Joint ventures are nothing new in the car business. Toyota makes cars for GM in California, Ford makes trucks and SUVs for Mazda, Subaru and Mitsubishi used to share an assembly plant and Mercedes sends over the underpinnings for the new Chrysler 300. So how about Lincoln and Acura? Despite Ford's recent problems, their legendary luxury division has a lot to offer Honda's underperforming luxury brand. By the same token, Acura has a few tricks up its sleeve that could help Lincoln regain much of its lost luster.

First and foremost, Lincoln has a V8. While Honda's free-revving six-cylinder engines have earned them justifiable respect and popular success in the American market, the lack of a suitable eight has hamstrung its luxury division since it invaded US shores in March of '86. Despite Acuras' undeniable quality, refinement and relative value-for-money, there's simply no getting around the fact that US consumers view a V8 engine as a luxury car basic. The latest RL is a perfect example: a superb vehicle with a 300hp, 3.6-liter V6 that's two cylinders short of a full order book.

With the steady decline in sales of the Lincoln LS, and the death of the Thunderbird, Ford has sufficient manufacturing capacity to supply Acura with their superb 3.9-liter, DOHC, 280hp V8. Lincoln's torquey powerplant has all the features a modern luxury car engine requires: variable valve timing, multiple valves and aluminum construction. If Acura felt a need for more power, Ford's expertise with supercharging would certainly come in handy.

By the same token, Lincoln could help Acura design and implement a suitable rear-wheel-drive platform– another "must" for American luxury car buyers. Lincoln is also a world leader in air suspension technology. From the 1984 Mark VII to today's self-leveling Navigator, Lincoln drivers have been gliding on air, without any of the reliability issues that have dogged other manufacturers' systems. With Ford's computer-controlled air suspension, Acura would leapfrog their Japanese luxury car competition and pull level with Mercedes, Audi and Jaguar.

Anyone who's examined an Acura in detail knows that the brand's craftsmanship is as good as the best Europeans'. Anyone who's poked around a Lincoln knows that the company's products need to raise their game. Recent reports suggest that Lincoln's Wixom plant is about to become empty. It's the ideal venue for a joint production project that would give Lincoln a much-needed lesson in how to build world-class quality products– on time and under budget.

It's sad but true: Lincoln has lost the ability to deliver a competitive product in a timely fashion. By turning to Acura to produce a new car, Ford would bypass their dysfunctional and paralyzed product development process. Acura could develop a car without the strangling effects of the Ford culture. At the same time, Honda, which pioneered the Japanese move to America to make cars, remains the most westernized of any Japanese carmaker. Honda's management would mesh more easily with Ford's culture than representatives of any other transplanted automaker.

A new Lincoln/Acura would also allow Lincoln to market a car that doesn't owe its parentage to other, cheaper Fords. The most likely incarnation of this cooperative effort would be a Lincoln LS replacement and a new, upscale Acura. Imagine an LS-sized car with a V8, rear-wheel-drive and an air suspension with active controls tied into an advanced stability system. Trim it out to Acura standards, build it with Honda quality and sell it for the price of a 3-Series BMW. Follow it with coupe and convertible versions, and Lincoln and Acura would both be able to compete head-on with BMW, Mercedes, et al. The Lincoln coupe and convertible versions could reclaim the Mark name from pickup truck hell, and restore the Mark to its rightful place in the automotive hierarchy.

An Acura-designed and built Lincoln may sound crazy, but desperate times call for desperate measures. Lincoln dealers are consistently rated among the highest for customer satisfaction; they have tremendous experience selling to luxury car owners and providing them with an appropriate level of after-sales service. But they're dying for lack of competitive product. While some might recoil at the idea of an ostensibly Japanese car sitting in a Lincoln showroom, the new model would be cozying-up to a Mexican built version of a Japanese Mazda (the Zephyr) and a new Towncar built on Swedish underpinnings.

Who knows where all this could lead. What about a Civic-based Focus? Is it possible to stretch the imagination enough to see a Honda pickup truck with a Ford V8? Acura could well be the answer to Ford's challenges, and vica versa.

I should have seen it coming. How could GM flog its remaining '05 cars, trucks and SUV's at anything other than the Employee Discount for Everyone (EDFE) price? As we've said here before, you can't very well raise the price on an old product when its replacement is heading down the pike. Besides, Ford and Chrysler are continuing their Grab Your Checkbook and Work for Us programs through the summer. So the extension of GM's EDFE program until September 6th makes perfect sense. My bad for believing GM's public promises.

Speaking of which, The General is revving-up its "Total Value Promise" program. That's right, GM's post-fire sale 'Value Pricing' program has evolved. Originally, The General was simply going to lower '06 sticker prices to reflect the products' actual purchase price after [what would have been] incentives. Now, the automaker is saying they've "lowered prices, added features or redesigned over 50 GM models" so "you get more without paying more on the cars and trucks you really want."

The Australian children's entertainment ensemble will be well pleased; never in the course of corporate history has a company created so much wiggle room. All that's missing is the conjunction "and/or"– and you just know it's there in spirit. More specifically, a new GM product might have a lower sticker, or new features for the same sticker, or new features for a lower sticker, or a redesign with new features for the same sticker, or a redesign without new features for a lower sticker, or… the mind boggles. And that's before regional discounts or cash back allowances.

I'm also more than a little impressed by the phrase "on the cars and trucks you really want". What about the cars and trucks people DON'T want? I thought the whole point of incentives– I mean 'a value promise' was to off-load the losers. Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the new Chevrolet Corvette one of those cars customers "really want"? And wasn't it excluded from the EDFE program? No wait, the 'Vette's been redesigned, so GM draws a "Get Out of a Lower Sticker Price Free" card. But hang on, the 'Vette was redesigned for '05. Does that mean the new Value Promise is retroactive?

