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The Chevy Impala showed a 1.8 percent gain in sales in March. At the first of April, GM only had a 21-day supply on the lots. The factory in Oshawa, Ontario has been running three shifts with Saturday overtime for several months. So why are they suddenly cutting back on production? An industry source (yes, we have them too) tells us that GM's canceled Saturday overtime and laid off the third shift until further notice. Rumor has it the American Axle strike is affecting the plant; although it wasn't previously identified as one threatened by a parts shortage. The more likely scenario: Chevy's filled all its Impala fleet orders. With overall sales down 11.1 percent for the year, and the distinct possibility that Malibu sales are (as predicted) cannibalizing the Impala, GM's simply slowing Impala production to meet retail demand (or lack thereof). The sales numbers over the next few months will throw some light on the truth of the matter. We'll keep you posted.

If the United Auto Workers (UAW) are iexpecting General Moneybags to "solve" the UAW strike using the Delphi solution (buyouts for everyone and you checks for free), they may be waiting a long time. Automotive News [sub] reports that the expected shutdown of the Malibu/G6 plant– due to lack of an AA-supplied part– ain'tgonnahappen.com. When asked when GM would run out of the part, supply guru Bo Andersson answered, "Based on the way I see it now, never." Bo added that his employer has "a good plan for handling the potential shortage" after they use up the supply of parts they "found " earlier this month. When asked if GM was receiving parts from another manufacturer, he declined to answer. But, Bo added, "What we learn every day is to have alternatives. It is my job to make sure we have alternatives for everything we buy." The most probable explanation: American Axle's Mexican operations are suppling the necessary bits. Alternative theory: China. Think about that the next time you equate "buying American" and "buying domestic." 

Is there anyone Chryslerberus isn't trying to strike up a deal with? According to Reuters, Germany's Handelsblatt newspaper claims Chrysler is in "quite advanced" talks with Fiat to produce Alfa Romeo cars in the U.S. using Chrysler's factories. The newspaper cited "industry sources" (can you  be any more vague?) as saying "the talks are moving forward." Hang on; isn't that Toyota's tag line? Anyway, Fiat had no comment on the rumor. Chrysler's spokeswoman called the story speculation (ya think?). But she admitted what everyone in Christendom already knows: "there could be other partnerships with other automakers." The questions yet to be answered: will Alfisti accept an Alfa that doesn't come from Lo Stivale? Who has the worse reputation for quality? And why didn't anyone use the date 2010 in this story, except us?

TTAC's monthly By The Numbers editorial tracks everything from fuel-sucking SUVs to the gas-sipping Prius. In this month's report, the sales stat were bleak almost across the board. Almost, but not quite. Economy car sales are, as you'd expect, relatively robust. To bring a little joy to readers fed-up with a steady stream of bad news, I decided to chart new car sales for subcompacts and compacts from the "Big 6:" Chrysler, Ford, GM, Honda, Nissan and Toyota). The stats run for all of '07, and year-to-date. Here's how the so-called bottom of the automotive food chain is looking, with review links and inventory levels thrown-in for good measure…

It's hard to keep track of what's going on between Tesla and Fisker. But if you've got the time… First, Tesla mouthpiece Daryl Siry trash talks Fisker's range-extended vehicle, the Karma. After Fisker unveils their EV prototype at the Detroit Auto Show, Siry wonders if his rival's got what it takes to make it so. Next, Tesla's hires Henrik Fisker to design Tesla's Whitestar sedan. And now CNet News reports that Tesla is taking Fisker to court for stealing trade secrets and copying design ideas. Tesla's suit alleges that Fisker accepted the design contract "to gain access to confidential design information and trade secrets, then announced a competing vehicle." Fisker's brief had no comment on the case, other than "the firm's policy [is] not to comment on litigation." Meanwhile, Tesla says they've scrapped Fisker's design for the Whitestar in a fit of pique favor of… something else. On the positive side, this intra-vaporware legal contretemps will provide Tesla for a convenient excuse when the Whitestar doesn't appear as promised. And for us, the case could expose the reality behind Tesla's endless hype. [Props to JT for the link]

