Backing-up the basic thoery behind Andrew Dederer's TTAC editorial on Chinese automotive exports, Toyota is countering a drop in domestic sales by aggressively expanding exports. The JCN Network reports that while ToMoCo's home market sales fell 4.4 pct (to 108,787 units), they ramped-up exports by 9.1 pct (to 208,156 units). Globally, the world's largest automaker increased production in January by 8.4 percent (compared to '07), cranking-out 719,646 units. If you add in sales of ToMoCo subsidies (NOT minority partnerships like some automakers we could name), January's total rises to 801,873 units.

According to USA Today, plug-in electric hybrid vehicles (PHEVs) like the Chevy Volt can actually increase air pollution in some areas. The executive director of the Environmental Law & Policy Center reckons  "plug-in hybrids are perhaps not good for all areas." Howard Learner explained that for "states that are heavily coal, that equation doesn't work out very well for the environment." With almost half of the nation's electricity coming from coal-fired plants, the Center equates running a PHEV in some areas to driving a coal-burning vehicle. The Natural Resources Defense Council said there's a "possibility for significant increases of soot and mercury" because of the increased demand on the plants, So a PHEV would produce 11 percent more greenhouse gas than a non-plug-in hybrid. A study by the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency found PHEVs could also increase the amount of sulfur dioxide, a key component of acid rain, and CO2. Charles Griffith of the Ecology Center in Michigan admits "It seems a little premature to think of it being a problem – but there are a lot of issues we should have been thinking of sooner," including the use of land to grow crops for ethanol fuel vs. for food. Since when does rational thinking have anything to do with federal regulations, the environment and energy independence?

This season the blokes over at BMW have blessed us with two relatively diMINuative product announcements. First, they showed us the MINI Clubman. It's antithetical to the MINI brand, it's ugly, it's impractical, the micro suicide door is only on one side, the barn doors obscure vision and it's ugly. You should hate the Clubman as if it had slept with your ex-girlfriend. And she liked it. As if that wasn't too much, this week MINI previewed the John Cooper Works (JCW) performance packages that will officially be unveiled at Geneva. Though hideously overpriced, the JCW pack gets 'er done, We're talking a horsepower boost (to 207hp), upgraded suspension, a new performance exhaust and some crass alloys. But the JCW's real coup: how it transforms the already ugly Clubman into the ugliest car currently on sale in the United States. MINI says the Clubman is a more practical MINI; with the JCW package it really is da bomb [paraphrasing]. I reckon it's so vile that it may, in ten years, have all the reverse appeal of the Pontiac Aztek.

[Pixamo gallery of the Gorgonesque Clubman here.] 

The more we look into the Chrysler vs. Plastech debacle– wherein the automaker and the parts supplier are locked in deadly combat over mission critical tooling– the more it appears that the Plastech ship has been sinking for quite some time. Canplastics.com, reports that Plastech owes J&J Tool & Mold of Ontario more than $1m for injection molds. The Canadian company's vice president says Plastech stopped making payments last November. "We've had to scrounge the last several months to try and find additional customers to replace that work," Mike Altenhof reveals. "For a small company, it's been terrible… we're in a cash crunch right now." For Plastech, things aren't so hot either. When the supplier filed for bankruptcy, they declared that they owed creditors some $488m.

Or not. Despite all the noise about a Chrysler – Chery hook-up, despite Chinese manufacturers' presence at the North American International Auto Show, we have yet to see a single Chinese-built (let alone designed) vehicle here in the U.S. So, are they really coming? The short answer is yes, some of them, eventually. But not for quite a while yet.

