GM has released pictures of the new Chevrolet Outlook Traverse, set to start production this fall. In a press release, Chevy GM Ed Peper dismissed charges that Chevy's take on the Lambda platform should have been the first out of the box, rather than the last. (Never mind the only.) "We think the Traverse is the right vehicle at the right time." The new-ish CUV features styling cues "inspired by the acclaimed '08 Chevy Malibu." It comes in three trim levels (cheap, not so cheap and livable) and FWD or AWD variations. Chevy's offering a full complement of "amenities" to "enhance the driving experience for the driver and passengers alike" (how passengers could have an enhanced "driving experience" is a question left unanswered). The important thing is this: "the Traverse is following the formula that is bringing Chevy back to a new generation of consumers – great styling, loads of class-leading features and tremendous value." That's one way to describe a badge-engineered Chevy that will cannibalize sales from GM's other divisions. If the Saturn Outlook was doomed before, it's doomederer now. And the final indignity? The Traverse will hail from Saturn's Spring Hill factory, where the "different kind of car company was born."  

You'd think GM would have enough greens on its proverbial plate, what with its lackluster hybrid sales, the prospect of more lackluster hybrid sales (anyone fancy a two-mode two-ton hybrid SUV?) and the problem of inventing batteries for a plug-in hybrid that's due on the showroom floor in three years. But no; the automaker was into hydrogen fuel cells when hydrogen fuel cells were hot (cold?). So here we are with a fleet of 100 hydrogen fuel cell-equipped Chevrolet Equinox. Might as well gets some PR for the things. And USA Today is happy to play along, 'cause you know it could be the next Next Big Thing. "GM is working as hard and fast as we can for competitive reasons, rather than as pure research on a promising technology." This according to Larry Burns, GM vice president in charge of research and development. Never mind the fact that there isn't a hydrogen infrastructure to support these vehicles (or enough vehicles to support the hydrogen infrastructure). The race is on! Meanwhile, maybe GM should try to do something with the gas-powered Equinox to make it more competitive. No? Alright then. Let's plan on fitting the new Volt with hydrogen fuel cells and leasing customers the expensive power pack, you know, eventually. Sounds like a plan to me!

Well duh. More importantly, why is Michelle Maynard over at The New York Times publicly humiliating Chrysler's CEO for his non-car guyitude? That debate is so last August. OK, so Nardelli made some Home Depot-esque gaffes during his speech to the Magazine Publishers of America conference. Such as “I think a vehicle today has to be your most favorite room under your roof. I really believe that. I mean, it has to bring you gratification, it has to be tranquil. It’s incidental that it gets you from Point A to B, right?” Well no, obviously. But we get the distinct impression that Maynard was, well, picking on Bob. "'An automobile also needs “cup holders — some for water and some for…,' Mr. Nardelli said, but he did not finish that thought." Is the Old Gray Lady (the paper, not Maynard) seriously suggesting that the Chrysler CEO's inability to name any other beverage suitable for a cupholder indicates a lack of pistonhead credentials? The article gives Nardelli's PR handler enough rope to hang himself the last word.  "It’s his own spin on it,” Mr. Aberlich said. “It’s good to have that fresh perspective, and he’s bringing that.” Fair enough?

Hot on the heels of its 2006 TTAC Ten Worst Autos award, and its position as a 2007 finalist for the same, comes news that the Subaru Tribeca has scooped another major nod: Best Resale Value in the crossover segment. A Subaru press release on PRNewswire announces the Tribeca's glorification by Automotive Lease Guide (ALG). ALG says their gong is "derived after careful study of segment competition, historical vehicle performance and industry trends." It shows that "compelling design, high quality manufacturing, disciplined pricing and volume programs" lead to high residual value. The fact that Tribecas coming off lease don't have to compete with a flood of fleet units being dumped into the used car market has a lot more to do with the high residuals than "compelling design" (unless they're talking about Tribeca observers' compulsion to avert their gaze). The press release concludes by listing other awards the Tribeca has received, such as high crash test ratings and some award for interior design. Their tally totally ignores the honor TTAC readers bestowed on Ye Olde "Flying V" last year. Go figure.

The Chairman of the National Automobile Dealers Association (NADA) doesn't believe "overdealering" should take the rap for Detroit's woes. In an editorial posted on NADA.org and published without comment in Automotive News, Dale Wiley attempts to refute a Detroit Free Press article claiming that a glut of franchisees costs The Big 2.8 some $4b a year. [NB: The article in question has mysteriously disappeared from the newspaper's website.] Rather than address the big picture, Wiley (both by name and by nature) hones-in on the Freep's assertion that the Bigs pick-up the cost of sending vehicles to dealer parking lots. Nit picked and any discussion of actual dealer numbers ignored (GM has some 7100 U.S. dealers while Toyota somehow "makes do" with about 1600), Wiley poses the "real" question. "Will the Detroit 3 will drastically lose market share if they drastically reduce the number of their dealers?" Good question, even if it mistakes cause for effect. Shame the NADA boss doesn't answer it. But we do learn that "research at GM found that a dealership only needs to sell 10 new vehicles a year to pay for the cost of supporting that dealership." Huh? Anyway, here's Wiley's bottom line: "Anti-trust laws impose restrictions on trade associations advocating actions that would reduce competition, so it is inappropriate for NADA to take sides in the debate over dealer numbers." Wink, wink.

