Got a mid to large sized automobile manufacturer to sell? Preferably with the latest technology and know-how? Want to unload a portfolio of established brands? Drowning in debt? Then call +86 10 67699888 and talk to Xu Heyi at Beijing Automotive Industry Corp (BAIC). You may find an attentive listener.
It’s (still) 1971. Disney World just opened. Nixon pledges to end US involvement in Vietnam. Daniel Ellsberg reveals the “Pentagon Papers.” The Doors release “LA Woman.” The Bee Gees inflict “How Can You Mend a Broken Heart.” Charles Manson is sentenced to death. “All in the Family” starts. The Stones are on top with “Brown Sugar.” The voting age is lowered to 18. Intel invents the 4004 Processor. Peugeot builds a 404 Wagon that ends up as the Niedermeyer family truckster. Janis belts out “Me and Bobby McGee.” China is seated at the UN. Nixon imposes a 10% surcharge on imported cars.
TTAC’s oversight of all things automotive continues with the 17th take of today’s daily podcast.
The Swedes are sinking fast. Swedish Wire reports that Ford’s Volvo brand continues to be the elephant fart in the room, sucking wind to the tune of $231 million for the second financial quarter. “The decline primarily reflected lower volumes, partly offset by continued progress on cost reductions and favorable exchange,” the American carmaker pronounced. You mean it could have been worse? Meanwhile, SAAB,’s guzzling a gas tanker’s worth of not good. The former GM division, now owned by Old GM (which is like having an arsonist for a security guard), “made an operation loss last year of 4,148 million kronor ([€]377 million, $553 million). That is an increase of 90 percent from a loss of 2.194 million kronor a year ago . . . . During 2008 the company sold 93,220 cars, according to the TT news wire. That’s 25 percent fewer than 2007 when the company sold 125,085 cars.” And even then Saab didn’t make a profit. Despite deals to off-load the Swedish automakers on suspecting “investors,” their days of mass market sales are färdig. Unlike GM, they probably know it.
The Congressional Oversight Panel, tasked with monitoring TARP expenditures, is holding hearings on the auto bailout. Even as you read, Wayne State University is home to serious CYA action. In the blue corner: the post-Rattner head of the twenty-four (now) member Presidential Task Force on Automobiles (PTFOA) Ron Bloom. Big Ron II is expected to hew even more closely to its previous proclivity for a passive/aggressive approach to GM’s non-management management. “Given the emergence of the new GM and the new Chrysler, the involvement of the Auto Task Force with the companies will now change,” Bloom told the panel [via Market Watch]. Once again, Ron proclaims that only “core governance issues including the selection of a company’s board of directors and major corporate events or transactions” will be subject to PTFOA meddling going forward. (After all, they’ve got Advertising Czar Bob Lutz to handle the little things like “crapping on advertising.”) But even though the White House is on hand to show how easy putting your best platitude forward can be, the UAW won’t be joining the testimonial fun.
Good morning, Chairwoman Warren and distinguished members of the Oversight Panel.
Thank you for the opportunity to testify about how GM is reinventing our company and how a new GM will repay our nation’s investment.
Emerging from bankruptcy, we are a new company with less debt, a stronger balance sheet, with the right-sized manufacturing, product and dealer network to match today’s market realities. GM can now direct its full energy and resources to where it should be: on customers, cars and a culture to succeed.
We are grateful for our nation’s support. Without it, we would not have this second chance. Equally important, are the many who have been called to sacrifice in order to create a new GM.
While Ford and GM consider building their mid- and full-size cars on a single platform, Toyota and Nissan are already doing it. The Avalon has been based on the Camry platform since its inception and now Nissan is giving us an Altima-based Maxima. The key to pulling this trick off successfully is differentiating the resultant cars visually and dynamically, and preferably aiming them at different market segments. Did Nissan succeed at this mission, or did they just give us an Altimus Maximus?
I can’t say that I’ve seen everything. But sometimes I feel as if I have. For example, the morning after we publish Bob Elton’s piece on Chrysler’s wanton destruction of its historical archives, the Detroit Free Press runs a piece on the future—or lack thereof—for feral cats hanging out on the grounds of Chrysler’s Sterling Heights factory. As a former English resident alien, I know what’s it’s like to live in a country where animal welfare gets more play than the challenges faced by humans. Still, this is one for the record books: “‘We try to help them out a little,’ said Claudia Valentine, 55, a veteran skilled trades worker on the night shift at the plant. She said workers feed the cats nightly and do such things as setting insulated crates outside in winter. But the cats have multiplied and are causing safety problems, a few being run over by workers or caught in the conveyor system.” We also learn, “Feral females spend most of their lives pregnant or nursing. In seven years, one female cat and her offspring can yield 420,000 cats.” In the same sense, I suppose, that Chrysler can become profitable. Just sayin’.
