Automotive News Europe [sub] reports that, having lost “Mr Opel” to Volkswagen, GM’s European division is losing another veteran to the competition. The company announced:

We regret that Frank Weber has quit. We thank him for what he has done and wish him the best for the future

Just two short months after Hyundai CEO John Krafcik warned that a brewing incentive and price war was “a step backward for the industry” and “short-term thinking in a long-term process that hurts manufacturers and consumers,” it seems that any signs of a price war are over. But before you rush to give a certain earthquake/tsunami combo credit for the entire situation, consider for a moment that Ford has now joined Toyota in raising prices while insisting it has nothing to do with supply interruptions. A Ford spokesman tells the Detroit News that

This is the second price increase this year [Ed: Ford bumped prices by $130 in January] but has been in the works for months as the industry faces higher commodity costs

Meanwhile, Ford is also the only Detroit-based manufacturer to bring incentives below nine percent of its average transaction price, as its March incentives were down nearly 10 percent compared to March of 2010. Between Ford and Toyota bringing up prices and Hyundai keeping sales growth strong despite low-low incentives, the pressure is mounting on GM, Chrysler, Nissan and Honda. Will they continue to trade margins for volume, or will they take the opportunity to bump prices as Japanese parts shortages continue to play out?

It may well be wishful thinking on my part, but in the three years that I’ve been covering the world of cars, I do feel like I’ve seen a subtle but perceptible improvement in the general quality of the automotive media. Obviously the progress hasn’t been evenly distributed, but more outlets seem to be tip-toeing towards more in-depth stories, better analysis and more independence from the forces of OEM PR. Why? Possibly because the industry’s many challenges are providing more and better stories about cars, or possibly because the recent downturn made OEMs more open to less obviously-friendly writers, outlets and story pitches. One thing is certain: the growth of online automotive media has certainly played a role, putting more pressure on the established outlets, branching out into media criticism and reconnecting auto writers to the readers they serve.

For a while now, blogs have benefited from a lack of faith in the entrenched world of automotive print journalism. But, as print outlets have started to respond to the online threat and online outlets become increasingly sucked into the “PR Friendly” maelstrom that engulfed the buff books’ credibility, a new phenomenon seems to be on the rise which threatens the blogs from the very point of attack that helped them vault into the ranks of the auto media establishment: the “enthusiast reporter.”
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One of the toughest challenges facing industry analysts right now involves determining what the market for electric vehicles actually looks like, what kind of volumes it will support and for how long. It’s a problem that I’ve hashed over at length with an old college buddy who now works at a cleantech investment firm, and let me be the first to say that it’s not an easy problem to pick apart. The number of unknown quantities and moving parts explains why opinions among money managers can vary so wildly even about relatively marginal firms like Tesla.

Luckily, Thilo Koslowski of Gartner Research [and celebrated coiner of the term “the trough of disappointment”] has dedicated himself more thoroughly to the problem, and has some startling findings to report. For example, despite the relentless pro-EV hype present in all levels of the media, Koslowski’s research shows that more consumers are actually considering buying a natural gas-powered vehicle. Looks like Edmunds’ Jeremy Anwyl was on to something when he called for an end to EV tax credits in favor of greater support for natural gas cars.

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For March, TrueCar has included a chart diagramming the ratio of incentive spending to average transaction price, giving us a look at two key metrics on a single chart. Short of a complete fleet sales or a retail market share breakout falling into our laps (crazier things have happened), this is one of the more important metrics you’ll want to look at to qualify the raw volume numbers coming out of March. But it’s not the only one…

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Back in 1976, the Italian automaker Fiat had been badly battered by a global energy crisis and the resulting malaise infecting the global auto industry. In what Time Magazine described at the time as “a devastatingly ironic example of petropower,” Col. Muammar Gaddafi instructed his Libyan Arab Foreign Bank to invest some $415m into the Italian automaker, giving it a stake that would eventually grow to some 14 percent of the firm’s equity.

