Forbes, number one on the top ten list of top ten list purveyors, has published their list of “Ten Cars That Changed the World.” It contains vehicles “that were the first of their kind and that influenced the design and performance elements of the entire industry” and that have “staying power.” Or so they say. While some are no-brainer picks as history-changers (Ford Model T and VW Beetle), some are kind of strange (c’mon . . . the AMC Eagle?). And I know a few million Corvette fans who will dispute their statement that the Porsche  911 “has the longest production run of any sports car sold in the U.S.” Forbes‘ complete list is after the jump. Alternative suggestions welcome.
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China’s National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) is unhappy with Tengzhong buying Hummer. The agency “is likely to reject Sichuan Tengzhong’s bid to buy the Hummer brand from bankrupt General Motors Corp,” Chinese state radio said today according to Reuters. Chinese state radio, being Chinese state radio, usually doesn’t report stuff that runs contrary to Chinese government intentions.

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The Ventura County, California, Grand Jury on Monday slammed the city of Ventura for using a short yellow light cycle to trap motorists at at the intersection of California Street and Thompson Boulevard. The intersection’s red light camera snaps $1.5 million worth of tickets each year. Of the city’s eighteen automated ticketing machines, only the one located at that intersection consistently tops the charts. In just three months, Australia’s Redflex Traffic Systems red light camera installation issued 825 tickets worth $435 each, or a total of 9.3 tickets per day. In comparison, a camera located at Mills Road and Main Street only issued 49 tickets over the same period. When taking traffic volumes into account, that means the California and Thompson camera issued citations at a rate one hundred times greater than Mills and Main (9.3 tickets per 10,000 passing vehicles compared to a rate of 0.09). And now we know why.

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Or is that regulatory purgatory? Automotive News [sub] screams “Dealers decide who gets discounts,” confirming that America’s very own scrappage scheme is not going to be the quick eco-nomic (geddit?) stimulus the fans predicted. Of course, AN was getting a bit histrionic; the headline was just their wacky way of explaining that NADA is advising dealers to wait for regulations to publicly endorse the deal. The big news is the regulations. Now that the congressional pomp is over, the folks behind Government Motors are finding that the incentive game isn’t always easy. In fact, “It’s complex and not like anything we’ve ever run before,” admits the NHTSA’s Rae Tyson. “We’re starting from scratch.” What could possibly go wrong?

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We’ve said it before: both Chrysler and GM have been using GMAC as their “bag man”: withdrawing credit from dealers to kill them without messy political blowback. This despite the Small Business Administration’s new federal loan guarantee program for beleaguered car dealers. The Wall Street Journal reports that where the feds giveth, GMAC is still taking away. “GMAC LLC is suspending wholesale financing for certain Chrysler Group LLC dealers it considers to be too risky to lend to, GMAC and Chrysler confirmed Wednesday. The move could ultimately push more Chrysler dealers out of business and hurt the company’s ability to sell vehicles.” That last bit’s pretty funny—providing you’re not a Chrysler dealer. Anyway, the WSJ runs the numbers or at least tries . . .

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You may have been wondering—as I have—why Chrysler Ford and GM are restarting production, given that sales are down by over 30 percent. The answer’s buried in a recent report from notre amis a Credit Suisse. To wit: “Much has been made over the last several weeks about the production increase that should take place from Q2 to Q3. Indeed we expect output to increase more than 50% sequentially at the Big 3, and about 27% for the industry. But most of this is being driven by underbuild relative to demand in Q2, such that inventories should be below normal by June 30.” I know what you’re thinking: has it really come to the point where I understand/care about this kind of Inside Baseball stuff? If the answer is [a secret] yes, welcome [again] to TTAC’s The Best and Brightest! Which also means you’ll be interested in the rest of the report . . .

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Canada’s Derosiers Automotive Consultants had a think about the future of the North American new car market. You can read the results of their analysis here, for no money down, no money per month, for no months. To make a pretty pdf short, the Detroit Three still have “an inferior business model from most perspectives.” In fact, “[i]t is a huge leap of faith to believe that their strategy will work given historical precedent.” Uh-oh. “Unless the D-3 can turn around their market share losses then no amount of Government money can save all three of these companies. Best case is we end up with two Detroit based companies instead of three and there is a very real scenario where we end up with only one.” In other words, this could well be the most expensive game of musical chairs the Canadian and US government has ever played. OK, not ever. But in a long time.

