Whatever you do, don’t talk about anything related to the car itself. Reference an obscure previous ad for the car instead. Also, if the car’s target market is young men, be sure to make the ad’s protagonist an elderly female. Finally, the concept must be strange enough to be totally unmemorable. Then sit back and watch as your over-the-hill muscle car doubles its volume and still doesn’t quite match the Mustang or Camaro’s volume. Success!
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Posts By: Edward Niedermeyer
Today’s Detroit News has an interesting item on Ford’s D3/D4 platform strategy, based on the thesis that
The remade Taurus has emerged as a flagship for the Dearborn automaker, restoring luster to a nameplate that had become synonymous with “rental car,” and helping to revive an automaker that had become dependent on trucks and sport utility vehicles.
As Jack Baruth’s Capsule Review of the Ford Five Hundred shows, the D3 platform offers good space and comfort, and the recent update and return to the Taurus nameplate has been rewarded with steadily-increasing sales. And though the Taurus has fought back to become a Ford-brand flagship (likely at the expense of Mercury), its platform-mates have been consistent underperformers on the showroom floor. Flex has sold in the low 3k monthly range, while MKS and MKT have been thoroughly beaten in YTD sales by the Cadillac DTS and Escalade, themselves hardly the most competitive alternatives to the big Lincolns.
OK, so we’ve been convinced that the re-born “Lancia Stratos” isn’t just a photoshop… but honestly, we wish it was. Because then the autoblogosphere might not have spent half the week running silly headlineslike “It’s Real!” and “Headed To Production!” and “My Sophisticated Appreciation For The Iconic Lancia Stratos Just Got All Over My Favorite Pair Of Blogging Sweatpants!” The reason that these headlines need to stop are simple: 1) Nobody will ever see this car on the road, 2) it will never be offered for sale, 3) It’s not even a freaking Lancia and 4) the entire story is so knee-deep in bullshit that it’s amazing anyone pays even the remotest bit of attention to it. And since we’re speaking truth to fanboyishness, I’ll just go ahead and say it : nobody actually wants a Lancia Stratos anyway… and even if they did, they certainly wouldn’t want this new one. Yes, you heard me.
Editor’s Note: GM’s outgoing Chairman/CEO Ed Whitacre sent the following email to GM’s senior executives today [via Detroit News]
My goal in coming to General Motors was to help restore profitability, build a strong market position and prepare this iconic company for success. While we have more to do, it is fair to say that GM is headed on that path. Our earnings for the last two quarters show that. Our strong sales show that. And the enthusiasm from everyone I meet at GM shows that.
We are on the right track. And I have complete confidence that Dan Akerson will keep us moving forward. Dan is committed to GM; he’s been a key player in the decisions our Board has made over the last year. He will do a great job, and deserves your complete support.
I have enjoyed my time as CEO of GM more than I can say, and I am pleased to stay on as Chairman through the end of the year. I am excited about this company, and I want you to know that it is the people of GM who make this a very special place. You are the best, and I truly appreciate all you do.
Thank you for the privilege of leading this great company. I am anxious to see the new heights that you will achieve as you continue focusing on designing, building and selling the world’s best vehicles.
Ed Whitacre
Not long ago, we explored the possibility of Audi taking out Tesla with its forthcoming brace of e-Tron electric sportscars. What we didn’t realize fully at the time, is how directly VW is going after Tesla. At a recent visit to Volkswagen’s Silicon Valley Electronic Research Lab though, I was shown the slide above, which represents the battery packs for the forthcoming e-Tron and e-Up EVs… and it suddenly hit me that Tesla founder Martin Eberhard was applying Tesla’s multi-cell strategy at Volkswagen, essentially duplicating Tesla’s work with the backing of a major OEM. Now, Eberhard is talking to Autocar, and he says that his Tesla-style multi-cell powerpacks could offer 500 miles of pure electric range within ten years. If he’s right, the other OEMs who are focusing on prismatic Li-ion cells are in for a rude surprise… and Tesla had better start making some progress.
Just weeks before Chrysler filed for bankruptcy last year, it announced a battery partnership with A123 Systems, which would have provided Lithium-ion batteries for Chrysler’s ENVI lineup of EV vapor. Needless to say, the ENVI program disappeared after bankruptcy, but A123 stuck around and was rewarded with the supply contract for Chrysler’s only prospective EV project, th Fiat 500 EV. Now, the Freep reports that A123 has withdrawn from the Fiat 500 EV project, and its CEO tells Bloomberg that
a competing vendor had been willing to take the business at a lower price and that the program had been “significantly diminished.”
It’s not clear if A123 was upset with a reduction in planned Fiat 500 EV volume, or if the partnership’s downgrade from a “full line” of ENVI EVs to the 500 EV project represented the unwanted volume reduction. In any case, Chrysler CEO still planns on selling 56k EVs per year by 2014, and it’s strange that A123 would give up that long-term volume opportunity. But, according to A123, another automaker has more serious plans to grow EV volume, and A123 will be concentrating on that partnership. What program is that? Where does this leave the Fiat 500 EV? Is A123 in even more trouble than Chrysler? As usual with EV programs, there are more questions here than answers…
From the moment GM’s Chairman Ed Whitacre took over for Fritz Henderson as CEO, many wondered how long the 68-year-old Texan would stick around. Apparently GM’s board was not immune from such uncertainty either, as Bloomberg reports that it gave Whitacre an ultimatum: commit to the long haul or get out now. According to reports, several Wall Street banks asked Whitacre whether he would be leading GM long-term during pre-IPO meetings. Whitacre didn’t answer at the time, but the pressure from Wall Street clearly pressed the board’s hand. Since Whitacre ultimately didn’t want to stick around for an extended term (posibly due to the Treasury’s unwillingness to dump all of its stock during GM’s IPO), the board picked Dan Akerson to take over. But how will an unexpected handoff to an unknown executive with no industry experience affect GM’s IPO?