Confused? So what else is new? GM singularly fails to grasp the fact that the public's imagination was captured by the EDFE program's simplicity. The "You pay what we pay" message eliminated most of the confusion and stress of wading through the incentives morass. EDFE wasn't a return to Saturn's old no-haggle pricing, but it was damn close. (One suspects many EDFE customers treated it as such, much to dealers' delight.) The EDFE elevated The General in its customers' estimation, allaying their suspicion that all those complicated incentives were designed to fool them into thinking they were getting a bargain when they weren't.

Which was true. The only way you can judge a car's value is by comparison. It's no coincidence that GM products' official sticker price has been higher than their direct competitors'. That way GM can take money off the 'suggested' retail price to bring the GM product down its competitor's level AND make it seem like customers are getting a "deal". For example, in 2005, the Pontiac Vibe stickered for $1k more than the Toyota Matrix, leaving a nice pad for discounts. Will the Value Promise program end this faux inflation? It's doubtful.

Before Value Pricing morphed into "We Give You Our Word That This Price Represents Excellent Value", pundits were saying that the move towards realistic stickering was motivated by the Internet. GM's official prices supposedly put them at a disadvantage during electronic price comparisons. Not true. The General's websites include a program that calculates post-incentive pricing. More importantly, savvy web shoppers have been heading for sites like kbb.com to scope the dealer invoice for quite some time. Which they will continue to do, Value Promise or not.

The point is this: GM didn't so much miss the honesty boat as get on it and then hop off mid-river. If The General had created a program in the spirit of EDFE, they would have capitalized on the public's good will. The Value Promise pisses on pricing clarity and further sullies GM's rep. No doubt the program will succeed in some cases, and fail in many others. Creating a class-leading product that makes its competitors look over-priced is the only strategy that works in every case. Hey Rick, what are the chances of THAT happening?

GM's second quarter financial results prove what we've been saying all along: sales do not necessarily equal profits. Thanks to its Employee Discount for All program, The General's turnover climbed by a staggering 47%. The automaker's US market share rose to 30%. And yet GM lost another $1.2b, which is nearasdammit the same amount they lost last quarter. Add up cash reserves, marketable securities and available assets (from an employees' healthcare trust no less) and The General has about $20.2 billion in the bank. Simple math says that GM's US division will be completely bankrupt in a little over four years.

Of course, that assumes a steady burn rate. It's entirely possible that the automaker's fire sale has sucked-up most of the cash from GM's customer base, leaving a diminished market for new products. These new whips will have to kick some major league ass (i.e. Toyota et al) to stave off an even more precipitous earnings slide. And again, that's income. GM's expenditure is still wildly out of control; despite Rabid Rick Wagoner's public pledge to hold the union's feet to the fire on health care benefits, he, um, hasn't. There's no word about containing equally onerous (though less publicized) production, labor, management, administrative, inventory, distribution and marketing costs.

At some point, the situation will reach a tipping point, where everyone from suppliers to politicians will realize that the Titanic isn't going to make it. The words coming from the Chief Financial Officer's poop deck are hardly what you'd call reassuring: 'We have not put targets and we've not put dates on a North American recovery plan, but believe us, we have those targets internally.' So that's alright then. If the lifeboat known as GMAC finance is sold, you can expect the resulting panic to greatly accelerate the main company's demise.

But even if GM's profitable divisions are retained until the very last, it's highly unlikely that GM shareholders will simply stand by and watch the world's largest automaker slip into Chapter 11. When the ship's lights start flickering, Wagoner, Lutz, LaNeve and the rest of the current crew will be cast adrift. Divisions will be shuttered, plants terminated, product lines scuttled, unions confronted, assets sold. In fact, the rescue plan will be pretty much what it should have been five years ago. While you can't blame a Neanderthal for not winning a MacArthur genius award, watching this once proud company creaking and groaning towards a watery grave is as depressing as it is predictable.

The GM story has all the inevitability of a Greek tragedy. While the ending is never in doubt, the tale's twists and turns are endlessly fascinating. Consider Pontiac. While other GM brands managed to (at least) clear out lots of unsold inventory, and some even gained traction (Hummer sales up by over 200%), the Chief's sales were down 14.1%. Meanwhile, Pontiac's secret weapon is stuck in the lab. When the division recently announced that the Solstice would appear in showrooms this August, beleaguered front liners shouted huzzah! Yes but… actual, honest-to-God customer deliveries are still delayed until fall. Oh well.

Pontiac's misfires are yet more proof of the axiom that character is plot. The reason that Pontiac is a dead brand waiting is that it's just one facet of a corporation suffering from multiple personality disorder. In other words, there is no way on God's green earth that GM can make eight– count'em: eight– carmaking divisions fire on all cylinders all at the same time. Even if one or two members of GM's portfolio suddenly become wildly successful– a fair proposition given the law of averages– the others will take the resources generated and piss them away. There will always be a crisis somewhere in The General's ranks. It's a no-win situation.

Need proof? Look overseas. GM's European operations posted a $37m profit. It's not great, but a profit beats a loss every time. So why is GM Europe floating while its US parent flounders? European labor costs are worse than America's, and governmental taxation and regulation is on the far side of burdensome. But GM Europe doesn't sell eight different brands. Vauxhall [UK] is a single strong brand with a coherent message and worthy products. Ditto Opel on the Continent. These companies have focus.

Of course, that's changing. Chevrolet/Daewoo is planning a major European expansion, Cadillac wants to play on the world stage, Saab fancies its chances and… The trick to avoiding tragedy is to be the master of your own character. Clearly, GM is hamstrung by its hubris, and, ultimately, defeated by self-denial.

Accord and Camry owners: "You're Welcome." At the risk of sounding sniffy, Toyota and Honda owners owe a large debt of gratitude to Nissan. Without the Altima, rival pink-slippers might still be trundling around in severely underpowered appliances. Rewind to 2002, when Nissan lit a fire under the collective backsides of every carmaker in the family sedan segment. At the time, Altima's haute-couture shape and Tabasco-infused engine gave competing engineers gray hair– and their marching papers. How else do you explain today's 240hp Accord?

