BUFORD - General Motors Corp., still lagging Toyota Motor Corp. in the image-shaping hybrid race, on Tuesday announced plans for a next generation of gas-electric hybrid vehicles that the automaker thinks will sell in big numbers around the globe.
Set to debut in 2010, GM's next hybrid system will be an upgrade to the current hybrid powertrain, which is available in only three GM models in the United States. The company's new hybrids will deliver three times more power using lithium-ion batteries instead of the current nickel-metal hydride batteries. In addition to delivering a more powerful boost during acceleration, the new hybrid systems also will increase fuel economy and provide brief electric-only power.
GM plans to add the new technology to a wide range of cars and trucks around the world, GM chief executive Rick Wagoner said Tuesday at the Geneva auto show.
Japan-based Hitachi Limited will get the first supply contract for the lithium-ion batteries, which are smaller and more powerful than nickel-metal hydride batteries now used in gas-electric hybrids.
Wagoner said he thinks GM can sell well over 100,000 vehicles a year once the new system is rolled out.
It's a lofty goal for an automaker that last year sold fewer than 10,000 hybrid cars and trucks in the United States.
GM thinks it can win hybrid buyers with a system capable of driving all sorts of vehicles, from four-cylinder coupes to European diesels, a significantly different approach than Toyota, the hybrid market leader that has a mass-selling hit in its iconic Prius sedan.
"In order to have a real impact in reducing oil consumption, oil imports, and CO2 emissions, advanced technologies must be affordable enough to drive high-volume applications," Wagoner said. "This reflects another important step to make hybrid technology more affordable to a wide variety of consumers."
Hybrids generally aren't big money makers for auto companies, but their worth in helping to cultivate a green image is invaluable in competing with Toyota's well-nurtured reputation for being Earth-friendly.
"They can say, 'We offer the most vehicles with hybrid options,' " Chris Hopson, senior market analyst for Global Insight Inc., said of GM's plans. "Competition-wise it certainly wouldn't hurt."
GM has been chipping away at Toyota's green standing, first promising to deliver the battery-powered Chevrolet Volt to the masses by 2010 and rolling out the industry's first full-size hybrid SUVs. The hybrid Chevrolet Tahoe won Green Car Journal's Green Car of the Year, a first for a truck.
Toyota, meanwhile, has taken some credibility hits among environmentalists who were irked by the Japanese automaker's decision to join Detroit's Big Three in opposing a set of federal fuel economy regulations as well as its big push to sell the full-size Toyota Tundra pickup.
GM sales have long way to go
But when it comes to sheer sales numbers, GM still has a long way to go.
Toyota sold more than 180,000 Priuses last year, and another 76,000 hybrid Camry sedans and Highlander SUVs, according to Autodata Corp.
GM, meanwhile, sold about 8,000 hybrid Saturn Vues and Saturn Auras. Ford Motor Co. sold 21,400 hybrid Escape SUVs; and Honda Motor Co. sold 36,000 hybrid Accord and Civic cars.
GM's strategy could be somewhat of a risk, Hopson said. Part of the Prius' appeal is that it's a unique and distinct-looking vehicle, available only as a hybrid. Toyota used the hybrid system developed for the Prius in its Camry sedan with much less success.
Similarly, Honda discontinued its Accord hybrid and instead plans to roll out a smaller hybrid that would have no traditional counterpart. Originality, however, is no guarantee of success. Honda's quirky Insight hybrid was shelved due to low demand.
"It's an interesting goal to put the hybrid in a regular model portfolio," Hopson said. "A lot of the success of hybrids has been because of the conspicuousness of the vehicle."
New system boosts power
"We took the same (hybrid) system and put it on steroids," said Steve Poulos, GM's hybrid powertrain chief engineer. "We just upped the voltage, upped the power, but kept the same basic architecture on the engine, the same type of arrangement."
Alone, the new system would bolster fuel economy by roughly one to two miles per gallon, Poulos said, but when mated with other advancements in fuel-saving technology, GM believes the next hybrids would deliver a more significant improvement.
The automaker's current base hybrid system is available only in the Saturn Vue SUV and the Saturn Aura and Chevrolet Malibu sedans.
Another GM hybrid option, known as the two-mode system, provides a more dramatic improvement in fuel economy but is also more costly. It's being rolled out now in larger trucks and SUVs.
GM says the new hybrid vehicles will be priced roughly the same as the current generation. The hybrid Vue sells for about $26,000 and the hybrid Malibu and Aura go for $22,800.
The latest hybrid effort is in addition to GM's goals of delivering plug-in hybrids and the battery-powered Volt. GM also wants to use a lithium-ion battery to power the Volt and its plug-in vehicles.
But the batteries being used in next generation hybrids have little in common with the cells that would drive the Volt, the automaker said.
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