Battery maker and hybrid powertrain dark horse BYD got quite a legitimacy boost when the Oracle of Omaha (and possible Obama cabinet member) Warren Buffett dropped $230m on ten percent of its stock. And that boost seems to be translating into accelerated plans to bring BYD cars to market. China Car Times reports that BYD will begin selling its “dual mode” (not to be confused with GM’s disasterous “two-mode”) hybrids (specifically, the Toyota Corolla F3DM compact) before the end of the year, several months before the previously-publicized release date. No plans have been announced to accelerate European sales, set to begin in 2010. And U.S. sales are still a gleam in Warren Buffett’s shrewd eye. BYD hybrids have been extensively tested in China, and the firm claims that its proprietary batteries are good for 62 mile of plug-in charge and will last over 300k miles before needing to be replaced. The parallel/serial hybrids can be charged to 50 percent of capacity in ten minutes, while a 100 percent charge takes seven hours, according to BYD. If these numbers hold up and quality is up to snuff, BYD could soon be a big name in the hybrid game. After all, Ma Buffett didn’t raise any fools.
Posts By: Edward Niedermeyer
Automotive News Europe [sub] is hosting a point-counterpoint throwdown on the proposed 40b Euro bailout of European automakers. And like the debates we’ve survived over the last few weeks, even the pro-bailout advocates can offer only qualified support. At best. ANE Chief Correspondent Luca Ciferri jumps into his argument with the ambivalence that a billion-dollar giveaway demands. “Would I be happy to contribute some of my tax money to the European industry?” Ciferri asks himself rhetorically. “Not at all,” comes the answer. Great, so why do it? Because the Americans, Koreans, Japanese and Chinese all do it. Despite the fact that European automakers have garnered strong reputations on their own merits. Meanwhile, ANE Editor-in-Chief Arjen Bongard lays into the plans with gusto.
The San Jose Mercury reports that the credit and stock market meltdowns have finally taken their toll on Tesla’s plucky startup plans. No sooner had the ink dried on its deal with San Jose to build a giant headquarters and production facility then everything went to shit (i.e. got put on hold thanks to the dry-up in venture capital). The Model S Sedan (formerly Whitestar) is in development Hell, Tesla’s Michigan engineering facility has been closed and an undisclosed number of employees have been laid off. But cuts and delays are just the start of the shake-up. Tesla Chairman Elon Musk has installed himself as CEO of the firm, ousting Ze’ev Drori, the second such ouster since Musk booted Tesla founder Martin Eberhart last year. Owen Thomas of Valleywag thinks this news could be more dangerous for Tesla than any credit market issues.
Fresh off his recent membership in TTAC’s Cassandra club, Daniel Howes of the Detroit News has gone back to spinning bad news into industry gameplans. His latest column extolls the virtues of a GM-Chrysler merger, while admitting that such a move would be disasterous for everyone except GM and Chrysler. “Seen from the viewpoint of blue-collar labor, white-collar employees, local governments, dealers, the state of Michigan and the industrial Midwest, just about anyone whose livelihood depends on the dubious survival of Chrysler would pay a dear price,” writes Howes of a possible GM absorption of Chrysler. But, from the narrow perspective of an industry suit, these myriad viewpoints are just so much firewood to be burnt at the altar of survival. And Howes is conveniently on hand to stack it up and pass the matches.
OK, before we get hit with a lawsuit, Mark Miller Toyota will not offer the “Bob Marley Special” on new Toyotas. Not that it wouldn’t appeal to at least one Prius driver. Anyway, a Market Watch press release tells us that the Utah Toyota dealer is opening the first and only LEED-certified car dealership in the state. (At least he expects a Gold LEED rating when the paperwork clears “in the coming weeks.”) Designed to maximize local and recycled materials and maximize energy and water-efficiency, the new dealership boasts a number of eco-features. Sun-tracking skylights, a cool-roof system, low-flow taps and toilets, rainwater collection and high-speed service bay doors keep energy bills low, and allow Toyota customers to feel a little better about mean-smuggin’ in their Priora. The most gimmicky best feature? “Anyone familiar with Toyota’s Hybrid Synergy Drive knows there is a screen that shows the car’s energy use over a time period. We’ll have the same sort of panel inside the dealership that shows the building’s energy use over the last half hour or so,” reveals Miller. Up next: employees obsessively turning the A/C on and off and bragging on their blogs about how many cubic feet they were able to “hypercool” on a single kilowatt/hour.