As Ford prepares to jettison Volvo, it's worth noting what could have been. While Volvo's mindspace is mostly occupied by boxy wagons that you can't kill with neglect, road salt or repeated blows with a ball peen hammer, it's important to remember there was brief shining moment when Volvo was drop-dead sexy. I speak here of one model and one model only: the P1800. Wikipedia has plenty of rivet-counting revelations on this certified classic, but the bottom line is that Simon Templar's steed turned out to be an evolutionary dead end (along with an equally doomed and thoroughly hideous mutation called the P1800 ES). Perhaps someone at Ford thought they could add a little P1800 back into the Volvo mix when the company scarfed the Swedes back in '98. Or did they really think Volvo's preppy design language could morph from middle class stolidity to upmarket aphrodisiac? In any case, Irv Gordon bought a P1800 back in the day, piled on the miles and found himself a G-list celebrity in the process. Now that he's retired, Irv's got time to explore the possibilities of his hard-won status. Will someone get this guy an agent? If only "Broadway" Danny Rose was real.  

There's something reassuring about talking to employees who work for a really large company. You can almost hear a well-stocked 401k plan in their voice. Now I'm not saying that Ford suffers from the kind of complacency that brought it to the brink in the first (second?) place. But it is certainly true that group think is the enemy of relative quality in all things. So I want to thank Ford for opening a dialogue with TTAC, which is, after all, a mighty hostile environment for an industry used to well-paid cheerleaders and toothless hacks. I invite Ford to continue on this openness arc and allow their employees to post on the Focus review and/or anything else that captures their attention. Of course, we're years away from that kind of non-spun honesty and PR-less transparency. But I'll say this: the first car company that fully embraces the internet in this way will have an enormous advantage over its competitors. And that's down to one simple reason: it will help them build better cars.

Even before I pronounced Ford’s “new” Focus a one-star car, FoMoCo PR had suggested a little tete-a-TTAC with one of their quality guys. Well fair enough. This website is always open to opposing or explanatory viewpoints– especially from the people who make the whips that fill our editorial crosshairs. And so it came to pass that Ford’s Manager of Global Quality Data Systems and I spent a little quality time talking about quality issues. As you might guess from his title, Mike Hardie is a combination data cruncher and messenger, rather than Ass Kicker General. But his dedication to his job is beyond reproach– even if some of the products under his purview aren’t. Part One below, with a special guest appearance by Anne Marie Gattari, Communications Manager for Manufacturing and quality.

The boys over at ToMoCo NA are not insensitive to the fact that their critics have seized on Consumer Reports' recent reliability downgrade as [alleged] evidence that they've lost their mechanical mojo. So Toyota's released a statement on the PR debacle that assures quality-minded pundits and punters that "we're taking measures every day to continue to sharpen quality and enhance customer satisfaction." Not exactly a major mea culpa, now is it? In fact, the missive is something of an FU to the company's critics, devoting the majority of its editorial space to reminding nay-sayers who's boss around here. "Toyota, Lexus and Scion models collectively led the industry with the greatest number of models, 17, ranked "Most Reliable" in this year's Consumer Reports Reliability Survey. With dozens of models from three dozen makes vying for a spot on the magazine's "Most Reliable" list, only 39 were chosen. Toyota, Lexus and Scion models accounted for 44 percent of the list. Toyota, Lexus and Scion earned three of the top six places among most reliable makes. Collectively they ranked third place in reliability among all automakers." Clearly, Toyota Motor Sales Executive Vice President is a 3/4 full kinda guy. "Over all, this survey reflects well on our products," Jim Lentz pronounced. Oh, the humility!

GM's sales are taking a beating in California, where an entire generation of drivers have grown up without once owning one of the General's vehicles. Few people know that the artist formerly known as the world's largest automaker has been communicating with children aged Kindergarten and up for years. The General's charm offensive comes via their education division, which provides free classroom curricula to civic-minded teachers. And anyone who thinks that GM's dragging its feet on green issues– at least in the PR sense– would do well to examine their latest lesson plan "The Energy Highway: Solutions Ahead." Although the words "global warming" are conspicuous by their absence, they're all about the CO2. Thanks to GM's partnership with The Weekly Reader, millions of kids will trace the domestic carmaker's proposed arc, from internal combustion engines to flex-fuel vehicles to "extended range" electric vehicles to hydrogen fuel cell vehicles. And that's OK because we'll use renewable energy sources to power the electric plants that create the hydrogen for the vehicles. Ta-da!  

