Official fuel economy testing for all vehicles is conducted on chassis dynamometers, which are basically treadmills for cars and trucks. One subtlety of chassis dynamometer testing is that vehicle fuel economy measurements using decades-old standard speed profiles may be overly optimistic compared to today’s average on-road fuel use. Official methods exist to adjust the test cycle fuel economy of conventional vehicles to better estimate expected real-world fuel use, but a similar adjustment method has yet to be finalized for PHEVs.
From a National Renewable Energy Lab paper on plug-in hybrid efficiency testing [via Green Car Congress].
The Wall Street Journal reports that Roger Penske has pulled out of a deal with GM that would have kept the Saturn brand in business. Per the WSJ report:
The deal called for Penske to initially acquire vehicles from GM but eventually branch out to sell products from Renault SA (RNO.FR) and its Samsung Motors unit, which is based in South Korea. Penske Auto said Wednesday that it negotiated a supply agreement with “another manufacturer,” but that company’s board rejected the deal.
“Without that agreement, the company has determined that the risks and uncertainties related to the availability of future products prohibit the company from moving forward with this transaction,” said Penske Auto.
Reuters confirms the story, adding “GM said in a separate statement it would wind down the Saturn brand and its dealership network.”
Shame on CarMax. While I trust these guys enough to buy an SUV from them, I’m not so happy about their decision to play the estrogen card for PR points. “Buying a car is a hassle for women, according to a recent poll conducted for CarMax, Inc. (NYSE: KMX), the nation’s largest retailer of used cars. When asked about their last car buying experience, a fourth of the women who responded felt a quick and effortless transaction was most missing, according to a new [online] survey of more than 500 women. Fair, low pricing and having a trustworthy salesperson were also cited as the other top factors missing when buying a vehicle.” And this is different for men, how? Rather than concentrating on what unites us, CarMax is focusing on an invidious distinction, pandering for PC brownie points. Check this: the survey asks “Thinking about the last time that you bought a car, which of the following was most missing?” (Most missing?) Only two percent said “Respect” and 13 percent said they’d never bought a car. What does that tell you?
According to a post by Diarmuid O’Connell, Tesla’s Vice President of Business Development,
The Model S platform will also be used for derivatives including a minivan, cross-over utility vehicle and a utility van for fleets and other industrial or civic uses
The Model S sedan already claims seating for seven, with a third row of jump seats under its rear hatch. But hey, why not build other models on the same platform? Nobody shopping a Tesla is going to care about overlap, price premiums or branding issues. The EV business model is still squarely in the “set a price and hope there are enough early adapters out there” era, and more models will help differentiate Tesla from competitors like Fisker. Besides, Tesla has made it clear that they don’t want to be a luxury car maker forever. Elon Musk sees high-end products like the Roadster and Model S Sedan as cocoon from which Tesla will emerge as a fully-formed, mainstream EV manufacturer. And if you’re going to worry about the Silicon Kids on the basis of this one blog post, it should be because of the following syntactically-challenged sentence:
Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood kicked off the DoT’s first-ever “Distracted Driving Summit” in Washington today with a speech calling texting while driving a “menace to society.” LaHood cited just-released NHTSA data (PDF) showing that 6,000 road deaths, or about 15 percent of the 2008 total, were caused by distracted drivers as evidence of what he termed a “deadly epidemic.” According to the Detroit News, LaHood singled out drivers under the age of 20 as the worst offenders and called for “a combination of strong laws, tough enforcement and ongoing public education.” And though there seems to be little outcry over the singling out of young whippersnappers, the cell phone industry wants to make sure its products don’t become the scapegoat for LaHood’s ominous metaphors. Makeup, GPS systems, food and other distractions are being discussed as potential targets for action. The summit’s media facts page even points out that “distraction from cell phone use while driving (hand held or hands free) delays a driver’s reactions as much as having a blood alcohol concentration at the legal limit of .08 percent.” Sorry Ford! A Maine law banning all forms of driver distraction is being looked at as an example, but even LaHood concedes that “We cannot rely on legal action alone, because in reality, you can’t legislative behavior. There aren’t enough police on patrol to catch everyone who’s breaking the law.” Which is a fantastic point, but one that’s apparently not stopping LaHood from considering invasive enforcement techniques.
Make no mistake: GM and Chrysler went into bankruptcy horrendously over-dealered. GM was carrying more than twice Toyota’s 1500 dealers (with a lot less than twice the market share). The automakers’ needed to cut their franchise network down to size for reasons elucidated here on numerous occasions. The fact that the culled dealers are dogging the federally-subsidized carmakers for cash—well, you, really—is neither here nor there. It’s on YouTube! In their own words . . .
As the Brits say, it never rains; it only pours. The New York Times reports that pickup truck sales are falling into the same bottomless pit that swallowed-up full-size SUVs. Apparently, “the precipitous decline in pickup sales has been greater than many auto executives had expected.” Sure, ’cause the domestic automakers’ suits are so good at forecasting sales, or preparing for their forecasts to be wrong, or reacting when their forecasts turn out seriously awry. I’m not so sure the decline contains as much precipitation [sic] as the Old Gray Lady suggests. “When pickup sales were at their peak in 2004, the segment accounted for nearly 15 percent of all new vehicles sold. This year, pickup sales represent about 10 percent of the overall market.” And remember: even with enough cash on the hood to test their suspensions, pickups are still Motown’s number one money maker. How scary is that, Mr. GM owner? Anyway, it’s the cultural change that intrigues . . .
