT have as standard equipment the following items: Air conditioning, power seats, power windows, power door locks, automatic transmission, GPS, power steering, CD changer, anti-theft, etc... These should be options. The only reason the auto manufacturers make these standard items is so you, the customer, will have to pay a higher price (read: profit margin) for a car with features you may or may not want or need. Why have bells and whistles if you are not gonna ring or toot? Give us a basic car for cryin' out loud!

3) Sever the state of California from the United States and let them float out to sea.

4) (This was pointed out earlier) LIGHTEN the cars. Cheese and rice, people! How much fuel do you think is burned just getting these barges moving? If cars didn't have to carry around all the aforementioned crap (see suggestion number 2) they would use less fuel, handle better, be more resistant to parts wear (less load, less wear) and I wouldn't have to get out the torch and plasma cutter to lighten one up to race weight...

5) Bring cost down. I was in the market for a new truck to pull the racecar trailer a few years back. We looked at a new Dodge Cummins dually and about fell over when we saw the sticker price as much as our freakin' house. We ended up keeping our old tow vehicle and bought a Neon for $40k LESS than the truck.

6) I have heard a lot of chatter about electric cars being the way to help the environment. Balderdash and poppycock! These things may actually be "greener" when in use, but where do you suppose the BATTERIES come from? And better yet, in 5 years when they go tits up, where do the BATTERIES go? My guess is they will have someone overseas manufacture the batteries because China or Sri Lanka or Singapore doesn't have the environmental constraints on battery production like the US does. Building batteries is a messy, messy industry. Just ask Union Carbide... Now, when they are used up, where are we gonna put them? Send them back to Singapore? HA!

7) Mass produce cars that runs on Hydrogen. Bear with me here. Read this one carefully. Hydrogen fuel. Yes, hydrogen fuel. This one has met opposition from the Feds and the oil companies alike. This fuel is my choice for the future as ANYONE can produce it. I know of a local telephone company that has been experimenting with this fuel and it works great! The phone company has several remote cellular telephone sites around a large metropolitan area. Each one of these cell sites has a series of solar panels used to keep the batteries in the cell sites charged for backup power in case of a A/C power outage. Since the batteries have a limit as to how much charge they require, the excess power from the solar panels is used to generate hydrogen. The hydrogen is produced through electrolysis of the water produced by the condensation of air conditioning system in the cell site. Keep in mind, the equipment in a cellular telephone hut puts out a lot of heat, so the AC runs pretty much all year long. This hydrogen is stored in cylinders at the cell site.

Now comes the fun part. These sites are regularly maintained by the phone company. The phone company vehicles that are used to service these sites run entirely on hydrogen fuel. As they drive from one cell site to the next, they top off the fuel level in the vehicle with the hydrogen produced in the cell site.

Why do you suppose the Feds and the big oil companies have opposed hydrogen fuel? Well, they say it is dangerous, citing incidents like the Hindenburg, but the real reason is YOU CAN MAKE HYDROGEN FUEL AT HOME. If everyone could make their own fuel (granted, the quantity of fuel produced in home plants would be rather small) the Feds couldn't regulate (read: TAX) it and the oil companies would not be selling that fuel. Take money away from Big Brother and his buddy Old Man Oil and they get a bit pissy.

8) Fire whoever designed the Aztek and the Escalade. ACK! Two of the ugliest vehicles to ever come out of Detroit.



Ron

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Offshore Angler

Electric cars - you only shift the production of energy from the vehicle to some other source and then accrue the the inefficiencies of power transport. Where the car itself uses less energy the total energy required to run it is greater, albeit cheaper. Next, what are the envioremental effects of creating, maintaining and recycling the batteries?

Plus, electric cars are death traps. I personally don't want to be in an accident in a vehicle with 300 Amps coursing through it.

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ding ding we have a winner,

note: a 12v 200ah deep cycle battery will put out over 700 amps when shorted for several minutes (fusing required)

I didn't mean to get this thread sidetracked by questioning rear wheel drive vs front wheel drive.

