On the same day TTAC ran Martin Schwoerer’s review of the C1 ev’ie, comes word that the diminutive EV has been named the official rental car of the UN Climate Conference in Copenhagen. Apparently the auto rental firm Sixt ordered a bunch of the ev’ies, becoming the first car rental company with electric options. And of course, it just happened to make them available in Copenhagen in time for the conference, so delegates would have an alternative to the Climate Express. Sadly, none of the delegates were environmentally aware enough to arrive on electric airplanes.
“Susan is more than capable of doing the job,” said Mark LaNeve, a mentor of Ms. Docherty’s who left GM in October and is now CMO at Allstate. The position “is a very big job and it’s a lot easier when the market is good than when the market is bad.”
From AdAge‘s paean to GM Sales and Marketing Diva Susan Docherty. Of course, what AdAge fails to mention is that LaNeve was ousted after overseeing years of declining sales, a detail that casts his judgment on the topic severely into question. No worries though. AdAge enthuses that Docherty is
described by insiders and former co-workers as a smart, hard-charging and pragmatic leader who will push responsibility down the food chain and vigorously defend ad managers who work for her — while being a champion of creative and holding them accountable for their decisions.
Uh huh. Too bad the primary evidence for this is the fact that Docherty “vigorously defended” the Buick ad seen above from none other than GM’s Bob Lutz. A former colleague of Docherty’s describes that bold stand as “good for the creative side,” and GM CEO Ed Whitacre must agree, seeing as he recently stripped Bob Lutz of his marketing title and gave it to Docherty. When MaxBob sounds like the only sane person in the building and ousted deadwood execs are endorsing their replacements, you know it’s time to get scared.
A few days ago, TTAC reported that PSA and Mitsubishi were looking to forge closer ties with either a cross holding format, like Renault-Nissan, or by PSA taking a 30-50 percent stake in Mitsubishi. According to Bloomberg, analysts like Oppenheim’s Jens Schattner are ruling out equity acquisitions, saying the two firms should concentrate more on co-operation. “Peugeot doesn’t have the liquidity to take a major Mitsubishi stake in cash” he says, and he’s not the only one splashing cold water on the hook-up. Eric-Alain Michelis, an analyst at Societe Generale adds that PSA may have to issue new shares to pay for that stake in Mitsubishi they want, which will not please the Peugeot family as it will dilute their holding. Otherwise, “raising the finance would not be a walk in the park,” he reminds. Were PSA to issue shares to cover €1 billion of the $3.7billion needed for a 50% stake in Mitsubishi Motors, it would reduce the Peugeot family’s investment to 25%. Quelle horror!
The problem we have is, Congress wants to pass a very robust transportation bill in the neighborhood of $400 billion or $500 billion, and we know the highway trust fund is just deficient in its ability to fund those kinds of projects. The highway trust fund was substantial at one time but now with people driving less, and driving more fuel-efficient cars, it has become deficient. To index the federal fuel tax, that’s something Congress is going to have to decide. As we get into the reauthorization bill, the debate will be how we fund all the things we want to do. You can raise a lot of money with tolling. Another means of funding can be the infrastructural bank. You can sell bonds and set aside money for big projects, multibillion-dollar projects. Another way is (charging a fee to motorists for) vehicle miles traveled. The idea of indexing the taxes that are collected at the gas pump is something I believe Congress will debate. When the gas tax was raised in 1992 or 1993, in the Clinton administration, there was a big debate whether it should be indexed. At that time, they thought there’d be a sufficient amount of money collected. Now we know that isn’t the case. That is one way to keep up with the decline in driving, and more fuel-efficient cars.
The next-gen Cayenne gets caught without camo by Autoexpress. So, on a scale of zero to 16 million, just how spicy is the new peppery Porsche? Our equipment is rating it somewhere between “Pimento” and “Poblano.”
Asiaone Motoring reports that Toyota are now pushing forward on their constructions of plants in the United States and China which had previously been put on hold. It should come as no surprise that part of the reasoning behind this decision is to meet growing demand in China. More importantly, Toyota needs to protect itself from the strong yen, a consideration that now apparently outweighs weakness in the US market. The report says that Toyota is expected to invest and additional 100 billion yen (about $1.1b) to get these plants completed. Although these plants will increase capacity by 200,000 units, Toyota plan on halting production on lines in Japan and the UK, as the firm must still reduce capacity by 1 million units in order for this investment to work. Though the move is a clever one, it highlights the enormous pressure the world’s number one automaker finds itself under: overcapacity is bad enough, but when so much of its production is based in Japan, it deal with reduced production while paying for expansions in cheaper production zones. The upside? This plan could lead to US production of the Prius at the under-construction Mississippi plant sooner than expected.
In my editorial on GM’s plant to take on the Indian market in partnership with SAIC, I wrote that Maruti Suzuki’s monstrous market share indicated the possibilities for GM. Well, the Indian market leader isn’t going to just sit on that lead. In 2007, Osamu Suzuki said that his firm’s Indian passenger car market share would never drop below 50 percent, an assertion that took two years to prove untrue. The WSJ reports that although the overall Indian market will probably grow 16 percent this year, Maruti’s share of that market has fallen over the last year from 45 percent to about 40 percent (with passenger car share down from 55 percent to 48 percent).
