CNN Money reports that Ford, GM and Toyota have all downgraded their forecasts for '07 U.S. automotive sales. Ford estimates total sales at 16.1m, GM pegs the number at 16.5m and Toyota reckons it's 16.3. In any case, the stats compare with last year's 17.1m sales. The downturn puts GM between a rock and a hard place; the company's inventories are high and they're set to crank out more vehicles in this year's third quarter than they did in '06. As reported here, GM faces a stark choice: up incentives (killing margins), cut production or… both. While GM's spinmeister Paul Ballew danced around the looming nightmare, Ford's $25m man made no bones about the need for realism. "The most important thing is to get to the real demand. We don't want to drive demand with big incentives. All you are doing is pulling it ahead, so we need to get to the real fundamental demand, and have the vehicles priced for the demand." Meanwhile, Toyota's sitting pretty. Declining market be damned; they reckon they'll increase '07 U.S. sales by five to six percent.

After clocking Ford's expanded recall for faulty cruise control systems (that could lead to vehicle fires), Florida's St. Petersburg Times asked local firefighters if they'd seen any evidence of Ford F-150s going up in smoke. Indeed they have. Pasco County fire investigator Don Campbell says he started noticing the problem about two years ago. "It's a staggering number now," Campbell said. "It probably averages about one a week in Pasco County." Hillsborough County fire investigator Dave Tucker also said he'd seem a rising number of incidents in recent months: "This has been a long-standing problem." Tucker described fires that burned a hole through the F-150's hood "the size of a basketball." While not exactly a scientific survey, if this pattern is repeated nationwide and receives more of the same sort of local coverage, Ford is facing another Explorer rollover-style PR debacle. Meanwhile, if you could call you local fire department and ask about their experience with F-150 fires and report back below, TTAC would be much obliged.

Auto Express reports that our doubts about the integrity of two-way electronic automotive communications are fully justified. The mag has uncovered a £700 device that emits a radio wave that blocks the signal emanating from global positioning satellites. As a result, the car's on-board "black box" can’t record movement data. The jammer also blocks mobile phone signals to stop the black box from sending information back to its base. Bottom line: a  jammer-equipped car would be invisible to a GPS-based road charging system. (Not to mention the possibility of jamming someone else's car.) And that means that the UK's movement towards Big Brother policing "pay as you go" road pricing could be stymied by industrious hackers. Of course, Europe has already outlawed passive radar detectors and (I swear) deploys radar detector detectors. The cat-and-mouse e-games could just be beginning.  

CickZ is reporting that eyeball experts Nielsen Entertainment have declared in-game ads effective brand builders. The audience measurement mavens performed a double-blind study on 600 gamers, setting them loose on one of two versions of Electronic Arts' "Need for Speed Carbon." One version was ad-less; the other included billboards hawking automobiles, consumer packaged goods, quick service restaurants and technology tools (presumably not the people conducting the experiment). Nielsen claims the automotive ads generated a 69 percent increase in purchase consideration among likely car buyers. Translation? Unknown. But according to Alison Lange Engel, marketing director for the Massive in-game ad agency, "There is a halo effect [no pun intended] that being in the game makes them [the brands] cool." Well she would say that, wouldn't she? In fact, so would Electronic Arts, which would like nothing better than to become the in-game advertisers medium of choice. And Nielsen, who undoubtedly aspires to become the measurement king of the new ad genre, which Parks Associates estimates will reach $2b by 2012. Who are also in the video ad game. 

You may recall that TTAC took Tesla to task over its range claims for their all-electric Roadster– which the company stoutly defended, then revised downwards from 250 miles to 200. We also warned that Tesla wasn't likely to meet their already once-postponed summer delivery date– which they didn't. And now the erstwhile automaker has announced that they'll start releasing cars to customers in October. Or November. Forbes reports that Tesla CEO and co-founder Martin Eberhard is adamant: "We will definitely ship in that time frame." Eberhard attributes the company's third delay to a "late change in the transmission vendor." No word yet on whether the Tesla Roadster has passed federal crash tests. And you'd kinda think the company would have a working press car by now, less than three months from its [alleged] launch. Rest assured that we'll be following this developing story as it develops. Or not. 