Back when we learned that Ford might be selling its share of Mazda, we didn’t mention that Mazda was scrapping plans to build a second factory in the US. Good thing too. Automotive News [sub] cites a Nikkei report which claims Mazda had considered using a shut-down Ford plant or building a new one with Ford, aiming to produce fuel-efficient mid-size cars and other models from the first half of 2010. The report blames the deepening downturn in the world’s largest vehicle market for Mazda’s decision to scrap the project. No doubt hoping to keep the appearance of an even keel, Mazda reps now tell Business Week that they never had plans to build another U.S. factory. “As outlined in our midterm Mazda Advancement Plan, announced in March 2007, Mazda has no plans to establish a new vehicle production facility in North America,” the company says. Mazda did not, however, get the story straightened-out until after their stock dropped nine points after the Nikkei report. Then again, by the standard of the last few weeks, single-digit drops ain’t half bad.
Gordon Murray is calling his T25 city car project “the toughest challenge I’ve ever faced in my design career.” This as his company, Gordon Murray Design, celebrates its first birthday. Even the T25 itself showed up for the bash, swathed in the very latest in plastic wrap. Placed modestly between new and old Fiat 500s and Minis, the Christo-ed T25 comes across as smaller than any of the other city car icons. And make no mistake: Mr. F1 wants the car to be every bit as game-changing and iconic as the classics. In a speech posted at his Planet Murray blog, Gordon points to the Toyota iQ as an evolutionary approach to a city car: good, but not a true re-think. “We believe that the T.25 architecture and manufacturing process will represent the biggest step forward in our automotive world since the model T Ford, exactly 100 years ago. Our business model is quite simple – the architecture includes a separate body/chassis assembly. The manufacturing process can be adapted to many new powertrains, fuels and body styles.” Talk about raising the bar. (I’ll drink to that.)
Automotive News [sub] reports that United Auto Workers (UAW) chief Ron Gettelfinger is against the nevergonnahappen GM-Chrysler merger. Sort of. “I personally would not want to see anything that would result in a consolidation if that would mean the elimination of additional jobs,” Gettelfinger said. “But until we get into actual discussions, we can’t just speculate on what is going to happen. We have to know the situation, and then we can deal with it.” New CAW President Ken Lawenza is holding off on making any “if”-dependent statements on the matter until getting more details from GM and ChryCo. “We have already tried to contact the companies. We’re waiting for calls back,” Lewenza tells Reuters. Ken could be waiting for a while though, because the two firms probably haven’t even worked out the deal’s details yet. If there is a deal. Which there probably isn’t. Reaction on the other side of the pond is equally supportive…
Despite our several posts on the subject, the only thing resembling real news to come out of the Audi High Mileage Marathon is that a TDI version of the A3 will be coming to America. Or, as The German Car Blog reports using our trademark phrase, not. Winding Road say it’s officially on for next year. But Autoblog Green say nein, it’s still under consideration. Anyway, while the Audiphiles duke it out over that little controversy, the real news comes to us via the Chattanooga Times Free Press, who report that VW will sell diesel versions of the Civic-fighter it will be building at the new Tennessee plant. Unfortunately, the story is too full of “green jobs” pablum from local pols to tell us if the engines will be built stateside or shipped in from parts globalized. Either way, VW seems to be continuing its diesel approach in the states, despite our high prices for the oily stuff. With VW’s hybrid development lagging behind the industry leaders, diesel makes sense for them in the short-run (if only for the universally gushing reviews). Still, the new America-only mid-sized car to be built in Chattanooga is supposed to be a big volume booster for VW. One has to wonder how much a diesel version will help that effort, barring some kind of (unexpected) increase in diesel refining capacity.
Motor Trend (MT) has it on the downlow that Cadillac is considering a Duramax diesel-powered version of the CTS. The 4.5-liter, 520 lb-ft turbodiesel fits just fine in the CTS engine bay, say GM sources, as long as the design-ruining raised CTS-V hood is used. The idea behind the oil-burning option: bridge the considerable performance gap between the 3.6-liter V6 base model and the bat-shit insane supercharged CTS-V. Oh yeah, and Cadillac’s Northstar replacement project has been canned, meaning the Duramax is all they have for the job. MT aknowledges that “a diesel CTS for the U.S. would be a risk,” but goes on to argue that there’s little downside to the project since the engine and transmission have already been developed. But as numerous half-baked GM products prove, just because you’re leveraging existing components doesn’t mean anyone will buy them. Especially if they require expensive fuel. In fact…
As bailout fever sweeps the globe, no automaker wants to be the only manufacturer on the block without a fat government check. Automotive News Europe [ANE, sub] reports that Jaguar/Land Rover CEO David Smith recently hit up UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown for a few bob. “The bold and concerted actions announced by our government this week to unblock the banking system and the vital first cut in interest rates from the Bank of England are welcome, but we still need to take action to stimulate the real economy,” Smith tells ANE. Smith declined to put a number on just how much “action to stimulate the real economy” Jag/Landie required. And though the boss of the proud British marques hit the right PR notes with his use of the term “our government,” he was also being a bit misleading. After all, has Old Blighty forgotten that Jaguar/Land Rover now belongs to those upstart Indians at Tata? Sure, the two brands build cars in England (for now). But is Downing Street really going to break out the bankroll to help Mumbai’s bottom line? Not bloody likely.
