Even though Autosavant's J.S. Smith is "hardly a snarky, cheer-as-the-Titanic-sinks sneerful spectator," he's more than willing to lay into GM hard when they deserve it. And the decision that prompted Smith to assert that "trained monkeys could do better than the crumb-bums in the RenCen," is certainly worth the vitriol. Smith takes GM to task for deciding against bringing the Chevy Beat stateside. With Toyota bringing a five-door Yaris to the states, and Ford Euro-sizing, not bringing on the Beat "qualifies as less a business move than a bowel movement," says Smith channeling his inner Farago. He also notes that revealing the Beat in New York and asking Americans to vote for a favorite between the Beat and its Trax and Groove siblings was disingenuous at best. Considering that the Beat was handily the people's choice, the move is just plain suicidal. "Not only was GM being idiotic in its decision to not have the Beat available for sale in the US in its first generation when consumer demand for small, efficient vehicles is at a fever pitch, but the company was also dishonest about its intentions and plans for the small cars with the public… This is how you go from a 50% market share to under 20% in a generation." Well said, sir. And welcome to the "snarky, cheer-as-the-Titanic-sinks sneerful spectator" club.

CNet News reports a FasTrak/EZPass exploit from the Black Hat security conference in Las Vegas. Millions of older transponders in use have unencrypted RFID chips, allowing a malicious individual to steal ID's and use those accounts to get free tolls using a "cloned" transponder. Transponders can also be reprogrammed on the fly, wreaking all sorts of havoc down at Billing Central. Also, an "electronic alibi" could be created that could have a miscreant listed in the system has having paid a toll at a particular place and time when they were elsewhere. Newer transponders do have some security to prevent reprogramming, although this was also defeated. The hacker involved suggests inserting a switch to the keep the transponder from automatically activating, the less convenient alternative being the bag the unit came in or an aluminum foil wrap.

With the odds of at least one of The Big 2.8 filing for Chapter 11 rising, the analogists are crawling out of the woodwork. While the multiple and varied demises of the [now deceased] British Motor Industry make for interesting reading and some neat analogies, the truth is that such any such comparison is apples to oranges, or, more accurately, chalk and cheese. The first major point of divergence is the level of failure.  Relatively speaking, the boys from Detroit haven't even BEGUN to fail.

Fears of takeover, foreign or otherwise, figure large in the minds of many European auto execs. These fears ostensibly caused the Porsche-VW shotgun marriage collegial partnership. Schaeffler's "sneak-up" takeover of Continental is fuelling a whole new round of paranoia. Daimler's market value has declined by 45 percent on the year; the weakness has placed the Stuttgart firm in the middle of the takeover mania. Reports emerged saying "a foreign hedge fund is buying a large number of shares in (Daimler)," followed swiftly by more rumors that Swedish hedge fund Cevian Capital was taking a position in the firm. Daimler now says that it has "no indication" that it is under assault. But that confidence is undermined by reports from Automotive News [sub] that Daimler has enlisted Deutsche Bank to watch its back. Deutsche Bank is reportedly helping Daimler find an "anchor investor" who could play white knight should a takeover materialize. Hedge funds, like most predatory creatures, tend to not give a lot of warning in advance of a takeover, so its hard to blame Daimler for freaking out over this one. Especially considering that the prime suspect, Cevian Capital, "does not see itself as a hedge fund but as an investor that pushes for changes in companies." Yikes!

After 70 years of doing business together, Chrysler and driveline supplier Dana appear headed for a nasty breakup. Automotive News [sub] reports that Dana has asked a U.S. Bankruptcy Court in New York to allow it to end its business with Chrysler by the end of this year. Dana, which recently emerged from a two-year bankruptcy, is not divulging the exact causes for the rift. Increasing material costs are said to be a major reason. Dana buys steel and supplies driveline components for Chrysler's Jeep products, as well as its Dodge Viper sportscar, Nitro SUV and Ram pickup. "Our goal is to establish a mutually rewarding supply agreement with Chrysler moving forward," says Dana Chairman John Devine, in a statement asking the bankruptcy court to uphold an earlier agreement between Dana and Chrysler. If negotiations break down, Dana will abandon its business with Chrysler. This latest supplier conflict comes on the heels of Chrysler's nasty divorce from its bankrupt interior supplier Plastech, and reinforces Chrysler's (somewhat undeserved) rep as a notorious supplier abuser. On the other hand, you can't squeeze blood from a stone, and Chrysler's financial situation hardly allows it to practice far-sighted largesse with its business partners. Rock, meet hard place.