Regular readers know that TTAC leans a little towards the “Inside Baseball” side of the auto industry. In this case, if we leaned any further, we’d fall down. But hey, many of us have come a long way together, shaking our heads in wonder as The General’s aide de camps stayed-up all night listening to Mohammed’s radio. Or something like that. Anyway, here’s a GM-related picture from Clubsnap.com’s Singapore snappers, taken during last year’s BBK International Motor Show. Make the jump for your New GM New Scorecard.
Remember the “legendary” story about a freshly-minted GM Car Czar peeking under a tarp (the non-financial sort) and saying, “This isn’t the new Corvette!” The Kool-Aid drinkers were awestruck; Bob Lutz was serving notice that GM design wasn’t good enough! In fact, as we pointed out, it wasn’t the new Corvette; Maximum Bob was simply showing his colleagues that he knew the difference between a Corvette and a non-Corvette. Well, here we go again, only this time MB is GM’s Marketing Czar and it’s a reviled Buick ad. Set-up: MB in the FastLane: “That Buick commercial tested very well, which is not the same as saying that it’s an effective ad. I think you will very quickly see a drastic change in the tone and content of our advertising. And if you don’t, it will mean that i have failed.” AdAge: “GM’s new marketing top gun, Bob Lutz, met with the automaker’s brand teams on July 14, spent 10 to 20 minutes critiquing the work for each brand and, in the words of someone in the know, ‘crapped all over the advertising.’ Then he jetted off to the Caribbean island of Montserrat on holiday, leaving some scared individuals in his wake.” Taxpayers/shareholders included.
From the Orlando Sentinel, [via TTAC commentator asickmf]:
A Sanford homicide suspect was arrested around midnight on Saturday when he ran a red light in Orlando.
Sanford police had been searching for Sergio Henderson after Robert J. Johnson, 37, was found dead near West 10th Street and Olive Avenue on Monday. Police believe there was a fight outside when the shooting occurred.
Henderson, 22, had just been released from prison on June 3. Since May of 2006 he had been serving time on offenses including battery on a law enforcement officer, burglary and vehicle theft.
The Wall Street Journal reports that the new federal “pay czar” Kenneth Feinberg is about to cap the execs working for GM, GMAC, Chrysler and Chrysler Financial. Well, restructure or “renegotiate” their salaries, bonuses and benefits. As Dan Rather might say, what’s the frequency, Kenneth? Less obliquely, the four auto industry recipients, all of whom owe their existence to billion dollar blessings from the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), must send Ken new exec pay, perks and bennies guidelines by August 13. At which time the man originally tipped to be President Obama’s Car Czar (mooted by a 25-member task force) will decide whether or not he likes their proposals. If he doesn’t . . .
Fullerton, California believes its right to due process was deprived during a red light camera trial last year, and now the city is spending thousands in an attempt to overturn the judge’s ruling. On Thursday, the Orange County Superior Court’s Appellate Division is scheduled to hear a motion that would, in effect, put a motorist who walked away with a court dismissal nine months ago back on trial for the exact same offense. Fullerton’s complaint is that Presiding Judge Robert J. Moss decided the case in November without input from the city attorney. “The appellate proceedings were thus a sham and not representative of justice or a proper adversarial search for truth and the rule of law, as to the issues purportedly decided on appeal,” the city’s brief, addressed to Judge Moss, stated. “The city of Fullerton respectfully moves this court to immediately… order that the superior court rescind its order dismissing the citation and dismissing the guilty count in this matter.”
Motorlegends.com‘s motor legend David Holzman forwards an e-mail:
My six year old 2003 Mazda Protoge5 is rusting out pretty bad [see: attached]. I had the left rear panel repaired two years ago (I didn’t realize then that the body was still under warranty). But the panel has continued to rust, to the point where the bracket that holds the bumper failed. From my online research, rust seems to be a problem with some vehicles of this model. I have seen some on the road with similar rust and others with none at all. I called the dealer and they told me to go away. Mazda has washed their hands of this problem and left those of us unfortunate enough to have bought the vehicle from this particular batch up the creek. We obviously can’t sell the car for anything near what others are selling for and I doubt it can be on the road for more than couple years before the rust renders it useless. Do we have any recourse?
Recent Comments