Right now, the [Volt’s] propulsion system is too expensive, even with using an existing engine… We have a strategy to go rotary engines or a two-cylinder [gas] engine making 15-18 kW. I have driven the car already. Rotary has a higher fuel consumption but here’s the advantage [holds up his hands to form round, frisbee-sized shape] — packaging.

GM’s Karl Stracke talks Volt 2.0 with InsideLine, and yet never quite explains why a less fuel-efficient rotary generator would even be on the table. Or how a rotary (let alone the also-mooted diesel generator) would be the solution to high drivetrain costs. How much room does the (implicity and reputationally) more-efficient two-cylinder really take up? Wasn’t the only mass-market rotary-powered car left in the wild, the Mazda RX-8, just canceled for flunking European emissions standards? Can’t the rotary engine die with a little dignity?

Common decency demands that this flagrant of fanbaiting be reserved at least until the first-gen Volt hits the streets.

Jalopnik carries today the revelation that in the Tesla/Toyota agreement, there is no “formal deal with Toyota to build a new electric vehicle yet.” Let’s overlook for a second that the report is nearly verbatim lifted from Venturebeat. If Jalopnik would have read our story about Toyota and Tesla, they could have printed the above a week earlier. (Read More…)

Bloomberg is reporting that anonymous sources tell them

[Ford’s] top executives are preparing a proposal to kill Mercury to be presented to directors in July

The rumor has yet to be confirmed, but the decision is clearly a sound one. We’ve written at length about Ford’s premium-brand problems, and Mercury is easily one of the weakest brands on the market. With Lincoln said to be going global, it makes plenty of sense to kill off Mercury. In fact, axing the purposeless entry-luxe brand might just be one of the single smartest moves Ford could make right now.

UPDATE via Twitter’s @davidshephardson(also of the Detroit News): “Mulally says he didn’t read Bloomberg report on Mercury. Says Ford has ‘nothing new to announce.'”

The Detroit News reports that two versions of the Electric Drive Vehicle Deployment Act of 2010 will be introduced today in the House and Senate. Both bills would spend about $11b by sending $800 million to $1 billion five to eight “deployment communities.” One of the EDVDA’s bipartisan sponsors, Rep Judy Biggert (R-IL) explains that these funds

will help regional communities establish themselves as models for the development and installation of the next generation of transportation infrastructure, including public charging stations

The bill is being backed by several small EV firms, like A123 Systems and Bright Automotive, under the rubric of the Electrification Coalition. And despite the fact that everyone loves a good subsidy, the mainstream automakers are not amused.

(Read More…)

With the autoblogosphere abuzz over Peter Cheney’s “unintended acceleration event,” Jill McIntosh has made a fascinating connection between one auto-journo’s son’s voyage of manual transmission discovery, and a former Ontario Attorney General’s killing of a cyclist back in September. Linking to a Toronto Star report on the trial of Michael Bryant, who killed cyclist Darcy Allan Shephard, McIntosh notes a strange similarity between that fatal incident and Cheney Junior’s garage door tango:

According to a statement read in court, reprinted in the Toronto Star today: Bryant hits the brakes. His vehicle stalls. Bryant tries to start his car, but it stalls again, lurching forward … Bryant tries to start the car again. He’s concentrating on the Saab’s sensitive clutch with his head down. He succeeds at restarting the engine and the Saab accelerates into Sheppard, who lands on the hood.

Obviously, two incidents do not a crisis make, but this is hardly the only evidence suggesting that manual gear-swapping is fast becoming a lost art. But do we really want to further stigmatize manual transmissions by mandating special licenses for manual-equipped cars, as McIntosh suggests?

