Chrysler Imperial smothered in the crib; Challenger next?

My guess is they are going to have to use their investment money wisely. I think they need to invest in bread and butter cars before producing flashy ones. Cerberus can really make a mark, IMO, if they offer a high mileage, well equipped hybrid and/or a 40+ mpg conventional car. Maybe even offer a turbo diesel. Also, don't make it a small box. They produce a car like this and market it as green, American born and very frugal on gas it will be a hit. Then they can bring out the fluff cars. Heck, they can produce green sports cars for that matter.

The problem with such all-new product is the amount of lead time needed -- a minimum of three years for the kind of cars and the new-to- Mopar powertrains you mention. "Turn-around" specialists aren't known for their lengthy attention spans.

I agree, though, that the market is out there for a large (Charger- sized) 40 mpg sedan. Diesels -- and a crash-course diet -- can get you there, but I don't think the US market is ready for diesels in large volumes. I think the small displacement, high compression turbo gas engine, with pure ethanol injection for ping control, shows promise. The biggest problem is the availability of fueling stations.

As for hybrids, it's high time somebody came out with a plug-in hybrid. There are mom and pop operations here in Nor Cal who convert Priuses and others to plug-in operation. So why don't the big boys give it a whirl? If you've already got the electric motor and the braking regeneration and the computer controls, all you gotta do is piggyback more storage capacity -- aka batteries -- onto the existing system. Starting out each day with a full overnight charge, these cars give 130 to 150 miles on the first gallon of gas. After that, after the batteries are drained of the overnight charge, they revert to normal hybrid operation, i.e., a comparatively thirsty 45 mpg in the case of the Prius. You could also recharge at work, and on a typical commute day you would never exhaust the battery pack. Unlike the straight electric car, there is never any danger of being stranded with dead batteries. You can still drive a plug-in hybrid coast-to- coast.

So there you have it, the Hemi plug-in hybrid, Chrysler's path to salvation.

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This is where they need to change the corporate mentality. They need to be more into long term thinking like the Japanese. They won't spit this type of car out tomorrow but it can be delivered in 2-3 years. It would also put them on the forefront of the green movement and provide economy, which is really what will drive sales. I'm convinced the days of sub $2/gallon gasoline are gone forever. This being the case, I think the public is ripe for the option of a frugal decent sized sedan.

It would be a potential problem but most diesel cars have big tanks and anywhere close to an interstate should have diesel fuel available.

The technology exists today to provide a viable plug in car. Heck, even the NiMH batteries available today are good enough to provide a decent range. Personally, I think the car needs to be full time electric drive. This means the gas engine component is intended to run a generator and not a direct mechanical connection to drive the wheels. This allows for packaging of these components in a non-conventional way, reduces weight and makes room for more batteries. The big nut for them to crack is to figure out a way to reduce the recharge time to 5-10 minutes. It will be innovative thinking that is going to save the domestic auto industry. They can't beat the Japanese by letting them set the rules.

Michael Johnson wrote in news:M9KdnZeWgrLePwLbnZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@giganews.com:

Unless you're talking about overnight plug-in (i.e., trickle charge), I'd imagine there are potential issues. I would guess that pretty high voltages would be needed for quick-charge, such as what we don't have readily available yet.

So instead of gas stations, we'll see mega-volt quick-charge stations. A "fill up" would be something like $50 for 5 minutes @ 1,000 volts.

just some random thoughts:

first, I admit I am no expert.

there are 35-40 mpg cars available right now - but not enough people buy them........I have plenty of friends and family still buying Navigator Ls and the like and they don't give a rats behind what the gas costs. they don't care that by using twice as much gas as necessary they are shortening supplies and raising prices for others. I live near the Great Lakes: the average Joes have cut back on their boating in putt-putts.......the guyz with the 50 footers could care less - Filler Up !!!!

still can't figure out where all that clean, green electricity is going to come from when I plug my car in for its overnight charge.....somewhere else I guess (as long as it isn't in Teddy Kennedy's back yard).

and a hundred years from now the new "Love Canal" will be where all the old battery packs were dumped. how much does a battery replacement cost for some of those cars, anyway.

I'm an old fart: my first care was a 10 year old '56 Packard 400 (!) it weighed 5000 pounds, had a 305 hp, 374 V8, was faster than stink, huge, comfortable, safe.....and got no less than 15 mpg no matter how I drove it. My LHS gets 24-26 on the highway....and 13.5 in town.......about 3600 pounds, underpowered and slow.......progress?

it'll never happen, but the only solution is a form of rationing: everybuddy is entitled to X number of gallons at a decent price.........you can use it frugally or drive a guzzler and only go half as far......once you've used your allowance, you can buy more - and pay thru the nose for it. ir maybe a total energy allowance: let Barbra Steisand lecture us on saving energy in one of her mansions - with the heat shut off.

, btw: ethanol..... my town of 50,000 was glad to hear that we were going to get an ethanol plant (although worries about the price of corn/soy, cost to feed livestock, cost of dairy, meat etc are concerns). anyway, the City Fathers in their wisdom sold the company a bunch of land at about 5% of market value and granted tax abatements and the usual inducements to build the plant. then someone took the trouble to crunch the numbers on the proposal and learned that we don't have enough electricity, natural gas or water to run the damn thing and the ethanol it would make would be prohibitely expensive anyway and provide only a fraction of the energy it would take to make it.........then the "ethanol" company admitted they didn't have the money to build the plant anyway. but now they've got 100 acres of prime land.

