GM CEO Henderson "No Fan" of Rebadging, but...
By Bill Visnic
During a recent Webcast with reporters, General Motors Corp. CEO Fritz Henderson said that when the Pontiac division turns out the lights at year-end, its critically acclaimed G8 sedan won't be picked up by any of GM's four remaining brands.
The CEO added: "I'm not a fan of rebadging."
If that's one of the reasons the G8 won't be seen wearing another division's crest, then Henderson has long suffered his distaste for rebadging: almost from its origin, GM's modus operandi has been rebadging, probably the most callous examples coming in the 1980s, when precious little in the way of genuine engineering differentiated one brand's vehicle from another.
And rebadging looks to be at least part of the modus operandi of the "new" GM to emerge from Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
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Posted by Michelle Krebs at 5:59 AM under Commentary , Featured , GM , In the Media | Comments (14) | digg this | del.icio.us
Americans Want Government Out of GM, Chrysler Quickly, Poll Says
Eight of 10 U.S. voters want the federal government to sell its stake in General Motors and Chrysler as soon as possible, according to a telephone survey done by Rasmussen Reports.
The federal government owns 60 percent of GM and 8 percent of Chrysler.
In fact, 64 percent of the 1,000 likely voters surveyed over last weekend said they favor a proposal that would force the government to sell their stake in the auto companies within a year. Only about 11 percent of the 1,000 likely voters surveyed over the weekend said they wanted the government to retain ownership.
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Posted by Michelle Krebs at 8:42 AM under Chrysler , Commentary , GM | Comments (0) | digg this | del.icio.us
Joke's on the Auto Sector - As Usual
The auto industry is an easy target for comics and this week's acquisition of the Chrysler Group by Fiat and the announcement of General Motors Corp.'s new chairman added new fuel to the comedic pyre.
Two of this week's best:
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Posted by Michelle Krebs at 4:02 AM under Chrysler , Commentary , Companies , GM | Comments (2) | digg this | del.icio.us
New MPG Standards Vs. Consumer Preference Incites Reader Debate
An AutoObserver story last week suggesting the federal government's proposed new 
Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards may clash with Americans' taste in vehicles sparked a sometimes heated round of comments.
Using data from Edmunds.com comparing currently available models that can meet the 2016 CAFE mandate with the sales "popularity" of those vehicles demonstrated that in today's market, those vehicles have sporadic sales success.
Seeking to end years of conflict between federal fuel-economy and emissions mandates and the initiatives of many states typically led by California, President Obama announced federal CAFE standards of 39 miles per gallon for passenger cars and 30 mpg for light trucks.
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The Only Question: What Day Will GM File for Chapter 11?
By Michelle Krebs
DETROIT -- About the only question regarding a General Motors Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing that remains is what day it'll be filed.
GM announced Wednesday morning that bondholders, who had until midnight, to trade $27.2 billion in debt for a 10 percent stake in the restructured GM, had rejected the automaker's offer. GM confirmed that the number of bondholders who agreed to the deal "was substantially less" than the amount required by the U.S. Department of Treasury.
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Posted by Michelle Krebs at 6:42 AM under Commentary , Featured , GM , News | Comments (0) | digg this | del.icio.us
U.S. Congress: Take Note of U.K.'s Sputtering Scrappage Plan
Listen up, members of the U.S. Congress. As you write Cash for Clunkers legislation, take a 
lesson from the Brits and keep it simple.
The car scrappage scheme that took effect in the United Kingdom Monday and championed by Prime Minister Gordon Brown sputtered at the starting line Monday.
Dealership and auto execs as well as consumers were flummoxed about how the new program works, prompting several major automakers to delay their involvement, causing Brown embarrassment and giving his opponents fresh fodder for criticism.
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New Fuel Rules: Automakers May Build Them, but Will Customers Buy Them?
By Michelle Krebs
President Obama declared the new combined fuel-economy and emissions standards historic. In a press conference in the White House rose garden, surrounded by environmentalists and captains of the global auto industry, Obama said the new rules mark the nation's first comprehensive effort to curb vehicle emissions while cutting dependence on imported oil -- a turning point toward a "clean-energy economy."
Still, the new standards fall short on one critical element: What will make consumers buy the new clean vehicles required by the law?
The government can dictate that automakers build highly fuel-efficient vehicles that emit few pollutants, but will customers buy them? Recent history illustrates that customers are not stirred by their conscience but by their wallets, buying smaller, fuel-economy cars only when gas prices rise to the point of hurting them financially.
