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Piech has a new enemy: The taxman. Volkswagen’s planned takeover of Porsche could be a taxable event to the tune of €3B, writes the Süddeutsche Zeitung.
As the derivative-wielding duo Wiedeking and Härter are surely aware of, there are ways to circumvent this nasty detail. VW’s CFO reportedly has shown the ways. However, this needs cooperation on both sides. The Porsche side seems to be uncooperative and happy about the tax issues. If a solution can’t be found, then “the deal is off” the Süddeutsche quotes a source, notably sitting on the Porsche board. A Porsche speaker also said that “there is a problem.” Apparently, a welcome one.
In a speech last week before the Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE), a road safety expert argued that speed limits should be based on engineering, not political considerations. Chad Dornsife, executive director of the Best Highway Safety Practices Institute made his case to an ITE annual meeting in Denver, Colorado. “The solution is to properly engineer our roadways to facilitate the optimum flow of traffic, a prescription that would reduce our total vehicular carbon footprint and improve roadway safety,” Dornsife said. “The future is in educating motorists to drive safely via safety campaigns that promote keep right except to pass, yielding, courtesy, and safety practices that are based in fact. Programs that create jobs, reduce our carbon footprint, pollution, and improve the safety and efficiency of our infrastructure.”
A TTAC Commentator emailed this about the what did she mean debate re: GM’s proposed inventory levels for the new Buick LaCrosse.:
Just an FYI, but the execs at Chrysler always looked at the dealer stock and total stock separately. Although the cause of this was as you pointed out – due to the sales bank where cars were being parked in overflow lot. The situation got so bad in 2008 that Chrysler had to track “unaccounted for and parked somewhere random” stock separately… but that’s a separate story. Hopefully New GM will never go the route of building thousands of unallocated cars (but I’m sure they’ll find a way). The two metrics were required because the various operating groups could be measured against the gap between dealer/total stock or the efficiency of the dealer stock. It just depended on what was being measured.
Canadian activists are turning to the courts to stop the controversial photo radar program in Winnipeg. On Thursday, the Road Safety Awareness Group filed a claim in the Manitoba Court of Queen’s Bench seeking the refund of $177 million CAD in tickets issued, plus additional damages. The suit names city and provincial officials as well as Affiliated Computer Services (ACS), the Dallas-based contractor that runs the program; its predecessor, Lockheed Martin IMS; and Gatsometer BV, the Dutch company that makes the speed camera equipment. Rather than focus on legal issues, the suit attempts to expose the unseemly manner in which the photo radar program was approved by the province of Manitoba in 2002 and implemented in Winnipeg the following year. The suit argues that ACS and Lockheed used bogus safety and financial statistics to convince officials to use the company as its sole vendor. The program happened to be quite useful to the companies’ other business lines.
Yesterday, Bloomberg reported that Buick jeffe Susan Docherty promised to “restrict” supplies of the new LaCrosse to a 75 to 90-day inventory. As we pointed out in our blog, that’s 15 to 30 days above the industry ideal. We also highlighted the lunacy of Docherty’s comparison to the slow-selling Acura TL. As PFC Pyle used to say, surprise, suprise, surprise! Docherty’s spinning and backpedalling furiously. What’s worse: Autoblog has appointed itself apologist-in-chief. Make the jump to span the “plausibility gap.”
Our good friends at Wooden Horse (a magazine writers’ website) tell us that Lexus is launching a lifestyle magazine called . . . Lexus. Below is the official description of the new buff book. Knowing TTAC’s Best and Brightest as I do, I’m sure you can provide Lexus’ editors with a more appropriate list of departments and articles to entertain and amuse [both of] the marque’s non-narcoleptic owners/enthusiasts.
It is a loyalty and brand-building publication and is mailed for free to anyone who owns or leases a Lexus vehicle. The editorial covers lifestyle, the arts, fine dining and travel, as well as vehicle reviews and test drives of the newest Lexus models. Departments include:
Lexus News – The latest on Lexus’s products, services, owner benefits, and partnerships.
Lexus Sense – Information on timely products and events that will help Lexus owners indulge their senses.