By 1986, Fiat’s Libyan stakeholders were becoming more trouble than they were worth. In the wake of the Lockerbie bombings, the US introduced sanctions on Libya, and Fiat’s Libyan connection left its attempts to bid for US military contracts (particularly those related to Ronald Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative) dead on arrival. As a result, Fiat and its shareholders bought back the entire 14 percent Libyan stake in the firm, presenting the Libyan Arab Foreign Bank-controlled Banca UBAE with a $3.1b check. And, according to what a Fiat spokesperson told us yesterday, that is where the story ends. But thanks to the now-ubiquitous Wikileaks, we have found that this story may in fact go farther than that. In fact, as the evidence stands right now, either the US State Department is working with bad information (which major news sources have yet to correct), or Fiat is lying about its ties to the embattled Gaddafi regime.

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As I write this, President Obama and his top environmental and auto regulators are gathering for a speech on “American energy security” at Georgetown University. In this speech, the President is expected to make the case for ramped-up CAFE standards, EV subsidies and other transportation-related energy efficiency goals, and based on his politically pragmatic framing of the issue as being about “energy security” rather than environmental prerogatives, it seems that he’s serious about creating new policy rather than merely playing to his base. But, according to the Detroit News, the automakers are not going to take increased regulation sitting down, but appear to be gearing up for the first major legislative clash over automotive regulation since the green-tinged bailout. Automakers have begun to push back on both fuel economy and stalled safety legislation, explains Alliance of Automotive Manufacturer’s spokesperson Gloria Bergquist.

Automakers have always supported legislation and regulations that are driven by data and sound science, and there have been some examples where there was more wishful thinking and targets being selected that weren’t based on the data. So we have become more outspoken on the need for data to drive policy decisions.

Of course, automakers haven’t always supported regulation of their industry… but this is clearly a change in tone from the cowed industry that collapsed into the government’s arms just a few short years ago. A battle is brewing, so let’s look at some of the flashpoints in this forthcoming conflict.

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With its effort to organize transplant manufacturers stalled, the UAW is turning all of its attention to what may be one of its toughest contract negotiations ever. The union’s rank-and-file is pushing hard to take back concessions given during the bailout, but at the same time, the union has to avoid burdening the recovering US automakers with competitive disadvantages. And because the three Detroit automakers have performed so differently over the last year (Ford made a $6.6b profit last year, GM made $4.7b and Chrysler lost $652m), the tradition of pattern bargaining will only make negotiations even tougher. But it’s huge bonuses for executives at Ford that is getting the war of words started early, as Bill Johnson, plant chairman for UAW Local 900, threatens

If they don’t restore everything (we) gave up, the membership is going to knock it down. The bonuses that were just announced are just ridiculous.

And that’s a good place for the UAW to begin negotiations, but they’re realistically not going to get everything back. So how is this going to play out?
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With the proliferation of in-car connectivity systems like SYNC, MyLink, MyFordTouch, Blue&Me, etc, the ability of a car to play MP3s, read out text messages and update social media accounts has surpassed such traditional attributes as power, efficiency and handling for many car buyers. And though many of these OEM-branded systems are underpinned by identical software architectures from Microsoft or Garmin, they are taking an ever-more important place in the marketing of new cars. Differentiating these differentiators, then, takes a huge amount of development effort on the part of automakers and their suppliers, and the result is another electronic system with the potential to go out of date with the same speed as a cellular phone. Wouldn’t it be smarter to just create an open-standard connection between your phone and your car so that you don’t need to replace your car when its onboard connectivity electronics go out of date? That’s the goal of the Car Connectivity Consortium, which is aiming to explode the OEM-branded in-car connectivity model.
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With automakers keeping the incentive pedal pinned to the floor as they entered the new year, a price war has been brewing in the US market for a while now. Hyundai USA CEO John Krafcik has called the trend “a step backward for the industry,” pointing out that nearly every automaker had struggled to regain pricing power coming out of nearly three years of industry-wide weakness. But with GM and Detroit leading the way with high (if “targeted”) incentives, matched by uncharacteristically high incentives from import-brand rivals like Honda and Toyota, it seemed that nothing could prevent a volume-pumping, but profit-sapping price war in the US. At least until Japan was hammered by earthquakes, tsunamis and nuclear accidents. Now, with manufacturers and suppliers still struggling to understand the full impact of production shutdowns and reduced inventories, TrueCar has projected current price trends forward, and finds that supply interruptions could reduce supply to the point where prices actually start coming up again. Check out TrueCar’s spreadsheet on supply and pricing projections in XLS format here, or hit the jump for a few highlights.

