A – due to worldwide holiday inertia – very short 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. Until Jan 4, 2009, WAS is being filed from Tokyo

Suzuki down in India: Maruti Suzuki is India’s top carmaker. They own half of India’s car market. Like everybody in India, they got it on the chin. Their total vehicle sales in December fell 10 percent from a year ago. At least, their domestic sales rose from the previous month, after declining in November and October. Total December sales of Maruti Suzuki fell to 56,293 vehicles from 62,515 in the same month a year earlier, the Nikkei (sub) writes.

Tata WAY down in India: India’s Tata sold 23,894 units domestically in December, a decline of 44 percent compared to the corresponding month last year, India’s Economic Times reports. Including exports, Tata’s total sales for December 2008 stood at 25,219 vehicles, down by 47 percent. For the year 2008, their sales fell 11 percent.

Toyota nixes plans for Russia, Thailand: Toyota will freeze construction plans for new factories in Russia and Thailand, Bloomberg writes.

Ford sees further downside: Ford expects industry-wide December U.S. auto sales to drop by some 35 percent from a year earlier with no sign of a turnaround in the first quarter of this year, Reuters writes. Ford’s chief sales analyst George Pipas expects that full-year sales of light vehicles in the U.S.A. will drop to 13.2 million for 2008, down from 16.2 million in 2007. “The sales rates have declined like a lead balloon, really,” Pipas said. “I think when December comes in, every segment will be down. Not one segment will be up versus a year ago.” And there is no quick end in sight: “We’re not looking for the first quarter to be much different from what we saw in the fourth quarter,” Pipas said.
Read More >

The Wall Street Journal gets its fair share of flak from TTAC. Now it’s time for a pat on the head. Under a downright TTAC-ish headline (“Treasury to Ford: Drop Dead”,) the WSJ lambasts the Treasury for being a bunch of unappreciative sumsabitches: “When the Bush Treasury decided to bail out Detroit, GM and Chrysler quickly said yes to the taxpayer cash, but Ford Motor Co. said it didn’t need the money and declined. Ford’s reward for this show of self-reliance? Treasury is now helping GM again by giving it a credit pricing advantage against Ford in the marketplace.”

Farago wrote: “If I were the head of Ford or Toyota or Honda’s lending unit, I would be mighty pissed.” The Wall Street Journal agrees. Now that the U.S. Government effectively owns GMAC, it gives them the money to offer zero percent financing – for GM products. Says the WSJ: “The messy little policy issue is that these GM products compete with those sold by Ford, Toyota, Honda and numerous other car makers that won’t benefit from GMAC’s cash infusion. And with the cost of financing often crucial to buyer decisions, the feds have now put the muscle of the state behind one company’s products.”

Read More >

I’m sorry. I know. I should move on. I’d like to move on. But the more I read about the federal government’s $6b “investment” in troubled auto and mortgage lender GMAC, the more deranged the deal becomes. Fans of this series (?) will know that Uncle Sugar now effectively owns GMAC. If I were the head of Ford or Toyota or Honda’s lending unit, I would be mighty pissed. As a journalist, I find the cloak of secrecy surrounding the arrangement, from the timing of the Fed’s pre-approval for GMAC to morph into a bank, to the fine print of how this is all supposed to work. A regulatory filing unearthed by Forbes reveals that GMAC has “amended,” but not canceled, its exclusivity agreement with GM. “Purportedly, GM may now offer incentives such as low-interest loans through other financial outfits with increasing flexibility over the next 24 months. While the filing seemed to imply that private competition may be entering the government-backed lender’s universe, both the auto manufactorer and its banker seemed to indicate that nothing material had changed and the two had only altered their pact to satisfy the Federal Reserve’s demands.” Oh, that’s alright then. Or is it?  

