Ouch. According to The Motor Authority, the big cat didn't quite move 60,500 units last year. Yet its British sibling Land Rover sold 226,395 4x4s. Turns out that our nouveau riche Russian and Chinese comrades prefer rock-hopping to intercontinental cruising. Who knew? We're kidding by the way, as 99.9% of those Land Rovers will never leave socialist asphalt. Regardless, Jaguar is shagged. The Blue Oval Boyz blame for their sub-brand's sharp sales decline on the S-Type's death rattle. We're thinking several decades of inept management culminating in front wheel-drive diesel-powered Ford station wagons had something to do with it. But what about the new XF? Well, as car-mudgeon Jeremy Clarkson points out, Jaguar's new 5-Series competitor fails to realize the XF concept car's mission critical sex appeal. How'd Jezza put it? "Arguing that the two have the same proportions and stance is like saying I have the same proportions and stance as Brad Pitt. I do. But I'm never asked for his autograph." Jaguar dealers are claiming 10,000 pre-orders. As George Carlin would say, what the hell's a pre-order? An order before an order? Oh, and did you think Tata Motors wanted to buy Jag? No way. To acquire profitable Land Rover, the Indian motoring powerhouse had to adopt the underachieving, inbred, basket case money pit as well. They're still trying to get out of that one. 

The Houston Chronicle reports that Nissan spent $3.9m last year on lobbying in Washington, D.C. What's Nissan's beef with the feds? "The U.S. segment of the Japanese automaker lobbied Congress on anti-dumping, currency exchange-rate manipulation and other trade competitiveness issues. The company also lobbied on renewable energy and average fuel economy standards, among other issues." While we'd like a LOT more specific info, it's worth seeing that number in context. According to Opensecrets.org, Toyota spent $2,730,000 and GM spent $6,420,000 on lobbying legislators in '07. Despite the recent battle over federal Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards, both GM and Toyota forked-out about $2m less on their lobbying efforts than they did in the previous year. What does all that tell you? Seriously; I have no idea.

Clean Green Cars (CGG) is providing some rhetorical ammo for Porsche's fight against changes to London's Congestion Charge. CGG worries that the new emission-based charges are likely to increase CO2 emissions and congestion. That's cause Londoners are snapping-up what Clean Green calls "Congestion Charge Busters:" vehicles whose tailpipe emissions (120g/km of CO2 or less) give their owners a free ride. Some 200 British new car models qualify; in the last year, their market share has increased from 5.4 percent to 7.4 percent. Clean Green reckons that number will soon soar to 10 percent and beyond. While that's a good thing, it's possibly a bad thing. Congestion charging was supposedly designed to get people to drive less— not buy higher mileage cars and keep on driving. Or drive even more. Clean Green Cars recommends that London kill the exemption altogether and implement a graduated scale of charges: £4 for the lowest emission cars, £8 for moderate emission cars and £12 for vehicles that spew over 225g/kms of carbon. Fare enough?

That is, of course, the logical headline for a column comparing Chrysler's main players to various dog breeds. But Ward's Automotive can't say that, so they go with "Chrysler Bares Teeth in Dog-Eat-Dog Business Climate." If you think that's a bit forced, try reading Eric Mayne's column. It starts off as a clever-ish lead: "This is an historic month. For the first time in Westminster Kennel Club’s 132-year history, a beagle won best-of-show. And precisely this time last year, Chrysler started going to the dogs. [ED: see?] Before the next quarter concluded, the pentastar pack had a new leader – one with three heads." Mayne is like a dog with a bone; he simply refuses to surrender his metaphor. "According to Puppyfind.com, [Chrysler Veep Jim] Press would be a Blue Tick Coonhound. Bred to track crafty game capable of fleeing through a woodland canopy, they are 'good problem-solvers,' the site says." Mayne identifies Vice Chairman and President Tom LaSorda's spirit dog as a Cane Corso Italiano, a.k.a. Italian Mastiff. CEO Bob Nardelli "can only be a Siberian Husky." And then Mayne finally gives us five sentences approaching genuine analysis. Pardon me while I get my pooper scooper.

Cerberus Capital Management had to know it was taking on risk when it picked up Chrysler and GMAC at cut-rate prices. After all, Chrysler had tried its level best to drag Daimler down during their brief, unhappy marriage and GMAC is hardly a low-risk proposition given the current credit market dyspepsia. But private equity firms are big and loaded, right? Cerberus will weather the storm, right? Andrew Sorkin of the NY Times' Dealbook blog reckons it might not, and predicts dire consequences for all of private equity-dom. Noting Cerberus' founder Stephen Feinberg's disdain for publicity in the wake of its purchase of the terrible twins, Sorkin figures the fund is in for some more bad press in coming days. He calls the purchases "perhaps the riskiest bets at the peak of the buyout boom," and points to Chrysler's $18b in pension and health care liabilities as a potential cause for a Cerberus meltdown. If such a meltdown were to occur, it would certainly have Sorkin running for his superlatives thesaurus.