The “hands off” Presidential Task Force on Automobiles has chosen Ed Whitacre Jr., formerly of Southwestern Bell, to become New GM’s New Chairman of the Board. The appointment is still go, despite Whitacre’s admission that “I know nothing about cars.” Anyone fearing for Whitacre’s ongoing ignorance of all things automotive can breathe a sigh of relief today, as the BOD jeffe told the San Antonio Business Journal that he has no intention of re-locating to Motown to oversee the men and women spending tens of billions of U.S. tax dollars to “reinvent” GM. “This is my city,” Whitacre told the local press. “I’m not moving.”

Yes, it’s triple VBW day at TTAC, thanks to Beth Lowery, GM Vice President, Environment, Energy & Safety Policy. Over at the Fastlane blog, Lowery is proving that the more things change at GM, the more things don’t change. She’s still talking about perception gaps. And here’s the spin re: the Volt’s financial sustainability. [BTW: Whatever happened to GMNext?]

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Can someone please straighten me out here? What is a Buick? I mean, what’s the point? I’m serious. I don’t get it. The brand’s manager, Susan Docherty, is no bloody help at all. “We’re working hard to change the perception of the brand and to let people know Buick may not be what they think it is,” Ms. Dohery pronounced in a recent web chat. May not be, but might? How do we parse the fact that the brand is sticking a four cylinder engine into its forthcoming sedan? Sure the Honda Accord has one. A mighty fine four pot, in fact. But how does this engine option square with Buick’s “entry level luxury” schtick? AutoWeek is forced to go for the historical angle. “The four-banger is thought to be the first in a Buick since the 1998 Skylark,” AW reports. “It’s from GM’s Ecotec family and makes 182 hp and 172 lb·ft of torque. It’s an inline setup and employs direct injection; look for it to get an estimated 20 mpg in the city and 30 mpg on the highway.” So who’s looking?

Ford had 1,683 suppliers last year. By the end of this year, that number will be down to 850. This is what Tony Brown, Ford’s group vice president of global purchasing, told reporters, one of them from Reuters. Ford is worried about disruptions by supplier bankruptcies, which are a daily occurrence. Triage time: Ford wants to shore up the healthier ones and leave the not so healthy by the wayside.
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The oil in the Honda Insight’s engine was overfilled by nearly half the length of the dipstick by the new car dealer. I was 40 miles away from there with a well deserved vacation on the horizon. So, I did what anyone in my neck of the woods would do and fixed the problem myself. Except the problem didn’t get fixed. It got worse. Boy, did it get worse.

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Will Chevrolet’s Volt ever be test-driven in range-extended mode? With pre-production underway, one hopes that the “we don’t want people to hear the engine turn on” excuse won’t be long for this world. Meanwhile, see if you can tell where in the podcast Farago and Niedermeyer switch into their own range-extended mode.

One of our Best and Brightest forwarded GM’s letter to the white collar workers targeted for elimination (by October), along with a pdf of the Retirement Package [download here]:

Dear U.S. Classified Salaried Employees:

On June 1, Fritz Henderson shared the company’s plans to reduce an additional 4,000 salaried employees from our U.S. workforce.  This news was particularly difficult to hear, considering we had just undergone a significant staffing reduction in May.  We can assure you that these organizational restructuring and reduction decisions were made after serious deliberation and necessitated by the unprecedented business realities facing GM.

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Robert,

Thank you for taking the time to speak with me today. Our website www.cashguzzlers.net has been following the story for months and of course we were concerned when our site was referenced along side of a website that looks like a phishing scam. Our website was created to provide information and clarity to consumers and also to help create a greater awareness of the program to sell more cars.

Your suggestions were very helpful because the goal of the website is to provide good information about the CARS program and to allow consumers to have the choice to have a local dealer contact them about buying a new car. We also have been answering hundreds of emails and calls for free to help consumers and also to help our automotive clients have a successful launch of this program. We are taking the following steps to ensure that the public is aware that our site is a consumer website and not a government website:

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