But there I go, quoting German Minister of Transportation Peter Ramsauer out of context, and in the original. Herr Ramsauer’s rebuke comes on news of a late-night crash involving a future Mercedes ML Class prototype, that resulted in the death of a 26-year old man over the weekend. The crash took place on a stretch of non-speed-limited autobahn between Singen and Stuttgart, favored by Mercedes and Porsche for high-speed testing. Apparently the victim had been involved in a minor accident and was trying to exit his vehicle (stalled in the left lane, according to Der Spiegel) when the Mercedes test mule slammed into his car, killing him instantly. The 52-year old test driver is under investigation for negligent homicide.
We’re right on the verge of having 12 million in vehicle sales
UAW boss Ron Gettelfinger waxes optimistic in a recent speech at Wayne State University [via The Freep]. “Not so fast,” says Automotive News [sub]’s delightfully cranky senior editor, John K. Teahen Jr., in a piece appropriately titled 12 million sales this year? Don’t hold your breath.
With weeks of recall coverage and with Lexus’s GX460 snagging a rare Consumer Reports “do not buy” warning, you’d think that at least one of CR’s recent “worst-made cars on the road” [via Forbes] would be made by Toyota. But you’d be wrong. Dodge Nitro, Jeep Wrangler, and Ford F-250 join four GM products (Cadillac Escalade, Chevy Aveo, Chevy Colorado and GMC Canyon) as the seven worst cars CR could come up with. And though this hometown sweep for Detroit goes a long way from separating facts from fiction, it’s nowhere near as instructive as the responses from each of the Detroit automakers to the charge of making crap vehicles. Let’s take a look, shall we? (Read More…)
I know that they have to cut the car open to take the engine out. To make an engine in that configuration, you know, it doesn’t go around corners. When we did the race in Abu Dhabi, we beat it off the line so many times that the film crew was getting frustrated because the outcome was supposed to be for the Bugatti to win. So we had to do that whole thing about ten times before it managed to get off the line cleanly and catch us up. Because every time they dropped the clutch it bogged down and we were gone.
McLaren’s Ron Dennis lays into the Bugatti Veyron at the Middle East launch of his firm’s new MP4-12C [Arabian Business via Wired Autopia]. What Dennis leaves out is that the Bugatti has a (computerized, sequential-shift) automatic transmission, so it’s difficult to know what he means by “they dropped the clutch.” Besides, it sounds like the former Formula 1 boss is spewing bile, rather than objectively critiquing the Veyron… which there’s plenty of room for. (Read More…)
My first day back at the helm of TTAC has been accompanied by an embarrassment of riches, in the form of both a GAO report on GM and Chrysler’s pension obligations, and the release of GM’s first post-bankruptcy, GAAP-approved financial results. We will continue to mine these documents for the most revealing quotes and statistics, but for now let’s take a moment to consider the political tensions caused by the auto industry bailout. TTAC has long held that political conflicts over the government’s stewardship of GM and Chrysler is a pressing concern, nearly on par with the financial ramifications of the auto bailout, and today’s GAO report confirms our concerns. As the following quote reveals, Treasury is under constant pressure to accommodate political concerns over the management of its stakes in GM and Chrysler, and has received no fewer than 300 official letters from congressional representatives, eager to subordinate the long-term health of the bailed-out automakers to their local concerns.
BMW has filed trademark registrations for a series of new car names. According to reports, the names registered include i1, i2, i3, i4, i5, i6, i7, i8, i9 and E1, E2, E3, E4, E5, E6, E7, E8, E9. The M50d, Urbanic, Gran Coupe, Compactive, and Compactive Tourer names were also filed.
Even in the few months I’ve been here, I’ve been encouraged by the progress we’ve made, but when it will all come together is impossible to say… We’ll do it when we’re ready
GM’s CFO Chris Liddell talks IPO with Automotive News [sub], without apparently ever using the word IPO. Or saying anything that didn’t reek of the vague optimism that defined GM’s ancien regime. How would Liddell characterize the chances of a 2010 IPO? “I wouldn’t go beyond possible.” A 2010 profit? “[there’s a] reasonable chance.” How bad was GM’s finance department when you showed up to start cleaning? “Not as bad as has been characterized.” Mr Liddell went on to describe the sky as being “blue-ish,” and said that moving to Detroit “wasn’t as bad as people said it would be” [Ed: he didn’t, but you get the picture]. As insightful and reassuring as Liddell’s journalist stiff-arming skills are, what his taxpayer investors really want to see from him are the company’s first post-bankruptcy, GAAP-approved financial results. GM has said those results will be reported by the end of this month, while warning that they might not be pretty. And that was before it got into an incentive war with Toyota.
