Mahindra may have screwed up its US distribution deal (OK, somebody screwed it up), but perhaps the problem was simply that the Indian firm hadn’t sufficiently motivated the American public. After all, we may love simple, rugged diesel-powered pickups here at TTAC, but third-world-chic isn’t exactly a mass-market trend in the US (yet…). No, what Mahindra needs to get its US-market plans back on track is this, the Mahindra Bolero Attitude, a “custom concept” that Mahindra has been teasing on Facebook. It’s got all the Eff-Off attitude of a Hummer (RIP), but Facebook users report between 30 MPG (13 km per liter in the city) and 35 MPG (15 kmpl) on diesel fuel. With numbers like that, America’s love affair with obnoxiously brash SUVs could just make a comeback…

If the recent flap over the Volt’s drivetrain has taught us anything it’s that A) GM’s internal-combustion-assisted plug-in is more complicated than we thought, and B) GM is fine with simplifying its complex reality in order to make it appear as attractive as possible. Which is just fine: they’re the ones trying to sell a $41k car, and as such they’re entitled to do what they can to make it seem worth its many shortcomings. What the automotive media needs to take away from the brou-ha-ha isn’t necessarily that GM’s hesitance to bring forward “the whole truth” is an intrinsically big deal (let’s just say this wasn’t the first time), but rather that knowledgeable writers should focus on explaining the Volt in ways that are both comprehensible and fully accurate. In this spirit, the most important question isn’t “what should we call the Volt?” but “how efficient is the Volt in the real world?”And on this point, there’s plenty of room for some truthful clarification.

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With some 17.5 percent of GM owned by the UAW’s VEBA trust, workers have been finding that their union has a hard time juggling its ownership and union responsibilities. And since workers have no real recourse against their union, GM is giving them the opportunity to profit from their sacrifices… and pay back taxpayers in the process. Automotive News [sub] reports that

GM is offering [a directed] share program as part of an IPO scheduled for November… giving about 600,000 employees and retirees [and dealers] in the United States and Canada the chance to buy stock in the company’s upcoming initial public offering at the IPO price.

The only downsides: you have to register by the 15th, and the minimum buy-in is “expected to be greater than $1,000.” Otherwise, getting in on the ground floor of GM’s IPO is a swell opportunity to keep GM’s merry-go-round spinning. Sure, the UAW VEBA fund is likely to dump all its stock at the first possible opportunity, likely driving down post-IPO values. And yes, the government will eventually have to sell off its entire stake in The General as well, meaning another 60 percent of the company’s equity will also be up for sale in the short-to-medium-term, likely depressing prices even further. Still, GM is going to need all the help it can get if it wants to be valued at or above the $50b taxpayers put into it. It’s time for the employees, retirees and fanboys to step up, put their money where their pro-bailout rhetoric is, and take their beloved company off the taxpayers’ hands.

Chrysler has taken advantage of the kerfluffle over GM’s Volt to release the first full images of its most important car to date: the Chrysler 200, or the artist formerly known as the Sebring. As with the Volt, we’re not entirely convinced it’s as revolutionary as Chrysler’s making it out to be, but we’ll obviously wait for a test drive to reach a definitive conclusion. Meanwhile, the 200’s design has more than a few hints of Sebring about it (and that’s without a proper side-on view), although the overall effect is of a much-cleaned-up car. It’s not distinctive in a way that’s going to instantly win over skeptics, and Chrysler’s midsize sales probably won’t improve until reliability and resale data shows real signs of improving, but the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. Given what Chrysler was working with, namely the least competitive car in its segment, this 200 is shaping out quite nicely as a first, tentative step towards viability.

The autoblogosphere is agog at the revelation that the Volt’s gas engine occasionally powers its wheels. The GM-created “category” of Extended-Range Electric Vehicles (EREV, or E-REV) as uniquely epitomized by the Volt is suddenly revealed [by Motor Trend via GM] to

[have] more in common with a Prius (and other Toyota, Ford, or Nissan Altima hybrids) than anyone suspected.

So, why did the putative “Father of the Volt” (aka “Maximum” Bob Lutz) tell the car’s primary fan site gm-volt.com that the Volt was born because

My desire was to put an electric car concept out there to show the world that unlike the press reports that painted GM as an unfeeling uncaring squanderer of petroleum resources while wonderful Toyota was reinventing the automobile, I just wanted something on the show stand that would show that hey we’re not just thinking of a Prius hybrid here, we’re trying to get gasoline out of the equation entirely.

?

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A longtime critique of General Motors here at TTAC is that it needs to pick enduringly appealing names for its products and stick to them, instead of shuffling through some eighty nameplates for midsize and smaller cars since Toyota introduced the Corolla. Still, this approach doesn’t advocate simply freezing time, and calling every compact Chevy a Cruze from here to eternity. If you’re going to stick with a name, it has to be good, and it has to mean something.

