While America is glued to the flat screen, Fiat gets all the headlines. The other day, Sergio Marchionne had dropped a mention that the HQ of a merged Fiat & Chrysler could move to the U.S. Stateside, this didn’t make much waves. It was buried in shyster-gate. In Italy, all hell broke loose. Fiat emigrating la bella Italia for America? Porca miseria! Read More >
Fiat CEO Sergio Marchionne stepped into a minefield by calling the high-interest bailout loans provided by the U.S. and Canadian governments in 2009 “shyster loans.” Some called him an ingrate, others branded him a racist. Yesterday, Marchionne apologized. Read More >
Just received this email from Chrysler Communications in my Outlook. It starts: “Dear Bertel: Who won the battle between the flakes of last week and the four-wheel drives from Chrysler Group LLC?”
Now that raised my interest. Did some folks with an Explorer or a Denali call out Dodge to a duel? Or did I just miss another RAM Challenge? And Chrysler PR calls the other guys “flakes?” Are the gloves coming off? Read More >
Kurt Wiley writes in:
Having been a long time reader of TTAC, I now pose a question to the Best and Brightest:
Should one who likes the driving experience offered by German brands, but abhors their reliability and maintenance expense, seek safety with an extended warranty? Or will purchasing one of those warranties be an utter waste of money?
Considering I’m about to embark on a weekend roadtrip in a 12-year-old M Coupe, I’m hoping the answer to this question is “no.” At the same time, I’m willing to admit that I bought the car I wanted and that a little bit of risk was part of the deal. But then, I’m just a callow youth with no kids to worry about… I’ll let TTAC’s Best and Brightest bring their wealth of experience to this question while I pray that Mr M doesn’t blow a gasket this weekend.
Vincent writes:
I’m having a bit of a dilemma in the car buying/selling front. First off, I’m a 21 year old college student. Last year, using money gifted to me by my wealthy grandparents (yes, I’m a spoiled brat. Sorry) I impulsively purchased a 97 Mercedes C36 AMG (yes, I’m an awful spoiled brat). It had a plethora of problems including the previous owner installing a faulty air intake, improperly lowering the car and damaging the suspension, and some thermostat issue. Several thousand dollars later, my mechanic got it back to speed. It hasn’t had any problems since, but I definitely can’t afford to fix it if anything else were to happen. Furthermore, premium gas is a bitch, especially here in Vancouver where gas is at an all time high. It doesn’t snow often here, but I’m not comfortable driving it when it does. I am contemplating selling the C36 and purchasing something more practical (I’ve had it listed on classifieds for months, but eh, no bites)
More than three years ago, on New Year’s Eve of 2007, our Beloved Leader, the dearly departed Robert Farago rattled the Best and Brightest with one of his thought (and sometimes aggression) provoking questions. This time, it was: “What’s the plural of Prius?”
Damned if I know, but a few days ago, the TTAC server reported repeated search terms for the very same “What’s the plural of Prius?” I decided to do my journalistic duty and investigate. The results were shocking. Read More >
Today, a shocking pink, rose decorated 1964 Chevy Impala named “Gypsy Rose” will lead a funeral procession of lowriders through East L.A. It will follow its owner to the grave. Jesse Valadez, a founding member of the legendary Imperial Car Club in East L.A., died of colon cancer Jan. 29 at age 64. For those who don’t know: Read More >
Alberta is a province in Canada. A lot is agricultural, but what is much more important are the treasures beneath the soil. Alberta sits on more than 1.7 trillion barrels of bitumen, better known as oil sand. That’s about equal to the world’s total proven reserves of conventional petroleum. Canadians are troubled that EVs might ruin these riches. Read More >
Are you one of those who don’t watch the Super Bowl for the game, but for the ads? After taking mostly a leave of absence during carmageddon, carmakers will be out in force this time. There will be so many car commercials that “it looks like there will be auto gridlock in Super Bowl ads,” says USA Today. To get more impressions, carmakers are using YouTube to make the most out of the expensive airtime. Here comes a selection.
Read More >
You have arrived. Through the sweat and brow of your efforts, you have achieved the rewards of upper middle class living. A nice job. A nice spouse. Two very quaint child like creatures, and of course… the car. A beautiful burgundy luxury car with opulent leather, elite walnut trim, a premium ‘Surround sound’ system with a quite advanced CD player, and a trademark waterfall grille on the front. In the late 1990’s your car stacks out at about $34,000 new. Fast forward 12 years, two recessions and 180k miles later, and you may be able to get a discount. How does $900 sound to you? With that in mind do you…
Ars Technica has a fascinating interview with Kaveh Hushyar, CEO of Telemetria Telephony, who argues
I believe in 2020, the car will drive itself. The infrastructure will be in place, and that infrastructure will be very significant and hefty. But in that target environment, you and I don’t have to be sitting behind the wheel. In that environment, everyone will be a passenger, and you want to have full connectivity with full access to any media, or any person anywhere via the best videoconferencing available. So you need a rich media experience in the car.
