Hints and tips:
...Tesla’s first car, the Roadster, was enough to finally persuade them, he adds, leading directly to the Chevrolet Volt hybrid a decade ago. But GM didn’t follow through....
...In the 10 months to October 31, it has delivered 17,083 of its brand new Chevrolet Bolt fully electric vehicles and another 16,710 Volt plug-in hybrids....
...Bob Carter, a senior vice-president for Japan’s Toyota in the US, says the weight of existing batteries, and the energy involved in moving batteries around, remain a formidable challenge....
...Pam Fletcher, chief engineer for the Chevrolet Volt, General Motors’ flagship electric vehicle, also acknowledged that pure battery vehicles’ costs and range limits continued to restrict their appeal....
...Bob Shanks, chief financial officer of Ford, insists the company is successfully “leveraging” its global portfolio of vehicles in a way that most observers once assumed would be impossible....
...GM was likely to become “more accountable, faster moving and a little bit tougher”, Bob Lutz, who retired recently as GM’s product development chief, said last week....
...Bob McKenna, president of the Motor & Equipment Manufacturers Association, which represents suppliers, describes such an outcome as “catastrophic”....
...Quicker development tempos should also favour alternative-powertrain vehicles such as GM’s Chevrolet Volt, which it is fast-tracking for market launch in late 2010....
...The project is being overseen directly by senior managers including Bob Lutz, GM’s global head of vehicle development and an acknowledged lover of fast, big-engined cars....
...These were Ford’s F-Series truck and the Dodge Ram, the latter unveiled by the uneasy triumvirate now running Chrysler: Bob Nardelli, Jim Press and Tom LaSorda. It was not well-timed....
...Four years ago, when Bob Nardelli was still heading Home Depot, he introduced a novel reward for store managers who met sales targets: large pick-up trucks....
...Bob Lutz, GM’s vice-chairman and chief car guy, cheerfully admits that some of the models it launched in the past were clunkers yet he keeps on adding to the pile....
International Edition