General Motors Corp. earlier announced its intention to lure the medium duty market to go for gasoline engines instead of diesel units. In this regard, the automaker will be renaming a company website that touts medium-duty gasoline engines as an excellent alternative to diesel engines. However, critics in the industry are saying that the strategy seems so strange.
GM introduced whygasengines.com, which was registered on November 20. Its goal is to persuade visitors to use gasoline engines than diesel counterparts. Whygas.com is the original domain name of the website but it was replaced with whygasengines.com to better “match the site’s purpose,” said Greg Martin, GM’s Washington-based spokesman upon acknowledging “the irony of the name.”
The change of domain name occurred when GM was battling the notion that it is behind the Toyota Motor Corp. and other auto giants with regards to production of eco vehicles. GM launched the website to pump up sales of its medium-duty gasoline engines, which cost anywhere from $6,000 to $15,000 less than its diesel counterparts.
The website gives reasons why people should shift to gasoline engines. For one, gasoline engines cost less than diesel engines. They are also more universally available, easy to service, have fast cab heater warm-up and a good solution for lower-mileage applications. Gasoline engines are also quiet in operation. The site also provides a calculator that suggests how much a customer could save in purchasing a gas engine over a diesel.
GM is capitalizing on the difference to sell more gasoline engines over diesel for commercial trucks. The website touts gasoline engines used in dump trucks, ambulances, some large trucks, and U-Haul moving vans. It also offers potential customers a coffee mug worth $10 if they ask information about gas engines.
“Our Gas Engine. Powerfully cost-effective,” the Web site says, promoting “the advantages of gas Why gas? Learn more.” The automaker has reported that of 60,000 medium-duty engines sold in 2006, 9,000 were gasoline-powered Vortec 8.1-liter V-8s. Among other diesel engines, GM sells the Duramax 6.6-liter V-8 diesel engine.
It can be recalled that the new regulations aimed at producing new clean diesel made such products costly. However, it is treated as a plus factor in promoting cleaner air because it reduces particulate emissions while producing as much as 25 per cent better gas mileage than gas engines.
Rick Wagoner, GM CEO and Chairman, said the company will “dramatically intensify our efforts to displace petroleum-based fuels by building a lot more vehicles that run on alternatives, such as E85 ethanol.”
On the other side of it, critics in the industry find the move strange for the automaker to do. “It seems strange that they are pushing gasoline as more available when on the other hand they are touting the advantages of E85 for light duty vehicles, which is significantly less available than diesel,” said David Friedman, research director of the clean vehicle program for the Union of Concerned Scientists.
Rob Minton, GM spokesman, defended the site by saying, “To suggest that there is any message beyond the site’s intent as a marketing tool for a very, very specific segment of the market is ridiculous and silly.” GM will be promoting the website through print ads, online banner ads, a CD-ROM and search engine marketing.
GM is currently working in a partnership with other companies like QUANTUM Technologies, Inc. and General Hydrogen to further its engines, strut mount and other auto parts. Automakers are continuously upgrading their auto parts and accessories. Toyota, the world leader in hybrid manufacture is entertaining more innovations. Auto parts like Volvo strut mount and Ford engines are also showing different levels of sophistication. Hence, GM, as the leader in the field must be cautious about the mounting competition.
20 users commented in " Gm Targets Medium-duty Market for Gasoline Engines "
Follow-up comment rss or Leave a TrackbackI have a degree in mechanical engineering and I worked for a major oil company for 35 years. They paid me just as well as they did the petroleum engineers. In fact I was so well paid that I retired before I was 60 years old. I also had a really interesting, challenging and rewarding career.
It really isn't the degree you have that determines your success but doing what you enjoy and how you apply yourself to the opportunities you have.
No… not unless you meet the requirements of the new degree program.. It may take an extra year of schooling – maybe more.
You need to check with the Petroleum Engineering department to see what the requirements are – THEN you must look at the course offerings and see if you can take the necessary courses in a reasonable time.
It may take two years to accomplish.
Texas Tech has an excellent PE school as well as a great Petroleum Geology program….one of our professors pretty much wrote the book on well logs…hes world renown…his name is Dr.George Asquith.
Yes you can specialize in petroleum with a chem eng degree. Some schools also have petroleum engineering course.
It won't be replaced soon, don't worry.
But even if it was replaced by next year by some unknown fuel source, petroleum is still used in giant quantities to make rubber, plastics, detergents, fertilizer and endless other chemicals.
