From a crowd-pleasing chant at the Republican National Convention to op-eds at the New York Times, the refrain “Drill, Baby, Drill” is looming large in the American psyche. In the Gray Lady’s pages, Robert Hahn of the American Enterprise Institute and Peter Passel of the Milkin Institute (motto: Milkin’ The Issues) investigate the idea of penetrating mother Earth for more of that sweet, sweet dino juice. Opponents of drilling offshore and oil extraction in the Arctic National Wildlife Preserve (ANWR) argue that the benefits would be marginal. Hahn and Passel don’t necessarily disagree. They reckon 7b barrels could be pulled from ANWR, with another 11b available offshore, Hahn and Passel estimate the U.S. could thusly increase output by six percent, resulting in a 1.3 percent drop in worldwide prices. Meh. But the two argue that at $100/barrel, that oil would be worth nearly $2t not including the benefits of reduced pump prices for consumers. Development costs including environmental clean-ups would cost only $400b, making drilling an “economic no-brainer.” Hahn and Passel estimate the “non-use value” of ANWR at “only” $11b. The authors could “imagine a political bargain in which several hundred billion dollars went into a fund with a charter to preserve wilderness in the United States, or climate-stabilizing rainforests in Africa and Latin America.” In short, to protect the environment we must defile the environment. In reality, drlling is one of those idealism vs. pragmatism issues where win-win is a no-no. As long as the “Drill, Baby, Drill” refrain is still echoing out of St Paul, this kind of compromise is a long way off.

As TTAC proves on an ongoing basis, General Motors is a company that has struggled mightily to adjust to the Internet Age. Now, GM is trying to embrace the open-source future by recruiting a few good webizens to wikify its long and tumultuous path. Needless to say, there’s many a slip ‘twixt PR dependence and Web 2.0. The “Generations of GM wiki” is hosted on GMNext.com, which requires registration and serves largely as an organ of GM PR. Accordingly, when you attempt to write an article, you have to slot it into one of several unmodifiable “chapters”: “Creation” (1897-1909), “Acceleration” (1910-1930), “Emotion” (1931-1958), “Revolution” (1959-1981), “Globalization” (1982-1999) and “Transformation” (2000-present). Though there are all too many bones to be picked with this rose-hued historical categorization, the fact that “Transformation” (2000-present) is represented by an image of the Volt concept car tells you everything you need to know. Couldn’t they at least have used the Camaro from “Tranformers” to complete their metaphorical whitewash of the last eight years? Anyway, there enough “rules to the road” for the Generations of GM wiki to ensure little more than a steady trickle of mild-mannered personal recollections. And since you have to submit articles by email for careful PR-flack screening, it’s not even a proper wiki anyway. Do you have an article on the history of GM that was denied by GMNExt? We’re not a wiki, but send it in because we might just run it anyway… as long as it’s exactly 800 words.

Last we checked in on the unfolding Porsche family drama, cousin Ferdinand “Phaeton” Piech had made a play for the CEO spot at Porsche Holdings. Turns out cousin Ferdie may have overplayed his hand by taking on Wendelin (I’d tell you my salary but then I’d have to kill you) Wiedeking, current Porsche Holdings CEO and darling of the Porsche clan. Wiedeking’s patron d’overcompensation and Porsche paterfamilias Wolfgang Porsche tells Focus Magazine (by way of Automotive News [sub]) that Piech will pay dearly for going after his Wendelin. After a particularly “turbulent” meeting of the VW advisory board, Wolfie told Focus “I am horrified by the behavior of the chairman,” and that Piech’s removal from that position was imminent. “It is not a question of ‘if’, rather ‘when’ and ‘how’,” Focus quoted one Porsche manager as saying. But don’t expect Piech to simply fade away into that good night. Sure, the Porsche clan damns him and the oversized Passat he rode in on. But Piech still has VW CEO Martin Winterkorn, the massive VW Unions and all of their paid politicians on his side. These interests aren’t backing Piech because they particularly like him or his ideas; they’re scared of Wolfie and Wendelin and their curious “profit fetish.” Is a family being torn apart because Wolfgang Porsche don’t understand the importance of company-funded brothel outings for labor leaders? Because that would just be so tragic. And hilarious. Watch this space.

