Despite the backbiting and overextension engendered by round one of the Department of Energy’s retooling loans, another $25 billion could be headed down the pipe. Automotive News [sub] reports that a second dose of retooling loans (the first having launched our Bailout Watch series) is headed towards a vote this weekend. The DOE’s loan budget would be doubled under the current climate change bill sponsored by Reps Henry Waxman (D-CA) and Ed Markey (D-MA). But before Ford starts counting its (non-bailout) chickens, remember this: “no comparable bill has been introduced in the Senate, and similar legislation was shot down in the Senate last year.” And with luxury firms (Tesla), foreign transplants (Nissan) and the proudly bailout-free (Ford) topping the list of tranche un, don’t expect a groundswell of support for tranche deux.
I don’t mind tripping the light fantastic with PR people. No journalist should expect to get the straight dope or the inside line from a person paid to protect his employer from the slightest ding to their rep. It’s the dark side. Deal. And here’s the deal with this story, wherein an ad hoc committee of lawyers created an ad taking New Chrysler and Old Soon-to-be-New GM to task for trying to walk away from post-C11 product liability.
The August issue of Consumer Reports has started to arrive in subscribers’ mailboxes and features a review of the 2010 Honda Insight Hybrid. Guess what. They concurred with Michael Karesh and panned it, citing the lack of oomph, room, and refinement. CR didn’t like the original 2-seat Insight, either, citing the lack of oomph, room, and refinement, but at least it got 65+ mpg.
Ford has been benefiting heavily from “good kid syndrome” lately. You know how it goes, as long as your behavior is marginally better than your sibling’s, you’re the good kid. Just ask the self-styled Autoextremist.
I believe that Ford will emerge as the largest and most profitable U.S. automaker and stay that way for the foreseeable future. They have the strongest management team (led by ex-Boeing executive Alan Mulally who is simply one of the best who has ever worked in this business), they have sensational products here and on the way (their new product cadence is extremely impressive and rivals that of any automaker in the business), and they are demonstrating signs of real momentum in an absolutely dreadful market. I expect Ford to be a global force to be reckoned with in this business for years to come.
Mr. Delorenzo isn’t wrong, per se. Ford’s management and products look downright promising . . . compared to the other Detroit firms. Which is like saying you’ve got the nicest Camaro in the trailer park. Meanwhile, far from the oracles of product cadence and “real momentum,” people are looking at Ford’s numbers, and the words “global force to be reckoned with” aren’t flowing off any of their keyboards.
Rumors of a sub-Boxster Porsche roadster appear to be off again. “Another model line is not something we are concentrating on at the moment . . . my gut feeling is that we do not need one,” Porsche S&M boss Klaus Berning tells the Telegraph (via MotorAuthority). Rumors had centered around VW’s Bluesport roadster concept, which is likely to go into production as both VW and Audi-branded sports cars. That could have spelled a brutal brand dilution for Porsche, but independent development isn’t exactly a great option either, considering Porsche’s tenuous financial status. Weirdly, Berning does admit that it “could be possible to have a four-cylinder again in a 911 but it would be a Porsche four-cylinder. The 911 is the core of the brand and it follows different rules to the rest of the brand models.”
Do we really want to have this debate again? You know, the one where Detroit’s defenders claim that federal “loans” are loans not bailout bucks? I guess so. After all, the MSM has been all about Ford being the only domestic not to receive a federal bailout. And now we hear that The Blue Oval Boys have landed a $5.9 billion dollar retooling loan from the Department of Energy. As expected. “Our business plan assumed about the amount we got,” FoMoCo CEO Alan Mulally told Reuters. “It’s very consistent with our plan.” Automotive News [sub] reports that Ford. Wants. More.
Let’s get one thing straight: There are very few inanimate objects which inspire my personal appreciation, respect, and interest as much as the 2010 Toyota Prius does. It’s a happy faced, slick, aerodynamically-optimized, practical, comfortable and dead-reliable vehicle which exists for the sole purpose of letting concerned Americans feel like they are making a small but genuine difference in their efforts to reduce their consumption of the world’s finite resources.
Manny Lopez has a cow about Tesla’s $465 million Department of Energy loan over at the Detroit News, concluding that tax dollars shouldn’t “be spent, propping up millionaires and billionaires, who, unlike their Detroit CEO brethren, fly in private planes when they’re not toying around town in their electric cars.” And why is it that Detroit’s CEOs don’t fly on corporate jets? Oh, right. Sweet Pete DeLorenzo lays into Tesla as well, saying it got the loans “so that it can become a real car company instead of a boondoggle that makes outrageously overpriced battery-eating kit cars.” MLive‘s Rick Haglund even figures Elon Musk’s divorce-by-blog reflects an unseriousness that makes his firm undeserving of taxpayer support.
[mail to:catherine.m.karol@gm.com]
Sent: Monday, June 22, 2009 7:04 PM
To: Koles, Kathryn
Subject:
Kathryn –
I got your voicemail indicating that you had finished your reviewed of the issue ad that we discussed briefly earlier today. As I mentioned earlier, the ad has already run at least one time on MSBC on Friday, June 19 at 11:49am EDT.