That was then. And this is… later. Fortunately, while Nissan's busied itself immolating the wick at both ends of their considerable lineup, they haven't lost sight of the car that put them back in the game. I submit Exhibit 'SE-R'. Okay, so the new uber-Altima only boasts a modest bump in horsepower (10) and an extra ratio (6) in the manual gearbox. But don't be misled: the revised Altima is no trim-and-tape proposition designed to hold the fort until reinforcements arrive. It's yet another leap forward for Nissan's standard bearer.

So, GM car Czar Bob Lutz breaks cover again. This time, Maximum Bob strolled into the offices of AutoWeek to face a grilling from the magazine's [unnamed] editor. Well, maybe not a grilling; more like a few minutes in a reasonably warm room with his coat off and feet up. In fact, the rambling and less-than-grammatical nature of Max Bob's replies to AutoWeek's underhand lobs indicates some kind of no-edit deal with the mag. Presumably, what we're getting is unvarnished Lutz. It's pretty scary stuff.

After a bit of warm-up softball, we get down to the main event: branding. In two of the longest, most 'puddle of consciousness' paragraphs ever posted on the web, Bob provides a guided tour of the magical mystery maze known as GM's branding strategy. [NB: Immediately after this editorial appeared, Autoweek removed its interview with Mr. Lutz from its website.] "I don't want to start a debate" the Editor begins, leading with his chin, "but how many divisions are adequate to cover the market?"

Max Bob immediately attacks GM's critics for double standards. Why accuse The General of excessive divisionality when Toyota has plenty of brands: Scion, Toyota, Lexus, Daihatsu and "I don't know what else"? Hmmm. Although Toyota bought Daihatsu in '99, the company's US operations died in February '92. In its quarantined capacity, Daihatsu isn't exactly a threat to GM's subs. And if Max Bob really doesn't know "what else" GM's arch rival has in its arsenal, well, that's not good– especially as there IS nothing else (excluding Hino commercial trucks and busses).

Adding insult to apathy, Bob goes on to list the VAG group's brands: "Volkswagen, Audi, Goldan, Bentley, Lamborghini, and I probably forgot one or two along the way." You can forgive Max Bob for forgetting Bugatti (as they've forgotten to deliver the Veyron), but you'd hope GM's Vice Chairman for Global Product Development would remember SEAT and SKODA. And who the Hell is Goldan? Maybe Maximum Bob said "Gol dang Bentley", and Autoweek's transcription service heard a more palatable (if imaginary) homonym.

When Max Bob finally turns his attention to his employer's lineup, he declares that Chevrolet is "the essential", Cadillac is "very clearly needed" and Hummer is "expandable". And then Bob's off, chasing cheese in the labyrinth, banging into dead ends at every turn. To wit: "When I say Pontiac should be more BMW, it should be into the niche of somewhat outrageous, aggressive performance. Will a Pontiac obtain a level of perfection of a 3-series? No. That's Pontiac's story."

I think I missed a few chapters. Perhaps Max Bob is trying to say that Pontiacs should be more like BMW's, but only somewhat, because Pontiac doesn't have a hope in Hell of matching BMW quality and engineering at its presumed price point. I'm not sure. In any case, Max Bob's remarks aren't exactly what I'd call a rallying cry.

On the Saturn front, Max Bob posits a philosophical question: "Why do we have to pick between great cars and lousy dealers and great dealers and uninspired cars? What would happen if we put the two together?" Excellent question, but why it applies to Saturn any more than any other of The General's seven other domestic brands is an even better one. Perhaps MB simply forgot about them. After revealing that Yukon-Denali buyers have more money than Escalade owners, Bob says, "So those are basically the brands now, what do we do with them?" Hello; what happened to SAAB?

We later learn that "Saab has a good future, but the part of the future that had to be changed was operating Saab as an independent car company. It just made absolutely no sense, so you've probably seen the announcement that we're establishing a Saab control center. It is sort of like the keepers of the Saab flame."

It's sort of like, you know, frightening; hearing Max Bob admit that GM brands can not act as independent car companies. For one thing, this Saab story makes a mockery of Marketing Mark LaNeve's pledge to eliminate product overlap (i.e. badge engineering) across the GM Empire. For another, genuine independence gives an automotive brand its character (hence GM's lack of same). When Lutz goes on to say that Saab has "never really been totally able to develop their own cars", he's either being disingenuous or pissing on Saab's heritage from a great height. Either way, it doesn't bode well for the Swedes.

In fact, MB's Autoweek appearance gives us no reason to revise our opinion of GM's prospects. Not that his words mean much; it's the next round of Lutzerific vehicles that will tell the tale. If they don't cut the mustard, if they can't be sold at a reasonable profit, The General will continue its inexorable slide into bankruptcy. At that point, Max Bob will regret his words, especially this classic example of hubristic doublespeak: "I don't think we have a lot of over-capacity. What we have is under-demand."

Life for this wee Swede hasn't been easy. Low man on the totem pole, bastard half-Asian stepchild to the rest of the family, Volvo's S40 sat idly by in darkened showroom corners while siblings bulked up courtesy the brand's design NordicTrack. Unable to do little but watch its brethren emerge with quickened reflexes, broadened shoulders and finely tailored threads, the colorless S40 must've felt like Billy to the rest of the Baldwins.

But no more. That's because Volvo's finally replaced the (ironically-named) Mitsubishi Carisma doppelganger with something more befitting the brand. As here in T5 guise, that means 'out' with the 1.9-liter light-pressure turbo (a tepid lump that'd barely get out of its own way, let alone stand up at stoplights), and 'in' with a properly force-fed 2.5-liter five-cylinder and six-speed manual. 'Out' with the uninspired oriental NedCar chassis, 'in' with a more robust platform spun from the same cloth as the Mazda3 and Euro-market Ford Focus.

