Every year when the first snows of the year hit the road, you’ll always be treated to some kind of madness as motorists struggle to adapt to the new conditions. This is especially true here in the Pacific Northwest, where our metropolitan centers see maybe a few inches of snow per year but our drivers are in no way used to the white-and-slippery stuff. Each year, when we get snow on the roads for a few days, I see the kinds of sights that make me despair for our collective automotive competency: front-drive minivans with chains on the rear wheels, rear-drive pickups with chains on the front, and 4×4 pickups getting stuck in a few inches of drifted snow. Or, as this video of Seattle drivers grappling with snow earlier this week shows, on some occasions the streets simply descend into a pirouetting symphony of low-traction incompetence. What’s the worst snow-related driving offense you’ve ever seen?

Although it did what it needed to do, it looks awful

Peter Birtwhistle, designer of the legendary short-wheelbase Audi Sport Quattro (above), tells Autocar what he really thinks about its design… and just in time for Audi to announce that its Ur Quattro-inspired Quattro Concept will be built in limited numbers. Birtwhistle explains that the real cause for Ur-ugliness was “stretching the Quattro look over [the shorter Audi 80 platform],” a challenge that also echoes with the Quattro Concept, which slaps retro design elements on a short-wheelbase version of the handsome RS5. As a result, the Quattro Concept looks every bit as awkward and disjointed as the Sport Quattro, with just a touch of Camaro-esque retro-self-consciousness. But as Birtwhistle’s line reminds us, sometimes ugly is the best way to emphasize purpose.

Bloomberg reports that the General Services Administration has increased the percentage of hybrids in its fleet purchases from about one percent to at least ten percent since President Obama took over. And you better believe that the government isn’t buying the same hybrids that American consumers are.

The U.S. government buys hybrids almost exclusively from Ford and GM. It bought only 17 Prius models and five of Honda’s Civic hybrids in the past two years. Chrysler Group LLC stopped making hybrids in 2008 after about two months of production.

The government purchased about 64 percent of GM’s Chevy Malibu hybrid models and 29 percent of all Ford Fusion hybrids manufactured since Obama took office in 2009, the data show. GM stopped making the Malibu hybrid in 2009 after lack of consumer demand. GSA also bought about 14 percent of Ford Escape hybrids.

According to Bloomberg’s math, a quarter of the hybrids built by GM and Ford since Obama took office have been purchased by the government. And the fleet buys weren’t cheap… for taxpayers or the automakers.

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GM was the first automaker to experiment with new-car sales on Ebay, in a grand experiment that resulted in an undisclosed number of sales (estimated at between 20 and 50 actually sold through eBay). GM’s Mark LaNeve insisted at the time that the program led to sales not logged through Ebay, but then he was booted from GM about a week after GM’s Ebay experiment fell apart. Which makes Tom Loveless, the head of Kia’s US sales operation a brave man; with only this single, discouraging precedent, Bloomberg reports that Kia is diving into Ebay sales… and unlike GM, it’s not limiting the experiment to California.

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Volkswagen, a top-tier player in the global auto business, is locked in an epic struggle. Represented by the most prestigious and legendary car in its expansive stable, the Bugatti Veyron, Volkswagen has spared no expense to vanquish… a little sportscar outfit out of West Richland, WA.

Shelby Super Cars’s Ultimate Aero, beat VW’s champion for the title of world’s fastest street-legal car, prompting Wolfsburg to “significantly re-engineer” the Veyron in a fit of pique (and at a staggering cost, no doubt). Bugatti reclaimed the crown with the $2.58m Veyron Super Sport, Top Gear went nuts, and the money was probably considered well spent. Until SSC, apparently unaware that it is tangling with a global industrial juggernaut, announced a new generation of Ultimate Aero aimed at “upping the ante on ALL levels.” And with styling provided by Jason Castriota of Pininfarina, Bertone and Saab, at least the next-gen Veyron-slayer won’t look quite so much like a Diablo replica. Having tangled with SSC already, how can VW not prepare a response?

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When Autoweek asks the R&D boss at an alt-drivetrain leader like Toyota what the future of its powertrain development looks like, one tends to hope for something revelatory in his answer. Instead, we get

Why does the Nissan Leaf get a 99 MPG from the EPA? After all, you could pour gallons of gasoline into the thing and it wouldn’t budge an inch. It is, after all, an electric car. But hey, this ain’t America if a consumer can’t glance at a label and say “gosh honey, check out how many em-pee-gees this one gets. That sure is a whole lot of em-pee-gees.” And at least the EPA did include the most important detail: the Leaf’s battery range is rated 73 miles, or about three quarters the range Nissan had been claiming. Of course, as is always the case, your mileage may vary… only the amount of gasoline required by a Nissan Leaf won’t.

Part supernatural savior, part soft-rock music video lecher, the new Subaru Impreza Concept is really trying hard to impress in this video (look Ma, no pun!). Still, if it’s a Subaru, shouldn’t it be driving in computer-generated mud, not water?

Motor Trend gets three GM sources to confirm the return of the Pontiac G8 (Holden Commodore) to the North American market… only this time it’s coming as a Chevy. One exec even brags

We have a good name for it…

…and no, it’s not “Impala.” Nor is this simply a civilian version of the Caprice police model, which is based on the long-wheelbase version of the Zeta platform. This will be a limited-numbers affair and V8-only, reports MT, because currency fluctuations have made shipping cars from Australia more expensive. Should GM even be messing around importing the the Antipodean Driving Machine? The numbers might say no, but the fanboys are already screaming “hell yes” (or, more accurately “what about an El Camino ute version?”). Check out Michael Karesh’s reviews of all three versions of the Pontiac G8 (you can even read Liebermann’s Take Two on the GT if you must), and let us know what you think of the return of the G8.

