The day after Toyota announced that it still hasn’t found an electronic cause for unintended acceleration in its vehicles and that UA complaints are down 80%, Consumer Affairs reports that Allstate Insurance filed a $3m suit against the Japanese automaker, claiming it “essentially hid the problem.” The suit, filed in the Southern Californian district court that is hearing all UA-related suits against Toyota alleges

We were not amused (to coin a phrase) at Ford’s decision to tax fans of the hatchback by adding $500 to the price of its five-door Fiesta and forthcoming Focus. And rather than following Ford’s example, GM has priced its CTS-V Sportwagon some $475 cheaper than its $63,465 CTS-V sedan, by starting prices for the unique muscle wagon at $62,990 (including destination). Needless to say, we love the wüchtig, 556 HP CTS-V, so the prospect of a distinctively be-hatched version for less money is like catnip here at TTAC HQ. On the other hand, our beef with Ford has to do with its refusal to offer the practicality of a hatch at the base price point, and that argument doesn’t really hold water in the tire-smoking world of supercharged V8 rocketships. Moreover, $475 doesn’t exactly make much of a difference when you’re talking about a car that costs the equivalent of four base Fiestas. Still, we like to think of this as a win for the wagons… if only in principle.

What do you do when a company you own (through your trusty Treasury Department) won’t help you out over the phone? Out of luck with his dealer and pissed off at the “condescending” attitude of GM’s phone support staff, one former Marine and “lifelong GM customer” drove from Virginia to Detroit in order to get The General to take responsibility for chronic power steering pump failures in his wife’s Chevy HHR. His initial reward: more condescension, and the privilege of getting escorted from the premises of GM’s Headquarters. But Marines don’t quit that easily…

(Read More…)

For all intents, the 2011 Dodge Charger debuted to the internet two weeks ago… as a police car. Possibly recalling that some civilians might wish to purchase the thing, Chrysler has finally released images of it in R/T guise… but where’s the surprise? The overall design is more delicate and graceful than that of its atavistic predecessor, but it also seems to lack the classical menace of the outgoing model. At least when shown without police livery.

Another day, another story on the ever-growing conflict between the UAW’s ownership stake in GM and responsibility to its members. Pre-bankruptcy, GM didn’t have to deal with the fact that the UAW is incapable of building fuel-efficient subcompact cars profitably. As a result, the outgoing Aveo was built and designed in Korea as the Daewoo Kalos, before being fitted with a bowtie and shipped to the US. But now that the General has promised to build the next-gen Aveo in Michigan’s Orion Township plant in exchange for nearly $800m in local tax credits (not to mention the political benefits of “saving or creating” hundreds of union jobs), it’s up to the UAW to square the circle and make the damn thing profitable. Which, according to Automotive News [sub] is just what they’ve done… by bumping 40 percent of the plant’s previous workers to the new “tier two” wages. Which is a nice way of saying “cutting their wages in half.” How is that possible?

The UAW’s 2009 amended contract with GM just before bankruptcy called for “innovative labor agreement provisions” that would allow GM to make a small car profitably in the United States.

Under those “innovative provisions” (which just happened to be conjured up when the government task force was elbow-deep in GM), Orion workers can neither appeal the decision nor go on strike over it. Either the UAW wants to be a union capable of building small cars profitably, or it doesn’t. Screwing less-senior “brothers” so politicians and union bosses can crow over the “green jobs” at Orion is cowardly and despicable.

It’s not that the ad itself fails to mention the car it’s actually promoting, namely the Subaru Legacy. After all, if Subaru wants to entertain enthusiasts without actually indulging in the kind of gauzy praise they lampoon so effectively here, that’s fine by us. No, the only problem with the whole “2011 Mediocrity” campaign is that Subaru’s own Tribeca was clearly styled by the very designers they mock in this spot. And in this day and age, bland, uninspired crossovers are at least as lampoonable a cliche as the bland, uninspired sedans that Subaru slams (and which earned Toyota the cash for a 16.5% stake in Subaru’s parent company). Still, this is a ballsy move for a brand that is already growing like gangbusters in the US, and it shows just how far off the mark Volkswagen’s current attempt at US market growth is likely to be.

My time at TTAC has been full of surprises. Some days it seems that every hour holds a new, more gob-smacking shocker. But the surprise I received today, when I learned that I had been invited to the Volt’s press launch later this month, was one of the least expected and most gratifying to date. After all, not only has TTAC been a longtime critic of GM as a whole, but the Volt has been a special target for us since its conception, even earning its own category in our news blog. I’ve even criticized the Volt project (as opposed to the car itself) in the print media, drawing the ire (of sorts) of the White House press secretary. In the old GM, the very idea of rewarding our relentless criticism, questioning and second-guessing with access to the car itself would have been unthinkable. But today one GM rep explained to me that

The Volt’s been attacked at one point in time by just about everyone. Opinions of the vehicle have been all over the map, but fortunately we now have vehicles for people to drive and experience themselves rather than having to defend it with words and Powerpoint

That GM believes strongly enough in its most high-profile car to allow its most strident critic to drive it marks a material break from past practice (documentation of which abounds in TTAC’s archives, but here’s an especially infamous example). Allowing products (especially a controversial, high-profile car like the Volt) to speak for themselves before their harshest critics speaks to a much-improved culture taking hold at The General. This doesn’t mean the problems are over for the RenCen, but it shows that GM’s new managers are building for the future on a solid foundation of accountability. And that is a big enough deal to warrant a tip o’ the hat.