Foodstock-based, first-gen biofuels are becoming increasingly unpopular. And so the European Union (EU) has cut– er, “modified” biofuel goals. Last year, the EU committed to increasing biofuel transport usage to ten percent by 2020. The International Herald-Tribune reports that the goal has been ratified, but a number of caveats have been added. The new plan calls for five percent of transport fuels to be derived from renewable sources by 2015, with at least a fifth of that amount from “new alternatives that do not compete with food production.” When biofuel usage hits ten percent in 2020, 40 percent of that amount will have to come from second-gen, non-foodstock fuels. That goal will be reviewed in 2014. Of course, these plans are worrying biofuel producers; they’re stepping-up a publicity campaign warning that “alternatives to biofuels like hydrogen and electricity – while they might help to reduce tailpipe pollution – still would require burning of fossil fuels to manufacture.” European biofuel producers are worried about the threat of American imports. U.S. farmers receive significant subsidies and incentives that make European exportation particularly appealing. A formal EU investigation is underway, considering punitive tariffs against American E85– unless the U.S. government removes biofuel incentives. Good luck with that.

Remember when we told you that GM’s E-Flex EREVs (the Volt, by any other name) would be sold strictly as Opels and Vauxhalls in Europe? The decision made sense; Euro-market Chevrolets are little more than rebadged Daewoos, and the E-Flex price point (which should be truly colon-clenching when it gets to Europe) just won’t play in that sales environment. Well, GM can make all the sense in the world when it wants, but that doesn’t mean it won’t go back on its own arguments a few short weeks later. Reuters reports that GM Europe honcho Carl-Peter Forster told a Berlin auto conference “We are investing an enormous amount. We will launch these cars in Europe, both as Opel and as Chevrolet, in around three years.” And there you have it. While GM fights hard to bring Opel upmarket, trumpeting the “democratization of technology” that the revitalized brand will bring about, it’s undercutting that vision by also offering a Chevy Volt in Europe. Europeans do not typically think “American Classic” when they think of Chevrolet. They think “horrendous Korean shitbox slapped together by drunken Slavs.” Why would GM Europe expect anyone to shell out a huge amount of money for that? And while we’re on the subject, why wasn’t the Volt initially conceived as, say, a Cadillac? Keep in mind we’re talking about a car that is likely to cost $40k or more. In America that’s a stretch for a Chevy, in Europe it’s suicide.

Hey, GM’s stock price just bounced 11 percent! Are the leaked photos of the production Volt responsible for the vote of confidence? Maybe anticipation of the forthcoming Cruze launch in Paris? Uh, no. The Detroit Free Press reports that the stock bounce came only “after a Wall Street analyst said a $25-billion government loan package for the auto industry would ‘notably reduce bankruptcy risk’ for the automaker.” And isn’t that heartwarming? It turns out that all of the pro-bailout editorials, lobbying and chatter has actually done GM some real good. For the moment. And to keep that ball of feel-good rolling, the Freep has posted a “Q & A” about the bailout, accompanied by a hilariously unironic photo of the Volt concept. Inside, subtly-pro bailout “answers” abound. For example, we learn that the Volt is indeed an important factor in the bailout, as it meets the government goal of topping its direct competitors’ fuel economy by at least 25 percent. “General Motors Corp. could qualify for a loan to help convert the Hamtramck plant to build the Chevrolet Volt — a car that drives its first 40 miles per day without a drop of gas but relies on unproven battery technology. But Ford Motor Co. wouldn’t be able to get a loan that would cover retooling Michigan Truck in Wayne to build relatively conventional, gas-burning small cars.” Asking itself “what would automakers have to give up?” the Freep gets all angsty. “That’s a $25-billion question,” they write. “So far, there’s no sign the industry would have to make additional sacrifices to win approval; automakers contend the 35-m.p.g. standard was their concession. But other aid plans, including the Chrysler bailout, have required cuts and belt-tightening in return.” Not to mention executive bloodletting. Literally.

