GM Halts Rear-Wheel-Drive Development Over Bush Mileage Proposals

We just got some major news from General Motors by way of Jim Mateja of the Chicago Tribune. Vice Chairman Bob Lutz told Mateja that GM is stopping rear-wheel-drive vehicle planning because of possible new fuel efficiency standards.

The upcoming Chevy Camaro is still on the docket, but the future Impala — which Lutz says may not be named Impala — could be shelved until a front-wheel-drive model is designed. The article didn't mention the upcoming Pontiac G8, due out in 2008, but we assume it's still in the pipeline.

Lutz says the RWD cars can’t achieve 30% better mileage, which is part of the Bush administration’s proposal to raise fuel economy over the next 10 years.

The move also curtails development of some exciting new vehicles we now may never see, including a high-performance midsize Pontiac — a possible G6 replacement? — a small Cadillac below the CTS, a Buick Lucerne replacement, and 300-hp versions of the Pontiac Solstice and Saturn Sky roadsters.

It’s an interesting article — maybe even a “must read.”

[GM Puts Brake on Rear-Drive Vehicles, Chicago Tribune]

Comments

Holy crap. Last time I checked, it was the General's giant inefficient ENGINES that made things bad for the environment. The drive train doesn't matter for this! Take the smart Fortwo: an super-efficient micro car that is RWD.

I think GM execs are jumping the gun here, and should instead try to focus on making fun, efficient RWD cars. I can't wait for my smart, which I placed a reservation on last month.

So... That's going to be a no on the El Camino then? What a bunch of bull.

Oh, so in future all GM trucks are going to be front wheel drive too are they, so they can be more economical?

Somehow I can't see BMW giving up on rear-wheel drive because it isn't capable of adequete fuel economy.

This sounds like a feeble excuse to me. Something else is hampering their rear-wheel drive efforts, and blaming the government seems like a good way of deflecting criticism.

This really stinks. Just as GM was about to really compete once again with globally competitive vehicles, and they pull the plug. Mr. Lutz must be fuming! This is so short sighted as far as the handling/performance marketplace is concerned. Why can't a rear wheel drive vehicle be fuel efficient? What will BMW, Lexus, and MB do? Are we in for a FWD S class? Doubtful... GM is giving up before the fight evening begins. Perhaps they should join forces with Peugeot...

All I can say is--lame. The other automakers will be in the same boat, and you don't see them canceling their RWD vehicles.

"We really wanted to make better-handling, more fun-to-drive cars, but there might be a new mileage proposal sometime in the future, so we're abandoning all hope and building something really boring instead."

the interesting thing if you read the article is the efficient vehicles they do make come from outside the country, not counting towards the CAFE figures. I didn't realize that. So the Aveo doesn't count towards that.

This is why Chrysler wiped out RWD cars after the 1988 Fifth Avenue....they weigh more than a FWD,and are very inefficient.Plus,the RWD layout,not being "mainstream" now,costs more per unit to make as opposed to a volume FWD platform.Why they are going to keep the Camaro is beyond me....by then gas will be $4.00 nationwide.
Chrysler just happened back into RWD courtesy of Mercedes ownership and carte blanche useage of former MB platforms.Once Chrysler is sold off,and they cant use MB technology anymore,RWD there will probably go the way of the Do Do bird as well.Challenger will be stillborn.
Ford has Mustang and Crown Vic/G Marquis/Town Car,but those full sizers days will be numbered,and Mustang will persist as long as it sells for a decade or more with no major changes.
V8s and RWD were supposed to die by 1985 by a 1980 prediction,that was delayed by more than 20 years,and a lack of raising CAFE standards.

I think it's just GM trying to blame the government for their own problems. How is it that the LS460, RWD, achieves 27mpg highway with 380hp while the DTS (292hp FWD) achieves just 24mpg. GM just makes inefficient cars. The LS is already 10% more efficient than the DTS. Oh yeah, the LS weighs 250 pounds MORE than the DTS.

I suppose the research dollars they have will need to be spent improving their existing FWD drivetrains instead of developing gas guzzling RWD platforms.

check torque numbers, its not the horsepower, its the torque that makes the car move in the first place! the almighty camry has 270 horses, but is matched by the saturn aura with less horsepower...why? weight and torque.

