Hybrid Escalade to be offered in fall of 2007
By JAMIE LAREAU AND RICHARD TRUETT | AUTOMOTIVE NEWS
AutoWeek | Published 02/01/06, 11:19 am et

 

I guess Cadillac is really relying on Escalade to keep selling. If they lose SUV sales, they really have little else to work with...

 

I think this is a good idea. SUVs need all the fuel economy help they can get and the Escalade is a rare jewel for GM, so its good its leading the way.

 

agreed and the new escalades look good, and at philip i thought their cars were also selling

 

thats a good move b/c the escallade is one of their top dogs

 

That is, if GM still exists at the end of 2007

 

Good move by GM especially using their Caddy Escalade brand. SUV's with good gas mileage is the way to go. I'll just be happy when Ford does it for their Range Rover. I'd love to see a Range get 20 MPG Highway, then I'll cop one again.

 

Automaker investing $118 million to make transmissions for gas-electric vehicles.

Brett Clanton / The Detroit News


BALTIMORE -- A day after President Bush called for more research into alternative energy sources to power automobiles, General Motors Corp. said it will invest $118 million at a plant here to make transmissions for fuel-saving, gas-electric hybrids that will be introduced next year.

The fortuitously timed announcement, which will result in up to 87 new jobs, will make GM the first automaker to build and design mass-market hybrid transmissions in the United States.

And, it gives GM a platform to enter the small but growing hybrid market that is now dominated by Japanese automakers.

While a latecomer to the hybrid market, GM Chairman Rick Wagoner said the automaker's new "two-mode" hybrid system, launching in late 2007 on the Chevy Tahoe and other full-size SUVs, will one-up the competition because of its advanced design.

GM said its two-mode hybrid system, unlike the gas and electric engines found in the Toyota Prius and other hybrids now, provides improved fuel economy in stop-and-go driving and at highway speeds.

"We believe the two-mode system will become the industry standard," Wagoner said to workers at a presentation at GM's Baltimore transmission facility, where GM already builds a hybrid transmission for a small fleet of heavy-duty trucks and buses.

The upbeat event, attended by Maryland Gov. Robert Ehrlich and U.S. Sen. Barbara Mikulski, comes in contrast to months of gloomy restructuring announcements and bankruptcy speculation about the world's largest automaker.

GM, which lost $8.6 billion last year, is struggling to turn around its North American auto business, which has been hit hard by declining sales of its profitable SUVs, rising labor costs and increased foreign competition.

Eager to change the conversation, the automaker on Wednesday marshaled its full resources to celebrate an event that might have otherwise escaped notice.

Adding 87 new jobs in Baltimore does little to backfill the 30,000 hourly positions GM plans to cut by 2008 as part of a plan to match factory capacity with its depressed U.S. market share.

But United Auto Workers Vice President Richard Shoemaker took comfort in the move given the current climate of downsizing in the U.S. auto industry.

"There's not a lot of positive news today," he said. "So we all savor what we get."

Developed in a venture with DaimlerChrysler AG and BMW AG, the two-mode system will improve the fuel economy of GM's full-size SUVs by 25 percent and is part of a larger GM strategy to offer a spectrum of hybrids for every consumer taste and budget.

But Wagoner said GM is further working on a range of other fuel-saving efforts such as efficient six-speed transmissions and emerging technologies like fuel cells that could help reach President Bush's goal to vastly reduce the nation's dependence on foreign oil by 2025.

 

i find it interesting that GM hybrids are always 2 years away. It was same in 2004, when GM announced production hybrids in 2 years :-).