According to CHINAdaily, China's auto industry is booming, and the city of Guangzhou is feeling the pinch. "We will increase the total number of parking spaces in the city by 150k between now and 2010, with 50k coming this year," says Wang Dong, director of the Guangzhou urban planning bureau. Last year, Guangzhou had more than 1m cars on its roads; officials licensed 600 new cars per day. In an effort to increase total parking capacity by 50k, the city's OKed five large car parks at a cost of 1b Yuan ($140m). Meanwhile, China's National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) have approved a group of "new" domestic vehicles. In a riff on Detroit badge-engineering, only a few are completely new models. The majority are comprised of "upgraded products from existing models." Chinese carmakers have released some 90 models a year for the past five years, including 20 "completely new ones." Finally, in an effort to curb "resource-intensive sectors and promote energy efficiency," the government is increasing the consumption tax for diesel fuel by about 70 percent (to the "full" tax rate of 0.10 Yuan per liter). We reckon even that won't slow the industry's growth. In just a single generation, the PRC has transformed from a nation of bicycle riders into a population of car-crazed consumers– and there ain't no goin' back.

Some of you will remember our post concerning the possibility of Infiniti badge-engineering themselves a GT-R. Our stance? Perish the thought! However, we did end the screed by saying it would behoove the Franco-Japanese house that Ghosn built to consider a four-door Godzilla. Turns out we're quite the prognosticators. Ye olde Motor Trend is reporting that a "senior source" buried deep within Nissan has "confirmed" the possibility of "studying" the option of building just such a world-beating hyper-sedan. Easier said than done, maybe. The new GT-R is (kinda) based on Nissan's crowd pleasing Front-Midship (FM) architecture. But it's so 'roided-up that Nissan refers to it as PM (Premiere-Midship). They could stretch it and bolt on two extra doors, but it would cost about $5,000 more than the existing GT-R coupe. C'est rien: a small price to pay for the knowledge that my Infiniti can whip the snot out of your IS-F, M3, RS-Whatever, etc.

Have a look at the comments on the bottom of the Intellichoice blog post. The Editor/Publisher of the sham scam org (codenamed Flujo) signs-in to defend his employer's methodology. Apparently, the VW R32 did deserve "Best Value Award" for "Base Sport." So then, tell us how you came to that preposterous conclusion? "IC is completely above board and that point is not up for review." That got me thinking about marketing maven Al Reis' magnificent tome "Positioning." Specifically, his advice that sometimes it's best to position a brand against the competition, rather than for anything. "Avis. We're Number Two. We Try Harder." While The Truth About Cars says what we're for, using Al's strategy… "We're number 12,958 on Alexa's U.S. web ratings. But we annoy more industry blowhards than the other guys." Not the pithiest of straplines. I did favor "Vincit Omnia Veritas" for a while. These days, that line strikes me as something you'd see sewn into the slippers of an English aristocrat (who are generally coke-crazed scumbags, but that's another story). Anyway, whilst fumbling for my Ambien CR in the dead of night, the above declaration popped into my head. Pretentious moi? Your suggestions? 

Yesterday’s closing price for crude represents the first time oil's spiked above $100 a barrel since January 3. Analysts say there isn't a single factor to explain the move. Houston’s KHOU reports that a refinery explosion in West Texas and the possibility that OPEC will cut production next month are driving prices higher. Alon officials say the refinery in Big Spring, TX could be closed for as long as two months; company president and CEO Jeff Morris says the refiner should have contingency supply plans in the coming days. The company doesn’t know what caused the blast, but says it happened near a propylene splitter unit. As of early this afternoon, our friend Steve Austin over at Oil-Price.net pegs the current price of oil just under $99.50 a barrel. The website also forecasts the price of oil will be $129.04 a year from now. If so, it’ll be more bad news for consumers, automakers and the U.S. economy in general.

What do you do if you're an automaker that's teetering on the brink of disaster, that's so hard up it's offering its entire workforce bribes to quit, that's selling off everything but the gold-plated toilets in the executive suite just to keep afloat? Well, if you're Ford, you give everyone a bonus! The Detroit Free Press reports that FoMoCo is preparing to give bonuses to all its execs, salaried workers and the people who really do the work. Officially Ford says "no final decisions have been made," but they're just waiting on approval from the Board of Directors to make it so. The justification for giving bonuses even though they finished last year deep in the red? Ford "only" lost $2.7b in 2007 compared to the previous year's $12.6b hit. In other words, they sucked, but not as bad as they did before. There's no word on whether the bonuses will come before or after the workforce buyouts.