GM’s concern with ad that can be found at www.protestgm-chrysler.com is that it inaccurately suggests that GM and Chrysler have taken identical positions with regard to product defect and porduct liability issues. Of greatest concern to us is the insinuation that “defects would no longer be reported let alone fixed” by GM. This is certainly not the case for GM, as is noted elsewhere in several other places on the website. A letter from theSenate Commerce Committee to Fritz Henderson that is described on the website can be viewed in the link below — it acknowledges that GM has already agreed to assume those responsibilities in the new company.
We may have further issues to discuss regarding this ad. but I thought it might be useful to get that one if frontof your prior to our further conversation. Thanks again for the opportunity to weigh in.
Regards-
Kate
313.667.6186 (o)
313.378.6535 (c)
__________________
Here’s a link to the letter to from the Senate Commerce Committee.
I had to travel 1000 miles to buy my first car. At the time Toyota dealers in the Southeast didn’t have Camrys with optional ABS (1994). Why? Supposedly you didn’t need it. Unless you bought the top of the line model, which cost an extra $3000. Thanks to this pearl of wisdom from Toyota’s Southeast distributorship, I went to New Jersey where my brother and I bought respective Camrys. Should I have bothered? I’ll put it this way. Back in the Clinton era this regional cabal offered a really nice Scotchguard protection deal that had the word ‘Toyo’ in it along with windows etched with your VIN and about $7 worth of hocus pocus that no one really cared to have. The surcharge? $699. They all did it. After my third or fourth visit to the local new car rodeo, I said “screw ’em” and headed to [New] Jersey.
One wonders how many entries the Renewable Fuels Association received for their “online ethanol contest” designed to “get a new generation of Americans, mainly college students, engaged in the promotion and support of ethanol.” Domesticfuel.com claims that this video was chosen by “thousands of people across the country.” Oh, wait! “From there, a panel of judges selected the final winner, based on creativity, quality and relevance. McAfee won a Macbook Air computer for his winning entry.” Anyway, it looks like we’re a bit late to this “story.” Never mind. “The Fuel-Flex Challenge was sponsored by the Kansas Corn Commission, the Kentucky Corn Growers Association, the United Sorghum Checkoff Program and the Renewable Fuels Association. The fun will continue this summer with the launch of a new photo contest. Stay tuned for more details.” We will!
I’m busy chasing the story about Comcast’s decision to pull the ad from the Ad Hoc Committee of Consumer Victims of GM and Chrysler re: the automakers’ attempts to walk away from safety-related claims against their “old” incarnations. I’ve got calls into the left coast lawyers who have first-hand knowledge of the circumstances surrounding the self-imposed censorship. Meanwhile, Sean Kane, the president of advocacy group Safety Research and Strategies (SRS), says the ad was pulled after a call from GM’s lawyers to Comcast. He also shared this pdf: Public Safety at Risk. “If GM is allowed to assign liability for its pre-New GM vehicles to old GM, it will remove the incentive for claimants to file,” Kane contends. “It would remove an important surveillance device for the NHTSA.”
Update: According to the speaker of the influential CDU Economics Council, there will be no decision about the future of Opel before the 27 September national elections. “Nothing will be decided before the elections, because nobody in the government wants to lose face because of this,” a council member said to Automobilwoche [sub]. The Opel Trustee figures that the latest date for a final, signed contract is mid September. If nothing is signed by then, the government money has run out and Opel is bankrupt.
The GM/Opel/Magna/Sberbank/GAZ group grope is in trouble. The writings are on all walls.
Opel is hemorrhaging more than €5 million per day, the Westdeutsche Allgemeine has learned. Opel spokesfolk said, it’s “only” €2.8 million. By mid September, the €1.5 billion bridge loan, underwritten by the German government, will be used up. There won’t be more money—that has been made as clear as can be. Time and money are running out. Why is Opel burning so much cash despite brisk sales? The Opel Tech Center has 7000 highly paid engineers. They work(ed) for all of GM. Bankrupt GM stopped all payments.
In the meantime, talks between GM and Magna hit one snag after another. (Read More…)
If the tea leaves of Edmunds, J.D. Power, CSM Worldwide and Deutsche Bank are correctly aligned, June SAAR (a.k.a. “seasonally adjusted annualized sales rate”) could be slightly above 10 million, Bloomberg reports. Based on a nearly completed month, J.D. Power estimates the June SAAR at 10.1 million. Deutsche Bank sees the June SAAR rise to 10.2 mil, and thinks the second half of the year will average 11 mil units. CSM reckons June will come in at 10.3 million SAAR.
A lot has been written about GM’s dysfunctional corporate culture, much of it here. Thanks to the mean meme, GM CEO Fritz Henderson has been forced to add a bizarre explanation of how a consummate GM insider can reform the sclerotic bureaucracy that vomited him forth. Up? Anyway, Fritz has been hard at it, deigning to dignify ex-Car Czar Bob Lutz’ in-house media mouthpiece (FastLane) with his presence. Yes, well, bully for him. But you have to wonder about the CEO’s promise to create a laser-like focus on New GM’s 34 (count ’em 34) nameplates when the company is creating and abandoning websites like a phishing scheme. Anyone remember GMNext?
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