That’s right folks, a surrogate for Obama’s campaign is criticizing the decision to purchase a Prius hybrid, so beloved by Obama supporters. Of course, there’s only one person in America that isn’t allowed to buy Priora without criticism, and that’s Obama’s opponent, John McCain. Or is that his daughter, Meghan McCain? In today’s Freep, UAW boss Ron Gettelfinger brings Decision 08 discourse to a new low, accusing the McCains of dishonesty about the purchase of a non-UAW-made Prius. Last year, McCain told the New York Times that he “ought to know the name” of his daughter’s Japanese hybrid, because he paid for it himself. Now, McCain says Meghan purchased the Prius herself, and Gettelfinger is crying flip-flop. “To us, it’s a credibility issue,” Gettelfinger tells the Freep. “It’s very insulting to try and skirt something as simple as whether or not you bought a particular vehicle.” So Gettelfinger thinks McCain is a union-busting, America-hating liar. Clearly the McCain camp isn’t too worried about the charges since they haven’t commented on Gettelfinger’s attack. Or maybe they just know that all the money actually belongs to Cindy. In any case, it’s obvious what this is really about. Obama has come out in favor of all $50b of the proposed Detroit bailout, earning him the UAW’s endorsement, but McCain isn’t all-in yet. The UAW boss says McCain “was late coming to the game on the retooling loans. He’s never been clear from our standpoint on his level of support.” In short, the Prius attack is just another way to drum up blind, knee-jerk support for an ill-advised a bailout. You stay classy, Ron Gettelfinger!

Chrysler’s one-time bailout fodder, the minivan, gets no love this time around. Auburn Hills plans on idling its St. Louis South minivan plant on October 31, a move that has drawn a protest from 600 local UAW workers. The St. Louis Business Journal reports that frustration among workers is mounting. “This membership has done everything this company has asked us to do,” says UAW officer Chuck Brodell. “We build a quality van. We made it more efficient and we lowered costs. What more does the company want us to do?” St. Louis is also being hit by a shift reduction at the St. Louis North plant that makes the Dodge Ram, causing locals to question Chrysler’s priorities. “There were 1.6 million vans sold in the U.S. in the last four years versus 240,000 in Canada,” says Brodell. “We should be building them in America not in Canada.” But the discontent isn’t limited to the United States. Minivan assemblers in Windsor, Ontario are pushing to increase production by rebranding the Caravan/T&C/Routan as a Nissan, plans which Chrysler say will never see fruition. “It’s a falsehood. I know for a fact it hasn’t been discussed,” Chrysler senior manager of communications tells the Ottawa Citizen. “Would Volkswagen even let us entertain the idea? I don’t know, contractually.” Or maybe it has something to do with the fact that Nissan acknowledges (unlike Chrysler and VW) that the minivan market has “collapsed.” Either way, don’t expect any pro-bailout photo-ops featuring Dodge Caravans this time around.

Fortune Senior Editor Alex Taylor snagged GM’s attention with an editorial posted at CNN Money, in which he posthumously advocates for the General’s failed 2006 alliance with Renault/Nissan. “According to recent interviews with parties involved in the discussions, as well as a confidential analysis prepared for the deal that was obtained by Fortune,” Taylor writes. “The tie-up could have produced as much as $10 billion in operating earnings per year for GM by 2011.” So, why did GM just say no? Because its executives were making enough already, thank you. “One proposed strategy called for a ‘repopulation’ of GM’s executive ranks with outside talent. That presumably would have forced some incumbent managers out of their jobs – a shocking development at a company where executives seem to enjoy lifetime employment regardless of their performance.” The General’s Spinmeister General penned a mealy-mouthed response to Taylor’s “woulda, coulda, shoulda” analysis. Steve Harris compared Taylor’s dietribe to speculating “if Time-Warner, your magazine’s parent company, had not done the AOL deal.” Oh snap. So what are Harris’s points of substance? The Renault/Nissan merger plans “could have effectively foreclosed (GM) from entering alliances with other automakers.” And “benefits from the potential joint projects were highly skewed to Renault-Nissan.” None of which sounds bad enough to turn down up to $10b in annual revenue. But, says Harris, “today General Motors is focused on the future, not the past.” Like… a federal bailout.

