It’s bad enough that VW decided to “create” the Routan, a rebadged version of Chrysler’s Town & Country/Dodge Grand Caravan minivan “built” for the U.S. and Canadian market. Now they have to try and sell the thing. WardsAuto caught-up with Bret Scott, product planning manager for Volkswagen of America. Scott began with a counter for the minivan’s terminal– as in a declining market share in a declining market– unhipness. “If they can get over the philosophy of owning a minivan, which we find a lot of people do, if it’s a cool Volkswagen, we think they’ll get into it and they won’t get out of it.” So what makes the Routan the Hotel California of minivans? German engineering! Well, some German engineering. Done in America. Presumably by Americans. “I think the biggest challenge for the Routan was not to turn it into a (more sporty VW) GTI because the temptation was very great. We wanted to make the purest Volkswagen minivan, but there are some hard and fast rules in the minivan segment that have to be followed with regard to chair height, comfort and off-center feel. VW engineers fiddled with the steering for more of a European touch and tweaked the standard suspension tuning, achieving 15% more stiffness than the equivalent Chrysler vans.” But why did VeeDub ditch ChryCo’s Swivel ‘n Go and Stow ‘n Go unique selling points, and still decide to charge more for the Routan than the Chrysler and Dodge products? Pass. Thankfully, there is an expiry date for this madness. “Under contract, VW will source minivans from Chrysler for five years.”

Almost a quarter-century ago, Chrysler rocked the automotive scene by putting a two-box body on the K-car platform, calling it a minivan and inventing the soccer mom. Unfortunately, the intervening years haven’t been kind to the concept; the mini minivan is no more. In fact, the 2008 Dodge Grand Caravan is almost two feet longer than the full-sized 1984 Dodge Ram van. If you’re looking for a three-row people mover that won’t max out your garage, you can always go the CUV route– if you’re into poseurmobiles. Or you can consider the Mazda5 or Kia Rondo. But do these reborn minivans carry the torch, or has the genre’s flame fizzled-out?

If you ever aspired to be a politician, this article should be enough to put you off the idea for life. It’s a strange tale of cross-aisle tit-for-tat-ism that reminds me of the Arab Israeli conflict, substituting your tax money for deadly munitions. The New York Times‘ lead shows us the swans above the water. “The House on Tuesday night approved a measure that would ease a longstanding ban on offshore oil drilling and try to spur greater use of alternative fuels as Democrats and Republicans engaged in a bitter pre-election clash over America’s energy future.” The rest of the article reveals the furious– and futile– paddling underneath. “The outlook for the measure is uncertain with only two weeks before Congress is set to break until at least the November elections and perhaps until next year. The Senate is preparing to take up a similar bill, but even if it averts a filibuster, it seems unlikely that the bills could be reconciled before the break. And the White House on Tuesday threatened a veto of the House plan.” Change this! “We are engaged in exactly what the American people are sick of, and that is political games here in Washington that are intended to be political games and have no outcome,’ said Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio, the Republican leader.

First, Toyota decides it needs a U.S. luxury brand. It builds an S-Class killer, then repackages its mass market products for upmarket tastes. Then ToMoCo decides it needs a U.S. “youth brand.” It imports quirky, customizable, low-cost Japanese market vehicles; then sells them to older people (and repackages them for their in-house designers’ college professors). Now the world’s largest automaker’s talking [again] about launching a Prius brand. “You could have a series of derivatives under the Prius brand name that would allow you to market product at a much lower cost,” Jim Lentz, Toyota’s North American sales chief, told the Reuters Autos Summit in Detroit. “There is a definite desire for us to do that.” Internally or externally? Or was this announcement simply designed to steal some thunder from GM’s Volt-shaped one hundredth birthday bash? After all, on the same day that GM said they wouldn’t make money on gen 1 of their plug-in electric – gas hybrid Hail Mary, Toyota said they’re aiming to sell 175k Priora stateside this year. Before the Ole Miss Prius factory comes on line. “Overall, Toyota aims to sell more than 1 million hybrids per year globally by early next decade, and would need to sell more than 600,000 hybrid vehicles of all types in the United States to meet that target, Lentz said. “To do that effectively, I think we need dedicated hybrids and I would prefer them under the Prius name,” said Lentz. So what happens to the hybrid Camry, Highlander, LS, etc.?

