But really, they say, it's not a concept. The Transit Connect compact van (already confirmed for the U.S.) will be a taxi, especially in the taxi capital of America, New York City. With the Crown Victoria going out of production, Ford needs a big car to take its place in the taxi lineup. So it's a hybrid, right? Wrong. Despite Mayor Mike Bloomberg's insistence that all NYC taxis must be hybrids by 2012, the Transit Connect taxi is internal combustion as usual. It'll have the same 4-cylinder gas engine, front wheel drive, and not-cutting-edge 4-speed automatic as the private sale versions of the TC. Still, it makes a fantastic taxi because it is so easy to get in and out of, and it's loaded with legroom. Sliding doors will be especially welcome on Manhattan's absurdly clogged streets, and it's one of the nicest things about the Toyota Sienna minivans already on the road. Ford's reps also confirm that the wheelbase of all American TCs will be stretched from the standard short wheelbase on sale in Europe. Pity it only seats 4 passengers but a third row was probably a bit of a stretch.

Click here for Pixamo gallery 

This is the first anniversary of the Ford Flex [not being on sale]. Ford debuted a concept that looked production-ready at last year's NY Auto Show. This year, it's pretty much ready to go, in finished pre-production form, and off to dealers this summer. Ford's PR folks, who join Toyota in warming up to TTAC, gave me a 20 minute ride in the Flex. Without driving it, what I can say hit me the most is how it feels fully thought through, as opposed to previous cars in which someone started a good effort and then went out to lunch (the Mustang's missing interior, e.g.). The seats are extremely comfortable, and the prepro car was silent inside – which is a feature I hope stays on the actual production models. It's very heavy on creature comforts and goes as far as having a compressor-driven refrigerator as an option, so odds are that it'll be heavy in general. Fit and finish is a huge improvement over most other Ford products, and there's even some character – the cloth version's seats were described as having a tweed pattern. Huh? Engine will be the 3.5 liter V6 from the Flex and Taurus, although one of the marketing guys admitted he wishes Ford's 2.7 liter diesel from Europe would be available. In the future though, the EcoBoost version will be available with a turbocharged V6. Sadly, the packaging isn't what we hoped for, because while the seats totally fold flat, this still ain't rivaling a minivan or the Expedition for space. For example, the third row is still only for children and Napoleonic adults (like me). Looks slick in person, so much so I don't have any idea why Ford's going to sell it alongside the extremely similar Taurus X.

Click here for Pixamo gallery 

You read it right. Bloomberg reports Scion's brand manager, Jack Hollis, revealed in an interview yesterday that they're looking at expanding their lineup of rebadged Toyotas trendy economy cars. Showing Toyota is beginning to read from the GM brand management manual, he asked, "Should it be a youth truck, a youth SUV, an environmental car, a smaller car? We're studying right now to see which would be the greatest priority." He explained their rationale: "There are more leading-edge people we can attract that may not be attracted yet to these first three products." In spite of Scion's dropping sales (down 25 percent last year, 6.7 percent last month), he also said they would keep targeting "trend-setting" customers instead of just going for higher sales volume.  

The IAM has backed down, at least for now. Reuters reports that the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers withdrew its bid to organize Toyota's Cambridge, Ontario plant after they found out they didn't have enough signatures to force a vote. When the IAM filed for the vote, they said they had "well over" the threshold of 40 percent of the total work force required by Canadian law to hold a vote. But then Toyota filed a modified list of employees showing they have 4,025 workers instead of the 3,100 the union claimed they had. Global Insight analyst Aaron Bragman warned "it would not be in Toyota's interests for the plant to unionize" because it could affect future Canadian investments by Toyota and the other Asian automakers. Regardless, the IAM said they'd continue their efforts to unionize the plant.

