Just as GM is prepping a green themed “230” Volt hype campaign, comes word from Automotive News [sub] that green is so 2003. “For all the talk about green vehicles,” intones the industry rag, “blue is the new color of choice to embody clean driving.” Did you think that Mercedes BlueTec and VW/Audi’s “AdBlue” names came from the blue tint of their diesel-emissions-treating urea fluids? Nope. “The color blue is associated with freshness, dynamism and lightness,” say VW flacks. And according to Hans Tempel, president of Mercedes-Benz Japan, “Blue perfectly encapsulates the cool, clear sky of a world unsullied by greenhouse gases.” Gagging yet? The best eco-chromatic marketing analysis awaits post-jump.
Flagship? I thought Caddy was going to offer an Lexus ES competitor. Turns out the sub-CTS is now on hold until 2011, after the XTS range-topper. And now we learn that the XTS will share underpinnings with the front wheel-drive Buick LaCrosse. Apparently, the new Cadillac XTS will be wider than the LaCrosse and tuned for a more luxurious ride. Whatever. Caddy is so screwed. The new, woefully underpowered, gearbox-challenged SRX is so bad Car and Driver‘s John Phillips was forced to ask “What else can we say to put a brighter face on this?” Same story here.
Folks are a bit confused by these mysterious ads. The giveaway is the music, which reveals the spot to be part of the Volt campaign, but what is 230? It would seem that 230 could well be the Volt’s EPA MPG rating, a number which will be useful only to GM’s relentless hype campaign. After all, no single portion of the EPA test cycle is longer than 11 miles, meaning EREVs get their own testing method (summarized after the jump). But as Ad Age puts it, “why run a teaser campaign for a car that doesn’t go on sale until next year — and one that’s been known about for some time? After all, the marketer has been beating the drum for the car for more than a year.” Because that’s the Volt Way. Meanwhile, 230 MPG? Really?
This e-mail just came over the e-transom from one of TTAC’s Best and Brightest:
This just in. Some dealers are getting their first CARS [a.k.a. Cash for Clunker] reimbursement checks from the government. And they’re short. The checks. Not the bureaucrats. See, if the dealer who submitted a request OWES ANY FEDERAL BACK TAXES, THAT IS DEDUCTED FROM THE DEALER REIMBURSEMENT AMOUNT. Yep. If BillyBob Motors owes the government fifteen-hundred, the dealer gets a check from Obama Money Bags for, um, carry the five, three thousand. If BillyBob owes more than forty-five hundred in federal taxes, he gets back . . . nada.
UPDATE: DOT Spokesman Ray Tyson says the IRS “may” withhold money from Cash for Clunkers dealers’ payments should the dealer owe the federal government back taxes. I’ve heard from a dealer to whom this has happened. I have amended the text of the e-mail above and removed the “Wild Ass Rumor” designation.
How did we miss facesofgm.com? I mean, it’s not like they have four (five?) other websites offering the public a look down the nationalized rabbit hole. But now that we’ve found it, well, way-hey! Clearly, New GM is playing the babe card; all three “faces” are female. Mel Fox by name, Mel Fox by, uh, nature. Needless to say, “the world of Mel” has been carefully sanitized by GM’s spinmeisters. Not so much Mel’s personal blog: theworldofallthingsmel. Here we get the idea that maybe Volt battery engineer Mel’s got mixed feelings about GM. “so i find myself asking… what can i do about this? [the root of the problems that we face in our nation is the mindset of humans, and the way people in power work to manipulate others, and the way that those being manipulated enable themselves to be manipulated again and again] the other question i ask is, how much of my career needs to involve invoking change vs. believing that what i’m working on is “good?” my point here is that perhaps it’s via the time donated to affiliations and public offerings that real change can be fostered as i don’t see too much within corporate america that truly facilitates change (fundamental change, that is).” On the other hand, Mel’s met the enemy and it is us!
At some point, maybe even soon, gm.ebay.com will be up and running. For some reason, the GM – eBay program—highly touted by CEO Fritz Henderson on the day of GM’s re-emergence from bankruptcy—only runs from August 11 (tomorrow) through September 8. So we should expect to see the main site go live at what, midnight? Thankfully, at least in some sense of that word, chevrolet.ebay.com (and the Buick, GMC and Pontiac-related url) is go. Ish. “Our Best Cars. Your Best Offer” doesn’t sound right to me. Shouldn’t that be OUR best offer? And what’s with Pontiac inclusion in the boondoggle? Anyway, what will we see when the curtain goes up?