At the same time, there will be a significant amount of safety applications that will be running in the car, making sure that the car is fully protected and is communicating through the infrastructure to other cars. That would be the nature of how I see the driving experience transforming in ten years plus.
Obviously, as CEO of an in-car connectivity solution firm, Mr Hushayr is heavily invested in a driver-free future… but is his vision the product of more than just wishful thinking? I certainly have some difficulty imagining giving up driving before I turn 40… but then, I’m not sure that most of my peers would. Surf over to AT and read the whole interview before letting us know what you think.
You want the good news or the bad news first? OK, the good news is that Fiat/Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne told attendees at NADA’s annual convention that Fiat and Chrysler “may” be merged into a single company, possibly headquartered in the US. Which means the federal bailout may not have simply been a transfer of the firm to Italian ownership, news that many taxpayers likely find at least a little bit comforting. Now, about that bad news… while saying that he planned to “work his [rear end] off” to pay back taxpayers, Marchionne let slip a bit of the resentment he clearly feels at government ownership of Chrysler, saying
I am paying shyster rates. We had no choice… I am going to pay the shyster loans.
Jalopnik does a good job of covering the roots and associations of Marchionne’s choice of words (and clearly he could have chosen better), but we’re mostly irked by the victim complex embraced by executives of the bailed-out automakers, especially in Marchionne’s case. The Fiat CEO was given 15 percent in Chrysler for no cash down, and will be able to take control of the automaker for a tiny fraction of its actual value. All this was possible only because the government guided Chrysler through bankruptcy, crammed down its bondholders, demanded union concessions and injected tens of billions into the company… and now Marchionne wants to employ slurs to complain about the fact that some of that money must be paid back?
These comments cloak Marchionne in the gravitas and respectability of someone who believes he should be able to receive unemployment benefits without actually looking for a job. Especially considering that only yesterday Marchionne was slamming GM for turning down DOE loans, saying
I have neither the arrogance nor the cash to show any disdain toward the DOE process. It would be wiser to Chrysler to continue to try to secure that funding.
Given that public support for the bailout is still quite low, Marchionne’s comments could hardly have been more poorly chosen.
The outgoing Ford Focus fell several spots in the C-Segment last month, and the Kia Forte bumped the Mazda3 down a bit… but as new products like the 2011 Elantra and Corolla, and the 2012 Focus hit the market, this crucial segment will see yet more turmoil.
Mahindra’s abortive plans to bring its rugged diesel-powered pickups to the US began back in 2007, just as gas prices were starting to run out of control. Now, after years of delays, steadily-increasing prices and general neglect of the compact pickup market have served only to whet our appetite for efficient little developing world-style trucks. Throughout the the last several years, Mahindra has battled with its US distributor, pulled out of other US efforts and generally failed to deliver… all while dangling the dream of a 30 MPG diesel pickup at hopeful enthusiasts. But, as it turns out, Mahindra’s problems don’t end with distribution: though its diesel engine was approved by the EPA, we hadn’t seen EPA confirmation for the long-held 30 MPG goal. Well, the EPA just released the window sticker for the Mahindra TR40 [via MahindraPlanet], a 4X4 four-door version of its 2.2 liter diesel pickup… and it gets nowhere close to 30 MPG.
Most foreign-based automakers see the United States as a market first and a production center second: If sales are good enough, production will follow. Mitsubishi, on the other hand, seems to be taking the opposite approach. The Japanese automaker has announced [via Automotive News [sub]] that it will replace production its weak-selling midsized offerings (Galant, Endeavor, Eclipse) at its Normal, Il factory with one model: the Outlander Sport compact crossover. The Outlander Sport (known elsewhere as RVR and ASX) is Mitsu’s newest vehicle, but the firm still envisions only abput half of Normal’s planned 50k units of production to be sold in North American markets (a safe estimate considering it’s still not outselling the Lancer). The other half will be exported to Russia, Latin America and the Middle East. That’s right, Mitsubishi is keeping its only UAW-represented workforce in order to build compact crossovers for export.
Recent Comments