The nice thing about security guards at auto shows is that they know very little about security and can't guard shit. As Justin and I were looking for the aforementioned free lunch (which indeed there is no such thing as), we headed into a conference room. "Are you with Toyota?" the guard demanded (in the sense of idly inquired). A simple "yes" and there it was: the new Scion Haku concept. The California sunset (TM) orange car looked like a chopped xB, with bells on. Unfortunately, I didn't have my camera with me. So… then I met Matt Hardigree of Jalopnik, who'd been given a magenta-colored press pass (PR) by mistake. I sent Matt back into the room to grab some shots of the top secret Scion, with the understanding that we'd post them simultaneously. Done. TTAC. Making friends wherever we go. 

Today's query is of the decidedly non-scientific variety (unlike yesterday's…). For the second time in as many days, there I was cruising in the fast lane when suddenly I had to brake from around 75 mph down to 63 mph. The freeway curved enough for me to see what the hold-up was. It was a damn Toyota Corolla. I'm not fibbing, either. Twice, in consecutive days, a Corolla was lollygagging in the left lane, wrecking it for everybody else. Yesterday, the horrible irony was that there were two Corollas in the next lane happily trudging along at maybe the speed limit. Meaning I was trapped. Today, there was a Datsun B210. It took a while, but I managed to get free and clear. The day before? Trapped like a rat. A slow rat. I posit that the Corolla, and the mentality that drives a Corolla, causes the most traffic. You?

When I drove a Buick Terraza around Berkeley last fall, I was overwhelmed by the sense of occasion that came with it. The car had so much ghetto cachet I almost fell in love with it. It reinforced all of the car enthusiast prejudices I harbored about minivans (i.e., they suck). And for that, I thanked it. The Toyota Sienna, on the other hand, proved to be a bigger challenge. Each time I wanted to hate some aspect of the minivan, I found myself pleasantly surprised. I don't think I'm giving anything away saying right from the outset that the world's most boring carmaker has made the best example of the world's most boring type of car.

Montreal's largest French language daily has published a study on its site comparing 250 vehicles available for sale in Canada on the basis of MRSP, city fuel consumption, highway fuel consumption. Even better, La Presse published the numbers in a Microsoft Excel file where the findings & methodology are bare for all to see, giving full license to challenge the article's findings.  (Imagine Car & Driver or Consumer Reports doing this!) For example, the study's author, Canadian auto-journalist Alain McKenna, states that American cars top the study by having the lowest operating cost per year. When I sorted the file, I noticed the top three cars were The Chevrolet Aveo, the Pontiac Wave and the Suzuki Swift+. If by "American", he means "Captive Korean imports badged by General Motors", I suppose he has a point. He also fails to consider depreciation and maintenance expenses, which tend to be much higher on domestics. Still, it's quite an interesting spreadsheet to review if you're a numbers geek like I am. McKenna also points out that some of the cheapest vehicles are not what you'd expect, noting that three pick-ups, The Ford Ranger, Chevrolet Colorado and the Mazda B2300, all beat out the Toyota Prius. Speaking of the Prius, where did it end up? In 67th place, just edging out the V6 Mustang by $0.04/100 km of operation.

Today's intentional leak is brought to you by: Nissan. The 2009 Maxima is shown in the full flesh after we saw teaser photos a few days ago, and it looks pretty good. I find the headlights weird, but apparently this is to be some kind of new Nissan family headlight cluster; it's headed for the next gen 370Z sports car as well. Otherwise, the new Maxima is a decent-looking sedan that visually distinguishes itself from the Altima. Whether there is enough market space for the Altima, Maxima, and Infiniti G35 remains to be seen. Some point to Toyota's Avalon and say it shows Nissan can also sell a Japanese Buick. I think Nissan's intended sporty image is tough to reconcile with building a luxo-barge. It will be very interesting to watch how Mr. Ghosn's boys market the Maxima.

