Threxx

Both GM and Toyota design their vehicle batteries as a combined and cooperative process with their parts suppliers. If you have some evidence that Toyota is significantly more tightly integrated into the design process of their batteries than GM is other than the fact that Toyota owns part of Panasonic EV (which doesn't prove anything except that they subscribe to the benefits of vertical economic integration while GM doesn't)... then I'd like to hear about it.

Otherwise I'm going to have to dismiss this as typical "Toyota is always better than GM in every way" chatter.

toy4two

I have used li-ion batteries in my laptops for years and you must replace them every 3 years and you start losing capacity from day 1. At least if the Prius batteries die you still have a 1.5 liter engine to drive on, the Volt just has a gas generator the batteries die and you may as well throw the car away since they cost $15,000. GM advertises 40 mile all electric trips, for how long, 1 year? Do you get 35 miles the next year? I'm not touching the technology for at least 10 years, the Prius has already proven it will last 150,000 miles without having to buy new batteries.

Bean

iTrader: (1)

Well Toyota is notorious for continuous and exhaustive testing over their whole product range. If you actually think GM puts anywhere NEAR the amount of work and money into R&D that Toyota does; then consider not posting in this thread anymore. Seriously, Toyota's Kaizen method/model of management, production, etc is known to be THE BEST in the industry. GM as a company has been the butt-end of many negative jokes for a long time.

Over time, companies tend to follow trends over a whole product line; it generally reflects the business model and employees from top to bottom. If you're one of those STUPID enough to think GM hasn't had BIG quality control problems across their entire model range over the past 20 years, then you are living in a dream world; much like the GM execs.

I don't think you're that stupid; I just think you're playing a ****-poor job of Devil's Advocate. GM gets the short end of the stick because thats what they deserve until they prove otherwise. Please show us a piece of evidence that proves that GM does as much quality control on their batteries as Toyota.

Threxx

10 years ago you'd be absolutely correct. Times have changed. GM is putting out some very high quality vehicles recently and Toyota's quality has been obviously slipping.

Recite all of the Toyota marketing babbling you want... now days the competition is catching up and Toyota is looking for other ways to make themselves different. More recently it has been their process of simplification - do more with less... but that could very well end up hurting their quality image, too.

I'm not saying that your assumption is necessarily wrong, but I am saying it's wrong/ignorant to make an assumption like that when the tides have so obviously been changing in recent years. It will be a while before we can see vehicle durability data for 2007-2008 model year vehicles but I suspect we'll be seeing some pretty close results between Toyota and GM.

TRDFantasy

I suspect otherwise. Ultimately, we will see in time what the reality is.

People have been saying for a while now that GM's quality is up and that GM would equal Toyota in a lot of quality surveys, including initial quality. So far, we haven't really seen that. As insignificant initial quality is, Toyota is STILL #1 in initial quality in the latest JD Power survey, among mass-market brands. Furthermore, GM's mass market brands like Chevy or Saturn haven't really closed the gap in the latest initial quality results.

Yes Toyota quality has slipped somewhat in recent years, but they're already improving quality and back on their way to being a quality benchmark. You may call it "marketing babble", but Toyota's efforts right now in improving its quality are no less than that of GM's efforts. As I said, time will tell.

One thing that GM currently has no answer for; the amazing quality/reliability of the Prius. Despite slipping quality in other Toyota models, Prius quality has remained top-notch. Prius owners are extremely loyal and very satisfied, and even 10 year old Prius models are still running strong and reliable.

Nextourer

Keep in mind though, that your laptop battery is drained then fully charged then drained and so forth. In, say a Prius, the battery is constantly charged and discharged, trying to maintain 60% SOC

Mr. Jones

General Motors plans to purchase Cobasys

http://www.autoblog.com/2008/06/05/g...asys-outright/