I’m sorry, did you think that the Decade of the Hybrid was 2020-2030? No, my friends. The Decade of the Hybrid is from 2025 to 2035, which means we’re really just at the beginning of a huge surge in both hybrid sales and production. Need more proof? Even the most ‘who needs hybrids?’ of all the old-school OEMs has come around.
That’s right, GM will spend $750 million tooling up to build hybrids, and in the category that I think is the most promising for the technology. It’s not a win for The Morning Dump, it’s a win for America. Stellantis is at the start of its own resurgence, but it’ll have to endure another quarter of losses before it gets there. Did the Trump White House strong-arm Audi into making a plant announcement last week? That’s an open question.
It sounds like France and Germany will successfully walk back the EU’s 2035 emissions goals, and not everyone is happy about it.
Hybrids! Hybrids! Hybrids!
That beautiful site is the Lansing Delta Township Assembly, which currently builds the three-row Buick Enclave, Chevrolet Traverse, and GMC Acadia. Those are all fine vehicles, and when I drove the Traverse recently I did think it would be better if there was a hybrid option (though, the current drivetrain is also not bad).
It sure sounds like that’s what they’re getting in this GM press release:
As part of its long-term plans for Lansing Delta Township, GM intends to prepare the site for future hybrid-electric vehicle production. Details about nameplates and timing will be shared closer to launch.
“Lansing’s strength starts with its people. Their skill and experience are why we continue to invest here,” said Mike Trevorrow, senior vice president, Global Manufacturing. “We’re building on what this team does well today while preparing for what customers will need in the years ahead. That means investing in our people, our facilities, and the ability to build a broad range of vehicles.”
The success of the Toyota Grand Highlander, Kia Telluride, Hyundai Santa Fe, and other three-row hybrids should be the only data point that GM needed to realize that hybrids were at least part of the future. Yes, it’s not great that GM was so resistant to hybrids, and they’ll probably pay the price for that call, but it’s nice to see the company is course-correcting.
It seems obvious that the three vehicles will be the Acadia, Enclave, and Traverse, though GM doesn’t explicitly say it. A reporter for Automotive News did ask, and was told it would be those three family crossovers.
What kind of hybrids will they be? Will they be mild hybrids, PHEVs, or traditional hybrids? Because the company only has one Corvette hybrid, it’s hard to say what flavor or layout to expect. It would be awesome if these were EREVs, though they probably would have just come out and said that were it to be the case.
Either way, more hybrids is good.
Stellantis Only Lost $503 Million In The Third Quarter
This might sound like damning with faint praise, but it’s not the worst that Franco-Italo-Dutch-American automaker Stellantis only lost $503 million. If you’ll remember, the automaker posted a loss of $5 billion. So, this is better.
Here’s CEO Antonio Filosa explaining why it’s maybe not that bad:
During the quarter, we continued to make progress in the early execution of our FaSTLAne 2030 plan, launching new products, accelerating partnerships as planned, and delivering meaningful improvements in manufacturing and quality. At the same time, our Value Creation Program has ramped up rapidly, with positive contributions being recognized in the quarter, and we remain on track to implement at least 40% of the total €6 billion in run-rate efficiencies by the end of this year. As a result, we reaffirm our 2026 guidance, and our expectation of positive Industrial Free Cash Flow in 2027.”
The company also expects to spend about $1.1 billion on tariffs this year, which isn’t helping.
Did Trump Strong-Arm Audi Into Appearing At Event?
Audi handed the Trump Administration a win on the campaign trail when it announced it would be building a new plant in Georgia, just in time for a campaign rally in that state. It didn’t go over well in Germany, and many wondered if Audi CEO Gernot Döllner wasn’t maybe in violation of company rules by speaking at the rally.
According to German newspaper Handelsblatt, not only was the VW Board of Directors aware, VW CEO Olive Blume was involved in the announcement. Why make the announcement now? Here’s what the report says (translated):
Audi currently plays a negligible role in the US market. This investment is intended to change that. Furthermore, the tariffs imposed by Trump are a factor in the decision: The Ingolstadt-based company currently imports all its vehicles for the US market from Europe or Mexico. These tariffs cost the automaker €1.2 billion last year. Audi’s sales in the US have declined by 16 percent this year.