Pictures of the new Maxima at Pixamo (with the teaser shots, too) 

According to The Financial Post, The International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM) is accusing Toyota of "unduly influencing employees to vote against a union in a certification vote." In a complaint filed Monday with the Ontario Labour Relations Board, the union says Toyota Canada is distributing anti-union documents to employees and putting "vote no" signs inside the plant where they build the Corolla, Matrix and Lexus RX350. The move is largely seen as saber-rattling ahead of this Thursday's unionization vote. The stakes couldn't be higher. If the IAM gets its foot in the proverbial door, Cambridge will be ToMoCo's first wholly-owned unionized North American plant. Thin end of the wedge? An excuse to slowly shift production out of Canada? Or yet another thwarted attempt to infiltrate the world's largest automaker's NA ops? We should know by week's end. Meanwhile, Automotive News [sub] reports that workers at two Johnson Controls factories (Alabama and Mississippi) rejected the United Auto Workers' [UAW] efforts to unionize the workforce. It's a major defeat for the UAW; Johnson is the fourth largest U.S.-based automotive parts supplier.  

Angus MacKenzie did everything but call TTAC by name in his essay GM Shares Tumble. So What? Yes, the Motor Trend scribe can “almost hear the Detroit death-watchers rubbing their hands with glee” at the news of GM's stock hitting two-year lows. It's true. Every time GM's share price dips, we light giant cigars, twirl our collective mustache and laugh maniacally. That Mr. MacKenzie sees critical coverage of the auto industry as journalistic schadenfreude goes some ways towards explaining Motor Trend’s increasingly toothless car reviews. But how can MacKenzie, an experienced car hack, justify pinning Detroit’s woes on anyone other than, well, Detroit? Hey, a man’s gotta eat.

What prompted GM's share price slump, said analysts, was a drop in the overall auto market, and worries about future profits in light of disappointing February sales… What the analysts really meant was Wall Street's money men don't think GM's a good bet for making them a quick buck right now. And if the money men don't think a company can make them a quick buck, then it's basically worthless.

This kind of rhetoric– references to unnamed, evil “money men”– smacks of Ye Olde International Jewish banking conspiracy. As populist as such a sentiment may be, it’s unconscionable for a responsible journalist to perpetuate such a well-worn shibboleth.

More to the point, MacKenzie is dead wrong. The short-term thinking that caused GM's stock price to head for the basement came from RenCen— not Wall Street. Nobody from the financial community forced General Motors to squander billions on misbegotten foreign alliances, or destroy its brands, or capitulate to union demands. Nobody told GM’s management to buy Saab and Hummer, or set-up Saturn. The end result of GM’s self-inflicted management failure is a company in deep financial crisis. This is clearly, unequivocally, completely GM’s fault.    

In an era when nameless screen jockeys can move billions of dollars at the touch of a computer keyboard, Wall Street's institutionalized ADD has resulted in a feverish short-term view of the auto business. Lengthy product cycles and huge investment costs, combined with a fickle, cyclical, fashion-driven market, are just too damned difficult to deal with.

Sure. Automotive analysts like John Casesa begin looking at the car industry, get bogged down in the numbers and market cycles, throw up their hands and say, “Whoa! That’s just too damned difficult. Forgeddaboutit.” And what of all those institutional investors who’ve stood by The General for decades? In fact, GM was once known as a “blue chip stock,” held as much for its healthy dividend payments (recently halved) as its share price.

There’s one reason this is no longer true: the company’s management has run the automaker into the ground. And why’s that? According to Mr. MacKenzie, it’s all about GM’s pesky quarterly financial reports.

Maybe that's why the world's most successful automakers — Toyota, BMW and Porsche, to name three – are those that have never had to sweat a quarterly earnings call with a posse of skeptical Wall Street analysts ready to trash their stock price when they don't see the opportunity to make that quick buck.

Wrong. BMW files quarterly reports. Toyota files quarterly reports. As does every major automaker you can name save privately-held Chrysler– and we all know how well that’s going. As publicly held companies (save Porsche), ALL automakers have to face the music. Just like GM.

Never mind. MacKenzie is determined to paint GM as a victim– even if he has to undermine his own argument to do it.

Bunkie Knudsen, who ran Pontiac and Chevrolet in the '50s and '60s, reckoned it all started to go wrong when Fred Donner became president of GM in 1958. Knudsen was outraged Donner would insist on talking about GM's stock price, and what the analysts thought about it, at his daily meetings with the heads of GM's divisions. Before Donner, those meetings were mostly about making cars and trucks. After, as the financial engineers took over from the real ones, GM's cars and trucks got worse and worse.

