SUVs are evil. Evil I tell you! They represent all that’s bad about America: greed, sloth, gluttony, selfishness, arrogance and environmental indifference. They gargle gas, warm the planet and knock poor little hybrids into next week. More importantly, SUVs cost a fortune to feed and depreciate like packet of condoms. So what’s an SUV-intensive manufacturer like GM to do? Why make an SUV that doesn’t do all that hard-core SUV stuff, spiffy-it-up a bit, and sell it to all the people who love SUVs but hate SUVs. Ladies and gentlemen, the GMC Acadia.

I agree with GM Car Czar on a number of points. First, we both believe that CAFE regs are like forcing middle-aged American men to wear plaid pants and high-heeled shoes. (Or something like that.) I'm also down with Maximum Bob on global warming. Well, sort of. While I don't consider the idea "a crock of shit," I favor a wait-and-see approach. Keep adding millions of vehicles to the planet's surface. If the Earth is significantly warmer in a hundred thousand years or so, point taken. What's that you say? By then it will be too late? Yes, and by then I'll be dead. There's another point of intersection between myself and Maximum Bob: we're both selfish bastards. Mr. Lutz' exhortation to struggling GM dealers to "suck it up" clearly reveals he couldn't care less about the fate of the cry-babies attempting to sell his employer's products and thereby put money in his pocket. Why should he? Maximum Bob's already got lots of GM money in the bank and lots more on the way. Not to coin a phrase, fuck 'em if they can't sell my cars. By the same token, I couldn't care less about my writers' opinions. Oh wait, I do. I guess there's a difference between being outspoken and being the hole though which excrement flows into a ceramic receptacle. 

The Detroit News reports that Senator Clinton spent part of her pre-primary warm-up touring a plant in Maryland that builds transmissions for GM's full-size hybrid and heavy-duty trucks. The presidential candidate immediately began touting her plan to create five million "green-collar" jobs. To that end, the Senator from New York pledged to give $5b of your hard-earned money to automakers for battery research, and provide $20b in "green vehicle bonds" for automakers wishing to retool elderly factories (i.e. Ford, GM and Chrysler). Ms Clinton also promised $10k in tax credits for plug-in hybrid buyers. All of this in addition to the $8m the Washington Post says Ms. Clinton's secured for GM for "alternate fuel research;" $3m of which was buried in the fiscal 2008 Pentagon spending bill. Coincidentally enough, the Post also reports that GM lobbyist Steve Ricchetti is one of Hillary's fund raisers. Senator Clinton's campaign spokesperson said Ms. Clinton doesn't consider fundraising efforts when she's making official decisions. Apparently, "one thing has nothing to do with the other."

CNN Money reports that potential oil-supply disruptions in Venezuela, along with reports of new violence in Nigeria, has oil-industry traders all a-tizzy. "The combination of these factors creates some concerns about the supply side of the equation," pronounced David Moore, a commodity strategist with Commonwealth Bank of Australia. Further frazzling traders' nerves: pipeline sabotage in the Niger Delta. Royal Dutch Shell says terrorist activity will prevent it from honoring all of its export contracts from the region for two months, deducting some 130k barrels a day off world supply. Still, after jumping to $93.59 a barrel on Monday morning, light sweet crude settled at $93.04 by late afternoon. Meanwhile, over at Oil-Price.net, blogger Steve Austin says the Iran Petroleum Exchange (or "Bourse") is set to begin using Euros to price oil on February 19th. (Currently, major oil markets trade in U.S. dollars.) The switch to Euros "could have devastating effects on the US dollar," Austin says. "Although under-reported by the media, this historical shift and its consequences should be watched closely." Rest assured, TTAC will oblige.

Sorry cubicle dwellers but the truth hurts. D Magazine reports that GM Car Czar Maximum Bob Lutz told a group of journalists that global warming is "a total crock of shit." When pressed on his enthusiasm for the Volt, Maximum Bob explained "I'm motivated more by the desire to replace imported oil than by the CO2 (argument)." Yes but– MB wasn't so keen on on other automotive technologies aimed at diminishing our demand for foreign petrochemicals. Even though GM is touting their big, honkin' hybrid SUVs and hybrid-lite cars and spending multi-millions on a hybrid research center in China, he thinks hybrids "make no economic sense." GM's Vice Chairman of Global Product Development also stated diesel cars have no place in a market where gas and diesel prices are comparable (i.e. in the U.S.). And just to show solidarity with GM dealers facing GM's sliding market share and the current economic downturn, Maximum Bob said "they've got to isolate themselves from the economic forecasts and say, 'I make my own prosperity.'" Sounds like TTAC's leading candidate for our soon-to-be-announced Bob Lutz award may have been sniffing too much JP-8 or whatever imported-oil-based petrochemical he burns in his jets.

