2008 was supposed to be a banner year for Hyundai. The company predicted a huge sales jump and promised a new flagship. And then 2008 actually happened. Sales were, well, you can guess that one. From a sales and PR point-of-view, the new, V8-powered Genesis was well received. From a sales perspective, not to much. Still, as one Hyundai Marketing VP put it, “if [consumers] aren’t forced to reconsider us, they won’t.” To paraphrase Elvis, perhaps we ought to give Hyundai a little more time. Meanwhile, the comparison between Hyundai and a young Toyota seem to have faded from view. In fact, you could make the case that Hyundai is more GM than Toyota. Well, if not you, me.

Since Ford said sayonara to its stake in Mazda, the erstwhile allies have been been having a lot of those “relationship talks,” reports The Detroit News. And true to the cliches, it’s a case of “can’t live with you, can’t live without you.” Crack a beer if you’ve been there before. Anyway, therap, I mean, analyst Jim Hall of 2953 Analytics sat down with the two to get a feel for the situation. “They’ve had a very symbiotic relationship,” he tells DetN. “The risk for Ford is they lose Mazda’s small car expertise. They think they can make it up with Europe, but Mazda can do it cheaper. The biggest risk to Mazda is their ability to get components on a global basis is reduced because their volumes are so low.” Ford goes around insisting that their “close, collaborative relationship will not change.” Meanwhile Mazda tells the Japanese papers that the  partnership will be “fundamentally altered.” But despite its tough talk, Mazda might need Ford’s help to expand in China, where it’s looking at a 30 percent sales bump in 08. “The thing that Ford gives Mazda, historically, is capital — and that keeps the Japanese banks off its back,” empathizes Hall. “Now, the banks are a major shareholder.” Ford and Mazda still hold monthly meetings, and US executives say Mazda’s need for engines, successful JV plants, and mutual respect will keep them together. But will Mazda’s start-stop technology be shared with Ford? And for that matter will Mazda’s “own” DSG box be a dry-clutch like the forthcoming Ford Powershift? If two cannibals share a lifeboat, which one survives? So many questions. And based on how things usually go in relationships like these, the crazy kids probably don’t know yet themselves.

Sometimes cars are just hunks of metal and plastic, thrown together to transport you from home to the workplace. And sometimes cars are alive with a romantic, adventurous spirit which transcends the petty concerns of mobility and efficiency. Via Jalopnik comes this four-part Shell Documentary on the 1958 Coupe Des Alpes. While you’re watching Alfas, Triumphs, Porsches and Benzes battle it out over the passes and switchbacks of the French and Italian alps, you may find yourself wondering if this really was the peak of vehicular romanticism. You may also find yourself out of a job if you watch all four parts at work. Which would be worth it. You can always find another job. Tip o’ the hat to Mr Paul Niedermeyer.

Tesla has increased the price of its Tesla Roadster by pricing once-standard equipment at $6,700. Customers who thought they’d locked-in pricing by submitting up to a $50k deposit, haven’t. “We want to have healthy margins on the car to guarantee the viability of the company,” says Tesla spokeswoman Rachel Konrad. “The margins are really important on this car for the next group of investors, whether it’s public shareholders in an IPO, the federal government looking at federal loan candidates or the next group of venture capitalists.” According to Wired, the biggest increase is to the “high-power connector” that recharges the car’s lithium-ion battery in as little as three hours. Once offered as standard equipment, it now costs $3,000. Tesla still includes a mobile 110-volt connector in the base price. But it requires as much as 37 hours to recharge a dead battery. “That can seem startling, and it is a big change,” Konrad admits. “But we have a lot of customers who use their mobile charger as a primary charger. Even with a 110 charger plugged in overnight, they’re nearly full again the next morning, because most customers aren’t driving the car to empty. They’re constantly topping off the battery.”