It's true: TTAC panders to PR-meisters who use surveys to hook hacks into stories with only a peripheral link to the companies that sponsor them. And more than a few of these polls are about as scientific as astrology. Still, sometimes we can't help but share the bizarre-o info that nine out of ten spin doctors prescribe for their clients who chew gum. In this case, leasetrader.com— the e-Yenta of the leasing biz– claims they surveyed 2000 female customers/potential customers to discover that fold down rear seats are their most fave feature, car-wise. Then it's Bluetooth capability, MP3/iPod connectivity, automatic open/close hatchback and GPS technology. In an interview with TTAC (below), leasetrader.com's Vice President of Marketing Communications insists that women are crying out for somewhere to put their damn handbag (paraphrasing) and can't see the point of a sunroof (so to speak). In case you're wondering what this all means, John Sternal kinda promises he might poll men on the same topic eventually, although he reckons men's magazines auto coverage proves we're performance-minded oafs pistonheads. Ya think?

CNN Money is reporting that Toyota has dropped from first to fifth place in Consumer Reports' (CR) ranking of average predicted reliability for all models sold under a given brand after one year of ownership. ToMoCo now slots beneath Honda, Acura, Scion and Subaru. What's worse, CR no longer recommends V6 Camrys or V8 Tundra full-size pickups due to their poor reliability. And the hits keep happening. CR says the results are so rad/bad they're changing their "free ride" methodology. Before now, Consumer Reports would assume at least average reliability for Toyota's new cars, without waiting for owner survey data. From now on, the magazine will wait for a full year of reliability survey data before recommending a Toyota product. As it does with most other manufacturers. As it should have from the git-go. Meanwhile, of the domestics, only Buick made it into CR's top ten, although Ford and Mercury are climbing CR's brand reliability charts (to 13th and 11th respectively). Of the 39 cars rated "most reliable," the domestics scored just four nods. Of the 44 "least reliable" models, The Big 2.8 accounted for 20. And the biggest loser is… the Solstice, with 234 percent less reliability than CR's statistical average. Pontiac's once red-hot roadster just beat the Cadillac Escalade EXT for the bottom position. CR reckons the 'Slade is 220 percent less reliable than average. That doesn't sound good.

[TTAC data provider truedelta analyzes CR's methodology here.] 

When Cerberus rescued Daimler bought Chrysler, pundits predicted a radical reinvention. Oh well. But that hasn't stopped the irrepressible Jason Vines. Chrysler's Spinmeister's got another story to tell, and The Financial Times is happy to tell it: "Chrysler cuts a dash with speed and decisiveness." Aside from the six-hour resolution to the United Auto Workers' strikelet, "signs of the new urgency include a swift move to bring down swollen inventories of slow-selling models. Five plants were idled last week, and four will shut this week… According to Mr Press, the production cutback was sealed during a seven-minute conference call between Mr Nardelli and a Cerberus executive." (Did we tell you that phone call would be PR fodder?) Other than that, "Frank Klegon, head of product development, observes that Mr Nardelli 'lets me know what he thinks, a lot.'" And Steven Landry, head of North American sales, says “they want to fix things quick." The FT buries the real bombshell (as have we) for the end of the piece. Speaking at the National Automobile Dealers Association in Vegas, Chrysler CEO Bob Nardelli answered a dealer's questions about the possibility of Cerberus "spinning off" Chrysler bits and pieces. "While he did not exclude a future spin-off, he said Cerberus would wait at least until Chrysler is once again profitable." Huh.  

Automotive News [AN, sub] reports that the chairman of the National Automobile Dealers Association (NADA) has got religion. Dale Willey believes that the key to Detroit's future lies in building fuel efficient vehicles. Speaking to his not-so-ruthless, toothless pals at the Automotive Press Association, Willey cited a 37 percent annual increase in U.S. sales of hybrid vehicles as proof that The Big 2.8's survival depends on its ability to jump on the gas-miser bandwagon. Which is why his organization supports the proposed bill raising combined corporate average fuel economy standards for cars and light trucks to 32 to 35 mpg by 2022 (as opposed to the dreaded 35 by 2020 bill). At the same time, Willey called for more domestic product innovation, which has already led to "successful sales of such crossovers as the Buick Enclave and Ford Edge." FYI: When he's not the mouthpiece for 20k new-vehicle dealers operating 43k franchises, Willey runs a Buick, Pontiac, GMC and Cadillac dealership in Lawrence, Kansas.

The Level Field Institute was established by "retirees and families of GM, Ford, DaimlerChrysler [sic]; and the suppliers and dealers that support them." While they don't have a campus they do have a crusade: "promote U.S. jobs, R&D and infrastructure investment by offering clear comparisons of how various automakers contribute to the U.S. economy." In other words, lobby for The Big 2.8. True to their remit, they've created a handy-dandy campaign briefing kit for Democratic presidential hopefuls traveling to Michigan for today's not-so-big debate. The document may give savvy pols pause, as they contemplate Level Field's recommendations: "tackle health care" (nothing more specific is mooted but national health care is where they're at), "kick the tires on new trade agreements" (I think they mean kick the ass of our trading partners to open their markets to US goods) and "call upon our Asian trading partners to stop boosting their exports by manipulating their currencies" (kick 'em again for cheating). We'll be watching the Dems Detroit debate with baited breath. Or not.