I don't know what you would call a "top engineering school" but there are certainly a lot of chemical engineers working for oil companies in the area that a petroleum engineer would normally work.
Many don't come from the "top schools" but rather from the "good" schools that produce the majority of engineers who are the back bone of the US economy.
The truth is the "top schools" really don't produce any better engineers than the "good" schools. When it comes to actual application of engineering principles, it is the ability to reason, organize and think logically that gets the work done and that is really independent of the school you graduate from.
My definition of a "good" school is most of the state universities that have an accredited engineering school.
If what your looking for is hands on all the way it may be difficult to find an online class but if it just learning A, B, and C in your head it very possible that the degree can be gotten online sorry I can't help out much.
If you have the oil industry in mind for ChE as well. . . I'd go for any major colleges in the part the country where they actually have oil. You have a lot better access to what goes on in the real world that way.
I did my ChE BS in a non-oil area. . . I have a ton of college friends who are working in TX now for the oil companies (not my interest, though), so it's not that you don't learn what you need to know elsewhere. It's just a bit more frustrating if you can't see it, you know?
You do need to be prepared for a good challenge. I can confirm that at least ChE is NOT something you can slack off and still get a degree in — I worked harder with a 12-hour schedule than some other engineering majors did with 14-16+. I never met anyone in my school's petroleum program to ask how it was. . . tiny, tiny major. I'd expect there will always be a demand for both fields, although I'd be inclined to think the long-term (career-length, perhaps) outlook is better for ChE since you're less tied to these fossil fuels we're trying to cut down on using. Both seem to pay really well (#1 and #2 for starting salaries at my undergrad engineering school), although I hope you're not letting that dictate your career choices — you may go insane after 2-3 years if so.
There is a lot of work left to be done and (relatively speaking) there are not that many PE grads every year that are able to do it. Of course the industry is cyclical (I know this since I graduated in 1998 with very low oil prices). I did manage to find a job and it was been a very rewarding career.
Also – you can't beat the starting salaries coming out of school. This year the average is in the $90,000-100,000 range with about a $25,000 signing bonus. Not too shabby.
West Virginia University has an excellent engineering college that is recognized around the world for it's Petroleum and Mining Engineering degrees. When I went to school there (for Aerospace Engineering), it was very common to even have countries from the middle east send students there to learn how to do things right.
It is also a great school, beautiful and a lot of fun to go to.
The oil market will be fine for the next few years, but I would not be surprised if the job market for petroleum and pharmacy starts to get much more competitive.
There is still plenty of oil, but be warned.. petroleum is not exactly a walk in the park. I know a few people at UT Austin in petroleum who absolutely hated it and decided to switch either to business or a different engineering field. If you do not have an interest in the topics studied in petroleum then you will hate it, even if your job years down the line does pay well.
Oil and oil refinement are not going away in our lifetimes, petroleum is necessary for many precursors like plastics and many synthetic chemicals.
If you are still 2-3 years from starting your BS than keep an open mind and do your research. Alternative energy is definitely going to grow as well, so that might be an option too (not sure how that fits in degree-wise, but it is an emergent field)
As for trends in a few decades, obviously no one can say for sure, but petroleum is gonna be involved one way or another ^_^
I believe the petroleum engineering is more based on refinery operations and the oil and gas is a field engineer working on oil and gas production from the ground or ocean
If you disregard University of Texas at Austin and Texas A&M, then the best colleges for Petroleum Engineering are:
Stanford University (CA)
Colorado School of Mines
University of Oklahoma
Louisiana State University–Baton Rouge
University of Tulsa (OK)
Texas Tech University
Penn State University–University Park
New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology
If you desire to be an engineer, one would think you would have the skills and knowledge to navigate to the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana website on your own.
You could use that degree as a start to then earn a Petroleum Engineering degree from the University of Houston, A&M, University of Texas or Texas Tech. They all offer both BS and MS degrees in Petroleum Engineering. The University of Houston just started their PE program in 2009 whereas the other 3 Texas schools have well established PE programs.
If your grades are good you should have no problem transferring to a 4-year program. You might lose some credit hours due to the differences in curriculum between Petroleum Tech and Petroleum Engineering. However, I have seen some of the Petroleum Tech programs which provided about 80% of similar classes as Petroleum Engineering during the first 2 years.
The easiest way to find out is to contact the University of Houston and discuss this with them as to what will transfer and what will not.
Info on Texas A&M program is available on the website. Also is an email where you can ask this question directly
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