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Originally Posted by Martinjlm
Not at all. Chevrolets and Buicks both have leather seats. Buick should have nicer leather, maybe heated and cooled compared to Chevrolet heated OR offer the heated and cool across all vehicles where Chevrolet offers only on higher trim levels. Or maybe offer 12 way power where Chevrolet offers 8 way power. Buick could come with 8 speaker stereo and option to go to 12. Chevrolet could offer 8 speaker stereo with option to go to 10. There’s a lot that can be done with content to manage the price ladder and customer perceived value.
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See that example there I see that as handicapping Chevrolet but not being able to offer features.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Martinjlm
CAFE.
Remember, it wasn’t just GM. The whole INDUSTRY went from RWD to FWD. Europe was already there. They have historically had stricter emissions and fuel economy rules and higher fuel prices than the US, so fuel economy improving technologies tend to happen there first. At the old levels of efficiency, FWD vs RWD on vehicles of similar size and mass was a 1 or 2 mpg improvement. In regulation-land that’s huge, especially when the average fuel economy was significantly under 20 mpg. One mpg improvement on a 20 mpg car is 5%.
Remember the Ford Probe? A little FWD coupe? That was shockingly close to becoming a Mustang replacement. Before you hurt yourself laughing at that, remember the Chevy Beretta? A little FWD coupe? Was almost Camaro replacement. And who could forget the K-Car? All FWD. All reactions to the early CAFE rules.
On a more positive note, those rules drove a lot of invention. The industry learned how to get huge power and decent fuel economy out of relatively small engines because it had to. The industry learned how to make transmissions more efficient while also being capable of handling huge torque loads because it had to.
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So FWD is more efficient? I guess I would just think RWD would be more efficient because it seems simpler but what do i know lol