We just received this photo via email from one of TTAC's Best and Brightest: "This may be out of date, but I figured you may find it noteworthy for the Volt birthwatch series. Just under a year ago, GM had a Volt on display at the Indy 500. The car was likely a non-running example, but nonetheless it was there to showcase GM's engineering prowess so I judged it in that light. What I saw was… not good. Some of the trim on the Volt was rusting! Rust! On such a high profile vehicle at such a high profile event!" As the photo shows, it wasn't just a spot or two, either. Whatever GM's reason for showing the vehicle in this condition, let's just hope the production version – whatever it ends up looking like – will have better quality trim. And that their attention to the detail on this display model isn't indicative of their attention to detail on the engineering side.

Let's recap. Chrysler builds pickup trucks for Mitsubishi. Chery is working on a U.S.-market subcompact for Chrysler. Chrysler is selling a rebadged Chery as a Dodge in Mexico. Volkswagen is selling Chrysler-built minivans in the U.S. Nissan is building small trucks for Suzuki to sell in the U.S. and Versas to be sold as Chryslers in Brazil. Chrysler has been talking with Great Wall Motors in China about something. Now, just in case all these relationships aren't confusing enough, The Detroit Free Press reports that Chrysler and Nissan announced Chrysler will build a version of the Ram pickup in Mexico for Nissan to sell in the U.S. In return, Nissan will build a North American-bound small car in Japan for Chrysler. In a way, all this makes sense, particularly the Chrysler-Nissan deals. After all, Chrysler has a well-established presence in the truck and van market while Nissan and Chery specialize in small cars. All they're doing is capitalizing on each other's strengths. However, the more Nissan and Chrysler snuggle-up together, the more it seems that Nissan is testing the waters for establishing an American partner– something Carlos Ghosn has promised, eventually. Don't be surprised if in the next few years you hear that Chrysler's building vans for Nissan or that Nissan's supplying Altima drivetrain components for the Sebring/Avenger. And when Cerberus starts the flip 'n strip with Chrysler, Nissan will be right there to pick up the pieces. You heard it here first.

Now that Tesla's started production on their all-electric Roadster (although there's been no indication that they've delivered a single car to single paying customer), the Silicon Valley start-up is expanding their "sales territory" into Europe. The San Jose Business Journal reports that Tesla's started taking orders across the pond as of last week. Tesla's promising to deliver 250 Elise-based, lithium-ion electric sports cars into the Eurozone as of spring 2009. And here's the kicker: Tesla is asking European buyers to pay 160 percent of the U.S. price. That's $156,630 for a car that sells for $98k here in The Land of the Free. If I was an American customer who'd paid the deposit, I'd raise holy Hell if Tesla sent even one car to Europe before satisfying its aspiring American customers.

href=”https://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/mpd_dwi_heel_2_toe.jpg” title=”Shee ossifer… I'm not ash think ash you drunk I am.” rel=”lightbox”>The breathlyzer ignition lock has been around for years; several courts have mandated a "blow in" device for convicted DUI offenders' cars. Automotive News [sub] reports the web site www.dadss.org (DADSS = Driver Alcohol Detection System for Safety) is soliciting ideas from technology developers for a passive system that will prevent the car from starting if it decides the driver's alcohol level is high enough to cause impairment. The automakers are already looking in that direction; last year Nissan featured a concept car with various air sniffers, sweat sensors and a facial monitoring system to deactivate the car's ignition if the driver had one too many. Obviously there's still a lot of work to do on the concept but experts estimate such a system could save 9k lives annually. They hope to have working prototypes within five years.