"Defining what should be built does not create demand," asserted Edmunds.com CEO Jeremy Anwyl. "There are tons of great fuel-efficient cars out there today but most consumers aren't interested, and the new fuel-economy standards don't appeal to deal with the demand side at all."
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Posted by Michelle Krebs at 6:18 AM under Commentary , Companies , Featured , Technology | Comments (7) | digg this | del.icio.us
Commentary: Marchionne's Plan Is Gutsy but Iffy
By Richard Feast
LONDON -- Fiat CEO Sergio Marchionne scores top marks for ambition. His grand plan to sweep the whole of Chrysler plus General Motors' extensive European arm into Fiat's car operations is truly gutsy.
He may yet make the vision a reality. However, his chances of turning the partnership -- or whatever it might be called -- into a long-term success are minimal. The auto industry is littered with the memorials of empire builders who were long on vision and short on delivery.
And yet, despite the most severe economic collapse since the emergence of a globalized auto industry, Super Sergio wants to push through two deals simultaneously. Maybe he believes all those adoring media profiles.
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Posted by Michelle Krebs at 4:16 AM under Chrysler , Commentary , Companies , Featured | Comments (1) | digg this | del.icio.us
Chrysler Dissident Investors Cave; Political, Legal Wounds Linger
By Bill Visnic
Industry analysts. Political commentators. Legal scholars (and those who think they are). Journalists.
Everyone's got an opinion -- plenty of it critical -- about how the Chrysler Chapter 11 bankruptcy has gone down and is proceeding. And about whether Fiat's resulting takeover of Chrysler can really work.
Most criticism of "the deal" focuses on whether the government, acting as the agent of compromise and haste, outstepped legal and ethical boundaries in abrogating the property rights of Chrysler's secured creditors and later "strong arming" those creditors who rejected a government offer of about one-third the value of their holdings.
Whether the bullying was real or perceived no longer matters. The remaining secured-lender holdouts, their numbers dwindling by the day, announced late last week they are withdrawing their objection of the bankruptcy procedure laid out to allow the sale of Chrysler's assets to a new, reconfigured Chrysler run by Fiat.
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Posted by Michelle Krebs at 6:12 AM under Chrysler , Commentary , Featured | Comments (0) | digg this | del.icio.us
Cash for Clunkers: Sales Boom If Quick; Bust If It Stalls
SANTA MONICA, Calif. -- A Cash for Clunkers program edging its way through Congress could create a desperately needed sales boom for automakers and their dealers if Congress moves quickly, according to Edmunds.com's analysis.
However, if legislation lingers in Congress too long, new-car sales could stall as consumers wait for the final program to be passed.
"Congress needs to pull the trigger," says Edmunds.com CEO Jeremy Anwyl. "The more the publicity on Cash for Clunkers, the more likely sales will drop off as people wait."
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Posted by Michelle Krebs at 4:15 AM under Analysis , Commentary , Companies | Comments (8) | digg this | del.icio.us
Chrysler's Politicized Bankruptcy a Warm-Up for GM
By Bill Visnic
Watching and analyzing as the increasingly contentious Chrysler bankruptcy unfolds, a Detroit-area legal expert on bankruptcy and creditors' rights reckons the charged atmosphere surrounding Chrysler's trip to bankruptcy court is a warm-up act for the headline show: the bankruptcy of much-larger General Motors Corp.
Although the Chrysler bankruptcy already has generated something only slightly less than a full-blown political firestorm and is proceeding with questionable ethical and legal departures from established bankruptcy conventions, "We may well face it again in a month," as GM's bankruptcy deadline nears, said Doug Bernstein, a partner in the Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, legal firm Plunkett Clooney and head of the firm's Banking, Bankruptcy and Creditors' Rights practice group.
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Posted by Michelle Krebs at 3:49 AM under Chrysler , Commentary , Featured | Comments (0) | digg this | del.icio.us
Chevrolet Volt: First Media Test Drives Given
The dance of the seven veils continues as General Motors recently began offering early, early test drives of its highly anticipated 2011 Chevrolet Volt.
Edmunds' Inside Line Senior Editor Dan Pund was among the early test drivers of the engineering development car, commonly known in the industry as a "mule."
Pund called his test drive more of a progress report than a final assessment and reports its development is coming along nicely. But much more is yet to be known about the Volt, that is supposed to come out near the end of 2010.