RWD also has more weight on the car, which makes the engine work harder, which makes less MPG...besides, I dont see the need for RWD in a sedan, since everyone just loves the camry apparently...only REAL car people want RWD but will never buy it so who cares.

Uhm, hybrids are NOT short on torque, in fact that's their strength. The electric motors can provide 100% of their torque instantly.

This is a strange statement, although it's not an official statement, by GM. Truthfully, it's not impossible or even difficult to improve gas mileage in the RWD models to meet the rumored requirements, but it would be more expensive. You would have to go with smaller displacements and either add forced induction or hybrid technology, or advanced engine technology like VVT and direct injection. All those technologies are available, but costly, so perhaps they just don't see a way to make money on RWD with the new standards.

For those who believe GM vehicles suck gas, check the numbers. They are, in general, as fuel efficient, or more fuel efficient than their competition from overseas.

Still, this announcement really just sounds like political maneuvering. They're threatening the consumer, and adding to the fear that the dreaded fuel efficiency standards will return the auto industry to the glorioius 80's. And Graham, you may be right, they may be using this as a convenient cover for other problems, while gaining lobbying points. Two birds with one stone.

He wasn't saying it wasn't possible, Lutz was saying it would be too expensive to warrant the costs to the consumers. Meaning no one will pay the extra $5K (his number) for a more efficient RWD car.
I still say its silly. They need something more akin to a tiered gas guzzler tax, more investment into Ethanol (like Brazil) and then get nuclear back on track so we're not burning coal to light our homes. It's not rocket science right?

The thing is, CAFE includes considerable incentives for alternative fuel vehicles. If I understand the laws correctly flex fuel vehicles can be considered to achieve around three times times their actual mileage (that's why nearly every GM SUV can run on E85 while almost none of their cars can run on E85). An E85 capable rear drive Impala shouldn't hurt their CAFE figures much and it would be appealing to police/fleet operations that are desperate for something to replace their Crown Vics.

Something has to give, they either need to go to RWD or dial down the horsepower. 250hp seems to be the reasonable limit for a front drive car. Did everyone else notice that when GM puts a big engine in a FWD car it signifies its death? There's the Grand Prix, Bonneville, Monte Carlo, and probably Impala too; does anyone really want a FWD super Buick?.

A diesel engine would achieve the 30% better mileage Bob Lutz is looking for.

This is simply a veiled threat by GM. They threaten the consumers so the consumers put pressure on the government to back off. It used to be "what's good for GM is good for America" and this just isn't the case anymore.

"Take the smart Fortwo: an super-efficient micro car that is RWD."

The smart fortwo isn't really comparable to the RWD cars being discussed here: It's engine is also in the rear and mounted transversely, so it's drivetrain layout is essentially the same as an FWD car, except mounted in the other end of the vehicle. GM's Zeta cars on the other hand use a more traditional front engine, rear-wheel drive setup, which of course requires a heavy driveshaft running between the front and rear ends of the vehicle. The extra weight, combined with the greater rotational inertia of the drivetrain means that front engine, RWD (F-R) layout cars will suffer somewhat worse mileage in the city cycle compared to similar F-F or R-R layout cars.

Still, I'm hoping this pause in the program doesn't lead to a permanent cancellation of any North American Zeta car beyond the Camaro. I would love to see a RWD Impala: If they want to make it more efficient, they can stick their new two-mode hybrid system in it.

How many current model GM vehicles can you think of and count that are worthy contenders to foreign competition concerning GM's entire vehicle line up?

I thought of a couple:
Corvette - something that has not been fumbled yet. Gets pretty dang good MPG for being a sport car with 400+ HP and duh its RWD too!

The Escalade is sort of cool? Oh but Im not a rapper, drug dealer, or a Mormon wannabe prophet on the run, besides its a waste of a vehicle unless you need to drive a soccer team around.

The other caddies look descent but it sort of sucks buying a $50K car, and the next day after driving off its worth $25K.

Anything else? Buick Lucerne? Should I be impressed since Tiger Woods probably uses his for his tee off target practice when he gets home from shooting those commercials that make me want to jump up and go test drive a BUICK? oh yea baby!

How about that Chevy Cobalt all the kids are raving about, oh sorry those are Scions and Hondas, and Nissans? My 1991 Honda beater looks better, handles better and is quicker than that POS Cobalt.

