Renault’s low cost, made-in-Romania Dacia brand can’t believe its luck. In Germany, orders are upsixfold says the Financial Times Deutschland. Due to demand stoked by the Euro 2,500.00 clunker car program, sales have taken off for low-cost cars. The newish, normal-looking Dacia Sandero usually sells around 80 units per week. Suddenly, they’re moving 1k. Unfortunately, Dacia lowered production at its Romanian plant weeks ago, in expectation of collapsing Russian and Eastern-European markets. The cars are so sold out—to the point where Dacia is buying cars off the Russian market to satisfy German demand. Dealers are rubbing hands and hiring helpers: a German dealer has students serving coffee to customers waiting in line to order cars.
It can be so hard to tell when the firm’s CEO is so notoriously at odds with reality. So let’s just say that we’re entering Elon Musk’s world, grains of salt available upon request. In fact, the news comes from a Musk email that Jason Calcanis has posted verbatim to his blog (cross posted at Tesla Motors). The main point of the email seems to be to convince the reader that Tesla isn’t about to disappear with the credit market, citing a deal with Daimler to electrify the Smart, a $40m investment round and the near sellout of all 2009 Roadsters. Even better, if you lay out $100k for a Roadster now, you might just have a new cashflow opportunity to get you through the hard times. “Due to our order backlog, it seems that owning a Roadster can be a good investment,” writes Musk. “Last September, as the financial and real estate markets began crashing, a Roadster was sold at the Sonoma Paradiso in California wine country for $160,000, well above the current list price of $109,000.” And if you buy that, I’ve got some mortgage-backed structured invesment vehicles that you might be interested in. But the big news is that Tesla may or may not get funding from the biggest sucker of them all: the US Federal Government. Or not. (Hat Tip: minion444)
Hey, Robert, since you’re posting stupid window stickers, here’s one from a Chrysler dearler near me barely on life support (aren’t they all). 3 months ago they had 42 Crossfires with this additional mark up sticker. There are still 39 there.
On February 13, 2004, two families in separate vehicles were driving at the “Four Corners” intersection of Highways 14, 34 and 63. These roads merge together on a sharp curve in a blind crossing without a stop or yield sign. The two cars collided nearly head-on, taking the lives of three and severely injuring four others. The surviving family members sued Darren Griese, in his official capacity as South Dakota Department of Transportation (DOT) Pierre Region Traffic Engineer. On Wednesday, the South Dakota Supreme Court issued a ruling absolving the state from any liability in cases where it fails to warn motorists about roadways with an inherently dangerous design. Read More >
There’s little debate that the Corvette is one of the things GM does do right. As in really right. But does this mean that the program deserves the resources for new concepts like this Stingray? Or does it mean that the money would be better spent working on mass-market offerings, where the track record is not so good? It’s your money (if you pay taxes); you decide!
Why did Chief BMW Designer Chris “Flame Broiled” Bangle introduce this vehicle to the world? His successor, Adrian van Hooydonk, was responsible for its genesis (in the non-Hyundai sense of the word). At the unveiling, the outgoing design meister said Mr. Hooptie was in The Big Apple on Bimmer business. In any case, what a waste of time. (Not to mention money, as the industry is currently so awash in the stuff.) That said, it was nice to hear Mr. Bangle tell the assembled 3D-glasses wearing throngs that they looked “cute” in a 1950’s Life magazine cover photo sort of way. And I was intrigued to discover this four-door career coupe de grace offers more rear headroom than an X5. Will this, uh, thing ever make production? Do you care?
Paraphrasing, of course. Somehow I don’t think Thomas Donohue has been tapping into urbandictionary.com to burnish his street cred. Which is a shame, really. ’Cuz American slang is one of this country’s best, fully domestically-produced products and an extremely popular export. Unlike “domestic” automobiles which are, when you look at it, not so domestic after all, eh Mr. Bond? The Big 2.8’s foreign production and foreign-sourced parts are a DLS—but not to Uncle Tom. The Detroit News reports that the head of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce knows what’s what. “The domestic auto industry is not a domestic auto industry at all. If you went from bumper to bumper, you would find parts made from all over the world.” True dat. And Tommy’s crew is working furiously to make sure there aren’t any “buy American” provisions in the “stimulus package” (a terrific euphemism for . . . something). “We’ve got 30 lobbyists trying to keep an eye on that language,” Donny declaimed, assuring the Detroit Economic Club that he wasn’t fornicating Fido. Now, how are those guys going to Land it in the Hudson?