Posted by Michelle Krebs at 1:19 PM under Commentary , GM , Technology | Comments (0) | digg this | del.icio.us
Good and Bad Ideas From Massachusetts
By Bill Visnic
There are all manner of schemes being proposed to address the needs of dwindling state and federal coffers, many of which often focus on hitting the wallets of the driving public.
But rare is the state that has two driving-taxation plans as simultaneously enlightened and enraging as the state of Massachusetts. Both have been promoted by Gov. Deval Patrick.
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Posted by Michelle Krebs at 4:01 PM under Commentary , Featured , News , Personalities | Comments (3) | digg this | del.icio.us
Chrysler-Fiat: "Value" for Fiat Means "Free"
By Bill Visnic
With a May 1 deadline to make a deal with stakeholders -- a prerequisite of subsequently partnering with Fiat S.p.A. -- bearing down on Chrysler LLC lest the Obama administration's Auto Task Force take Chrysler into some form of bankruptcy, the posturing is heating up, particularly from Fiat Chief Executive Office Sergio Marchionne.
First, Marchionne threatened Fiat will deep-six its offer to tie up with Chrysler if the company cannot wrest further wage concessions from its U.S. and Canadian labor unions, concessions presumably to bring wages to parity with non-unionized Japanese transplant automakers in the U.S.
The unsubtle warning failed to immediately produce the desired result from either the United Auto Workers or the Canadian auto workers unions.
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Posted by Michelle Krebs at 4:18 AM under Analysis , Chrysler , Commentary , Featured | Comments (0) | digg this | del.icio.us
U.S. Manufacturing Slashing Cost Gap
A new study brings a glimmer of positive news for the embattled U.S. manufacturing sector, 
saying U.S. producers are making headway in reducing structural costs.
The Manufacturing Institute and the Manufacturers Alliance/MAPI says U.S. manufacturers have reduced five primary structural-cost measures compared with foreign manufacturers that make a comparable product, according to a commentary in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
The study, aided by the accounting firm of Deloitte and reported by Deloitte employee Dmitri D. Shiry to the Post-Gazette, says the structural-cost "gap" between U.S. manufacturers and foreign producers making a similar product was cut to 17.6 percent in 2007 versus 31.7 percent in 2006. The 2006 disadvantage of 31.7 percent was a markedly worse figure than 2004's structural-cost gap of 22.4 percent.
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BMW Gets Loopy - and It's Not Even Octoberfest Yet
By Bill Visnic
Maybe they're growing the hops just a little too close to the medicinal marijuana over there in Germany. A media report this week says BMW AG is considering abandoning its legendary inline six-cylinder engine design in favor of a V6 layout.
A V6 in place of the magnificent inline six-cylinder engine design on which the very foundation of the company was built? Magnifying the madness, the proposed sacrilege comes from no less than BMW's high-performance Motorsports division.
Yes, the M division is considering ditching the hallowed I-6 when it's time for the next-generation M3 around 2013, Ludwig Willisch, top dog at BMW's M division, was reported as saying at Motor Trend.com.
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Posted by Michelle Krebs at 4:47 AM under Commentary , Companies , Featured , Rumors , Technology | Comments (1) | digg this | del.icio.us
Chevrolet Camaro Wins Edmunds' Inside Line Muscle Car Comparison Test
SANTA MONICA, Calif. -- Inside Line, Edmunds.com's online car magazine and sister site 
of AutoObserver.com, announced Wednesday that the 2010 Chevrolet Camaro SS took first place in its latest comparison test of iconic muscle cars.
The comparison is described in full at the 2010 Chevy Camaro SS vs. 2009 Dodge Challenger R/T vs. 2010 Ford Mustang GT Comparison Test.
"Car enthusiasts can rejoice that all three of these legendary pony cars have made a comeback," says Jay Kavanagh, Edmunds' Inside Line Engineering Editor. "But the 2010 Chevrolet Camaro SS leads the pack with its combination of power, speed and attitude."
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Posted by Michelle Krebs at 9:59 AM under Analysis , Chrysler , Commentary , Companies , Ford , GM | Comments (0) | digg this | del.icio.us
College Hoops and Ailing Automakers
What do college basketball and troubled U.S. automakers have in common?
Plenty this year. The NCAA championship is taking place in Detroit and the "blue-collar" hometown team, Michigan State University, is in the final Monday night, to the surprise of many and the upset of those playing the brackets.