Her aquatic face. Her distorted contortions . . . a Kermit Green 1998 Ford Taurus Wagon was coming through the auction lane. She had been loved by at least three other mommies and no doubt had an affair with at least a half dozen mechanics. She was big. She was beautiful. And for $600 she was mine. Then I put down the beer . . . “What the hell am I doing!” When the Carmax auction was all said and done, I had bought three cars that were the equivalent of automotive leprosy. The Taurus wagon was one of them of course. But the clean interior and Duratec engine took the sting out of that lapse of reason. She also drove well on the forty mile journey through Atlanta rush-hour traffic. This fat lady could apparently sing. But the other two?
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals issued a ruling last Tuesday imposing restrictions on the ability of Indian tribes to use roadblocks to detain motorists who are not tribal members. The court examined the case of motorist Terry Bressi who was stopped at a checkpoint on the Tohono O’odham Reservation in Pima County, Arizona while traveling on State Route 86 on December 20, 2002. Tribal police, Border Patrol and Immigration and Naturalization Service agents manned the roadblock.
The taxpayer-funded Cash for Clunkers (a.k.a. C.A.R.S.) “free money” program has had its fifteen minutes of fame. When the taxpayer-funded giveaway ran out of money, the MSM went mental. Here, at least, is a stimulus program (a.k.a. bailout) that works! Now that Congress has re-upped to the tune of two billion, you can expect the story to retreat into the figurative shadows, leaving the bankruptcy-dumped domestic dealers’ media meme at least two media cycles behind. Ah, but the axed dealers are rich and reliant. They haven’t given their legislative fight to restore their franchises. Thankfully (for them), New Chrysler is giving the story a new hook: awarding new franchises in the exact same territories where they killed dealers. In other words, they “stole” the stores for their cronies. We’re talking140 “open points.”
I’ve never hid my contempt for run-flat tires. And for good reason. When testing a BMW 5-Series equipped with the technology, the driving experience was so bad I returned it to the dealer to try a car without the tough-as-nails (and then some), tram-lining donuts. Sure enough, the “normal” tires delivered infinitely superior, brand-faithful ride and handling. I also got caught-up in the Honda Odyssey – Michelin Pax class action debacle; I shelled-out huge money for two sets of tires so stiff they’d make French soufflé makers envious. Autoweek recently reported that run-flats are in retreat, accounting for less then one percent of the U.S. market. That’s one percent too many—and not just because of the expense or compromised driving dynamics. As this email from rspaight indicates:
It’s been a while since Ford had a halo car. The GT got the sighs of admiration but was more of a monument to Ford’s past than to its present. If nothing else, the F-150 Raptor gives Ford trucks a Baja 1000-competitive glow (3rd place in Class 8, “race prepped”). Besides, it actually attracts paying customers. Like . . . the government! “Multiple sources reveal” to pickuptrucks.com that the US Border Patrol is considering the purchase of “at least 10” of the $38K base trucks. The one catch is that Border Patrol wants “work truck” interiors instead of Ford’s standard “class leading” finery. Can’t you see Howie Long rolling his eyes about that one? But hey, Ram and Silverado are both built in Mexico (among other places), so at least the Raptor is the least irony-charged full-sized border guard truck. Still, is “the immigration issue” as easily solved as a factory offroad special?
“We were too optimistic on timing. Maybe what we should have done was not bought it.”
Cerberus Capital honcho Steve Feinberg in a New York Times takedown on his private equity bid to turn Chrysler around. Ya think? So where did The Old New Chrysler go wrong? Was it simply “one of the investments made at the very top of the credit bubble,” as a Harvard Business School professor puts it? Or was it that “Cerberus did not have a clue about the automotive industry,” as a former Chrysler employee claims? Or was Cerberus’s investment of $7.4 billion not enough in the first place? Probably all of the above, but whatever the correct diagnosis is, it’s lost on Feinberg. “I don’t know what we could have done differently,” he says. “From the day we bought it, we worked hard to improve it.”
Barron’s [sub] lobs Ford CEO Alan Mulally enough underhand pitches to sink the Yankees, and then offers this strangely incomplete and mislabeled guide to future FoMoCo products. The most convincing part of Big Al’s spiel: cutting costs. Before reading this excerpt [after the jump] from the Q&A, ask yourself this: are these the cars that America wants? Does the Ford brand, and its marketing mavens, have enough oomph to go the distance? Stay tuned . . .
“Life’s too short to buy the same car twice,” I always say. As the owner of a 2002 Mustang, I figured it would be my last example of the stallion. It’s not that I dislike the car, but I still haven’t checked “German” off my automotive ownership list and I’m dying to do it soon. When I showed up to the rental counter and was presented with the choice of a base Grand Caravan and a spanking new Mustang GT with the much-publicized interior upgrades, I didn’t need to blink twice. Minutes later, Montreal was fading in the background. So how did the GT fare in forcing me to re-assess my edict? The truth is, the car delighted me in all the ways you’d expect.
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