But still can’t touch the domestics. An Edmunds press release (via Business Wire) reveals current incentive levels for the major automakers in the American market. According to Edmunds’ analysis, “premium sport cars had the highest average incentives, $6,865 per vehicle sold, followed by large SUVs at $4,267. Subcompact cars had the lowest average incentives per vehicle sold, $1,096, followed by compact cars at $2,117.”

GM filed for bankruptcy today. From now on, TTAC will chronicle GM’s fortunes under the series name bestowed upon post-C11 Chrysler: Zombie Watch. For there’s no doubt in my mind that GM will not recover from its federal stewardship to emerge, as Dan Neil puts it, “smaller, leaner, smarter and hungrier.” Sure, I’ll spot Dan smaller (obviously). Leaner? An efficient government-funded company is an oxymoron to rival military intelligence. Speaking of which, smarter? GM is as far from smart as Steven Hawking is from professional wresting. In fact, listening to GM CEO Fritz Henderson bleat to the press today, it struck me that the automaker is pulling a Mark Mothersbaugh: it’s de-evolving. Less obscurely, the company is actually getting stupider.

To wit: when Bloomberg asked Fritz whether there would be any changes to post-C11 GM’s corporate culture (i.e., when would someone shit-can the overpaid yes men and women who’d run General Motors into the ground), Henderson said there was no need for an executive cull. “Natural attrition” would ensure fresh blood. Well, he would say that, wouldn’t he? After all, any such overdue housecleaning would start by sweeping Fritz Henderson out with the rest of the garbage hanging around RenCen (e.g., HUMMER).

Even so, it was a stunning admission that all that talk about GM’s preparations for a government-backed renaissance—trimming dealers, reigning-in the United Auto Workers, softening-up bond-holders, etc.— was complete and utter horseshit. More specifically, Henderson was spouting the same crap GM’s been foisting on shareholders since Nikita Khrushchev used shoe-leather to pound home a point.

The truth: GM’s management still doesn’t have the slightest idea how to right the sinking ship—sorry, raise the Titanic. Henderson point blank refused to specify a deadline for a return to profitability. No goals. No timelines. Nada. If I didn’t know better, I’d think Rick Wagoner’s hand-picked clone/successor was trying to give this GM Death Watch series closure, in that “here we are at the beginning again” way. But no; there is no plan.

Now you could say that Henderson can’t formulate a plan. It’s up to the next GM CEO—the one appointed by the same presidential administration that fired the old CEO and swears up, down and sideways it doesn’t want to run GM—to devise a detailed strategy for returning some $50 billion dollars to American taxpayers. And those pesky bondholders. To which I’d reply, sure; what’s the hurry? We’re from the government and we’re here to—say, are those fresh donuts?

More evidence of increasing numb-nuttide: on this historic day, GM signaled recently dismissed dealers that they company will honor their franchise agreements until they expire (Oct. 31, 2010). Huh? If GM doesn’t terminate the franchisees before exiting federal bankruptcy, they’ll lose the chance to do so without legal repercussions. The abandoned dealers will live to fight the “new” GM in all 50 states.

In other words, even Chrysler somehow managed to get it right where GM continues to get it wrong. Of course, both automakers are missing the golden opportunity to tell the United Auto Workers to FO&D. Damn! I forgot! This is a government-sponsored bankruptcy. When the feds pull the strings, the union owns you. Literally.

Meanwhile, and lots of it, the mainstream media seems obsessed with the idea that President Obama’s minions will force the automaker to build shit boxes to appease the environmental wing of the democratic party, and, thus, drive GM into bankruptcy. Oops. I should have said “continue to suck-up taxpayer money until British Leyland looks like a winning lottery ticket.”

It’s a ridiculous concerm. Government Motors has but one goal: nothing. Remember? No deadline. No timeline. Nada. Which makes a mockery of the most important part of Neil’s post C11 prognostication: the hungry bit.

Simply put, governments are not profit-driven. At all. On any level. Ever. So it doesn’t matter what kind of vehicles post-C11 GM manufactures. At all. On any level. Ever. Snap! That makes “new GM” the same as “old GM.” See what I mean about circularity?

OK, time’s almost up. How do I see this playing out?

