2008 Paris Auto Show: Mood in the City of Lights Is Dark
October 07, 2008
By Bill Visnic
PARIS - This city is supposed to be about celebration, but automakers stuffing their wares into the Paris motor show's vast exhibition halls were hardly in a gay mood last week. As the press crowded in to take the auto industry's temperature, the patients responded like they were suffering from a year-long head cold.
The rows of gleaming product - white seemed to be a favorite color - couldn't brighten the mood of automaker executives now burdened not only with the certainly of aggressive European carbon dioxide-curbing legislation but with an increasingly constricting sales environment and the ominous undertow of the U.S. financial-sector meltdown.
Almost all manufacturers spoke in cautious tones about constricting Western Europe sales and the double whammy of the U.S.'s heavy sales downturn and imploding credit market. Even automakers not selling in the U.S. - such as home-players Peugeot and Citroen - seemed unable to muster much enthusiasm, falling back on promotion of present or future models able to nick under the specter of the 120 gram per kilometer CO2 emissions legislation that is Europe's presumptive new goal for 2012.
In effect, selling size and horsepower now clearly is a non-sequitur. Automakers in Europe - and potentially the U.S. - are grappling with how to enable customers to "downsize emissions without downsizing their dreams," in the words of Daimler AG chairman Dieter Zetsche.
What was displayed at the Paris show, then, might be environmentally correct - but will it be fun? That's the quantity up for grabs. After nearly two decades of ebullient horsepower escalation, many automakers are only stuntingly resetting their priorities. At the show here, some seem vastly more prepared than others.
Ready For the Next Chapter - Not
For Americans in Paris, it's painfully clear the U.S. makers aren't yet fully engaged for the coming struggle.
• Ford Motor Co., for example, unveiled its all-new Ka subcompact. The first-generation Ka laid down a definitive marker in the segment, but this all-new model seems less confident. It carries the familial look of the recently unveiled Fiesta, which isn't bad - but isn't a bar-mover. We know the Ka's an inexpensive play, but the interior isn't going to
exceed many expectations. Ka's in November's latest James Bond film, but Ford's Bond tie-in is a tiring ploy. The more painstaking effort: Toyota's efficiently funky re-do of its iQ minicar.
The Fiesta ECOnetic is an interesting gambit - 64 mpg and 98 g/km of CO2 from a 1.6-liter diesel and a bunch of mileage-boosting detail work - but Ford insists it's not in the cards for the U.S. Never mind it's almost two years before the States see the new Fiesta in any form.
And we're still wondering who decided the Kuga crossover doesn't belong Stateside, either. It
makes the U.S.'s Escape compact crossover look like the fossil it is.
• General Motors Corp. drummed up plenty of interest with its Cruze sedan (we caught Ford CEO Alan Mulally lingering at the display) and Orlando mini-people-mover concept, but the Cruze's broad-shouldered styling seems a tad U.S.-centric, it's interior painfully conventional, to completely tempt European sensibilities, particularly when judged
against Volkswagen AG's derivative but somehow-chic new Golf.
The product on offer at the stand of GM's Opel unit, meanwhile, appears seriously dated, save the lithe new Insignia Sports Tourer. A CO2-optimized version promises CO2 output of less than 140 g/km.
Europeans Have a Better Handle on Potential 'Fun' Factor
If CO2-cutting is the new horsepower war, the Europeans appear better-equipped to work out a yin and yang between environmental awareness and performance.
• Citroen now has some acutely interesting shapes in its arsenal, notably the C4 hatchback and the taut C5 sedan. And the company is working furiously on CO2-optimized variants of just about everything in its lineup.
The proliferation of these CO2-optimized models is astounding, in fact. Performance may not be a strong suit, but if the styling is effective, the combination will be formidable. And although Citroen and cousin Peugeot continue to work some odd ideas, both have a clear, effective - and appealing - design language.
• The German automakers, for some time now at odds with most of the rest of Europe regarding the CO2 crackdown, are grudgingly coming to the table.
Competitors may wish they didn't - the Mercedes S400 BlueHybrid (not a Paris debut) and BMW's 7 Series ActiveHybrid look to be convincing efforts. And selling in a price strata that's much more tolerant of expensive solutions, the Germans could transform their former shortcoming - interest in hybrid development - into an attribute. And people we spoke to here say the big efficiency payday - diesel hybrids - are not out of the question for these two makers' portfolios, either.
• Volume-maker Volkswagen Group hit the show with more CO2-chopping models than Paris has brasseries. The high-efficiency BlueMotion diesel variant of the new Golf, for example, promises 99 g/km of CO2 - and the Golf is considerably more sizeable than most of the low-CO2 cute-cars here, demonstrating VW's technical might may help it win the day if Europe becomes a no-holds-barred CO2 slugfest.
The company's Audi unit unveiled a 105 g/km variant of the new (and also quite comfortably sized) A4 sedan. And VW's stand included a convincing display of engine and transmission technologies that included its sipping diesels, and small, direct-injected and turbocharged/supercharged gasoline 4-cylinders that punch well in excess of their size - or their CO2 output.
And the Audi A1 - the company's Mini competitor - although not altogether handsome is
compellingly executed. As are many of the latest generation of up-market compact cars.
VW's vision appears to be the name of the game in Europe: find a way to make low emissions appealing, even desirable. But thanks to the raft of current global macroeconomic tribulations, at this Paris auto show, it was a game few were cheerfully playing.
Photos by manufacturers
1 - Paris auto show floor (provided by show organizers)
2 - Ford Ka for the new James Bond movie (left)
3 - Toyota iQ
4 - Chevrolet Cruze (left)
5 - Chevrolet Orlando
6 - BMW 7 Series Active Hybrid
7 - Volkswagen Golf GTI
8 - Audi A1
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