Faced with the inevitable return of fuel economy as a consumer issue, General Motors, several years ago, set out to establish ways of squeezing more kilometres out of a tank of fossil fuel.
A handful of methods were decided upon and -- as evidence of the import of fuel economy as a looming problem -- all were given the go-ahead.
Each will be showing up for public consideration in the years to come, but for now the technology under review is at once the most effective, the least expensive, the most elegant, the least difficult to manufacture, and the most fraught with danger to GM's PR image.
The technology is cylinder-deactivation and early indications are that it will provide as much as a 10 per cent increase in fuel economy for people who's driving is done largely in an urban setting.
On the public relations front, GM tried cylinder-deactivation almost two decades ago with the 8, 6 and 4 engines in a Cadillac, and the very mention of that today will still make veterans of the experience blanch.
To his credit, the man charged with putting cylinder-deactivation back into the GM technology portfolio (though with the more pro-active title of Displacement on Demand) brings the issue up before anything else. Fred Rosario even claims to be grateful for the scars the 8, 6 and 4 engines left on the GM body politic, since it made him and the company resolutely committed to doing the next iteration of the technology dead, solid perfect -- at least.