One of the most pervasive memes that seemed to unite the independent thinkers covering the North American International Auto Show was that this year’s Detroit extravaganza offered “no surprises.” The lesson of this “Detroit Consensus”: clearly the motoring press doesn’t spend much time in the current, unloved Chevy Aveo.
Poor Professor Higgins! On he plods/Against all odds! Well, he had a tough job: changing a girl from the proverbial wrong side of the tracks into a prim and proper member of society. I had a simpler task in mind. I wanted to make sure that my hairdresser/girlfriend/bodyguard, the infamous Vodka McBigbra, could legitimately attend all this year’s auto shows with me. She actually works pretty hard at the events, lugging the Steadicam and obtaining everything from AA batteries to front-row seats so I can keep my Kiton jackets free of wrinkles, but a few of the shows don’t permit “assistants”. Publish or perish is their motto. Not a problem. I decided to make an authentic automotive journalist out of her. How tough could it be?
Meanwhile, our friends at General Motors were working on a not entirely dissimilar project. They’d identified some “bloggers”, given them all-expenses-paid trips to Detroit, and led them on a two-day adventure where they would be fed plenty of talking points to uncritically reTweet along the way. It isn’t cheap to fly people from the coasts to the Midwest, put them up in a top-notch hotel, feed them, and keep them entertained, so naturally GM would want to make sure they got their money’s worth.
The stage was set for a titanic contest. Sure, the playing field wasn’t level. After all, I’ve never gone bankrupt, the UAW doesn’t control my labor supply or my finances, and I didn’t design the 1984 Eldorado. Still, the plucky underdogs from the RenCen had a few tricks up their sleeves to even the odds…
Our friends on the wrong side of the pond were talking all night about the new Caterham release today… but when it arrived, it turned out to be a race car, not a road car. The SP300R was co-developed with Lola and offers 305 horsepower to move about 1200 pounds, courtesy of a supercharged Ford Duratec.
If you’re a fan of cars you can’t buy here and wouldn’t want to race here (the pretty LED nose and tail lamps probably wouldn’t survive a single club race weekend here in the US), check it out. Or for another UK-built alternative that you can buy here, try Radical USA.
EVs are the darling of the media. In Europe, the Leaf is the COTY. In the U.S. and Canada, the range extended Volt is the COTY. Then why are most big European manufacturers (except Renault) and most Japanese manufacturers (except Nissan) dragging their heels when it comes to wholesale electrification of their fleets? Maybe because they are working on wholesale adoption of hydrogen. As previously reported, there are agreements between automakers and governments in Europe, North America, Korea and Japan to prepare for the mass introduction of fuel cell cars by 2015. Japan is ahead of the game. Read More >
Japan is the world’s center of gravity for plug-ins one actually can buy. News from the land of Nippon also illustrate a little detail that prevents EVs from wholesale adoption.
There is an EV conundrum that had been largely overlooked or ignored amongst the hype: So you need a charging station in your garage. What if you don’t have your own garage, because you live in an apartment complex? Range-challenged EVs are targeted at dense cities, and where do people live in dense cities? Read More >
Having earned its place in the American market by launching focused products at its biggest segments, Honda’s 2010 sales performance proved the danger of chasing niches. In his remarks at the North American International Auto Show, Honda’s John Mendel insisted that
sales of the sporty and stylish CR-Z are also exceeding our expectations with sales of more than 5-thousand vehicles in the first four months. It’s great to see our customers embrace this vehicle … and our effort to push hybrid technology in a sporty direction
but besides proving that expectations for the CR-Z were extremely low, it’s hard to see what he meant. Expectations for the 2012 Honda Civic, on the other hand, are considerably higher.
Hurrah! BMW has finally taken a step back from the abyss of bloat, feature creep, and investment-banker-centric dynamics with the introduction of the bargain-priced 1M. The men from Munich have already provided the Bimmer-blogs pictures of the little coupe running down a road with the beloved E30 M3, and for the Roundel-tramp-stamp crowd, the line to place a deposit forms to the left, at your local X3/X5/X6 dealer.
The rest of us needn’t get so excited. Here’s why.
“Exterior vehicle parts that have been replaced with plastic materials include front-end modules, beams and brackets, trunk lids, deck lids, body panels and floor panels. More plastics are being used in air-bag containers, pedals and seat components. Plastics are applied to the powertrain in the air inlet manifolds, air ducts and resonators, chain tensioners and belt pulleys, oil pans and sumps, cylinder head covers, and mechanical torsion damper components. Some gears and pump components are also becoming more plastic-friendly.”
From “Plastics outperform metal in automotive applications,” ICIS.com
Peter, a repeat customer, writes:
My last question was certainly well-answered and I thank you for that! Problem is I have another because my situation has changed totally! And this one is kind of urgent. Read More >
Ryan writes:
Hello everyone, I am looking for something with these attributes: 2005+ model year, $8500 or less, at least four doors, not too old (or older but VERY reliable), smaller is better, cute will win, and no clutch pedal. Go!
Backstory: Read More >
GM will do with its Volt what arch nemesis Toyota did with its Prius: Add siblings. GM plans two more plug-in hybrids, based on the Volt. Not right now, but in the next few years, Daniel F. Akerson, told the New York Times. Read More >
After growing for 20 years, the Chinese car market could actually submit to gravity, says Rao Da, head of the semi-official China Passenger Car Association (CAAM). Why? Because Beijing scrapped incentives. Read More >
Lexus entered the „premium compact“ segment today by launching their CT 200h hybrid hatchback in Japan. They could call it CT 200hhh – as in harmonious hatch hybrid. We’ll get to the harmonious in a minute. Read More >
“There have been companies that have gone belly-up for carrying excess capacity, but no company has gone bankrupt for not being able to produce, We now realize humbly that we shouldn’t make cars until we’re absolutely certain they will sell.”
Toyota’s Executive Vice President Atsushi Niimi to Bloomberg. Read More >
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