Apparently possessing the institutional memory of sperm, the auto media is once again trotting out the 50-year-old rumor that will never die: OMG, the new Corvette is going to be mid-engined! Or, as we are so fond of saying around here, not. The madness started earlier this week, when GM North America boss Mark Reuss blew his dog whistle by hinting that the C7 Corvette would be “completely different.” The media needed no further encouragement to trot out the mid-engine rumor once again. As Paul Niedermeyer has pointed out, the mid-engined ‘vette speculation has been an industry institution since Zora Arkus Duntov posed proudly with his CERV I concept in 1959.  Besides, Corvette engineers have been emphasizing the C7’s evolutionary nature for some time. Reuss’s hints could be about something as mundane and pre-signaled as a split rear window, or as out-there as Two-Mode hybrid option. Hoping for more is, I fear, would amount to a failure to learn the lessons of history.

So I’m driving a $69,000 Cadillac CTS-V, and it makes me wonder—if you can only spend half as much, how much performance do you sacrifice? And if you can spend twice as much, how much can you gain? Today, the first question. If you’re seeking a V8-powered, rear-wheel-drive sedan, but have a budget in the […]

Yesterday evening I directed some ire at President Obama’s continued reliance on ethanol as a major plank of his do-nothing transportation/energy agenda, noting

That extra money for 10,000 E15-capable pumps? That’s because no gas station owner will pay to install a pump for a kind of fuel that only cars built since 2001 can use… and which the auto industry has tried to ban. And why E15 in the first place? Because blenders can’t sell enough E10 to blend the government-mandated amount of ethanol and collect their $6b this year in “blender’s credits” to do so. A subsidy to support a subsidy which in turn props up yet another subsidy (I may have missed a subsidy in there somewhere). You can’t make this stuff up.

The “cornerstone” subsidy that all other ethanol subsidies support is the Volumetric Ethanol Excise Tax Credit, or VEETC, or “blender’s credit,” a $6b per year subsidy that directs 45 cents to refiners for every gallon of ethanol they blend with gasoline. The VEETC nearly died in December’s lame duck session, only to be revived as a way to buy votes for the President’s tax policy. Now, however, The State Column reports that a bipartisan Senate bill has been introduced that would eliminate both the VEETC and import tariffs on foreign-made ethanol. And with a rash of bad news coming out about ethanol, this could just be the opportunity to kill this wasteful government subsidy with fire.

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Jefferies is one of those starchy global investment banks and institutional securities firms where a two tone collared shirt is their idea of casual Friday. It is also a place where highly paid financial analysts outsnark the most ruthless TTAC writer, Yesterday, Jefferies sent its “Jefferies institutional clients that include investment managers, insurance companies, hedge funds and pension funds worldwide” a research note that my pal who owns a hedge fund volunteered to share with TTAC readers, as long as we guarantee full anonymity. No problem.

The note is titled “Is GM Turning into a Busted Thesis?” and deals – you guessed it – with the GM stock. H. Peter Nesvold, CFA, and Thomas Fogarty, CFA, both equity analysts at Jefferies, are underwhelmed by the GM share. (Read More…)

Something else was announced today at the Toyota results conference, and lost on most in the packed room. A remark by CFO Satoshi Ozawa that the long discussed rotating power rationing plan is now a done deal. (Read More…)

As the graph above [via NHTSA’s latest CAFE data, in PDF here]  shows, passenger car fleet economy has actually leveled off after a brief spike in recent years. Possibly even more surprising is the fact that imports spent a portion of the last decade actually beating the imports in passenger car economy after a 20+ year slide in import CAFE performance [more long-term fuel economy charts here]. These trends illustrate that the sides in the emerging “Battle of 62 MPG” may not as easy to characterize as you might think… as does a new hint from NHTSA about the shape of future CAFE increases. According to the Detroit News, NHTSA is signaling that

it is researching the impact of raising fuel efficiency in the 2 percent to 7 percent annual range.

The agency said it has “tentatively concluded” that 7 percent annual increases is the maximum that is technically feasible.

Before it sets a requirement, NHTSA must take into account a number of factors, including the costs of the regulation and safety impacts.

NHTSA and the Environmental Protection Agency said previously they are working together on 3 percent to 6 percent annual increases.

The high end of that range would result in the much-discussed 62 MPG by 2025 standard, an achievement the government insists would only cost as much as $3,500 per vehicle. The industry points to cost estimates closer to $10,000 per vehicle for that level of CAFE increase. The battle continues…

When I arrived at Toyota’s downtown Tokyo basement conference room, I bumped into Toyota spokesman Paul Nolasco, who was in the grips of stage fright. Annual results conferences with the world watching can do that to a spokesman. Trying to cheer Paul up in my charming way, I said: “Come on Paul. This one will be great. It’s the next ones that will be rotten as hell.” Paul gave me a pained look.