With all the talk of GM-Chrysler mergers, many have lost sight of the fact that automakers hold strategic talks with each other on a regular basis. Of course, GM talks grab the spotlight, thanks to the sheer size of the company. But Chrysler is by far the more interesting story. The Detroit News reveals that Chrysler’s owners Cerberus Capital began entertaining offers from a number of firms within a year of acquiring the Pentastar brand. In addition to the now much-speculated-upon GM talks, Cerberus has also met “in recent months” with Renault-Nissan, Fiat and Tata, in hopes of pulling Chrysler’s fat from the fire. Unfortunately, we aren’t getting many details on possible tie-up strategies. Nissan-Renault talks certainly revolve around platform-sharing in the short-term, although Carlos Ghosn is said to be “dispassionate” on the subject of closer ties with Chrysler. “I think that initiatives, in terms of alliances, are frozen for a very simple reason: Everyone is scared of credit crunch and cash problems,” says Ghosn. And that’s really the issue. There are plenty of second- and third-tier global automakers that would enter platform and capacity sharing agreements with Chrysler, but nobody wants to break out the checkbook for an equity position. Especially considering Cerberus expects to retain a stake in Chrysler in the event of a sale. Why buy a failing firm in this market when your cash could be better spent on new product?
Automotive News [sub] brings us the story of Earl Stewart, the Florida Toyota dealer who is waging a one-man war on dealer fees. Born into the car sales business, Stewart noticed one day that his children did not share his love for the family business. Asking his son why he didn’t want to sell cars, Stewart says “He told me he thought car dealers sometimes have a dishonest image. And I had to admit he was right.” After a battle with colon cancer, Stewart decided to make changes in how he conducted business. The first step was removing the $495 “dealer fee” his store had charged, dropping profits by some $200 per unit. But since dropping the fees, he has seen business at his dealership double, and Stewart has been reborn as an anti-dealer-fee crusader. Taking the fight to the radio, television and his blog, Stewart has alienated other dealers who say he is simply advertising his own business. “The world doesn’t need Robin Hood anymore,” one anonymous critic told Stewart. “What we also don’t need is a one-man show trying to run down every dealer on the planet for the good of his own profits.” After attempting to make dealer fees illegal in Florida, and suing another dealer for slander, Stewart still believes in his principles… and his business model. “I know a lot of guys out there depend on these dealer fees — especially right now when the economy is so bad,” says Stewart. “But I did away with them, and my business got better. I can be proud to talk to my kids about what I do for a living. That’s important to me, and it’s important to my sons.”
Autocar‘s Steve Cropley doesn’t discuss the US market much, focused as he is on European happenings. But the man who called Rick Wagoner’s take on ethanol “crisp and lucid” (and blacklisted our own Robert Farago from Autocar’s pages back in the day), now agrees that a US automaker will almost certainly cease to exist. Unfortunately, his belief in this inevitability is borne not of clear-sighted analysis of Detroit’s predicament, but of a deep and abiding love for all things GM. Speculating on rumors of a possible GM-Chrysler hookup, Cropely suggests that Chrysler should go down and be subsumed by the General. “My own impression,” writes Cropely, “is that, even when times are as tough as this, a GM led by Rick Wagoner and the fine teams that he’s assembled, stands a better chance of making the cars we’ll need tomorrow than what I’ve seen of the modern, Cerberus-controlled Chrysler. All GM needs is time to implement its bold plan followed by some faith from car buyers.” But Cropely’s analysis is not all GM fanboyishness. “The Chrysler marque itself stopped meaning very much to me 20 years ago,” intones Cropely. “I mean, who cares if the Voyager and PT Cruiser live or die?” [Note to Steve: they are dead, and nobody cares.] Picking Chrysler to go belly-up is hardly a bold claim at this point, and arguing that GM is the firm to fix it is beyond absurd. Still, add another post-Detroit Three pundit to the Cassandra list.
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