Indeed, as Wall Street Journal columnist Austin Kelley noted in Monday's edition, sports fans who wanted to forget General Motors' troubles and divert attention to college basketball were out of luck this weekend. "The specter of the ailing automaker was everywhere," he wrote.
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Posted by Michelle Krebs at 8:56 AM under Commentary , Ford , GM , In the Media , Personalities | Comments (0) | digg this | del.icio.us
President Obama: Auto Industry Cannot Vanish
President Obama sent a message this weekend to auto workers and residents of 
auto towns that the U.S. "cannot let our auto industry vanish."
President Obama, in a column under his byline that appeared in select Midwest newspapers, said the reason the U.S. government is supporting General Motors and Chrysler with loans is because the auto industry "is an emblem of America" that helped build and sustain the middle class."
Obama acknowledged auto workers and auto towns had been through much pain and indicated they needed to brace for even more.
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Posted by Michelle Krebs at 6:15 AM under Chrysler , Commentary , Companies , GM , In the Media , Personalities | Comments (0) | digg this | del.icio.us
GM Advisor: Doubts Bankruptcy Is Chosen Route
Roger C. Altman, chairman and CEO of investment firm Evercore Partners and currently an 
advisor to General Motors in its restructuring, says he doubts bankruptcy is the way struggling automakers like GM and Chrysler will go.
Altman was asked in an interview with the Financial Times, if we will see prepackaged bankruptcies for some carmakers. "The administration hasn't entirely made clear its position on that. So I'm not sure, but I would be skeptical that's the route this will go," he responded.
"I think the companies -- and let me focus particularly on General Motors, because that's the one I know best because we represent GM -- have made much more progress than people realized, in improving product quality, improving fuel-efficiency, streamlining themselves, lowering labor cost differentials dramatically relative to the transplant costs, and so forth," he added.
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Posted by Michelle Krebs at 6:32 AM under Commentary , Companies , GM , In the Media , Personalities | Comments (1) | digg this | del.icio.us
Tata Nano Makes a Positive First Impression
By Nick Kurczewski
PIMPRI, India -- Instead of racing to jump behind the wheel of the fancy top-of-the-line model as they do at other vehicle introductions, journalists scrambled to grab the lone base version of the Tata Nano -- black plastic bumpers and all -- to take it for a spin on Tata's test track in Pimpri, two hours outside of Mumbai.
Indeed, it is the price tag -- the equivalent of $2,000 -- that has caused the tiny Tata Nano to capture everyone's attention as it is currently the world's cheapest car.
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Posted by Michelle Krebs at 3:54 PM under Commentary , Companies , Featured | Comments (0) | digg this | del.icio.us
Chevy Camaro: My Muscle Car's More Like a Prius Than Yours
By Bill Visnic
DETROIT -- Back when the car business was fun and nobody knew one hydrocarbon from the next, muscle car talk was big-block V8s, cam-lobe profiles -- and, of course, mine's got more horsepower than yours.
Now, you'd be forgiven for wondering if the new-generation 2010 Camaro -- a nameplate with a storied history built around all of the above -- even offers a V8.
The new Camaro hit showrooms this week. In the information distributed to the press, the overview summarizing the 2010 Camaro carries the headline, "The Chevy Camaro -- A Fun, Efficient Sports Car for the 21st Century." There is lengthy discussion about the new Camaro's design, interior, even safety features, but not a word about the engines that power this reincarnation of the brand's most famous muscle car.
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Posted by Michelle Krebs at 12:16 PM under Commentary , Featured , GM | Comments (3) | digg this | del.icio.us
Obama on Leno: Talking Auto Industry
By Michelle Krebs
President Obama didn't spend much time during his historic appearance on The Tonight Show talking about the auto industry to car-crazed host Jay Leno. But what he did say made it sound like he understood that new-car sales are simply too low for the industry to be successful.
President Obama noted that the U.S. car sales are running at an annual rate of 9 million vehicles, well below even the usual rate of replacement for worn-out vehicles, and that 14 million new cars a year would be more normal.
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Posted by Michelle Krebs at 7:09 AM under Commentary , Companies , GM , In the Media , Personalities , Technology | Comments (0) | digg this | del.icio.us
Newly Born Baby Boomers: What Cars Will They Buy?
By Michelle Krebs
When he was Toyota's top American executive, Jim Press often cited his visits to the hospital nursery to support his prediction that U.S. motor vehicle sales would hit 20 million units a year.
"What I see in each of those baskets is 20 purchase cycles," Press, now president of Chrysler, would say of the rows of babies -- future car buyers -- in cribs.