I'm old enough to remember when the Cadillac name was a synonym for quality. That said, the brand's glory days were already behind it; the expression "the Cadillac of…" was already becoming quaint. I came of age as GM's brand managers trampled any remaining brand equity underfoot. Even as I marveled at BMWs and Mercedes, I wanted Caddy to triumph. Why should the Germans build the world's best sedans? When Lexus launched the LS, I abandoned hope. If the Japanese– masters of the economy car– could build a better Cadillac than Cadillac, well, forget it. Even though Cadillac has enjoyed something of a renaissance with the Escalade (puh-lease) and the CTS, I refuse to get my hopes up. And for good reason. Cadillac's brand manager is still talking about an "entry level" baby Caddy sedan. "I was first kind of consistent that we didn't need one — it would need to be $25,000 to $30,000, which is a pretty cheap Cadillac," Jim Taylor told Automotive News [sub]. "But as the CTS moves up to be $30,000 to $40,000, you are creating space for a smaller Cadillac. So it is starting to be emerging on the list as more viable to me." Note to Jim: the more viable a $25k Cadillac, the less viable the brand. If that's even possible.

GM's full-size hybrids still get lousy mileage (25 percent better than bad still sucks). The new Dodge Challenger weighs more than two tons. The new four-door Honda Accord is goofy looking. Subaru has thrown Harry Potter's cloak of invisibility over the WRX and raised the STI's price into the Porschephere. The Jaguar XF is not half as sexy as the concept. BMWs keep getting uglier and Audis continue to bloat. And then there's the new Scion xB. As Paul Niedermeyer's review points out, its hundreds of pounds heavier than its predecessor. The engine has nearly doubled in size. Combined gas mileage is down– way down– to about 26 mpg combined. And it doesn't look anywhere near as striking as the first generation love it or hate it boxy box. C'mon then, share your pain.

While you were about to enjoy your weekend, a German court found former VW Labor rep Klaus Volkert guilty of 48 counts of incitement to fraud. Forbes reports that Volkert will face nearly three years in prison for his role in a long-running scheme which siphoned $3m in illegal "bonuses" from the German automaker's corporate coffers. Amongst other things, the money covered a $600k hush payment to Volkert's Brazilian lover and first-class international brothel excursions for Volkert and his union cronies (complete with Viagra prescribed by the company medical provider). Court testimony indicates that VW made the payments to ensure labor support for buying Bugatti and Bentley in 1998. "This is a crude case of class justice," Volkert's lawyer pronounced after the ruling. Although Volkert is obviously no working class hero, he may be taking the fall for corruption at the highest levels of VW management. Former Vee Dub exec Klaus-Joachim Gebauer– who received a one-year suspended sentence for his part in the scandal– testified that company Chairman Ferdinand Piech was aware of the "labor relations" slush fund. VW's CEO at the time and current Board Chairman has steadfastly maintained implausible deniability his ignorance of the fund. If Piech was in the dark, it begs the question: why didn't he know?

Channel4 reports that VW is set to unveil a "near-production" diesel-electric Golf at The Geneva International Auto Show. The battery-assisted oil-burner caims 70mpg while passing 50-state Tier-2 BIN 5 emissions standards. Not to be outgreened, Wired reports that BMW will ta-da its Vision EfficientDynamics Concept. The modded next gen X5 sports a 36mpg twin turbo diesel-electric drivetrain hooked-up to an eight-speed ZF autobox. (The Bimmer concept also boasts photovoltaic panels on the moonroof to preheat the transmission fluid and wheels that require one less horsepower to maintain 100mph than "standard" wheels.) As previously editorialized, the new diesel hybrids signal the end of German automakers' participation in the two-mode hybrid technology jointly developed with Chrysler and GM. Bottom line: BMW's hybrid diesel sips half the gas of a 3.0-liter X5; the Yukon Tahoe hybrid offers a 25 percent mpg gain. 

China wouldn't try anything like product dumping, would they? In a word, yes. Gasgoo reports the U.S. Commerce Department is imposing an anti-dumping duty on Chinese-made off-road tires. It seems Commerce determined that producers and exporters have been selling new tires at 10.98 to 210.48 percent below fair market value on this side of the Pacific. Now four tire manufacturers will have to pay an anti-dumping duty of 10.98 to 51.81 percent on a set of four tires. Twenty-three other off-road tire makers will have to pay an average 24.75 percent duty. They didn't say if Commerce would expand this to on-road tires, but if the manufacturers have been doing it for one type of tire, you can just about bet they've been doing it for the rest.