Spotlight – A feature profile on Lexus owners.
LEXicon Culture Pages – A magazine-within-the-magazine dedicated to categories of interest to readers, including Travel, Active Pursuits, Design, Products for Good Living, Cuisine and Philanthropy.
Sensibility – A back-page essay highlighting a notable innovator.
Steve Rattner recently surrendered his position as the head of The Presidential Task Force on Automobiles (PTFOA). Seems Steve-a-rino must attend to a little mess down in The Empire State. More specifically, NY AG Andrew Cuomo suspects that Rattner’s Quadrangle Group paid a $1.1 million bribe to political consultant Hank Morris to secure megabucks from the New York Pension Board. The Treasury Department immediately spun Rattner’s resignation as a normal part of the PTFOA’s new role as Chrysler and GM’s more silent partner: “Steve’s decision to leave is the first step in a planned scaledown of the task force and there will of course be more departures in the future. It was always part of the plan to downsize once Chrysler and GM emerged from bankruptcy.” So how many other bureaucrats on the [now] 24-member PTFOA have left government employ? None. Meanwhile . . .
Sorry, go back to bed: No Autobiography of BS © this time. As you read this, BS sits on a plane heading for Europe where he will conduct a week of business. Next Sunday is also unlikely as I’m on a plane back. After that . . . he’s baaaaaaaaack!
This week’s Your Shitty Economy (YSE)™ Car of the Week: the 2005 Lotus Elise. Somewhere along the line responsibility took over your life, leaving no room in the garage for fifty-thousand dollar track toys. It’s amazing how five years and $5,000 a year in depreciation can help rationalize the need for a weekend toy. Let’s face it, the street legal go kart Elise isn’t good for much else. The ride will make your STI feel like a Town Car. And the noise? Even if the radio (if it has one) isn’t capable of drowning out the engine, who cares? Pop the top and let the wind rush and exhaust notes assault your senses. If you are flexible enough to make it into the driver’s seat the purity of it all will overwhelm you. Don’t even think of using the word luxury in its presence. Want to talk numbers?
On Monday, July 20, 2009, GM Europe accepts the last and final bids for Opel. Really. Definitely. They mean it. GM will evaluate the bids, choose a favorite, and then go on an arduous show-and-tell tour: Germany’s central government needs to be convinced, the states where Opel has plants need to be convinced, European countries where Opel has plants need to be convinced, the EU Commission needs to give its approval. The US government needs to be consulted. And then it’s up to the trustees to say “Ja” or “Nein.” So what will it be?
After every paper in Germany, and soon thereafter most on the globe had reported the ouster of Wendelin Wiedeking as Porsche CEO, his chairman Wolfgang Porsche belatedly came to his rescue: Friday evening, Wolfgang Porsche, chairman of the Porsche supervisory board, said that this is all wrong. In Germany’s fat weekend-editions, the denial is mentioned only in passing. Nobody seems to buy it.
What makes headlines is that Volkswagen might be first to fire Wiedeking. As representative of the 51 percent Porsche owns in VW, Wiedeking sits on VW’s supervisory board. It will meet on July 23, coincidentally when the Porsche supervisory board meets, and likewise coincidentally, both boards meet in Stuttgart. That makes it easier for two people: Ferdinand Piech is the chairman of the Volkswagen board, he also sits on the Porsche board. Wiedeking needs to report to his Porsche board, but he also needs to attend the Volkswagen board meeting.
It may be his last meeting.
I’ve been monitoring the Association of British Drivers (ABD) for some time. I’ve refrained from reporting on their longstanding assault of the UK’s transportation policies, based (as it so often is) on their deep skepticism about anthropogenic global warming (AGW). TTAC’s Best and Brightest tend to get a bit “enervated” about AGW, and I didn’t want to add fuel to the fire (and thus raise global temperatures). But WTH. We haven’t had a good punch-up on this topic in some time. So I’m letting loose the dogs of war. On yer bikes, boys!
The imposition of more taxes and restrictions is the real agenda behind computer modelled climate alarmism via the unjustified demonization of CO2.
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