Maybe GM needs to focus on gas saving technology that they alone can control. Ethanol is not made by GM, its price can go up just like gasolines, plus it is super sudsidesed.

The next president may very well remove those subs and it will force ethanol to cost a dollar to two dollars above curent price…..which will make all this ethanol engine money a BIG money losing project.

Look at Prius. Stop coming up with these bull of technologies which you can not sell based on the technology ALONE. No one buys GMs cars to use ethanol in they. People buy the cars……but the car also can run on ethanol.

P.S. Fire rick wagoner.

Celeron, your post is as bad as the Processor which you share a name with. If GM & Coskata can reduce the price of Ethanol fuel to the levels of ~$1.00 per gallon the the gov’t subsidies could dry up and the cost would still fall well below that of your normal gas. The Gov’t subsidies reduce the cost of E85 by ~$1.50 per gallon. Then take into account that instead of using Corn, which everyone agrees isn’t the best method, we’re getting rid of fecal matter and or other environmentally harmful objects (like tires & municipal waste). Just because GM can’t control the technology by themselves doesn’t make this a stupid or worthless endeavor, your Prius example can’t control the cost of gasoline by itself can it? Toyota can’t control the technology of hybrids can they? Your Prius example becomes nothing more than a straw man argument, and it does so rather quickly.

Imagine if you will that we use municipal waste to create Ethanol based gas and then teamed it with hybrid technology. We’d be using less than 1 gallon of water (a renewable resource) to create 1 gallon of gas (based on waste, perhaps the single most renewable resource in the world) to create vehicles that could get upwards of 50, 60, perhaps even 70 miles per gallon. Our dependance on foreign oil would almost vanish completely and because Ethanol could be made from so many sources (Corn, grass, algea, bacteria, fecal matter, & waste, just to name a few) the cost would be very competitive and only get better as technology improved.

P.S. You’re an idiot to want to fire Rick Wagoner.

celeron, General Motors IS working on hybrid tech as well. In fact, their tech will soon make toyota and honda look like they are standing still (the 100+ MPG Volt for starters). People like you on here always look at American auto news with a doom gloom perspective.

N yo……brother. GM has been building a hydrogen car for about 25 years now. Is it on sale already? Volt gets 100 MPG? Great, god bless. Shame that is is not for sale. N yo, one more question…name one small sedan that GM sells for profit?

Kenny, my point was that the ethanol people have their own interests, in due time they will also jack up prices, because that way they will make more money. What difference does it make if you have $3.20 to exxon or ADM?

Prius on the other hand uses less of whatever is in the tank. And yes Toyota does control the technology. The baterry building may or maynot have been outsourced, but Toyota is the one developing it and paying someone to build it. Toyota have almost a direct control of that baterry. GM have ZERO control over price of gas, diesel or ethanol. ZERO.

Celeron.. Since gasoline is made from a natural resource which cannot be produced by anyone (oil, that is) and Ethanol can be made from waste or corn or whatever by anybody who wants there is a completely different market situation.

There are only so many oil fields, so those who own them control the market. Since you don’t need to own a garbage field, you can’t change the price because nobody will buy your ethanol if it’s more expensive than that of others.

You understand what I mean?

And as Kenny said, if you had a hybrid running on ethanol, it would be even better. So these options are not competing with each other, they can be combined and everybody will be happy.

El Aleman (the german?) , i see what you are saying but one of the biggest ethanol companies is AMD, it is a huge company. Plus ethanol needs to be transported and all that. What i am trying to say is that only a very limited amount of companies can enter the field. Companies that already have resources on hand that will allow them to make huge investments.

Also land is a limited resouce, as is soil, as is water, as production of ethanol goes up those resources will be limited (just like oil fields). Also oil comes from all across the world, Ethanol can only come from USA (maybe NAFTA) because ethanol lobby forced congress to ban imported ethanol. Also ethanol raw materials are everywhere, they #1 they need to be gathered, #2 they will not be free, because they will grow either on governmental land (royalties–just like oil companies pay them to states and feds) or be someone’s byproduct (woodchips), #3 once made needs to be redistributed again. I am once again trying to point out that companies in the field will be have to be BIG, that is not the case now because feds mandate that oil companies add ethanol to gas. Once the ethanol will be on its own it will be produced by a handful of companies who’s main goal is to make money. What we will have is the same as we have now, no gas station can afford to charge more than other stations, and yet gas prices are thru the roof.

N yo face…dude your answer simply got me all riled up.
Volt gets 100MPG and it is better than Prius?

Do you realize what you are saying, Prius has been on the market for 10 years, Volt may or maynot come in 2010. Only this week we all read reports that Volt may or may not be deleyed.

