GM Total Confidence will turn GM’s sales around! Hopefully we’ll never use it because our residuals are improving! Corvettes are great but we have to focus on fuel efficient vehicles! Yes Virginia, there is a Buick-Pontiac-GMC strategy! These are just a few of the ripping one-liners that make this April Fools interview with GM’s Mark LaNeve the funniest video on the internet. Newly-minted C&D editor Eddie Alterman plays a terrific straight man to LaNeve’s Jack Nicholson-meets-Baghdad Bob persona, asking those “just serious enough” questions with hilariously believable faux-interest. Great protection on the back end? Did someone just say bankruptcy? No? Good. Carry on, then.

The Montana state Senate yesterday gave preliminary approval to House Bill 351: legislation that would ban the installation of red light cameras. The Senate voted 37 – 13 in support of the bill, which faces one more vote before the modified legislation heads back to the state House for consent. The state House originally approved a total ban on red light cameras by a 65-35 margin (view bill). State Senator John Brueggeman (R-Polson) changed the House text to water down the bill with a special exemption for Bozeman, Darby and any other city that inks a contract with a private contractor to run a ticketing program in return for a cut of the profit before the legislation becomes law.

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Yes, it’s a palindrome. No, it’s not my favorite. (Do geese see God?) But as a history buff—as in that’ll buff right out—I’ve always considered this palindrome something of a prose poem. The Panama Canal was certainly not the vision of one man. In 1534, Charles V of Spain contemplated a man-made waterway between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. In 1880, after completing the Suez Canal, French Vicomte Ferdinand de Lessepss rose to the challenge. Nine years later, disease (amongst other things) put paid to the entire engineering endeavor. American President Theodore Roosevelt picked-up the cudgel. Crucially, the plan in question eventually changed from a sea level passage to a system of dams and locks. The Canal opened on August 15, 1914. As for Panama, it received control of the Canal in 1977. So what does this tell us about the U.S. car industry? The simplest ideas may be the greatest, but all great ideas take time; and time is money. What’s so great about rebuilding GM, and do we really have the time to do it?

The racing biz has been trying to go green for nearly a decade now, realizing that sheer horsepower and derring-do don’t conform to the temper of the times. The new mantra: race on Sunday, save the planet on Monday (after breakfast on my yacht). So the idea of a one-make Tesla Roadster race series makes perfect sense: from a political point of view. As Tesla never met a trail balloon it couldn’t inflate with hot air, it’s no surprise that Tesla communictions manager Rachel Konrad gave the [we swear it’s not an April fool’s] idea her tacit support. “The Roadster’s acceleration certainly makes it competitive against other premium sports cars, so it’s not surprising that some customers are interested in competitions.” Yes, well, as Pistonheads points out, racing Roadsters would require a bit more development work. “However, there may be a few barriers to this new form of ‘green motorsport’. Continual hard driving may force the Tesla’s motor to overheat, causing a loss of power that wouldn’t make for very exciting racing. Races would also have to be kept to short sprint events, as a Le Mans-style 24-hour race would no doubt be made up of more battery charging than racing.” Oh, sure, NOW they piss on them . . .

Welcome, folks! This evening we have two lightweights vying for the price crown of an adoring public auction crowd here in Red Top, Georgia. In the domestic corner weighing in at 2,363 pounds, from General Motors, please give a thunderous round of applause to the 2007 Chevrolet Aveo 5 Special Value Hatchback. For this prize fight the Aveo has been equipped with the absolute basics. 5-speed, no A/C, power nothing . . . but . . . it does come equipped with a really nice CD player and a rather attractive silver exterior trim free of dings and dents. 40,000 miles. Her opponent?

From Honda of Japan, weighing in at 2178 pounds, give a nice warm welcome to a pristine 1992 Honda Civic VX with 152,000 miles. No rips or tears. Beautiful exterior graphic design. Cold air, Honda factory tape player, and aluminum wheels small enough to fit on a scooter. So which one sold for more . . . and how much? Okay, ladies and gentlemen. Make your bets (guesses) now.

In their recent Determination of Viability Summary, The Presidential Task Force on Automobiles (PTFOA) dissed, dissected and dismissed GM’s last next big thing. Not to put too fine a point on it, they called the plug-in gas/electric Chevrolet Volt a misbegotten turkey. The words fell with a thud over at the Volt fanboy site, gm-volt.com. Publisher Lyle Dennis picked up the battery powered cellphone. The Boy Wonder (secret identity: GM spokesperson Greg Martin) answered. “As the White House has said, they do not intend to run a car company, much less make product decisions. They recognize the Volt for the game changer it is. And, yes, no kidding, that costs money up front. But this is a long term play for us. Not to fear, the Volt is safe.” “Put the Batman on the god damn phone,” Commissioner Lyle replied. “Thanks for your concern,” The Caped Crusader (secret identity: Bob Lutz) assured. “Volt will survive and prosper. We know the numbers better than the Government … we furnished them! First-generation technology is expensive, but you can’t have a second generation without a first generation. Common sense and intelligence will prevail, here!” Holy truer words were never spoken, Batman!