That sentiment was echoed in this editorial from Automotive News:
The timing and Döllner’s rally appearance may be linked to an arrangement that an anonymous U.S. official described to Reuters.
In exchange for the factory commitment, the Trump administration and VW will continue talks on a tariff reprieve, the official said. The discussions focus on a proportional tariff credit for manufacturers that commit to new U.S. production, the official said, and any changes would apply to all manufacturers that expand U.S. production.
If Audi was strong-armed into showing up, that’s not great, but it’s less on them and more on the administration.
EU Climate Chief Is ‘Not Impressed By The Intellectual Logic’ Of Franco-German Climate Plan
Germany and France are the biggest countries in the EU and therefore have a larger proportional sway than others, and they’re also countries that are home to automakers. With the threat of China looming, high tariffs, et cetera, it sounds like the two countries are going to be successful at pushing back the European Union’s big climate goals.
Not everyone loves this, and those who don’t have kinda funny/bitchy things to say about it.
A deal between France and Germany to effectively abolish a climate neutrality goal for carmakers by 2035 threatens to undermine Europe’s efforts to stave off competition from Chinese electric vehicles, according to the European Union’s climate chief.
Wopke Hoekstra, in charge of the CO2 rules for cars, welcomed stronger “Made in Europe” criteria for the sector, but said that higher fuel prices and an uptick in EV sales showed that staying the course was the best way to safeguard the industry.
“I’m not impressed by the intellectual logic,” Hoekstra said in an interview. “European carmakers are not hindered by too steep electrification targets; they are hindered by the fact that a larger share of these electric vehicles are being produced by the Chinese.”
Of course, Chinese automakers have a huge (probably unfair) advantage when it comes to cost.
What I’m Listening To While Writing TMD
Here’s a fun Halloween song from Devon Cole. It’s called “W.I.T.C.H.” and it’s an acronym.
The Big Question
What would you hybridize that’s not currently hybridized?
Top photo: Buick
“What kind of hybrids will they be? Will they be mild hybrids, PHEVs, or traditional hybrids?”
I’m curious how close the hybrid system will be to the 2nd gen Voltec system used in the past
“What would you hybridize that’s not currently hybridized”
Anything that currently uses a conventional 6+ speed automatic or CVT.
In my view, a regular non-plug-in hybrid should be the default ‘automatic’ option these days.
I’ve driven both. A hybrid electric transmission/powertrain has a far better user experience than the constantly-shifting 6,7,8,9 or 10 speed automatics in use these days.
There will be a lot of hybrid factories closing when SAIC and BYD inevitably buy the remains of a once great General Motors.
I sat in a customers BYD Dolphin at work today. I really liked it. Europe can build small EVs for 5k more and bank on customers who aren’t willing to buy from a brand that might not be around in 5 years (BYD prob will be, but I suspect some of tge other fivehundredandmilliontyone Chines brands in my market won’t be)
TBQ: NASCAR
The existing chassis was developed to handle a Hybrid Power System.
Ford, GM & Toyota have V8 Engine Hybrid Race Platforms that could get optimized for this fairly quickly.
TBQ: I want a hybrid Chevy Express / GMC Savannah. Let’s put a modern powertrain in them and see how long we can make them last. I’m hoping to see if they can keep making them until 2050.
Does GM even had a decent enough selection ICE engines to hybridize its lineup besides small uncompetitive and questionably reliable turbos, some with an unnecessary thirst for premium fuel?
They could probably resurrect the 2.5L version of the L850 Ecotec
The turbomax is proving to be a very good engine. But probably not ideal for a hybrid unless the sought after result is power not efficiency.
Good. Now the evil gm vampire can fix the models with the below the center of the rear bumper turn signals (and all rear indicators should be AMBER).
TBQ: Semi trucks.
When diesel is $7/gal, this starts to make sense.
Might be tough to get ROI on long haul where hybrids don’t really have an advantage on the highway (especially diesel hybrid since they don’t change the combustion cycle like a gas hybrid). For short haul sure, but that is also the ideal use case for an EV semi.