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Last year, Toyota finished the year with an unsatisfying quasi-tie for the title “world’s largest automaker.” The NY Times reports that ToMoCo has won 2008’s volume battle by a 620k unit margin. According to US News and World Report’s Flow Chart Blog, this is no bad thing. Blogger RIck Newman argues that even the most well-insulated GM executive can no longer deny that things have been going horribly, terribly wrong. The company can move on dot org. It can accept the fact that it’s an underdog that must fight for consumer consideration. It can lose the size queen sheen, and operate as if profits are the real measure of success. (A point GM CEO Rick Wagoner made last year when his minions cooked the books to retain the world’s largest automaker title, before the company ran out of cash.) Most importantly of all, Newman argues, Rick Wagoner can finally tell the truth about cars.

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“We now have a special bond with the American public,” said a certain Mr James E. Press of the Chrysler Motor Company at the Detroit Auto Show. Specifically, Mr Press’s firm owes American taxpayers $5.5b (including Chrysler financial aid) and have no real way of paying it back. But Chrysler’s gonna make it worth our while anyway; they’re gonna give Americans what they want. Wait, what do we want again? High-quality, practical, efficient, fun cars that hold their value? Hell no! We want the fourth installment of an aging action franchise to feature the cars and trucks of The New Chrysler! And boy are we gonna get that! Automotive News [sub] reports that Chrysler will give the makers of “Terminator: Salvation” an undisclosed amount of your tax money to feature their top-notch products alongside a certain Mr Christian Bale. Why? “We have a following with the Terminator movies and we are going to continue with that,” gushes a ChryCo media flack. Because things have been going so swell up to now? Because if Bale can save the Batman and Terminator franchises, you’ll make him CEO? Because you think machines will end the world before the American people get around to asking what you’ve done with their money?

How would you react to a spirited encounter with a Porsche GT3?

GM will invest $30m in the Michigan LG Chem/Compact Power battery plant which will assemble lithium-ion cells for its Chevy Volt. Of course the actual cells are made in Korea, a fact which make the Volt’s many taxpayer subsidies less than exclusively patriotic affairs. But fear not, American taxpayer! Korean subsidies make your subsidies go farther! GM’s Bob Lutz reveals to MLive that one of the reasons GM picked the Koreans over homegrown A123 Systems was because “LG Chem has massive support from the Korean government in terms of a whole research campus was paid for by the Korean government because Korea recognizes that advanced battery technology is a key component of the country’s competitiveness.” Hint, hint. Since LG Chem is farther along with prismatic (flat) cells, we’ll all just have to live with the fact that our tax money is flowing through GM to foreign firms, although to be fair, A123 did its cell manufacturing in China. So much for “supporting domestic industry.” Anyway, in his announcement of the $30m investment, GM’s Ed Peper tells Reuters to forget any CadiVolt dreams. “We chose Chevy because we can’t be niche with the Volt,” explains Peper. “We have to make it a mass-production vehicle.” A $40k “People’s Car” which depends on foreign technology, and will lose money even with “government support” coming from all sides? Niche? Never.

Or so argues a study from Science Daily (via The National Motorists Association). Thomas Garrett, assistant vice president at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, and Gary Wagner from the University of Arkansas Little Rock, looked at revenue and traffic citation data from 96 North Carolina counties collected from 1990 to 2003.. Their conclusion is that as the economy weakens, local governments seek to replace lost tax revenue with increased traffic tickets. “There is ample anecdotal evidence that local governments use traffic tickets as a means of generating revenue,” wright Garrett and Wagner. “Our paper provides the first empirical evidence to support this view.” How? According to the data, “a one percentage point decrease in last year’s local government revenue results in roughly a 0.32 percentage point increase in the number of traffic tickets in the following year.” Though they admit that the numbers seem small, Garrett and Wagner call them “statistically significant,” noting that they controlled for demographic and economic differences in the sample. The study will be published in the Journal Of Law And Economics, and will shock readers who haven’t read TTAC’s coverage of the ongoing speed camera nightmare.

