Back in 1989 I spent some time blasting along the unpaved roads of the Southwest in a 1988 Toyota Celica All-Trac Turbo. A frequent thought: “What this thing really needs is more ground clearance.” That same year Pontiac displayed a sports car / SUV crossover as a concept. The Stinger was never produced, but it […]

Today, Toyota finally delivered its delayed outlook for this fiscal year. It usually is delivered at the annual results conference, but the tsunami had muddled the waters, so to speak. Now, Toyota has a bit more visibility. Today, Toyota did forecast a 35 percent fall in profit for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2012. Toyota expects to end the fiscal with a net income of 280 billion yen ($3.5 billion).

According to Reuters, that’s “well short of the consensus for a 434 billion yen profit in a poll of 23 forecasts by Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.” I am proud of the optimism of the forecasters. Personally, after looking at the disaster in Japan, I hadn’t expected any profits. (Read More…)

The Department of Energy’s Advanced Technology Vehicle Manufacturing (ATVM) loan program has come under fire from the Government Accountability Office before, and was the subject of a patronage investigation by the Center for Public Integrity and ABC News. And the bad news keeps piling up, with yet another nasty GAO report [PDF] taking the program to task for running up higher-than-expected lending costs due to “industry risks” and for failing to provide required technical oversight.

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GM has announced details for the 2012 Model Year Chevrolet Volt, and for the second year of production The General is already addressing the Volt’s most controversial feature: its high price. The base MSRP for the Volt will drop from $41,000 to $39,995 for the 2012 year of production, an accomplishment that GM explains

is possible in part because of a wider range of options and configurations that come with the expansion of Volt production for sale nationally.

Wider range of options and configurations? According to the Detroit News, this means navigation and a Bose speakers are no longer standard features on the base-price Volt, but that seven options configurations are now available compared to the 2011’s three. And, on the other end of the pricing equation, the Volt’s fully-loaded price has increased to $46,265 from the $44,278 that Chevy’s configurator tops out at for a loaded 2011. Keyless access with passive locking is the only new standard feature for 2012. With more choices and a slightly lower price of entry, GM is clearly trying to move the Volt away from the “novelty” image that CEO Dan Akerson referenced earlier this week, as it ramps up Volt production for 60,000 units next year. But until the Volt’s price starts dropping without simply offering a less-contented version, the road to mass sales will continue to be a tough one.

The TTAC love fest at the last 24 Hours of LeMons makes me the first judge to get a taste of their own “punish the criminal miscreants” medicine. But there’s more to my story: I came full circle as a LeMons race car builder, judgy-authority figure and “successful” race driver.

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When I stopped working for Volkswagen in 2005, they had some 400,000 parts, or “numbers” as they are called in industry parlance, in their central warehouse in Kassel. With each car, the number climbed higher. On the other hand, some 5 percent were usually out of stock. The launch of each car caused raw nerves in the parts department. When a part was faulty, dealers and production manager were at war for parts. The production managers usually won, and blamed the dealers for shoddy service.

It’s tough enough to keep the hungry beasts at assembly lines and in workshops supplied with parts during peacetime. If a volcano over Iceland blows ash, or if a huge tsunami wipes out a good deal of Japan, it turns into parts paranoia. Now, Japan’s formerly powerful METI, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, is using the Tohoku disaster to force the Japanese car industry to standardize a lot of the parts it uses. (Read More…)

Reuters reports that White House has approved a label for E15 ethanol blends, which warn motorists not to use the higher blend if their vehicle was built before the 2007 model-year. What Reuters won’t show you is the final label design that was approved… was it the EPA’s proposed design (above), or one of the ethanol lobby’s proposed alternatives (see gallery below). Clearly there’s a bit of a difference between the two, and the EPA was under quite a bit of pressure to not go with the orange-and-red “CAUTION!” version. In documentation from hearings on the E15 labeling issue [PDF], you can read executives and lobbyists expounding at length about the fact that ethanol is good for America, and that labeling shouldn’t discourage the use of E15. Which it doesn’t…. in 2007 and later vehicles. And if you check the EPA’s docket on the issue, you’ll find plenty of good reasons for preventing “misfueling”.  Luckily few gas station owners are likely to invest in E15 pumps anyway, so you may never actually see this label in the wild.

