cars


Back in 2007, Cadillac unveiled a 2.9-liter V6 diesel intended for the European market… 1

Back in 2007, Cadillac unveiled a 2.9-liter V6 diesel intended for the European market CTS. The company was seriously considering bringing it to the US market as then Cadillac general manager Jim Taylor told me in late 2007 http://www.green.autoblog.com/2007/12/11/we-may-yet-see-cadillacs-new-2-9l-v-6-diesel-in-the-us/

They even showed the diesel V6 in the original concept version of the CTS coupe at the January 2008 Detroit Auto Show http://www.greenfuelsforecast.com/ArticleDetails.php?articleID=427

Unfortunately the financial melt-down and bankruptcy put the kibosh on both the V6 and the 4.5-liter light duty truck V8 diesel. Both engines however are ready for production and could be revived. I suspect that GM will look at how well the upcoming Cruze diesel does before making a final decision.

#diesel #cars #cadillac #gm

Embedded Link

Cadillac considering diesel for U.S.
LeftLane. RSS Facebook Twitter YouTube. left. Lexus CT 200h. Lexus CT 200h. BMW Z4. BMW Z4. Cadillac CTS-V. Cadillac CTS-V. Ram 2500. Ram 2500. Subaru Forester. Subaru Forester. GMC Terrain. GMC Terra…

Google+: View post on Google+

Post imported by Google+Blog. Created By Daniel Treadwell.


The death of John Smale on Saturday was a missed opportunity by several outlets to…

The death of John Smale on Saturday was a missed opportunity by several outlets to examine the negative impact that he had on General Motors during his tenure as a director and chairman of the board. Smale is best known in the business world for being the former CEO of Proctor and Gamble but like many high ranking executives in American business he served other companies as a director.

The extended obituary published in the Detroit News (written by AP reporter Dan Sewell) only mentions his GM role in passing in the opening paragraph while the brief piece on Autoblog focuses on Smale replacing Bob Stempel as Chairman and helping to bring GM back from the verge of bankruptcy. As chairman, Smale probably had little to do with the actual slashing of costs and spending at GM but he nonetheless had a huge impact on GM in another way and it wasn't good.

Smale was responsible bringing Ron Zarella, one of his former P&G colleagues to GM to institute brand management. Brand management was a totally bungled and wrong-headed approach to building and selling cars. At P&G Smale and Zarella found a way to sell the same products under multiple different brands and get away with it. Unfortunately this approach doesn't translate to the car business and resulting in such an unappealing car lineup that despite growing discounting, GM's market share continued to shrink throughout their tenure and consumer's attitudes to GM plummeted.

GM's lineup didn't begin to improve until Bob Lutz joined up and Zarella left in 2001 and even then it took several years to demonstrate that the company could build interesting vehicles. Even then, the company's problems were so deep seated that time that they couldn't earn enough to avoid bankruptcy in 2009. Perhaps if the company had focused on great products and a pared down brand lineup in 1992 instead of waiting more than a decade, that fate might have been avoided.

#gm #cars #auto_business

Google+: View post on Google+

Post imported by Google+Blog. Created By Daniel Treadwell.


Some interesting research on the best ways to displace petroleum with biomass

For past couple of decades, most of the efforts to use renewable biomass to replace oil, natural gas and coal have revolved around liquid fuels, particularly ethanol and biodiesel. New research indicates that may not be the best approach to take.

Because most people in America today are sadly lacking in useful science education, they are unaware how much petroleum and gas is used in the production of chemical products like plastics and synthetic fabrics among many other things. The connection between petroleum and transportation is much more visible and obvious to the under-educated masses so when the time came to reduce petroleum use, biofuels seemed the obvious first and easy choice.

While organic chemicals like plastics and synthetic fibers are based on base carbon-hydrogen molecules just like fossil fuels, they are actually significantly different. The chemicals are based on long chains of thousands of the base molecules.

Initially most biofuels were derived from corn kernels and soy beans by fermenting the relatively simple sugar molecules to produce alcohols that were closer in structure to the petroleum fuels. Unfortunately the yields of fuel from these feed stocks was far too low to make the kind of difference needed in petroleum consumption.

In recent years, the emphasis for fuel production has shifted to converting cellulosic biomass to ethanol. A corn plant contains far more biomass in its stalk and husks than it does in the kernels but it exists in the form of cellulose which is essentially a natural polymer with long carbon-hydrogen chains. Before this material can be used to produce a liquid fuel, it has to be broken down into base sugars which requires either some more energy input or the use of enzymes which remain expensive. The liquid fuel production process also consumes vast quantities of fresh water.

Since natural biomass is already much closer in structure to some of the materials produced from oil, it seems probable that the conversion process should be much easier than producing fuels. In some cases, the natural fibers can even be useful without chemical conversion such as using hemp fibers for a wide variety of applications.

Another prime example of using biomass for chemical processes is the use of soy-based polyols to produce foams. Ford has been a leader in this area and it began rolling out soy-foam seats in its vehicles in 2007. Hyundai is now starting to use soy-foam as well.

Perhaps the combination of battery, fuel cell and advanced internal combustion engines running on gas and diesel can be blended with biomass derived plastics, foams and fabrics to make a bigger overall impact on energy use than biofuels.

#cars #biomass #biofuels #energy #green

Embedded Link

Green Car Congress: Researchers argue that the optimal use of biomass as a renewable resource is for production of select chemicals, not power, heat or fuels
Online news, features and analysis

Google+: View post on Google+

Post imported by Google+Blog. Created By Daniel Treadwell.