Aside from ad revenue, why would a car magazine want to position itself as a cheering section for General Motors? Well exactly. Car and Driver’s September review of the “new” Cadillac CTS is such a blatant example of boosterism it puts the "sub" in "subsidy." This will come as no surprise to regular readers who’ve watched the buff book slowly sink into a glossy ghetto of pistonhead prostitution. Even so, I feel compelled to use C&D’s CTS review as a re-launching pad for Between the Lines, so that TTAC readers understand what this website stands for. Or, more precisely, against.

As predicted, car rental companies' balance sheets have taken a ding, thanks to Detroit's determination to trim the fleets. Dollar Thrifty reports today that second quarter net income was $15.3 million, compared to $26.7m in '06. Prez and CEO Gary L. Paxton was quick to finger The Big 2.8's cutbacks, and reveal the inevitable result: "Vehicle manufacturers have been reducing the number of vehicles sold to the rental car industry and increasing our fleet costs. We are also absorbing higher vehicle financing costs as a result of lower credit ratings in the auto industry… raising rental rates is the key to offset these vehicle related increases." Meanwhile, the Avis Budget Group is on its way to recovery– reporting a $24m profit compared to a loss of $1.1b in '06. Still, their per-unit car fleet costs increased six percent year-over-year, "reflecting industry-wide increases for model-year 2007 vehicles." Both companies are responding to rising car costs by aggressively cutting their own.

There's a cloud surrounding every silver lining. In this case, the London Free Press reports that the Canadian city's visually impaired population is worried about getting blindsided by hybrid cars. Ron Nurse expressed his concern over the issue, suggested adding a "flutter or a whirl" to hybrids, and revealed his, uh, bravery. "When you are standing on the corner, you have to think how close to the curb are you and you're left to wonder if it's OK to cross the street. More often then not, you just go." Kathryn Ruhland provided the spin control: "The biggest factor to keep in mind is that a majority of sound coming from the approaching car comes from the tires," the public relations manager insisted. Even so, the National Federation for the Blind is on the case. 

First, The Wall Street Journal reports that forthcoming European CO2 regs are casting a pall over Ford's sale of Jaguar and Land Rover. The European Union has announced its intention to reduce the new car CO2 levels by roughly 20% by 2012. As the British brands don't have more-fuel-efficient cars to offset their less-efficient models (i.e. all of them), potential suitors are worried that the new regs will price the automakers out of existence. Using that logic, Just-auto [sub] reports Management consultants Arthur D Little fancy Jag more than Landie. "While we do not foresee near- or mid-term legislation that would actually ban high footprint SUVs (chiefly due to the European job losses that would result) legislation will inevitably toughen. We consider this to threaten over half Land Rover's volume – only Range Rover and Defender are relatively secure… There is no alchemy involved in a Jaguar turnaround; good financial performance can be achieved through realigning the strategy with the brand values, leading to a lower volume (50-60,000 units a year), high gross margin business producing premium sporting saloons and grand tourers." Sounds like a plan to us.

China's "you wanna do business here you gotta hire my nephew" policy towards foreign automakers is inadvertently bringing Chrysler and Fiat into close proximity. Forbes informs us that Fiat has just signed a letter of intent with China's Chery to build cars in [Homer Simpson's favorite Chinese town] Wuhu by 2009. In its normatively optimistic press release, Fiat claims the factory will produce 175k units in the first year, and double that the next. The deal follows Chrysler arrangement with Chery to produce a small car for the U.S. market. All of which takes us back to '88, when Fiat was going to sell Chrysler minivans in Europe and Chrysler was going to sell Alfa Romeos in America. Could the Chinese hook-up mean Fiat's long-awaited return stateside could come via a Chinese-made Alfa sports car sold through Chrysler dealerships? Now there's a thought. 