Surprised? Neither are we. From the moment Chrysler execs mooted a Nissan hook-up—a moment born of Congress-appeasing desperation—we heard rumblings that it wasn’t gonna happen dot autoextremist. Our sources in The Volunteer State volunteered the information that nothing was happening, Nissan-wise. Again, no surprise. If the Nissan will build us a competitive car (’cause we don’t have a fucking clue, mate) and we’ll sell ’em Rams to rebadge as Titans deal was going down, Chrysler wouldn’t have floated il madre of trial balloons known as the great FIAT giveaway. Still, as any good Catholic automaker knows, confirmation is a big moment in a bogus story’s life. Although they were happy to repeat the propaganda without question at the time, Reuters rocks!
Why wouldn’t the classic car market crash? Not only are the bonus boys getting bounced, but swanning around in multi-million dollar cars is just not done in these turbulent times. And even if it is, the temper of the times still calls for restraint re: purchasing four-wheeled frippery without which even the wealthiest amongst us can survive. The weird thing here is how long it’s taking the MSM and even the specialist press to acknowledge and declare the collapse of the collector-car market. It’s almost as if they’re in cahoots with the people promoting and selling the vehicles, along the lines of those real estate magazines whose articles are as thin as the “there’s never been a better time to buy” logic contained within. Reality checking is a tough job, but someone’s got to do it . . .
In theory, the Oldsmobile Aurora started something great for the GM’s Rocket division. In reality, the car that re-invigorated this brand died by the system that created it. Though Oldsmobile saw the writing on the wall, they didn’t go down without a fight. As the first TV spot proclaimed, “See what happens when you demand better?”
An overview of what happened in other parts of the world while you were in bed. TTAC provides round-the-clock coverage of everything that has wheels. Or has its wheels coming off. WAS is being filed from Beijing until further notice.
European Carmageddon: “What, me worry?” Europe experienced the full brunt of carmageddon in January. Europeans bought 27 percent fewer cars in January than in the same month of the prior year. Only 958,500 cars hit Europe’s highways and myways, Das Autohaus reports. The German industry group VDA expects the trend to continue. Relatively benign losses were recorded in France (down 8 percent) and Germany (down 14 percent). The European basket cases are Spain (down 42 percent), Italy (down 33 percent) and UK (down 31 percent). Romania lost half of its new car sales.
Share or retire: Toyota will introduce work-sharing arrangements at assembly plants in the US and Britain in an effort to retain jobs after sharp production cuts at these facilities, the Nikkei [sub] writes. The move is expected to involve US factories in Indiana and Texas, which roll out large vehicles, as well as plants in the UK, including a facility that assembles midsize cars and subcompacts in the county of Derbyshire. Toyota plans to propose the work-sharing arrangements to workers at these facilities by the end of the month. Those that do not accept will be allowed to apply for early retirement. Read More >
With the third deadline for Detroit’s viability plans rapidly approaching, President Obama needs something, anything, to work with. “My goal, consistently has been to offer serious help once a plan is in place that ensures long-term viability and that we’re not just kicking the can down the road,” Obama tells Reuters. “What the nature of what that help ends up looking like, I think is going to depend on the plan.” And at first blush, Detroit’s task appears to be an easy one: tell the President what you need to survive and he’ll give it to you. But there’s a catch. “If a plan is presented to us premised on 20 million sales when we just know that’s not going to happen, then we’re going to have to ask them to go back to the drawing board,” says Obama. Seriously though, isn’t a plan premised on 10m sales this year a bit overoptimistic?
It’s insane. Chrysler and GM’s executives run their companies into the ground, shedding billions of dollars worth of shareholder value, destroying tens of thousands of jobs, sucking-up taxpayer funds, and the public gets all bent out of shape about a couple of jet flights. Still, point taken. And TTAC can now reveal that two Pentastar chartered jets (a former Chrysler subsidiary) took off from Oakland County International Airport on the morning of December 2, two days before the hearings wherein Chrysler CEO Bob Nardelli appeared before Congress. (where all three Detroit auto execs made a big deal about driving to the hearing and arrived on the Hill in their company’s hybrid vehicles.) A Gulfstream G550 [aircraft pictured above], left at approximately 6 a.m. A Gulfstream IV [$5700 per hour], left at 8:45 a.m. Both planes flew to Teterboro Airport, NJ. Both planes were carrying Chrysler executives. We have reason to believe Chrysler CEO Bob Nardelli was on board one of the planes.
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