Earlier today, Merrill Lynch upgraded GM to “neutral.” The fact that this is the same Merrill Lynch that’s teetering on the brink of bankruptcy, the same Merrill that hoovered-up the remains of GM’s busted deal with FIAT back in 2002 (buying The General’s 5.1 percent share of the Italian automaker at a fire sale price of $1.16b), has absolutely nothing to do with it. Anway, Merrill’s optimism re: GM could be about to disappear; the upgrade was based almost entirely of the possibility that The General will scarf low-interest loans from you-know-who (hint: you). That’s because Uncle Sam has agreed to an $85b loan to insurance giant AIG to stave off bankruptcy (AIG’s, not Uncle Sam’s). This dramatic development could cut one of two ways for GM. The AIG bailout may increase the likelihood that Motown will score its $25b+ federal bonanza (the Daniel Howes “You Saved Wall Street So Why The Hell Not US?” prophecy). Or it will decrease Detroit’s chances of immediate federal assistance significantly (the Holy Shit bailout fatigue non-option). Place your bets now. But as far as your tax dollars or the free market is concerned (the feds now hold an 80 percent share of a formerly private insurance company), any way you look at this, you lose. Who wants to own GM? Not me.

After an epic meeting about TTAC site tweaks, I returned to an email from a seriously perturbed member of our Best and Brightest. It reads as follows… “Over on CNN.com home page Chevy has an ad for the Volt. It says ‘Chevy Volt will go 40 miles before using any gas at all. Fully charged 2010.’ Then, in fine print on the bottom, ‘Performance capabilities subject to change without notice.’ What the hell is that (the fine print)? Does it do 40 mile or doesn’t it? Sounds like GM doesn’t know.”

Toyota is not a happy camper. “On the same day the Chevrolet Volt was unveiled in Detroit, a Toyota executive told a congressional committee that lawmakers would be wrong to enact tax credits that benefit only one plug-in hybrid design,” Automotive News [sub] reports. The legislation that’s pissing off the world’s largest automaker would offer a $7500 federal tax credit for any hybrid with a battery pack rated at six kilowatt-hours of electricity or more. That would be the Chevrolet Volt. And only the Chevrolet Volt. Speaking to the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, ToMoCo’s national manager of energy and environmental research said pending legislation “redefines plug-in electric vehicles to seemingly eliminate consumer tax credits for all but one plug-in vehicle design.” That would be the Chevrolet Volt. And only the Chevrolet Volt. “We believe consumer incentives should encourage all plug-in designs,” Robert Wimmer railed. “And allow the consumer market to select winners, not legislation.” Note to GM: you do NOT want to piss-off Toyota. If the gloves come off, you’re so dead. I mean, sooner rather than later.

Well duh. Still, it’s refreshing to see a GM exec admit the inescapable. You know, eventually. Although, it must be said, not unequivocally.  “Most of our Gen 1 technologies, I don’t know that I’ve ever seen a situation where we make money, particularly when you load all the costs in,” GM COO Fritz Henderson told Automotive News [sub]. “So I don’t necessarily think this is going to be the exception.” Not necessarily going to be the exception? How elliptical is that? Not quite as oblique as GM Car Czar Maximum Bob Lutz, who couldn’t resist adding his 2.8 cents. “We’ve made very, very conservative assumptions on battery warranty. And that huge lump of battery warranty in the cost calculation helps diminish the profitability.” Sounds good! Details? “Lutz wouldn’t provide specifics but said GM is assuming it will have to replace ‘quite a few’ batteries. If battery reliability and life proves to be better than assumptions, GM can relax ‘some of that scary warranty provision,’ giving the Volt a shot at earlier profitability, he said.” Earlier than what?

What is this, paranoid Tuesday? Hot on the heels of our story about the UK’s massive motorist surveillance system comes a tale of Empire State driver’s licenses that emit a radio signal that tells the authorities who you are. Yes, the same micro-technology designed to keep track of inventory, RFID, can now keep track of your ass. As the AP [via the Berkshire Eagle] reports, the “enhanced” licenses are codenamed EDL or Electronic Drivers License. They are– in theory– all about convenience. You file a shitload of paperwork, pay an extra $30, get the RFID license and sail through Canadian and Mexican customs (international travel still requires a passport). What me worry? “To answer concerns about the ability of hackers to intercept RFID information from the new licenses, the state is mailing each one with a protective storage sleeve that prevents transmission, said DMV spokesman Ken Brown — who stressed that the only information contained in the tag is a number that would be meaningless except to Homeland Security agents and clever terrorists/criminals.”