MANY of these large trucks are used in city areas with lots of traffic where I could see the advantage being huge.
I’d argue that even the longest of long haul trucks still will run into stop-and-go city driving on a regular basis… definitely at their pickup and drop off points.
Especially for buyers who do a lot of driving in areas with lots of traffic.
I suspect a similar thing happened at my company. We recently did a very stupid thing in a very stupid way for seemingly no good reason. The best explanation I’ve come up with is that the government forced us to do it and put a gag order on the executives who knew what was actually going on.
Either that or our executives are just really, really stupid. It’s probably a coin flip which is more likely.
A ceo of the company I work in would say “choose confusion over conspiracy”
It’s easier to explain things out of pure stupidity than some grand scheme
CEO’s are often pretty dumb and conspiracies tend to leak over time the more people that know about them.
Unless it was a local government, since local press is dead and partisan politics reign supreme local governments can get away with murder these days.
TBQ: Literally anything that isn’t a sports car (and maybe a lot of them, too).
I think something in the sport compact segment would be great. The WRX is at the top of my “next car” list (especially if the next gen is a hatchback. They can call it a Crosstrek WRX, I don’t care). That and all the other cars Ive scoped out (Civic Si, GTI (would need to be a manual, obvs), used Cadillac CT4 and Audi sport sedans) get OK fuel economy in the low 30s, but requiring premium fuel is a killer. Offer a WRX or Si that gets 40mpg or can get low 30s with regular 87, and I’m in.
I have a Highlander Hybrid at 55,000 miles still on its original brake pads because of the way the regen system works. I always wondered why GM ran away from hybrids and now it occurs to me that it was Big Brake Pad. Big Brake Pad hates hybrids and they’ve got the General by the short hairs.
Curse you Callahan Auto!
They’re the goddamned Rolls Royce of brake pads.
Big brake pad stops everything.
My 4Runner has 80,000 miles and still original pads…. Maybe Toyota has Big Brake Pad by the short hairs.
My Bolt is at 98K on the original pads. I should probably take a look at them just to be responsible…
On the other hand, I’m on the third set of tires. OEM lasted about 55k and the replacements I couldn’t wait to get rid of after 30k or so. Current set is at about 10k and doing fine.
I also have a Mazda RX8 that also has about 50K miles on the high performance brake pads I use that squeal like a banshee when warm.
(Pay no attention to the 3 rotor replacements I’ve had to do in the mean time and the patina of brake dust semi-permanently covering the side of the car)
What would you hybridize that’s not currently hybridized?
Police cars. All of them. Everywhere.
THIS
“But, muh V8!”
So, so, SO, many cops in my neck of the woods in the south would say just that. The love not doing their jobs in their Tahoes and Chargers and wasting taxpayer funded gas all day.
I could see EVs in some places, but for most applications, Police cars would make a great hybrid.
Yeah I think that is easily one of the places where it would have the greatest impact since they often spend just as much time idling as driving and a hybrid greatly cuts fuel usage and thus payback period.
Ford agrees.
TBQ: Y’all want to hybridize (or fully electrify) everything, and I’m sure you will prevail. But you’ll get the same result that the “poptimism” movement wrought on music: infantile blandness.
Thing is that that has always been true. Just to go back in time. For the top selling non-pickup 2025 Rav4, 2015 Camry, 2005 Camry, 1995 Camry 1985 Celebrity, 1975 Cutlass, 1965 Impala, 1955 Chevy…
Ok, the 55 Chevy is cool. But WAS it? About 2/3rds of the production were 4 door sedans, which aren’t that cool. Also about 2/3rds or so had the Stovebolt I-6. Automatics weren’t as popular then as now, but they still had the vast majority of sales. So, when you think of a 55 Chevy, you might think of a 4 speed 2 door with a V8, when you should be thinking of a 4 door with an I-6 and a slushbox.
Which is the same for music as well.
Cheating, let’s go to 1977. Rumours by Fleetwood Mac and Hotel California by The Eagles came out that year. You can’t tune into Classic Rock and not hear songs from one of those albums at least an hour.