Opening up a recent issue of Autoweek, I was astonished by a picture of a new SUV. The vehicle's design was clean, modern and butch, without the slightest hint of off-roader clichés or overarching futurism. The newbie's sheet metal instantly trumped the latest crop of SUV's: the hideously-nosed Subaru Tribeca, the narcoleptic Saab 9-7x and the ungainly Audi Q7. I was even more astonished to see the GMC logo on the stunner's snout. When I saw the words "Hybrid Fever" in the title, I was ready for a big plate of humble pie.

The GMC Graphyte is, I soon learned, a concept car; though not in the Chrysler sense of the phrase. It's not an SUV that will eventually appear at your local dealership in roughly the same form. It's more like "here's something we spent a lot of money on to distract you from the fact that our next generation of trucks is just like the current generation of trucks with slightly better everything, but nothing particularly interesting, and certainly no killer ap like a really good hybrid engine." In other words, if you think GM has a secret weapon waiting in the wings to counter Toyota's inexorable march towards replacing The General as the world's largest automaker, dream on.

In fact, Autoweek let slip that the Graphyte is a sham. The demo SUV was powered by the same old GM iron– despite the plastic cover proclaiming it a hybrid. "We later learned that actual prototypes are out in the real world doing engineering tests…" So no one at GM told Autoweek that the demo SUV had a gas-guzzling V8 until AFTER they drove it? You couldn't ask for a better illustration of the dishonest desperation infesting The General's ranks.

By the same token, Autoweek brings no glory to itself for saving that crucial factoid for paragraph ten, and accepting GM's contention that the engine in question even exists. The truth's late entry into the game can be attributed to the length of the author's pro-GM intro. After accusing hybrid supporters of Stalinist tendencies, the writer reveals that "insiders at GM… admit to not appreciating the emotional appeal of the segment" and "GM expects to become a major player in the model years 2007 and 2008." Translation: GM didn't make hybrids because they didn't realize its customers are such PC morons, but now they do."

Heads-up guys! Since when is a car NOT an emotional purchase? Are we to believe GM's product planners are in tune with the emotional appeal of a gas-guzzling Cadillac Escalade, but couldn't get their heads 'round the idea that consumers are willing to pay a premium to do their bit for America's energy independence and the environment– even if their assistance is only marginal? And again, where's the hard evidence that GM's "next generation" (read: late but superior) hybrid technology is ready for MY '07 or '08? If the powerplant ain't in the Graphyte right now, what are the chances it'll be market-ready in just two years?

To its credit, Autoweek understands the reasoning behind GM's continuing reluctance to fully commit to hybrid technology. The magazine repeats the anti-hybrid argument I've heard coming from The General's command post for some time: hybrids are merely halo cars, media-friendly anomalies that burnish a carmaker's green rep but have little appeal to the majority of American car buyers. Autoweek cites an oft-quoted JD Power survey predicting that hybrid-powered vehicles will carve-out a 3% market share by 2012. So it's just not worth it.

Older readers may remember similar arguments when Japanese imports first arrived on US shores. "Nobody wants those small, cheap cars except a few pot-smoking liberals and poor people.' Well, it didn't turn out that way– especially after the Arab oil embargo changed the rules of the game. This time, GM has failed to recognize that 911 has triggered another sea-change. More and more US consumers want hybrids, and they want them NOW.

Check this: GM just released a study revealing that 39% of Americans believe that improving gas mileage and reducing vehicle emissions should be our top energy priority. Does that sound like a hybrid market to you? GM's response: the poll shows the need to tell the public about our work developing fuel-efficient vehicles and our research into vehicles powered by hydrogen fuel cells. Wrong answer. Graphyte mock-up or no, GM needs to realize that the time for talking is through.

You wouldn't turn a golf cart into an SUV, so why turn an SUV into a golf cart? And yet here we are in a Toyota Highlander Hybrid, gliding away from a traffic light like we're heading for the eighth tee. Mash the gas and the hybrid's petrol-powered engine kicks-in with the tiniest of judders. Instantly, there's more than enough petrol-powered propulsion to quickly distance ourselves from the following foursome– just as long as we stay on the fairway. According to the Toyota Motor Corp, even the high-spec, four-wheel-drive Highlander Hybrid SUV is "not designed to be driven off road".

Nor is it designed to be driven like a sports car. Which is a shame. You only need a Nissan Pathfinder or Ford Explorer doggie-sniffing your rear bumper once to realize that a surprising number of SUV owners like to drive like Hell. On the face of it, the Highlander Hybrid seems the ideal whip for supersonic Soccer Moms and NASCAR dads: 268hp (gas and electric engine power combined), zero to 60 in just 7.3 seconds and a tree-hugging rep to hide behind at cocktail parties and speed traps. The reality is less stirring.

Strolling through one of Honda's vanilla dealerships and coming across the new Ridgeline is a bit like happening upon Mike Tyson supping Earl Grey tea at the Dorchester Hotel in London. Not that you'd say it out loud, but the word that springs to mind is 'fugly'. Which doesn't really do Honda's first-ever pickup truck justice. For better or worse, the Ridgeline is right hook to your aesthetic expectations, instantly redefining the pickup genre in both form and function.

'We aren't going out of business in the next six months.' After yesterday's stockholder meeting, GM Chairman Rick Wagoner faced reporters and jokingly predicted that his company will last until November– just in time for the long-delayed launch of the new Pontiac Solstice. The irony would be delicious if there weren't so many diners at the table. GM's continuing slide threatens the financial future of hundreds of thousands of shareholders, workers, suppliers, dealers, even the Seven Million Dollar man himself. And yet Wagoner's "big idea" to revive The General's declining health is a sham.

