Thanks to the laws regarding “fair use,” TTAC can blog on your behalf. Obviously, we don’t cut and paste entire articles. Except when we do. This is one of those cases where a misleading headline deserves the full monty [via ekathimerini.com]. Or, as the Greek sage/storyteller Aesop said, “We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office.”
Our politicians’ obsession with their public personae and the emphasis that they put on public relations stunts often causes serious problems for public policy and prevents political staff from doing their job properly.
The most recent example of this phenomenon was the government decision to replace public officials’ luxury gas-guzzling automobiles with smaller, more environment-friendly hybrid vehicles.
The decision has obviously not been thought through properly.
When the history of the 2008/2009 federal bailouts is finally written, the chapters on Cerberus’ federal teat suckage will contain some of the best/worst examples of insider sweetheart deals between failed financiers and Uncle Sam. Deals that protected their protagonists from genuine accountability for their actions, and inaction. Case in point: Cerberus-owned GMAC’s eleventh-hour, Christmas Eve exemption from FDIC banking laws. GMAC’s Board Member, former U.S. Treasury Secretary John Snow, brokered the get-out-of-C11-free card and subsequent $6 billion bailout. Dirty? How about the fact that GMAC’s then-Chairman’s J. Ezra Merkin’s was up to his eyeballs in Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme. OK, so, here we are. When federal Pay Czar Kenneth J. Feinberg announced that executives at ChryCo Financial wouldn’t get as close a haircut as their colleagues everywhere else, his explanation let the C11 cat out of the bag.
When the Detroit uses the word “misunderstanding” in the lede graph of a story about The United Auto Workers (UAW), you just know there is some serious negotiation, posturing, ass-covering and ass-kicking going on behind the scenes. In this case, it seems that the union’s members are not happy about a no-strike clause in their proposed contract with Ford. “The Detroit News has learned that the [no-strike] language, which was included in recent contract changes the UAW negotiated with General Motors Co. and Chrysler Group LLC, was mandated by the Obama administration as a condition of its bailout of the two companies. It was designed to ensure the competitive gains that were forced through by the White House could not be reversed in 2011 contract negotiations between GM and Chrysler and the UAW, according to people familiar with the situation.” What’s this got to do with Ford? Can you say “pattern bargaining?” It seems that the UAW, who practically invented the term, can’t quite bring themselves to use it now. Or keep their members in the loop.
The birthplace of TTAC, pistonheads.com, reports that the Land Rover Defender has finally left the ramparts. I’m sure the Defender will have plenty of defenders, but I will not be amongst them. Setting aside the idea that the Defender could behave like a modern car on a normal road (a preposterous suggestion), the 25 to 61-year-old vehicle’s main selling point was its go-anywhere ruggedness and simplicity of repair (a necessity as much as a virtue). It’s been completely trounced by Toyota’s off-roaders in both not to say all departments. I’ll give the Landie its narrow track and relatively light weight, a boon to anyone who’s ever had to literally pull a vehicle out of the muck, but we are talking about a hand-built automobile with about as much passive safety as a camel. OK, less, given the relative speeds involved (close call) and all the Defender’s sharp bits. As for the future, “Apparently [the new Defender] will use either the platform from the current Range Rover Sport and LR4, (which doesn’t fill us with confidence for its mud-plugging ability, but Land Rover insists that the new car will be just as able in the rough stuff), or a significantly more advanced version of a ladder-framed vehicle.” Or, alternatively, nothing.
My name is Robert Farago and I invented the nickname “Maximum” Bob Lutz. I crowned Bob with the title at the New York Auto Show, standing next to GM’s all powerful Car Czar at the urinal. I had no idea that a man could take that long to take a piss. You could spend GM’s entire development budget on niche vehicles in the time it takes Maximum Bob to empty his bladder. With similar results. I’m not saying Maximum Bob is old and decrepit, but when he offered to prostrate himself in front of the Presidential Task Force on Autos, he was asking them to fund an operation.
OK, so, GM is a nationalized automaker. I know, I know: nationalization is for third world dictators. But there it is. Thanks to outgoing president George Bush, the feds used $50 billion from the Troubled Asset Relief Fund to bail out General Motors, in exchange for majority ownership. So no matter what W’s political successor says about his administration’s “hands off” non-management of Government Motors, he who owns the gold makes the rules. And when it comes to running a federal-funded organization, Uncle Sam plays by different rules than, say, any private enterprise extent. The bottom line is that there is no bottom line. Amtrak, the U.S. Postal Service, Medicaid—they’re all run at a tremendous, ongoing loss. Which means there’s zero sense of accountability. Which means they will never, ever be able to fully and fairly compete with privately held corporations. Why should GM by any different? Answer: it isn’t.