“We wanted the MKT to be the Lear Jet of the road.” That’s how Ford's director of design for the Americas describes Lincoln’s concept car to the Pittsburg Post-Gazette. Brit-born Peter Horbury says Lincoln is on the mend. “As of now, we have had 14 consecutive months of sales growth at Lincoln. So once we established that the Lincoln brand was alive and kicking, we put together this Lincoln design vision for the future.” Yada X3. Things get more interesting when Horbury talks small. “The Verve is intended to very much indicate around the world where small cars from Ford are heading.” As to the resurgent popularity of small cars in the U.S., Horbury doesn’t see the price of gas or environmental concerns as the primary sales driver. “What changed things for small cars in this country was the popularity of the Mini Cooper. You can spend an awful lot of money optioning out a Mini. But more people want a car like that these days.” Then the capitalization-challenged reporter (MINI) Don Hammonds asks the question on our minds… lately: “What about Jill?” “Mercury will remain a Ford with extras, a new front end and new tail end, and different materials used inside and out. That approach seems to work very well.” Sure, just like anorexia suits the Olsen twins. 

If you think it's hard keeping up with the auto industry on a daily basis, you should try figuring out what the future holds. Just five years ago, no one would have predicted an aircraft executive would be running Ford, Chrysler'd still be selling Vipers (or Pacificas or much of anything) or GM would be embracing hybrids. So what's going to happen in the next five or ten years? It's hard to say. But since we've never been known to lack for an opinion on anything, here's a look at the future, TTAC-style.

And you thought the Lincoln ads were bad. The video clip is not a fake; it's actually an ad Chevy is running late at night on some cable channels.  I could make all kinds of comments here, but I'll leave that to you readers.  If anyone could explain to me what it has to do with selling a gas-electric hybrid car, I'd appreciate it.

The mainstream media may have forgotten that last week's Plastech parts embargo threatened to throw Chrysler into Chapter 11, and that the agreement saving the automaker from that fate expires this Friday. But we haven't. And neither has Crain's Detroit Business. According to the paper, a U.S. bankruptcy judge is set to hear arguments to [ultimately] determine who owns the tooling that makes the parts that Chrysler needs to survive. Chrysler says mine, mine, mine. "The automaker alleges that its right to the tools was gained through two prior bailout agreements. In those agreements Chrysler gave the supplier $6.9 million and sped payment of an additional $10.7 million." Plastech says bankruptcy obviates those claims. To wit: pulling the tooling from Plastech plants would hamstring their ability to secure life-sustaining, long-term financing. The most probable outcome is an extension of the interim agreement, but you never know. Meanwhile, here's a factoid that might explain Plastech's hang-tough strategy: the parts maker, owned by Vietnamese immigrant Julie Brown, is the largest minority owned company in the North American automotive supply chain.

When the President of Toyota's NA Ops tells his dealers that the good times "are temporarily on hiatus," you know the U.S. new car market is in BIG trouble. The AP [via the International Herald Tribune] paints a bleak picture: "Jim Lentz told the American International Automobile Dealers Association annual meeting that even strong Toyota dealers are reporting customer traffic down as much as 60 percent this year." Like his opposite numbers in Detroit, Lentz also believes– or at least says he believes– that the U.S. new car market will recover towards the fourth financial quarter, finishing the year at some 16m units. He also predicted that Toyota sales will rise regardless, continuing to buck the declining market. (Toyota sales rose three percent last year, despite a 2.5 percent decline in U.S. new car sales.) Thinking longer term, as Toyota tends to do, Lentz predicted good times ahead. "It is possible for the auto industry to hit 18 million sales annually sometime later in the next decade." 

According to Canada.com, GM spokesman Dee Allen says his employer can't re-engineer the forthcoming plug-in electric – gas Chevrolet Volt's windshield wipers, audio system and other parasitic electrical components in time for their hoped-for 2010 deadline. So they'll just install a work-around. The first-generation Volt will feature expensive "redundant" systems for these components in hopes they won't drain the batteries faster than the propulsion system. While Allen didn't specify how these redundant systems would work, he admitted they would drive the price of the Volt "higher than expected." But don't worry: GM's engineers are working diligently to solve the problem and "the second generation will be more refined." Given GM's bent for five to seven-year product cycles, the engineers should have plenty of time to solve the issue before the second generation comes out. But, still, you have to wonder… if they're cutting corners on the secondary systems to rush the Volt into production, what shortcuts are they taking in mission critical primary systems? 

