When the Chevy Tahoe Hybrid was named "Green Car of the Year" at the Los Angeles Auto Show last year, we had a "WTF?" reaction. Unlike the maudlin mainstream media, we didn't see the logic of putting that much effort into a gas-guzzling behemoth with lagging sales when it could be better used in smaller, more salable vehicles. The LA Times' Dan Neil had a similar reaction when he drove it. While the Pulitzer-prize winning auto critic found the execution of the technology flawless, he questioned the claimed milage imporvements. "What would the mileage of this vehicle be with all the improved aerodynamics [the hybrid has a Cd of 0.34 as opposed to the standard model's 0.39], low-rolling resistance tires and aluminum body panels, yet without the fretful weight (and cost) of the hybrid system?" Echoing a sentiment expressed on this site several times, Dan the Man asks, "Does this super-low-volume program do more for corporate image than corporate average fuel economy?" In his final analysis he concludes, "For now, we have this paradox, a fantastically fuel-efficient vehicle that's still a gas hog. A hybrid that's simultaneously good (promise) and bad (reality). Matters can only get more muddled when the Hybrid Hummer comes rolling out." Meanwhile, GM has announced they'll introduce a scaled-down version of the Tahoe's "dual mode" system in the '09 Saturn Vue Green Line.

So GM wants to "spark a broader, global discussion" about the issues bedeviling The General. GMNext is their answer to the question how do we accept questions without [necessarily] providing answers? I'm no web designer (cough), but I like the look of the thing, and hey, it IS open source. Others in the biz aren't so sure. This from commentator filbrand on Slashdot: "The site is ugly. It looks like the marketing guys got into the buzz of Web 2.0 and told their Windows programmers that they wanted that for their site. The result? A .NET site with Wordpress knee-jerked inside. The site (as most of .NET crap) doesn't even validate [w3.org]. Even the blog, based on Wordpress, must have been so messed up that it doesn't validate [w3.org] either. And what an awful theme! Where do these guys get their webdesigners from? Although I think they still have a lot to learn about using open source, I have to applaud at least their try. Although it's one step back, it's two forward. :-)." TTAC's best and brightest, what say you? 

Contrary to popular belief, panic is a logical reaction to an external threat. When a cornered animal’s fight or flight responses are unavailable or exhausted, acting erratically is its only hope. GM has been showing signs of panic for some time: on-again off-again product plans, vainglorious boasts, mistimed marketing, ill-advised divestiture and more. Recent events indicate that the domestic automaker’s aberrant behavior is escalating; leading, I’m afraid, to extinction. But let’s start with the meta-weirdness and work our way back to specific inexplicability. 

The dorsal fin is what put it over the top for me, literally. When I was a tyke of six in Austria, I ogled cars like a fifteen year old with X-ray vision at a cheerleading camp. But the most tataliscous bod my eyes could never get enough of was the Tatra down the street. Its radical aerodynamic form was already twenty years old, but with its dorsal fin, tear-drop shape, rear engine and uncompromising fluid lines, the Tatra positively screamed “futuristic” to me then. Hell, it’s still ahead of the times today.

After Altairnano's Eliminator dragster eliminated the world's record quarter mile sprint for an electric vehicle (EV), I called the company to ask them what it's like to own the "shit off a shovel" EV mindspace. During my podcast (below) with Bob Geobel, the company's Sales and Marketing Veep claimed his company's high density lithium-titanate battery is ready for hybrid passenger car prime time. "It's the low heat and low resistance of the battery that allows power to come out of that battery much quicker than standard battery technology. It can be charged quickly without thermal damage or overheating" And that means faster recharge times (four to five minutes using a 250 volt charger), more on-demand power and only a nine degree increase in the battery's temperature. So why haven't carmakers jumped on the zero emissions NanoSafe bandwagon? "While they're all looking at it, they've got it programmed in possibly in three to five years." That "possibly" doesn't include any contracts. If you're thinking why not Tesla, it seems the Silicon Valley start-up had their packaging requirements locked-in, and couldn't change gears. So to speak.  