Again, how is this Wall Street’s fault? 

Bunkie Knudsen believed in a simple concept: The people in Detroit had to make good cars, and if they did, the people in New York would take care of the stock. After decades of fixating on financial engineering, GM is only now getting back to the business of making good cars. Only problem is, no one in New York seems to care anymore.

Reality check. It’s not “the money men’s” job to “care” about making good cars. That’s GM’s job. This they’ve failed to do, in spectacular fashion. MacKenzie’s finger-pointing at dark forces on Wall Street doesn’t change the fact that GM is in a hole of its own making. Their share price reflects that reality, which GM, like MacKenzie, refuse to face.

[Read MacKenzie's rant here.] 

Mr. Lieberman is right to call the musical metaphor informing TTAC's Question of the Day "seriously forced." In fact, it reminds me of 70's-era touchy-feely market research methodology. "If the Toyota Cressida was a dog [sic 'em], would it be more like an Australian Kelpie or a Petit Basset Griffon Vendeen?" And yet, the QOTD also reminds me of a long-ago survey– in the UK of course– where a researcher claimed that listening to loud music was more likely to cause speeding (gasp!) than alcohol consumption. True dat. I've always had a thing for [theoretically] driving fast whilst under the influence of music. But it's nothing like alcoholic inebriation. When music, road, man and machine meld, it's a far better high than anything supplementary chemistry can provide. And I get the parallel between engineering and music. In fact, I reckon if The Big 2.8's execs could "get" Little Feat, they'd have a chance of saving their own bacon. But then, most people that age consider Neil Diamond rock and roll. Go figure. 

Spring: the season of love, flowers and convertibles. As warmer weather approaches, car dealers put away the 4×4 SUV’s and pull the drop-tops from the back of the lots in the hopes of snagging passersby wanting a vehicle to celebrate the (global?) warming weather. Pontiac tempts buyers with the G6 GT Hardtop Convertible while Chrysler lures in the public with the newly-introduced Sebring Limited Hardtop Convertible. As the only American-branded hardtop convertibles, which one truly deserves your hard-earned income? Or should both be tossed into the bonfire of the vanities?

Thinking long-term (as always), Toyota wants its dealers to spend millions expanding showrooms, adding service bays and upgrading their architecture. Thinking short term (as always), Toyota dealers are contemplating the "Image USA II" plan and saying "not on my dime, Bub-san" [paraphrasing]. Automotive News [sub] reports that slumping sales are leading to some serious foot-dragging. "There's never a good time to do a facility modification," TMNA prez Jim Lenz insists. "It doesn't matter if it's two, five or 10 years from now; it will be more expensive than it is today." Toyota's stick: they're threatening not to renew franchises on older stores and offering just two-month franchise extensions to dealers slow to spend the cash. Toyota's carrot: better allocation of popular models. Some dealers say "more cars are the last thing I need." What's more, many just finished investing in Toyota's "Image USA I" plan; they don't relish spending another $1.5m to go to a totally different look. Dealers are telling Toyota: "show me the money." "GM and other brands offer… interest-free financing for their facility program to help you out," a suitably anonymous dealer reports. "But Toyota doesn't."  

Timing is. Everything. ToMoCo spent $1.28b to build a state-of-the-art, full-size, full-size truck plant in Texas– just as the pickup market was starting to tank. The new state-of-the-art factory can crank-out 300k restyled Tundras a year. As production began, the Japanese automaker set a relatively low (for trucks) sales goal of 200k Tundras for the first year. They just fell short, in spite of Detroit-level incentives. Then, with the truck-based SUV market softer than Sponge Bob at bath time, Toyota's launched the redesigned Sequoia. So now Automotive News [sub] reports that they're cutting production of both vehicles. ToMoCo won't reveal the extent of the cutback, but they say they'll throttle back production rather than laying off workers. You have to wonder if and when Toyota may admit defeat, move Tundra production back to Indiana and convert the San Antonio plant to Camry, Corolla or even Prius production. ©2008 ttac.com