I was watching the classic British gangster film “The Long Good Friday” the other day. For those not in the know, it’s a story about how Harold Shand, the kingpin gangster of London, struggles to keep his grip in the London underworld when the IRA try to muscle in on his patch. I won’t spoil it for you, but suffice to say, it isn’t pretty. Shortly after watching the film, I came across an article in the Wall Street Journal detailing yet another Toyota quality problem. From Floormatgate to the 110,000 Tundras which allegedly rust prematurely, to this most recent headline, “Corolla and Matrix face U.S safety probe,” there’s clearly something rotten in Toyota City. Much like the aforementioned Harold Shand, Toyota built an empire on the foundation of quality and reliability, but now, subsidence and rot are affecting that foundation. The question for the Best and Brightest is this: Are Toyota in danger of losing their crown of quality and reliability in the minds of consumers? Or are these recent cases statistical outliers that car buyers take for granted?
In a lengthy, wide-ranging interview with Automotive News [sub], Fiat/Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne got an awkward question from AN’s Luca Ciferri.
Your five-year plan forecasts that Chrysler’s operating margin will peak at 7 to 7.7 percent of revenues in 2014. In November 2006, you predicted that Fiat Group Automobiles’ operating margin would peak at 4.5 to 5.3 percent in 2010. How could Chrysler’s post-global recession peak profitability be 50 percent higher than Fiat Group’s pre-global recession assumptions?
We’ve always wondered what would happen with Volvo’s current Chinese joint venture with ChangAn once someone like Geely buys Volvo. Our Best & Brightest openly did “wonder how this’ll effect Changan which already makes Volvo’s in their JV.” Well, now we know why ChangAn is so sanguine. “ Geely said today that it is interested in buying Volvo’s China operations, if Geely is successful in buying Volvo from Ford, Gasgoo reports. Read More >
Red light cameras are shutting down temporarily and permanently in a pair of California cities. Santa Maria’s program has ended for good, thanks to camera vendor American Traffic Solutions (ATS). ATS inherited the Santa Maria account from bankrupt vendor Nestor Traffic Systems in September and has now decided to pull out of the city because it was not earning enough revenue. Read More >
Bård Eker, the Norwegian partner in Koenigsegg Automotive, and Koenigsegg Group, appeared as one of the guests on Friday night’s regular Swedish/Norwegian talk show “Skavland” this weekend (the following, translated conversation starts at 27:09). Mr Skavland, first talking a bit about Eker’s feelings about the broken deal, and how he felt visiting Trollhättan talking to Saab employees after the deal broke, he then asked Eker: “Is there a tiny chance you’ll try again? Saab isn’t sold yet…!” Eker smiles and answers “…we’ll see. Maybe!” laughing, shrugging his shoulders, audience cheering. Skavland: “how would you wanna do it?” Eker: “I don’t know…Seriously – we haven’t given it much thought. We’ll see…perhaps there’s a new opportunity. Maybe someone’ll give us a phonecall” Skavland: “So it’s not definitive that you’re out of the game?” Eker – laughing, glancing at his watch – “..err..how long is this show?” Skavland says: “So, you’ll still want a Saab?”, Eker: “yeah, sure” Skavland: “Alright….?” and shifts to another subject. All the while Eker has a cunning smile on his face.
As regularly mentioned on Piston Slap, the LS-X engines are the best in the world for their compact size, low weight, simplicity, reliability, cost and ability to make more power with simple bolt-ons. So I wanted to share my project to TTAC’s readers: we put a ’99 LS-1 and T56 into our BMW E30. Everything works, A/C, cruise control, etc. Seriously.
It’s a sleeper, except for the “357i” numbers on the trunk (nice of BMW to make a “735” that we could cut apart) and our “E30-LS1” license plate!! Only those ‘in the know’ get it.
We published a “How-To” CD, which documents how to build the E30-LS1. It contains pictures from the build, Catia drawings, wiring, fuel system, driveshaft mods, engine mounts, radiator system, A/C, HydroBoost, etc. I also have more pictures here.
Courtesy of GM-Volt.com, here’s GM’s first post-bankruptcy Volt jingle! And arguably a slight improvement over last May’s jingle. But if you think Big Ed Whitacre will stop all the song-and-dance frivolity, think again. “He will not try to run the programs,” Bob Lutz sneers at GM-Volt. “He knows almost nothing about the business. Nobody will diminish our focus on electrification.” As long as Whitacre kills the Volt-related musical development program, we’ll be happy.
From the Calculated Risk Blog comes this manifestation of the cash-for-clunker boom, as measured by Google’s auto buyer index. Because of seasonal downturn, it seems that pull-forward may not have been as devastating as was once thought. But will next January see the usual post-holiday recovery again?
Red light cameras are shutting down temporarily and permanently in a pair of California cities. Santa Maria’s program has ended for good, thanks to camera vendor American Traffic Solutions (ATS). ATS inherited the Santa Maria account from bankrupt vendor Nestor Traffic Systems in September and has now decided to pull out of the city because it was not earning enough revenue.
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