Ford’s Fiesta subcompact has earned a top EPA rating of 40 mpg on the highway, and 29 mpg in the city, reports Automotive News [sub]. Those numbers are for Fiestas equipped with an optional six-speed autobox; manual transmission models get a 37/28 mpg rating. By comparison, auto-equipped versions of competitors like the Honda Fit (35/28) and Toyota Yaris (35/29) come up short on highway mileage in particular. But this isn’t the first time Ford has claimed 40+ mpg for one of its cars: the Fusion hybrid carries an EPA city rating of 41 mpg, despite coming up short of its government-endorsed rating in several real-world tests (although not as shockingly as Chevy’s Equinox, for example). But the EPA testing regime is hardly perfect anyway, so let’s just wait and see what the test drives yield before we start stringing up the piñata.
Given what it’s been through over the last several decades, GM is lucky to have any hard-core fans left at all. And yet sites like GMinsidenews.com [full disclosure: GMI is owned by TTAC’s parent company, Vertical Scope] have thrived as havens of near-unadulterated GM pride, bankruptcy and bailout notwithstanding. So when true-believer sites like GMI run works subtitled GM Annual Feature “Deletions” Continue: 2011 shows that not all of Old GM’s habits are dead–yet, TTAC sits up and takes notice (as soon as we come sniffing around and find it, anyway). The piece opens:
Just the other day, we posted the product changes for every 2011 General Motors product in the United States. This has become an annual feature on GMI, as it is always interesting to see what tweaks or screw-ups GM is adding to the next model year. The main problem we find in the annual model year changeis is the practice of removing content from products. After glancing at the 2011 stuff, I was surprised to see “New GM” continuing the trend of deleting content.’
To be fair, the 2011 changes show fewer content “deletions” than previous model years; however the fact that any content is being entirely deleted from a product is almost laughable considering GM’s dire attempt to win back U.S. customers. Perhaps other OEM’s delete features as well (trust me, they do), but they also don’t have a perception problem to deal with. GM, you’re building great products now…stop deleting content off of them every year.
One of the things that we do not wish under any circumstance is to have an uncompetitive relationship vis-À-vis GM
That would certainly be the case if GM bought up its recently-bailed-out former captive finance arm, GMAC (now known as Ally Financial). Chrysler relies on GMAC for leasing and loans just as much as GM does at the moment, so an Ally buyout would create major long-term problems. But even if GM created a new finance arm, Chrysler doesn’t seem to think that it will be able to survive without forming its own in-house finance department. Which would then compete with GM and Ally, to say nothing of the industry’s other finance competitors. But is the rush to captive finance going to be good for anyone?
GM’s now-infamous advertisement touting the payback of government loans “may have elasticized the reality of things,” in the words of Steve Rattner, but stretching the truth apparently pays off. Automotive News [sub] reports that a London public perception-tracking firm surveyed some 5,000 consumers, and found that The General’s image has improved since the ad started running. Of course, on YouGov’s brand image scale of 100 to negative 100, GM is up only five points to “17.” Clearly there’s still work to do.
Whenever TTAC took GM to task for branding run amok and excessive platform sharing, the example of Volkswagen has always been the key counterfactual. With seven brands available in Europe, the Volkswagen-Audi group is the continental GM, always looking for another way to repackage a pedestrian FWD platform. The only difference is that VW has actually been growing. But Wolfsburg’s brand profligacy is starting to bear some GM-style bitter fruit. Skoda has been surprisingly strong of late, actually making problems for the Volkswagen brand in certain markets. Seat, on the other hand, is not doing so well. With only one factory, at Martorell, near Barcelona, Seat has always been a slightly niche player, offering older VW designs with some Pontiac-style “emotional” styling flair and a sportier image. The problem now, as Seat CEO James Muir tells The WSJ [sub], is that
The brand really is too small for this plant
Running at only 60 percent of its 500,000 unit capacity, Seat is too small for its lone plant. As a result, VW is launching a last-ditch effort to save its dying brand. (Read More…)
After a solid six months of cringe-worthy Jeep ads, Chrysler is replacing ad agency Global Hue for the launch of the forthcoming 2011 Grand Cherokee. The Grand Cherokee’s launch materials will be developed by Wieden + Kennedy, which is currently the lead creative agency for the Dodge brand, and recently created the trippy “Alright, Kittens” spot for the Grand Caravan. According to AgencySpy [via Jalopnik], GlobalHue will continue to be Jeep’s lead agency, despite offering few signs that it actually understands the brand. What do we mean by that? Hit the jump for more. (Read More…)
Cadillac’s new ad campaign, with the tag line “The Mark of Leadership”, has received mixed reviews. Some have questioned the use of the word “mark” because it may evoke a model name long used by luxury competitor Lincoln. Others have said that the mark itself is in question, the Cadillac wreath and crest logo, is itself tainted by association with tacky blinged out Escalades of questionable aesthetic taste. Those points may be valid, but I think that there’s a more troubling problem with the slogan and that has to do with Cadillac’s heritage.