I think GM wants to kill themselves here in the USA, heck China is where they are investing heavily and its an "anything goes" policy concerning enviromental standards. They got a billion potential customers too, and most of the general population does not expect much nor know whatis really good quality in an automobile.

Ill keep buying Japanese and German vehicles which are: better built, better quality, way better customer service, better MPG, better resale value, and are opening more assembly and manufacturing plants in North America while GM closes theirs.

My free advice for GM:

build the Camaro and keep prices and engine displacement comparable to Mustangs, make sure you have an "affordable" high performance model, people will come in droves and buy. It looks really good.

Bright idea? offer HID's standard and/or Brembo brakes with some good tires while retaining affordability comparable to Mustang on new Camaro's. Set the GM image apart from Ford, bring it up a notch!

Dont kill the Impala RWD. The pics I have seen of the new model looks descent, finally comparable to some European competition. Just offer a SS version with some real balls (at least 400HP). Make sure the SS comes with Brembos, HID's, sport suspension, and dont price it more than $40K and you will sell em all day long. Just keep the price right under the Chrysler 300SRT crapola but use the Vette engines for better MPG and reliability, and make sure people know this!

Start offering 10 year 100K mile warranty. Why, because its one of the smartest gimmicks our Korean friends are using. Who the heck is going to take 10 years to drive 100K miles? Most people no way. They will hit that mark in 5-6 years tops. Plus most people now lease, and I have not seen many leases over 4 or 5 years either.

Except for new Trucks, Tahoe SUV, new Camaro, and Vette, fire all the other designers and design teams you have that are designing all the other current garbage you are manufacturing. Get some freshness in there.

Bring over those cool looking European and Australian only vehicles GM makes. Recycle them over here for US market. It is impossible to be worse than what GM is already offering us. Make sure it looks new not dated like the Pontiac GTO you recycled from the land of OZ.

hope they are doing the right thing. either they go fwd and do it right, or they do better rwd models. at least they won't be spending tons of money on cars that will not fit the standard and have to take them out or something.

and while you are at it, please stop it with the flexfuel. it barely works at best and there is better tech outthere.

GM needs to put a 10-second delay on anything Bob says. First the "damaged brands" comment, and now this. GM -- the only thing that you have right now is a really clear and interesting product pipeline. It's keeping consumers, GM employees and "the street" engaged. Don't let impassioned comments derail that momentum.

GM forgot to blame Imus too! The more I drive my Toyota the more I appreciate the company. After four years I still have not been back to the dealership so in effect I do not know my Service Mgr - I like it that way! I also couldn't name one executive at Toyota. Perhaps because they are busy building and growing a world class car company. GM has a lot to learn.

RWD = bad gas burners
AWD = even worse gas burners(That's why GM sold the stock of Fuji Heavy Industries who makes Subies?)
FWD = better gas burners
Bicycle = best invention ever.

What a lame excuse they were using.
Just say: We can't match the price of a Mustang, Crown Vic and Charger.
The end of story.

its sad, but anyone of these ideas being presented here is way better than the crap that is currently being conceived in the infernally incompetent mind of Lutz and his overpaid GM cronies.

I cant believe how cheap and badly managed GM is. Ive owned 3 GM veichels in my life (97 cavalier z24, which was utter crap) 92 Cadillac Eldorado Biarritz Gold Edition (expensive crap) 92 Silverado RWD (best 5 bucks i ever spent in highschool, neatest fire to watch burn in college too).

For one its the engines that pollute, I believe the wave of the future is DIESEL power, for two reasons; one being gasoline is only so good untill you reach a certain horsepower then octane becomes an issue and two being the structural strength of the engines steel/aluminum or alloy composition.

If you take away gas, then no more octane issues with horsepower, go build a super strong diesel engine that can run rediculious ammounts of high psi.

I just bought a 2006 tj last year and i took out the junk 4.0 and put in the biggest cummins turbo diesel i could find, then i rigged it up with every bell and whistle i could possibly find, the biggest twin turbochargers i could find, the best intercooler and tranny cooler,exhause brakes, curry axels,8 piston front calipers on slotted rotors, 6piston rears again on slotted, ive got about 630 hoursepower and about 1100 foot lbs of torque in my x-rubicon. I can put my nose in the air like a drag racer, and i get about 700km to the tank on a 65 can doller tank. I can run on diesel, or run on biofules which can litterally be free if you make friends with your neighborhood chinese resturaunt owners, i bet i could get him to pay me to take away his grease however if he knew i was driving on it he'd try and squindle money out of me.

gm should hire me to run that gong show of lost employees. They have no direction.