A National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA) study on Antilock Braking Systems (ABS) reveals that they’re not all that. In fact, the technology increases fatalities in certain circumstances. (Not that Frank Williams didn’t warn you back in 2006.) “ABS has close to a zero net effect on fatal crash involvements. Fatal run-off-road crashes of passenger cars increased by a statistically significant 9 percent (90% confidence bounds: 3% to 15% increase), offset by a significant 13-percent reduction in fatal collisions with pedestrians (confidence bounds: 5% to 20%) and a significant 12-percent reduction in collisions with other vehicles on wet roads (confidence bounds: 3% to 20%).,” “The Long-Term Effect of ABS in Passenger Cars and LTVs” reports [download pdf here]. “ABS is quite effective in nonfatal crashes, reducing the overall crash- involvement rate by 6 percent in passenger cars (confidence bounds: 4% to 8%) and by 8 percent in LTVs (confidence bounds: 3% to 11%).” That doesn’t sound . . . confidence inspiring. In fact, that nine percent increase looks even worse close up. A LOT worse.
GM purchased HUMMER in 1988. Big mistake. Or was it? HUMMER is an enormously strong automotive brand. Its products are as instantly recognizable as the Chevy Malibu is utterly forgettable. In terms of the cultural gestalt, the automotive world hasn’t seen such a divisive vehicle since the days when a Rolls Royce was THE emblem of economic exploitation. HUMMER said I’ll see your class warfare and raise you . . . an imperialistic invasion! Love it or loathe it, you’ve got to love it or loathe it. If [like] nothing else, there’s a Hirst of modern artists who’d give their left ear to create an object as controversial, as deeply polarizing and emotionally engaging as the HUMMER H2. The H3 not so much. Now, we could debate how GM could have made HUMMER a financial success. But that would be a bit like arguing over how we could have “won” the second Gulf War. So let’s just ask the next most logical question, what can you do with a dead HUMMER?
As an Allstate customer, a member of our Best and Brightest was not pleased to learn that GM Marketing Maven Mark LaNeve was crawling from the wreckage, crawling from the wreckage, crawling from the wreckage, into a brand new job. At Allstate. So he sent the insurance company an email.
The Volvo and GM brands are dead, thanks to the expertise of Mr. LaNeve and other of his ilk that have sunk them. Now he is welcomed into Allstate due to his “more than 25 years of marketing, sales and general management experience.” Good luck, you’ll need it. His sort of expertise sinks businesses. The old phrase about rats and sinking ships comes to mind.
Gregory, Floyd (Allstate Insurance Company) wrote:
Dear Mr. XXXXX:
We have completed our investigation regarding your concern and would like to provide you a summary.
Our friends over at wreckedexotics.com have hooked-up with realcartips.com (be careful when driving your exotic?). This week’s alert: luxury hybrids are a drug on the market. Hybrid Escalades are going for ten grand under sticker. Lexus dealers have been instructed to sell their remaining stock of 2009 Lexus 600h Ls for $10k off sticker. And, we might add, the rest. After all, the second you drive that $106k-and-up top-of-the-line hybrid off the lot, you’ll lose a LOT more than $10k. Still, the discount could take some of the heat out of torching 10 Grovers—and drive down the the price of pre-loved examples. A 30k LS 600h L is yours for around $75k. And the rest, now. At any price, the 600h L is one of the world’s best luxury cars— that’s destined to remain the deep-pocketed eccentric’s choice. Or, as was the case with the VW Phaeton, not.
Toyota has taken a massive hit to its rep, due to reports of floor mat-related unintended acceleration, and the automaker’s subsequent recall. The headline case: a fatal crash on August 28th. As The LA Times reports, a “runway” Lexus ES350 slammed into another vehicle and embankment, killing California Highway Patrol Officer Mark Saylor, his wife, teenage daughter and brother-in-law. The Times raises an important point: ” . . . a close look at the Lexus ES 350 raises questions about whether the car’s very design may have compromised Saylor’s skills. One obvious line of defense is to simply shut off the engine, a step that may not be intuitive on the ES 350. The car has a push-button start system, activated by the combination of a wireless electronic fob carried by the driver and a button on the dashboard. But once the vehicle is moving, the engine will not shut off unless the button is held down for a full three seconds — a period of time in which Saylor’s car would have traveled 528 feet. A driver may push the button repeatedly, not knowing it requires a three-second hold.”
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