Either the feds will sell GM to another automaker soon, or the feds will sell GM to another automaker later. By that I mean either Renault Nissan (or someone) will swoop in “to the rescue” (for bupkis), or the public will eventually grow weary of subsidizing Government Motors. At that point, Uncle Sam will jettison the public’s shares in GM for cheap. Some strip and flipper will buy it up and do what they do best.

In other words, one way or another, GM is headed for liquidation.

I’d like to say that this is the bankruptcy I recommended four years ago, which will allow GM to reinvent and reinvigorate itself. But it isn’t. So I won’t. I’ll just say so long and thanks for all the Corvettes. Although the interior still sucks.

The mainstream media tends to fumble the metaphorical football on the symbolic goal line. With fewer than twenty-four hours left before General Motors files for Chapter 11, the MSM is set to go back, Jack, and do it again. Instead of excoriating GM’s management for not taking in more money than they spent, they’re parsing the American automaker’s bankruptcy as a “sign of the times.” Leading this electronic charge of the heat without light brigade: P. J. O’Rourke. Writing for the Wall Street Journal, O’Rourke paints GM’s dissolution as confirmation that America’s love affair with the automobile is, finally, dead. Rubbish.

Quick digression: Yesterday, I was looking for something to healthy to eat at Six Flags New England. As you might imagine, I’d have had better luck trying to win an enormous Tweety Bird by tossing small plastic rings at the necks of custom-made, ring-aversive milk jugs. As I consumed a greasy hot dog on a butter infused bun, I thought, well, that’s the way it is.

If these teeming throngs wanted a healthy salad or a chilled fruit cup, Six Flags would sell them. The vast majority of their coaster-lovin’ customers want fried foods and sugary drinks. Six Flags has a business to run. So they give their customers what they want. Tough luck for me. The same inescapable economic logic applies to the manufacturers of P. J. O’Rourke’s diss-missed automotive “appliances.”

Contrary to the prosaic pistonhead’s rant, no one forced Americans out of their charismatic, high horsepower barges into boring and bland vehicles. Truth be told, the average consumer wanted personal transportation that they didn’t have to think about it. The automakers who best provided these vehicles thrived. The ones who could not do so, both consistently and profitably, did not.

It’s one of those ipso facto deals. If American car buyers didn’t place reliability above all, they’d still be driving union-built be-finned rust buckets that required constant mechanical attention. The fact that Toyota, Honda, Nissan and Hyundai are solvent, while GM is not, is a simple reflection of the transplanted automakers’ ability to give the people what they want.

Never mind the bailout or O’Rourke’s pining for more “adventurous” times. The free market has spoken. GM must die.

Was this desire for aesthetically neutral four-wheeled appliances nurture (roadside stranding, lousy dealer service, inconvenience and expense) or nature (if I wanted to be a mechanic I’d be one)?

O’Rourke blames suburban ennui (i.e., car as cupholder) and “busybodies of the environmentalist, new urbanist, utopian communitarian ilk.” He bemoans the end of the legacy of the swaggering, charisma-loving “romantic fools” who created America’s automotive giants. Yes, well, it was these self-same car guys that condemned GM to its ultimate fate as a tax-sucking zombie.

Former GM CFO and ex-CEO Rick Wagoner is [rightly] blamed for pissing away billions on ill-advised acquisitions. He merits condemnation for refusing to man-up and declare bankruptcy when the company could have done so under its own steam. And he deserves his place in infamy for handing the keys to the executive washroom to the federal government. Still, ultimately, the beancounters didn’t kill GM. The car guys did.

The car guys failed to commit the company to designing and building the small range of bland, reliable, competitive, cost-effective automotive products it needed to survive. They were drunk on pickups. High (and mighty) on SUVs. When it came to more pedestrian metal, GM’s senior (i.e., divisional) car guys threw whatever they had against the wall to see what would stick. Not much did, and they didn’t care.

Don’t tell me that Wagoner and his predecessors tied the car guys’ hands behind their backs, forcing them to accept badge-engineered mediocrity. They were happy enough to go along for the ride. And why not? They were hugely compensated cogs in a corporate culture where failure was impossible, gorging on unimaginable riches simply for keeping the status quo. Speaking of which . . .

