So GM (General Motors), finally filed for bankruptcy a few days ago. I'm sure it honestly came as a suprise to no one, being that last year they claimed like a $30B+ loss (back when they were asking for some "bail out" money), and didn't really seem to change much about how the company worked or designed cars. Something American car companies haven't figured out yet (Chrysler going bankrupt a few weeks back and now GM as proof), that they don't know how to design cars people want. Here, lets break some things down so we can all get a good understanding of whats going on.
Say I'm a college student looking for a cheap car that gets good mileage so I can drive to work and school and home (assuming they don't live at home). I'll look at GM's line up, picking the cheapest thing I can (chevy's aveo5 LS) MSRP of ~12k that's decent (assuming you can find a base model that hasn't been "optioned up" at a dealership). Fuel milage 27 city/ 34 highway well that's ok, but really it's kinda low for a 4cyl car with 106HP. Weight: 2568(MT) 2557(AT), that's pretty heavy for a small econo car, and it also explains where all the gas milage went. You can't win, your power to weight ratio is 24:1, even with the manual it's probably a dog. Is acceleration a big deal? No, BUT, if someone gets in a car that takes a long time to get up to highway speed they're going to press on the gas harder, and thus get worse milage than a car that doesn't take as long.
Ok so lets say I think 27/34 isn't good enough milage, so lets look for what gets better milage in GM's line up...Impala 19/29(LS/LT), 17/27(2LT/LTZ), 16/24(SS) nope...Malibu 22/30 (LS/LT1) 22/33 (LT2/LTZ) nope...*sigh*...Malibu Hybrid 26/34 WOW REALLY a 4door sedan HYBRID that gets worse milage than your other 4 door sedan, awesome sign me up. On top of that, it's MSRP is $25,555, so even if you play the bargaining game and get a really good deal (like $21,500 and a blowjob from the salesman's wife) your still paying almost double the price for a hybrid car that gets worse milage than the standard gas version of another sedan in the line up.
To be fair there is 1 car in the line up that gets better (highway) milage, the cobalt with 25/35 (combined: 29mpg) (Base,LS,LT1, coupe or sedan) MSRP of $14,500-16,700 depending on the model you get. Yet again we run into the GM weight problem with the coupe (base) at almost 3000lb, and the sedan a fat assed 3200lb. Luckily it has that 155HP 2.2L engine to haul it's monsterous ass around or it'd be an even bigger dog than the Aveo. So here's the basic problem (yea, I realized it took me about 3 paragraphs too long to get to it :P), GM can't make a lightweight car, and because of that their gas milage will ALWAYS suck. It's simple physics and something Japanese, and European companies figured out long ago. If your car doesn't weigh very much, you don't need a big HP engine to push it down the road, and it still performs well and gets excellent MPG.
There's a reason why something like my Toyota Yaris consistantly gets 40+MPG (rated at 29/36 combined:32), and that's because it weighs 2295lb in stock form, it has almost a 300lb advantage on the Aveo (but has the same 106HP), and a 700-900lb advantage on the Cobalt.
If GM would just realize that a lot of people out there are just looking for basic transport and make a low weight/low power/high MPG car to meet that demand, they'd at least be making one step in the right direction. Yet the best they came up with so far is the Volt, another hybrid that should actually get good milage (somewhere around 50MPG if I remember right), but it's projected cost is ~$45,000. Who the fuck is going to buy that? Business people, or rich neo-hippies who want to "go green", not the people who could actually use a car that saved them some gas money.
Sources:
Yahoo autos (Chevy)
Yahoo Autos (Yaris specs)
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