However...

As a mechanical engineer and former auto mechanic believe that the average driver is better off with (and desires) front wheel drive. It's more stable in most conditions and nearly foolproof from a handling perspective. It is also cheaper to build. However maintenance can be much more expensive in a poorly engineered front wheel drive car.

From a performance perspective I prefer rear wheel drive. It's a better handling design for a good driver. Even my 133hp Miata can be easily steered with the throttle when the car is near it's limits.

In any case, the typical BMW and MB driver are buying for status rather than rear wheel drive. Many of them would be happier with a front wheel drive car.

I realize that traction control and tires have come a long way, but when I was younger I worked for American Sunroof Corporation. We did the "factory" sunroof, T-Top and convertible installs for the big three.
Our facility had a steep entrance that would get icy. When it was icy we would have to push the rear wheel drive Coupe De Villes into the building. We would drive the front wheel drive El Dorados in with no problems whatsoever.

Traction control? Oh, come on....

What we need are better drivers, not cars that drive for them. Geez...

From a consumer point of view, I've been very happy with what Detroit has offered me in the past as well as now.

I live a modest lifestyle and I guess you could say my car reflects that. I currentley drive a 2005 Ford Focus that I bought new and I love it. I like that size of a car, good features, it's fun to drive, I've had NO problems with it and it's great on gas.

Hydrogen as an auto fuel?

What about the explosion problem? Hydrogen is awfully hard to keep around without it blowing up...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by NMCA_Ron

2) A new car should NOT have as standard equipment the following items: Air conditioning, power seats, power windows, power door locks, automatic transmission, GPS, power steering, CD changer, anti-theft, etc... These should be options. The only reason the auto manufacturers make these standard items is so you, the customer, will have to pay a higher price (read: profit margin) for a car with features you may or may not want or need. Why have bells and whistles if you are not gonna ring or toot? Give us a basic car for cryin' out loud!

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Achhem!
http://wawawoum.images2.free.fr/imag...3_atom-2_1.jpg

It's called the Ariel Atom. I seem to recall them once being cheaper then they are now, but anyhow one can't get much more basic then that in a new car these days. next up is:

http://i.pbase.com/o6/46/701846/1/73...o.Elise008.JPG

lotus elise.

Rather basic for a car like that.
And neither of them came from detroit, both have English roots... And I'd be happy to drive either one.

Or, you could just go out and buy a not too old daewoo
http://a332.g.akamai.net/f/332/936/1...31-300x189.jpg

I liked the aztek show car, not so much the production vehicle.

WHy bother with spending energy to make hydrogen when you could just charge an electric car right from the solor panels that are theoretically on your house?

That Atom would be a drag to drive about 8 months of the year here in Michigan.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by NMCA_Ron

Traction control? Oh, come on....

What we need are better drivers, not cars that drive for them. Geez...

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Unless we return driving to being a privilege rather than a right and start properly training drivers, and retraining drivers regularly, that won't happen!

BTW, I am not a proponent of traction control!

Double post!!!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by juniorspecial

That Atom would be a drag to drive about 8 months of the year here in Michigan.

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maybe. If you are like my brother, maybe not. He drives a 1971 MG midget year round in the chicagoland area when it's operational (which impressively has been most of the time these days). The following demonstrates his attitude.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WqjZl...B080A765000E1A

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Jonnda

maybe. If you are like my brother, maybe not. He drives a 1971 MG midget year round in the chicagoland area when it's operational (which impressively has been most of the time these days). The following demonstrates his attitude.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WqjZl...B080A765000E1A

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That's awesome! I drive my car top down from April through November (down to about 30 degrees F here in Massachusetts).
I avoid rain when I can though I've enjoyed a few good storms over the years! I just roll up the side windows and drive faster! I wear a Schott Perfecto motorcycle jacket (the label is in my avatar) with a removable fur collar on the cold days.

