It’s hard to believe that The General was once so dominant that it sweated over the fear of being split up by the federal government via antitrust regulations, and that GM’s divisions cranked out more than 25 separate passenger-car engine types (counting Opel and Holden models) during the decade. Why, The General boasted ten different car V8s during the 1960s (not counting earlier models intended for warranty replacements, industrial use, etc); eight of those engines were being built in 1965 alone. Imagine a manufacturer today so mighty that it could offer eight totally different V8 engines (in 14 displacements) for sale in its new cars! (Read More…)

This weekend’s homage to the car’s electrification, celebrating deliveries of the Leaf and the Volt to normal civilians, in addition to a whole fleet of electric THINK cars delivered to the State of Indiana, would be incomplete without mentioning that EVs can be a menace to society. These things are so quiet – that they creep up on you – just like that. (Read More…)

Currently, the only commercially available plug-in on the European market is the Mitsubishi i-Miev. You can also have it as Peugeot iOn, or as Citroen C-Zero. Not much is known about their sales success. Launched in Japan in 2009, the i-Miev last month celebrated its 5000^th car rolling off the Japanese production lines. Which earned the i-Miev the title “best selling pure EV” – the numbers are that big. The numbers will soon get much bigger – if all goes according to plan. (Read More…)

Back when I was doing the Los Angeles-San Francisco round-trip in various heaps, beaters, clunkers, and jalopies at least twice a month, I wore out several cassettes of Captain Beefheart’s masterpiece, Trout Mask Replica. No other album seemed quite so perfectly suited for that stretch of Interstate 5. Now Mr. Vliet is gone, forever. (Read More…)

This Monday, Nissan’s all-electric Leaf will officially go on sale in Japan. All of the 6,000 Leafs scheduled to be made this fiscal year has already been reserved, reports Japan’s Asahi Shimbun. A lot of them are in the grips of pre-orderer’s remorse after a trip to their garage: (Read More…)

TTAC commentator Bucksnort writes:

Sajeev and Steve: This is another request for sports/sporty car buying advice along the lines of the recent query from Jing.  I live in the mountains in Colorado where snow is measure in feet, not inches and am 235 miles from any upscale German and Japanese dealer.  There is a full complement of local US and basic Japanese dealers, no Korean or European.  The sports car must share a garage bay with a lawn tractor mounted snow-blower in the winter so size in an issue.  I don’t really need an AWD sports car since none of them have any ground clearance anyway and the extra driveshaft and differential are tantamount to carrying around a permanent fat broad.  My other two vehicles, a lifted Jeep Rubicon and an Expedition, can easily handle the snow via ground clearance, lugged/siped tires, or just by crushing it.

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The West Virginia road trip was five years in the making, five days in the doing. The blurred photo captures the spirit—often the most memorable things are those that aren’t entirely planned. In the end, everyone wanted to do it all again next year—with one notable exception. We’ll get to that.

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One of the more admirable qualities of the blogging culture is a relentless underdog streak. Anyone who mans the ramparts of a decent blog is forever scouring the worlds of business, media and opinion for an opportunity to attack the most prominent voices of the day. And TTAC is no exception: we certainly came up by attacking the apologists and Polyannas who are still massively overrepresented in the world of automotive commentary. But what a difference a bailout makes. While the mainstream automotive media spent much of the leadup to the auto bailout making apologies and excuses for Detroit’s decline, TTAC told the unpleasant truth, gaining us new readers and credibility every step of the way. Now that I find myself being asked to contribute to one of the most prestigious opinion outlets in the world (the NY Times op-ed page) on a regular basis, TTAC is no longer the underdog, and other blogs have stepped into the breach to attack us as the new status quo. Fair enough… let’s do this thing.

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Yes, it’s changed… but could you tell?

Both the Senate and the House have passed a one-year extension of the Volumetric Ethanol Excise Tax Credit (aka “blender’s credit”), the Small Ethanol Producer Credit and the ethanol import tariff and the Alternative Vehicle Refueling Property Tax Credit, as part of a tax bill that now needs only the President’s signature to become law. The full suite of ethanol subsidies were extended at their current levels, despite an attempt to lower the blender’s credit to 36 cents per gallon instead of 45 cents per gallon. These subsidies will cost in the neighborhood of $6b next year, keeps cheaper Brazilian ethanol out of the US market, and may inspire a WTO complaint with Brazil. And, as Senator Diane Feinstein (D-CA) puts it:

The ethanol industry is the only one to ever receive the triple crown of government intervention. Ethanol use is mandated by law, its users receive federal subsidizes and domestic production is protected by tariffs. That policy is not sustainable.

And she’s not kidding: even with these subsidies in place, ethanol plants are still losing money on each gallon they produce… and analysts are predicting record-high grain prices after the extension is signed. What’s not to love?

Never say die: Daimler announced today that Mercedes-Benz production will reach a new record level of more than 1.2 million cars this year, exceeding the pre-carmageddon records of 1.19 million cars produced in 2008, Dow Jones Newswire reports. (Read More…)

Where did GMC get the idea to take a short-bed pickup, widen the track, fit some Fox shocks and generally beef it up to create a factory off-road “halo” truck? Oh right, from Ford. If you’re not convinced that Detroit still has at least one foot firmly stuck in the past, this halo niche-chasing behemoth should help clear up some of that doubt.

While the US government was saving Chrysler with the Chrysler Corporation Loan Guarantee Act of 1979, American Motors had to go to the French government for its bailout. (Read More…)

In the space of just over four weeks, Cleveland, Ohio has lost three appellate-level cases over its photo enforcement program. On November 10, a federal appeals court panel shot down the city’s attempt to block a class action lawsuit by drivers of leased vehicles who received traffic camera ticket (view opinion). On Monday, a state appeals court panel came to the same conclusion, finding it likely that the city unjustly enriched itself with photo tickets (view opinion). Yesterday, a new three-judge panel of the the Ohio Court of Appeals for the Eighth Appellate District threw out a speed camera tickets on the grounds that Cleveland had ignored state law.

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In a nod to the fact that growth lies elsewhere on the globe, GM created a new position rarely seen elsewhere: Chief Marketing Officer (CMO). Job description: Head and direct global marketing. Job filled by: Joel Ewanick.

The marketing maven joined GM in May, after a very short (and apparently not too happy) stint at Nissan.  Ewanick became famous for his marketing work for Hyundai and for implementing gutsy marketing strategies. Ewanick is credited for a lot of Hyundai’s U.S. success. (Read More…)