Chrysler’s Jim Press is refining the “not a bailout” argument today, calling federal loan proposals “an acceleration of technology into the hands of consumers who couldn’t afford it, if we didn’t do it.” Furthermore, Press tells the Detroit Free Press that taxpayers will reap concrete benefits from the loans. “I think it will allow everybody to bring electric cars, plug-in hybrids, hybrid cars, even range-extended hybrids. All of those vehicles will be accelerated,” says Press. No, seriously. “These are going to be very doable products, looking at production, not just research, he deadpans. “Our focus of our investment from his point forward is improving the environmental footprint of our cars.” Why, Mr Press? Are high oil prices shifting the market towards greater fuel efficiency, making these investments a smart business choice? Not exactly. “We’re worried about dependence on foreign oil,” says Press, getting all national security advisor on us. “But if you fast forward 15 years, where will batteries come from? Right now, the major sources of batteries are other countries. So are we trading our dependence on foreign oil, which is a natural resource, for a dependence on other countries to produce something in a factory? We need to stimulate that development here — here in Michigan.” In other words, the real reason that Detroit should receive bailout loans is that it’s an organ of the national interest. If you think a Volt in every pot, and a head start on tackling Peak Battery sounds tempting, Press is even willing to put some accountability (and your money) on the hood to push you over the top. Press says $25b in loans would be a “good start,” and that the Feds should “look at the return on that $25 billion, and if in everyone’s perspective, we can do it again, we should. I think for a beginning, $25 billion is an appropriate place to start.” The camel knows it need only get its nose into the tent…

The Pension Benefits Guarantee Corp has had enough of Delphi’s ongoing pension debacle, and has warned the GM spinoff that it would file in court to seize a further $900m of the supplier’s assets. Having missed hundreds of millions of dollars in payments to its pension plan, Delphi’s still-profitable overseas operations are targeted for seizure by the PBGC. On Tuesday, reports the Wall Street Journal, the PBGC sent the second letter in the last month to urge GM to absorb at least $1.5b in Delphi’s pension obligations by the end of the month. Timing is crucial, because new pension laws which go into effect on October 1 will make such deals far more expensive. Oh yeah, and then there’s the whole bailout angle. “I can’t speak for the rest of the government, but I assume if GM is asking for assistance from the government generally, the status of the GM-Delphi pension situation would be highly relevant,” says PBGC Director Charles E.F. Millard. We couldn’t agree more. So GM and Delphi have until the end of the week to file papers that would transfer $1.5b of Delphi’s obligations to the General’s pension account. If that date is missed, Delphi’s only remaining profitable business ventures will be ghost like Swayze. With the firm likely to follow shortly thereafter, Chapter 7 style. So, why would GM endanger it’s bailout chances and kill off its largest supplier, when it’s own pension fund is actually overfunded to the tune of some $18b? Because that’s “already committed to paying off United Auto Workers medical claims, funding employee buyouts and other pending obligations.” Rock, meet hard place. Meanwhile, man the lifeboats.