Day 2 of the Opel rumor mill, and it keeps on grinding. Is Opel up for sale or is it not? Opel, their works council and regional governments close to the labor unions dismissed yesterday’s reports of a possible sale of Opel by GM as pure speculation. Yesterday, Opel chief Karl-Friedrich Stracke sent a letter to all employees. Today, he called an all hands meeting in Rüsselsheim and appealed to his workforce to ignore the nasty rumors. What is missing: A clear denial from Detroit. Today, Germany’s chancellor Angela Merkel demanded that GM should “provide clarity regarding the future of Opel,” writes Der Stern. And the magazine adds: “GM however continues to take cover.” (Read More…)

Reports from residents suggest Ridgeland, South Carolina is ready to concede defeat regarding the freeway speed camera system operated in defiance of state law. The large recreational vehicle used to mail tickets to travelers passing through the town’s seven-mile stretch of Interstate 95 is no longer as visible as it once was. Under attack in both the state legislature and the courts, Mayor Gary W. Hodges has yet to officially announce the end of his controversial ticketing program.

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Most of my junkyard-prowling experience has taken place at the modern-day self-service yards, where the inventory turns over fast, prices are standardized, and 90% of the cars on the yard tend to be 15 to 20 years old. Now that I’m in a constant search for parts for a 45-year-old Dodge van, I’ve been venturing out to the more traditional wrecking yards, where you haggle for every part and the inventory sits for decades while each and every salable part gets picked. A couple weeks back, I went on a quest for A100 parts at a breathtakingly vintage junkyard located about halfway between Denver and Cheyenne. (Read More…)

If we learn from history, we won’t expect this funky-fresh five-door to ever come to the US. Though we may get a sedan version of this generation of Einser, chances are we will probably still just get the coupe again. And because the new 1er is longer (by 8.5 cm) than its predecessor and heavier (by between 5kg and 35kg) in all but 118d trim (where it remains the same weight), it’s also more practical, with a few more centimeters of rear legroom and 30 liters more storage. Which is all the more reason to bring these workhorse versions to the US (with manual transmission and diesel options, natch) rather than limiting our choices to a now-even-heavier coupe. Especially now that the 1 Series is apparently a four-cylinder-only affair (specs here). If you’re already a devotee of the Einser hatches be sure to surf over to Auto Motor und Sport, where even more photos of the next-gen five-door await your perusal…

I’m not in the business of helping people Tweet better, I’m not in the business of helping people post to Facebook better. My job is to make sure we keep people safe behind the wheel. I’m not going to deny the fact that people want these things. They do. Especially the generation behind us. They’re used to being connected 24 hours a day.

A car is not a mobile device — a car is a car. We will not take a backseat while new telematics and infotainment systems are introduced. There is too much potential for distraction of drivers.

NHTSA Administrator David Strickland took the war on distraction to the enemy in a speech to an auto technology conference, reports Bloomberg. With nearly every manufacturer racing towards ever greater implementation of connectivity, communication and entertainment systems in cars, Strickland’s rhetorical line in the sand foreshadows a serious confrontation between industry and government. Either that, or this is just Ray LaHood-style hot air calculated to make it look like something’s happening.

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TTAC Commentator wannabewannabe asks:

Sajeev and Steve,

This is one of the columns I always read on TTAC, and now it’s time for me to submit a question. I haven’t been keeping up on new (and slightly used) cars as much as I used to, so I’d love to get the advice of you guys and the b&b.

Here’s the situation. My mom just totaled her 2007 Scion tC. Don’t worry, other than a few bumps and bruises, she’s fine. But that does leave her in the position of needing a new(ish) car. Of course, I volunteered to help her come up with a list of possibilities for her to consider. The insurance company has given her an estimate of a $13k payment for the Scion, so let’s use that as a baseline. I just talked to her and got her wants and needs and possible price range. They are:

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Given that the most dangerous part of a car is the driver, I’m basically sympathetic to the idea of some kind mandatory driver education… but I also know that my fellow Americans tend to oppose limitations on their “right to drive.” Unless, apparently, you happen to be a high schooler, in which case Minnesota and South Carolina (and possibly California in the near future) won’t let you get a license unless you can prove you are attending a high school. It’s not the only example of automotive ageism out there… and because I tend to favor regular testing for elderly drivers, it’s a little difficult to oppose this on principle alone. Except that, unlike elderly driver testing, this isn’t about auto safety per se, but about school attendance rates. Does that make a difference? Or is there perhaps a safety benefit from banning dropout drivers? Help me out here B&B (especially those with high school-age kids or experience with these laws)… does this make any sense, or not?

China’s auto sales fell 3.98 percent to 1.3828 million in May. Production dropped 4.89 percent to 1.3489 million units. This according to data released today by the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM), and reported by China’s state news agency Xinhua.

Three cheers for our patent-pending TTAC China sales oracle, a.k.a. GM China. It nailed the number pretty closely in May. GM China’s May sales were down 2.7 percent. All percentages compared to May 2010.

Zhu Yiping, CAAM’s assistant secretary general, said the decline in May was caused by the removal of tax incentives in car purchases this year, rising fuel costs, and the purchase limits in some cities that were put in place to combat traffic congestion. (Read More…)