While Wagoner unveiled a five-point plan for GM, the headlines focused on plant closures and screamed "GM to slash 25,000 jobs!" The Chairman's committment to downsizing was a guaranteed spin winner. You know the drill: American manufacturing jobs are disappearing. It's a crisis! Something must be done! Equally important from Wagoner's POV, there's a market-pleasing corollary: times are tough, but GM is taking tough action. News of the move sent GM's share price (which has lost over 50% of its value in recent times) up fifty cents.

The truth is less dramatic than Wagoner would have us believe. As Daniel Howes of The Detroit News pointed out, GM is currently shedding between five and six thousands workers per year through 'normal' attrition. GM will lose 25k jobs by '08 simply by continuing its present course. Lest we forget, it still has to pay out full health care benefits. And deep-sixing entire chunks of GM's workforce hasn't stopped the rot thus far. Since 1990, The General has closed six assembly plants, trimmed 117,065 hourly workers and decommissioned 14,296 bureaucrats. So much for magic bullet number one. Next round: new product.

Wagoner pledged to speed-up new vehicle development and invest another billion dollars in the process. A billion bucks is lot compared to most people's savings, but the extra money only brings GM's R&D budget up to $8b a year– compared to Toyota's $15b. While no one could criticize GM for trying to create vehicles people actually want to buy, there's disturbing news from the engineering front lines. GM recently scuppered its rear-wheel-drive program and the replacement for the Northstar V8 is rumored to be at least four years away.

It takes The General over two years to get a new machine off the drawing board and into production. At best. 'Speeding up' the introduction of new product sounds good on paper, but any greater rush to market could mean more Solstician holdups and/or quality issues. The General's immediate future depends on what Wagoner and his team hath wrought in the last five years. If GM's PT Cruiser wannabe bombs, if their new full-sized SUV's and trucks tank, well, there's not much GM can do about it in the short term.

Other than offer incentives. Which Rick plans to cut. Bullet three: eliminate discounts by "streamlining" GM's dealer structure, improving sales in metropolitan areas, loading vehicles with more standard features and advertising vehicles closer to their "actual" retail price. Is it me, or does this sound like firing blanks? It's not the kind of strategy I'd depend upon to shift 1.2 million unsold vehicles (and counting). Surely, the only way to eliminate discounts is to build the right product for the right cost, and then sell it at a price that generates enough profit to stay in business. Most of the other guys seem to get it.

Of course, most of the other guys don't carry health care costs that equal $1500 per vehicle. Bullet four: renegotiate the UAW's contract. Hmmm. So why hasn't Wagoner formerly requested re-opening their contract? Anyway, how are those "intense discussions" going? 'We have not reached an agreement at this time, and, to be honest, I'm not one hundred percent certain that we will,' Wagoner said at the shareholder meeting. 'If we can't do that we'll have to consider our other options."

Such as importing more parts from China. This is the final round in Rick's gun. Although it didn't get nearly as much media attention as the nominal job cuts, the Chairman's announcement that he'll reduce costs by replacing UAW-made parts with Chinese parts is big news. Given that GM is now manufacturing cars in Slave Laborland, the clear implication is that GM could move more production overseas. It's not a bad idea, financially, but it ain't gonna help if and when GM tries to play the patriotic card.

And there you have it: too little, too late. For whatever reason, Wagoner couldn't bite the bullet. He couldn't lop off dying brands. He couldn't go nuclear on the UAW's costs and practices. He couldn't reinvent GM. The ship is sinking, but as far as Wagoner is concerned, it's steady as she goes.

GM and its supporters have a mantra: product. By continually chanting "product, product, product", they hope the company's critics will believe that a string of hot cars, trucks, SUV's and minivans will pull the world's largest automaker back from the brink. While the argument ignores GM's sky high costs and decades of soured consumer relations, it sounds plausible enough. Chrysler's doing it. Why not GM?

For one thing, GM doesn't know how to sell a hot product when they have one. Take the Pontiac Solstice. No wait, you can't. Despite promising the car for summer '05, production problems have delayed dealer delivery until October. Ish. While GM wants props for selling no Pontiac before its time, you've got to laugh (or cry) at their incompetence. The company finally comes up with a blockbuster, generates massive awareness through a hit TV show, opens a special website for an "early order program" (EOP) and then… nothing.

Make that worse than nothing. GM won't commit to a new delivery date and leaves the "lucky" 1000 EOP winners twisting in the wind. GM also fails to contact customers who registered on the Pontiac website for Solstice updates. [Many of these customers already feel hard done by; the web winners cut the line.] And then there's talk of Pontiac dealers adding a "market adjustment" to the Solstice's retail price. Potential buyers wanting to know what's what can't get a straight answer from their dealer. GM remains mute.

When aspiring Solstice owners finally hear word of 'their' car, the message doesn't come via email, or registered letter or a courtesy phone call. GM addresses the 'issue' through our old friend fastlane.gmblogs.com. Suffice it to say, GM Line Executive – Small Cars Lori Queen says nothing whatsoever about potential dealer surcharges and makes no firm committment to a delivery date. And then she tells surfers that she's toodling around town in a pre-production Solstice and it's great! As the British like to snarl, it's alright for SOME.

But not most; including GM. You don't have to be a New England Pontiac dealer to know that launching a convertible roadster in October is not a great idea. What's more, Mazda is about to unleash– on time– their latest generation MX-5. Unless the Solstice is damn near perfect, the highly evolved Japanese roadster is bound to kick the American newcomer's ass. But even if the Solstice is rated the better of the two cars, the ideal sales window will be closed for winter, and the chance of a pre-emptive strike against the class leader will be gone.