But look up weeks at #1, you will find that Debbie Boone’s “You Light up My Life” spent 10 weeks at #1 and no song by the Eagles or Fleetwood Mac had more than a week there. Just like a Stovebolt, slushbox 55 sedan, “You light up my life” is forgotten today and for a good reason. Yet it was more commonly on the radio than Hotel California by a factor of 10.
Agreed. The further back you look, the deeper the rose tinting on the glasses
Yep. However, sometimes it works backward.
Look at the first gen Taurus.
As mentioned above, the best selling car in 85 was the Celebrity. It was a car made up of rectangles. You could draw one with a ruler and a Square. That was now all cars looked in 85.
In 95, the top selling car was the Camry. It didn’t have a straight line on it and was drawn with a French Curve. It was round where the Celebrity was square. That was just the way all cars were built in 1995.
The First Gen Taurus is much closer to the 95 Camry in style than the 85 Celebrity. It sold by the bucket load and became a very common site on the roads in the 90s and when you see things for “here’s a new gym coming to town”, the drawings show First Gen Tauruses (Tauri?) in the parking lot next to 1st gen Model Ys. It’s just a generic car.
HOWEVER. The first gen Taurus came out in 1986, not 1996. When it showed up in a sea of rectangles, it was like a bomb went off. Instantly, every car looked dated and the later 80s was a bunch of rounding corners. So, eventually, all cars became more round than the 1st gen Taurus. But for a couple years (86-88), the 1st Gen Taurus was considered a shockingly good looking car.
But that style and design was so successful, that it became just a generic c.a.r. over time.
The same thing has happened to music, art, literature, etc. Like what Paris puts up as Generic art today would have been destroyed 150 years ago as being ugly.
I can’t think of a single ice vehicle I wouldn’t make a option hybrid. There are some EVs that could be erevs. GM would be smart to bring back Voltec to trucks and SUVs. I think GMs problem with hybrids was their early attempts. They were useless and sold terrible. They were only 5 to maybe 15 % more efficient. People laughed at that the price and at the time complexity and ran away.
TBQ: Keeping with GM I would say their mid-size and half-ton trucks. I’d even do their big SUVs.
TBQ: Honda Pilot/Passport/Ridgeline/Odyssey. My wife loves our 2025 Pilot, but man is the fuel economy atrocious for something that slow. My GR Corolla gets way better in town, and I drive like a 16-year-old that just got his license everywhere. Since the Pilot’s last oil change 2400 miles ago she’s averaging 15.4 mpg…..
Also IMO saying Döllner was “Strongarmed” into appearing at the rally is a bit of a reach. Did this admin probably entice VW with tariff reprieve for a commitment to build here, I can almost guarantee it. Seems like a move straight out of their playbook. Make large demands in public, then walk it back in private to an agreeable middle area that still leans in the favor of the Admin. Trump literally wrote a book on this type of negotiation tactic. That said, I can almost guarantee nothing in that conversation stipulated, “You have to announce it at a rally in Georgia to make us and you look good.”
That was a company decision, likely VW’s board wanting to get it done as quickly as possible to try and salvage as much of the relationship as they can. It is still kind of a baffling one at that. As Jordan famously said “Republicans buy sneakers too” so as a megabrand I wouldn’t want to cut out half of my market. Especially since I do not have any products that are “Class leading”
Lordy, is her driving ALL city miles or something? We’ve got a 23 Pilot AWD and are way, way above that. Our all-time average is probably 22.5; spending 3.5 hrs going up to minneapolis with a car load full for a football game last weekend doing 65-70 most of the way we even averaged 25.5-26; have seen as high as 27-29 at 55-60.
It’s rural city driving so 0-60mph and sitting in traffic through 25mph zones in town. The best i have ever gotten out of it was 21 mpg and that was interstate at 75mph. Her’s is a Trailsport so the lift hurts and she has a heavy foot.
Damn, I guess! I didn’t think the lift and some slightly chunkier rubber would hurt it that much, but maybe she’s just going full Ricky Bobby too!
TBQ: Everything, especially RVs and pickup trucks actually used for work.
Is this where Stellantis (Ram and Jeep faithful) claim the Hemi is their savior and that it would have been worse without it?