It should never be forgotten that Car Czar Bob Lutz squandered GM’s last remaining chance at a genuine, product-led turnaround. Lutz doubled-down on a half-assed redesign of GM’s trucks, imported sales stinkers and commissioned poorly-developed niche-mobiles without a hope in hell of mass success. Lutz’ highly-touted Chevrolet Malibu was a singular vehicle; it was also too little too late.

Here’s the funny, horrible thing: you can hear echoes of Bob Lutz in O’Rourke’s paradise lost essay. Like Lutz, O’Rourke believes that American car culture is practically dead. Both men mistake the end of a certain kind of enthusiasm—their own—for a wider malaise. They don’t understand that automotive enthusiasts will always be a relatively insignificant minority of the American public; tens of millions of motorists want cheap, reliable, comfortable, practical, safe, not-too-thirsty, not-ugly transportation.

No one’s asking P. J. O’Rourke to respect appliance drivers. But GM’s inability to do so was, in the final analysis, the death of them.

Previously, on Who Wants to Own an Automaker, I estimated the Motown meltdown has sucked more than $100 billion from the taxpayers’ purse. I forgot to mention the tax breaks that the Treasury Department will bestow upon “new” Chrysler and “new” GM. The Desert Sun reports that GM will benefit from Uncle Sam’s new rules for bailout recipients—’cause we don’t want a government-owned/controlled/supported enterprise to pay taxes to the government, now do we? “The notices have the full effect of a law, even though they aren’t reviewed or approved by Congress. They also apply to banks and other financial firms receiving money from the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP.” Remember “these are not ordinary times. The Treasury Department has, in effect, suspended long-standing tax rules for companies that receive bailout money, providing benefits not available to firms that don’t receive government help.” The Sun says GM could avoid some $12 billion in taxes. Wait; did you spot the loophole?

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Holy global overcapacity, Batman! Trading Markets reports that the world’s largest automaker is cutting Japanese production in half and overseas production by 43 percent, as it struggles to touch bottom. Toyota and its Hino and Daihatsu subsidiaries will produce 433,979 units gobally in April, down 46 percent from April 2008. Exports from Japan have been hit especially hard, dropping 70 percent (year-on-year) in April. According to the WSJ, all of the Japanese majors are dramatically decreasing domestic production on falling sales. Even without bankruptcy filings, it seems everyone in the gobal car game is facing some form of reorganization. Like Renault/Nissan’s new attempt to find another $2 billion in “synergy” savings. Try looking under the couch cushions, guys.

Who’d have thunk it? The New York Times reports that despite being designed to become the world’s cheapest car, the Tata Nano isn’t attracting as many budget buyers as you might expect. Only 20 percent of Nano orders (India market only) are currently for the base model, a $2,600 vehicle. Half of all orders are for the top-of-the-line model, which boasts such ameneties as cup holders and air conditioning but costs some 40 percent more than a base model. When the Nano was announced, its lowest possible cost was widely touted to claims that it would become “India’s Model T.” And though the low-cost-at-all-costs approach hasn’t been wildly popular, orders for the well-optioned model will help Tata stay out of a profit-draining battle on price alone. But that isn’t stopping competitors from planning ever-cheaper models. Renault/Nissan is planning a $2,500 model developed in conjunction with Bajaj Auto. Toyota is also rumored to be pursuing a low-cost car for the Indian market.

I’ll never forget my first ride in a BMW. I remember the excitement, anticipating a high speed run in an [echt] autobahn-tuned automobile. The driver never broke Nixon’s double nickel. In fact, he stayed in the right lane for the entire trip. Flash forward to two hours ago, G-forcing through the S-curves into Providence. In the middle of the second bend, a Nissan GT-R zipped by my minivan like it was standing still. Hakuna matata. What a wonderful phrase. Hakuna matata. Ain’t no passing craze. The GT-R driver was there. In the moment. In control. Safe?

I know: all things being equal, the higher the differential between vehicle speeds, the greater chance of a collision or loss of control leading to an accident. Well, yes, all things are NEVER equal. Driving safety depends on a huge number of variables: vehicle type and condition; road construction, condition, width, and camber; weather (as it affects grip and visibility); traffic; driver age, experience, sobriety, skill, general psychological makeup and specific mental state. And so on, including dumb luck.