C'mon, supporters say, cut GM some slack; everyone makes mistakes. Yes, but this is the exact same mistake Pontiac made with the G6. That Great Wheeled Hope also experienced a horrendous gap between marketing hype, consumer backlash (a $7k tax bill for Oprah's G6 winners) and eventual delivery. A company living in junk bond Hell, an automaker that's losing $2,331 on every vehicles it sells, simply can't afford to build-up consumer expectations and then drive them into a tree.

The second reason GM's product mantra won't forestall foreclosure is that The General is simply too slow off the mark. As good as it may be, the Solstice is taking aim at a segment that Mazda has been exploiting for 15 years. When the Solstice finally arrives, it will hit the marketplace almost four years after the concept car was first introduced.

Again, we're talking about a pattern of behavior. Maximum Bob's latest blog entry assures readers that he understands enthusiasts' current fondness for rear-wheel-drive passenger cars (i.e. the Chrysler 300C). In fact, Bob says, his minions MAY start another rear-wheel-drive program to replace the one they just spiked. The company is also "studying" the trend towards "nostalgia vehicles". In other words, by the time GM translates its current rear-wheel-drive "studies" into action, and delivers its new nostalgic designs (?), the market will have solidified, or moved on.

Bottom line: 'me too' products won't cut it. Toyota spends some $15b a year on research and development for three brands, and leads the way in hybrid technology. GM spends $7b a year for eight brands, and still sells pushrod engines. Obviously, creativity and innovation isn't simply a matter of money. But if GM believes that product is all, they should be putting their all into product. The car business isn't brain surgery. As Thomas Ho's post on the fastlane blog puts it, GM should…

"Make a solid product, market it, sell it and back it up with great customer service. Instead, they market [a product] before it is ready for prime time, receive orders and then delay it. Is it just me, or are people in GM smoking something?"

Bob blogs. Mr. Lutz' entries on fastlane.gmblogs.com are irregular enough to merit cybernetic Metamucil, and the GM Vice Chairman's comments are about as 'off the cuff' as the State of the Union address. Even so, the blog provides fascinating insight into The Main Man's mindset. Sure, you have to slow the spin and read between the lines. That just makes it more fun. Bob's last entry, May 12th's 'The Game Plan… an Edited Version', is a perfect example.

Even before we start, he's waffling. The 'edited version' in the title implies that the full blueprint for GM's turnaround is too long or complicated for the General's public. It's a stunningly efficient projection of corporate condescension. In case you missed the point, Maximum Bob immediately reassures visitors that he reads their comments. The hand-holding exercise is necessary because Max Bob never answers a specific post, yet understands that his impersonal commentary violates the spirit of the exercise. To wit: 'I know that some bloggers more quickly than others…we're all doing what we can.'

Now THERE'S a commitment to customer satisfaction. You might even call it GM's attitude in microcosm: "I know some companies build better cars and make more money than GM… we're all doing what we can." Maximum Bob's reliance on the royal "we" is predictable enough, but it still demonstrates that he's ready to hide behind his title when responsibility time rolls around.

Bob's blog then says 'The second and more important issue I've seen asked repeatedly is, 'What is GM's strategy for fixing its issues?'', leading to '…there's no magic bullet for our issues, at least none that we've uncovered.' Michael Jackson has "issues". Dr. Phil has "issues". Auto execs up shit creek without a 300C-shaped paddle should be talking about "problems" or "challenges". And is there or isn't there a magic bullet? Fence-straddling is not an attractive attribute for the head of an automaker losing market share like the Titanic lost buoyancy.

After raising and praising the 'watcha gonna do?' question, Maximum Bob runs away. First he claims that he's already outlined 'what we intend to do", then he says "what we won't tell you is exactly how we intend to do those things." Huh? I'd like to believe that Max Bob is concealing a secret plan to upend the United Auto Workers or unleash new product, but I doubt it. As he doesn't justify his silence, it's all too easy to assume that Max Bob simply doesn't want anyone taking shots at his strategy (should one exist). It reminds me of Nixon's secret plan to get us out of Vietnam, and we all know how THAT turned out.

It gets worse. Max Bob slams the door on any discussion of GM's underlying "issues": "We will not turn this into a debate about health care costs or public policy or anything related." So that's that then. GM has a "game plan" for extracting itself from its financial woes, but the Vice Chair can't tell you what it is and won't talk about what it needs to do. But what really galls is the previous sentence, which says "This is intended to be a blog about cars and trucks, by the way, and some of the peripheral issues surrounding the buying and selling of same." By the way? Call me an unpatriotic GM-basher, but the expression used in this setting sounds an awful lot like "fuck you". That's not helpful.

After a brief bout of self-congratulation, Max Bob reveals his master plan: build higher quality cars, price and sell them more effectively and cut "waste" across the board. Bizarrely, MB publicly admits that his plan isn't dressed to impress: "Sound pretty general? You bet it does." In fact, Bob might as well have promised to implement my father's business plan: "Take in more money than you spend"– only his record so far indicates an inability to follow this simple recipe.

MB then compares his "game plan" to the Super Bowl-winning New England Patriots', insisting that the Pat's coach wouldn't have "turned over the script for his first 15 offensive plays from scrimmage…not even on his blog." I'm sorry; when did GM's corporate strategy become a matter of national security? And if loose lips sink automakers, what was Max Bob's lieutenant Rick Wagoner doing playing footsie with Toyota in Japan? Offensive plays indeed.

And then Max Bob throws the Hail Mary: "Believe me, GM has a crystal clear strategy in place to turn around our fortunes, particularly in the U.S." When an exec pulling down a ten-digit salary resorts to "believe me", you know he's in trouble. Especially if that high flying exec does nothing to establish his credibility with the people who count, in the one forum where earning trust is as easy as telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

Who killed the full-sized SUV? There they were, lumbering along, transporting America's families in comfort and style, when BANG! Dead genre driving. The biggest of the big– mighty Yukon XL's, epic Sequoias, humongous Hummers– now sit on dealer lots in long, neat rows, covered in ten-foot pole marks. JD Power reports that sales of full-size SUV's have dropped 22% so far this year. Sales of Ford's Explorer are off by 25% in the same period. Formerly truckeriffic GM is teetering on the abyss. Who dunnit?