........like the old Saturday Night shtick: "because you'll believe anything"

I'm not sure. I think it might be more of an amperage thing than voltage. If it is voltage then transformers could provide the step up. However, they could probably have it so the gas engine runs long enough to charge the batteries if they are low. Have the engine automatically kick on and recharge the batteries while the wife is shopping for three hours. When she's done shopping the batteries will be topped off. This could be something the driver could toggle on and off. Or like I said earlier, have a small 2-3 cylinder gas engine tied to a generator to supply electricity in a pinch. The nice thing about this is the engine would only have to operate within a small rpm range and this would let it be designed and tuned to run most efficiently like the current Honda type generators.

Another trick thing to add would be something like a Peltier cooler that would use the temperature differential between the exhaust gas and the ambient air to generate electricity from the waste heat from combustion. I wonder how much current could be produced this way. It would help to increase the overall efficiency when burning gasoline.

Damn, I wish I worked for a car company! I could keep myself highly entertained.

Michael Johnson wrote in news:466dnbeNCZKUkj3bnZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@giganews.com:

American

available.

stations.

Michael, you're the engineer - I'm just guessing. I'll have to ask my son about the voltage/amperage thing, as he's way into the electric thing with his RC cars.

No gas engines. We're going totally green here, at least as far as the vehicle is concerned. We can tackle the problem of the energy source for making the batteries (Les' Battery Fairy) later.

combustion.

NO gas! Internal combustion is kaput. ;)

I'm telling you - the MJ Roadster has a nice ring to it. Painstakingly and lovingly built by MJ Motors, Inc. An American company and proud of it.

I'll bill you for marketing later. ;)

The trouble is I'm not an electrical engineer. The last in depth exposure I had to electrical principles was my sophomore year in college over two decades ago.

I think giving that safety net of an on board gasoline engine driven generator is going to be a requirement initially. Mainly because many women will not want the possibility of getting stranded with dead batteries. A driver that recharges judiciously at home may never need to use the gas engine.

I'm not smart or rich enough to pull that off.

Did I mention I'm not rich enough?

Michael Johnson wrote in news:RfSdnQkMJpl6rz3bnZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@giganews.com:

economy.

(Charger-

Painstakingly

You don't have to be either - all you need is the original idea. Just convince one of those VC guys how good it is and the rest will follow.

You could be... ;)

innews:RfSdnQkMJpl6rz3bnZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@giganews.com:

By coincidence, the SF Chronicle today -- Friday July 20 -- includes this front page story on a study of plug-in hybrids released yesterday in D.C.:

study concludes that a fleet with 60% plug-in hybrids would cutoil consumption by 3 to 4 million barrels per day by 2050. (Today'srate is 21 million/day.) But it would require only a 7 to 8 percentincrease in generation capacity, because most recharging happens atnight when demand is low. The study claims that emissions ofpollution and greenhouse gas would decrease significantly. By 2050,the GHG reduction would be the equivlent of taking 82.5 million carsoff the road.

Apparently the GM "Volt" plug-in hybrid prototype is already using the Michael Johnson concept of hybrid featuring an electric-only drivetrain with a gas engine to run a generator:

(Actually, diesel train locomotives have used this system for 50 yearsnow.)

Regarding funding for mom and pop startups, check this quote from the main story: "Google's philanthropic arm, Google.org, announced last month that it will give $10 million to entrepreneurs to develop electric hybrids that can get the equivalent of 70 to 100 miles per gallon of gas."

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Those jobs would have been in Mexico next to their Hemi and pickup jobs anyway...

innews:RfSdnQkMJpl6rz3bnZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@giganews.com:

The study concludes that a fleet with 60% plug-in hybrids would cut> oil consumption by 3 to 4 million barrels per day by 2050. (Today's> rate is 21 million/day.) But it would require only a 7 to 8 percent> increase in generation capacity, because most recharging happens at> night when demand is low. The study claims that emissions of> pollution and greenhouse gas would decrease significantly. By 2050,> the GHG reduction would be the equivlent of taking 82.5 million cars> off the road.

(Actually, diesel train locomotives have used this system for 50 years> now.)

That is close to what I envisioned but the charge range is pathetic at

40 miles. I think there is more efficiency to be had from the gasoline engine running a generator too. They are moving in the right direction though.

Toyota's Prius will be close to 70 mpg in a few years. It is already at

60 mpg in the city and 51 on the highway.

Correction. Prius' ***EPA mpg numbers*** have been 60 city/51 highway/

55 combined. These numbers were solely due to the Prius' ability to game the EPA dynamometer test routine, a routine which had very little to do with actual driving. No one has ever achieved 60 city mpg in the real world. A new EPA test routine, going into effect for the 2008 model year, puts the Prius at 48/45/46, which is probably pretty close to its owners' real world experience. Similarly, the Civic Hybrid goes from 49/51/50 to 40/45/42. Now I want to know, when do I get one of the Governator's "diamond lane" free-pass stickers for my '01 Toyota Echo, which always returns 37 highway mpg under my relentless lead-foot and 42 mpg if I baby it. 180 Out