Read More >

United Auto Workers’ (UAW) boss Big Ron Gettelfinger pops his head above the PR parapet every now and again to defend his members’ right to the wages and benefits that they’ve negotiated from Detroit’s failing automakers. But in the main, the UAW’s Big Cheese remains tight-lipped about the finer points of the union’s contract, strategy, golf course, JOBS bank, election process, internal dissent, balloting procedures, etc. (not to mention embezzlement and corruption). So when The Detroit News offered Ronny G unedited space within their precious pages, you’d hardly expect anything other than broad strokes (so to speak). You know: Wall Street vs. Main Street, investing in America; that sort of thing. One exception: Ron takes on the “myth” that UAW work rules rule the rotting roost. “According to the Harbour Report — the standard for measuring auto plant productivity — all 10 of the most efficient plants in North America are union plants. Union workers get the job done in less hours per vehicle than the competition. For example, according to 2008 Harbour data, it takes UAW members in Kansas City just over 19 hours to assemble a Ford F-series pick-up. It takes more than 32 hours to assemble the Toyota Tundra, a similar vehicle, at a non-union plant in Princeton, Indiana.”

Read More >

Sales is one of the few professions where employees must maintain a positive attitude– no matter what. John Candy’s curtain ring sales in the movie “Planes, Trains and Automobiles” exemplifies this “never say die even when you’re dying” job requirement. Arthur Miller’s “Death of a Salesman” is the excruciatingly pathetic flip-side. MLive gives us sample of latter day unfettered optimism. “‘Traffic started picking up with the announcement that GM had the loan money,’ said Bob Johnson, new car sales manager at McDonald Pontiac, Cadillac, GMC Truck, 5155 State in Saginaw Township. ‘Then they came back with the GMAC rates. People are starting to loosen their belts.'” ML pauses for a quick reality check: “The Detroit automakers are trying to weather the biggest automobile sales slump in more than 26 years. Forecasts for December range near 10 million and actual sales could prove the lowest since August 1982.” And then we’re off for another spin around fantasyland. “Savvy buyers know the kind of deals available, said Rob Roy, news car sales manager at Draper Chevrolet, Dodge, Toyota, 4200 Bay in Saginaw Township. ‘They’re aware of the incentives,’ he said. ‘But it doesn’t matter what brought them in. Business has been good since (Dec.) 26th.'” For which part of the biz, Bob? Chevrolet, Dodge, Toyota or all three? Not specified. More of the same after the jump, plus doom and gloom and things go boom– in Bloomberg’s blog!

Read More >

“For many of these employees, mass transportation may add hours to their travel schedule.” Shock horror! Is The New York Times defending private transportation over public? Maybe. And you sure gotta look for it; the statement is buried in the middle of Michael Barbaro’s story about Big Apple Mayor Bloomberg’s latest executive fiat, “ordering city agencies like the police, parks and health departments to give up nearly 700 city-owned cars, a cherished perk for their workers.” (I think Barbaro added that last bit.) Hizzoner’s beancounters reckon the move will save the City $20m over two years. The Gray Lady says that an indeterminate number of the vehicles being shipped off to the worst resale market since the Paleolithic Era will be Toyota Priora. In fact, “The city estimates that most of the cars have a resale value of about $2,000 at auction.” Despite the aforementioned loss of bureaucratic efficiency and a depreciation hit that makes John Gotti look like social worker, the paper welcomes the move. Kinda. “It would help blunt criticism that City Hall practices a form of vehicular hypocrisy, telling ordinary New Yorkers to use mass transportation while at times clogging the streets with its own city-issued cars.” Amen. I think.