Or that the rest of us suggest that they’re making it up on the low threshold for long-term financing
TBQ: Toyota Corolla Hatchback. It’s about the only gasoline car that Toyota hasn’t hybridized. I’m convinced that [a] The gas version only exists to offset costs for the Corolla GR and [b] a hybrid version would cost almost as much as a Prius.
I’m not convinced. Elsewhere they get the hybrid.
And the sedan as a hybrid isn’t a significant premium. So why the hatchback without hybrid and without 6MT?
Now, if we could have the Corolla wagon, and then make it into a GR model….
GR Corolla Wagon.. Lust. You sir or madam are whispering sweet nothings into my ears..
I bought a hatchback last year, and daughter bought a Civic hybrid. My hatch is great….but man, if I got the 40’s and above for mpg? Perfect car.
They sell it as a wagon in other markets. A Corolla hybrid wagon is almost a perfect car
They don’t sell it here because we get the Corolla Cross Hybrid. Which is the same, except it has worse gas mileage, handles more poorly and needs more expensive tires, and has less cargo room. But on the other hand, it also costs more.
Döllner was only following orders, you see. I wonder how they came up with that brilliant all-new excuse.
Probably used a magic 8 ball.
Gm should be shoving Voltec into everything.
TBQ: hear me out: trains.
They’re already diesel-electric. You take some old worn out EMDs, replace the engine with battery banks, and lash them up to a conventional diesel. You can then use them on long uphill runs for an extra boost, both with battery power, and if that runs out, you use them like a “slug,” a locomotive with no engine but can take electricity from one with an engine, to spread the electrical load over more traction motors. At low speeds, a locomotive actually produces more power than it can use anyway. Also useful for commuter operations to save fuel by recovering braking energy to use when accelerating again. And since trains are modular, being a string of locos and wagons that can be freely coupled and uncoupled, you can do this to any degree you want. The challenge is always going to be control electronics and compatibility with the existing fleet, which is investment most railroads won’t take.
I asked about adding batteries to trains once, to allow energy recovery. I was told the weight of the batteries was not worth the fuel savings. Given this I think companies would think it too inconvenient to lash a battery car to the train only to remove it a short time later.
So I’d modify this idea a bit. Instead of onboard batteries put up overhead lines or third rails on slopes and stops and use the grid as a battery or if the grid is too hard to tap use some combination of ARIES, pumped hydro and/or stationary battery banks. The train wouldn’t need to stop and it wouldn’t be carrying any extra weight.
Boston and Cambridge used to have electric buses with overheads and they’ve all been taken down. I drive by what used to be an electric bus garage on Mass Ave and its being redeveloped. Ha
So what replaced them?
ICE buses. There are some propane powered ones
That makes some sense*. Mass gets wicked cold and an ICE puts out a lot of heat. And propane is clean.
But I think the biggest drawback of overhead lines is the lack of route flexibility. Overhead line busses HAVE to follow the lines whereas BEV and ICE busses have the flexibility to change routes. But that’s not an issue with trains since trains have the tracks to follow and tracks are far harder to move. I would hazard a guess those lines needed maintainence and those cities took the hint to scrap them to accommodate changing ridership patterns.
*But a hybrid bus would make a lot more sense.
The city is ding more with ev and hybrid buses. They all run on the same routes as the old buses though
I wonder if BEV/HEV busses handle regen better than overhead line busses.
The buses with overhead didn’t need regen????
Hard wired and all
They would have had to dump it back into the overhead and from there who knows where it would have went.
Maybe. I was small in the 70s when these were all over the city, so I have no idea about that. Now I have a research project.
Well here ya go!
Angel Donahue-Rodriguez, the MBTA’s deputy chief of staff, noted that the existing fleet that uses the catenary wires is 17 years old, which puts it “beyond useful life.” In addition, keeping the current 28 buses would make them incompatible with the rest of a fully electrified 1,150-bus network – an unwanted complication for an agency that already can’t move trains from one line to another because
they’re all different sizes. “A more homogeneous fleet will allow us to support more reliability and give us more predictability in maintenance,” Donahue-Rodriguez said at an Aug. 25 meeting organized by state Reps. Steve Owens and Dave Rogers and state Sens. Will Brownsberger and Pat Jehlen.
https://www.cambridgeday.com/2021/10/09/mbta-plans-removal-of-buses-overhead-wires-and-a-fleet-overhaul-transit-group-isnt-aboard/
End of life for the overhead busses and a desire for sameness as existing non-overhead routes.