Driving well has nothing to do with how well we late-apex Oaktree Corner at VIR, how cleanly we rev-match a heel-and-toe downshift or how much we know about F-bodies and Kappa platforms. It’s all about simple movement and complex congestion, intuition versus intelligence, myth versus reality. Why We Drive the Way We Do by Tom Vanderbilt is a shot across the bow of the typically clueless, not very competent, generally thoughtless, surprisingly unsafe, unjustifiably over-confident average driver. In other words, you and me.

Automotive News [sub] reports that Porsche Holdings has raised its stake in VW from 31 to 35 percent, finally gaining a controlling interest over the MUCH larger German automaker. Porsche CEO Wendelin Wiedeking, already the world’s highest paid car biz exec (now with billions in bonus bucks), quickly moved to quash rumors that VeeDub’s new masters would kick Audi out of the fold to avoid product overlap. (As if.) “We see Audi as an integral part of VW group and have no interest in taking the company out of the group.” And that ain’t the half of it. Literally. “Wiedeking said the sports car [and SUV] maker intends to raise its stake in VW to more than 50 percent at a future date. ‘Today’s step is a further milestone on the way to world domination.'”

Detroit steadfastly refuses to call their $25b – $50b trip to the federal begging bowl a bailout. No suprise there. Any such admission would lead to a golden parachute unfurlment to rival those old films of WWII paratrooper assaults, if not some serious strictures and sanctions. So, while House Speaker Nancy Pelosi may say it’s about jobs, jobs, jobs, Motown’s mavens need some other way to justify their assault on the public purse– especially in these times of incipient bailout fatigue.  The increasingly worried spinmeisters are returning to Mark Fields’ rallying cry: our national security is at stake! Or, it’s all about the batteries stupid. The Wall Street Journal feeds the beast: “But securing an adequate supply of batteries over the next few years has become a growing concern for auto makers everywhere. The U.S. industry is leery of depending too heavily on foreign battery makers allied with Japanese auto makers, for fear those suppliers would give priority to filling the orders of their Japanese partners.” To be fair, teh WSJ mentions American battery makers, but concludes with a whiny bitch [paraphrasing] from Johnson Controls. “Mary Ann Wright, vice president and general manager for Johnson Controls’ hybrid-battery business has been lobbying Washington for a national effort to establish research labs and manufacturing technology to make the U.S. a battery-manufacturing leader… ‘[Asia’s dominance of the battery biz is] our punishment for inventing this stuff and allowing manufacturing to go somewhere else.'”

UK privacy campaigners have been sounding the alarm ever since Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) cameras were first introduced into The Land of Hope and Glory. Recent revelations by The Guardian prove the truth of the old adage “Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean everyone’s not out to get you.” “A national network of roadside cameras will be able to ‘read’ 50m licence plates a day,” the paper reports. “Enabling officers to reconstruct the journeys of motorists. Police have been encouraged to ‘fully and strategically exploit’ the database, which is already recording the whereabouts of 10 million drivers a day, during investigations ranging from counter-terrorism to low-level crime.” And the hits keep happening. “Senior officers” had promised the data would only be stored for two years. The Home Office has now admitted that it will keep the info on file for five. Simon Davies, director of Privacy International, said the database would give police “extraordinary powers of surveillance.”  In fact, “This would never be allowed in any other democratic country.” From his lips to your ears.

Newschannel5.com reports that the bloom may be off the rose when it comes to relations between local government and employees slaving away at Nissan’s new Tennessee plant. “Murfreesboro recently installed six red light cameras to catch people who ignore traffic signals. About 2,600 citations have been issued since July. Thousands of drivers have been ticketed and employees for one of Rutherford County’s largest employers have been repeat violators. ‘When we’re looking through the citations and Nissan North America did stand out. There were nearly 40 citations,’ said Murfreesboro Police spokesman Kyle Evans.” Problem: a lot of the violators are driving leased vehicles, registered to Nissan. Evans smells a rat. “‘When you have this many citations perhaps when you’re driving a vehicle that’s registered to you directly and you may have the idea you’re not going to be held accountable or responsible for it,’ he said. ‘Pretty much all these citations have not been paid.'” Good neighbor that it is, Nissan promises to trace the plates to the employee leasing the car and make sure they pay the citation. That ought to make everyone happy.