The Daily Mail reports that London's Congestion Charge (CC) is quickly morphing into a pollution tax. Mayor "Red" Ken Livingston is set to modify The City's congestion fees, levying up to £6,500 a year on drivers living within the charging zone who helm larger (i.e. more CO2-emitting) vehicles. Visitors to central London piloting SUVs, minivans or full-size luxury cars will be hit with a £25 a day fee. Mr. Livingston, a man known to keep taxis waiting for hours at taxpayer's expense, has little sympathy for people who "can afford to choose from pretty much the whole of the mainstream car market but have chosen to buy one of the most polluting vehicles." More surprisingly, The Mail says that after a 33 percent decline in traffic levels, the congestion charge now only accounts for eight percent traffic reduction compared to pre-CC levels.

FXstreet.com reports that Japan imported 3.8% less vehicles in July vs. July of last year. While the slump is hardly unsurprising given the general downturn in the Japanese automotive market, examining the actual numbers is a bit of an eye-opener. We're talking about a total of just 16,968 units (down from last July's 17,636), the majority of them high end luxury cars. Saying that, VW led the pack, selling 3996 vehicles in Japan (down 13.3%). Mass marketeer FoMoCo found 444 for its cars (down 19.1%). Renault brought up the rear with 306 vehicles (up 2.7%). Contrast that stat with the country's automotive exports. In June, Japan's domestic automakers sent 202,523 vehicles stateside. 

Davisenterprise.com is reporting a strange (if entirely theoretical) wrinkle in the potential for plug-in electric hybrids: power generation. Pacific Gas & Electric Co. is "readying a program" whereby the utility company could draw power from plug-in hybrids plugged into the power grid. The first suggestion: if the cars were equipped with solar panels they could sell power back to the power company. OK, right, second idea: tap into the connected cars to smooth-out power generation during spikes in demand. Kyle Aarons, project manager in PG&E's Clean Air Transportation Department (doesn't it do that by itself?) explains: "Let's say a bunch of people switch on their lights all at once and so demand for electricity spikes up in a very short amount of time. Instead of having one of our power plants ramp up a little bit or opening the gate a little bit more on a dam, we can maybe use energy from (the cars') batteries to just, sort of, meet that little spike and then allow our power plants to ramp up more evenly, and it's more cost-effective when we do it that way.” Aarons promises that the electric company would put the power back, and admits this system "likely wouldn't be available for several years." 

A petition-based initiative to allow more off-street parking in San Francisco has made it onto the ballot for the next local election. City Supervisors countermanded the move by amending a funding provision for the city's public transport (MUNI) that would insert the city's current parking restrictions into the City Charter. As The San Francisco Chronicle points out, if voters approve BOTH measures, the Muni measure would take precedence. Jim Ross, campaign manager for the parking measure, expressed his dismayed that it's become an either-or choice between additional parking and mass transit. "There's room for people to have parking and room for the city to have a good transit system. This doesn't have to be black or white." The chief sponsor of the MUNI measure disagrees: "This is about San Francisco's destiny," Board of Supervisors President Aaron Peskin asserted. "Voters will have to ask themselves: Do you want San Francisco to be more like Paris or Los Angeles?"

House politicians burning the midnight oil have passed a $16b bill designed to reduce our dependence on imported energy. While the bill must be reconciled with the Senate version and the President is already threatening a veto (as expected), its provisions clearly indicate which way the wind [farm] is blowing. The San Francisco Chronicle reports that the bill repeals tax breaks to the oil and gas industry, to the tune of $16b. On the automotive front, it provides $4k tax breaks for hybrid and plug-in hybrid cars, hands out loan guarantees and "other assistance" for advanced diesel and hybrid battery technology, and mandates $3.5b in tax credits for E-85 pump installation. The hotly-debated proposal to raise the federal Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards didn't get a look in. The champion of the hike, Massachusetts Democrat Representative Edward Markey, put his hands in the air like he just didn't care. "This is the historic break with the fossil-fuel past and the beginning of the solar-wind renewable era in the United States," the chairman of the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming told The Boston Globe. "People will look back at this as the turning point where Congress began to embrace renewable energy."