Automotive News [sub] reports that the one-time advisor to Rick Wagoner and GM’s director in charge of the UAW’s VEBA account’s 17.5 percent stake in the automaker has been promoted to Vice Chairman in charge of corporate strategy and business development. He will be replacing John Smith, a 59 year-old GM “lifer” (he joined the company in 1968) who led negotiations for GM’s Saab-Spyker and Opel-Magna deals. Smith will stay on until the end of this year as an advisor to CFO Chris Liddell. That Smith would leave GM after the failed Opel sale and the less-than-entirely-satisfying Saab-Spyker deal isn’t surprising, and as a well-compensated advisor to CEO Ed Whitacre and a rising star at GM, Girsky is an equally unsurprising replacement (despite his failure to rescue Saturn). And though Girsky brings experience gained as a labor advisor and a Morgan Stanley analyst, he’s got his work cut out for him. GM’s brand sales have been largely unsuccessful so far, Opel is in an unfunded turnaround limbo, and a recent India-market alliance with SAIC was less than perfect for GM’s long-term prospects. Girsky’s got a lot goingfor him compared to the typical GM insider, but with mounting long-term, structural issues facing The General, there aren’t any easy options facing him in his new capacity.
The House Energy and Commerce Committee kicks off the week’s Toyota-related festivities on Capitol Hill today, with the first round of hearings scheduled for 11 am Eastern. Testifying will be Toyota Motor America’s Jim Lentz, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, Southern Illinois professor and ABC’s ghost hunter David Gilbert, Safety Research and Strategy’s Sean Kane, as well Eddie and Rhonda Smith, who reportedly experienced uncontrollable sudden acceleration in a Lexus ES350. The E&C Committee has a live webcast available here, or you can watch on C-Span 3. The Detroit News’s David Shepardson is live-tweeting from the press events on the Hill leading up to the hearing.
Tomorrow is the main event, when CEO Akio Toyoda appears before the House Oversight Committee along with TMA President Yoshimi Inaba.
A Miami-Dade County Circuit Court judge has ruled that red light cameras may not be legally used to issue traffic citations in the state of Florida. Judge Gerald Bagley yesterday dismissed charges against motorist Richard Masone who had received a red light camera ticket in the mail from American Traffic Solutions (ATS). The company operates the program on behalf of the city of Aventura.
Owning an old Volvo is like having a garden. There is always something to do in a garden. Likewise, the quality of your compost, soil, and water is going to dictate your harvest. The same is true for your driving habits, parts and fluids when it comes to keeping any old car. Okay, enough of the analogies. We’re all enthusiasts here. A 1991 Volvo 740 came to me with a two ton jack and a gas can in the trunk as well as enough spare parts to start it’s own Volvo shrine. It also came with the crappiest car seat covers I had ever seen, a blue wire that connected the alternator to trunk speakers that were removed (it had been Gomered). Finally, it had to be pushed through the auction lane because it wouldn’t stay running. But I bought it anyway for $175… and then the fun began. Read More >
Every evening and every morning, and times in-between, Nick Reilly wonders why he exchanged his cushy job as Shanghai-based chief of GM’s international operations with the purgatory of heading Opel in Rüsselsheim. This Tuesday morning, he woke up to more news from hell:
An unholy alliance of the center-right German government and the supposedly left-leaning unions told him that his turn-around plan for Opel is rotten, and if GM doesn’t cough up €1.65b, there won’t be a cent in government money. Read More >
Long time depressed car production in Japan continues to show robust signs of life, mostly caused by equally surprising domestic demand and a pick-up in exports. And there is another explanation … Read More >
Today’s CC Clue introduces a new element; no , its not the snow and ice. We do see that here every couple of years. This CC was sent in by a reader (do you want to guess his identity too? His first name starts with a D). We’ll unveil his find (and his name) tomorrow. Good luck with this one!
Ever since Toyota’s recent problems hit “frenzy” level on our mainstream media monitoring system, speculation has been rampant that some mysterious electronic problem was at the root of the unintended acceleration scandal. We’ve been wary of jumping on the “ghost-in-the-machine” bandwagon, for a number of reasons, chief among which is the fact that it seems to be the product of an inability to explain specific instances of unintended acceleration, rather than hard evidence. Given that unintended acceleration occurs at the intersection of man and machine, good old-fashioned human error is an easier assumption than mystery software errors. Given the worrying results of our Toyota gas pedal analysis, we’ve been content to explain the situation on a combination of pedals, mats and human error. But now ABC News may just have the first positive evidence of an electronic problem that could explain the mystery behind Toyota’s unintended acceleration problem. Dave Gilbert of Southern Illinois University has found that it’s possible to cause unintended acceleration without it triggering an error code that might give some kind of clue as to its cause. Combined with our finding that Toyota actively conceals data from its black box data recorders (out of line with standard industry practice), this could be some of the first positive evidence that there’s more to the “ghost in the machine” theory than mere panic-driven speculation.
