GM’s New Chairman and CEO, Ed Whitacre may not be talking to the press about his plans for the state-owned automaker, but he’s talking to someone. Reuters reports that Alan Mulally, CEO of Ford, has already had a chat with GM’s chairman and CEO, Ed Whitacre. Mulally didn’t disclose what they talked about, but did mention his reasons as to why they had the chat. “You want to be supportive because we have a lot of industry issues that we work together,” Mulally said, “He’s reaching out just the way that I did when I came in.”
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From our “Gosh, the Germans take things so seriously” file, comes this video from Germany’s ADAC auto club in which a crash test facility is used to determine the best way of securing a Christmas tree to your car. Sachlich!
Corresponding with news that Ford and Geely are close to closing the Volvo deal, Volvo’s unions have expressed skepticism towards Geely, even going so far as to ask that the company be investigated. An ownership company based in tax havens, a history of trademark theft, and minimal transparancy have all worried unions within Volvo. Swedish Engineers at Volvo and the Metalworkers have expressed worries over the lack of information regarding Volvo’s future within Geely. “There’s a great information vacuum” says Magnus Sundemo of the Engineers. “We know very little about what the consequences will be if or when Geely takes over Volvo – We need to have more information, and we need reasonable time to examine the information” he continues.
A number of local jurisdictions in California have quietly turned to administrative citations for speeding tickets as a means of circumventing state law. The legislature had set down a very specific set of procedures for issuing and adjudicating traffic violations, including a split of the revenue for each ticket between the state, county, municipality and the court system. Cities like Newman now believe they can cut the state government out of the process.
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It’s easy to blame GM’s new Chairman and CEO’s recent webchat performance on the format. Webchats invariably combine the awkward claustrophobia of conference calls with the eloquent clarity of text-messaging, for a match made in communication hell. That’s no place to properly explain what the NSFW is going on with your company. Especially when you have yet to comment on the “Opel drama,” “palace coup,” “tilt-a-executive,” and “getting in bed with the Chinese” storylines (among others). Needless to say, the MSM is not amused. Nor, frankly, am I. Which is why today’s quote of the day is actually nine days old.
This terse encapsulation Ford’s alleged brand values comes courtesy of The Blue Oval’s perennially amusing crowdsourced marketing site, The Ford Story.
What’s that you say? Chrysler’s planning on spending $170 per projected vehicle sale on advertising next year? That could be as much as $1.4b! Well, we can’t give the Journey a prize for obvious reasons, but they do have a new Ram out this year… Truck Of The Year it is!
If you haven’t been following the drama surrounding the effort to restore dealers culled during GM and Chrysler’s bankruptcy, you might need to be brought up to speed. In essence both the cut dealers and the automakers have agreed to send create an arbitration process by which dealers could have the decision to cut their franchise reviewed by a neutral third party. The remaining conflict is over the criteria arbitrators should use to judge dealer viability, as the GM and Chrysler proposition would have forced arbitrators to use the same criteria GM and Chrysler did in the initial cuts. That would obviously have yielded the same results as the initial cull, so the dealers pushed for a set of criteria that is more favorable to their interests. Automotive News [sub] reports that a compromise has been reached in conference committee that would allow dealers to present “any relevant information” to make their case. That bill is now been approved by the House [sub] and is headed to the Senate, where its passage is “virtually assured.” But despite having all but guaranteed an independent review, culled dealers still aren’t happy.
Well, we’ve been here before… about this time last year, to be exact. The Freep reports that Chrysler, which had to quit leasing for much of last year due to falling resale values and the credit crunch, is reinstating subsidized leasing for its 26,000 qualifying retirees. Under the terms of the plan, retirees could lease up to two 2010 Chrysler, Dodge or Jeep products with no down payment and free scheduled maintenance. The 36-month leases run from December 9 through June 30, 2010. According to the Freep, retirees will pay $100 per month less on average than Chrysler employees who have access to two-year leases. GMAC, which is financing the leases, is set to receive another government bailout of “less than” $5.6b on top of the $13.5b it has already received from the TARP program.
Yes, the world is officially crazy enough for Siemens and Ruf to consider building an electric Cayenne. Er, excuse me, eRuf Stormster. Range is about 110 miles, but the top speed is only 92 mph, presumably to prevent unseemly snickering at the prospect of running out of power after an hour of spirited driving. Let’s be fair about this: if the Stormster ever made it to production it should be good for about 90 minutes of “enthusiast” range to go with its nine second zero-to-60 time. Jerks.
To qualify for Japan’s cash-for-clunker program, new vehicles must meet the 2010 fuel economy standard of 35.5 mpg, making 87 percent of Japanese-made vehicles on sale in their home market eligible for the credit of up to $2,800. In fact, the Japanese program doesn’t even require a clunker (MY 1996 or older) to trade in, although without giving up an inefficient vehicle, the best credit available is a mere $1,132. But the American Automotive Policy Council calls these rules “unfair,” telling the Freep:
We urge the U.S. government to make clear that it cannot tolerate this outright discrimination, particularly at a time when it has provided substantial direct financial support for Japanese automakers in this market
Huh? Is the AAPC talking about America’s cash-for-clunker program, which (like Japan’s) sent Honda and Toyota sales soaring? Or the $1.6b DOE “ATVML” loans that Nissan got, which were dwarfed by the same program’s generosity towards Ford? Or perhaps the $82b+ TARP bailout that… oh wait, that all went to Detroit. Ok, let’s forget about America’s “substantial direct financial support for Japanese automakers” for a second and figure out just how unfair this Japanese program is.
Zacks Investment Research reports that Ford will invest $500 million in Michigan for developing and building batteries for their hybrid and electric vehicles. In return, they have asked the Michigan government for a tax break between $85 to $120 million. Michigan haven’t confirmed whether they’ll give this tax break, which is handy because Ford have indicated that they will look elsewhere if the tax break isn’t given. This investment will create 1000 jobs. Each job will cost at least $85000? Shocking!
CSM Worldwide seems to think so, telling Automotive News [sub] that new compacts from Ford and Chevrolet are being pushed into the market to comply with increasing fuel-efficiency and CO2 emission standards. If gas prices stay steady, CSM’s VP for Forecasting, Michael Robinet says “extreme pressure to channel smaller vehicles in the market due to CAFE and emissions standards will raise incentives and lower profitability.” “It is very possible that U.S. automakers will not achieve their objectives of selling small cars at a profit,” adds CSM CEO Craig Cather. The crux of the argument is that CAFE ramp-ups to 35.5 MPG by 2016 create incentives for automakers to produce small cars without corresponding consumer demand. Luckily there’s a planned gas tax hike for that.
Motorists who receive minor parking or traffic tickets in Indianapolis, Indiana are being threatened with fines of up to $2500 if they attempt to take the ticket to court. A local attorney with the firm Roberts and Bishop was so outraged by what he saw in Marion County traffic court that he filed a class action suit yesterday seeking to have the practice banned as unconstitutional.
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