The Woodward Pre-Cruise: Friday Night

Friday night in Birmingham. Lots of people, lots of interesting cars.

Sign of the times.


Weird Harley powered thing

Two yellow sleds.

Monster truck











Green Thing






Monkees Car

Biggest truck of the night

Woody!







No joke.

The Woodward Pre-Cruise

On Thursday evening I went over to Birmingham and shot some photos of the pre-cruise cruising. It was very busy. I apologize that the photos aren't all sharp, I am still getting the hang of how to use my camera in relatively low light.

Work-in-progress

Zimmer?

Old school jeep

This guy had lots of lights on his motorycle

Wacky Red Wings themed limo

Blurry but cool

This is the guy who put a jet engine in the back of his F150.

Big truck

Little car

Old style hotrod

Another monster truck

Dune buggy

Barney-mobile

Why Not A Milder Volt?

GM has designed a car which can drive 40miles on only battery power, and indefinitely (as long as the gas lasts) on generator power. And this car will cost something like $40,000, and will probably be a big money loser, according to the Obama automotive task force.

Why is GM shooting for the moon? Why not reduce the battery to something small, enough for maybe 5 or 10 miles pure electric driving? And instead of running the engine only when the batteries are depleted, run the engine more frequently to maintain a high level of charge. Then, use the batteries for accelerating and low speed driving, and use the engine more often during cruising.

Perhaps the generator could even be a high compression ethanol only design, to eke out more efficiency.

They'd get big fuel economy numbers (but not 230 mpg), and a much less expensive car. It would have nice torque, because it would be electrically driven, unlike the Prius.

The 230 MPG Claim

This whole 230 mpg claim for the Volt is getting on my nerves.

First, no one has tested a production level Volt with final calibration and final hardware. GM may discover some late change that needs to be made to fix a driveability issue or whatever, and the number would change.

Second, the EPA has not published the test method for plug-in hybrids. What assumptions did GM use to get the 230mpg number? Are they realistic? What about heat, or A/C, and electrical loads like the radio and headlamps?

For example, the FTP75 city driving cycle is 11 miles long. If the Volt has a 40 mile range running only on batteries, and starts fully charged, it will have infinite fuel economy for the city test. If it is tested with the batteries depleted, it will use its generator engine to move the vehicle, and will have some much higher fuel consumption (30mpg?).

I am not involved in SAE's committee working on plug-in hybrid fuel economy testing methods, but I suggest that the numbers be reported as follows:

• Line 1: All electric range, assuming some standard amount of heater and a/c usage, electrical loads, and wind resistance.
• Line 2: Gasoline only fuel economy (old fashioned FTP tests)
• Line 3: Combination, assuming X% battery driving and Y% battery depleted driving, for example, 50/50

It is dangerous for GM to publish numbers like 230mpg without details, so early in the game. If things change and they can't deliver, they will not be taken seriously by the public.

GM Time Warp On eBay

Go to http://www.ebay.com/gm. I was expecting news about the new GM/eBay partnership for California sales, but all I got was a 4 year old tsunami web site. Complete with opening quote by Rick Wagoner!

The GM sales thing is at http://gm.ebay.com.

The House's "Private Jets"

Only in the U.S. Congress can something so blatantly hypocritical happen.

After dragging the CEOs fo the Detroit 3 through the mud for daring to come to Washington in "private jets", what does Congress do for this budget? They double Obama's request, to $550 million, for... wait for it... small corporate jets, such as the Gulfstream 550.


Nice plane!