The federal bailout bucks propping-up GM and Chrysler’s bankrupt businesses come with political strings attached– that will turn into piano wire with each successive snuffle at the trough. And so it begins… Yesterday’s New York Times editorial called for higher federally mandated fuel economy standards. “[Now that Bush is history] The Obama administration now has a free hand to set its own standards that will save consumers money at the pump, reduce oil dependency and greenhouse gases, and help make the American car companies more competitive. The 2007 energy bill required new cars and trucks to meet a fleetwide average of 35 miles per gallon by 2020, a 40 percent increase over today’s average of 25 m.p.g. Congress intended this as a floor, not a ceiling, and ordered the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to write specific regulations.” Uh-oh…

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As Detroit’s struggles prove, life is a fight for resources. If you can’t get enough resources, you die. Well, in Motown’s case, you receive massive taxpayer subsidies and then you die. Taking it down to the personal level, the resources needed for survival form what Abraham Maslow called “a hierarchy of needs.” The most basic of these are lumped together: air, water, food and sex. Yup, sex is at the bottom of the pyramid. So it’s no wonder that exhibitors at The North American International Show (NAIAS) pay young, attractive females to pose next to their vehicles. It appeals to the mostly male jobbing journos’ most basic needs (after securing shrimp), drawing their attention to the automakers’ vehicles. It’s effective, morally reprehensible and now, self-defeating.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) is joining a larger veteran’s initiative to create a new program “to increase awareness of the importance of safe driving among newly-demobilized veterans.” Of course, the press release made no mention of the budget for said program. (In fact, they’re studying what to study.) But it did make a case– somewhat– that veterans’ safety needs differ than that of the general population. “According to the Department of Transportation, motor vehicle crashes are the leading cause of death for all Americans between the ages of eight through 34. Men constitute about 70 percent of all traffic deaths. In the past decade, both deaths and injuries from motor vehicle crashes have gone down in the United States, due to increases in seat-belt use and decreases in alcohol involvement, among other factors. Nonetheless, motor vehicle accidents remain a major concern in the military and among veterans as the greatest cause of accidental fatalities. Several studies have reported an increase in post-deployment deaths [ED: percentage auto-related?] among military personnel who served in a combat zone compared to their non-deployed counterparts, who are in the military but not deployed to a war, after both the Vietnam War and the 1991 Gulf War. Preliminary evidence also indicates this is the case with veterans from the Global War on Terror.” Citations? None. Intentions? Honorable. Boondoggle potential? Enormous.

Can you say price war? How else is Toyota going to shift 180k Priora when the market for hybrids has tanked (Prius sales down 44.7 percent in December) and Honda’s Insight has arrived to do battle? In their best year, Toyota shifted 181,221 gas – electric hybrids. The obvious answer: they’re not– barring a sudden recovery of the American automotive market and an increase in fuel prices. (Federal gas tax hike?) Could be. As far as the Insight’s concerned, ToMoCo isn’t. US Prez Jim Lentz told Ward’s Auto there’s room in the market for three hybrids. “You’re going to have Honda at the entry end. You’re going to have Prius kind of in the center, and you’re going to have (the) Lexus (HS 250h) on the luxury side,” he says. “It gives consumers clear choices, a large array of hybrid products.” So much for the Ford Fusion or any GM hybrid, then. Sad; but true?

“To dial the industry back to a point where it’s viable at 11m is going to be hard – though we’re going to try,” GM Car Czar Bob Lutz promised at the don’t call it the Detroit Auto Show [via just-auto, sub]. “But there’s a question as to whether any car company in the world can survive on an 11m market for a sustained period of time. If it continues I would imagine you’d see massive consolidation in the industry, massive plant shutdowns, massive layoffs and much smaller product programmes.”  Needless to say, Maximum Bob doesn’t like that idea one bit. OK, well, a little. “A better proposal is not to get it back up to 17.5m because on a sustained basis you could argue that was an unrealistic number with a financial and housing ‘bubble’ effect,” Lutz said, taking no responsibility for helping to create that self-same bubble. Anyway, thatleaves us… “I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect an industry level of 13 or 14m – with the restructuring we’re undergoing, that’s going to be OK.” When asked if that was a PR-oriented asessement or a promise to stay away from the federal bailout buffet, Maximum Bob showed NFL-quality broken field running. “Talk to Rick Wagoner- I don’t do money,” Lutz demurred. “I do product development – I only spend it.” How great is that?

Honda has launched a new series of short films (well, they say they’re short) about the importance of failure. Not giving up. Kicking out the ladder then lighting the building on fire (WTF?). Surrendering your life to Sochiro at the Temple of VTEC. Something. “Ultimately, we hope these films will intrigue and inspire people by giving them a look into Honda’s unique philosophy—that impossible dreams can be realized through determination, creativity and hard work,” pronounced Todd Carey, associate creative director at RPA, without disclosing what he means by “ultimately” (time delay zen?). But if you’re looking for an endlessly annoying piano riff (are they going to trademark those two notes or what?) or someone talking about how cool it is that they weren’t fired for fucking up, this is the series for you. To be fair, it’s beautifully shot and all the Honda employees speak from the heart. And remember: corporate culture eats executive strategy for lunch.

