Ford has consistently denied that it wants to sell Volvo– ever before it started to sell Volvo. Citing some wild ass speculation a variety of unnamed sources, CNN Money reports that FoMoCo is considering off-loading 85 to 90 percent of Volvo to Swedish investors (the flying Wallenbergs?). The second part of that story certainly makes sense. As the cryptic report says 'Volvo Cars today is strongly integrated with Ford technically, for components, and sourcing." And just in case you thought the sale would directly lift Ford's bottom line, let's not forget this little factoid, courtesy of The New York Times: "Volvo was among the wide array of assets that Ford pledged as collateral last year when it borrowed $23 billion to finance its overhaul program. If Volvo is sold, Ford will have to repay the value of the loans backed by Volvo assets, adding pressure on Ford to get as much for Volvo as possible."

The International Herald Tribune reports that Shanghai Automotive is selling $1.06b worth of junk bonds to fund its expansion plans. China's largest automaker says it needs the cash to develop its own-brand Roewe sedans, repay debt and expand commercial-vehicle production. Details of the offering are sketchy at best; Shanghai didn't reveal the sale date, how many call warrants investors would receive or the trigger price. Oh, and Shanghai's debt has not yet been assessed by any of the three largest global credit rating companies. Still, if you have faith in the Chinese auto market– which just passed Japan to become the world's number two (after the U.S.)– it could be a good deal. Thanks to laws requiring foreign automakers to partner with domestic producers, Shanghai has its fingers in a lot of pies: General Motors (Shaghai GM, SAIC-GM-Wuling Automobile), Volkswagen (Shanghai Volkswagen Automotive) and Ssang Yong Motor Company. On the downside, the emphasis on the new Rover-based Roewe 750 sedan may not pan out. Shanghai says it sold a little over 1000 750s per month in its first four months of production. 

"It's deeply disappointing that Toyota has joined in the lie-and-threaten game," says Dan Becker, director of the Sierra Club's global-warming program. Speaking to Automotive News [AN, sub], Mr. Becker is referring to Toyota's decision to join The Big 2.8 in lobbying Washington to throttle back on plans for higher Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards. The effort is sure to tarnish the transplant's green credentials and stoke the fires of domestic partisans, but it makes perfect sense. As AN points out, Toyota's combined car-truck fleet peaked at 26 mpg in 1983, and ToMoCo is enjoying full-size profits generated by its full-size SUV's and pickups. The real story here is Toyota's 'tude towards the Detroit. Apparently, they want to compete "relentlessly, but not ruthlessly." "We don't want to see our competitors in any worse financial shape," claims Josephine Cooper, Toyota's group vice president for government and industry affairs. Methinks they will. 

Ford's Twin Cities production plant in Highland Park, Minnesota– one of three that build the Ford Ranger pickup– is slated for closure in 2008. FoMoCo's been looking to sell the 138-acre parcel to local property developers. The site, which still has tunnels where the company mined sandstone to make glass windshields, occupies one of St. Paul's nicer neighborhoods. Only The Minneapolis St.Paul Star Tribune reports that the site is awash with toxins: waste oil and solvents, paint sludges, batteries, gasoline and diesel. There are over 40 identified "hot spots" and the groundwater ain't too healthy neither. Stefanie Denby, communications and marketing director for Ford Land, promised a thorough clean-up: "We take our environmental responsibility very seriously." Given the enormous cost and effort required to "remediate" large, heavily polluted sites, the company's seriousness could push the land deal from the profit to the liability side of Ford's ledger. 

Just as anything Apple now gets an "i" prefix and any traditional industry moving its products or services online feels compelled to stick an "e" in front of it (e.g. eLoan), anything hydrogen-related gets a "hy" five. I'm speaking here of HyHauler™ and HyHauler Plus™. The first is Quantum Technologies' portable hydrogen filling station, while the second is a mobile filling station PLUS an on-board hydrogen generator! Now how much would you pay? Just-Auto reports that GM has purchased three hytankers at an undisclosed price. The rolling Hindenbergs filling stations will support GM's hydrogen fuel cell-powered hyhypemobiles at "various locations from vehicle proving grounds and public ride-and-drive events to fleet demonstrations." Quantum's website is strangely silent about cost, safety and the energy needed to create and pump the hydrogen into zero emissions vehicles.