Chrysler Group understands that the practice at this time may be a cause of concern among policymakers and among arbitrating dealers. As a measure of good faith, Chrysler Group will not proceed with network actions that directly impact an arbitrating dealer until the arbitrator has had a chance to rule in that case.
Chrysler promises to play nice with culled dealers and wait until arbitration is complete before establishing new franchises in their areas [via Automotive News [sub]]. It’s probably no coincidence that several states are already considering legislation that would require Chrysler to offer culled dealers the right of first refusal for any new dealerships in their areas. Besides, replacing dealers before arbitration kind of hurts Chrysler’s case for culling them in the first place. To say nothing of making an already-battered brand look like a bunch of royal jerks.
QOTD is a fairly irregular exercise for us, but we’d be remiss if we didn’t dust it off for today’s marathon hearings before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. Needless to say, the ten-ish hour affair offered too rich a bounty of choice quotes to properly choose just one. And so we have two: the first and one of the last quotes of the day’s proceedings. The day opened with the following words from Chairman Edolphus Towns:
Good morning. I thank you all for being here. It is hard to imagine the horror of the event that took the lives of an entire family near San Diego, California on August the 28th, 2009. California highway patrolman, Mark Saylor, his wife, their 13 yr old daughter, and Mrs Saylor’s brother, Chris, were driving in a Toyota Lexus, a loaner car that the Toyota dealer provided while their car was being repaired. As they drove along the highway, suddenly the car… accelerating [sic] rapidly, he stood on the brakes, but nothing happened. No matter what he did, he could not stop the car from flying down the road, faster and faster. As this car reached top speed in just seconds, it was all he could do just to kep it under control. In a frantic call to 911, his brother-in-law, Chris, reported the gas pedal was stuck, the brakes did not work, and they were barreling down on an intersection. He yelled over the phone “hold one, hold on, hold on and pray. And those were his last words.”
The best stories are those where you can barely wait to find out more. There are new heroes, new ideas and new sources of suspense… actually, all typically Porsche
So goes the opening to this video, introducing the new base-model V6 Panameras. Though some might argue that Volkswagen-sourced V6 engines are not in fact “typically Porsche” (an argument that carried more weight before the Cayenne came to town), a 300 horsepower engine in a 3,814 lb, four-door Porsche does technically qualify as a “source of suspense.” And attempting to charge $75k for a base Panamera V6 certainly requires a perspective that might be charitably described as “heroic.” On the other hand, it’s hard to get too down on this poor thing. You can’t blame a lazy dog for a veterinarian’s (or in this case, a CAFE standard’s) work. Besides, it’s still not as embarrassingly neutered as the Cayenne V6.
Does Tesla’s S-1 SEC filing leave you worried about the state of EV startups? The great thing about the seamy underbelly of the EV industry is that there’s always a shadier prospect out there to make even marginal cases like Tesla look good. Our perennial favorite in the EV vapor game is ZAP, the erstwhile maker of the Xebra EV (interestingly, the Xebra still shows up on ZAP’s webpage). Zap’s latest play in its never-ending quest for press-release fodder: a tie-up with (get this) a South Korean optics company, best known for its camera lenses and closed circuit TV security systems. Because sometimes you have to cross an ocean to find a sucker big enough to say things like:
Samyang decided to partner with ZAP because of its extensive industry knowledge in electric vehicle production and the breadth and maturity of its current line of electric vehicles
Why should I want to be Toyota? They’re losing billions.
Today’s Quote Of The Day comes from the executive of a certain up-and-coming automaker with dreams of becoming a global player. Think you know who it is? Here’s a hint: it’s not Ed Whitacre.
We’ve always said the Fiat-Chrysler alliance was positive. The headquarters of an increasingly global company are here. But I wouldn’t like to see new auto products being developed in the United States and not here in our own research-and-development facilities.
Andrea Bairati, commissioner for innovation for Italy’s Piedmont region in a WSJ piece on Fiat’s annual meeting in Turin. Maybe if Piedmont had kicked a few billion in on the Chrysler-Fiat alliance, Mr Bairati wouldn’t feel quite so slighted.
It’s easy to blame GM’s new Chairman and CEO’s recent webchat performance on the format. Webchats invariably combine the awkward claustrophobia of conference calls with the eloquent clarity of text-messaging, for a match made in communication hell. That’s no place to properly explain what the NSFW is going on with your company. Especially when you have yet to comment on the “Opel drama,” “palace coup,” “tilt-a-executive,” and “getting in bed with the Chinese” storylines (among others). Needless to say, the MSM is not amused. Nor, frankly, am I. Which is why today’s quote of the day is actually nine days old.
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