China’s going nutty over the next-generation of Buick GL8 minivans, which recently strutted its Buick Business Concept-derived styling in downtown Shanghai. We’ve heard rumors of a Buick MPV coming stateside for some time, with each successive rumor placing the “Baby Enclave” on a different platform, first Delta then Gamma. Though the latest intel seems to indicate that the US will get a Buick-badged version of the suicide-doored Opel Meriva, wouldn’t an Epsilon-based full minivan be a more natural fit for the US market? Sure, it might cannibalize the Enclave some, but that hasn’t stopped Buick from offering no fewer than three mid-sized sedans. Could Buick be the next brand to re-hip the minivan? Should it be?

Backup beepers are everywhere, it seems. Wherever the heavy metal–trucks, steamrollers, steam shovels, cement mixers, buses, or any other vehicle with substantial girth–is backing up, you know it, even if you can’t see it. Because like [monochromatic] laser light, monotone sounds carry further. And now, within the last couple of years, the backup beeper comes standard equipment on your Prius (and, pending passage of the Motor Vehicle Safety Act, all electric-drive cars). But if you don’t like it, you can disconnect it. My brother Tom—who has always considered cars to be appliances, but LOVES his Prius—has not disconnected his. “I am not bothered by it particularly,” he says. TTAC Prius owners: what about you? Have you left it on? Disconnected it? Why or why not?

The truth tends to be a more subtle animal than many imagine, and nowhere is this more true than with the Chevy Volt. Although today’s review was long by any standard, a number of key issues were under-addressed, and on the whole it seems to raise more questions than answers. Accordingly, I will take to Coveritlive tomorrow at 4pm Eastern (1pm Pacific) to answer as many questions about driving the Volt and touring its production facilities as I can manage. No need to create a new account, just check in on TTAC tomorrow at 4 pm Eastern and join in the conversation immediately. I won’t be able to explain exactly how the Volt’s drive unit operates at all times, and I can’t tell you exactly how well it will sell, but if you’re looking for closure on a persistent Volt question, stop by and ask it. Every question of relevance that I’m not able to answer will get forwarded on to GM for official reply, so we should all be able to end the week with a much better understanding of this enigmatic automobile.

So there I was, minding my own business, driving down the road, enjoying the new Isobel Campbell record and relaxing in the right lane, when I saw two Crown Vics from the local sheriff’s department running up hard behind me, lights, sirens, the whole deal. I moved halfway onto the shoulder to let them by, and then, motivated by nothing more than a love of mayhem, decided to follow them for a while.

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We smell a trademark fight

This Autoweek article gave me a college flashback: when UT Austin’s Petroleum Engineers offered me a scholarship, but the Mechanical Engineers said no dice.  Mostly because high tech, high mileage oil talk is rather boring.  Much like discussing a cutting edge, long-life coolant before the Dex-Cool fiasco. So let’s open a can of worms for the Best and Brightest, and hit the high points of General Motor’s Dexos1, a somewhat revolutionary engine oil with a distinct lack of testing from the American Petroleum Institute.  As per Autoweek, matters stand like this: Read More >

Tomorrow your humble Editor boards a plane for Michigan, en route to a date with the Chevrolet Volt. TTAC has followed the Volt’s bumpy road to production-readiness since Bob Lutz decided that the Prius had to be “leapfrogged,” and we’ve tracked every change to the Volt’s mission, message and mechanical blueprint along the way. And though cars don’t exist in a vacuum, giving the Volt a fair review will require us to leave a lot of this contextual baggage at the door.

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TTAC’s long been used to playing the “heel” of the auto journalism world, and sure enough, our skeptical approach to the Chevy Volt is already renewing accusations that TTAC “hates GM.” For the record, this accusation doesn’t fly. We have the tendency to obsess on GM because that company’s rise and fall is the most compelling story in the automotive world. To read GM’s history is to watch a person claw their way up a cliff by his bootstraps, and upon reaching the top, spend the next several decades strangling himself with the very same bootstraps. I challenge anyone who is interested in the world of cars to look away from that.