We've been hearing rumblings for some time that post-Ford Aston Martin has been talking about forming an alliance (The Axis of Axles?) with Mercedes. CAR Magazine claims to have the inside line on details emerging from the negotiations. Unsurprisingly, the cooperation seems to center on getting Mercecdes engines into future Astons, replacing the aged Ford-sourced motors currently on offer. This will supposedly include diesel and hybrid options, as well as AMG's 6.2-liter V8 which may power future Vantage models. alAston could so get Mercedes' eight-speed autobox. And there's even talk of "whole platforms to be shared by top-end models," and cooperation between Aston and Maybach (anyone remember Maybach?). In other words, no matter how hard they try, the British cann't seem to stop their most beloved brands from going German, one way or another. But, as Lieberman suggested the last time this rumor came around, all the identity politics in the world mean nothing if this cooperation makes Astons better, faster and more reliable. And if "whole platforms to be shared by top-end models" means Aston gets to drape the "death on a stick"-sounding AMG SLC in its trademark sex appeal, even Clarkson might forgo ze German jokes.

Aston Martin DBS - official promo video of the new

J.D. Power’s latest Vehicle Dependability Study (VDS) covers the relevant vehicles' third year of operation. [OEMs didn't want to pay for the fifth year study; by then the design is either out of production or almost out of production, so there's nothing they can really do with the results. Also, by then the warranty has expired, so they're not paying the costs of those repairs.] Once again, much media attention is paid to which brands did better this year (Saab), and which did worse (Buick). Once again, the public gets misleading brand scores rather than model-level results. (Brand averages can be heavily influenced by a single bad design, the introduction of a new design, or the lack thereof.) And then there’s the little matter of what counts as a “problem” in J.D.'s book. Apparently, it’s anything the survey respondent reports as a problem, rather than a manufacturer-related shortcoming. The VDS’ five most commonly reported problems include brake noise (get them serviced), pulling to one side (get your car aligned), and excessive window fogging. Window fogging? Maybe by the time the third year rolls around it’s time for customers to grab the glass cleaner.

There's a Letter to the Editor in the current issue of Automotive News that encapsulates everything that's wrong with the North American automotive industry. It's even the letter of the week, boxed and highlighted in GM taupe, given special prominence and headlined “Why won't consumers buy Detroit cars?” The letter is from a third-generation Canadian Chevy dealer, a guy whose family has been selling GM vehicles for nearly 90 years. You'd 'a thunk he'd learned the basics during that almost-a-century. But no. “Our small car, the Chevrolet Aveo, fell 19.7 percent in U. S. sales in June,” Tom Wills of Wills Chevrolet writes. “Why? Surely this must be the right car for the times…. We have the best product we have ever had… Why aren't you buying our products? What have the imports got that we don't?” Here's a guy who not only flunked grammar but thinks a rebadged Korean Daewoo Kalos is “the best product we have ever had.” And because it has good mpg numbers 'Murricans should be required to buy it even though it's a stumpy little crapcar. What have the imports got? Let me count the ways: quality, performance, styling, resale value, reliability…oh, never mind. Wills didn't actually write this, but he might as well have: “We threw you this rotten bone and you won't chew on it, so you should be sent to the pound until you learn which cars we require you to buy.” Madness.

In our ongoing campaign to put TTAC at the forefront of automotive journalism, we've decided to go behind the headlines, to provide the kind of insight and perspective that you can't get elsewhere, if only because no one else could be bothered. That's because we know many of our Best and Brightest are just as geeky and OCD as we are. More charitably, what miserly or environmentally conscious pistonhead wouldn't want to know about thermal seat management? After all, as the DOE discovered, if you use less AC, you save mpgs! In any case, here's my interview with Dan Coker, President and CEO of Amerigon, the world's premier supplier of heated and cooled seat technology. For those of you who aren't podcast-compatible, the bottom line: the cool-your-butt business is booming. Amerigon's up to $75m turnover this year. It's an American success story, human ingenuity at its finest, coming to a Sealy Posturpedic near you soon.  

The Detroit News' Scott Burgess describes Ford's 2009 model lineup as a "stop-gap." That means Ford's just treading water and hoping to hang on until that most magical of all years, 2010. That's when they'll finally introduce their turbocharged EcoBoost engine; we'll see a new Focus; the Escapariner gets a six-speed automatic with a new four-cylinder engine; a redesigned FusilanKZ goes on sale (complete with a hybrid model); and they introduce a redesigned Mustang. We can also expect the new Fiesta and restyled Taurus. "Fortunately, the 2010 lineup starts early next year and that has all of the makings of an All-Star Team." All they have to do is limp along for one more year and hope they can keep their head above water until then. But with all the new stuff in the pipeline, they may have problems selling the lame duck '09s.

