HarveyD First, the Opel Insignia would not get 63.6 EPA mpg. The European fuel economy numbers are quite inflated compared to EPA estimates. Second, as James Douglas noted, the European engines will not meet US emission standards. Third, a cleaner version of the 2 liter GM diesel is available in the Chevrolet Cruze in the US and will be available shortly in Canada. See http://www.greencarcongress.com/2013/04/cruze-20130418.html This not a conspiracy between the Big 3 and the oil companies.

I am glad to see that SAE is showing some leadership in this and that at least BMW, General Motors, Ford Motor Company, Chrysler, Daimler, Volkswagen, Audi and Porsche are on aboard. I used to have a colleague that said that standards are great and everyone should have one and usually everyone does (a different one). The problem is making standards that make sense and can be reasonably updated to account for new technology.

It is my engineering opinion that the CVT is an outdated idea. It is probably a cheap solution for Toyota to build and it does offer increased engine efficiency over a 4 speed transmission. However, it is a friction based device so it constantly slipping and constantly wearing. It is probably not a cheap solution for the customer to own. A dual clutch 7 or 8 speed would be more efficient and they.would not need to provide the false feel of a multi-speed transmission. GM looked at building a similar CVT back in the early 80's but wisely decided not to pursue it. At the time, I was working for the machine tool company that built most the machining lines for automotive transmissions so I got to see many of concepts that were being considered.

A few years ago, I would have predicted that some of the major freight lines would be electrified as a result of the high cost of diesel fuel but now I think we will see expanded use of LNG long before we see any major electrification. The Westport dual injection system allows the engine to run as a true diesel with anywhere from 0 to about 95% of the power coming from natural gas.

The units are not right. 5MW is power not energy. Did they mean 5 MWH which would be energy? The units they really should be using are Joules which are Watt seconds. IE, 5MW equals 18000MJ or 18GJ

If we had abundant renewable electricity or even sufficient nuclear power, we would not need to burn coal, etc and the problem of excess atmospheric CO2 would go away. There is not indication of the scale that this technology would need to be to for it to be effective but it has to be enormous.

I am not surprised that the venture failed but I would not consider it a Ponsi scheme. Maybe some one can buy the intellectual property and use it for a fixed base taxi or delivery service. However, if the Chevy Spark EV can achieve 80% charge in 20 minutes and technology continues to improve, maybe the concept and the complexity it entails is not needed.

"Asian EVs @ $199/month will accelerate those changes." The Spark chassis is made by GM Korea but the Batteries, Electric Motors and Drives are made in the US, It is being offered initially in California and Oregon but then be rolled out in other sections of the US, Canada, Europe and South Korea. If there is sufficient market acceptance, GM will probably branch out and electrify other vehicles. There is a Cadillac version of the Volt coming out in 2014. The Cadillac ELR is a 2 door coupe with different sheet metal but the with the basic Volt power train.

"Hasn't this been standard on all Hondas (VTEC) for many years?" No, VTEC is variable valve timing which a number of manufacturers have had for some time. This is variable valve lift which is added to variable valve timing. There are some other variable valve lift techniques such as Fiat's MultiAir and BMW's ValveTronic.

I do not think that they are a Ponsi scheme as the data is out there for anyone to look at and the company is not a scam but they were able to pay off the debt by selling stock at what is probably an unrealistically high price. The current price to earnings (PE) ratio is undefined as they are running a loss but the forward PE based on what profits they expect to make next year is 1744.80 Most stocks that are not growing rapidly have a price to earnings ratio somewhere between 10 and 20. GM has a PE of 11.44 and a forward PE of 9.93, GE is 16.68 and 14.42, Caterpillar is 11.80 and 12.57, Valero Oil is 7.14 and 7.54, Google is 26.48 and 19.41. If Tesla could sell 50,000 cars per year and make $5000 profit per car (some big ifs), the price to earnings ratio would still be around 40. Caveat emptor

I got 326,000 miles on my last GM pickup and had no major overhauls. I did change the waterpump and the spark plugs at least once but did not have to change the alternator or the starter. Also, the GM engines do not use a belt to drive the cams so that is never a problem. The vehicle was used as a work truck so it was not babied and was driven off-road with heavy loads.

It took a little digging to figure out what their profit was. From their statement: On a fully diluted basis, non-GAAP EPS was $0.12. GAAP diluted EPS was $0.00, as net income has been adjusted to exclude the one-time non-cash gain of $10.7 million from the elimination of our Department of Energy (DoE) warrant liability as required under GAAP. Where GAAP is Generally Accepted Accounting Practices and EPS is earnings per share. From looking at Schwab, the full year loss per share was $-2.72 and the previous 3 quarterly losses totaled $-2.84 so that corresponds to a reported gain of 0.12 for this quarter. From the NY Times, the expected earnings for next quarter was 0.00 and 0.04 for the following quarter.

@Anne, You are hilarious. I live in "flyover country" which is also part of the real world. If I look out my window, I mostly see 4x4 pickups which is what I typically drive. Today, I had to use it to pick up welding tanks. Do not try that in your Prius or whatever you drive. There are posters in the welding supply houses showing what happens transporting welding gases in enclosed vehicles. It is not pretty and typically you do not survive. Anyway, after a while, what is happening in the real world with Tesla will be deduced from a bunch of quarterly profit/loss statements. I am currently involved in a high tech start-up involving agricultural equipment using electric servo drives and know a little about business. We save fuel using the electric drives instead of the typical hydraulics. I also know a few things about battery electric cars having worked on an electric car project in 1968 while I was in graduate school at MIT. mit.edu/evt/CleanAirCarRace.html‎ I have a doctorate in Mechanical Engineering from MIT and also took some business courses at Harvard Business School just for fun. I wish Telsa well and they have done some things right especially compared with CODA but it is a hard business for a start-up. I do think that any start-up US car company has succeeded since at least the 1930's. Go ahead and answer. You can have the last word.