There’s a battery powered train somewhere in the Southern Hemisphere that recovers energy through regenerative braking going downhill with loaded cars and expends the energy going back uphill with the now much lighter cars.
Hybrid seems neither fish nor fowl and worse off for it. Too small of a battery to do any meaningful work and too small an engine to work when the battery runs out.
It’s an ore train and it’s a specialized route that unfortunately doesn’t help much elsewhere.
Hybrid seems neither fish nor fowl and worse off for it. Too small of a battery to do any meaningful work and too small an engine to work when the battery runs out.
Hardly. It helps tremendously in city driving, especially in stop and go commuting.
I was talking about trains. Hybrid light vehicles are a great idea.
Fair enough.
My gentle memory and understanding of attempts to battery-ize locos suggests that some very cool ideas for hybrid stuff met the reality of just how rugged trains need to be to work consistently…and the attempts failed because of that problem. Locos take a beating, especially the littles that were tried, because they’re in a yard and switching all the time. Coupling impacts are no joke. It’s like how linemen in football are guaranteed CTE.
Anything that’s in a yard will get banged up, and even road stuff has to be able to survive commercial/industrial duty cycles.
Greater Anglia rail in England have these clever things;
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Rail_Class_755
I have a very nice Hornby model of one.
What about a Flywheel car. When the train is braking, it doesn’t go into heat, it goes into spinning a flywheel. When it needs additional tractive force, this energy is sent back to the same wheels from the fly wheels. I think it could be designed with 1800s technology with just two governors, one that engages a clutch to allow the wheels to spin the flywheel faster if the speed is greater than X and another that makes the flyheel drive the wheels if the speed is less than Y.
The problem is that every route profile that would benefit from hybridization – mostly start-stop with very little steady speed sections – has more or less been electrified. If you have an electric train already, it usually doesn’t make sense to carry the generator with you; it’s better to put your generator in a nice building that’s not getting banged around by movement on the rails. It also won’t take up useful weight on the train, is easier to maintain, and the same with any batteries you might want to add. Your train is already running on a pair of giant conductive steel bars, unlike a car or a bus, so the wiring is already half-done for you.
That said, there are already hybrid electric trains in operation, though they’re usually electric trains with a generator or diesel drivetrain meant to run routes that have non-electrified sections.
TBQ: Trax/Envista. It would give them actually good gas mileage, especially if the hybrid replaced the turbo, and would be a shortcut to AWD.
Hybrid, E85 Trax/Envista would be excellent.
I’m all for more hybrids but the Trax / Trailblazer that I’ve rented have returned low 30’s as is on cheap 87 octane. (If you don’t turn off the stop/start)
That’s the idea, have something that can get to or over 40.
Over 40 mpg would be easy with a hybrid system. A Niro returns 50+ in mixed driving even with their simple system.
A hybrid would boost the price a bit – likely $1500 to $2,000. I’m fine with that but I don’t know if an actual Trax buyer would be.
Depends on how long till payback and how different the depreciation might be.
Logically yes, but the typical US car buyer is not logical. Instead of focusing on total cost of ownership they only focus on the purchase price and more specifically their monthly payment.
Logically car a car like the Corolla would be hybrid only like the Camry but the gas trims still outsell the hybrids. (The hybrid pays back in 3 years.)
Legally a vehicle lease is considered a vehicle sale, therefore a vehicle purchase.
Leases tend to run 2-4 years and 24% of US vehicle sales are leases. That goes a long way to explaining that buyer’s logic.
Used to tell our GM reps this when I worked at a GMC dealership. I always said that if it was expensive to implement, make it a Buick/GMC exclusive until it can be done cheaper.
The Envista, Encore, Terrain, Envision and Acadia/Enclave should all have hybrid options that provide more power and better mpg than their Chevy counterparts