A ray of sunshine penetrating a sea of blackness…..

I bet you this new material is nothing more than more unpainted plastic that is already being used in all their cars.

You’re willing to bet on that, are you?

Why people must put down everything GM does is beyond me. I have a burning hatred for Toyota, both in their business tactics and the vehicles themselves, but I give credit where credit is due: their marketing department. However, if they were actively working on things that actually matter in the long run, like it appears GM is doing after years of stagnation, I would definitely applaud them.

Can’t anyone just be nice?

This sounds really cool and it should be a strong argument that GM is now delivering on the necessary step of not only matching foreign automakers, but showing that they are trying to surpass the foreign marks. A lot of bloggers here have noted that that is exactly what is required to regain the trust that GM ceded to the Japanese over the past couple of decades. I am pretty sure I read something about one or more of the Japanese automakers also looking for ways to shed weight. Does anyone remember what areas those attempts are being made in (there is no nefarious intent in this question. I really just can’t remember!)?

Fiero.

We’ve tried plastic before.

The barrier here is not technology, it is getting insurance companies and customers to go along with it. We’ve been making cars from steel for 90+ years; the idea of a plastic, lightweight car goes against 99% of the car marketing and messaging from the beginnings of advertising. Calling it a “polymer” isn’t going to solve the perception problem. The Fiero and the Saturn with the plastic doors (Ion?) both had serious fittment, paint adhesion and color fading problems, and people remember that.

gallonoffuel, perhaps you’ve heard of the hybrid market, which Toyota essentially created and proved financially viable? No, they aren’t innovating at all.

I’m with you Gallonoffuel.

So many retards on here seem to be stuck in the 1990’s. They think GM = Bad even though GM has been consistantly kicking ass even with one hand tied behind its back (cost/unions).

Take the CTS and CTS-V. Haters were like “Yeah its got a lot of power but its GM which means it can only go in a line! Let’s put it on a track and see how it stacks up!” So they put the CTS-V on the track and it CRUSHED the BMW and Mercedes counterparts.

Now people are saying that the Volt is ugly. First of all, who gives a **** how it looks? Its fuel economy is unparalleled even by the haters’ beloved ricer mobiles. Second, have you seen the turd that is the Prius? The Volt CRUSHES the Prius in styling.

Camaro comes out and is beautiful. Almost exactly like the concept and all the haters can say is “Oh this car is too late!”

The Malibu is a better design than the ugly Camry.

They develop a new low cost, low weight material — “Its just platic! LOLZ!11! Won’t work!” Why don’t you try backing that up, moron?

dumbass, cracker THawkoo:

I know you didn’t go to college or anything, but if you remember from your highschool chemistry class, polymers are nothing more than a fancy name for plastic (at least in the auto industry). I was just assuming you were smart enough, clearly you aren’t, to know that.

Who are you quoting with that “platic! LOLZ”??

When you’ve got an actual argument to make, I’ll gratify it with an answer.

Dumbass Crackerhemi,

Where did I say polymers WEREN’T plastics? Thanks for that worthless rant. Guess you didn’t go to elementary school because you don’t have any reading comprehension skills.

I said you are a ****ing moron because you write this new polymer off as “Its just plastic! LOLZ!11! Won’t work!” When you have no idea the capabilities of this polymer.

What ya got to say now bitch?

You’re not saying anything at all, and you’re not reading before you post. You don’t know anything more about the issue than anyone else, so you might want to ease up a bit and not pretend that you’ve read some magic into the press release that no one else has. No one said the plastic would not WORK. Composites and polymers are used in freaking Formula 1 cars, which have 100s of times the stress of production cars. I was pointing out that PEOPLE who DRIVE CARS think of them as big, solid heavy steel boxes, and a lot of marketing that the auto industry does (and that car salesmen do) is focused on that — solid as a rock, fully boxed frame, etc. etc. A lightweight, plastic-paneled car is going to have to get around that perception, because all the other plastic cars out there have been crap. ALSO, while you were whining and spouting like a 12-year-old, you might have noticed that the auto industry is actually run by insurance companies and lawyers, not engineers. Any attempt to do something structural with plastic/polymer in a car is going to have to go through years, perhaps decades of testing before the insurance guys and the lawyers sign off on it. Note to morons, the auto industry has spent the last 20 years making cars safer largely BY MAKING THEM HEAVIER AND USING MORE STEEL. Doing a 180 on that is not going to be easy, which is why this is just more PR smoke and mirrors. Bitch. Moron.

By the way, I say bitch and moron in my posts because my mom says it makes me look cooler on the Internet.

on the one hand GM is quite progressive, but then they put out crap like the avalanche. it’s moves like that that bring them down in the perceptioneering department. ditch the useless, plastic clad junk and sell it the way a truck should look. useful.