Press no longer predicts 20 million vehicle sales; instead he sees 14 million at best for the near future. Nevertheless the hospital nurseries are jampacked with a record number of new babies.
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Posted by Michelle Krebs at 7:04 AM under Chrysler , Commentary , News , Personalities , Toyota | Comments (0) | digg this | del.icio.us
GM Takes Issue With Wall Street Journal Coverage
By Michelle Krebs
DETROIT - General Motors has gone public with the fact that it has issues with the Wall Street Journal's coverage of the automaker's situation and its constant focus on a GM bankruptcy.
In a blog post on GM's Fast Lane, the automaker points out that: "In headline after headline, story after story, the front pages of the paper have promoted bankruptcy as a solution for GM."
The final straw for a frustrated GM was a Journal story this week entitled "GM's Chief Shifts Posture on Surviving Bankruptcy," calling it "yet one more distortion of GM's position on this critical issue."
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Posted by Michelle Krebs at 10:40 AM under Commentary , GM , In the Media | Comments (2) | digg this | del.icio.us
AIG Angst: The Auto Industry and Detroit Protest Bonuses Loudest
By Michelle Krebs
President Obama and others on Capitol Hill expressed their indignation Monday over the revelation that American International Group Inc. (AIG) plans to reward its top executives with $165 million in bonuses despite the fact that the insurance giant is being kept afloat by U.S. taxpayers.
But no one is more outraged about the AIG bonuses than those in the auto industry, especially those in Detroit.
Michigan Congressman Gary Peters introduced a bill Monday night, one he's been promoting on the airwaves of business programs all day Tuesday, that allows the AIG bonuses to be paid -- and then taxes them at 100 percent to recover the cash for taxpayers.
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Posted by Michelle Krebs at 12:20 PM under Chrysler , Commentary , Companies , GM , Personalities | Comments (2) | digg this | del.icio.us
German YouTube Video Shows No Love Lost Between Opel and GM
By Michelle Krebs
DETROIT -- As General Motors and the German government wrangle about how to fund and structure GM's German subsidiary Adam Opel, a video now posted on YouTube illustrates what many at Opel think of their corporate parent.
Despite being in German, the gist of the video for even those who don't understand German is crystal clear: GM has stripped Opel cars of content, robbed Opel's till of cash and now is strong-arming the German government for money to keep the automaker afloat.
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Posted by Michelle Krebs at 7:13 AM under Commentary , GM , In the Media | Comments (2) | digg this | del.icio.us
Memo to Obama Auto Task Force: It Ain't About Labor
By Bill Visnic
This week, the United Auto Workers union agreed to more cutbacks to help the Detroit Three automakers get back on their feet. The UAW rank and file at Ford ratified concessions. UAW and General Motors negotiators reportedly hammered out similar concessions Tuesday night that will be voted on by GM workers. Next up for give-backs will be Chrysler workers.
But once again, the predicament the Big Three are in isn't about labor costs; it's about the product.
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Posted by Michelle Krebs at 4:40 AM under Chrysler , Commentary , Companies , Featured , Ford | Comments (3) | digg this | del.icio.us
Tracinda's Jerry York Says "I Told You So" in More Polite Terms
You just know Jerome York is dying to say it: "I told you so."
The former Chrysler executive who served on General Motors' board of directors representing the interests of billionaire Kirk Kerkorian, had insisted the Detroit automaker ditch money-losing Saab and Hummer. But GM executives refused to entertain the notion. They insisted the automaker's many brands were an asset: not, as York contended, a drain on resources.
Now look where GM is -- staying afloat on government loans as it sets Saab loose and has Hummer on the auction block with a plan to eliminate it if no buyer is found.
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Posted by Michelle Krebs at 7:20 AM under Chrysler , Commentary , Companies , Ford , GM , Personalities | Comments (0) | digg this | del.icio.us
Subaru and Mitsubishi Among Japanese Makers Seeking Government Loans
By Bill Visnic
Fuji Heavy Industries Ltd. Inc.'s Subaru automaking unit is one of the handful of makers seemingly keeping ahead of withering U.S. auto demand. Yet it was reported this week that even Fuji is seeking a government-backed low-interest loan reported to be approximately $102 million as security against a continuing sales slump.
Auto-industry sales in Japan have been tanking in concert with the U.S. market (Japan auto sales were down 32.4 percent last month), yet in the U.S., Subaru managed a 4-percent hike in sales compared with February 2008.