Honda announced March 31 that it would cut production in North American by 204,000 units, aiming their yearly output at 1.25 million. For the first time ever, Honda is also slashing salaries. Hourly employees and executives all the way to the top get a trim; and bonuses get bounced. Honda’s US sales dipped 7.9% in 2008 (compared to 2007) but the American market overall fell 18%. Honda wasn’t in terrible shape and seemed to have a good product mix. Then the first quarter spreadsheets began to fill in—a 33% drop in sales is a plunge of a different color. Carving will take place at all North American facilities.

Not everyone can weather an economic downturn with the grace of, say, a Ferrari. Even with Wall Street bonuses under fire from DC, The Scuderia’s North American boss tells Wall Street Journal that “our customer base is not mainly those people. Our people have serious money.” No, really. Giant, heaping piles of it. Which is nice for them, but we’re not all in that boat, ne’est-ce pas? For the “less insulated” portions of the economy struggling to make payments on our less “investment grade” vehicular assets, the new economy is here to make things more efficient. For the people to whom you owe money. The Journal explores the rise of vehicle disablers, small satelite-linked devices with which your loan holder can “turn off” your vehicle when you miss a payment. The logic goes that people miss fewer cell phone bills if they know they will instantly lose service. And if it comes to reposession, satellite tracking makes the job easier and less expensive. Some customers complain that the ever-present reminder of their indebtedness is unwelcome, but lenders and dealers are finding them harder to resist every day.

No, they’re not brushing off the old 1907 plans, so Zap’s Xebra won’t be the target competition. Financial Times reports that the reborn EV firm has moved on from its Zap Alias escapade (due, uh, now to quote RF) “to buddy up” with Malaysian OEM giant Proton. The cunning plan? Sell Protons with DE’s drivetrain, for cheap and cheerful “real car” EVs. “We believe in an affordable, practical, everyday electric car,” says Detroit Electric’s (it’s so hard to type that without scare quotes) Albert Lam. “It’s not a high-end vehicle we are targeting or a short-range city car.” The one wacky part of this otherwise seemingly sensible plan? They plan to sell them in the US.

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Ousted GM CEO Rick Wagoner is being posthumously hoisted onto a cross by Michigan’s Governor Granholm and the Detroit News, which is running a piece today entitled “GM Workers Upset That Wagoner Became Sacrificial Lamb.” Huh? Better him than them, right? “Here we got past all the bad media, all that fury during congressional hearings, and now they want him to resign,” says UAW Local 599 (Flint) Chair, Terry Everman. “It’s really a setback, because you don’t know what new direction GM will take.” And it’s not just the uncertainty that has workers in a kerfuffle over the Wagoner pink slip. “It just didn’t seem appropriate for the administration, rather than the board, to dictate,” says OnStar Manager, Bryan Bateman. “I think Rick was a sacrificial lamb in all this. I think he took one for the company.” Except that Red Ink Rick should have been dumped years ago, and the irresponsible board members that kept him around have been canned by Obama as well. Oh, yeah, and GM turned its fate over to the feds the second it took public bailout money. But, hey, one man’s sacrificial lamb is another man’s tasty entrée. To (you guessed it) more government intervention on behalf of the General. Of course.

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GM is still trying to bean count their way out of this mess. But, thankfully, they’re using better quality beans. The powers that be (or were in this case) have designed a new program that affords customers the opportunity to once again become conspicuous consumers of GM products. Two of these items are old hat. The 5-year/100,000-mile warranty is now, get this, a 5-year/100,000-mile warranty. Did we mention GM has a rather large PR department? You also can get one year of OnStar which, again, isn’t newsworthy. But there are a couple of interesting additions designed to minimize the “fear factor” of making a dumb car buying decision.

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Delphi is the former GM parts division. It had been spun off, only to go into bankruptcy not much later. Delphi also was amongst the first to embark on an aggressive “source in China” policy. Large chunks of Delphi’s production were moved to China. Large chunks of Made-in-America cars were actually Made-in-China. Now, China buys large chunks of Delphi. Possibly all of it.

According to the Freep, two Chinese companies and the Beijing government banded together to buy Delphi Corp.’s brakes and suspension business. The Chinese auto supplier Tempo Group will acquire a 24 percent stake, China’s Capital Iron & Steel Co. will purchase a 51 percent stake, and the Beijing government will own the remaining 25 percent. They will form a new Chinese company called Beijing West Industries Co. Ltd., based in Beijing. Delphi needs the money:
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