For an industry under ever-increasing pressure from government emissions standards, start-stop technology (which shuts off engines under idling conditions) seems like an easy route to improved fuel efficiency. Cheaper and less complicated than a true hybrid system, a number of automakers from BMW to Kia are proliferating start-stop technology across their product lines without hybrid-like price premium. Since this technology represents a relatively easy, incremental efficiency upgrade, we’ve wondered why it hasn’t been made available stateside, where hybrids are making up a growing proportion of sales. Detroit’s executives seem to think it’s a good idea, and Mazda has even gone so far as to complain that EPA test results refusing to show the Japanese test-cycle’s 7-9 percent improvement is the main factor preventing it from bringing more stop-start equipped vehicles to the US. But there’s another issue preventing stop-start from becoming standard issue industry-wide, and it’s actually remarkably obvious. Read More >
The social media blog Mashable has an interesting theory: Toyota’s recall woes might actually be good (gasp) good for the brand. To back up this astonishing claim, they offer two premises, based on online social media data:
The first is that the increased number of conversations about Toyota are building greater awareness for the brand even though many of the mentions may be negative. While this may seem unusual, the fact that people are talking about the brand a lot more and sometimes in a neutral light (not just negatively) is increasing its exposure. More people are talking about Toyota than any other brand these days. And they’re talking about the recalls, but also the fixes being provided by the dealerships too. And some of the consumers are probably coming to the defense of the brand too. Maybe there is some truth to the adage that there’s no such thing as bad publicity after all.
Fiat is acknowledging a “a collapse in orders” as Italian scrappage rebates expire, and as a result, all six Italian Fiat plants will close for two weeks [via the BBC]. The move is being justified as a break from past overproduction, with Fiat spokesfolks claiming “we’re only building to demand.” Though that might help CEO Sergio Marchionne justify his $6.5m paycheck, it couldn’t come at a worse time. Fiat is putting 30,000 employees out of work for the next 14 days, just as it faces widespread protests over the closure of its Sicilian Termini Imerese plant. With the Italian government (and even the Pope) condemning Marchionne’s decision to cut the perpetually money-losing plant, this unplanned vacation will give workers plenty of time to agitate and organize further resistance. Not that Marchionne could have avoided it. Italy’s consumer subsidies for new cars were keeping demand artificially high, and the Italian government was hoping it could offer their renewal in exchange for a Fiat commitment to the Imerese plant. But as the Wall Street Journal [sub] opines, Europe’s scrappage-swollen market has to come down to earth at some point. Just as Fiat has to rid itself of some of its terminally underperforming Italian capacity, at some point. And, as usual, there’s no time like the present.
Even if Toyota hadn’t antagonized the ruling party, its congressional hearings would have been a posture-fest anyway. Congress can’t do much about Toyota’s recent behavior besides name, shame and tell the NHTSA to do a better job next time. Sure, the lights and cameras of congressional theater might get Akio Toyoda to sweat a little, but with an ever-increasing number of civil suits pending, criminal investigations are the real cause for concern. A New York federal grand jury has subpoenaed “certain documents related to unintended acceleration of Toyota vehicles and the braking system of the Prius,” reports the LA Times. Both Toyota and its US sales division were also targeted by an SEC subpoena, requesting similar documents, including details of the company’s disclosure policy. If either of these criminal cases move forward, those pending civil suits could grow a much more powerful set of legs.
UAW members protest a Modesto, CA Toyota dealer, as part of the union’s wider effort to punish Toyota for its decision to shut down the NUMMI factory in nearby Fremont [via the Modesto Bee]. “We are not telling people not to buy Toyota products,” explains one worker. “We’re telling people that Toyota needs to be a responsible corporation and keep jobs in California.” And though there couldn’t be a better time to blame Toyota for just about anything, the NUMMI plant was closed because GM ditched the joint venture during its bankruptcy and government bailout. Toyota, like GM, was faced with overproduction in the US market, and because GM had pulled out of NUMMI, the plant was an obvious candidate for closure. So really, these protesters would have some sinister version of GM’s logo on their sign if they were really interested in fairly assigning blame for the NUMMI shutdown. However, their UAW pension fund owns 17.5 percent of GM, so simply blaming Toyota is a lot more convenient. Especially since Toyota is already attracting so much well-deserved (if wholly-unrelated) negative media attention.
In a few years, by 2016 to be exact, P.J. O’Rourke’s “ass-engined Nazi slot car” may be history in the U.S.A. Gone. By that time, Porsche needs to have a Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) of 41.4 mpg – if President Obama gets his wish. Mission impossible, says Porsche. Jack Baruth, stock up. Porsches will be extinct. Read More >
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