Archive for January 27th, 2008
Lutz Says Customer Not Currently Part of the Car Planning Equation - No Small Cars

The article is titled “Lutz: U.S. won’t embrace small cars at today’s gas prices” from autonews.com and he talks mainly about how everyone should be making car-manufacturing more convenient for GM. I’ve put my thoughts in bold.

DETROIT — General Motors sees E-85 and biofuels as the best near-term solution to lowering U.S. usage of petroleum.

But new federal fuel regulations will only mean higher vehicle prices, slower new vehicle sales and continued consumer resistance to smaller cars. What small car options do we have to resist against?

“We refuse to let the price of fuel rise gradually in the United States and therefore we fail to induce change in consumer behavior,” Bob Lutz, GM’s vice chairman of global product development, said at the Automotive News World Congress on Wednesday evening. I think you need to refuse a little louder, Bob, cause right now no one seems to be listening. Prices seem to continue to go up.

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