BTW, I had a 1971 MG Midget as a daily driver. I had a tonneau for it like that MGA. I crashed it on ice in February!

A friend has a Lotus Europa. I used to tease him that there were only two types of cars- roadsters and everything else!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Don

That's awesome! I drive my car top down from April through November (down to about 30 degrees F here in Massachusetts).
I avoid rain when I can though I've enjoyed a few good storms over the years! I just roll up the side windows and drive faster! I wear a Schott Perfecto motorcycle jacket (the label is in my avatar) with a removable fur collar on the cold days.

BTW, I had a 1971 MG Midget as a daily driver. I had a tonneau for it like that MGA. I crashed it on ice in February!

A friend has a Lotus Europa. I used to tease him that there were only two types of cars- roadsters and everything else!

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^_^

Sorry to hear about the ice, brother's Midget recently rear ended a pickup truck and broke the headlights and dented things up a bit. It was raining and he some how misjudged his stopping distance in the wet. I think I recall him blaming it on messing with his cell phone, which he somewhat despises. He found a way to straighten out the part of the fender that holds the headlight buckets using midget brake drums and a hydraulic press, and says it's almost good as it was before.

As for me, I have a 1973 MG BGT that only has about 7600 miles on it... if I can get it running after 25 or so years of storage by the previous owner. Mysterious timing issues are it's gremlins, and my brother thinks it needs new piston rings. Till then I'm running a 94(?) Light metalic blue toyota corolla, not a bad car but it has no radio :(.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Don

In any case, the typical BMW and MB driver are buying for status rather than rear wheel drive. Many of them would be happier with a front wheel drive car.

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The first part is absolutely true. RWD is not the main drawing factor of the vehicle. Well, status AND the quality of the "driving experience" you get from having nice seats and plastics and cool things to play with.

The second part, if it were true why aren't most of the bmw and mercs out there running with all wheel drive which is an option of a LOT of merc and bmw (and audi) cars? Or porsches?

People get into one a bmw or mercedes and go "wow I cant believe this car drives so well, the engine is smooth and it just goes wherever I point it and it just feels right". Part of that is weight dristribution, drive train, engine design, suspension, but I dont think you would sell many front wheel drive "compact executive cars".



Here is a crazy idea though, lets get good public transportation like you get in boston, new york or san francisco in EVERY major city so that detroit can focus on building better cars and not having to put some peice of shit "family sedan" out so every family can have 3 vehicles. With good public transportation, families could go back to having one mid sized or full sized sedan/station wagon/minivan/truck that could cover weekend outings and the occasional road trip.

They could put out less vehicles, make each one better, and would have to spend less on warranty since they have less cars to deal with claims too.

Ron, as an FYI, hydrogen cars have an electric motor. Having an internal combustion engine that runs on hydrogen is at this point in time far too dangerous.

I also think electric cars are made of fail. I would rather see someone come up with a way to dramatically reduce carbon in the atmosphere and make synthetic fuel so I can still have a cool car =/

Speaking of Mercedes, I became a fan of the 240D and other cars like it from that era of the company when i took a ride in a friend's Mercedes 240D. Mainly because despite the age of the car, it still was going strong and everything about the car said quality over-engineering. It started when I closed the door, which closed like it was on an armored car- or a bank vault. This is driving experince I want from a Mercedes, a tank that keeps going like the energizer bunny with a few cushy extras on the side.

But i know at heart i am a small brittish car person.

I meant FWD as opposed to RWD. My CR-V has "Realtime" 4WD and I love it. However, it's far more complex than FWD and I only need it a dozen times a year, maybe less.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Don

I meant FWD as opposed to RWD. My CR-V has "Realtime" 4WD and I love it. However, it's far more complex than FWD and I only need it a dozen times a year, maybe less.

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Okey dokey.

FWIW I think its a bit silly to only consider drive type in vehicle choice, but I think it would go a long way to making detroit's cars more appealing.