When I left an hour and a half later, I had changed my mind. Toyota will survive this crisis just like it survived the previous two: Stronger. Not unscathed, but not as badly affected as some officially fear and silently hope. What may not survive are Japanese jobs. (Read More…)

Carlton writes:

It sure would be nice if TTAC would do a piece about seat comfort. My wife has back problems and is not comfortable on long drives in our Mazda 6. I know comfort is largely subjective but are there any objective metrics available? Upright seating position seems to be better for both of us and a firm cushion is much preferred over soft.

I’ll bet many other readers are interested in this subject too.

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Some taxpayer-funded turnarounds just have a little more turnaround than others, according to the GAO’s recent report on the auto bailout [PDF here], which tracks the progress of the Detroit patients and considers their futures. Sure, GM received quite a bit more government money than Chrysler, but the improvements in GM’s financial performance compared to Chrysler’s are clear. But the GAO still has a number of concerns about the “more than $34 billion” of taxpayer value that’s still floating around, unrecouped, in the rescued automakers. Feel free to peruse the GAO’s full 59-page report, or you can hit the jump for the highlights.

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We’ve seen the next-generation of front–drive Mercedes hatchbacks in both heavily-camo’d and concept forms, but now thanks to automobilemagazine.fr [via Auto Motor und Sport], we have what appears to be the first look at a production version of the Mercedes A-Class. From some angles it looks fantastic… while from others, it reminds a little too much of a Subaru Impreza. Either way, Americans won’t have to sweat the details when it comes to this bodystyle, as we will be receiving this chassis only in Coupe, Sedan and CUV format. Still, this vehicle will be of major importance to the Benz brand in nearly every other market around the world. Plus, it’s the first time Daimler has entered into direct competition with Audi’s A3 in the Compact class. And all told, Mercedes seems to have done a fairly effective job at transmitting its rear-drive-oriented design language into the front-drive hatch segment.

Facebook has spoken, ladies and gentlemen, and it has decided that the automobile formerly known as “Mustang V6 Performance Package” shall be known as the “Mustang Mayhem V6”. Be sure to tell your insurance adjuster. I suppose “Ford ‘Blood In Tha Streetz’ V6” was taken.

As fate would have it, we have a “Mayhem” in the metaphorical TTAC garage right now, and it’s leaving for the twisty “Shenandoah” course at Summit Point where we drove its V8 equivalent last year. I’ve only driven it thirty-four miles so far, but I’m smitten already. This is a fast, if not particularly furious, budget ponycar and when you consider that it costs $25,995, the case only gets stronger.

If only Ford didn’t have a little problem… and, naturally, it involves China.

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The Missouri state Senate yesterday voted to require local jurisdictions to adhere to minimum standards for yellow warning time at intersections. State Senator Jim Lembke (R-St. Louis), an opponent of the use of red light cameras, introduced amendments to an omnibus transportation bill designed to limit the desirability of photo enforcement. His colleagues went along with language mandating that signals on all roads adhere to the bare minimum “nationally recognized engineering standards.”

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With the AMC Eagle being such a historically significant car, let’s hope at least a few of them survive the next decade. We saw this brown ’85 Eagle wagon last week, and this black ’84 wagon will join it in a Fujian steel plant soon enough. (Read More…)

In a packed conference room in downtown Tokyo, Toyota CEO Akio Toyoda announced this afternoon that Toyota finished the fiscal year to March 31, 2011 with a group net profit of  408.1 billion yen ($5 billion), up 95 percent on the year. This despite an ever increasing yen that is driving the company – and a lot of the Japanese industry – “to the limit” as CFO Satoshi Ozawa (above) warned. Sitting next to Toyoda, Ozawa said that he might have to recommend to his CEO to move production elsewhere unless a level playing field is created.

Ozawa put the impact of the March 11 earthquake and tsunami at  110 billion yen ($1.36 billion). However, the fiscal year had ended two weeks after the catastrophe. Financially, the worst is yet to come. Toyota appears to be in excellent financial and operational shape to weather a few quarters until production is back on line – which will happen earlier than expected.

More as I have worked through my notes. There will be some interesting morsels.

A bevy of industry figures and politicos congregated yesterday in Torrance, CA, to celebrate the grand opening of a new gas station. But it wasn’t just any new gas station … (Read More…)