And for the record fwd cars are only good for the average city driver who never puts there foot into it, the only benefit of fwd is the less likelyness of spinning out, for people who know how to drive (your probably not one of them so dont feel complimented by this, i drive on city streets and everyday numberous idiots make me grin at eithor how bad of a driver they are in rain, snow, or even the slightest sign of wet anything on the road makes you drive like a bone head). FWd might get 1/2 descent traction from a dead stop such as a red light but as soon as you try and steer the front wheels are sharing cornering and acceleration and they dont cut it understeer creates a what i like to call a plowing forward effect, rwd is better if you can actually drive a car and control a lose rear end if it begins spinning out. Why are all nascar or formula 1 cars rwd! simply because the rear pushes and the front steer so you share tire loads, you get better performance if you push with the rear end going into a corner.

AWD is pretty amazing too, but thats not what this is about, most of them still do a 60 rear wheel, 40 front under preformance conditions....

FWD is expensive to fix, more moving parts that will potentially break, and they simply cannot contain as much power as a RWD veichel can handle. Ive hopped a curb in a persuit and i know how fwd spindles, driveshafts, hubs can be broken, there simply not as strong as a rear wheel drive veichel.

For one in my line of work you need the push from the rear to hop over a curb , fwd still can do it just not nearly a tenth as good a a rwd of a 100th as good as a 4wd.

In conclussion, GM get your thumb out of your ass, find some direction so the people will regain faith in the company. Stopping production of the Camaro was stupid so shame on you. Change the look of the silverado because even though you advertise that its "all new", or "redesigned" it still looks exactly the same with different corners and face. it needs an ALL NEW SHAPE. Bring back Yenko, keep fwd in japan or on mini vans, and stick with eithor AWD of RWD. Change the grill on the new camaro because its really ugly, Bring back the Trans Am, redesign the GTO to look like a old school modernized GTO not that Aussie piece of crap you stick a badge on and claimed it was new. and dont make as many bloody 4 door cars, not everyone wants a family sedan, i curse dodge for this with the charger.

And finally electric cars have been around since the 1900's, tell the oil companies to fack right off you dont want their bribes anymore to keep their inefficent combustion engines around, their are alternative fuels and Nasa im sure has a battery that will last forever, put research into solar hoods and roofs, windpowered turbo charger like battery rechargers, prop type generator rechargers, and power amplifiers to bloody make 100% all electic cars because we know you can, so quit contributing to ruining earth along with all the fossil fuel companies.

bottom line, pull your head out of your ass.

regards,

Bam Bam.

"a heavy driveshaft" - Seriously?? The weight of the driveshaft isn't even half the weight of a passenger, and I've never had a noticeable decrease in gas mileage in any car from a single passenger.

There should be a list of RWD cars with good gas mileage shipped to GM. My '87 RWD Nissan V6 still gets 30MPG on the highway and 20-28 in city. My previous '89 240SX achieved an average of 28MPG, and again with the 'vette. America's most rediculous car, unexcuseable engine displacement for the HP ratings (esp compared to other, forced-induction cars), RWD, but somehow still manages great gas mileage.

RWD has NOTHING to do with bad gas mileage. The weight gained from a RWD setup could be cancelled out by, dare I say, introducing a diesel engine?!

IMHO, the added stability (and loss of torque steer!!) of RWD greatly cancels out that 1mpg drop. Imagine driving in a car that had a better weight distribution than 90/10.. and imagine being able to brake without the car's nose hitting the ground! FWD is effective in some platforms, but when you have a big engine and lots of power, it doesn't cut it.

It is eating at my brain... RWD = bad gas mileage.. lmao. again, my 21 year old 3200lb old-ass metal, fat beast of a RWD coupe still gets 30mpg on the highway. It isn't where the drivetrain is located, it's what is IN the drivetrain that matters. Blame yourself, GM. The US Gov't has enough on it's plate as-is.