To say that a speeding GT-R is inherently dangerous is both true and relative. Yes, the mustachioed enthusiast caning the über-Nissan would have been less of a danger to himself and those around him if he’d observed the speed limit. But the question must be asked: safer than what? A caffeine-deprived father in his minivan fighting over the radio with his 11-year-old step-daughter while his five-year-old demands that he retrieve her missing crayon? The kid stunting and flossing in a beat-up Buick Century in the Italian astronaut driving position? What?

I’m not trying to defend a Baruthian speeder with moral relativism. The GT-R driver was breaking a law designed by society for society; he has no moral foundation upon which to base his behavior. Besides, blind eye be damned; he was weaving through traffic at warp speed. Guilty as charged. In terms of the whole actions > consequences deal, I’m with Baretta: “Don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time.” And that’s from someone who’s done the time, and slowed right down.

Although not necessarily to avoid legal sanction (aging, testosterone levels, children . . . connect the dots). Be that as it is, here’s the bottom line: anti-speeding absolutism is feel-good nonsense. It does nothing to make our roads safer.

Anyone who reads this site knows (if not acknowledges) that there are speeders and there are speeders. There is speeding and there is speeding. Once upon a time, police officers made the distinction between “simple” speeding and dangerous driving. These days, radar technology and an ATM-based law enforcement philosophy has removed informed discretion and eliminated simple common sense.

The fact that we’re debating speeding—rather than road safety—shows how far we’ve strayed from cause and effect. Hyper-speeding is rare and therefore relatively unimportant. Inattention due to fatigue accounts for far more accidents than high-speed hooliganism.

Again, I’m not defending adrenalin junkies who use public roads as a private playground. Not cool. Not safe. Not legal. Call me a hypocrite, but I consider balls-out driving four-wheeled cocaine. I tried it. I liked it. I learned the drug’s downside the hard way. I would NEVER do it again. I would NEVER advocate its use. I would NEVER want ANY of my children to even THINK about trying it.

I’m not alone in my hypocrisy. To those who would string up fast drivers in fast cars without a moment’s hesitation, I say mote. Beam. Eye. Remove. Proceed. The vast majority of American drivers routinely break the speed limit. The same majority that considers themselves safe drivers. Well consider this . . .

If drowsy drivers cause or experience more accidents than speeders, who’s a larger menace: the guy blasting along at twenty or thirty or more miles per hour above the speed limit, focusing his mind on the illegal task at hand, or the driver who thinks he’s safe because he’s driving at the speed limit and so fails to engage mentally in his vehicular progress?

Of course, the safest driver is the one who’s driving at the speed limit who IS mentally engaged in the act of driving. I’m guessing that most of the commentators who excoriated Jack Baruth’s guide to street speeding answer to that description.

In an ideal world, everyone would be like you. You’d never share the road with our speed-crazed, morally lax editorialist/reviewer. In the same ideal world, there wouldn’t be any drunk drivers or soccer moms in SUVs yakking on their cell phones as they blow through suburban stop signs.

Here in the real world, there’s a sliding scale of dangerous “others.” Next time you get in your car, ignore the speedo (for a moment) and check your look in the mirror. Forget about “them” and say hello to the most dangerous driver of all.

[NB: This is not an article about TTAC’s editorial stance or style. Click here for a post on that topic. All comments that raise meta-points about the site will be deleted.]

This one make more sense than the Mitsubishi and Saturn hook-up floated last week. Automotive News [sub] reports that Roger Penske thinks it’s a good idea to import Korean-built Renault-Samsung Motors vehicles to sell through the Saturn dealer network. (Apparently, Roger’s been en France kicking the idea around with Renault – Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn.) Remember: I said more sense. Not a lot of sense. The details that would make this deal seem sensible are . . . uh . . . sketchy. “It’s not known which vehicles would be sold by Saturn or whether they would be current Samsung offerings or new ones based on Renault engineering. Also unclear: the corporate relationship between Penske and Renault-Nissan.” In the deal’s favor, the move might return Saturn to its roots as the first-time car buyer’s first port-of-call. Against, plenty. But it does back-up what we’ve been saying for some time: Renault – Nissan is sniffing around GM’s remains, looking for a tasty snack. Saturn or . . . the whole company? Watch this space.

