The surprising answer, via Consumerist, is nothing. Well, sales-wise. Richard of tryingtostimulate.wordpress.com (the economy, you perv) built out a Jeep Wrangler online, and was quoted a price of $24k. Thinking that giving an American automaker some business would be as easy as showing up, writing a check and driving away, he visited not one, but two Jeep dealers. Both tried desperately to get him to finance (so much for shoring up cashflow) and neither would sell him the vehicle he “built” online. In short, the man wanted a Jeep and had cash, but Chrysler’s crack (smoking) dealers couldn’t make it happen. Maybe they need a few more bailouts before they’ll start accepting cash for their products.
Gasgoo reports that China’s Jinan (Shandong) BaoYa are seeing US demand for its electric cars jump dramatically. BaoYa sold 500 of its electric sedans last year, and despite a weak export market, this year’s US-market orders have already topped 4,800. BaoYa sedans are Zap Xebra-like Low Speed Vehicles, with a top speed capability of 50 mph (limited to 25mph in the US) and a range of about 90 miles on a 5-8 hour charge. We’re not entirely sure that the factory and production of BaoYa vehicles documented by Repubblica here is the same Jinan-based plant of Shandong BaoYa, but there’s little doubt that the nearly 5k BaoYas sold in the US were built in similar conditions. So Americans could gaze pityingly at their neighbors’ carbon emitting planet destroyers. Savor the irony.
Nissan is determined to sell electric cars in the US beginning in 2012, but the problem of building a charging infrastructure continues to bedevil product planners. Charging stations must be plentiful, convenient, and most importantly EV owners must be willing to wait there at least half an hour to complete a fast-charge of their EV’s batteries. Having added it all up and thrown in just a dash of condecension towards American culture (or lack thereof), Nissan’s boffins reckon that fast food joints are the perfect location for EV charging station, reports Automotive News [sub]. Of course the idea of sitting around a fast food joint for a half-hour while your car recharges for another 80 miles of driving kind of defeats the idea of fast food, but no matter.
The “original” bailout, also known as “section 136 loans,” still haven’t been disbursed yet, and as the New York Times reports, folks arre getting antsy about it. Politicians are “breaking down the door” of the Department of Energy, trying to get the funds shoveled out to a less than entirely deserving crowd of “energy efficient auto makers.” Like GM (requesting $8b for the Volt), Chrysler ($5b), Tesla ($350m) and some guys who convert Saturn Skys into EVs ($20m). Sadly not everyone involved sees the urgent need to hand out tax money to EV sportscar builders and dead automakers walking. Lachlan Seward, who oversees the loan program, tells the NYT “we are trying to do this in a responsible way that reflects prudent credit policy and taxpayer protections.” Like that matters.
In times of crisis folks tend to look for radical change rather than steady improvement. Before you know it, Steve Jobs is being (wrongly) touted as the saviour of the auto industry, recent authors are expounding on the Googlification of the industry, and GM is staking everything on the Volt. And I’m not even going to get into the theological implications. But like the old fable of the rabbit and the hare, the steady improvements will be what saves the industry. A study by Carnegie Mellon at Green Car Congress shows that plug-ins with smaller capacity than the Volt’s 40-mile EV range are a more cost effective strategy than the Volt moonshot. Go figure.
Take some deep breaths, Mr Jarvis, and check out what Gordon Murray Design is up to over at Autocar. It’s like open-source, and innovative and stuff. Man. Actually it is a pretty radical vision for such a traditional industry. And it’s being done by folks who know things about cars. Oh yeah, and it’s nothing like Google.
The New York Times has brought it to our attention that you can now buy speeding ticket insurance! Ticket Assurance will cover the cost of up to three moving or non-moving violations and two tow truck calls per year for $15.95 per month. The firm was founded by an Atlanta-area businessman who was inconvenienced as much by the process of dealing with taffic courts as he was by the fines he’d receive for speeding. “I didn’t want to take time out of my day to plead my case for something I knew was wrong,” says Terrence Byrd. “I thought there should be someone who should handle this.” So he started the firm which now has about 1,700 customers in 23 states. Subscribers are only covered for moving violation fines of $1k per year ($500 for non-moving), but Byrd says membership pays for itself if you receive $200 in fines per year. DUI, reckless driving and felony charges are not covered, nor are single moving violation fines of more than $350. All the restrictions take away much of the advantage over a radar detector, but if you know you are going to be speeding a lot, it might be worth the peace of mind.
Consumer Reports has released its annual auto issue and scorecard, and the results are hardly shocking. CR loves them some Toyota, Honda and Subaru, singling out the big H as building the most reliable lineup of vehicles (Element excepted). Toyota came in second, with the Prius winning top spot in CR’s new “value” ranking. Only Toyota’s Yaris and FJ Cruiser were unable to earn a “recommend” grade from the report. Mercedes has improved its reliability, reckons CR, but European brands are still lagging. On the American front, Ford is singled out as the high point among the American automakers, as “some Ford models now rival their competitors” from Japan. Too bad they’re the F150 and Flex, which compete for a shrinking market segments. Unfortunately, that’s as good as the news gets for Detroit.
