Former GM Economist: Detroit Ignored Demands For Efficiency
http://preview.tinyurl.com/yfztfwm

Former GM Economist and current head of the Automotive Analysis division
of the Transportation Research Institute at the University of Michigan
Walter McManus wants you to know that GM’s SUV strategy of ignoring
efficiency as a marketing input was his fault. In an interview with
Energy and Environment News [via Edmunds Green Car Advisor], McManus
explains how surveys in the 1990s showing consumers did care about
efficiency were ignored:

The survey would estimate that people would estimate fuel economy
fairly highly. Being a good economist, I said, ‘No, they don’t,’ and I
changed the results. There was a systematic bias against such results.
Our job was not to seek the truth, but to justify decisions that had
already been made… It’s my fault they had the wrong vehicles until now

Can you say culture issues? McManus’s explanation for the insular
attitude is a familiar refrain, namely that decisions “are being made by
upper-middle-class white males, by and large. They don’t understand that
the customers are not the same as they are.” Now that gas prices have
made efficiency impossible to ignore though, McManus sees change coming.

People have a hard time thinking about their fuel savings. It’s
hard for people to understand the abstract, that a mile per gallon means
this many dollars saved every month. But if you actually start
experiencing by driving the vehicle, then you understand it.

And for the domestic automakers who buried their heads in the sand on
efficiency, declining market share is having a similar effect.

Check out the comments at the end of the article

On Oct 27, 6:00*pm, Jim_Higgins <gordian... (AT) hotmail (DOT) com> wrote:


There's a big red flag waving very early in this "Jimbo vs. GM"
article.




"FORMER GM Economist" Jack Shittt, or whatever his name is.


Might as well have used the the phrase, "Former Disgruntled Gm
Economist"


He is probably "former" for a reason.


"Former" employees have a tendancy to bad-mouth their former employer,
for some strange reason.


Especially if they get a new job that can somehow be used to further
bad-mouth their former employer.



Class, can we all say, slowly,


"Lack of credibility"????????


Nice.

That is exactly what this gentelman has.



Myself, as a current OWNER, and an owner of GM cars for about 33
years, my finding is that I usually get slightly BETTER gas milage
than what the sticker shows.


Sometimes even quite a bit better than what is advertised.


My "98 Grand Prix Gtp exceeds the 27 mpg highway that the sticker says
pretty easily.


My "06" Grand Prix exceeds the 31 mpg highway the sticker says as
well. Driven right, I have no problem hitting 33 mpg highway with
this car.

I recently drove my G8 to Myrle Beach on vacation. Interstate Driving,
speeds averaging 75 mpg, I averaged 25 mpg, exceeding the sticker by a
full mile per gallon.


I could go on and on about my experiences over the past 33 years, but
I wont.


I am not a "former" owner.


No need for me to lie.