Bob Kruse, GM’s executive director of global vehicle engineering for hybrids, electric vehicles and batteries and the man in charge of the Volt’s battery development and integration, is leaving General Motors. The Detroit News reports Kruse is leaving to start an EV consulting firm, creatively named E V Consulting. “My departure from General Motors has nothing to do with my view of the future success for the Volt,” says Kruse. “I’ve left on very good terms. I have a lot of respect for the leadership of General Motors.” And then he goes and confuses everything by claiming, “I’m not going to lie. Are they happy about my departure? Probably not.” And GM’s response? “There’s no good time to lose good people, but that said, the Volt team goes way beyond one person.” Which, for comparison, is a more straightforward response than Tesla’s Elon Musk gave when his head of development and manufacturing suddenly ditched. But the real irony is that GM’s bailout, which at this point is a gamble that rides on the success or failure of the Volt, was the motivation for the Volt’s top midwife to ditch in the middle of its frenzied gestation.
With my previous Chevrolet Cobalt XFE encounter in mind, visiting three dealerships in search of an XFE tester came as no surprise. Ironically, the dealer formerly associated with “Mr. Big Volume” (a.k.a. Bill Heard) had one XFE-badged Cobalt that survived last month’s Cash For Clunkers shopping spree. Like the surprisingly respectful staff at this once-infamous […]
Before we jump into this one, it’s important to lay out a few caveats. The first is that, in general, TTAC doesn’t do recalls. It’s impossible to cover them with any fairness, and most of the time they’re inconsequential or hard to verify. The second is that TTAC really, really doesn’t do sudden unintended acceleration (SUA) scares. If someone tells you their throttle sticks wide open at precisely the same time as their brakes fail, they’re either covering for their own incompetence or looking for a buck. Period. Now, the proliferation of computer controls may have introduced a greater possibility of simultaneous system failures than existed on old, mechanically-actuated brakes and throttles. In fact, the recent rash of SUA complaints involving Toyota and Lexus models had me wondering if ghosts in the machine were rendering the time-tested SUA debunking test obsolete. No such luck. It turns out it’s the floormats, stupid. Toyota initially dismissed all SUA claims, but now Bloomberg reports they’re recalling floor mats on 3.8m Toyota and Lexus models for causing the gas pedal to stick.
Xerox Corporation announced yesterday that it would acquire Affiliated Computer Services (ACS) for $6.4 billion. ACS is a major, long-time player in the speed camera, red light camera, tolling and parking ticket business. Xerox, famous for its domination of the photocopying market from the 1960s to the 1980s, sees the purchase as a way to reinvent itself and dominate the business outsourcing market. “By combining Xerox’s strengths in document technology with ACS’s expertise in managing and automating work processes, we’re creating a new class of solution provider,” Xerox CEO Ursula M. Burns said in a statement. “A game-changer for Xerox, acquiring ACS helps us expand our business and benefit from stronger revenue and earnings growth.”
How about a backers for an independent British sportscar marque? Kuwait’s national Investment Dar, which paid $925m for a 51 percent stake in Aston Martin two and a half years ago, has secured a claims freeze from creditors, reports The Guardian. This, nearly seven months after the fund got into trouble and offered its Aston stake up for biding, and our Aston-buyer-rumor-meter is still registering a fat goose egg. $393m of Dar’s stake was financed with a Shariah-compliant loan, and the Dar has been forced to publicly ask its creditors to chill. The finance guys will come to some kind of musawamah, but it’s Aston I’m worried about. McLaren is making a less indulgently heritage-dependent bid to be come the British sportscar firm, while Aston is… languishing on the market, firing workers, being turned down by celebs, rebadging Toyotas and generally cheapening the brand. Where do you go from there?
It’s been a long time since anyone has taken on the many makers of Lotus 7-based sportscars. These kitcar cottage industries have made many updates to their drivetrains over the years, perking up Colin Chapman’s classic design with engines from ranging from Ford Duratecs to Suzuki Hayabusa mills to handbuilt V8s. But these have been incremental changes, keeping the look and underpinnings of the original unchanged. What has yet to be attempted is a fresh-sheet, 21st Century re-imagining of the classic form. Until the krauts behind Roding came along, anyway. Auto Motor und Sport shows off renderings of their all-new lightweight roadster, developed with help from Munich Technical University and set to debut as a production car in 2011. Though it looks 7-like, it’s actually a mid-engine design, which is how we imagine Herr Chapman would create his own all-new 7 (witness the Elise). The engine itself is a 400 hp turbocharged five-pot (of Audi extraction?), which gives the Roding Roadster a power-to-weight ratio of about 6.5 pounds per horsepower, or about the same as an F430. So 2,400 pounds isn’t quite in the same featherweight class as the 7, but the Roding looks like quite the compelling interpretation of a classic roadster.
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