There are people, and some of them comment on TTAC, who are convinced that a hydrogen-powered car is an insanity that will never work, but other people who work at the world’s largest carmakers beg to differ. Today, Ford, Daimler, and the Renault-Nissan Alliance signed a tripartite pact for the joint development of a fuel cell system that promises to be implemented faster, and at lower cost, both to automakers and customers. (Read More…)
As usual at this time of the month, Toyota released full month sales and production figures for the preceding month, and as usual in January, the numbers are for the full calendar year. Readers of TTAC will not be surprised by the data, a look forward into 2013 however can get quite exciting. Or unnerving. The podium of the World’s Largest Automakers promises to be in disarray in 2013. (Read More…)
Today, I was in Odaiba, the man-made island in Tokyo Bay. The island is known for its futuristic buildings. Today, it was home of the Japan Classic Car Association’s New Year Meeting. It celebrates the imported car. During the next days, I will show you the nicer ones. We start with the Americans, and a Dodge.
The commenters already thanked the Saturday team of contestants for their great work. Let’s thank them again. It was good – at least most of it. Today, we announce Saturday’s winners. We also present a new batch of contestants. Then, we will take a break. But first, Saturday’s winners. (Read More…)
Friday – thank God – was a great day in TTAC’s Future Writers Week. It definitely was a lot better than Dud-Tuesday. The readers loved what the Friday round of writers wrote. The winners were separated by just a few votes, always a good sign of an exciting race. My favorite came in 4th, which again proves that my tastes are totally removed from the mainstream. And the winners are: (Read More…)
Industrial-strength theater
Yesterday evening, while yours truly was in seedy Tokyo bars, rubbing shoulders and more with paid informants, word reached us that Opel’s new sales chief Alfred Rieck allegedly threw-in the towel and left Opel in disgust, after only seven months of valiantly trying to move the damaged goods called Opel cars. After a few phone calls to Germany this morning, a different story emerged. Siehe unten. (Read More…)
This is day five of TTAC’s Future Writers Week. We have three new winners. We have seven new contestants. And I have a huge problem. (Read More…)
Here is today’s other baffling science story: In its quest to save weight, Volkswagen is ripping aluminum out of plans and bills-of–material, to replace it – with steel. Not good old steel. They replace it with much better new steel. According to Reuters, “Volkswagen AG is using new high-strength steel to make cars lighter and comply with strict emissions rules, confounding forecasts that aluminum would be the metal of choice for reducing weight.” (Read More…)
Reuters has a highly interesting oil and gasoline story. If you are one of the “peak oil” types
, you may not want to hear it. As a matter of fact, it could shake your belief system so much that you scream “BIASSSSSSSS.” As a service to all our readers, we give you a chance to stop before it gets ugly.
(Read More…)
The Wednesday installment of TTAC’s Future Writers Week, where YOU decide who will write for you, ended better than the round the day before. This time, you voted for three serviceable writers, and they are:
GM’s North American president, Mark Reuss, was in the running as CEO in 2010, but was passed-over for an alleged “lack of seasoning,” says Reuters after reading an upcoming book by GM’s former CEO, Ed Whitacre. Instead of Reuss, who had shown that he knows what he is doing, a completely unseasoned Dan Akerson was put at the helm of GM.
According to the book, Whitacre recommended Reuss as his replacement when Whitacre stepped down after the bailout. Whitacre writes:
(Read More…)
The Tuesday round of TTAC’s Future Writers Week ends with no new writers selected. That round definitely did not trigger mass excitement among our judges. Some even wanted to be able to assign demerits. Contestants 13 and 14 were the only halfway real entries in what otherwise was email snippets and proposals nobody wanted. Getting the most votes (from a definitely apathetic panel of judges) while running virtually unopposed does not constitute a win. (Read More…)
Separated at birth
We are in receipt of complaints that question our assertion that former Volkswagen executive and future Opel CEO Karl-Thomas Neumann “looks like an ostrich.”
Recently released documents show that he indeed does.
The winners are Michael Trainor, George William Herbert, and Grant Tillery. TTAC congratulates thee. You shall drop the masks of your screen names, and step out into the harsh lights of the public, and the etching-strength vitriol of TTAC’s feared commentariat.
Previously known as Contestants 4, 7, and 1, the three garnered the lion’s share of the votes in the Monday round of TTAC’s Future Writers Week, where, in true interactive fashion, you decide who will write for you in the future, and whom you will criticize for the biased and one-sided reporting, especially on a slow news-day. It is in your hands, and it will be so for the rest of the week. Remember: Today is another day of the battle of the writers, and another day where you decide the outcome. (Read More…)
Go get them, tiger!
So far, Steve Girsky, dispatched on a mission impossible to Deutschland to clean up Opel, has been dancing like a butterfly, no stinging involved. Apart from targeted leaks, and an announcement to stop making cars in Opel’s Bochum plant after 2016, which really did not surprise anyone, there were no big dispatches about the heroics of Steve the hatchet man, who was sent to the Old Country to stick it to the socialist metalworker Nazis. Today, and most likely after increasingly impatient prodding from Detroit, Steve took his gloves off, and a swing at some 20,000 unionized workers in Germany.
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