In less than a week, GM will run out of the parts it "found" to keep the Malibu production line running. At that point, they're left with a dilemma: either shut down production on one of their better-selling vehicles or get involved in the UAW/American Axle strike negotiations. After sinking more than $7.5b into Delphi to help them settle a strike and restructure (they have a few billion more to pay to bail Delphi out of Chapter 11), The General may be reluctant to get involved with another supplier. On the other hand, they can't keep closing factories– now that the closures are expanding past slow-selling trucks. If GM decides to intervene, it could offer to "buy down" AA workers with one-time bonuses from their seemingly bottomless cash stash. Or, they could offer to let AA workers transfer to GM where they'd retain their union seniority and pay, so AA could hire new, lower-paid workers. Anyway GM looks at this, they lose.

Bloomberg reports that Chrysler is finally going to execute the Jeep Commander. The Commander is/was the retro-styled (i.e. brick-shaped) gas-guzzling SUV whose packaging had RF proclaiming "Thanks to a foot well that's shallower than the British Royal family's gene pool, even polypeptide deficient three-year-olds sitting in the way back run the risk of giving themselves a pair of shiners with their knees (try explaining THAT to social services)." Jeep introduced the Commander,in 2005– just in time for the start of the fuel crisis. The slightly stretched and rebodied Grand Cherokee was supposed to give Chrysler an inroad to the three-row SUV market. Instead, it languished on the lots, selling only 88.5k in 2006. In 2007, sales dropped 29 percent. So far this year, sales are down 43 percent (large SUV sales are down 28 percent overall). Time of death: mid-2009. Tag it and bag it.

Ford isn't wasting any time bragging about their bought and paid for surveys claiming that their quality is now on par with Toyota's. However, as the Detroit News reveals, FoMoCo's newfound reliability has dealers losing money on warranty work. The National Automobile Dealers Association estimates Ford dealers currently lose $30 on every new car they sell; they make up the difference through financing, add-ons, service and warranty work. [U.S. car dealers earned $7.7b on warranty repairs last year.] With warranty work shrinking, they'll have to earn more money elsewhere. To that end, Ford's introducing a line of aftermarket accessories called "Customs" focusing (so to speak) on "high-profit items like custom wheels and electronics." So in addition to paint protection, window etching and LoJack, Ford dealers will be hawking factory-authorized customization. Pimp my profits?

This clip from GNTV is almost 18 minutes long. I love Maximum Bob's "poor, pitiful misunderstood GM" schtick for the first five minutes. Then the winner of TTAC's 2008 annual Bob Lutz Award goes into a rambling rant about blogs in general and how important his is (in specific). At the 10 minute mark, Lutz addresses his "global warming is a crock of shit" comment; he was wronged because it was "off the record." MB didn't think it was that big of a thing until the print media picked it up– and they only found out about it because he posted his "here's what I really meant" backtrack in Fastlane. At the 14 minute mark Bob's asked how GM will make use of "social media" in the next few years. It gets seriously boring as he pontificates on the evolution from bulletin boards with notices tacked up on them (which he refers to as "fiberware," whatever that means) to blogs. Maximum Bob never really passes on any usable information, but it's an interesting excursion into LutzLand. I'm disappointed that he never mentioned the Deathwatch series. And I have to wonder what this guy did to get him to do this, and what he cut from the final vid. Think we could get Bobbo to agree to doing a video for us?

American Axle (AA) and the United Auto Workers (UAW) are back at the negotiating table. But they're still a long way from an agreement. After Monday's meeting between UAW president Ron Gettelfinger and American Axle CEO Dick Dauch, a quick resolution of their differences seemed promising. However, the Munster, Indiana Times reports AA's negotiators called a proposal from the UAW a "slight improvement" that wasn't anywhere near the concessions the company seeks. In a news release, AA ratched-up the rhetoric. If the UAW wasn't willing to "make realistic economic proposals" (i.e. accept a 50 percent pay cut), AA'd "be forced to consider closing these facilities." Dauch's counter-offer: "generous buyouts" to those union members who don't want to work for half of what they made before the strike. The UAW hasn't responded to AAM's statement. radical union factions are warning members about "the treachery of the UAW bureaucracy." They claim the UAW "is planning another agreement modeled after the concessions contracts it has agreed to again and again throughout the industry." AA and its customers certainly hope so.