In any case, our Volt coverage has focused thus far on dispelling myths, so in the interest of seeking the truth everywhere, I thought we should take a moment to make a few Volt myths of our own. After all,  despite planning to build only “10-15k” Volts next year and 60k in 2012, Automotive News [sub] says

And even though my personal and professional obligations to the truth make me the worst marketing candidate ever, I may just have an idea of where to start…

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A longtime critique of General Motors here at TTAC is that it needs to pick enduringly appealing names for its products and stick to them, instead of shuffling through some eighty nameplates for midsize and smaller cars since Toyota introduced the Corolla. Still, this approach doesn’t advocate simply freezing time, and calling every compact Chevy a Cruze from here to eternity. If you’re going to stick with a name, it has to be good, and it has to mean something.

Enter the Aveo, which is about to be replaced by another Daewoo-developed hatchback (made in the US this time), but should (if GM can be believed) represent an improvement over the unlovable outgoing model.GM’s North American supremo Mark Reuss is still wavering on the name, refusing to commit to Aveo, but unwilling to suggest an alternative nameplate. Which brings us to today’s question: is it nobler for the car to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageously poor associations with the name Aveo? Or should GM put the name to sleep, perchance to dream up a better, more enduring one? Is consistency good even if it means keeping one of the most maligned nameplates this side of “Sebring”? Aye, there’s the rub.

10-10-10 marks the tenth anniversary of the first Prius sold in the US.  A total of 5800 of the pioneering hybrids were sold in that first year. North American sales peaked with 183.8k in 2007, and then drooped, and are pacing to 141k units in 2010.

Note how Japan’s Prius sales have boomed, surpassing NA, as a result of government incentives. What does the future hold for NA Prius sales in the next ten years?

Paul Penaloza writes in with a timely query:

I’ve got a question for the crew. I have a relative who loves the VW Passat wagon and the promise of the better mileage with the TDI. She was crushed when she found out it did not have a third row like a minivan. That got me thinking, are there any car wagons out there that have a third row of seating these days?

Ah, the rear-facing third row… if that doesn’t bring back childhood memories, you’ve missed out. Remember gang, that’s “car wagons.” No Swagger Wagons or Cute Utes for the former Passat owner. If I didn’t have the $56k to stump for a new E Class wagon (and I don’t), I’d be thinking used… or reminiscing about making faces at freeway traffic. Or both.

In its retooling announcement for the Orion assembly plant, GM notes that

Orion will be the home to Chevrolet’s new small car and Buick’s future compact sedan – the all-new Verano.

What’s interesting is that GM doesn’t call the “new small car” the Aveo, even though it’s shown near-production versions of the new model bearing the Aveo name at several auto shows. Sooner or later, GM will have to start sticking with consistent, memorable nameplates in order to build up the kind of loyalty enjoyed by models like Accord, Camry, Civic and Corolla. Which would suggest that an improved Aveo should be called the Aveo, and that the new Opel Astra-based Buick Verano should be called something less instantly forgettable. We’ve speculated about what a three-door Buick Astra hatch might be called, but this Verano plan calls for an intervention. Help GM keep Buick from sliding into 90s-era ambivalence by improving on the narcoplesy-inducing nameplate Verano. It doesn’t have to be a heritage nameplate, but it should be something that makes the brands foray into compact cars seem like less of an afterthought. And that will be just as good four generations from now.

The flip-flopping over GM’s IPO strategy continues, as The General backs away from its “retail investor” focus and begins courting Sovereign Wealth Funds in earnest. Bloomberg reports that GM’s underwriters have approached

Riyadh, Saudi Arabia- based Kingdom Holding Co., Abu Dhabi-based Mubadala Development Co., Qatar Holdings LLC and Singapore-based Temasek Holdings Pte.

