Car enthusiasts are an odd bunch. They don’t understand why people buy “bland-mobiles” like Toyotas & Hondas, they can’t see why anyone would choose an automatic gearbox over a manuals, and they still can’t figure out why all cars aren’t RWD. For them, the smell of burning petrol (or oil, if you’re in Europe) combined with smouldering rubber, is somewhere between, a freshly baked apple pie and cooked bacon in the spectrum of heavenly smells. Well, there’s one other thing that car enthusiasts may have to combine with those smells, the hum of an electric motor… and it might just mean the end of their sweeping disdain for anything with the word “hybrid” in its name.
Just in time for Truck Thursday at TTAC comes this hot bit of scuttlebut from Jalopnik: Hyundai might be developing a “highly-capable off-roader.” El Jalop cornered Hyundai USA boss John Krafcik at the Detroit Auto Show and asked him what his development boffins were up to. Krafcik’s cryptic answer is the seed of today’s WAROTD:
“every time our designers get together and start looking at concepts and the future, the first thing that comes out of those meetings — what everyone gets excited about — is the prospect of a Bronco-like, highly-capable off-roader.” As a follow-up on that answer, I asked if he meant a Wrangler-fighter. He answered only by smiling and repeating himself — “highly-capable.”
More capable than a Tucson? Seriously though, it will be a dogs age before Chrysler has the cash to update its bloated JK-generation Wrangler, and Hyundai’s going in for the kill. Or not… Krafic words his answer pretty cagily. Besides, Hyundai hasn’t had an even semi-serious off-roader since it rebadged the Mitsu Pajero to create the Hyundai Galloper (above).
Speaking to MarketWatch at the Detroit Auto Show, Tesla Chairman Elon Musk apparently just revealed that the Tesla Model S sedan will be released “within two and a half years.” Which is interesting considering Musk claimed that production would start in 2011 at the Model S launch last March. But then, Tesla is still trying to decide on a factory location, apparently waffling between former aeronautical manufacturing locations in Downey and Long Beach. And apparently Tesla’s mere consideration of a brownfield site in Downey has drawn protests from a group calling themselves The Raging Grannies.
We’ve got a two-for-one deal on today’s wild-ass rumors, as neither seems likely to amount to much. First off, GM’s Jon Lauckner caught a headline at the WSJ by conjecturing that the Volt’s price “could be notably lower” than the anticipated $40,000. “We have until this summer to figure that out,” Lauckner said. Meanwhile, The Atlantic‘s Daniel Inviglio ran a few numbers, and came up with some rough estimates about possible amortization compared to a Toyota Prius at different price points ($40k, $30k, $25k). Even at $30k, according to Inviglio’s analysis, you’d have to drive 3,350 miles per month to see an economic benefit over the Prius. Yikes!
I saw your recent post on Tim Cook at Apple. I don’t know if he has been contacted yet but he is the top candidate that Spencer Stuart has identified as the next CEO of GM. I have an inside source at Spencer Stuart.
[Interim GM CEO Edward E. Whitacre] wants the candidate to come from a company known for operational excellence, innovation and customer satisfaction and in addition he is looking for someone that has turnaround experience. It also doesn’t hurt that [Tim] has been able to work with Jobs. Whitacre does want to stay on as Chairman. Also, Cook has been the key link to AT&T and should understand the culture that Whitacre, [a former AT&T CEO] built.
Will be interesting to see if he would leave Apple for this. I don’t know him but if he wants to be a CEO it does seem he needs to leave with Jobs back. Most interesting will be to see a CEO from Apple and a CFO from Microsoft.
Saabsunited ran a recent piece by Sweden’s Dagensindustrie through Google Translate, and came out with a possible (and very old-GM) outcome for the new Epsilon II-based Saab 9-5:
According to Dagens Industri’s sources, GM is planning to use the new Saab 9-5: an own model program, including a future Buick in the U.S.. GM is also in a letter to Saab’s sub-contractors have estimated the time of closure of Saab to five years.
There are sources in Saab Automobile in the Dagens Industri – DI – indicates that GM now see positive opportunities to closure of Saab. By making use of Saab’s technology, tools and production equipment for GM use the new 9-5: an – that would be launched in the spring – to a future Buick in the U.S..
In the GM is also talk of exploiting Saab technology for the production of a new premium car for Opel, “says DI’s sources. It would then be about the reopening of the closed trial with an Opel Senator in Europe.
Thought, you’d seen the last of Renault in North America? Well, think again and this time, they’re bringing their big guns! The Wall Street Journal [sub] reports that Gerard Detourbet, head of Renault’s entry level division is contemplating selling their low cost cars in South East Asia and North America. “We’re looking at Southeast Asia closely,” he said “We ended up not going there for a variety of reasons. But the idea is that we won’t remain absent from that territory.”