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Posted by Michelle Krebs at 3:24 AM under Business , Commentary , Companies , Featured | Comments (1) | digg this | del.icio.us
President Obama's Auto Advisors Visit Detroit
DETROIT -- Representatives of President Barack Obama's automotive task force are visiting 
Detroit Monday. Their trip includes a tour of a Chrysler assembly plant and General Motor's Technical Center and a test-drive of the Chevrolet Volt.
All the while, auto company executives will try to convince them further federal assistance is a worthwhile investment for taxpayers.
Their visit comes as Republicans cranked up the volume on their opposition to support Detroit automakers and yet another survey showed the American public generally is opposed as well.
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Posted by Michelle Krebs at 7:59 AM under Business , Commentary , Companies , Ford , GM , Personalities , Technology , Toyota | Comments (0) | digg this | del.icio.us
Geneva Motor Show: Curtain Call More Than Curtain Raiser
By Nick Kurczewski
GENEVA - This year's Geneva motor show might well be remembered as the curtain call for several struggling automotive brands more than a curtain-raiser for exciting new vehicles.
Nearly every major car company along with the eclectic mix of sports car and design firms that give Geneva its unique appeal are in attendance at the show, which held its press days last week and now is open to the public.
But like the dozens of closed or idled car factories around the world, Geneva seemed eerily quiet for a place that should have been buzzing with activity. Even the most noteworthy new vehicles failed to provide a necessary spark to lift the crowd.
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Posted by Michelle Krebs at 7:52 AM under Commentary , Companies | Comments (0) | digg this | del.icio.us
GM Plight: An Example of 'Day of Reckoning'
White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel had some harsh words for General Motors on a Sunday news program, prompting questions about what the Obama administration has in mind for restructuring GM and Chrysler.
Emanuel told CBS' Face the Nation GM's situation is "a wakeup call to America" to increase energy independence and overhaul the nation's health care system. GM's plight is an example of "a day of reckoning," Emanuel said.
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Posted by Michelle Krebs at 7:37 AM under Chrysler , Commentary , Ford , GM | Comments (1) | digg this | del.icio.us
GM's Saturn Spin-Off Could Be Opening for Chinese, Indian Automakers
By Michelle Krebs
DETROIT -- General Motors is moving toward a spin-off of its Saturn brand and is open to 
selling vehicles from other automakers through the Saturn dealer network, according to a letter sent to Saturn owners.
Such a move would be a perfect door into the U.S. market for Chinese and Indian automakers.
If an alliance with Chrysler fails to materialize, Fiat -- long chomping at the bit to return to the U.S. with its Alfa Romeo models and launch its popular Fiat 500 here -- would be another possibility.
(Read more...)
Posted by Michelle Krebs at 11:11 AM under Business , Commentary , Featured , GM | Comments (0) | digg this | del.icio.us
Bailout-Bank CEO Flies Company Jet to Super Bowl
By Bill Visnic
Another for Corporate America's bulging "Why Do People Hate Us?" file: The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports that Jim Rohr, CEO of PNC Financial Services group, flew with "clients" in a company-owned private jet to the Super Bowl in Tampa, Florida, earlier this month.
This, of course, after the CEOs of the Detroit Three automakers were berated in November for flying corporate jets to a full-blown business meeting with the government. The congressional outrage and public jack-up over the stunt caused the automakers to pledge to sell the jets and travel less extravagantly -- even for more business-oriented situations than attending the Super Bowl.
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Posted by Michelle Krebs at 6:48 AM under Commentary , Companies | Comments (1) | digg this | del.icio.us
Hyundai Boss Blasts Auto Industry, Says It's 'Viewed With Contempt'
By Bill Visnic
CHICAGO -- Telling an assembled crowd of media and auto-industry representatives here for the Chicago auto show that although the global economic meltdown certainly helped to destruct the auto industry in the U.S., John Krafcik, acting president and CEO of Hyundai Motor America, said the industry itself is largely to blame because of its past bad behavior.
And now the day of reckoning with consumers (and legislators) has arrived.
Avowing the auto industry is "viewed with contempt" in the U.S., Krafcik dealt out a staccato string of candid and hard-hitting tough-love messages in a speech to open the media days of the show.
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Posted by Michelle Krebs at 1:24 PM under Commentary , Companies , Featured , News , Personalities | Comments (3) | digg this | del.icio.us
Chrysler Hit by Lawsuits; Is Bankruptcy A Way to Cope?