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Amidst the rubble of earthquake and tsunami-racked Japan, a strange phenomenon: Three of the smallest local automakers suffered no interruption in production, while the very largest seemed to be hit the hardest. Toyota, Honda, and Nissan have all suffered some kind of production interruption since the quake hit, while Mazda, Suzuki and Mitsubishi remain untouched according to Automotive News [sub]. In a tragedy like this, some might be tempted to ascribe this division of suffering to some universal sense of justice, a cosmic leveling of Japan’s automotive playing field. But, as the map above proves, this twist of fate is purely geographic… Mazda, Mitsubishi and Suzuki happen to have all of their plants located well south of the affected area near Sendai. Besides, Subaru, one of Japan’s smallest automakers, closed five factories. There’s no making sense of a mess like this…

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Reuters reports that Saab/Spyker partner Vladimir Antonov has questioned whether Saab will hit its ambitious 80k unit global sales goal this year, saying

This means that the company could face capital problems

Thelocal.se provides a little more detail quoting Antonov as saying

I’m not involved in how the company is run so I don’t have access to the numbers. But according to earlier versions of the business plan, they have to sell 80,000 cars this year to stay with the plan. From my point of view, I think that’s a bit too optimistic.

If the goal isn’t reached it would be nice for Saab to have €50-70 million ($69-97 million) as a little something extra to lean on. We’re ready to provide that money if we’re allowed to do so by the [European Investment Bank].

Antonov went on to say that bringing in outside investors would be difficult and that if the EIB loan fell through, something he does not foresee, Saab could be bankrupt “in days.” Needless to say, Saab’s Chief Optimism Officer Victor Muller didn’t take kindly to Antonov’s remarks and is firing back in the press.

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The Freep reports

General Motors plans to add a second shift worth as many as 1,000 jobs to its Detroit-Hamtramck plant late this year, as the automaker prepares to ramp up production of its Chevrolet Volt extended-range electric car.

Current plans have second-shift workers arriving for training late this year and starting production in earnest in early 2012,

Now, it makes sense that any “more assembly jobs are coming” story would play big in Detroit, but does this mean GM has its suppliers lined up for a second shift of Volt production? Can the market support the increased volumes GM has been talking about (25k instead of 10k this year, 60k+ instead of the planned 45k next year)? As it turns out, those questions haven’t actually been answered yet…

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I don’t think the industry learned a lot of lessons from 2008—they will this time around

…said GM CEO Dan Akerson at the Geneva Auto Show [via the WSJ]. But which “lesson of 2008” is Mr Akerson referring to? Overproduction? Incentive and fleet sale dependency? There were so many lessons to be learned in 2008… right Dan?

It would not be a good thing to see $5-a-gallon gas right now.

Oh, he’s talking about getting caught flat-footed by gas price spikes. Fine, let’s ignore the other “lessons of 2008” and hash out the truth behind Akerson’s comment: is the industry ready for $5 gas? Remember, consumer choice tends to exaggerate changes in the price of oil. Or, is it possible that some OEMs are “too ready” for high gas prices? After all, if automakers overcorrect for high gas prices, profits will suffer when the spike subsides. Or is, as BNET’s Matt Debord suggests, Akerson just trying to get the market to price risk into GM’s stock value?

GM’s upper management is shaking again, as the Detroit Free Press reports that Jamie Hresko, The General’s global powertrain boss, has left the building. And unlike the last round of management shuffling, this move doesn’t seem to have been planned. The Freep reports:

Hresko’s departure comes about a month after CEO Dan Akerson took the product-development organization from powertrain engineer Tom Stephens and put most of it under Mary Barra, a manufacturing engineer. Stephens, a GM vice chairman, became chief technology officer and retained responsibilities for research and development. But Hresko’s resignation was his decision and not part of a management shakeup, a person familiar with the situation said.

As a 28-year veteran of GM who previously held top positions in US and Global quality departments, Hresko’s resignation is not inconsequential. Especially given his lack of post-GM plans. GM’s auto industry experience-free CEO Dan Akerson now has one less experienced advisor to rely on… or is that one less recalcitrant insider to fight?