Good news! Alfa Romeo has done the most modest of facelifts and revisions on the 159 sedan and wagon, as well as their siblings, the Brera coupe and Spider. This gives us an excuse to talk about Alfa Romeos and post a pornographic gallery of cars that come from an unacceptable tree in the Garden of Eden. Mechanical refinements to this fantastic car that isn't on sale in North America include "new engines include 140hp and 185hp petrol units displacing 1.8L and 2.2L" which comes as a surprise to me, as engines with these displacements and power outputs have been on sale in the 159 for quite some time. Until now, buyers could only opt for the sonorous 260 horsepower V6 along with Alfa's heavy (and expensive) all wheel-drive. To add lightness, Alfa offer the V6 with a new Q2 torque splitting system that works well (they claim) with front wheel-drive (i.e. without much torque steer). The 159 also drops 100 lbs with lighter alloy wheels, aluminum suspension pieces and new aluminum monoblock brake calipers. Will these cars ever be on sale in the U.S.? I think so maybe yes– after the recession.

[For more Alfa porn, click to Pixamo gallery here.]

E85 ethanol is methadone for America's oil addiction; it lets us believe we're kicking a bad habit. Which is fine if we could exercise our judgment as consumers. As taxpayers, E85's a done deal, on both the federal and state level. The Bradenton Herald reports that Florida politicians have already shelled-out some $25m in taxpayer-funded (who else?) grants to "alternative fuel developers." The "Farm to Fuel" initiative is set to throw tens of millions more in the same direction. As a member of the National Steering Committee of 25×25 (25 percent of America's fuel farmed by 2025), Florida Agriculture and Consumer Services Commissioner Charles Bronson is leading the pigs to the trough drive towards U.S. energy independence. From his taxpayer funded website, Bronson makes a Wall Street-style pitch for ethanol: "In the past decade, there have been great strides in biofuel technology and manufacturing facilities, substantially improving the efficiency of this fuel source. Florida will be the site of great advances in the development of fuel and energy alternatives, which is why we are pushing our 'Farm to Fuel' initiative so aggressively." In case you were wondering.

Tesla sent out a press release yesterday bragging that they'd raised $40m in "bridge financing" that was "co-led by Valor Equity Partners and [Tesla chairman] Elon Musk." They're really going to have to stretch that $40m; Tesla plans to use it "for the continued development of a 4 door, five passenger sports sedan planned for introduction in 2010, the establishment of company-owned sales and service infrastructure, and the continued production of the Tesla Roadster, a stylish, high-performance, zero emissions car." The use of the singular in describing the Roadster is appropriate, given they've only produced one Roadster, despite describing the company as "a manufacturer of high-performance production electric cars" in the opening paragraph. So let's see… that's $40m down and only $210m to go.

In the wake of eco-criticism for daring to offer a cheap car to India's lower classes, Tata Motors has been busy greenwashing. The Economic Times looks in the reportorial mirror and quotes "industry sources" who assure us that Tata really does love green long time. There's talk (talk, and nothing but the talk) of a 47mpg hybrid Indica model (yeah, yuk it up stoners), blended-fuel vehicles and hydrogen fuel cells. As if to confirm the air of desperation surrounding Tata's "green technologies programme," the Financial Times tells us that the Indian automaker has signed an agreement with French firm MDI to develop a car that runs on compressed air. That's right, the world's first zero-emission, zero-fuel car would operate on the same principle as a cereal box balloon car. In theory, MDI's compressed air car would max-out at 30 mph. Tata Managing Director Ravi Kant declared that "it's a very exciting concept, this way of running a car. We hope something will come out of it." Speaking of which, MDI claims the new car's exhaust will be cold enough to double as air conditioning; a guaranteed selling point for subcontinental motorists. Not to mention the fact that it stops us from dismissing the idea as nothing but hot air.

Judge Phillip Shefflerly has ruled that Chrysler does not get to strip parts supplier Plastech's factories of tooling, effectively forcing Chrysler to continue buying parts from Plastech. Shefferly's conceded that his decision may take a bite out of Chrysler's short term bottom line. But he decided that Chrysler has "numerous options" on the table, whereas Plastech would be staring at eight plant closures in the next nine months (were Chrysler to seize the tools). Shefferly's decision scrupulously avoids any indication on which party is "in the right." No word on the validity of (former Chrysler honcho-staffed) auditing firm BKK's findings of Plastech malfeasance. Nor any mention of the several bailout agreements, in which Chrysler forked-over cash for the rights to its Plastech tooling. So, is Plastech lucky or good? In any case, the ball's back in Chrysler's court, with big, expensive choices looming. Which begs an even more important question. With bankruptcy rulings favoring "successful reorganization" over financial commitments, how long before other suppliers take Chrysler down bankruptcy lane? By the same token, now that Cerberus management is crowing that it "doesn't have to be heroes with Chrysler," how long before Cerberus pulls the trigger on a Chrysler filing?