By Michelle Krebs
Chrysler has been socked by two lawsuits in as many days, prompting at least one expert to wonder if more lawsuits can be expected and force Chrysler into official bankruptcy proceedings.
French-based Faurecia has sued Chrysler, claiming the automaker owes the supplier $110 million for engineering and research costs as well as handing its research over to the Chinese.
Another lawsuit filed in Delaware charges Chrysler is automatically denying workers' compensation claims over a spinal-cord treatment for employees injured on the job. The suit seeks class-action status.
Meantime, a bankruptcy lawyer in Detroit suggests a flurry of lawsuits is often a reason for companies to file for bankruptcy.
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Posted by Michelle Krebs at 1:14 PM under Analysis , Chrysler , Commentary , Featured | Comments (0) | digg this | del.icio.us
COMMENTARY Behind the Headlines: News and Maneuvers Get Weirder
By Bill Visnic
The auto industry seemed to have reached agreement earlier this month to hunker down and allow the geared-down Detroit auto show to flicker on without anything as distracting as news to interfere.
That all changed this week, as it seems everyone's talking, dealing, reporting, conjecturing and speculating. Plenty of this news is explicitly bizarre.
A rundown of some of this week's happenings, along with the between-the-lines summary courtesy of AutoObserver's branded decoder ring:
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Posted by Michelle Krebs at 5:04 PM under Chrysler , Commentary , Companies , Featured , Ford , GM , Personalities | Comments (0) | digg this | del.icio.us
Grounded Citicorp Joins Big Three
Welcome to the club - the corporate jetless club, Citicorp executives. You are in good company.
Despite taking $50 billion in federal funds to stay afloat, Citicorp only canceled delivery of a fancy $50-million corporate jet when the American public found out -- and a U.S. Senator gave bank officials a public tongue lashing.
U.S. Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., who advocated federal help to Detroit automakers, has been cheesed about Congress' double standard for the banks and the automakers.
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Posted by Michelle Krebs at 7:12 AM under Chrysler , Commentary , Ford , GM | Comments (0) | digg this | del.icio.us
Car Czar Gives Way to Car Czars
By Michelle Krebs
Timothy Geithner, President Barack Obama's nominee for U.S. Treasury Secretary, testified to Congress Wednesday that the new administration intended to assembly a team of experts to oversee the loans to automakers.
Geithner told the Senate Finance Committee during his confirmation hearings that the team would have "expertise in manufacturing, in restructuring, who understand how these labor contracts work."
Automakers should be thrilled at the news since it was frighteningly evident during last fall's Congressional hearings on aide to U.S. automakers that most government officials and Congressmen are generally ignorant about the extremely complex auto industry. Finding a single individual who understood all of the aspects of the auto industry would be impossible. And if President Obama's picks for other government posts are any indication, the car czars will a bright, talented and pragmatic lot.
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Posted by Michelle Krebs at 8:23 AM under Chrysler , Commentary , Ford , GM , Personalities | Comments (0) | digg this | del.icio.us
COMMENTARY: Fiat-Chrysler Link Is Nice Idea, but Futile Without Money
By Bill Visnic
Fiat S.p.A.'s acquisition of 35 percent of Chrysler has all the good-sounding trappings of an auto-industry alliance that, under normal circumstances, would indicate another industry tie-up that might bear fruit.
But in the supercharged atmosphere currently surrounding the auto sector -- and particularly the at-risk U.S. domestic automakers -- the deal is being considered by some as the salvation of Chrysler.
The prolongation of Chrysler's likely dissolution is the more viable assessment of Tuesday's announced Fiat-Chrysler deal because it includes no cash infusion to Chrysler.
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Posted by Michelle Krebs at 4:31 AM under Analysis , Business , Chrysler , Commentary , Featured | Comments (0) | digg this | del.icio.us
Higher Gas Tax Could Drive Buyers to Fuel-Efficiency, Edmunds.com Says
Jeremy Anwyl, CEO of Edmunds.com (parent of AutoObserver.com), appeared as a guest on Fox Business News this week where he advanced the idea of a higher gas tax to encourage consumers to buy fuel-efficient cars. Always controversial, a higher gas tax also was being discussed this week at the Detroit auto show, as detailed by Edmunds' Green Car Advisor. Anwyl chatted with AutoObserver, providing a deeper explanation of his position.
You told Neil Cavuto, the host of Fox Business News, that you supported a higher gas tax. Explain what you meant.