Pundits who've called on Cadillac to return to its roots as purveyor of the world's finest full-size luxury sedans can now officially abandon all hope. Automotive News [sub] reports that Cadillac is trading its luxobarge image for the small, sporty, European thing. GM is killing the full-size STS, DTS (nee Deville) and SRX. In their stead, Caddy will develop a new, high performance BMW 5-Series competitor and roll-out a CTS wagon and coupe. Cadillac will also introduce two new models into the U.S.: a small, entry-level sedan, similar to (if not the same as) the Euro-spec BLS, and the BRX, an as-yet-undeveloped V6-powered cute-ute. Question: who's driving these nails into the brand's coffin? Both Mark LaNeve, GM's top marketing maven and former Cadillac brand manager, and Jim Taylor, Caddy's current jefe, have specifically decried downsizing the brand's products and moving it downmarket. Is this the work of The General's beancounter General Rick Wagoner? Car Czar Maximum Bob Lutz? Anyway, that's it for our Cadillac dreams. We're done.

As previously reported, Chrysler's new task masters are getting tough in their efforts to cull the automaker's 3700 member U.S. dealer network. After excluding under-performing Chrysler stores from the company's dealer-only used car auctions, Sales Suit Steven Landry has sent 173 dealers formal notification that they have to increase sales in six months or else (i.e. lose their franchise). Hang on. That's not it. "We're not going after any dealers to get rid of them," Steven Landry told The Detroit Free Press. "The notes that we sent out say that you are under-performing by a very high degree compared to other dealers in your market, and we'd like them to improve their performance." The question is: how? Surely providing dealers with vehicles people want to buy is the best way to improve their performance. Surely putting so much pressure on the dealers that they cut corners, screw customers and sully Chrysler's name for decades to come is the worst possible solution. Oh wait. Private equity firms don't think long term. Right. Carry on.  

The battle to shape the urban landscape continues, with plenty of planners considering cars machina non gratis. Despite the automotive demonization, some cities have realized that pedestrianization sacrifices commerce on the altar of political correctness. Providence, Rhode Island and other urban centers have learned that lesson the hard way. Add St. Albans, West Virginia to the list. The Sunday Gazette-Mail reports that the town is about to re-open the pedestrianized city center to four-wheeled travelers, hoping to recapture lost biz from the suburban malls. The move is in sync with former New York City urban planner Alexander Garvin theories, as found in The American City, What Works, What Doesn't. "Well-conceived, privately managed shopping centers manipulate the flow of customers from their point of arrival to their destinations. For the most part, cities are unable to do this because they neither own the properties that abut the public streets nor determine who will lease them. In short, "pedestrianization cannot attract a market where none exists." 

SG Gate columnist Arrol Gellner reckons as goeth San Francisco, so goeth America. Opposing the Vietnam War, spearheading ecological concerns, mandating energy-efficient buildings, banning smoking in public places, demanding equal access for the disabled and now, hybrid vehicles. Where would the United States be without "Berkeley radical thinking?" Gellner's self-congratulatory diatribe claims the large number of hybrids humming about Berkley signal "the beginning of the end for conventional internal-combustion-powered vehicles." Ignoring Ford and Chrysler entirely, Gellner says Detroit missed this boat "thanks to the monumental stupidity, shortsightedness and greed of General Motors executives, who preferred to wallow in the lucrative SUV trough while foreign competitors did their homework. Maybe those GM folks should've gotten out of the boardroom now and then, and taken a drive around Berkeley." Bong optional?

