GM presses the gas
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turbine button
UNDER PRESSURE from satisfied try-it-and-see operators, General Motors are now likely to put a commercial vehicle gas turbine into pilot production next spring. CM was given this news by General Motors president Mr Elliott M. "Pete" Estes during his brief visit to the UK and the Continent.
Mr Estes told us that Greyhound in particular was so pleased with the reduction in maintenance compared with diesel-engined vehicles, and with the fuel consumption on its long US express services, that it was eager to place orders for production versions.
Without the pressure from experimental users, GM would have been scheduling production to start in late 1976 or early 1977.
According to Mr Estes, the turbine's fuel consumption on long-haulage work is now "very close indeed" to equivalent diesel figures. The heat exchanger — on which good mpg vitally depends — was "now good," he reported.
Impressions of the GM turbine coach were given by C/Vrs Martin Hayes last year when he travelled on a prototype version of the turbine bus in Europe. The Mk III version of the GM FT 404 turbine developed 230kW (310 bhp) and 765Nm (5651bft) at 2,880rpm. This allowed a full loaded acceleration time 0 to 100km (60mph) in only 48sec. The coach was fitted with a fourspeed semi-automatic gearbox.
Mr Estes told journalists in London last week that America was now coming firmly out of its recession. GM saw other nations coming slowly out of recession in the first half of 1976 and more quickly in the second half — but Britain not so rapidly as most.
Total truck and car sales outside the USA would be around 18tn next year, said Mr Estes : higher than 1974 but still below 1973. The US would build and sell 2.7m trucks on the home market in 1976.
GM had great confidence in the future of Bedford/Vauxhall, but was looking for bigger market penetration with trucks and cars. Currently Bedford held 20 percent of the UK truck market and was Britain's biggest truck exporter.
Intractable emission problems had put the Wankel-type rotary engine "back in the laboratory," he told a questioner, and the US emission limits for nitrogen oxides (N0x) made a small diesel almost impossible to produce. Even the big diesel would probably not be able to meet the 1978 emission regulations as they stood — and there would have to be changes.
Government and local authority waste drew some sharp comments from the GM president. They needed some commercial efficiency, he declared, and were intolerably slow to cut back when trouble struck. "There is far too much government and local authority waste around the world right now, and some governments and city authorities are living on thin ice," he declared.