Saturday, July 5, 2008

Waiting...

Well, am I all alone on this? It kills me that Toyota is the only one with a really viable, profitable hybrid. Where the hell are the technology leaders, our German friends at BMW and Mercedes?

BMW has a "concept" hybrid that is based on the no-one-can-quite-figure-out what-it-is-for X6. They have some "efficient dynamics" features that are on the corporate site, but not on the USA site. And the features there are not listed as features on US cars. They have also created a small fleet of some 100 hydrogen cars, in their largest, luxury model mode, and are having them driven by invitation. Hardly getting real world use. This is all nice and good, but, we wont transition to hydrogen overnight, and so what we need are all the steps to get us there. Hybrids.

Mercedes is even worse off. Visit their site, and you can get more information about their classic car program than any new efficiency technologies. I honestly dont think anyone is going to get excited about Blue tech diesels. Diesel isnt running efficient enough to overcome the price gap.

I'm not impressed. These guys make GM look good.

If only GM could make a car that looks as good as the BMW 1 series hatchback...

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