The truth isn’t always sexy. Sometimes it’s just, well, the truth. And given how sensitive brand managers can be about guarding their corporate mystique, the boring truth can be downright refreshing.
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Posts By: Edward Niedermeyer
Once again Detroit finds itself atop Edmunds’ True Cost of Incentive ranking of the top seven automakers [via earthtimes], as the domestic OEMs spent about $1.7b (or, about 60 percent) of the $2.8b paid out by the entire industry on incentives last month. Trucks were the most heavily discounted segment, with average incentives running around $4,650, or nearly 13 percent of the average segment sticker price. Saab spent the most by brand, slapping an average of $6,813 on its vehicles, with Lincoln coming in second at $4,987 per vehicle sold. Saab’s incentives equaled 17.1 percent of its average vehicle price, while Chrysler gave away about 12.2 percent of its average vehicle price last month.
World Cup Soccer: the hidden killer. German scientists dispatch their top men to understand exactly how wrong things can go when you celebrate a World Cup victory by piling drunk fans into a car and performing a low-speed victory parade. Of course, this simulation clearly needs some work. Among the obvious missing factors: a keg of beer in the back seat, three inches of oversteer-inducing vomit on the road, and a healthy serving of casual racism. Ah, football!
There’s no doubt that cars can be time machines… but so can cameras. These pictures of the LUC Chopard classic car rally in Moscow were taken a week ago today, but thanks to the impeccable cars, time-warp setting and old-school photo techniques, they somehow manage to capture the flavor of a lost era. Even when a blinged-out Infiniti QX intrudes, reminding the viewer that these are just a bunch of plutocrats playing with their expensive toys circa 2010. As is so often the case, the fantasy is far more satisfying than the reality. It’s Sunday… why not indulge a little?
[Courtesy: EnglishRussia, Hat Tip: commenter rodehardputupwet]
TTAC’s May sales analysis can’t stop, won’t stop, with this look at medium and large non-luxury SUVs. Only GM made real progress over May 2009’s numbers… everyone else is lucky to be treading water here.
With Honda and Toyota suddenly taking hydrogen fuel cells seriously, Hyundai-Kia is jumping on the bandwagon. Byung Ki Ahn, general manager of Hyundai-Kia’s Fuel Cell Group tells Autocar
There are already agreements between car makers such as ourselves and legislators in Europe, North America and Japan to build up to the mass production of fuel cell cars by 2015. Hydrogen production capacity and refuelling infrastructure will be improved. Pilot-scale production of 1000 fuel cell cars a year will begin for us in two years. Our first cars won’t be fully commercialised [they will probably be leased , not bought outright] but they will allow us to make the final stages of development progress before we begin commercial production of around 10,000 hydrogen cars a year in 2015
What?: A race between a MINI Cooper S and a Porsche 911.
Where?: Facebook, and presumably an extremely twisty track.
Why?: Brand equity. Publicity. Mid-life crisis sales. Making sure nobody knows the Cayman exists.
Google Trends says it’s so, according to gm-volt.com [via Autoblog]. The Leaf also has 54,000 Facebook fans to the Volt’s 24,000. Plus, the Leaf has 130,000 people on its official “interest list” while the Volt boasts a mere 42,000. The danger here: that Leaf beats the Volt to becoming the EV segment’s first successful brand, earning it “the new Prius” status that Bob Lutz so badly wanted to bring home to Detroit. [Hat Tip: gslippy]
The chart is the problem: VW wants to sell a million cars in the US by 2018, and if Audi’s going to account for 200k of that volume, the VW brand has to get its sales headed towards the 800k range. Ostensibly, the pictures are the solution: with the Passat and Tiguan selling like they have herpes, these updates are going to be an important element of how VW gets from where it is to where it wants to be. And though neither of these images are of the highest quality, they point to some serious dullification. Apparently VW’s bid for “mainstream relevance” mean turning its vehicles into snooze-mobiles. But is the Toyota school of styling going to put Vee-Dub over the top?
The executive shake-ups show no signs of stopping at GM, as Ed Whitacre ended the week with yet another re-shuffle. And this time Whitacre himself is the big winner. Automotive News [sub] reports that Whitacre has assumed control of GM’s global product planning, leaving former planning boss Tom Stephens with the more prosaic responsibility of overseeing new product development. Whitacre will be assisted by new VP for product planning Steve Carlisle, who, unlike Whitacre, actually has some experience in product planning. Carlisle replaces Jon Lauckner, who will head up GM’s new venture capital unit. But the big news here is that a man who only just learned the term “segment” about five and a half months ago, is now in charge of GM’s global product planning. Quick learner or egomaniac?
Within the last several hours, NHTSA has blocked access to documents hosted on its Office of Defect Investigation complaint database. The move comes after TTAC commenter carquestions posted this video to YouTube, showing a number of lapses in redacting which resulted in private information, including social security numbers and driver’s license numbers, being made publicly available. TTAC has contacted NHTSA about the apparent violation of the Privacy Act of 1974, and is awaiting a response from the agency.
Ford and Chevy blew the lid off our 30k-unit graph limit… don’t count the big trucks out just yet.
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