Jim Fouts, the mayor of Warren, Michigan, has made GM an offer he hopes it can’t refuse. According to the DetN, Fouts hand-delivered a proposal to GM’s Renaissance Center that offered the automaker a 30-year tax abatement on personal property taxes if it moved headquarters to its Warren Technical Center. The offer, which Fouts calls “unprecedented,” would give GM 100 percent off taxes on all machinery and equipment and 50 percent off the taxes associated with any new construction for a period of 12 years.
Based on an Autoweek account it seems that not everyone at GM fears the reaper. Bob Lutz clearly doesn’t, meaning a thousand maximum sycophants are going to have to learn a joke that doesn’t involve the government being here to help. At a recent Automotive Press Association luncheon Lutz characterized the PTFOA’s influence as “benevolent oversight and two-way communication between Washington and the auto industry.” And who doesn’t like a good listener with deep pockets? As Lutz delicately puts it, “jeez, it only took 30 years for somebody to finally figure it out.” So when did Mr “Global Warming’s A Crock Of Shit” become such a fan of soft socialism?
Actor Mathew Modine votes aye over at HuffPo, calling our four-wheeled friends “the new pariahs.” After informing us that the world’s resources are finite, bicycles rule, and that there’s much to be learned from a baby’s first steps, Modine finally gets around to making his argument.
“We must look at the automobile as a cigarette–a cancer stick–a nail in our collective coffin. The sexy lifestyle that the tobacco industry sold to us contains the same advertising lies and poison which the automobile industry sold and continues to sell to the world. Look at the ads for automobiles and you’ll begin to recognize the lies. You’ll see open roads with happy smiling drivers. Ask yourself, When was the last time I was NOT stuck in traffic?”
Interestingly, the lasting impression from Modine’s rant is that actors’ opinions are like all forms of advertising: facile and misleading.
Or not. The best part? The LF-A, seen burning here at the 24 Hours Nürburgring, has just been re-approved for production, according to Motor Trend. Oy.
Popular Science clears the air (so to speak) about which of America’s favorite intoxicants impairs driving skill the most. And it turns out that the stoned driver is a careful driver. Well, compared to a drunk driver, anyway. Research from a fancy driving simulator at Ben Gurion University’s Laboratory for Human Factors in Road Safety shows that reefer-crazed drivers drove considerably slower than the control group, while drunk drivers drove faster. In addition, “the drinking drivers also tended to be confident and boast a sense of control, while the pot smokers seem to be ‘more aware of their impairment.'” Of course, PopSci and Ben Gurion University don’t exactly condone doobing and driving. “None of the doped-up or drinking drivers were models of safety on the road. They tended to switch lane positions, swerve, and vary their steering,” is the verdict. But that’s just, like, their opinion… man. In honor of TTAC’s recent exploration of the legal grey areas of on-road behavior, we thought we’d ask: what are the five best rules of stoned driving? Entries will be accepted until 6pm Eastern Time. The winner gets the unclaimed (previous contest) Taschenwörterbuch der Kraftfahrzeugtechnik (English-German car technical dictionary). Because compound words are mind blowing after a toke or two. Dude.
Automotive News [sub] is reporting that Beijing Auto’s bid for Opel “came too late for the government to assess it in depth,” according to German Finance Minister Peer Steinbrück. Thanks for playing! Now how good did that offer have to be for the German government to have to avoid looking at it all together?
With initial ($5 billion) attempts at bailing out struggling auto suppliers failing miserably, Reuters reports that Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm is calling for another $8 billion in supplier aid. Granholm says the aid will be especially important if (when) GM files for bankruptcy. “We need to provide the (auto) suppliers with the means to get through the next 60 to 90 days,” says Granholm. And then? Meanwhile, despite reports that (at least some) GM creditors will not be crammed down, MI Rep. Sanders Levin fired a shot over GM investors’ bows at the same press conference. The Chrysler experience proved to lenders that “bankruptcy doesn’t provide any more relief and maybe less,” said Levin. “We’re also hopeful that bondholders of GM have also got that message.”