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Collectively, the the Detroit Three have enjoyed precisely one market share turnaround in the last several years: Ford in 2009. This year, Detroit’s market share looks downright stagnant. Chrysler’s got a tiny bump going on, but Ford’s lost its fizz and GM is skidding bottom… at best. On the other hand, if this graph is just too gloomy for you, hit the jump for one of the first glimmers of (market share) hope for Detroit in years.
We’ve got a tight fight for the top spot again this month in the Mid/Large CUV segment. Traverse, Pilot, Edge, Outback and Sorento are all running between 9k and 10k monthly units, and between 50k and 65k YTD sales. All of these top-selling nameplates improved over their July 2009 numbers, but the flagging Highlander and Venza both fell back year-on-year, as did the Flex. Can Edge ride a mid-cycle refresh to the 2010 Mid/large CUV sales title? That could just depend on whether or not Chevrolet opens up more production capacity for its Traverse. Meanwhile, Ford’s Explorer and Jeep’s Grand Cherokee should start eating into this segment… which begs the question: should these two nameplates be migrated out of SUVs and into the burgeoning segment? While you ponder the answer, we’ll be preparing an July SUV sales chart for tomorrow.
One might imagine that GM wouldn’t want to scare anyone away from its forthcoming IPO, but triskadecaphobes might just want to sit this one out. With a $5b credit line reportedly secured from a group of “at least 15” banks, Reuters [via Automotive News [sub]] reports that GM could file its S1 with the SEC as soon as tomorrow. In case that date is too pregnant with superstition, GM could wait until next Monday to file paperwork. Either way, GM is expected to go public by the Thanksgiving holiday.
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GM Chairman/CEO Ed Whitacre just announced during GM’s Q2 financial conference call that he will step down as CEO on September 1, and as Chairman at the end of 2010. GM board member Dan Akerson will take over both of Whitacre’s position. Whitacre called Akerson “very involved” and said he expects a smooth transition. Whitacre planned to leave after “returning GM to greatness,” and says that “with a good foundation in place,” he’s ready to leave. The board’s been aware of Whitacre’s plan, and the board was ready to act when Whitacre said he was ready to step down. Akerson says he and Whitacre “share a vision” for GM, so instead of setting an agenda now, he’s focusing on a smooth transition. Akerson noted that Whitacre “had made some management changes” already, and he’s confident in his “deep bench.” The major transition, he says, “is me,” because he needs to gain a day-to-day, operational perspective on the business.
GM has released its Q2 earnings, and it’s pulled off a $1.3b net profit on improved North American revenue, and narrower losses on GM Europe. Revenues for GM International, however, were down to about half of their Q1 level. Despite over $1b in capital expenditures last quarter, GM managed to improve free cash flow from $970m in Q1 to $2.834b in Q2. Full chart packet available in .doc format here, presentation slides available in PDF format here.
Schadenfreude recently brought the elder Niedermeyer out of his summer semi-retirement, and for the most part, it’s a consistent inspiration for much of our content here at TTAC. But as natural and healthy as it is to laugh and learn from the mistakes of others, for some reason I’m just not feeling it today. Blame it, if you must, on a certain mellowness that settles in over the glorious course of an Oregon Summer. One Robert Farago always said that hate must come from a place of love, so in the interests of getting TTAC back in lean, mean fighting form, I’m going to indulge in the worst kind of of auto-writing love-fest: I’m going to tell you about how much I love my car. Except that it’s not a car, and it’s not actually mine…
BMW snagged the top spot last month, but Lexus and Mercedes are still battling for the top spot in year-to-date luxury brand sales. Lincoln and Mercury are running at less than half the rate of Buick and Cadillac, while Saab’s year-to-date number is nearly on par with its next-nearest rival Jaguar’s monthly number. Infiniti pulled ahead of Audi in YTD and monthly sales in July, as both brands prepare to overtake the canceled Mercury brand in the YTD sales race, and start chasing Acura. It continues to be a rowdy year for the luxury brands…
In the last installment of our New Or Used? series, Sajeev, Steve and our Best and Brightest teamed up to help a reader find the modern equivalent of a Volkswagen Microbus. Because answers were limited to US-market vehicles, this CrossTouran wouldn’t have made the cut, but in a perfect world, this might just have been the car our reader was looking for. But with a starting price of €27,700 ($35k) for a 105 HP version, it’s still missing the kind of US-market appeal that might tempt VW planners to send it stateside… especially with the more American-friendly Tiguan starting at $23k, and the more off-road-capable Touareg going for about $40k. But if a small, AWD van is what you’re looking for, there is an automaker willing to take a risk on your peculiar tastes: the next-gen Mazda5 may not be a looker, but it’s said to come with an AWD option when it debuts in the US early next year.
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