Ratan Tata is unmarried and has no children. So he’s now on the hunt for a successor and because of the lack of Tata scions (Toyota joke here) he’s looking outside of the family. Very far outside the family. NDTV Profit reports that Ratan Tata and Carlos Ghosn had a closed-door meeting in Mumbai a few weeks ago and Ghosn is a likely candidate. After all, Ghosn presided over the launch of the Dacia Logan which was a success in India (not to mention Europe), and now Renault-Nissan are gunning for Tata’s Nano in a link-up with Bajaj. Sounds like Ratan Tata is trying to hire away the enemy general. But is Ghosn the man to tackle Jaguar-Land Rover? And how would Ghosn’s Nissan-Renault empire cope without him?
Think the new Z4 is a bloated boulevard cruiser unworthy of the roadster-implying Z badge? We’d tend to agree. Which is why we were chuffed to see renderings of a possible BMW 1 Series-based Z2 roadster in the most recent Auto Motor und Sport (print edition). Several Einser engines will be available say AM und S, up to and including the 306 hp 135i engine. BMW M division boss Kay Segler even hints that an M car based on the 1 series is in the works. This roadster seems like as good a variant as any for the treatment.
Well, we’ve been here before. A while back we’d heard that an Alfa 169-branded, LX-platformed sedan would be built at Brampton for the US market, with a rumored $62k price point. That story seemed a bit iffy at the time, although it wouldn’t surprise us to hear it announced officially at Chrysler’s forthcoming five-year plan announcement. Especially now that we’re hearing more rumblings that Fiat will borrow the LX platform for European-market sedans to be built at the former Carozzeria Bertone plant in Turin. Automotive News [sub] reports a Lancia Thesis replacement and possibly even a entry-level Maserati will be built using Chrysler’s long-running RWD platform. Fiat has been looking for a RWD platform for some time, having planned on using Cadillac’s Sigma platform, and when things got nasty with GM, Fiat went sniffing around the Jag XF platform. Now Fiat has its rear-drive underpinnings, and Chrysler’s new “Pentastar” V6 to play with… but will Maserati settle for less than a V8? And will the American market actually be getting an Alfa-branded LX? TTAC will be on-hand for Chrysler’s five-year product plan announcement, and will report the definitive word on November 4th.
Because of an unusual concentration of radio and television broadcast antennae in and around the Detroit suburb where I live, just about every car company and automotive electronics vendor that does business in North America tests their cars for resistance to radio frequency interference in my neighborhood. Ford in particular seems to like the testing location – it’s only 20 minutes from Ford facilities in Dearborn and convenient to do worst case real world testing.
Home game machines are no good. Playing something that realistic makes the need for cars disappear
So goes the Gawker hive-mind translation of a quote, attributed to an unnamed Toyota executive by Masahiro Kawaguchi, in an editorial published by the Mainichi Newspaper of Osaka (got that?). Best of all, Kawaguchi’s piece apparently goes on to attempt a further causal link to Japan’s falling population. “Guys used to work hard at their job so they could get a stylish, cool car for girl’s to ride in,” he argues. But isn’t the connection between falling car sales and a falling population easy enough to establish without blaming videogames? And what about the geographical arguments for an inevitable leveling-off of car sales in Japan? Or perhaps Mr Kawaguchi was subtly blaming some other, non-car-related “realistic video game” for a declining birth rate. Either way, the comment reflects a gnawing paranoia that is no longer unique to the auto executives of Japan: how do we sell cars to young people in mature markets? I always thought they used video games.
Autocar can’tdecide. But then, Alfa’s denial, “No front-wheel drive or four-wheel drive Alfa Romeo will use a engine larger than a V6,” is pretty cagey. But leave dreams of three liter turbocharged “Multiair” V8s to the European gossip-mongers. Our wild-ass guess is that the only Alfa V8s the US market will be seeing will part company with their Hemi bretheren at the engine-cover stop on the assembly line in Brampton. That thing got Italian engineering?
About a year ago we heard that European emissions standards had killed off any hope of a turbocharged version of the Toyobaru sports coupe. That may be true for the European market, but Japan’s Holiday Auto Magazine [as translated by the Toyobaru-crazed gents of FT-86.com] swears that a Subaru STI is under development which could offer a 40 to 50 hp bump over the stock 200 using a 2.5 liter turbocharged engine. Bigger wheels, fender arches and other racerish accoutrement would help set this apart as the only sporty variant of the FT-86 Toyobaru. And Holiday Auto won’t even speculate about a price premium, let alone the model’s chances of escaping the JDM. Still, it would be a great day to see the European market denied a truly desirable sports car that you could buy in the U.S. I want to believe! [Hat Tip:Yuichi]
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