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...General Motors, company executives are once again deflecting charges that the firm is missing out on a hot new market and will have to play catch-up. GM has for years been publicly dismissive of hybrid cars. In January, vice chairman Bob Lutz described hybrids as "an interesting curiosity" and said, "We will make some," but added that they didn't make much sense with gasoline at $1.50 per gal. Gas prices are up 30% since then, but GM officials insist their strategy has not changed. The focus is still on delivering hybrid versions of SUVs and pickups while devoting...
...GM executives are now playing up their hybrid efforts and racing to retool assembly lines in order to crank out up to 1 million hybrids by 2007. The company delivered a mild-hybrid version of its full-size Chevy Silverado pickup to Miami-Dade County's government fleet last month, and plans to make the vehicles available to consumers this fall. Over the next few weeks, GM says, it will deliver 234 hybrid buses to the city of Seattle. GM executive Larry Burns claims that those buses will provide the fuel savings of 8,000 hybrid cars on the road...
...quickly. Hybrids are technologically complex and costly and require the retraining of service technicians. Toyota and Honda insist they make money from each sale, but those profits are meager compared with what they earn from conventional cars and light trucks, especially their luxury brands. The Big Three--Ford, GM and Chrysler--are even more reliant on SUVs and big pickups for profits, and if hybrids eat into sales of conventional models, the industry would be maiming a critical cash cow. So while auto executives talk of a greener future of hybrids and hydrogen-fuel-cell vehicles, they continue luring customers...
...latest sales trends don't augur well for such vehicles. Sales of some full-size SUVs, such as the Ford Excursion and Expedition and Lincoln Navigator, fell during the first four months of the year, with a sharp drop in April, while sales of GM's mighty Hummer H2 tanked 25%. Smaller SUVs and crossover models are gaining momentum. "The mix is shifting down, and that's something we haven't seen in quite a while," Girsky says. GM plans to temporarily halt assembly lines at an SUV plant near Oklahoma City, Okla., this week--one of the few times...
...Continent be far behind? - By Adam Smith Mixed Fortunes U.S. biotech firm Monsanto shelved plans to introduce the world's first genetically modified wheat, after U.S. farmers claimed there was no market for the crop abroad. Meanwhile, the E.U. said it would approve the sale of GM corn in the region this week...