Auto Motor und Sport reports that a gas explosion rocked Porsche's famed Zuffenhausen factory early this morning. The blast originated in the factory paint shop at five a.m. local time, when gas apparently escaped a drying kiln and ignited. The explosion triggered the factories automatic sprinkler system, which prevented the spread of fire, but also left the paint shop and other portions of the 911 assembly line underwater. Two factory workers were hospitalized for unspecified injuries, but no fatalities were reported. Damage from the explosion and the sprinkler system will halt the production of up to 500 911's during the planned two to three day cleanup period. Despite the shutdown of 911 production, Zuffenhausen-sourced components for the Leipzig-built Cayenne and Finnish-finished Boxster will continue to roll out of the factory, meaning that for at least a few days the cynics were right, and Porsche will be building everything but a real 911.

When I started working on this project, I was wondering about the Passat's role in the current VAG line-up. Audi sedans are the premium German blend of luxury and performance. Skodas are the true “people’s cars.” And the SEATs are (at least in theory) the exciting toys stuffed with “Auto Emocion.” So what's left for the Passat? Well, in Romania, the sedan is the (dream) car of the parvenus, and the wagon is the nightmare of the wrongdoers (as a police vehicle). I guess it's a “default vehicle;" if you don’t really know what car to choose, if you're not loaded but not poor, if don’t need a car to suit your personality, you go for the Passat. It's the car they should have used in “Equilibrium” (the movie): totally feeling-free. To put the aesthetic paddles to the Passat's heart, I've lost the chrome surrounding the grille and placed it underneath (so we can still tell  it's a VW), given the headlights LED-disease, stolen a little youth and stamina from the Ford Mondeo (the popular kid of the day) and smoothed-it-up with fine e-emery paper. Of course, the real thing should be infinitely more boring…

[For more Avarvarii photochopistry, click here]

According to Bloomberg, last Thursday, GMAC loaned its Residential Capital (ResCap) mortgage unit $635m. ResCap needed the money to get a credit line to sell a financing business. On Friday, Standard & Poors lowered GMAC's and ResCap's credit ratings to medium "junk" status. Hang on; wasn't the whole point of separating GMAC from GM to get a better credit rating? Auto loans (GMAC's primary business) packaged as securities aren't affected by the downgrade; they're rated separately. But GMAC will now find it more difficult to get the warehouse funding it needs to accumulate those loans. Reuters quotes a Cerberus spokesman, who said tut-tut. Apparently, GMAC is "a resilient business platform with strong long-term growth prospects." Yes, well, anyone remember Aegis Mortgage?

Automotive News [AN, sub] reports that Chrysler is still pursuing Plan B, after a federal judge ruled that bankrupt parts supplier Plastech could hold onto the tools that make the 500 plastic parts that Chrysler needs to make cars. In other words, it continues to dangle replacement contracts in front of potential suppliers. According to AN, "late last week, Chrysler senior procurement manager Scott Roland convened about 40 supplier executives and Chrysler purchasing executives at the automaker's suburban Detroit technical center. Two people at the meeting said Roland told them to hold on because Chrysler wasn't done trying to get its tools back." Fair enough. Chrysler can't afford to pay through the nose for its plastic pieces OR face another parts embargo. But it looks like Chrysler jumped the gun before the Plastech ruling. AN also says "The suppliers at the meeting are makers of plastic components that last month received a letter of intent stating they would get the Chrysler trim business now held by Plastech." While I'm sure the letter was full of caveats, it's no wonder Roland's embarked on a little post-facto hand holding. 

On eBay, the old saw "a fool and his money are soon parted" rings true every day. The latest: Challenger mania. Proving that some people have more money than sense, a "Challenger 2008 SRT8 Tribute HAT Ballcap sold for $152.50. A 24" x 36" Challenger poster is going for $70 and the bidding on a brochure is starting at $100. A press kit from the Chicago Auto Show is up to $160. It's the actual cars where things get really freaky. There are several dealers trying to auction them starting in the mid $50k range. The craziest one, though, is the deal that closed out at $228,143.43. What made it so special? It's painted "legendary B5 Blue, honoring racing legend Richard Petty" (who, to the best of my knowledge, never drove a Challenger) and comes with a "custom #43 Richard Petty Designed Decal Package."