Chinese automakers are delaying exports to Europe and the US until after 2015, largely because they admit their products aren’t “ready for primetime.” And few issues demonstrate that fact as well as the scandalous crash test videos that have defined internet perceptions of Chinese cars for years now. But with even more recent Chinese export-intenders continuing to put up lousy safety results, Autobild reports that, starting in 2012, China will improve its crash test standards to near-European levels.
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Chrysler-Fiat’s Sergio Marchionne is joining the chorus of doomsday CEOs. “2012 will not be a great year for the European market,” Marchionne told Reuters. He is looking to the U.S. and to Brazil for salvation – despite GM’s Akerson having made equally dire forecasts for America.

Fiat is doing so badly at home in Europe that the U.S. and Brazilian markets are now the biggest contributors to the combined group’s profit. (Read More…)

The German business paper Handelsblatt reports that Mercedes-Benz USA CEO Ernst Lieb, a 36-year Daimler veteran, has been fired for “serious and repeated” violations of the company’s internal finance compliance rules. Per the Dow Jones [via FoxBusiness] translation,

Lieb is said to have remodeled his house in New York at the expense of Daimler and settled personal golf club contributions through the company, the executive is reported as saying.

Lieb has also been accused of providing favors at the company’s expense, such as renting cars in exchange for flight upgrades

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Six months after having been devastated at home by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, “Japan has experienced its largest overseas investment loss ever as a result of the flood disaster in Thailand,” Japans’s ambassador to Thailand Seiji Kojima told the Bangkok Post. (Read More…)

When you’re fighting a lost cause, no news can be good news. Which is why a media-distracting scandal involving Swedish Social Democrat Party leader Hakan Juholt has been one of the best things to happen to Saab since… the late 1980s or so. But here at TTAC, we’re always ready to remind our Swedish friends of the futility of human endeavor… a trait they apparently appreciate (see above). And what little news there is coming out of Sweden is bad.
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Georgia’s introduction of high occupancy toll (HOT) lanes on Interstate 85 at the beginning of the month has already turned into a public relations disaster. During rush hour, motorists found themselves stranded in the general purpose lanes as the adjacent HOT lane — constructed and maintained with their tax dollars — were essentially unused. Drivers balked at paying the stiff $5.40 entrance tax for permission to enter, leaving the existing lane space to go to waste. Governor Nathan Deal (R) intervened swiftly on October 6 to order the State Road and Tollway Authority (SRTA) to lower the cost of using the toll lane.
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According to many news sources, the historic Twin Cities Assembly Plant in St. Paul, Minnesota is headed for a not-so-grand finale.  Come December 19th, the 86-year-old facility that originally built Model Ts will be history.  Ironically, Twin Cities is currently making the T’s spiritual successor: the (somewhat iconic) Ford Ranger compact truck. So shall we, the collective group of automotive journalists, lament the loss of this famous nameplate from Ford’s storied past? (Read More…)

So there’s this gaijin with one-piece injection-molded plastic hair, like Ken, and he’s firing up the Tredia in some Delysidic maze. Then he sees these, uh, geese… (Read More…)

Industry leaders, usually known for their unfatiguing optimism, are more and more taking a cautious stance. GM’s CEO Dan Akerson predicts flat industrywide U.S. auto sales in 2012, while his colleague Carlos Ghosn, chief of Renault and Nissan, has feelings of “very great uncertainty” when he looks toward 2012. (Read More…)

Sales of new passenger edged up only slightly in the EU, rising 0.6 percent to 1,231,147 units sold in September. Nine months into the year, 10,121,423 new cars found a buyer, 1.1 percent less than in the same period a year ago. For all intents and purposes, Europe is flat. (Read More…)

The “War On Distracted Driving”, like most of the other wars in which the United States has participated in the past forty years, appears to be a rather muddled way of addressing an improperly defined problem. For the Ray LaHoods of the world, it has to be absolutely maddening that the “epidemic” of distracted driving has yet to lead to any sort of measurable decrease in road safety.

For them, I have some good news. While the plural of “anecdote” is never “data”, it would appear that a BlackBerry outage may have gained a crucial hill in the “War On Distracted Driving”. The problem: as usual, the hill is overseas somewhere.

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The guys who hang out at forums comparing turbocharged European hatchbacks that will never come to the US market (and which they wouldn’t buy if they did) have a new hypothetical plaything to consider: the upcoming Mercedes A-Class AMG hatch. 320 HP turning all four wheels is the basic proposition, with these exterior looks and this interior. And if the Golf-body looks just don’t jive with your idea of what makes a Mercedes, imagine the same package in this “baby CLS” body, with extra-large cupholders and other “tuned for American tastes” goodness. Myself? I like the idea of a blinged-out Mercedes STi.

Could be worse!

Mike writes:

Sajeev and Steve,

This is not a pressing question (yet) but it is a frequent and ongoing conversation with my wife and several of our friends. We are expecting our first child in one month. One. Month. We are as ready as ready can be, but recognize that our wheels might be an issue before long.

My wife has a 2002 Camry 2.4L with about 140k miles. No real problems, although the valvetrain was rebuilt about 30k miles ago due to what Toyota emphatically claimed was not sludging. It is also going to need new struts soon… Austin streets are just brutal. It still gets about 32 MPG on the highway, which is our baseline requirement for fuel economy (the wife commutes about 60 miles round trip). It’s also paid for. Our rear-facing child seat fits in the back no problem, leaving legroom for both driver and front passenger (those things are unbelievably massive). Hypothetically, once we load up the dog, luggage, and all the baby accoutrement (and what if we have another?), it’s pretty cramped at best. Problem.

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In his novel Excession, sci-fi writer Iain M. Banks introduced the concept of the “Outside Context Problem”. It’s described like so: The usual example given to illustrate an Outside Context Problem was imagining you were a tribe on a largish, fertile island; you’d tamed the land, invented the wheel or writing or whatever… you were […]