In hopes that they’ll become “cornerstone investors” in the new GM’s IPO. Who knows what will come of the negotiations, but assuming that one or more of the Arab SWFs end up with a large chunk of GM equity, a number of PR problems present themselves. Though (marginally) less emotionally-charged than a possible ownership stake by a Chinese firm, such an outcome would amount to the US-sponsored foreign takeover of an American firm. Politically, the bailout is much easier to justify if GM ends up in American hands… especially since Fiat is likely to gobble up the Chrysler equity it wasn’t handed on a taxpayer-funded platter. But beyond that, GM will have to work twice as hard to convince the American people that it’s not working to serve the interests of its oil-rich Gulf State owners. Renewed scrutiny over its most profitable business, namely gas-guzzling trucks and SUVs, would be a given. Any hesitation (however well-justified) over electrification of the automobile would be interpreted as an oil-cartel plot. And renewed turmoil in the middle east could further inflame anti-Arab or anti-Muslim sympathies, potentially bringing greater pressure on GM. Meanwhile, GM’s energy-independence rhetoric around its E85 ethanol efforts would be extremely awkward.

But will Americans notice or care? At what percentage of ownership would these factors come into play?

To every tire —Turn, turn, turn
There is a season — Turn, turn, turn
And a wheel for every tire
In your garage
A time for max g — A time for low mu
A time for low profile — A time for thick chine
A time to enter turns sideways
A time to refrain from entering turns sideways

I’ve had winter tires for at least one car in my mini-fleet for ten years now. I only really “need” them about ten days a year. For at least three months each year, however, they provide security, confidence, and personal travel flexibility that more than justify the expense. A quick check of my fellow Ohioans’ tread patterns shows that I’m in a clear minority, unfortunately. For those of you who aren’t blessed with a San Diego, Phoenix, or Miami ZIP Code… what are ya’ll doing to prepare for winter?

Government’s solution to distracted driving: hold summits and tweet at Jersey Shore cast members. The OEM solution: run ads legitimizing unfocused driving and then sell an electronic solution (in the example above, a $2,950 “Driver Assistance Package” for the $49,400 Mercedes E350). Or argue that voice-controlled in-car Facebook updates pose no more of a distraction than, say, radios. Or roll out a “feature-disabling feature.” What Ray LaHood calls an “epidemic,” and “menace to society,” the automakers call big business. If LaHood is as serious about distraction as he says, should he not be calling out the trend towards increased in-car communication? And if he is exaggerating the problem, shouldn’t the automakers be more actively defending their decision to market distracting in-car technology?

If LaHood keeps his rhetorical War On Distraction alive long enough, the current OEM approach will inevitably come under the microscope. Given that private concerns generally prefer self-regulation to government regulation, what should the automakers do to keep the government off its back? Ignore LaHood and hope his crusade blows over? Fight him, commission studies, and definitively prove the safety of in-car communication? Or change course, risking a huge disadvantage but possibly carving out a new branding opportunity? Now that the least safe part of the modern car is the human doing the driving, everything has become a lot more complicated…

Scion brand manager Jack Hollis tells the WSJ [sub] that

The sales are nowhere where they should be and they will never be this low again

And with only 29,672 units sold through 2010, he ain’t kidding either (well, except for maybe the last part). Meanwhile, with the Yen headed up, profits on Scion’s small, Japanese-built offerings aren’t in great shape either. In short, it is with good reason that Scion is the subject of the most-recent TTAC Deathwatch. Meanwhile, Scion’s bid for renewed relevance hangs on the success of two cars: the neo-Corolla Coupe tC, and the A-Segment Scion iQ three-seater. TTAC will have an early review of the tC before the end of the week, but before we get into the specifics of that vehicle, let’s ponder the wider question of Scion’s viability. Will these two cars bring back Scion’s sales to their previous levels? Let’s take a look at Scion’s historical sales for answers…

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