(Read More…)

Having recently hooked up with firms like BYD and Suzuki, Volkswagen is continuing its rampage across the developing world’s markets, as Reuters reports that the VW’s leadership is in talks with the Malaysian state-owned (42 percent) automaker Proton. VW had previously sought an alliance with Proton, but talks broke off without an agreement in 2007. According to Bloomberg BusinessWeek, VW is not likely to take a stake in Proton despite last year’s policy shift by the Malaysian government allowing foreign firms to own majority stakes in mainstream Malaysian automakers. Proton was founded as a joint venture between the Malaysian state-owned firm Khazanah Nasional Berhad, and Mitsubishi.
(Read More…)

It was a gloomy April afternoon when I “won” my first “race”. Hours before, I had stood among a nervous, shuffling group of men as Tommy Byrne, the mercurial, self-destructive, and inhumanly talented Competition Director of the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course, had explained what we would need to do to survive his “comp school”: Don’t […]

No details yet, just an Inside Line confirmation from GM’s Karl Stracke that a seven-seat, Lambda-platform crossover “is absolutely a go.” It has long been rumored that the Cadillac Escalade would be replaced by a Lambda-platform crossover. The Cadillac crossover will join the Buick Enclave, Chevrolet Traverse, and GMC Acadia, as the Lambda becomes the only platform shared by all four of the General’s “core” brands (and previously, the Saturn Outlook as well).

GM’s plan to develop an electric version of its (previous-generation) Chevrolet Spark city car for developing markets had been dependent on a joint development deal with REVA, the Indian firm responsible for such vehicles as the REVAi (known to Brits and Top Gear fans as the G-Whiz). But with the AP [via BusinessWeek] reporting that Mahindra & Mahindra has bought a 55 percent stake in REVA, GM’s deal to use REVA’s technology in its Daewoo-developed hatchback appears to be off. GM had already scaled back its cooperation with REVA, delaying the planned release of the Spark EV and focusing on fleet testing the car. But, says GM India President Karl Slym

Now we’ve stopped the test fleet as well. We were doing it purely as something to learn. Now there’s no real benefit to that. We may as well stay with the GM solutions.

(Read More…)

Albert Einstein may have once said that:

Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new

But the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, which owns the rights to Einstein’s likeness, had this to say about this GMC ad which appeared in People Magazine’s “Sexiest Man Alive” issue:

The tattooed, shirtless image of Dr. Einstein with his underpants on display is not consummate with and causes injury to (the university’s) carefully guarded rights in the image and likeness of the famous scientist, political activist, and humanitarian

According to the Detroit News, the University is suing GM “more than $75,000” for the Leo Burnett-produced ad. GM spokesfolks insist the company purchased the right to use the Einstein image from a “reputable firm.”

Someone is in a big hurry: In March, Daimler and BYD signed an agreement to develop an all electric vehicle “specific to the requirements of the Chinese market.” Usually, it takes a while until something comes from these announcements, especially in China, where everything needs a lot of big red chops. Much to our surprise, we hear that BYD and Daimler signed the contract today to form a 50:50 joint venture for the aforementioned purpose. (Read More…)

Car & Driver voted Toyota’s FT-86 as one of the 25 cars worth waiting for. It seems like the wait will be a little longer than anticipated. Toyota had shown their sports car concept at many motor shows, from Tokyo to Beijing (but not in New York.) Of course, this was read as an imminent launch of the little brute. 2011 model year, hopefully. Mid 2011, maybe. Wrong. Not even close. (Read More…)

From Reuters to The Nikkei [sub], the world is abuzz with the shocking news that Honda had to shut down assembly lines at all of their four Chinese auto assembly plants after workers at a Honda transmission factory in Foshan in southern China walked off the job. While the job action barely registers in the Chinese press, my phone in Beijing rings off the hook. Common question from abroad: “Are they allowed to do that?” There goes another myth. (Read More…)

Toyota announces a gut-wrenching innovation: Crash test dummies with intestines. I remember the unappetizing times when crash tests were performed with (dead) pigs, or, even more gross, with human corpses (not for public consumption.) The crash test dummy changed all this. No species developed faster than the anthropomorphic test device, a.k.a. the crash test dummy. Now, it made a big leap forward. (Read More…)

So, the voiceover is wrong. Chrysler Group and its brands are too badly in need of credibility to be narrating an ad this good with a voice that sounds so similar to this guy’s. Otherwise, this spot is nearly flawless. Especially in comparison to other recent Wieden + Kennedy Dodge efforts like this one. But you all have longer memories than I… so when was the last time you saw a Dodge ad that hit the nail so directly on the head?