@pat I did not get my information from Fox News. I got it from the research section of Charles Schwab and Tesla has never reported a quarterly profit. Maybe, they are on track to report a profit next quarter but so far it has not happened. If they do and succeed long term, good for them but they have been in business for 10 years without a profit. Also, I am not a fan of Romney and his vulture capitalist friends.

@pat Tesla reported a yearly loss of -$3.701 per share and a quarterly loss of -$0.7902 per share for the past quarter (02-20-2013). They have never shown a quarterly profit. It is probably to their advantage that they are partially owned by Toyota. I think that their designs look good and their engineering may be good but this is a very difficult business to succeed in. I wish them well but I will still be surprised if they make it.

Coda was not the first and will not be the last. As others said, one of Coda's problems was that it tried to sell a car that was totally dull and had no character. I am surprised that the Leaf sells as well as it does. I parked next to one the other day and hoped that it's ugliness was not contagious. Telsa at least made and makes vehicles that have some desirable characteristics. However, they are not making money and I will be surprised if they stay quasi-independent and make it long term. Already they are partially owned by Toyota.

This is not a new concept. The Chevrolet Corvette has had composite leaf springs for at least since 1997. There is a single transverse leaf for both the front and rear suspensions.

Kelly From the full article (Click on the word begun in the lead sentence): “The era of using electricity to help improve performance and fuel economy is already here and the trend is only going to grow,” said Mike Robinson, GM vice president of Sustainability. “Today is further proof GM is leading in the development of electric vehicles that will improve America’s energy security.”

SJC The Nissan CVTs are friction based as are all mechanical CVTs and they have a continuous slippage which is proportional to the torque transmitted. It is possible to build a variable speed planetary using an variable speed electric motor where most of the power transmitted is from a mechanical source such as an ICE. This is essentially how the Toyota Prius transmission works. The GM Volt also has some variation of this with two variable speed electric motors and planetary gearing. If you need more information on CVTs see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuously_variable_transmission

SJC The problem with a friction type CVT is that they have to slip to function and the slip results in both an efficiency loss and in wear. The slip is proportional to the torque transmitted. Anyway, at some point the loss in transmission efficiency more than offsets gain in engine efficiency.

At one time , I lived in eastern Massachusetts and drove a smaller car. I never drove off road and never needed to carry a large load. In fact, I usually rode my bicycle to work. I now work in the agricultural machinery industry in Utah and often need to carry a large load and sometimes drive on roads that would destroy a crossover SUV. I have a small car but I normally need to use my 4WD Long Bed Silverado pickup. Occasionally, I need use to even larger truck with a 30 ft trailer to haul parts. Anyway, not everyone has the same requirements. Also, if you look at the full article from GM, http://media.gm.com/media/us/en/gm/news.detail.html/content/Pages/news/us/en/2013/Apr/0401-sierra.html it is interesting to note that not only does GM do slightly better than the Ford V6 turbo boost but the worst vehicle is the full size Nissan pickup and the next worse vehicle is the full size Toyota pickup GM beats both of these by more than 25% and has a higher rated load

At one time , I lived in eastern Massachusetts and drove a smaller car. I never drove off road and only rarely would AWD be desirable. However, I moved to the Utah and quickly found that 4WD or AWD was a requirement. I regularly drive off-road. The Jeep in the above article would probably not go where I take my 4WD pickup and a Subaru wagon would quickly become so much scrap metal. I also have reason to haul heavy loads and haul heavy loads off-road. To give you an idea of the sparse population and the extent of the dirt roads, I once drove for 8 hours in western Utah without passing another car. I learned to carry an extra spare tire, tools, water, food, etc. I also carry heavy mud-rated chains for all four wheels and if things really so south, an emergency satellite communication device as there is no cell phone coverage. Anyway, not everyone has the same requirements.

I think that this is a good idea but the Westport Innovations (Vancouver, BC) system goes a bit further in that it runs with less than 5% diesel and is a true diesel. The Volvo engine injects the NG during the intake stroke so the natural gas is essentially a homgeneous mixture with the air while the Westport engine injects the gas near top dead center of the compression stroke and uses a small amount of diesel to start the combustion. The NG and diesel injection is done with a single coaxial injector. See http://www.westport.com/is/core-technologies/hpdi

Herm, Yes, both LNG and CNG. Cummins has a joint venture with Westport Innovations for CNG and LNG diesels. http://www.westport.com/ HarveyD, You do not need to pass new laws. All you have to do is show that you will save money. I see more and more of the basic aerodynamic skirts.

Henry, You are correct and this is how most diesel engines run on natural gas. They carburet or inject natural gas into the air intake and ignite the more or less homogeneous mixture with a small diesel pilot injection. However, Westport Innovations has a dual fuel injector that injects both natural gas and a small amount of diesel for ignition. This allows the engine to run as a true diesel with a non-homogeneous mixture. They will also run on all diesel.