It was the good old days. The Summer of 2007. I had become one of the top buyers at a nearby discount parts store, and several others nearby wanted my business. At this point I was buying all my parts for my cars at ‘cost’ plus 10%. But that didn’t matter. Like the sub-prime world, the store managers were paid bonuses based on their volume of sales. Who needed profit when you could make it up with volume? Well, it took about a year for the guys up the chain of command to figure that out.
1903 Columbus Electric Model 1000 on display at the 2011 SAE World Congress. From the collection of Peter Fawcett.
Photos courtesy of Cars In Depth
The theme of this year’s SAE World Congress was “Charging Forward Together”. In case you haven’t noticed the electrification of the automobile industry, to make the phrase even more obvious the logo includes an electric plug. Keeping with that theme the automotive engineers’ professional association put a couple of early electric cars on display, a 1915 Detroit Electric and a 1903 Columbus Electric.
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The Brazilian autoblogosphere is up in arms because of an alleged censoring attempt by Toyota do Brasil. A month after the Brazilian blog Notícias Automotivas had run a piece on the upcoming Toyota Corolla S, they received a letter from Toyota do Brasil’s Legal Department. The Corolla S looks like not much more than a customized Corolla with red stitching on faux racing seats. The letter, dated April 29, 2011, looks scary.
We have received what we believe is a faithful translation of the letter from Brazilian Portuguese Legalese to English. The letter demands, within 24 hours of receipt, the takedown of the whole story, plus something unheard of: Read More >
On April 18th, BMW CEO Jim O’Donnell met in New York with reporters, amongst them TTAC’s Jack Baruth. At the meeting, O’Donnell opined that the U.S. government should end the $7,500 tax credit for EVs. “I believe in a free economy. I think we should abolish all tax credits,” O’Donnell said, noting that it was his personal opinion.
O’Donnell also said that “from a practicality point of view, EVs won’t work for most people. For at least 90 percent and maybe more of the population, an EV won’t work at the current battery range.” What else is new? A 10 percent market share for EVs usually is regarded as widely optimistic. And we all know that German automakers are not particularly excited about electrification. The quote wasn’t newsworthy, and did not rate a mention in Jack’s report about the meeting.
Interestingly, the meeting had been the kick-off for BMW’s ActiveE EV lease program. If a CEO says that a new product is not all things to all people, he usually gets praises for being candid. This apparently does not apply in the world of faith-based motorization. Read More >
Mother Nature appears to have issues with the auto industry. First, a once in a millennium tsunami crippled Japanese automakers and suppliers for most of the year. Now, the most powerful long-track tornado in US history hit automakers in Alabama. Read More >
After Argentina and Brazil some weekends ago, our whirlwind tour around the globe takes us back to the American continent this weekend, further up north, on a visit to Mexico.
Now if Mexican cars don’t excite you as much as a plate of nachos, that’s ok! There are 153 other países to explore in my blog. You will enjoy it mucho mucho, te lo prometo! Read More >
Saab will either be owned by Russians or Chinese. That’s the way it looks today. Which is no guarantee that it will look the same on Monday. Read More >
Forecasts for April U.S. new vehicle sales differ widely amongst the industry soothsayers this month. Read More >
This video says it all.
The Department of Transportation’s Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) today released A Decade of Decline in Person Crossings From Mexico and Canada into the United States, a review of the 10-year decline in border crossings by. “This report examines the trends in person crossings by mode rather than reasons for the decline,” says a DOT press release. In the quest for reasons, Ed and I road-tested the entry from Canada last night. We might have found an answer for the decline: Read More >
For nearly a year, readers of TTAC have known what’s coming now. As reported back when, Fuji Heavy’s Subaru will end its 54-year history of producing minivehicles in February next year. Read More >
John writes:
Sajeev and Steve,
Thanks for your work on TTAC. The site entertains and irritates, so it’s a great place to read and learn, right?
Here is my problem. I have a couple of jobs, one of them is being self-employed and what I do requires carrying lots of equipment and driving lots of miles. I have used a Chevy Astro Van for a long time; The first one lost it’s second tranny at 246,000, and the one I use now has 193,000 miles. The 4.3 litre engine wears like a rock, but the gas mileage is a killer.
Now, our strategy continues to be to exit these investments, and just today Chrysler announced that it intends to raise the money it needs to repay the government. Two years ago, no one would have expected us to be in this position today, and it shows the success of the strategy the President implemented and the skill and dedication of Chrysler’s employees. We are looking forward to the full repayment of our loan to the company.
Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, speaking in Detroit, makes strategic use of the singular tense in order to use the phrase “full repayment” without actually revealing the losses taxpayers have already taken. After all, the $1.9b Debtor-in-Posession loan made to “Old Chrysler” in May 2009 isn’t the loan Geithner is referring to (that one was “extinguished” in liquidation). Nor is the $4b “bridge loan” from January 2009 the loan Geithner is referring to, as a mere $2.1b repayment was counted as “satisfaction in full of the remaining debt obligations associated with the original loan.” Geithner may be “looking forward to full repayment” of the one loan he considers “ours” (as are we), but that’s not the whole story. Once again, a slickly-phrased “payback” claim trumps any sense of responsibility at Treasury to be transparent with taxpayers. And a quick survey of the media indicates that Geithner’s use of the singular has worked quite effectively.
The US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit ruled yesterday in favor of police officers who attach GPS tracking devices to vehicles without first obtaining a warrant. The three-judge panel insisted searches of this sort do not violate the Fourth Amendment after considering the case of Juan Cuevas-Perez.
The rumors were all correct: Porsche is selling a GT3 RS 4.0. The weight: 2,998 lbs. The juice: 500 horsepower from a four-liter version of the venerable old GT1 engine.
The price: hold on to your hats.
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