You just know they’re going to get it wrong. And so they do. Number One: Full-Size Pickup Trucks. Huh? If any market segment is likely NOT to restore The Big 2.8 to glowing good health, it’s the PU segment. But no. I mean yes! “The Dodge Ram is new for 2009, as is the top-selling Ford F-150, while the Chevy Silverado and GMC Sierra twins combine to sell more than any of them. With the Toyota Tundra in retreat and Nissan ready to surrender the segment (they’ll be getting their next generation of Titans from Dodge), cheap gas should keep buyers putting their money into these profit centers.” And if the housing market stays in the toilet, the market remains saturated with trucks or the price of gas goes up? * crickets chirping * No wait! Number Two: American Muscle. Huh? Talk about carving-up smaller pieces a decreasing pie. Nope. Fox is saying halo to the new Camaro, Challenger and Mustang. “Forget for a moment all of the goody two-shoes environmentally conscious cars Washington wants the Detroit 3 to build: These are the ones that look best in the commercials and get shoppers into showrooms. They may not sell in huge numbers, but you can’t pay for the kind of pride they bring to a brand’s image.” Apparently, you– I mean “we” can. Number Three…

Read More >

It would be everybody’s dream come true: A car running on nothing else than sunshine. Well, not everybody’s dream maybe. In Saudi Arabia, they have a lot of sunshine, but it doesn’t fit in tankers. “Toyota Motor Corp. is secretly developing a vehicle that will be powered solely by solar energy in an effort to turn around its struggling business with a futuristic ecological car,” reports AP via Yahoo News. AP says, Toyota is working on an electric vehicle that will get some of its power from solar cells on the vehicle, and that can be recharged with electricity generated from solar panels on the roofs of homes. As a next step, says AP, “the automaker later hopes to develop a model totally powered by solar cells on the vehicle.” Sounds unbelievable? AP says they have it on good authority.
Read More >

Lord love a duck, but sometimes the most idiotic things surface on the internet. And a certain piece favorably comparing Ferrari’s environmental impact to that of the Prius doesn’t have the excuse of coming from some blogspot-based Private Snafu in the Army of Davids. No, it comes from Car And Driver. Print Media. The Big Boys. Etcetera. And since they don’t have the decency to expose their own baldfaced disingenuousness and sensationalist ignorance-peddling until after the jump, we’ll return the favor. Car And Driver’s Steve Siler is an idiot, and that’s all we’ll say unless you bump our page views by hitting the jump.

Read More >

It won’t be long now: a parody ad of Chrysler’s thank you for your “investment” ad, to join the bailout parody ad and the anti-anti-bailout (i.e. Toyota) viral email. Meanwhile, Chrysler’s still catching heat for spending big bucks on the post-bailout ads in USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, The Atlanta Journal Constitution, online (even TTAC!) and other media. TTAC flagged the obvious waste ogf taxpayer money and condescension on the 23rd, but the MSM have just caught on. Autoblog reports today on Fox News’ Monday report slamming the automaker for the campaign. Their boy Newt’s minion does the dirty. “‘It’s quite ridiculous to be spending that kind of money,’ said Princella Smith, national spokeswoman for American Solutions, an organization headed by former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich. ‘Those ads are just a precise example of the fact that they do not get it … and it’s just in our faces.'” So, now how much did they pay? “A full-page ad in The Wall Street Journal runs between $206,000 and $264,000, and a full-page ad in USA Today runs between $112,000 and $217,000.” Wow. Still, $4b buys you a lot of ad space, if not a single class-leading automobile. Oh, and why haven’t MSM picked-up on the fact that the ad’s picture is a fake?

For the last time this year, a short 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. Until Jan 4, 2009, WAS will be filed from Tokyo.

Toyota has the biggest: Bruises and all, Toyota still stands proud. ToMoCo still has “the highest market capitalization among firms listed on the first section of the Tokyo Stock Exchange as of the last trading day of 2008, even though its market value tumbled by more than half in the year,” reports a relieved Nikkei (sub.) The automaker’s market cap is 10.01 trillion yen ($111,110,999,987.77 at today’s rate,) down 54 percent from the end of 2007. The overall market, as measured by the Nikkei Stock Average closed at 8,859 on Tuesday, down 42 percent from a year earlier. GM, Ford, and Chrysler on the other hand – don’t even mention it.

