The October 2008 production and sales break-downs for GM are in their investor section. This contains information on what brands are selling what volume and what cars/trucks are selling the best from GM's inventory. Of the GM brands active in the US, and there are a few, Chevrolet was the best seller by a long shot:

• 107,313 - Chevrolet
• 21,109 - GMC
• 13,054 - Pontiac
• 9,541 - Cadillac
• 8,583 - Saturn
• 7,642 - Buick
• 1,975 - Saab
• 1,368 - Hummer

So what does GM sell the most of?

• 31,689 - Chevrolet Silverado
• 22,107 - Chevrolet Impala
• 11,256 - GMC Sierra
• 10,874 - Chevrolet Malibu
• 6,788 - Pontiac G6

The Silverado and Sierra are the same truck just with a different badge. Of the Australian connection the Pontiac G8 (Holden Commodore) sold 1,082 units in October 2008 which isn't that much, but then, Saab sold a grand total of 1,659 in the same month. Of the Corvette marque there were 1,170 sold in October.

It looks like, that even with higher oil prices, the SUV and full size pickup is still the most popular of GM's offerings. I suspect those that are attacking the manufacturers in the US for not making fuel efficient cars that people want to buy are projecting what they think GM should be producing rather than the reality of what US consumers actually buy.

It is easy to forget that Toyota and Nissan both offer full size pickup trucks in the American market. They are locally built as well. The Ford F150 outsells the Toyota Camry. The Ford pickup is the best selling vehicle in America.

Apparently the Chevrolet Aveo RS that is currently on display in Detroit came out of the Holden Design Studios at Fisherman's Bend.

Not a bad design for a small car. They tend to be difficult to look mean and angry, or get a decent stance on the road for that matter. This car seems to have it.

Quite interesting that Holden's design is being acknowledged around the place. Holden produced the Effy FJ re-imagination as well as the Commodore Coupe 60 concept in recent times that made their way to the United States.

The Holden Coupe 60 which was supposed to be the next generation Holden Monaro and Pontiac GTO ended up being still born. Wonderful lines though for a big two-door coupe.

The Chevrolet Volt is an attempt to match the reality that 80% + drivers of cars drive less that 40 miles in a day, which is within the range of electric cars, and that consumers have range anxiety and occasionally make long trips that are a couple of hundred miles.

The Volt has an electric engine driven off batteries that can be recharged from an electric power plug or by a small four cylinder petrol engine in the car. It is a rather ingenious design that ensures the electric engines are always propelling the car but the petrol engine acts as a generator to solve the range problem.

In the current automotive world the new generation of cars fighting it out for technical innovation away from fossil fuels are the Toyota Prius, the Tesla, the Nissan Leaf and the Chevrolet Volt. They all come at it with a slightly different angle.

The Prius or hybrid technology solves the problem of where most petrol is wastefully consumed in a modern road system - basically traffic lights and traffic jams when the car is at rest or close to it. IN these times the hybrid engines revert to running electrically until they need the acceleration or high revs that a petrol engine excels at.

The Tesla and Leaf are pure electric. They come at the issue of range anxiety by multiple means, but the main response is a bigger battery, or in the Tesla's case more batteries. The main issue with batteries are that they are heavy, and they take a long time to recharge.

In Bob Lutz's book the Volt gets a chapter to itself. GM appears to have spent a lot of time developing hydrogen based engines and fuel technology. One of the advantages electric and hybrids have in modern automative infrastructure is that power points for electricity and gas stations already exist and are plentiful. Hydrogen engines would require a large infrastructure expenditure. Additionally GM was behind in publicity stakes as Toyota had the Prius as its lead environmentally friendly car;

Lauckner listened, not so patiently, to my all-electric dream (like the Tesla/Leaf). When Jon has a thought that simply must get out, he starts banging his knees together repeatedly. Banging them now, he said,

"Look, I know you've got your heart set on all-electric, but let me show you why that's a bad idea. With lithium-ion you et assuming an efficient car, five miles per kilowatt/hours. So to get a hundred mile range, you need twenty kilowatt/hours. But since you never want to drain the whole battery because it impacts battery life, we'd want a thirty kilowatt battery. That's huge. And even if we've got th world's best price on lithium battery, you'd be talking a thousand dollars per kilowatt, or a thirty thousand dollar battery pack. And you don't even have a car around it. And you'd still only have a hundred mile range on a good day! Now here's my idea."

With that, on a lined pad, and using his expensive gold-nibbed pen, Jon laid out what was to become the Chevrolet Volt. ... Jon sketched the chassis, "The sixteen-kilowatt battery goes down the middle and out like a T under the back seat. That's nominally good for 80 miles, so we'll only use eight kilowatts; that'll make the battery last forever. This way, it's good for forty miles, and then we'll cut in the little 1.4 litre engine which will drive a generator to keep the battery supplied with juice for another three hundred miles."

One of the good things about the Prius being around for a while is that consumers are over their initial impression of batteries needing to be replaced constantly like they do in flashlights. So it is accepted that a battery based car will be reliable, in the same way a gas powered one is.

The Volt was put on the Cruze platform but the nature of the platform meant the flat looking concept car would not be possible. Ironically the engineers hit other issues when the concept car was put in the wind tunnel;

As luck would have it, wind tunnel tests of the original concept design we couldn't have executed it anyway. Despite a svelt and slippery looking shape, the Volt concept had the aerodynamic qualities of a rough edged brick.

Aerodynamics is an important element in the quest for fuel economy at speeds above 30 mph, air resistance is a far greater factor in resistance to forward motion than rolling resistance but absolutely essential in electric vehicles, which, with fully charged batteries, only have the equivalent of one and a half gallons of gasoline. ... Upon seeing the results [of the wind tunnel tests] some of the guys wondered if we had put it [Volt Concept] in backward by mistake.

I have seen one Volt in Arizona. It looks like a normal passenger car, something like a mix between a Cruze and a Civic. For now production is still ramping up with Chevrolet only producing 1500 or so a month and most of those are going to more environmentally aware states like California, New York, etc and the bigger markets like Texas.

Chevrolet has released a couple of very good looking concepts at the Detroit Motor Show; the Tru and the Code. Both have a strong design direction, but one that is attainable in the near future. I suspect the 2013 Corvette will have some of the Tru's styling on its rear end. The Ford Fusion looks pretty good too. Between the Chevrolet and Ford products and concepts the new Cadillac ATS is looking a bit mild, old and passe. Nice job Chevrolet and Ford.