Of course, that’s complete horseshit. You can no more reduce a “cool car” to a formula than you can pick a hit song by analyzing the notes. Certainly, if you’re looking for mainstream success, both car and song needs a “hook” or two and must work within a certain prescribed range (price, length). But it’s hard to take any survey on cool cars seriously when it’s conducted by people who push pencils for a living, based on a poll of “1,006 participants aged 17 to 28… randomly drawn from a panel of individuals who agreed to participate in online surveys.” Anyway, here goes nothing: “Deloitte’s survey discovered that the majority of Gen Y respondents felt a vehicle reflects a person’s style, status and values, and the factors named most often as among the top three reasons that a vehicle is cool were exterior styling, affordability and being environmentally friendly. Among survey respondents, 44 percent said exterior styling was the most important factor in selecting a vehicle, 40 percent said affordability and 35 percent said environmentally friendly. These statistics are important as they represent an opportunity for auto manufacturers and suppliers to be creative and turn their new business models into customized programs tailored to reach this diverse market.” See what I mean?

“‘The government loan was just in time,’ [Chrysler Co_president jim] Press said. ‘It’s kind of like if you were in college and you were at the last of the four years and you were kind of low on money and your parents put all that money back into the back account. ‘It’s good timing.’

“Press also joked about the federal loans when introducing other top executives at Chrysler as Sunday’s press event started.

“‘This is the guy that has the money, he’s got all the money,’ Press said in introducing Chrysler Chief Financial Officer Ron Kolka. ‘The government checks go right to Ron Kolka, so if anybody needs a loan, see Ron Kolka.'”

Hey Ron, can I borrow $1m? I’m just messing with you. No, but seriously. We could become an official supplier of Chrysler humor.

Several of our Best and Brightest are not happy with the Nancy Pelosi-mobile post. Wolfx14 and y2dkcar protested that it highlights the inadvisability TTAC’s bailout– I mean, “federal bridge loans to Detroit”– coverage, both in terms of stance and quantity. I’m fully aware that there’s been a surfeit of bridge loan-related posts in the last 12 hours. And there’s no question that Eddy, myself and most of our writers believe that these are bridge loans to nowhere. In TTAC’s defense, the loans are a huge mistake. And there hasn’t been this much bridge playing since The Big 2.8’s execs flew into DC on their big ass jets to beg for billions. Still, we’ve been alternating money and car coverage pretty well since the last time the B&B upbraided us for out mondo-beration of the pols and execs feasting at Uncle Sugar’s bailout buffet. See? There I go again. Well, this IS the biggest story in American automotive history. And we HAVE been monitoring the situation before most people thought there WAS a situation. But I want to give you, our not-so-gentle readers, a chance to vent again on TTAC’s editorial choices. So let rip without [much] fear of deletion or amendment. Meanwhile, if anyone wants to write a[nother] pro-bailout diatribe, let me know (robert.farago@thetruthaboutcars.com). Thanks.

“Here in Michigan we have a problem: the automobile industry. Thanks to foreign competition and the doubtful management of the Big Three, the state’s economy is in serious trouble. Should we just sell the state to the Chinese? There is a history of this in Michigan – we once traded the city of Toledo to Ohio in exchange for the upper peninsula. So perhaps it would be a good idea. But what would be a good price?

Mrs J, Michigan”

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This may not be news to you, TTAC’s Best and Brightest; or anyone who knows what happens when you take in less money than you spend (no matter who gives you the money). But The Detroit News presents the revelation that GM has already laid the groundwork for a larger federal “investment” than the $13.4b dumped into its coffers by February 15, before the whole “show us your new new new new new new new new turnaround plan” thing. “General Motors Corp.’s chief operating officer [Fritz Henderson] said Monday that the automaker has presented a worst-case scenario to Congress in which it would need more money than the $13.4 billion allocated by the Treasury Department.” To whom was this scenario presented? And why weren’t we, the people, the people paying the tab, told about it? The rest of the article talks about the “confusion” over government-mandated union concessions, but honestly, I’m left wondering what you call a tragi-comedy that borders on farce, and whether these guys will stop scamming us long enough for me to write about actual honest-to-God cars.

Hey, Reuters calls it the Detroit Auto Show. And it is an auto show in Detroit, no matter what the official organizers call it. And outside said event, United Auto Workers (UAW) employees protested the possibility that the union would comply with federal requirements on the $13.4b loan which saved GM from Chapter 11. “The group of some 50 or more workers marched up and down outside the conference center in chilly but sunny weather, chanting such slogans as “Bush says cut back, we say fight back” and holding signs including “No millionaire left behind” and “Out of a job yet? Keep buying foreign.” And what’s with the MSM insistence on repeating the myth that the UAW’s ’07 contract contained “landmark givebacks on wages and health benefits”? Anyway, “The concessions that Bush wants us to make [that we’re not going to make and will remove from the loan agreement with Obama’s help anyway] are just a slap in our faces,’ said Tammy Jones, a furnace worker at Chrysler’s Hamtramck axle plant in Detroit.”