The [literally] rivet counting debate over whether or not one should include the Scion brand in Toyota's sales totals– to determine whether or not Toyota's overtaken Ford as America's top automotive brand– seems to have sailed straight over the media's head. In the hangover morning after December's dismal new car sales results, the mainstream press has pronounced Toyota the new champ. The news ain't all good for ToMoCo. Reality has forced them to rein-in their previous '08 throw-down, where they predicted a three percent sales growth for '08. The Wall Street Journal reports that company spokesman Irv Miller told some industry types that a "confluence of factors," including a widespread credit crunch, high gasoline prices, a housing downturn and "critically fragile consumer confidence" has forced his employer to revise the number downwards. The Japanese automaker says it's now looking at a one to two percent gain for the year. Echoing GM's spinmeisters, contradicting most every gainfully employed financial analyst, Miller reckons sales will rebound in the second half of '08. Meanwhile, the Houston Chronicle says sales of Toyota's Texas-built Tundra fell short of the company's 200k target by 3,445 trucks. "Like the rest of the industry, the full-size pickup segment saw its fair share of challenges in 2007," said Toyota brand manager Bob Carter. Hell boy, you ain't seen nothin' yet. 

Ethanol is all-around more expensive than gasoline. You don't need to do the math to prove it– because Professor Emeritus Don Elliott of the University of Northern Colorado did it for you. In a letter to the editor of The Tribune, he refutes their misleading claim that ethanol is less expensive and produces less pollution per gallon than gasoline. Using a more realistic measure of cost per miles driven, he shows that a vehicle running on E85 needs 40 percent more fuel to go the same distance as one burning gasoline, and E85 would cost 9.6 percent more per mile driven. On the pollution issue, he figures in the emissions from the fossil fuels used to produce the ethanol as well as the greenhouse gasses E85 produces. When looking at the total pollution produced by each fuel, he computes E85 produces 15.5 percent more greenhouse gasses per mile. How's THAT for an inconvenient truth?

KY3.com reports that that Missouri Governor Matt Blunt is so deep inside the ethanol industry's pockets that he's using the lint for a pillow [paraphrasing]. The Gov wants The Show Me State's legislature to craft some new E85 pork barrel filler: $2m worth of tax credits for gas stations to re-equip with E85 pumps. As we've heard that it takes $200k to convert a gas station to E85itude, Blunt is either trying to fly under the radar or doing some symbolic showboating to appease the ethanol lobby. But wait, there's more! "Another of the governor’s proposals is for state income tax credits for people who buy E85. The credits would be 25 cents per gallon in the first year, 20 cents per gallon in the second and third years, and 15 cents per gallon after that, with a maximum of $500 per taxpayer per year." Blunt reckons that little deal would save Missouri's theoretical E85 [only] users an average of 70 cents per gallon over regular gas. Which  is just as well, considering that the corn juice is some 28.5 percent less efficient than non-E85 gas. 

My first TTAC-exclusive rendering for 2008: Toyota's eighth incarnation of the Celica. Toyota has already given us a few tips regarding the looks of their next sports car via the FT-HS Concept. However, the concept car has lots of “show-thingies” that are as unfit for market release as the vowel-less name. Gone will be the “hybrid-synergy-drive” hood scoop, the fancy roof or the unnecessary rear air intakes. Other parts like the expensive carbon-fiber compound wheels or the tiny mirrors will be replaced with components better fit for mass production and road-use. I also believe that the front air intakes will be a bit larger, as proper cooling is very important in a performance car. I added two extra intakes underneath the front lights, because I thought they will temper a bit the original “yacht-smile” of the FT-HS. The lights will feature more conventional technologies, the usual H9 and or Xenon lamps + LEDs for signals, that giving them a slightly different look. As always, we shall see what we shall see…

[For more Avarvarii photochopistry, click here.]