The New York Times’ Wheels blog recently convinced Gordon Murray to answer a few questions posted by its readers. With the journalists safely out of the way, what followed was a broad, frank and fascinating conversation about the future of the automobile. Sure, there are questions about the past, like how he would update the McLaren F1 vis a vis Veyron and company. Carbon fiber brakes, admits Murray, but he “wouldn’t envisage any other change.” He’d much rather talk about his current project, the T.25 city car. It’s a plastic-bodied attempt at “the next iconic city car, from a styling point of view, as was the 1957 Fiat 500 and the 1959 Mini.” The inevitable question comes: “Why do you want to work on this type of car now, after building the worlds greatest supercar? Murray appears to have been thinking about this thing for a while. “I have built performance cars all my life, and their time, unfortunately, is pretty much over. What we’re working on is a car for the future. It has been a gradual evolution of thought, which started in the summer of 1993 when I was stuck in traffic jam on the way to work.” And he swears it’s for real. “Building an ultra-light but safe and efficient car at a very low cost and sales price requires the exact same lateral thinking and philosophy we applied to the McLaren F1.” And the rule book does seem to have been thrown out. The T.25 has been designed to “to accept any powertrain or fuel,” and Murray claims his firm “can license out our manufacturing process whether we undertake the engineering work for the program or not.” Working with speed freaks (and T.25 investors) Caparo to develop low-cost composites, Murray hopes to kill enough weight and friction to get 80 mpg on a European combined cycle. “The design,” he says, “is small, low-cost and efficient. If this comes close to living up to its potential, it’s going to be a big deal. Given Murray’s history, it’s got as good a shot as any other modular, poly-powertrain, lightweight, iconic city car currently in development. Seriously, read the whole thing.

The great Detroit bailout of 2008 will not be debated in terms of economics. Free market considerations will take a back seat to the “consensus” on what’s good for our “national interest.” But Detroit is just one among many industries now nuzzling towards the warm embrace of a federal bailout. So what makes the American auto industry more equal than say, the mortgage sector or the airline industry? Not much, as it turns out.

The flying car has long been the sci-fi terminus point for automotive technology. Such automotive luminaries as Henry Ford and Glenn Curtiss have been lured into costly, fruitless developments by visions of blasting away from traffic on the wings of flight. But the vision has never translated into production reality. The Moller “Autovolanter” is no closer to production than the flux capacitor, although far more complex. Green Car Congress reports that the sky-whip uses no fewer than eight of Moller’s proprietary Rotapower rotary-hybrid engines to power the Autovolanter. The plug-in hybrid two-seater can drive 150 miles on the road before lifting off vertically and flying a further 75 miles (at up to 150 mph), carrying up to 375 lbs and achieving nearly 15 mpg in the process. Well, in theory. Development of a prototype is estimated at $5m, though Moller claims low-volume production could make the Autovolanter available for $250k. But then there’s the problem of licenses, regulation and in-city use. Says Moller founder Dr Paul Moller “flying it in US cities is not going to be politically acceptable until it has been deployed successfully in other roles and environments. Practical or not, it excites the imagination to think about being able to rise vertically out of a traffic jam and just go!” Of course legal niceties weren’t really considered during development, as the Autovolanter was prototyped at the request of a “wealthy businessman who was unable to commute from the city to his country home due to the overcrowded streets of Moscow.” Dude, just bribe the cops.

In a interview with ESPN, Cindy McCain admits to a tiny little addiction. And no, she’s not referring to Percocet stolen from her medical charity. It turns out the billionaire heiress and wife of Republican presidential nominee John McCain loves getting a car sideways. Six or seven years ago McCain was watching TV with her eldest son Jack, when a drifting competition came on. Both McCains were intrigued, and for billionaires, that’s about all it takes. Months later, Cindy and Jack headed to Japan to take drifting lessons from a top Japanese instructors. The two went on to rebuild (probably with some help) a Nissan 240SX, converting it into a specialized drifting machine and competing in amateur contests. “I’m probably a little too cautious with it because it is abnormal from what you’re taught when you’re taught to drive,” says Cindy, who describes herself as a below-average drifter. “You’re taught to keep control of your car. Everything you were taught in driver’s ed, forget. That’s what drifting is about.” This may come as a surprise to those familiar only with Cindy McCain’s buttoned-down public persona, but she admits to being a lifelong gearhead. From regularly attending drag races, the Indy 500 and NASCAR events to attending high-performance driving schools and flying her own airplane, McCain’s penchant for speed is well-proven. Of course, all that is a bit easier for those who’s privilege allows them to believe a $4m annual income qualifies as “middle class.” Still, the prospect of a first lady relapsing into an opiate bender and drifting through the White House rose garden is, well, intriguing. Top that, Michelle Obama!