The Detroit News headline: “Obama Auto Bailout Draws Fire.” Suddenly, without warning, Motown’s hometown newspaper has changed sides. What was “their” bailout has become “Obama’s.” The altered allegiance comes hot on the heels Chrysler and GM’s decision to terminate around a thousand dealers apiece. This is not music to the domestic supporters’ ears; the dealer cull represents the complete, final and unavoidable end of Motor City’s domination of the American car industry. The fact that the domestics’ supporters are suddenly behind the franchisee push back—which could scupper both automakers’ future—shows the depth of Detroit’s denial. While the bailout boosters gave The Presidential Task Force on Automobiles (PTFOA) props for shit-canning GM CEO Rick Wagoner, you can file this one under no good deed goes unpunished.

Like any political battle, the latest front in Motown’s wider war against reality is a race against time. Can the axed dealers’ political allies wrest control of GM’s post C-11 future from president Obama’s “smartest guys in the room” before (as?) the company sinks into complete chaos? We’ll see. The DetN reports that Congress critters are firing multiple salvos against US Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner. Reps Kucinich, LaTourette, Conyers, McCotter and others sent Timbo a missive calling for the Obama administration to hand the whole bailout thing “back” to Congress.

To do what, exactly? Other than saving the dealers cast adrift by Chrysler and GM, they got nothing. Which puts the offended politicians at level pegging with the PTFOA. Remember: the PTFOA decided to arrange a shotgun marriage between Chrysler and Fiat, swap the “old” Chrysler’s liabilities for a worthless promissory note (i.e., shares in “new” Chrysler), give the born-again (and again and again) car maker a multi-billion dollar dowry and . . . call it good.

The plan sounded crazy—and it still does. Strangely, despite the dealers’ howls of protest, no one [who votes] seems to care that the feds sold Chrysler down the river. On Friday, Fiat named the three Board of Directors members who will control the new, taxpayer-supported Chrysler LLC. Ignoring the Wagoner problem (Fiat CEO Sergio Marchionne will be both ChryCo’s CEO and a Board member), the announcement was a tacit admission that Chrysler will now be an Italian company. Protectionist outrage? Nowhere to be seen.

This is no small point. As we count down the final hours until GM’s C11, as Congress bellyaches to no practical effect, we can expect history to repeat itself. Former Chrysler exec Jerry York is active again, desperately seeking a chunk of post-C11 GM to call his own. OK, Renault/Nissan’s AND his own. In other words, GM’s C11 could be Chrysler II.

And why not? In Chrysler’s final analysis, all the xenophobic rhetoric about federal tax dollars “saving America’s industrial base” counted for nothing. Not only have the zombies been “allowed” to shutter plants and jettison American production jobs, they’ve been “encouraged” to terminate tens of thousands of dealership-related jobs.

I’m not saying it was the wrong thing to do. I’m simply pointing out that the original logic underpinning the entire $100 billion (and counting) bailout process has disappeared. Which brings two maxims to mind: nature abhors a vacuum and a week is along time in politics.

Will Renault/Nissan fill the hole where the world’s largest automaker used to be? Given that Uncle Sam didn’t get dime one from Fiat for Chrysler, there’s literally nothing to stop them. And if not them, someone. While the feds’ restructuring plan assumes public ownership of the “new” GM, Obama’s army isn’t stupid enough to cling to the ship as it’s sucked beneath the waves. Congress is—which is a scary thought.

Either way, the clock is ticking, and it’s a time bomb. Voters will not put up with this Motown mishegos forever. And the longer this process continues, the worse GM’s chances of even pretending to be in a position to recover. Immediately after The General files, May’s sales figures will emerge. And after that, June. And so on. Anyone who thinks that the GM sales chart’s arrow won’t point straight to hell is seriously deluded.

Delusion is, of course, GM’s strong suit. It suffuses the company’s management. It blights its unions. It envelops its dealers. It infects its pet media. It even afflicts its customers. That’s how General Motors got into this pickle. And that’s how they’re not going to get out.

Unless, that is, Renault/Nissan or some other outside “investor” repeats Fiat’s “pay no attention to this faux Chapter 7” strategy, scarfs up GM’s good bits for bupkis and cleans house. In that case, General Motors might survive. If so, it will be a vastly smaller enterprise.

In fact, any GM that emerges from C11 won’t be GM in any recognizable way. That would be a good thing for some of the automaker’s current stakeholders. But by no means all. Whether it’s warfare or bankruptcy, “surgical” doesn’t mean bloodless.