Suspect number one: gas prices. The media coverage connecting rising gas prices with shrinking SUV sales has been relentless. Story after story showcase a working-class Dad or multi-tasking Mom whose love affair with their SUV rolled over and died (so to speak) when its petrochemical needs became financially overwhelming. Or, as printer Bob Fisher of Medford put in a recent NY Newsday article, "my Durango is killing me in gas."

Financial analysts are not so sure. According to the Economic Policy Institute, even Americans with incomes in the bottom fifth nationwide currently spend just 7% of their after-tax income on gas. Historically, the recent rises are no great sheik. In 1981, hard on the heels of the Iranian revolution, world crude oil prices rose to $72.24 a barrel. The hike pushed US gas prices to $2.77 a gallon (adjusted for inflation). The real cost of gasoline today is still 98 cents a gallon lower than it was back then. And compared to the rest of the world, well, a gallon of gas still costs four to five times more in The Land of Hope and Glory than it does in The Land of the Free.

Suspect number two: a guilty conscience. Maybe American consumers HAVE "woken up" to the SUV's negative political/environmental impact. God knows there's plenty of anti-SUV propaganda swirling around the cultural ether– from eco-terrorist attacks on SUV dealers to Hollywood stars leaving the 'Sclade at home for a ride to the Oscars in a [graciously-loaned] Toyota hybrid. As anyone who owns a Hummer H2 will tell you, there's an army of PC crusaders out there happy to 'discourage' SUV ownership through public vilification.

Talk to Greenpeace or the Sierra Club and there's no doubt in their mind (or newsletters) that environmental campaigning is driving nails into the SUV's coffin. Ron DeFore of the SUV Owners of America is equally adamant that political concerns play a miniscule role in the full-size SUV's recent decline. "People were SUV-bashing eight years ago; sales never slowed for a second." Perhaps, but have constant attacks on the genre's alleged pollution, cataclysmic impact on smaller vehicles, waste of world resources, etc. finally pushed consumers to some kind of tipping point?

Naa. Americans are blessed with a strong sense of morality, a keen appreciation of political reality and a large dose common sense. Even without haranguing, they tend to use all three in concert. That said, the connection between US foreign policy and fuel consumption lingers– somewhere– in the SUV buyer's mind. How that actually plays out on the forecourt is hard to measure, and neither side would trust unfavorable survey findings anyway. So let's call social concerns an accomplice to the crime and move on to suspect number three: crossovers.

Crossovers offer most of the advantages of an SUV– towing capacity, raised driving position, seating for six or more, safety, four-wheel-drive– with less damage to the Shell card/environment/political landscape/world oil supplies. While the new genre is still experimenting with design and packaging, the vehicles are gaining consumer acceptance. Factor in the recent termination of the tax credit for the biggest SUV's, the increasing popularity of smaller, more frugal SUV's (a.k.a. "cute utes") and the introduction of larger cars and minivans with four-wheel-drive, and you've got an entire mob ready to steal sales from full-size SUV's. The stats confirm the trend; sales of crossovers, cute utes, minivans and large sedans are all benefiting from SUV downsizing.

Which could be caused by rising gas prices. Yes, this is one of those Agatha Christie-type deals where all the suspects are guilty: gas prices, political consciousness and the entry of attractive alternatives into the marketplace. It's also a twist ending thing, because the SUV isn't really dead. It's just resting.

Last year, Americans bought over 700k full-size SUV's. This year they'll buy less, but still a lot more than you could fit into your average Wal Mart parking lot. When automakers find a way to extract better mileage out of the full-size SUV, there'll be plenty of drivers ready to go back, have their cake and drive it too. Meanwhile, the smart money is on companies who know that the gas-chugging full-size SUV must adapt or die. For real.

Last week, we learned that embattled GM Supremo Rick Wagoner was flying to Tokyo to discuss the possibility of 'sharing' Toyota's hybrid technology. GM officially denied the story. Today, we learn that Wagoner did indeed meet with Toyota President Fujio Cho (on a Sunday no less) to discuss "fuel cell development". In the news biz, this is what you call going from bad to worse.

Hydrogen fuel cell vehicles are decades way from actualization. Despite billions of dollars in development funding, engineers have yet to devise a hydrogen fuel cell efficient/practical enough for anything other than a large commercial bus. While not insurmountable, the challenge requires entirely new technologies and materials, which must then be subjected to the same rigor that applies to gas-powered propulsion: performance testing, manufacture, packaging, mechanical reliability, recyclability and more. And then there are safety concerns, especially at pump time.

Yes, there is that. If GM unveiled a workable hydrogen fuel cell vehicle this afternoon, there'd be less than five hydrogen refilling stations in the country able to fuel it, and none of them are open to the public. In thirty or forty years, sure, the technology and infrastructure for hydrogen-powered cars, truck and SUV's might be in place. By then, we may even have hundreds of thousands of small alternative power plants cranking out hydrogen for the masses, vastly reducing our dependence on foreign oil.

By then, GM may be out of business. Wagoner's company is in the fight for its life RIGHT NOW. It needs to cut costs RIGHT NOW. It needs to manufacture popular products RIGHT NOW. Anything GM's Wagoneers can do to stop the rot RIGHT NOW– closing factories, shuttering divisions, re-negotiating contracts, selling lame models at fire sale prices, shortening product cycles, re-badging Opel, Holden or competitor's products; divesting GMAC, going into Chapter 11, anything– is better than pie-in-the-sky environmentalism.