Pickup trucks may not be the deathtraps the NHTSA and IIHS tests make them out to be. Forbes reports research done by Virginia Commonwealth University that compared crash test ratings against data on fatal crashes. They found that while cars with higher crash test ratings show fewer fatalities than those with lower ratings, the same wasn't true for pickup trucks. In the NHTSA and IIHS tests, trucks are crashed into stationary barriers while in the real world, most crashes are vehicle-to-vehicle. In those cases, researchers postulate, the ladder frame in the pickups act as a "battering ram," allowing it to withstand an impact from a smaller, lighter vehicle better than when striking a stationary barrier. Of course, the IIHS dismisses the idea, saying they have no evidence that ladder-frame construction has any effect on crashworthiness. After all, why let real-world facts get in the way of laboratory results?

The Financial Times confirms the news everyone's been expecting (and endlessly reporting): the Indian conglomerate Tata has been named the "leading bidder" for the coupled Jaguar/Land Rover brands. In other words, the deal is their to lose. While the FT says Tata will enrich Ford's corporate coffers by somewhere between $1.8b and $2.2b, and you can bet we'll hear the words "core business" from Ford on sale day, the sale represents an abject failure/humiliating defeat for FoMoCo. Comments like this have got to hurt: "Efraim Levy, automotive analyst at Standard & Poor’s equity research arm, said Tata would be able to invest in Jaguar and Land Rover in ways Ford could not afford to." More irony: Tata is something akin to India's Ford; the company that's pledged to build a $2,500 car for its domestic market. So why would Tata repeat Ford's mistake? Enquiring minds, like Michael Tyndall at Nomura Securities in London, want to know. “Tata gets recognition on the global scene. You could argue that it gets technology expertise. But … overlap between the two company’s product portfolios is practically zero.” Meanwhile, Ford gets to burn through a few month's more cash. I jest, I jest. Perhaps this heralds the return of Lincoln as more than just "Ford with leather seats."

Can 30,311 British citizens subjects be wrong? That's how many inhabitants of the North Sea island nation have signed an online petition calling for Prime Minister Gordon Brown to step down and make way for Top Gear presenter and notorious "Little Englander" (a.k.a. xenophobe) Jeremy Clarkson. Yahoo! News reports the petition is getting more attention than petitions for issues like fuel duty rates. Apparently Downing Street is taking the petition seriously; they routinely remove petitions from the official government website that The Oxbridge Powers-That-Be consider spurious. If they leave the Clarkson for PM petition alone, it will hang around until its closing date of April 17. Even the conservative Daily Mail newspaper is getting on the bandwagon: they ran a page full of suggested policies Prime Minister Clarkson should adopt. If he'll accept suggestions from the Colonies, I humbly recommend appointing Hamster as Transport Minister.

Bob Lutz said it last month. Rick Wagoner confirmed it this month: you won't see a Volt on the road until after 2010. According to The Detroit News, GM's CEO had an online chat about GM's 100th anniversary yesterday. During this e-schmooze, Wagoner said "We continue to put massive resources into production as soon as possible. 2010 would be great, but (we) can't guarantee that at this time. We'll keep you posted regularly on our progress." He wouldn't say exactly why they were backpedaling so fast on their promise to have the plug-in electric Hail Mary hybrid on the road by 2010, but Rabid Rick did say they were still working on the design of the production version and testing battery packs. Even though the current Volt looks nothing like the production model– the brass is tap dancing around the design of the tweaked production version– GM still uses the "cobbled together" (Maximum Bob's term) concept car in its ads as if it was readily available for purchase right now. But then again, GM's doing the exact same with the Malibu so why should we be surprised?

Heavy frost blanketed Broken Bow Lake, Oklahoma, where my sons and I bade farewell to 2007. Thirty hearty souls braved the sub-freezing night for a fly fishing adventure. Predawn light revealed our trucks standing sentinel over the smoldering remains of the previous night’s campfires. Through my billowing breath, I examined ice crystals forming a thousand little shrines on the SUVs’ sheet metal. A thought occurred to me: everyone that made the journey to our pine needle-carpeted glade did so in a heavy bodied American SUV or pickup. In that early morning chill I wondered, is the Kia Sorento ready to join the club?