Read More >

So opens a guest commentary by Ira Lacher in today’s Des Moines Register. And if you believe the Detroit line, you might assume this voice from the middle American heartland would answer in the affirmative. You’d be wrong. Lacher describes his impression of American cars as being “designed and put together by committee – a bunch of parts cobbled together. The steering wheel felt as if it were just sticking out of the dashboard. The gas and brake pedals seemed mere appendages to the floor. The seats were uncomfortable frames covered with cheap cloth. This wasn’t a car; it was a homemade personal computer! By contrast, every rented Honda, Toyota, Mazda and Nissan seemed like a machine that functioned like one machine.” But when he recently purchased a Hyundai, Lacher clearly felt at least a few pangs of guilt.

Read More >

When Toyota told the world that it didn’t want to see any of its American competitors go bankrupt, they meant it. And not purely out of fear of an anti-import backlash either. Toyota’s North American operations rely on many of the same suppliers as Detroit, and if GM were to go bankrupt, many of those suppliers could go under. This is especially dangerous for Toyota with its “just-in-time” production techniques, which is why contingency planning is underway at Toyota City to keep ToMoCo’s supply chain independently solvent. But as Bloomberg reports, that very contingency planning could eliminate the efficiency gains of the Toyota system, once dubbed “The Machine That Changed The World.” The lean, “just-in-time” system was developed on the model of American supermarkets, with components arriving as they are needed for the production process, rather than being mass-produced and stored until needed. Emergency planning includes possibly building up component inventories, which strikes at the heart of the “just-in-time” system’s competitive advantage. Still, a supplier bankruptcy would wreak even more havoc, holding up production lines until more parts arrive. The Japanese automakers have recently learned firsthand of the cost of supply disruption, especially among specialized (tier two and three) component makers. Last July, piston-ring maker Riken’s shut-down due to earthquake damaged forced eight of Japan’s 12 carmakers to temporarily suspend or cut manufacturing, leading to a total output reduction of at least 120,000 vehicles.

As the video proves beyond the shadow of a doubt, parallel parking is a cinch. For those who nonetheless feel challenged by the maneuver, and view it as scarier than crossing the 38^th parallel, Ford has a cure: Ford plans to offer two Lincoln models in 2009 that can park themselves, Marketwatch reports. Parallel parking will get as boring as pushing a button. The miracles will be on display at the Detroit Auto Show. The parallel parking robot will be an option on the Lincoln MKS sedan and MKT CUV for the 2009 model year. For the TTAC B&B, this news is a yawner, as automatic parallel parking attendants were introduced by Toyota in their Prius as far back as 2004, followed by Lexus, BMW, the VW Touran, and possibly others.

Why is Interactivity stressed? What did Toyota and Scion ever do to it?Personally, I’m stressed by Autoblog’s ability to jump on the latest manufacturer press release like a miniature Schnauzer on a peanut butter covered Kong. Still, I don’t think the 800-pound gorilla on the net will stoop low enough to sample– or indeed, republish– Toyota’s official description of its exhibition stands at the don’t call it the Detroit Auto Show. Even though ToMoCo PR-fest will be greener than insert metaphor here. But, as the genie intones in John Papadiuk’s Tales of the Arabian Nights, this amuses me. “These displays include: a ‘Safety and Technology’ kiosk that explains Toyota technology in everyday language; and a series of “Hybrid Synergy Drive® Regenerate Campaign Pods,” which educates consumers on Toyota’s hybrid technology, the benefits and drawbacks of various alternative fuels, and Toyota’s leadership in environmental sustainability.” Pod people unite! Your new Prius is at hand! Toyota hears your cries! “Back by popular demand is ‘Toyota Live,’ a stylized talk show, featuring hosts and guest seating. Introduced last year, ‘Toyota Live’ hosts lead audiences through the latest Toyota news stories as well as engage in a prize-laden Toyota trivia game show.” Of course, Sciontologists will not be neglected.

Read More >