It is not a good policy to have these massive subsidies for first generation ethanol. First generation ethanol I think was a mistake. The energy conversion ratios are at best very small… One of the reasons I made that mistake is that I paid particular attention to the farmers in my home state of Tennessee, and I had a certain fondness for the farmers in the state of Iowa because I was about to run for president

Al Gore reveals [via MSNBC] that politics, not science, made an ethanol believer out of him. More than anything else, the admission underlines how badly ethanol can lose the war of ideas and still be heavily subsidized without fear of political attack. After all, what Presidential hopeful (read:every member of Congress) wants to shut down the biggest pork trough in Iowa, a state that just happens to be the first primary of the race for the White House? Heck, Al Gore probably had to lose his favorite weedwhacker to ethanol gum before he came out against the stuff. But just because your representative won’t vote against ethanol, doesn’t mean you can’t… surf over to pure-gas.org for a list of ethanol-free gas pumps near you.

NHTSA Investigation Action Number AQ10001, opened November 18, 2010 notes:

The agency, particularly in recent months, has been informed of incidents involving allegations of personal injury and death claimed to have been caused by safety defects and failures to conform to minimum Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (FMVSS) on rental car vehicles for which a safety recall to remedy the safety defect or noncompliance had allegedly not been performed prior to the rental car company’s lease of the vehicle. NHTSA understands that there is presently a petition before the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) seeking to prohibit at least one rental car company from renting vehicles on which safety recall campaign remedies remain outstanding. The purpose of this audit query (AQ) is to investigate recall remedy completion by rental car companies on the above-listed safety recall campaigns. These campaigns were chosen due to their inclusion of vehicles used in the rental market. This information is expected to provide the agency an indication of how completely and how quickly rental car fleets, in general or individually, perform necessary recall-related repairs or other remedies on the vehicles owned and then leased for use on the roadways.

But rental companies wouldn’t risk the safety of their customers for a buck would they? The Enterprise/Alamo/National syndicate tells Bloomberg it grounds cars upon receiving recalls… Hertz and Avis have yet to chime in. The weirdest part of it all: only vehicles made by GM, Ford and Chrysler are being investigated. Why are the Accents and Rios receiving recall repairs while Avengers and Malibus are left to be investigated for “failures to conform to minimum Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards”? Whiskey Tango Foxtrot? A list of vehicles under investigation can be found below the fold.

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Well, it depends on the car being sold, doesn’t it? TTAC commenter and Hyundai salesman dwford writes in with a prime example too get the conversation started: the 201;0 Hyundai Elantra (sold at full MSRP).

MSRP: $17,760
Invoice: $17,472
Holdback: $511
Dealer Cash: $750
Total gross profit: $1549

That’s 8.7% of MSRP

From that, the dealer pays: My commission: $100, a portion of my weekly salary and related taxes, the cost of the detailing for delivery, any floorplan expenses if the car has been here longer than 90 days, and then a percentage of the costs of running the store – electric, heat, rent, phone, etc. Couldn’t tell you what that all adds up to.

The dealer could potentially earn extra profit from the sale of financing, extended warranties etc., but let’s keep it simple and talk about front end profit.

Ever since the auto bailout began, the majority of Americans have opposed the government’s efforts to fund and restructure the auto industry. As recently as July, polls showed that 56 percent opposed the bailout, according to the Detroit News. But now a new Rasmussen poll shows that opposition has fallen to 46 percent with 38 percent in favor and 16 percent unopposed, the first time a poll has found less than 50 percent opposition to the auto bailouts. 70 percent of Americans now believe GM will still be in business a decade from now, and 50 percent believe the government is either “somewhat” or “very” likely to be repaid by GM and Chrysler. Of course, the Treasury still believes that it will lose some $17b on the auto bailout, but then you don’t exactly hear that trumpeted by the White House.

What you do hear about the auto bailout is an increasing tone of triumphalism, an endless repetition of the phrase “the critics were wrong.” And yes, the auto bailout has certainly progressed better than some of its harshest critics here a TTAC might have imagined. But if, over a year after the bailout ended, some 46 percent of America still opposes the government’s intervention in GM and Chrysler, marketers for both of these companies (not to mention the politicians) should sit up and take notice. After all, the “success” purchased with that $80b still depends on the goodwill of the American people, and if the bailout-haters never drop their grudge, GM and Chrysler’s already-overblown “success” won’t last. And for all the “Mission Accomplished” moments since GM and Chrysler emerged from bankruptcy, we still haven’t heard a compelling pitch to the resilient anti-bailout plurality.

Legendary GM CEO Alfred P. Sloan long ago came up with the formula for success in the automotive industry: a family of brands that could sell “a car for every purse and purpose.” Starting with Chevrolet, Oakland, Oldsmobile, Buick and Cadillac (in ascending order), Sloan oversaw the expansion of GM’s brand ladder to include such intermediate steps as Pontiac, Viking, Marquette and LaSalle. And though Sloan create a dizzying (and ultimately unsustainable) stable of brands, he never changed the top and bottom rungs of the ladder: Chevrolet was always the cheapest GM car available, and Cadillac was always the most expensive. But fast forward to 2010 and, though many of Sloan’s brands are long gone, the burgeoning Chinese market has given way to the unthinkable: a GM brand that slots in below Chevrolet

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The Nissan Murano may start at a reasonable $28,500, but stepping up to the recently-announced CrossCabriolet version will set you back a healthy $46,390 (before $800 destination charge) according to Nissan ‘s website. That makes it the second most-expensive Nissan after the GTR, and it comes in only one trim level (with navigation, heated everything, a Bose system, HID headlights and more). So, why wasn’t the CrossCabrio released as an Infiniti again?