All About Japan Autos

Daily Auto News

About one quarter of the hybrid vehicles General Motors has sold have been Saturns. Saturn, GM has announced, will be terminated by the end of 2009.

This presents a problem for the automaker. Autoblog explains, “Removing those sales from GM’s total will likely have a negative impact on GM’s overall CAFE numbers, at least in the short term.” GM must meet federally-mandated average fuel economy standards – and it has depended on Saturn’s hybrid sales to help it do so.

Kicking Tires reports, “The hit to GM’s CAFE average will be partially mitigated by the shuttering of Hummer and Pontiac,” but that alone won’t be enough to allow GM to meet CAFÉ standards. Instead, “Saturn’s hybrid technology will still likely need to be used in cars from the remaining brands. That’s because hybrid versions of the Chevy Malibu and Silverado and the GMC Sierra Hybrid probably won’t cut it when it comes to CAFE, and the much-hyped Chevy Volt will make up only a negligible portion of the market when it’s released.”

Autoblog speculates, “The powertrain of the two-mode Saturn Vue will almost certainly be migrated to other GM vehicles such as the new Chevy Equinox and Cadillac SRX, helping the entire porfolio’s numbers as well.”

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