Is production Volt down on styling wattage?
As I headed in a few minutes late — thanks to Detroit’s poorly snow-plowed freeways — for General Motor’s first Detroit auto show press conference this year, the cheers-on-cue rose from behind the crowds surrounding the stand.
“Saturn Aura, the 2007 North American Car of the Year … 33 miles per gallon.” Applause and cheers-on-cue. Oh, they’re pushing a button on a canned applause machine, the cynic in me thinks. “The 2010 Chevrolet Equinox with 2.4 Liter direct injection engine … 30 miles per gallon.” Applause and cheers and … sign-waving.
From a closer vantage, one could see that the roped-off runway was lined with people holding placards. “The upcoming 2011 Chevrolet Cruze … to achieve nearly 40 miles per gallon.” Onlookers cheer and placards rise. “Game Changing.” “We’re all charged up.” And yes, “40 miles per gallon,” one of the signs also read.
GM’s self-described pep rally was underway, though to me it evoked calling a new ball team out of the dugout while citing the players’ batting statistics.
Indeed, if auto sales were baseball, then General Motors has had the longest World Series winning streak in history. Now, the world’s barely-still-the-largest automaker is battered to the brink of bankruptcy. There was a subtext to this Sunday morning rally for all the world to see, and it’s that Motown’s top home team was acknowledging just how desperately it needs some new all-stars to win a game that has now become survival of the fittest.
GM wants everyone — including Washington — to know that the company’s product development pipeline has been warming up a bench full of both new and retooled players whose statistics now tout fuel economy as often as horsepower.
The Caddy Converj is a plug-in concept.
The rally was a mix of production cars and planned products, along with what have become General Motor’s ever-ready promises for an electric future. “Electrifying,” another placard read, and yes, one of the headline-sparking announcements was for the Cadillac Converj concept, which puts the company’s Chevy Volt type of plug-in powertrain into a luxury coupe that will offer 40 miles of all-electric driving.
But no matter how charged up GM is about its electrification project, that’ll be of little help in the game of survival in 2009 and the next few model years ahead. That game is still played in a mass market that runs on gasoline, but has run on a less of it.
“The all-new 2009 Chevrolet Camaro … 26 miles per gallon.” Even the soon-to-be revived pony car classic gets an efficiency boost as well as the requisite additional horses under the hood. The 26 mpg highway rating means the new Camaro will burn 12% less gas on the freeways than its most recent predecessor in model year 2002.
GM did roll out of bench of improved players for the here-and-now, pushing up fuel economy a few steps at a time in competitive products. That’s a solid part of their plan that provides hope for those who came to cheer. The crowd lining the runway was a mix of ordinary GM and GM supplier employees. And they really do need their team score some hits and score them soon if they want to be “Here to Stay,” as some of the placards read.