General Motors’ Australian unit Holden reportedly is re-engineering its staple Commodore line to reduce weight and give it the performance of a petrol V6 with I4 fuel economy.
Go deeper with GlobalData
Discover B2B Marketing That Performs
Combine business intelligence and editorial excellence to reach engaged professionals across 36 leading media platforms.
That move ‘down under’ is significant because Holden exports the model widely, including Chevrolet and Pontiac-badged versions to the Middle East and North America, respectively, and also, perhaps more so, because Australia plays a major part in developing GM’s rear-drive large car platforms.
Holden was heavily involved in developing the recently announced 2009 Chevrolet Camaro and even held a special launch event for employees at around the same time as the US ‘reveal’.
Holden is considering replacing the Commodore’s spare wheel with run-flat tyres (controversial in Australia due to potential immobility in the remote regions and difficulties with repairs and replacements at outback service centres) as part of a wider plan to improve fuel efficiency by more than a fifth and reduce carbon dioxide emissions, Sydney motoring website drive.com.au said.
Holden chief Mark Reuss said the imminent move was designed to reduce weight, helping give the V6 Commodore – powered by locally-made GM ‘world’ engines – the efficiency of a four-cylinder.
US Tariffs are shifting - will you react or anticipate?
Don’t let policy changes catch you off guard. Stay proactive with real-time data and expert analysis.
By GlobalDataIronically, Holden did once made four-cylinder Commodores (the 1978 launch range, initially with I6 and V8 engines, was based on an Opel platform offered with fours and sixes). The original Commodore ‘four’ – an in-house design launched as a belated response to the 1979 Iranian revolution oil crisis – was not a success in Australia but remained in the export range for several years and model generations, eventually gaining a new Opel-designed motor, before being dropped in favour of bought-in smaller capacity I6s, also only for export.
Reuss told drive.com.au he believed getting the basics of the Commodore design right was more important than relatively expensive additions such as a hybrid powertrain, which he hinted would not happen as early as 2010. This, the report noted, was in contrast to General Motors group vice president Nick Reilly, who said recently hybrid Commodores would arrive in “a couple of years”.
“There’s a lot of things we can do in the near term and a lot of things we can do in the further term … there’s a lot more to go (in terms of efficiency improvements),” Reuss said, citing everything from weight reduction to more efficient tyres, engine improvements and better aerodynamics.
“It would be really stupid to make a sequential decision around a hybrid in a Commodore before we have efficiency in the base architecture done. I’m talking about all the pieces to get an efficient platform.”
According to drive.com.au, Reuss believes the fuel economy of a regular, petrol engine Commodore can be reduced by 20% or more so today’s official average fuel consumption figure of 10.8 litres per 100km could drop to 8.5L/100km, making the entry-level Commodore as efficient as many smaller, mid-sized four-cylinder cars such as the Mazda 6 (8.4l/100km in Australian specification) and the locally-built Toyota Camry (a key Commodore rival that gets 9.9l/100km).
“We want to give what’s important to the customers, which is the operating efficiency of a small car in a large car,” Reuss added.
He described improved fuel efficiency and CO2 emissions reduction as “a very high priority” and said the key to achieving that is stripping out weight.
