GM/Daimler/BMW to spend $1B on joint hybrid

[Kirby]

Aug. 11 (Bloomberg) -- General Motors Corp., DaimlerChrysler AG and Bayerische Motoren Werke AG will spend more than $1 billion combined to develop a shared gasoline-electric motor for autos that will compete with hybrid leader Toyota Motor Corp.

The cost of the jointly developed system includes at least $300 million for a transmission, Andreas Truckenbrodt, executive director of DaimlerChrysler's hybrid program, told reporters at a dinner in Traverse City, Michigan, yesterday.

The three automakers are making their hybrid push a decade after Toyota first began selling Prius cars and are spending half the $2 billion some Toyota officials have said it spent on hybrid research in the 1990s. Toyota, the world's No. 2 automaker, has sold more than 600,000 hybrids worldwide. Honda Motor Co., the world's second biggest maker of hybrids, is quadrupling production of the fuel-efficient cars in Japan.

``Toyota and Honda have a competitive edge over their rivals,'' said Fumiyasu Sato, chief executive officer at Milestone Asset Management, a Tokyo-based investment adviser. ``It's not going to be easy for other companies to catch up.''

 

[Kirby]

Toyota claims to have spent $2B, BMW/GM/DC are spending "only" $1B. The analyst says that Toyota has a competitive edge - but at the cost of $1B additional. They haven't even come CLOSE to making back $1B. Maybe they have a competitive edge, but certainly not a return of investment!!

 

[Big Daddy]

And it would seem that they spent their money developing the hybrid and now BMW, GM and Chrysler are going to use their technology as a base and improve on it.

 

[bmw046series]

Well I didn't think Toyata had a very high profit margin on Hybrids the way it was (funny) .

To be quite honest I don't think any of the companies are doing anything special, "hybrid" technology really isn't anything more than a petrol engine charging batteries then running on batteries. The problem is batteries are unreliable. How many of you know that when you drive a "Prius" when you turn the A/C on the gasoline engine runs, when you turn on the heater the gasoline engine runs.

If you can tell me a place in the world that needs neither A/C or heater, I'll buy you a bimmer, so if you have some cheap hybrid driver sweating his ass off in his car you know he made a good investment.

I think the three companies already unveiled an engine that was "hybrid" compliant, between the three companies you have the brightest minds in the auto industry the way it is that is why they can do if for a Billion, and I will tell you they will CREAM those smug sandal-wearing, goldfish tending Japanese doing it too.