Putting a price on supplier innovation - Supplier Business - General Motors Corp. and Delphi Corp. codevelop four-wheel steering system - Quadrasteer - related article: Profit-boosting technologies
A few years ago General Motors entered the 24-Hours of LeMans. Alas, arrogance alone doesn’t win races.
GM’s executives then were so gun-shy they never went near a reporter without a phalanx of public relations people. Likewise, it was virtually impossible for journalists to talk with GM engineers, designers, or product planners without public relations guards standing close by.
It still seems to take forever and a day to make a product decision over there.
But I came for more than a chance to hang out with the girls and boys and check out the toys. I wanted to see the new GM, versus the troubled old giant I began covering in 1982.
Here, I drove GM’s concept Hy-wire fuel cell model, which also dispenses with most conventional mechanical linkages in turning its wheels. The Hy-wire quite literally is a sensory vehicle — employing sensors to start, steer, accelerate, and stop — among other things.
Having said that, GM definitely is a better company than it used to be.
Hydrogen fuel cells convert hydrogen and oxygen into electric power to drive cars and trucks — or to operate anything else that needs energy. In cars, the expected advantage is the elimination of nearly all tailpipe emissions.
DOD was tried and failed by GM in 1986, largely because the company designed it for one engine but wound up using it on another; and also because the computer controls needed to make it operate correctly weren’t up to snuff. Now, GM has both the engines and the computer sensors right. Looks like a go.
Clean Running