End of Days folks, when the president of the United States puts taxpayer billions behind a “merger of equals” between Chrysler and Fiat. The latest weirdness: The Detroit News reports that “Japanese automaker Mitsubishi Motors Corp. is in talks to supply vehicles to Saturn dealers if the brand and dealer network is sold this year.” Would that be the same Mitsubishi who’s ass has been repeatedly kicked by the U.S. market, to the point where most industry analysts figured it would give up and go home? The same company that built a thousand cars in the USA so far this year? The one that sold 55 percent fewer cars last month than the same month last year (3919 vs. 8878)? The same. Or not. “A Mitsubishi spokesman said he was unaware of the company’s interest in providing vehicles to Saturn’s dealer network.” Yes, well, never mind all that. There’s another player sniffing around, and that’s where the real action is . . .

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Start with this: Automotive News [sub] reports that FoMoCo is set to out-produce cross-town rivals General Motors this year. This according to auto industry analysts IHS Global Insight. “Ford will rank first with North American production of 1.9 million units, a 17.7 percent decrease from 2008, IHS said. GM, which is shutting most of its plants as it braces for a possible June 1 bankruptcy, will build 1.7 million vehicles, about half as many as it did last year.” A fifty percent production decline. Whoa. And what’s with the probable on the GM C11? AN should’ve saved the modifier for GM’s projected production; it’s entirely possible they won’t even build that many. Especially if/when Nissan/Renault buys-up the bits. As you might imagine, “new” Chrysler keeps on slipping, slipping; into the man-u-re . . .

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Two new Nissan GTRs were some of the first sales to be recorded after the UK introduced its clunker-rebate scheme yesterday. “Buyers pounced within five hours of the initiative starting this morning,” reported Autotrader.co.uk. Britain’s scrappage incentive offers about $3K per scrapped ten-years-or-older vehicle, but unlike other EU nations, Britain did not place carbon emission limits on qualifying new cars. Because, as Autotrader points out, proponents of the bill worked with the assumption that rising efficiency averages means all new cars are less polluting than the vehicles they would replace. Nissan’s GTR emits 298g/km of CO2, earning it a spot in Britain’s most-polluting tax band. We can only hope our own eventual scrappage rebate will be vulnerable to similar abuse.

Jim from Regina, Saskatchewan, asks:

Automatic transmissions obviously require some upkeep to keep them in good condition. What about manual transmissions? What sort of maintenance needs to be performed on them, if any, to maximize their life? Is the reliability of them higher enough that more drivers should be considering them? I’ve owned five cars with manual transmissions (transaxles really), and only one of them ever gave me trouble. It was a 1990 Hyundai Excel (I can see the readers’ eyes rolling already). With almost 190,000 km on the clock, it became impossible to downshift into second without double clutching. I have learned enough about manual trannies since then to think that it was probably a failed synchro, and my mechanic’s advice at the time (“Live with it.”) was probably good, considering the likely cost of correcting it and the value of the car.

I drive manuals because I like the control, and the lower purchase cost is a bonus, but I imagine in my head that I’m going to get a longer service life, too. I wonder how accurate my assessment is.

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Mike from Rhode Island writes:

I have a ’99 Nissan Maxima purchased new with 124,000 miles which runs like new. I have had to recently replace the starter/battery and it has had several electrical issues in the past such as starter coils. Engine oil is changed at 5,000 miles with synthetic and book is used on all other fluid changes.

The total repair costs have been averaging app. $1,000 per year for at least 2-3 years now. Since major parts are original such as transmission, water pump/radiator, etc., I feel it is only a matter of time that a big item will require a major repair bill.

At what dollar price point is it reasonable to keep spending money on repairs for a 10 yr old car, per year? I am not mechanically handy.

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Wired Autopia has a video of Better Place’s prototype $500,000 quick battery swap station. Think of a Jiffy Lube station but much slicker and no scruffy guys in the basement. Driver pulls up, automated lift unscrews discharged battery from beneath and slides it down a conveyor belt, and then another battery is bolted in. Total time is a few minutes, similar to a gas tank fillup. The conventional-looking Nissan EV’s battery goes in where the gas tank was and has a similar shape. Tesla is to have their own battery swap setup that’s not compatible with that of Better Place. Let the hypothetical swappable battery wars begin!