GM is expected to announce greater-than-predicted fourth-quarter losses for their North American unit later today. While the exact figures aren't available yet, experts predict GM will report a loss of 64 cents a share, compared with earning 32 cents a share in the same quarter of 2006. Bloomberg cites "two people familiar with the [fourth quarter] results" who say the losses were due in large part to an upsurge in incentives in the fourth quarter as they tried to keep up with Toyota. Credit Suisse analyst Chris Ceraso concurs. "Higher incentive spending outweighed better than expected volume and mix" in GM's North American operation. They seemed to forget that Toyota had plenty cash on hand to fund the average $6.4k rebates on Tundras while they could ill-afford the average $6k they slapped on the hoods of their pickups to keep them moving. The exact damage to GM's bottom line will be announced later today. Watch this space.

UPDATE: Well, folks, it was far worse than anyone expected. MSNBC reports GM had the largest annual loss ever reported by an auto company: $38.7 billion; GM's previous record was $23.2b in 1992. In the fourth quarter alone, they lost $772m. Part of the loss was from their share of GMAC, which cost them $1.1b. GM also announced today they're following Ford's lead and offering buyouts to all 74k of their hourly UAW workers so they can replace them with lower-paid workers under the new contract.  

Given the enormous and ongoing discrepancy between GM's execs' statements and on-the-ground reality you'd think the media would understand that nothing, nothing GM says should be taken at face value. Nope. Automotive News [AN, sub] kicks-off with the PR pleasing headline, "As Malibu soars, Impala sinks amid GM cuts to rental fleets." Showing some semblance of journalistic integrity, AN lists the Impala-related damage and ties the model's downturn to the up-tick in sales of its logical competitor. "While January sales of the new Chevrolet Malibu mid-sized sedan rose 57.9 percent from January 2007, sales of the larger Impala fell 30.6 percent… The Impala had been a hot seller. It finished 2007 up 7.3 percent to 311,128 units." Chevrolet Spinmeister Terry Rhadigan provides the usual tut-tut, pish-posh, no worries Mate: "We're still doing the methodical reduction in daily rental, and that is reflected in that Impala number. Huge progress is being made. You'll see some decline in numbers, and don't be alarmed. It's all part of our strategy." Oh really? So, Terry, what exactly are those Impala fleet numbers? "Rhadigan would not give the Impala's retail and fleet sales totals." Clearly, Woodward and Bernstein don't have nothin' on AN. Anyway, Chevy store own John LaSorsa ends the piece by backing-up the suits. "The Malibu has such style it's pulling in an import customer." Well, that's one…

Just opened the February 18 issue of Fortune and came across a full-page ad for— I’m guessing here— the new Lincoln MXZ. (That’s the sedan, for those of us who don’t memorize alphanumeric codes for a living.) It’s a lazy photo. The f-stop parked the car on the first clean grass he came to, in front of an ugly, anonymous suspension bridge. A young blonde in a sports bra and shorts stands in front of the car. She’s plain-faced and athletic. The shorts make it obvious that her left leg is gone, replaced by a prosthesis and one of those boomerang-shaped carbon-fiber “feet” recently outlawed by the Olympics. Huh? The copy’s no help. “Don’t ever give up on what you believe in,” it reads. “Not once. Not ever. My dream is to do extraordinary things every day. Life’s calling. Where to next?” I’m supposed to buy a Lincoln because she’s tough? I admire Sarah Reinertsen's guts and beauty. But at the risk of being labeled a unreconstructed bipedalist (literally), I'm afraid it's not an image I’m tough enough to look at for a long period of time. And anyway, the car is half-obscured. You have to wonder who conceived this ad, what kind of websites they frequent and which Ford exec approved it. Message to same: it's about the car, stupid.   

I recently passed a highway billboard offering "A cure for your addiction to oil." It was another example of my tax dollars hard at work: an oversized ad for Madison Metro, the Wisconsin's city bus company. Yes, where once fuel conservation was the moral equivalent of war, it now seems to require a 12-Step program. With the price of sweet, light crude flirting with a $100 a barrel price tag, we're all supposed to get "on the wagon." I mean bus. So, off we got to Auto Owners Anonymous.