The Cash for Clunkers program is finishing its final weekend. By all accounts, the program has been a tremendous success, driving traffic back into tumbleweed-strewn showrooms, helping to cool the planet and reanimating idled automobile factories. Well, not by ALL accounts. The Wall Street Journal leaves no word unminced in its evisceration of the C.A.R.S. program: “The idea that a temporary subsidy program will launch the auto industry onto some new, higher sales and production plane defies logic.” As we shall see—or not—come September. Meanwhile, the media’s fixation with the NHTSA’s inability to send dealers rebate checks within a few weeks defies logic. For one thing, dealer ineptitude. For another, the NHTSA had three weeks to set up [what turned out to be] a $3 billion program. And lastly, it’s the federal government. What did anyone expect? Prediction: the dealers will get their money, the industry will gloat over August’s sales figures, and then it’ll be back to non-business as usual, until the housing market recovers. Whenever that is.
More details about the Volt’s charging system emerged at a GM FastLane livechat with charging equipment engineer Gery Kissel. Kissel reveals that the Volt will have 120V and 240V power chargers, but the 240V unit will be wall-mounted and hard-wired. Though the 240V charger will refill batteries much quicker (3.3 kW), it won’t be portable. Though the 120V will be able to plug into any outlet, it will charge more slowly (1.2 kW) and the cord will only be 20 feet long. Kissel said code required the cord to be under 25 feet or have some kind of management system to keep it off the ground. A retractable cord has been ruled out, and a decision hasn’t been made to allow the cord to lock to the vehicle while charging.
It’s a confusing world out there. Which is why TTAC makes frequent use of a “Whiskey Tango Foxtrot” category. Here’s an “exclusive” look at Purolator’s newest “Purism” ad, the latest in a series that begs the question “what are they trying to sell anyway?” Like the man’s metaphor though, sometimes a swing and a miss is more entertaining than, well, an actual advertisement.
There are two sides to the auto insurance business: the repair side and the insurance side, and for the industry to function the needs of both must be balanced. Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick is accused of upsetting that balance by replacing a long-standing member of Massachusetts’ Auto Damage Appraiser Licensing Board with an executive from Progressive insurance. Patrick responds to the accusations by arguing that Karen Mills’ replacement of Joseph Valarioti (owner of Central Auto Rebuilders) actually returns balance to the board.
TTAC commentator Holydonut shares some of his time with us:
I don’t know if you’ve tried out the Google Trends tool to see search and news activity on google.com for some auto-related searches. First: I just put in GM, Chevrolet, Chrysler, Toyota, and Nissan to see their trends [click here]. And another fun one . . . I compared searches of “gas prices” and “mpg” to some automaker names [click here]. I filtered the lists to show only USA region searches. Searching for “Ford” is misleading since the name is so common that you get several non-auto “Ford” topics all mashed together. If you go global, then Toyota and Honda become regular names of people, so it over-states the results as well. But for the selfish USA-only view, it seems mostly valid. Unfortunately this also means comparing a search for HUMMER versus Prius is invalid. The rankings themselves against each other aren’t very relevant, but the fun stuff lies in the change of the changes in the trend due to known events. Some interesting takeaways:
The Arlington County Board on Wednesday [above] filed suit against the Commonwealth of Virginia and the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) over the High Occupancy Toll (HOT) Lanes project proposed for Interstates 95 and 395. The Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) has been determined to sell the existing High Occupancy Vehicle (HOV) ride-sharing lanes to an Australian company in return for an up-front payment. Arlington officials claimed that in the rush to ram the project through the system, state and federal officials bypassed environmental laws. “I wish it did not have to come to this, but the County was left with no alternative,” Board Chairman Barbara A. Favola said in a statement. “We are encouraged that VDOT has elected to delay the project.”
The Detroit News can’t seem to decide. On the one hand, they say, “the White House next month will name its top auto adviser to oversee an effort to boost the sagging manufacturing sector.” On the other hand, they quote White House spokesfolks as saying, “Ron Bloom is doing a great job on the auto task force. There are no plans to shut down or repurpose the auto task force, and we expect Ron to continue to do a great job.” So what happened to rumors that the Presidential Task Force On Autos (PTFOA) will be gone by September? The DetN is too worked up about the bright future of US “manufacturing policy” to care. And with GM and Chrysler out of bankruptcy court, one has to assume that the focus will be shifting away from the auto industry. At least until the next bailout.
Dodge doesn’t compete in NASCAR to test new technology. Nor does NASCAR highlight fundamental attributes of Dodge vehicles the way, say, Subaru’s rally competition does. So why stick around when resources are so tight? “NASCAR fans love performance and Dodge fans love to win,” explains Michael Accavitti, Director of Dodge Brand and SRT Marketing at Chrysler Blog. “It’s always been a match made in heaven and we intend to remain involved in the NASCAR sport for the foreseeable future.”
I am seriously considering buying a Factory Five or Superperformance Cobra. I would like to know if there is any real downside to owning one (lots of maintenance, cramped foot area, etc). I noticed one seller said “if you are over 5′9″ do not buy this car.” Somewhere else I read “some models are 4″ longer to accomodate taller drivers.” Is that really a factor to consider at 5′10″?
The board of GM convened on Friday to finally decide Opel’s fate. The board did as expected: It did nothing. They left everybody hanging. The board decided to not decide anything.
According to Reuters, the GM board desperately needs critical information from the German government. To wit: What state financing would be available if GM would sell Opel to their darling RHJ International, and not to Magna, which is favored by Germany.
Excuse us?
Do we have a serious case of highly contagious ADD, which has befallen the complete GM board? We thought it had been made perfectly clear: Read More >
Women are responsible for an increasing number of drunk-driving arrests, according to data released today by the NHTSA. FBI statistics (PDF) show that DUI arrests of men fell 7.5 percent between 1998 and 2007, while the arrest rate for women climbed by nearly 29 percent in the same period. In absolute terms though, men still drink and drive far more: 626,371 DUI arrests of men were made in 2007, compared to 162,493 for women. According to NHTSA’s new Alcohol Impaired Drivers Involved In Fatal Crashes study (PDF) though, state-by-state analysis confirms that women are working towards evening the score.
Recent Comments