Chrysler has announced pricing for the new Jeep Grand Cherokee, arguably the most important vehicle it will launch this year. The cheapest option, the Laredo 4×2 (which isn’t even mentioned in Chrysler’s release), starts at an MSRP of $30,995 (including destination charge, confirmed via Twitter)… at least until ChryCo rolls out the $5k cash back it’s offering on the outgoing model. Hit the jump for trim levels and corresponding pricing.
“Edgy” ads are in for marketers looking to reignite America’s love affair with the minivan. If you thought Toyota’s “Swagger Wagon” Sienna spot seemed strange, check out this inexplicably surreal ad for Dodge’s Caravan. The ad’s creator Wieden + Kennedy was hired to give Dodge a hipper image, but thus far it has singularly failed to capture the magic of its previous auto work, like Honda’s “Cog” spot. Maybe that’s why Chrysler Group decided to go with Gotham for its forthcoming corporate image-enhancing ad campaign.
We’ve already laid into Saab’s new 9-5 for launching with with only the 300hp, AWD “Aero” trim level, for which the former GM division wants a base price of about $50k. That asking price just became a little more ridiculous as Volvo has announced base pricing for its new S60 sedan at $37,700. And guess what? That’s for the 300 hp, AWD “T6” version as well, which is also the only trim level available at launch. Volvo 1, Saab 0.UPDATE: OK, OK, we admit that Volvo’s “win” here is minimal. A lower base price does potentially bring in more buyers, but on an apples-to-apples basis, the two Swedes are pretty much a wash, price-wise. Which still leaves plenty of room for debate… and inevitable references in each others reviews. Besides, both models will offer cheaper versions over time. Does this make us think Saab’s $50k fan tax is any less ridiculous? Not a bit. But then, only time and test drives will truly tell if Saab’s gamble has paid off.
Chrysler crowed over its 9.1 percent market share in its Q1 results conference call yesterday, and though CEO Sergio Marchionne refused to be pinned down on an exact time frame, an IPO this year looks more likely than ever. Similarly, BusinessWeek reports that GM’s Ed Whitacre has hinted that a Q1 profit is likely, as is an IPO in Q4 of this year or early next year. This improvement in both bailed-out automakers was underlined by former Presidential Auto Task Force head Steve Rattner, who said the two firms were “meeting expectations,” at a Detroit-area conference. But Rattner also put his expectations into some context by saying
When we did this restructuring we never expected a full recovery of our investment. If it ends up costing us $10 billion we should consider it a success. For about $10 billion we avoided economic and human calamities… I would suggest that that’s a pretty effective cost of government stimulus
That assessment is down considerably from Rattner’s last prediction, which expected a taxpayer profit on the auto bailout.
With strong new auto safety legislation being debated in congress,the role and scope of government regulation in the auto industry is becoming a hotly-contested issue. But one important consideration is being left out of the discussion: the role of private “regulation” of the auto industry. Even as the new legislation was being drafted, we were treated to an object lesson in non-governmental regulation when the non-profit Consumer Reports issued a “do not buy” warning for the Lexus GX after it exhibited lift-off oversteer on a test course. Because CR performs independent testing on a wide variety of dealer-example vehicles, it was able to detect this error, which prompted Toyota to stop sales and production of the model until a fix was released. Throughout the incident, NHTSA played second fiddle to CR, merely checking the non-profit’s work. The lesson: a subscriber-based, non-profit is the real front line of US auto regulation. But, as the Wall Street Journal [sub] reports, Consumer Reports is being shadowed by another organization called Consumers Digest… and you don’t want to make the mistake of confusing the one with the other.
Advertising Age reports that GM’s surprise landing of former Hyundai and Nissan marketing boss Joel Ewanick nearly didn’t happen. In fact it didn’t happen once. GM offered Ewanick the top marketing job over two months ago according to AA, but he turned down that offer due to concerns about the position’s autonomy from GM’s entrenched “old guard” bureaucracy. As AA’s insider source puts it:
He didn’t want to have to go through a half-dozen people to get something done. He wanted to be able to get on the phone and call one person and say “Can I do this, yes or no?” and get a quick answer.
Apparently it took GM several months before coming back to Ewanick, who is considered a “rock star” of automotive marketing, with an offer that included freedom from its notoriously oppressive bureaucracy.
Automotive News Digital Edition [sub] reports that Mercedes-Benz is holding consumer clinics in the US, gathering input ahead of its launch of the first front-drive Mercedes models to be sold in the US. Sales of the B-Class-based front-drive models won’t being until “after 2011,” and Mercedes admits that a design freeze has not yet taken place. Still, one thing is certain: prospective customers are not being shown an MPV-like hatchback along the lines of the current B-Class that’s sold in Europe and Canada because of dealer concerns. Says MB-USA development boss Bernhard Glaser:
[Dealers] were concerned about the previous generation because it did stand out and that is kind of a whole different brand sell that you have to try and jump over. This will be seamless.
Chrysler has announced pricing for the new Jeep Grand Cherokee, arguably the most important vehicle it will launch this year. The cheapest option, the Laredo 4×2 (which isn’t even mentioned in Chrysler’s release), starts at an MSRP of $30,995 (including destination charge, confirmed via 
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