Why in the world would Wagoner and Co. take time away from the current crisis to play footsie with GM's number one competitor, chasing an unproven technology that can not possibly improve The General's bottom line for at least a decade, if ever? I can't quite bring myself to believe that Wagoner's travels are nothing more than tree-hugging propaganda designed to get investors to forget about the commercial cancer threatening to destroy the entire company. But what other explanation is there?

Perhaps the hydrogen story is a cover for the real story, which was the first story: GM IS buying hybrid technology from the Japanese. If true, why not admit it? At this point, the market would welcome any effort on GM's part to get back in the game– even if it meant re-badging Toyota hybrids as GM products and, well, selling them. (Of course, the UAW might have a thing or two to say about that.) Would the buying public care if their Chevy was a Toyota? They don't care that it's Korean. Would customers complain if their Tahoe had a Toyota drivetrain? Probably not.

Perhaps Toyota is negotiating to buy GM. Or part of GM. Or maybe GM is going to buy part of Toyota, and then pay a few billion dollars not to buy the rest of it. Or maybe the trip is like that peace meeting before the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor; an attempt to lull GM into a stupor– as if it isn't already in one. Despite Toyota's offer to increase their prices to help GM's bottom line, despite all this technological sharing stuff, Mr. Wagoner would do well to remember that the sushi knives are always out for GM.

If I sound confused, well, I am. I see no evidence that GM has a master plan to reverse the fact that it spends too much money making cars, trucks and SUV's that less and less people want to buy. I see no evidence that Mr. Wagoner's international movements are part of this [yet unexplained] strategy. I've asked GM to respond here, without editing, without success. Of course, the pages of the New York Times, Detroit News or Wall Street Journal would be just as good…

Meanwhile, I would advise Wagoner to make another sort of trip, to the vast airfields outside of Detroit. There he will find acre upon acre filled with brand new GM product. Strolling through these vast lots, Wagoner would get a humbling perspective on GM's industrial might (and accounting procedures). Who could help but admire the organizational genius needed to create a sea of entirely serviceable merchandise? He might also understand that his company's survival, and the survival of all who work for GM, depends on finding happy owners for each and every vehicle. Either that or crushing them all and starting again.

Whenever a domestic automaker goes to the wall, it's always someone else's fault: the foreign exchange rate, health care costs, pension obligations, product cycles, changing tastes, the media, government regulations, union contracts, etc. Executives start shuttling off to Washington to talk about "leveling the playing field'. By now, we're wise to these buzz words; they're an attempt to hide the fact that a US automaker "suddenly" lacks the competitive skills to take on their foreign rivals. This time it's GM. Well it's time for GM to stand up and take some responsibility for their actions.

This is not GM's first chance to come clean. Remember the Arab Oil Embargo of the 70's? Gas stations lines went around the block and gas prices rose to unheard of levels ($1 a gallon!). When consumers reacted by flocking to smaller, higher mileage foreign-made cars, GM claimed that the Japanese were "flooding the market" with cheap imports– as if it was some vast conspiracy to put Americans out of work. The plain fact was that the Japanese and German product was better than ours: better engineered, better built and more economical. Not that they'd say so, but GM's corporate laziness simply caught up with them.

Egged-on by management, American autoworkers destroyed foreign vehicles at rallies, wouldn't let foreign cars park in manufacturing lots and generally hid behind the banner of patriotism. When the immediate crisis eased, The Big Three "woke up" and realized that their products' quality was sorely lacking. They made great strides, but rigid unions and timid management resisted change to the point of near extinction. They produced some truly pathetic product (e.g. Chrysler's K-cars and GM's Cimarron).

Fast forward to today. Once again, gas prices are soaring. Once again, consumers are buying high quality, high mileage vehicles from someone other than General Motors. Once again, GM has the wrong vehicles in its lineup. Once again, highly-paid executives are saying protect us, give us time and we'll turn it around. And once again, we're supposed to feel sorry for/support them simply because they're an American company, with American workers.

Well can someone please explain to me how in thirty years GM went from depending on sales of cars that got lousy gas mileage to depending on sales of trucks and SUV's that get lousy gas mileage? Why did they basically walk away from the small car market? Oh that's right: it's the Government's fault. By excluding SUV's from CAFÉ standards, GM and Ford were "allowed" to sell consumers huge, gas-guzzling vehicles, to rely on them for the lion's share of their profits. Never mind that the domestics used their influence to maintain this "light truck" legal exclusion in the first place.

During the highly profitable SUV times, the domestics claimed there was "no money in small cars". Rather than plowing their profits in new, better-built domestically-made cars, GM spent billions buying up a failing boutique brand (Saab) and "investing" in Fiat. Meanwhile, the Japanese and Korean automakers continued to mop-up the small and medium-sized car market, and developed headline grabbing hybrids. Does it strike anyone as funny that GM imports and re-badges Korean cars for their lineup? Not me.

Whose fault is all this? Who at GM has taken responsibility for all these blunders and blown billions? Who has stood up in front of the media, stockholders and consumers and said, "We were wrong. We got ourselves into this mess, and we're going to get ourselves out"? Where's the rescue plan? Where's the vision of what comes next? Simply pointing at its current models and saying, hey, we're doing a great job but the media hates us, is dangerous nonsense.

GM needs to stop looking for excuses or an easy out. If they're waiting for a white knight (Kerkorian? Toyota?) to rescue them, or hoping for some government intervention that will "level the playing field", the game will be over before they know it. America is no longer willing to support corporate ineptitude in the name of some "America first" campaign.

GM should stop its hand-wringing and publicly declare some ambitious new goals for future products' mileage, safety, pollution and market share. They need to tell the financial community what they're going to do to cut costs, and then do it; come what may. Simply announcing these targets for new product and committing to belt-tightening would transform GM from a victim to a fighter. From there, it's not that complicated. All GM has to do is produce world-class affordable products with fabulous designs, robust engineering and great mileage. I know GM has it in them. And if America loves anything more than a fighter, it's a fighter with the guts to make a comeback.