Enter the Aveo, which is about to be replaced by another Daewoo-developed hatchback (made in the US this time), but should (if GM can be believed) represent an improvement over the unlovable outgoing model.GM’s North American supremo Mark Reuss is still wavering on the name, refusing to commit to Aveo, but unwilling to suggest an alternative nameplate. Which brings us to today’s question: is it nobler for the car to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageously poor associations with the name Aveo? Or should GM put the name to sleep, perchance to dream up a better, more enduring one? Is consistency good even if it means keeping one of the most maligned nameplates this side of “Sebring”? Aye, there’s the rub.

In this first look at Nissan’s 2011 Versa, we’re seeing a very different car from the high-roofed, gangly subcompact that has been dominating the B-segment sales charts all year. Which begs the question: should Nissan mess with success? With Kia’s Soul sneaking up on the Versa in year-to-date subcompact sales, will a sleeker sedan keep the Versa riding high, or will it lose out to boxier, more practical offerings?

According to Automotive News [sub], both General Motors and Hyundai-Kia have reduced their fleet sales percentages in the last year, as the two firms seek retail-level pricing for their recently-improved products. Ford and Chrysler? Not so much. As the top-selling brand in the US, Ford is simply using fleet sales to boost itself to the top of the pile. Winning the annual sales volume race is good for morale, but The Blue Oval should be careful not to delude itself into unrealistic expectations. For Chrysler, on the other hand, the continued practice of sending 40 percent of sales to fleets is big, big trouble.

Not only has Chrysler been barely making its minimum “survival volume” numbers (and some months, not), it also had a “come to Jesus” moment on the fleet issue back in April. At the time, Chrysler swore it would limit fleet sales to 25 percent of overall volume, but since that announcement, its fleet percentage has held steady at around 40 percent. For a company on the brink, the lost profits are just as important as the lost credibility. Meanwhile, each new Chrysler that ends up in a fleet cements the perception that Chryslers are the automotive purchase of last resort. And at this point, the perception probably isn’t too far from the truth.

As GM finally begins to let journalists drive its Chevy Volt, the two-year-long trickle of bad news about the project is turning into a raging torrent. The latest bit of bashing: InsideLine claims that, in direct contradiction to GM’s hype, the Volt is in fact powered by its gasoline engine under certain circumstances.

At the heart of the Volt is the “Voltec” propulsion system and the heart of Voltec is the “4ET50” electric drive unit that contains a pair of electric motors and a “multi-mode transaxle with continuously variable capacity.” This is how GM describes it:

“Unlike a conventional powertrain, there are no step gears within the unit, and no direct mechanical linkage from the engine, through the drive unit to the wheels.”

The 4ET50 is, however, in fact directly bolted to the 1.4-liter, four-cylinder Ecotec internal combustion engine. When the Volt’s lithium-ion battery pack runs down, clutches in the 4ET50 engage and the Ecotec engine is lashed to the generator to produce the electric power necessary to drive the car. However under certain circumstances — speeds near or above 70 mph — in fact the engine will directly drive the front wheels in conjunction with the electric motors.

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Chevrolet’s new Australian-built Caprice PPV killed the field at the Michigan State Police trials for 2011 models, winning 0-60, 0-100 and top-speed comparisons, the braking competition and turning in the fastest average lap time. Dodge’s Charger nipped at the Caprice’s heels, but the day belonged to Holden. As predicted [unofficial results including Ford’s Taurus-based cruiser available at Jalopnik].

Paul Penaloza writes in with a timely query:

I’ve got a question for the crew. I have a relative who loves the VW Passat wagon and the promise of the better mileage with the TDI. She was crushed when she found out it did not have a third row like a minivan. That got me thinking, are there any car wagons out there that have a third row of seating these days?

Ah, the rear-facing third row… if that doesn’t bring back childhood memories, you’ve missed out. Remember gang, that’s “car wagons.” No Swagger Wagons or Cute Utes for the former Passat owner. If I didn’t have the $56k to stump for a new E Class wagon (and I don’t), I’d be thinking used… or reminiscing about making faces at freeway traffic. Or both.

OK, so the basic functionality of the Car & Driver/Chrysler “Txt U L8r” app is fine: receive a text message while you’re driving, and it will read it aloud and automatically reply that you are driving and cannot respond immediately. But the industry’s fundamental ambivalence towards distracted driving quickly rears its head in the form of a “paid upgrade” that allows voice-activated replies by the driver: distracted driving is not a problem to be solved, but a money-making opportunity to be exploited. As a result, the message that C&D and Chrysler send with this new app is “Texting while driving is bad, bad, bad… unless you shell out for our perfectly safe app.” Which, not to put too fine a point on it, is bullshit.
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I took some flack from TTAC’s Best and Brightest on Monday when I suggested that the UAW’s deal to give 40 percent of Orion Assemblys returning workers a 50 percent pay cut was “cowardly and despicable.” What I didn’t make clear enough was that I have no problem with the UAW working for a lower wage as long as the burden was spread evenly. Instead, the union has arbitrarily divided its existing workforce into the old guard “haves” and the relatively-recently-hired “have nots” as a ploy to make the union seem capable of profitably building subcompact cars in America. It’s bad enough to prop up the old guard by paying new hires less, but cramming down recalled Tier One workers is totally contrary to the very concept of a union. And I’m not the only one who finds the lack of solidarity and shared responsibility within the union troubling.

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