Canada's Report on Business had a good old chin wag with Steven Landry. Chryslerberus' Canadian-born and educated executive vice-president NAFTA sales, global marketing service and parts is charged with reigniting the market for the automaker's new, Canadian-built minivan. According to Landry, Swivel 'N Go seating is the key. "It becomes a lifestyle type of vehicle versus a people transporter." The new minivans will also sport a dual TV system; second and third row sprogs can watch different satellite TV channels or DVDs– unless you're sitting in the second row facing the third row, in which case you can watch the third row watching the screen. Siriusly. If Chyslerberus was going down this path, why doesn't their van have a bed or move the Caliberesque "chillzone" drinks cooler to the rear? In short, it looks like the van's success will ultimately depend on the aftermarket. 

I've been wary of GM's alt propulsion press vehicles since ’04, when The General faked a hybrid test drive with Autoweek, slapping a cod cover on a pushrod powerplant. So I approached USA Today scribe James Healey’s review of the hybrid Tahoe with no small amount of skepticism. "GM says the electric-only mode could take you to 32 mph under ideal conditions. But the test showed that accelerating in traffic means electric-only lasts only up to about 10 mph." Oops. "Tahoe's gasoline engine shuddered as it fired up and began contributing power. Expect the shakes to be gone in regular production models, says Mark Cieslak, chief engineer for GM's full-size trucks." Doh! But wait! There's more!

The Greenwich Times reports that a traffic engineer's plan to cut accidents caused congestion, chaos and near crashes. When the town added four-way stops (a.k.a. Mexican standoffs) in the city center, bad things happened: "A Bentley turning right from Maple onto North also failed to stop after coming around the bend in the road, causing a near collision with a car turning from North Maple. Other cars approaching the intersection from North Maple backed up while waiting for North Street traffic to make the turn, thinking that the other direction still had the right of way at the intersection." The Times dutifully chased down some of the selectmen who'd approved the scheme. Selectman Peter Crumbine, who got caught in the traffic on his way to Town Hall, was unequivocol. "It was the worst backup that I've seen in the 25 years that I've been driving up and down North Street. The initial indication is that the trial is less than a rousing success.” The Times also noted that Town Traffic Engineer Garo Garabedian was out of the office yesterday and not available for comment. 

The Level Field Institute calls itself "an automotive research organization founded by retired autoworkers." In practice, they're a Big 2.8-funded pressure group Hell bent on protecting Detroit's interests in Washington. Well, maybe. Their newly-launched manifesto on federal Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards argues against proposals to eliminate dual standards (separate foreign and U.S.-made fleet averages). They correctly conclude that this part of the Senate bill would kill U.S. small car production– which would be great for Detroit's profits and not so great for U.S. autoworkers. Conflict? The Left Level Fielders' ad also state that the Senate bill should force automakers to produce flex fuel vehicle, as it will "encourage U.S. jobs in Midwestern states hardest hit by manufacturing job losses." Quite how the Institute's researchers decided Detroit should beat cars into plowshares without help from, say, the ethanol lobby, is something of a mystery. Unless…

`If we have the worst case coming out of Washington, all bets are off. We don't know how to get there without spending $6,000 or $7,000 per car.'' In his battle to kneecap the Senate bill designed to raise federal corporate average fuel economy standards, GM's Car Czar has added $4k to $5k per car to his original estimate of the legislation's impact on GM's costs. Lutz' numbers reflect a new, theoretical strategy for meeting the new, theoretical legislation: an all-hybrid lineup. Lutz told Bloomberg that GM's current hybrid system costs about $10k per vehicle. If used on all cars and trucks, the cost would fall to $6k to $7k. Alternatively, nothing. And what about the four percent per year mandate after the new standards are met? Lawmakers might as well mandate that cars "float four inches off the ground." Huh?

Move aside Bugatti Veyron. (Now there's a strange concept.) Classic Driver says the derivatively-named SSC Ultimate Aero TT (a land speed record holder, an Ultima nod, an English candy bar and a gay icon) could unseat the VW's quad-turbo monster as the world's fastest production automobile. Equipped with a 1,183hp twin-turbo 'Vette motor, the $550k SUATT should be good for 273mph. As befits the pride of Washington state, SSC's March run at the record was postponed by snow. There's no word on a second attempt, but I reckon anyone nuts enough to build a car with 1094 ft.-lbs. of torque– without traction control– isn't afraid to use it. They should be, but they probably aren't.