Would you believe it that the good folks at Americas buff books make mistakes every once in a while? Well, Car And Driver has decided to air the American motor press’s ten biggest bloopers in a blog post entitled Dishonorable Mention. “We’re not the only publication to recognize a few stinkers with its highest honor. The history of automotive journalism has seen flaming piles of poo named ‘Car of the Year’ even as they attract product liability lawsuits by the acre-foot and hunks of crud honored as “All-Stars” at the very moment buyers are seeking reimbursement under lemon laws,” write C&D’s editors. “It’s always a risk making judgments based on the initial exposure to a car, and sometimes a vehicle’s ultimate crappiness only reveals itself with the fullness of time. We’re all subject to hype for something that seems new, different, and maybe even better, and in this business, we all feel the crushing pressure to be timely, amusing, and authoritative. Being wrong is always a risk. Still, here are ten award winners for which somebody needs to apologize.”

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On this day of change, Toyota is returning to its roots, announcing the appointment of Akio Toyoda as its new President. Toyoda will inherit his grandfather’s firm from Katsuaki Watanabe, just as Toyota is facing its greatest challenges in years. Even Watanabe recognizes the need for change, telling the Wall Street Journal “times have changed completely and … it really requires very bold reform and something that is outside of the box.” And Toyoda hopes to reach back to the foundational principles his grandfather endowed to his firm, while injecting a relatively youthful perspective (Toyoda is 52 years old). “I will go back to the basics of the foundation of the company,” says Toyoda. “But at the same time I am not bound by past history. I intend to exercise as much boldness as possible in pushing ahead with the reforms.” Though a Toyoda hasn’t led the firm since 1995, Toyota also hasn’t lost money since it was founded. To fight the tide of bad news, Reuters reports that Toyota has announced further production cuts. Domestic Japanese production between February and April will be cut in half compared to last year, with plans for only 9k units of production. This will include an 11 day furlough at 11 of its 12 Japanese plants.

Lotus has been developing the Kia Soul’s suspension for UK road conditions since 2008, lending even more appeal to Kia’s new hot box. “The result of our partnership with Lotus is a more composed ride which we think is much more suitable to what our roads can throw at Soul, and additionally, it is also a more exciting car to drive,” Paul Philpott of Kia UK tells Carscoop. This is the first time Kia has tuned a car specifically for the UK market. It is, however, not the first time the US market been left out in the cold while others get the Lotus-fettled hotness. Perhaps our new president could do something about this?

One of the myriad unintended consequences of America’s bailout bonanza is the prospect of an international trade war. Though the WTO moves slowly, the European Union often takes a firm line on American subsidy regimes. And a report in Automotive News Europe [sub] indicates that the EU is prepared to take a firm line on automotive subsidies, as it has in the past with steel and agricultural protective measures. “Europe cannot just look on if someone offers subsidies and market forces are dispensed with,” declares German Chancellor Angela Merkel. “We have to watch carefully what the new president of the United States … will do with the American automotive industry,” growls EU Industry Commissioner Guenter Verheugen. But what’s this? Auto Motor und Sport reports the details of France’s latest 300m Euro effort to rescue the Renault and PSA Peugeot Citroen’s supply chains.

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Automotive News [sub] reports that GM is preparing to spin off its Saab brand, since its “strategic review” has failed to turn up any interested buyers. “Saab has been negotiating with GM and the Swedish government about becoming a more independent company, initially as part of GM,” explains a mysterious GM source. According to Saab’s union president Paul Akerlund, “under this [plan], the Saab board will be more like a normal board, and less dependent on what happens on GM’s European strategy board. They will make their own decisions.” Still confused? GM will still be the owner, but Saab will have its own budget,  says Akerlund. Presumably only long enough to attract an interested buyer, though. “You have to make sure there is a company that GM can sell,” says Stefan Lofven, president of Sweden’s IF Metall union. “That means a company that is a separate entity where people can look at the balance sheets and you know what you are buying.” As in not GM, where top executives are “losing patience” with Saab. So instead of “GM life support” as Lutz so uniquely puts it, Saab gets production of the new 9-5 and an undetermined amount of cash (ha!) to retreat to the motherland and court buyers in peace.