Any progress reports on Daewoo Barina & Viva

[180HOA]

A lot of people predicted it. We've known for about as long as we've been using oil that it's a finite resource. The problem was knowing when prices were going to really take off. Nearly ten years ago Holden paraded about a hybrid version of the VT Commodore to try and pretend they gave a damn about environmental issues. Instead, they gave us Monaro, Adventra, Crewman, et al. If the hybrid powerplant had been anything other than lip-service, surely they could have got it production ready for VE, and I bet it would sell.

I know economic reality kicks in, and the books may not balance on things like this (until you miss the boat)... Toyota realised it with the Prius, and sank a lot of money into it. Now, Toyota and Lexus have a serious jump-start on most other manufacturers in hybrid technology.

GM, on the other hand, buried its head in the sand, and now, in all the GM empire, can't even rustle up a turbo diesel to suit a Commodore. Hell, they can barely muster up a decent non-SUV to sell in the USA.

I know everyone has been caught off-guard by oil prices, but shouldn't motor vehicle manufacturers be on the ball here as much as anybody? We've always known it was only going to be a matter of time before we started seeing real signs of oil shortages - yet GM (the US and Australian arms) seems to have made no attempt at all to put themselves in a position to adapt.

[PaulyJ]

I think that regardless of petrol prices, all manufactures should be putting money into cleaner alternatives, exactly like what Toyota, and also Honda is doing.
In regards to fuel prices, diesel engined Opels have been around in Europe for ages, in all models inc our Barina's, Astra's and Vectra's. Only now has Holden bought in a turbo diesel, but why has it taken so long? I'm sure if they had a diesel model in the Astra G range, sales would've been a lot higher.

[Red AH SRI T]

diesel is only just taking off now in Australia because the quality of our diesel fuel was much much lower than that of europe. All of the modern high tech diesels require low sulphur fuel and australia couldn't offer that until recently

[PaulyJ]

ahhh fair enough then, guess that makes sense.