Not only has the GM BOD not kicked Rick Wagoner out on his ass, they seem to actually, well, love him. "I can assure you that the board is unanimous in its support of Rick Wagoner and the management team to get through these difficult times. We truly feel we have the best management team to get this job done," board member George Fisher told the Detroit News. He also said the management team was "dealing with many problems they hadn't created." Uh… isn't this the same management team that's worked nowhere else but GM (save Lutz)? And hasn't Slick Rick has been in charge for the past eight years? Regardless. Fisher's confident that they have the answer. Just not right now. "The world is going to have to wait and see that we're right on this issue." When asked by the Detroit Free Press "how long a head coach can survive a string of negative results" he told them "until you're at a point when you don't think he's doing the job." So let's see… hundreds of billions of dollars down the toilet over the past few years, selling off everything that's not tied down, plummeting sales and market share– at just what point will they have their epiphany?

Do The Detroit News' headline writers have a daily cheerleading contest? Or is it more of an intellectual challenge thing: let's see if we can outspin the spinners? Why else would the Motown paper bury the fact that Ford's killed plans for a downsized version of their full-sized F-150 pickup in the text of an article titled "Ford high on fuel sippers?" Drug-related snickers aside, the meat of the matter arrives in paragraph seven, where we learn Ford reckons a more fuel-efficient, EcoBoosted F-150 obviates the need for the F-100. "The Detroit News has learned, the automaker has put aside plans to build the F-100, a smaller, lighter version of the F-150. The new truck was to have been built at the Michigan Truck Plant in Wayne, but Ford has decided to retool that plant to produce small cars. It could still build the F-100 at one of its other truck plants if it later determines there is a need for the product. Ford has also taken steps to ensure that it can quickly change its mind if it decides it needs to bring a new global version of the Ranger to the United States." Cost-cutting, smart move or cost cutting disguised as a smart move? "The small pickup segment doesn't really provide a lot of benefit," analyst Erich Merkle told the DetN. "You buy a pickup truck for bed space and towing. There really isn't much substitute for a full-size pickup. But it all depends on what happens to the price of fuel." Now I'm really confused…

As a Jew with a pretty solid claim on owning a functional sense of humor, I have to say that Hadar Goldman, co-owner of the Zarmon Goldman advertising agency in Tel Aviv, is being disingenuous. His company's ad, depicting a wild-eyed Arab sheik wailing on a Nissan Tilda for its [theoretical] effect on his bank balance, is over-the-top, over-the-line and not-so-funny. What if an Arabian agency created an ad that portrayed Jews as money-grubbing shysters? "It's a humorous campaign that was loved by both the Jewish and Arab worlds," Nissan spinmeister Daniella Ribenbach told The Jerusalem Post. Uh, we'd like to see some data on that Danny. Meanwhile, "It's my opinion that Nissan made a huge error by igniting these [racist] instincts," official Hani al-Wafa told Saudi Arabian TV. "In order for Nissan to keep its interests in the region, it must apologize." And so it will.

The ironically named Kevin Drum takes on once and former oil man T. Boone Pickens' plan for American energy independence. After CBS' Drum has his wicked way with Pickens' not-so-well publicized personal financial interests in the matter, there's hardly a shred of credibility left upon which the Texan can wipe his ass. So to speak. "So T. Boone Pickens has an energy plan he wants to sell us. The basic idea is simple: Build a bunch of windmills in Texas to generate electricity, and then use the electricity to power electric cars. Voila! Energy independence! No, wait. That's not it at all. What Pickens actually wants to do is use the windmills to replace the electricity from existing power plants that run on natural gas. Then we can use the natural gas to run our cars." Hmmm. "Along with being the country's biggest wind power developer, Pickens owns Clean Energy Fuels Corp., a natural gas fueling station company that is the sole backer of the stealthy Proposition 10 on California's November ballot…. But a closer read finds a laundry list of cash grabs — from $200 million for a liquefied natural gas terminal to $2.5 billion for rebates of up to $50,000 for each natural gas vehicle. Much of the measure's billions could benefit Pickens' company to the exclusion of almost all other clean-vehicle fuels and technology." Is that why GM was talking up CNG cars recently? Hang on; one conspiracy at a time, please. 

Toyota is beginning to feel The Big 2.8's pain. The world's largest automaker released their first quarter financial results. No question: they got dinged. While ToMoCo's books are not in the same universe as GM or Ford, the Japanese carmaker's operating profit dropped 39 percent to "only" $3.8b. That's just over half of the $6.2b they showed for the same quarter last year. Toyota Exec VP Mitsuo Kinoshita attributes the losses to a number of factors, including the weak U.S. dollar and the soaring price of raw materials. He's not too concerned over lease residuals and dropping used car prices, though. "With Toyota's traditionally prudent approach in lending, together with its efforts to further strengthen the credit control and collection system, the percentage of credit losses has shown some stability. As for residual values, Toyota will continue to keep a close eye on the used car market and set suitable values in a timely manner." This is the second consecutive quarter their operating profit has dropped. [source: Toyota Press Release]

Click here for First Quarter Operating Results and First Quarter Financial Summary