Sheikh Mohamed Al-Najimi of the Saudi Islamic Jurisprudence Academy has advised the Muslim community (via Al Arabiya) that burning ethanol and other alcohol fuels could be a sin. Al-Najimi said that ethanol runs afoul of the Prophet Mohammed’s ban on the sale, consumption, processing, and handling of all forms of alcohol. He does stress that this is not an official Fatwa, or religious edict, meaning ethanol is not officially banned by Sharia, or Islamic law. Yet. But hey, as long as this little guy gets beheaded on YouTube we’ll call it good. To be completely fair though, this isn’t entirely surprising. It’s hard to imagine that ethanol is wildly popular when you live on top of oceans of the real thing. Meanwhile, back in the decadent west, moral clarity (like oil) is a little harder to come by.
What do you do when you’re out of time? Get rid of all your clocks! GM has already taken the humiliating measure of cutting clock maintenance from the RenCen budget, and Chrysler is now following suit. William Wolf of Chrysler Paint, Pilot and Facility Operations notes over at Chrysler Blog that “every little bit helps.” But Wolf wasn’t satisfied with the mere $10K in savings that cutting clocks yielded. Eliminating rooftop parking to save plowing costs will save over $300K, while halving the number of fluorescent bulbs at the Auburn Hills Chrysler Technical Center will yield $400K. And despite the bitter Michigan winter, Chrysler has dropped the temperature at the CTC by four degrees, saving $70K annually. And yet, somehow, not everyone’s happy.
Shortly after Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood expressed his enthusiasm for a nationwide pay-per-mile tax scheme, the White House reacted by denying any plans for the car-monitoring fee system. “[Pay-per-mile] is not and will not be the policy of the Obama administration,” White House press secretary Robert Gibbs told the WaPo at a press conference, kicking off a merry little game of gotcha. “So was Secretary LaHood speaking out of turn here?” an AP reporter asked at the briefing. “I would direct you to Secretary LaHood on that,” Gibbs said. “Well, we actually interviewed him,” the reporter noted. “Well, call him back,” Gibbs said. Transportation Department officials later “clarified” that LaHood’s comments “were part of a long interview about a range of transportation issues and that he never specifically advocated taxing drivers by the mile.” Well that clears everything up now, doesn’t it?
Gawker reports that Tesla spinmeister Daryl Siry left the Silicon Valley startup because CEO Elon Musk (above) was pushing to accept deposits on the Model S sedan. The Model S (a.k.a. WhiteStar) exists only as a prototype. Tesla has no factory or financing with which to build it. When Musk announced that the DOE would approve Tesla’s loan application (they haven’t and likely won’t) and decided to accept $40K Model S deposits (next month), Siry smelled fraud and bailed. Valleywag calls Musk “The New Preston Tucker,” revealing that Musk told a recent Tesla “town hall” meeting that Tesla deposits were not guaranteed. This despite earlier assurances that Musk would personally guarantee deposits. With reports of Tesla asking for up to $75K in unescrowed “reservation payments,” and difficulty reclaiming deposits as small as $5K, Siry’s fears were probably well-founded. Meanwhile, anecdotal evidence from Tesla forums indicates that the real winner here: the Fisker Karma.
I admit, I have a strange fascination with watching cars crash. And though large, heavy cars can cause some of the most dangerous accidents, there’s something particularly satisfying about watching a small car hit the wall (or get hit by a large, heavy car). As an American I feel hard-wired to expect smaller cars to explode into a million pieces of tin foil and socialized medicine every time I see one making a slow-mo impact in a crash test. But the glory days of “hoo boy!” moments in compact crash tests seem to be coming to a close. Toyota’s tiny iQ just logged a five-star rating from Europe’s NCAP crash testers, and as this video shows, the drama just never shows up. A cocoon of airbags, some brilliant crumpling and surprising side-impact resilience take a lot of the “sucks to be that dummy” entertainment value from the iQ test video. Oh well. I guess it’s time to move on to watching Chinesecar crashtests. Schadenfreude doesn’t feed itself.
As compelling as Ford’s executive paycut for Easter Monday holiday “compromise” is, there are still plenty of stormclouds brewing around Dearborn. For example, Ford’s supplier spin-off Visteon is tanking, telling Automotive News [sub] it “cannot assure that it will remain in compliance with the terms of its outstanding debt instruments.” The firm’s $328m fourth-quarter loss is being blamed on a billion dollar revenue drop and “asset-impairment charges” of $200m. This coming from a firm that has never turned an annual profit. Amid growing rumors of bankruptcy filings (and 13 cent stock price), Visteon’s only other choices are asset sales or government bailout. Meanwhile, inquiring minds (OK, MSNBC) are beginning to wonder when Ford will succumb to the siren song of the federal bailout.
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