In sharp contrast to the nasty cramdown of Chrysler bondholders, GM’s secured lenders will receive full recovery on some $6 billion in debt, courtesy of your United States Treasury. According to the WSJ, Treasury will “inject a fresh $50 billion in various financings to back a GM workout,” which would result in a 70 percent equity stake in the “new GM.” Although the plan had been for GM to exit bankruptcy still carrying some $40 billion of its approximately $80 billion in debt, the bank payoff should help trim GM’s debt to a mere $10-$12 billion. To accomplish this, the Treasury will pay Citi, JP Morgan and other financiers of GM’s $4.5 billion revolving line of credit that comes due in 2011 and a $1.5 billion term loan due in 2013. In full. Which beats 29 cents on the dollar any day.
No, we’re not anticipating more congressional hearings. The AP (Breitbart) reports that inappropriately named Zero Pollution Motors is trying to bring MDI’s compressed-air technology to America. Again. Still. There’s only one problem. “Air compressors are one of the least efficient machines to convert electricity to work,” says Harold Kung, professor of chemical and biological engineering at Northwestern University. “Why not use the electricity directly, as in electric cars? From an energy utilization point of view, the compressed (air) car does not make sense.” What the professor appears to be missing is that the firm is called Zero Pollution Motors. Put that in your chemical engineering bong and and give it a toke.
“The automotive industry in Malaysia needs to be energized and revitalized . . . We cannot continue to have protectionist policies forever. We have committed to open up for the auto sector.”
—Malaysian Deputy Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin, via AP (LA Times).
Volt prototype enthusiast Mark Phelan of the Detroit Free Press took his stab at the old “I’m from the government, and I’m here to help” chestnut today. “Is the U.S. government’s rescue plan for General Motors a business strategy or social engineering?” he pondered, perturbed.
“The question arises daily. Seemingly knowledgeable people declare that the government will force GM out of the profitable and important business of selling trucks and family vehicles, allowing it to build only small cars, hybrids and electric vehicles.”
GM bondholders have only tendered “a low-single digit percentage” of GM’s $27 billion debt-for-equity swap offerings, reports Reuters. This (along with unfolding government/UAW deals) sets GM on a crash-course for bankruptcy, and a filing is expected as early as tomorrow, according to another Reuters report. Both stories are replete with quotes arguing the inevitability of GM’s debt-swap failure, although with a 90 percent required participation it didn’t take a professional analyst to figure out that GM’s offer was DOA. Next stop, bankruptcy court.
According to the AP, “sections of Broadway from 47th to 42nd streets and 35th to 33rd streets have been closed to cars in a city effort to reduce traffic and pollution and cut down on pedestrian accidents.” According to the NY Post, drivers are “furious,” arguing that the shutdown will actually worsen congestion.
Who’d have thunk it? The New York Times reports that despite being designed to become the world’s cheapest car, the Tata Nano isn’t attracting as many budget buyers as you might expect. Only 20 percent of Nano orders (India market only) are currently for the base model, a $2,600 vehicle. Half of all orders are for the top-of-the-line model, which boasts such ameneties as cup holders and air conditioning but costs some 40 percent more than a base model. When the Nano was announced, its lowest possible cost was widely touted to claims that it would become “India’s Model T.” And though the low-cost-at-all-costs approach hasn’t been wildly popular, orders for the well-optioned model will help Tata stay out of a profit-draining battle on price alone. But that isn’t stopping competitors from planning ever-cheaper models. Renault/Nissan is planning a $2,500 model developed in conjunction with Bajaj Auto. Toyota is also rumored to be pursuing a low-cost car for the Indian market.
Because people with pom-poms always have great insights. Scott Burgess of the Detroit News and Mark Phelan of the Detroit Free Press have driven the Cruze-based Volt mule, written nearlyidentical rah-rah routines, and will be taking questions on the vehicle at 2 p.m. Eastern over at GM’s Fastlane Blog. Ironically (or not . . . who can tell anymore?) titled “Journalists To Discuss Chevy Volt,” the discussion is more likely to be indicative of the state of automotive “journalism” (shilling at the OEM’s blog? Really?) than revealing of anything of actual interest about the Volt. But by all means, surf over and ask a few awkward questions for us. For question ideas, start here.
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