Kill the Messenger - this time the LA Times

[tw]

Originally Posted by hot_pastrami

Do you have an MBA tw? I only ask because it seems to be an MBA-ish trait to latch onto one little "factoid" (70 HP/litre!), which isn't accurate under all circumstances, and parrot it endlessly, as though it's some universal guiding truth. It's more commonly known as "tunnel vision."

Horsepower per liter is a trend. A trend that engineers can appreciate and MBAs will routinely ignore. Horsepower per liter is something a spread sheeter would never understand and the myopic would rather deny.

Even GM has pockets of unstifled innovation. A recent Corvette engine did 70 Hp/liter with only two valves per cylinder. But when Hp per liter is applies across the GM product line, it becomes painfully obvious why GM cars cost more to build and why GM has no domestic profits. GM cars must install two extra pistons - and all those other expensive parts such as valves, piston rings, cam and crank lobes, fuel system components, etc to only do same as everyone else. GM products have been so bad for so long as even exposed by one little factoid - Hp/liter.

No, I am not just focusing on Hp per liter to say GM products suck. Only a fool would say that number is complete proof for only one model. Provided is one damning number - historically accurate - that every consumer can calculate. GM products are so bad that even Horsepower per liter for GM vehicles is 20% lower.

When VW went from crap products back to being a profitable company, VW's 'Horsepower per liter' increased to seventy across the product line. VW went from 'bottom of the barrel' reliability to mid level reliability at the same time their products started doing 70 Horsepower per liter. Horsepower per liter indicates that VW was going to be profitable because HP/liter is a typical product oriented indicator that MBA types must ignore.

Thirty years ago, GM could have been doing what is now world standard. GM products are so crappy as to still not do what is world standard. xoxoxoBruce noted other reasons why GM products are such crap. They still sell as 2005 technology engines using push rods. That 3.8 liter engines is so crappy that an editorial in Wards Automotive said GM could not even give it away to Honda or Toyota. Obviously. Ward's Automotive said the 3.8 liter engine uses technology that only a bean counter could love. It is a pathetic 50+ HP per liter engine. Products so pathetic as to even use push rod technology.

GM had the technology long before anyone. But when MBAs get finished instituting cost controls, then product oriented advances get stifled. Obviously GM has no profits. Look at the Hp per liter number. Therein lies the reason why. Innovation from even 30 years ago could not be implemented. Today, even the MBA types can now see what the consumer could have seen ten years ago. GM products have low Horsepower per liter numbers which suggests the entire product line is crap. A number that even demonstrates why GM still has no hybrid vehicles.