With GM repositioning its IPO to target US retail investors, we find ourselves motivated to once again sound the alarm about one of the major drains facing The General’s taxpayer-provided cash pile: the restructuring of its European Opel division. Opel slated its Antwerp, elgium plant for closure earlier this year, but at the time GM was trying to find a buyer for the plant. In May we noted that automotive overcapacity on the continent made finding a buyer for Opel Antwerp a tall order, and sure enough, Bloomberg reports that a buyer has not been found. What Bloomberg leaves out of its write-up: GM is now stuck with the €400m ($530m+) bill to pay off all those unemployed workers. A half-billion here, a half-billion there… soon you’re talking about real money.

Tickets for Ford’s 2012 Focus (coming next spring) start at a Cruze-pipping $16,270 (destination charge not included), but that’s for a “S” Trim four-door sedan with “100A” equipment (rear drum brakes, manual air conditioning steelies). In other words, as with the Fiesta, Ford has made its “come-on-in special” version of the Focus sedan-only. Move up to the “SE” trim for an apples-to-apples comparison, and you find that the Focus hatch carries the same $795 “hatchback tax” as the Fiesta. SE Sedans start at $17,270, while the SE hatchback starts at $18,065 (Sedan pricing in PDF here, Five-Door here). Meanwhile, “Titanium”-spec Focii are knocking on $23k, at which point you’re getting the same 2.0 GDI as the base model, while Cruze customers venturing into similar price territory will have upgraded to the well-received 1.4 Turbo. So why is it that the hatchback tax bothers me the most?

(Read More…)

BUMP.com: Who BUMPed Me? from BUMP on Vimeo.

Cars may be battling with communication technology for the hearts and minds of the youth, but at least we’ve got a handle on the downsides of our internal-combustion (or, increasingly, not) friends. Cost, pollution, risk and overall coolness deficits can, given a responsive industry, be battled. On the other hand, we’re only just learning about the endless creepiness that comes from limitless connectivity (stop me when I start sounding like someone who just enjoyed a week away from the internet). Take, for example, the latest attempt to fuse social media with cars: Bump.
(Read More…)

The ad shown above seems to cement a sad reality for automotive enthusiasts: the objects of our passion are no longer considered the cutting edge of material culture. And this reality is reflected is reflected in more than just ads for mobile phones, the object that appears to have replaced cars as the touchstone of youthful cool. For a broad array of reasons, young people (the traditional arbiters of cool) are less obsessed with cars and car ownership than they once were. Even automakers themselves are rushing the automobile to the scrapheap of history by seeking to load ever more phone-like capabilities to cars, a trend that both fuels phone mania and disinterest in driving as an intrinsically rewarding experience. But, it seems, that cars can still be cool after all…
(Read More…)

The things we make, according to the Jeep Grand Cherokee “Manifesto,” make us. Which apparently means that the Grand Cherokee is an on-the-job drinker. Yes, despite an ad campaign that touts craftsmanship and American manufacturing prowess (not to mention the litany of “Detroit Reborn” hype), Jeep Grand Cherokee assembly workers at the Jefferson North plant were caught drinking and doobing on their lunch break. Clearly, these gentlemen appreciate Chrysler’s new-found dedication to quality, and are eager to create value for their union and taxpayer owners. Oy vey…

UPDATE: The Detroit News reports

The lunchtime habits of a small group of workers, which included a trip to a party store and then to a public park, were captured on video by WJBK-TV (Channel 2). WJBK was tipped off by concerned workers at the plant.

Chrysler executives are now using the video to identify the workers, a number of whom have already been suspended without pay.

GM”s IPO scuttlebutt has been dominated in recent weeks by speculation about possible foreign “cornerstone” investors. But, according to five sources who spoke with Reuters

GM is likely to sell about 80 percent of the common shares in its IPO and more than 90 percent of the preferred shares in North America.

Yes, despite deep skepticism about the GM IPO’s appeal to retail investors, GM will sell most of its equity in North America, and it’s even splitting its share price to bring the per-stock price into retail range. Why the sudden back-away from talk of courting global investment and “cornerstone investors” from abroad? Politics, baby! With Chrysler likely to end up owned outright by Fiat, something had to be done to keep The General at least nominally American-owned. Meanwhile, in news that is sure to thrill prospective retail investors, Special Inspector General of the TARP program (SIGTARP) Neil Barofsky is investigating the IPO… and says GM’s per-share price will have to hit $133.78 (pre-split) for the Government to break even. GM’s highest-ever stock price was $94.63, and that was back in April of 2000. Are we getting excited yet, retail investors?

Despite not having spent a dime on the US firm, Fiat is widely credited with “rescuing” Chrysler. Here’s another way of looking at it: the United States taxpayers bailed out Fiat, an Italian firm with no presence in the US market. For no money down, Fiat got a 20 percent stake in a Chrysler that, although troubled, had been rinsed clean in bankruptcy. Now, analysts looking at Fiat’s spin-off of its automotive unit are telling Automotive News [sub] that

The government of Sweden’s Västra Götaland County has referred Saab to the Swedish Enforcement Service (Kronofogdemyndigheten) over nonpayment of a $16.2m loan, reports thelocal.se. The bill is for repayment of a portion of a roughly $45m in aid extended by the county to Saab during its first weeks of bankruptcy. Because the $16.2m portion was used specifically to guarantee employee salaries, the County is arguing that it is not covered by Saab’s 75% writedown agreement with creditors. Saab insists that the salary guarantee portion is covered by the cramdown, and says it has paid its 25 percent of the total loan.

(Read More…)