As lond as we are on this Domestic/Foreighn debate how do you answer the charge that base Toyota Camry has more HP than Corvette and gets much better 0-60.

Do not bother checking facts, because i am comparing 2008 Corvette to 2025 Camry, it will be much better, and it will get 500 MPG, and also it will cost 15 Gs.

How do you like that?

One more time, Prius has been on sale for 10+ years, has a dedicated crowd. Volt #1 is not on sale, #2 GM is 10 years behind Toyota, #3 GM has a dirty image which they constantly trying to fix. #4 Volt may or may not be build. #5 Prius is a real car that you can buy, #6 Last week GM said that 2010 maybe a too of an optemistic date, #7—–PRIUS IS A REAL CAR, VOLT IS A CONCEPT.

Compare oranges to oranges….but you can’t do that, because GM has no REAL hybrid and will not have one for years to come.

celeron - did you read about the two-mode Vue that’s coming to market this model year? GM may have ignored the car market for far too long - I’ll spot you that - and they don’t have a real Prius competitor - again, I nod to you - but you can’t say that they have no REAL hybrids. That being said, the Volt WILL happen. They’ve been really wishy-washy about when, but there’s never been a question of if.

This post is encouraging for me to see. My concern has been that the Big 3 have been putting FAR too much stock in E85 when E85 is, in its current form, a waste of time, energy, money, and resources. So it’s encouraging to see that they’re working on ways to make it viable. Although energy independence in the auto industry does NOT mean energy independence for the whole nation (I think something like only 15% of a barrel of crude goes to gas for cars), it’s a huge step in the right direction, and it’s an easier switch from gas to E85 than it is to hydrogen.

LP640 - dude, they’ve got a production model already (a headlight and grille design, anyways, that’s all we’ve seen) and its own R&D lab. For better or worst, this car will be built.

True, there’s Vue. GM now has a REAL hybrid, but it is still 10 years behind the original prius.

The Volt will be built. The question is will it be rushed to the market, or will Lutz allow his engineers and suppliers the time to have a reliable product straight out of the box. E85 is still in its infancy but has a promising future if it is able to move away from its agricultural roots to other less water dependant sources (and water, without question, is an even more valuable commodity than fuel).

And celeron, the Prius may have been around for 10 years, but it would not take another manufacturer that long to catch up if they so chose. Just buy one, take it apart, and see what makes it tick. And you know damn well this happens all the time. Also, if you think Toyota won’t be one of the first in line when the Volt comes out, you’re as naive as you are biased.

Biased?

Why is it biased of me to tell everyone that Volt is a HOAX?

Look two years ago wagoner swore to everyone who was willing to listen that Sequal is about to hit the market. Everyone was hyped, from BusinessWeek to PBS, i saw 3 documentaries featuring GM executives on PBS alone saying that Sequal is a real thing.

GM squized all it could from that car, PR is gone, so they comeout with Volt. You may call me biased, but i call myself a post GM Kool Aid individual, meaning Foil me once, shame on you, fool me twise, shame on me, Fool me for 123rd time and i am a GM fanboy.

celery, I used words like “working on” and “will soon” that I figured most readers on here would interpret as referring to the future (you obviously didn’t). You sound like a closed-minded person. I understand GM is behind the curve in some hybrid stats, but I commend their rate of gain and recognize that hybrids ar not the ONLY sollution. By the way, where’s the foreign competition when it comes to full-size truck and suv hybrids? There is none.

New technology usually reduces a problem in one area while increasing or creating a new problem in another. If given the choice of handing our children dumps filled with mounds of rotting toxic batteries or accepting that some business might profit by eliminating human waste products to produce an oil-based fuel alternative, I choose the latter.

And the name is sarcastic - because of certain nut-jobs on here.

Wow. I had something to say regarding this article, but I forgot after I read the wonderful story that is “Celeron the Village Idiot”.

GM can’t control ethanol? Uhhh….they can’t control gas either! If anything, through this initiative, they are doing more for energy independence than ANY automaker. After all, no automaker is out there making GAS cheaper. Building batteries to get a little more mileage out of cars that still use *gasp* GASOLINE only goes so far if you’re bitching about the price of fuel.

As much as I have been 150% opposed to the E85 kool aid up to this point, it is mostly due to factors that would be rendered moot by this proposal should it be fully realized. I say go for it.

damn that would be great i remember when i would be in the car and be able to pay for gas with a $20 and still have enough money for the guy who filled up my take to have a nice tip. i could only wish that this pulls through. and the reduction in green house gases. i think it could work if the world doesn’t end before 2011 with the way **** is going on now.

Make fuel from livestock waste? Cool, I’ll just go to my grandfather’s ranch and start collecting all the cow pies. I’ll be rich! haha…Wait, it’ll probably fail just like E85, damn. Oh well.