I'd be the last person standing to suggest we need higher taxes. An argument could also be made that consumers should be able to buy any vehicle they want. But for the past 30 years we have tried to move people to more fuel-efficient vehicles with government Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards put in place by the federal government. It hasn't worked. If the government is going to mandate that automakers focus on building fuel-efficient vehicles, government must also ensure that there will be a market for them. A higher gas tax will help. I also believe that the higher gas tax should be accompanied by an income tax reduction so that government isn't taking additional money out of the economy, but rather shifts the source of the money it does take.
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Posted by Michelle Krebs at 12:14 PM under Commentary | Comments (7) | digg this | del.icio.us
Edmunds.com Gives Away $10 Million of Ads Urging Americans To Buy Cars
Online car-buying site Edmunds.com, parent of AutoObserver, is giving away $10 million 
worth of advertising in an effort to spur Americans to start buying new cars and trucks again and is asking other media companies to follow suit.
"While we all can feel optimistic about a new year, a new presidential administration and other elements of our future, we can't ignore the fact that this is an incredibly difficult economic time," said Edmunds.com CEO Jeremy Anwyl in his letter to media publishers. "In better years, we've all built businesses that rely heavily on the car business. Now, the car business needs our help. Can we publishers do something to recharge the car business, and, in turn, our economy? We think so."
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Posted by Michelle Krebs at 8:09 AM under Business , Commentary | Comments (0) | digg this | del.icio.us
Chrysler's 'Thank You' Ads: Not the Best Idea
By Bill Visnic
Readers of the nation's major newspapers -- those still reading paper, anyway -- by now have seen splashy full-page ads from Chrysler LLC thanking "America" for its bailout-investment in the company.
No harm in being contrite, but just like winging into Washington, D.C., on a trio of exec jets to demonstrate their dire financial straits, the "Thank You, America" ad isn't going to go down as one of Detroit, Inc.'s more wizened PR stunts.
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Posted by Michelle Krebs at 9:34 AM under Chrysler , Commentary , In the Media | Comments (2) | digg this | del.icio.us
America's Banks and Brokers: 'We Don't Need No Stinkin' Accountability'
By Bill Visnic
Much already has been made of the dichotomy between how the nation's President and top lawmakers approached the $700-billion bailout of the blundering financial sector and the hard line they subsequently took with General Motors Corp., Ford Motor Co. and Chrysler.
In short: money couldn't be thrown fast enough or hard enough at Wall Street's stumblebum barons and fractured finance firms. Yet the same players who insisted tossing steamer trunks of money at banks and brokers was the only way to avert a "crisis" in the entire financial sector found fiscal religion mere weeks later when they pilloried the chiefs of Detroit's automakers for needing a fraction of the welfare handed to Wall Street.
But now the situation's become even more ironic - and troubling.
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Posted by Michelle Krebs at 4:26 AM under Commentary , Companies , Featured | Comments (4) | digg this | del.icio.us
It May Not Be Bankruptcy, but Chrysler Deconstruction Inevitable
By Bill Visnic
President George W. Bush finally released the crucial billions needed to keep General Motors Corp. and Chrysler LLC around to see the new year, but with the real work just beginning, the wrenching save-Detroit soap opera seems to be grinding towards just one certainty: Chrysler LLC isn't going to make it.
If the maneuverings of the past several weeks haven't twisted the automotive Rubik's Cube enough for everyone to see the inevitable outcome, the reality is telegraphed loud and clear in the White House's "bailout" numbers: GM will bask in the holiday glow of $4 billion on Dec. 29, another $5.4 billion barely two weeks later and an additional $4 billion in February, for a total of $13.4 billion.
Chrysler gets $4 billion on Dec. 29. That's it.
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Posted by Michelle Krebs at 3:39 AM under Analysis , Chrysler , Commentary , Featured | Comments (3) | digg this | del.icio.us
Remember Katrina, Senators
Detroit Free Press columnist Tom Walsh reminds senators from the Gulf States, many of 
whom oppose the loans to Detroit automakers, to recall Hurricane Katrina as they cast their votes on the bailout bill tonight.
"When Hurricane Katrina slammed into Louisiana and Alabama on Aug. 29, 2005, the automobile companies of Detroit did not harrumph that the Gulf Coast should have been better prepared. They didn't sit back and wait for New Orleans to submit a detailed plan for future repair of the ruptured levees," Walsh wrote in Thursday's edition.
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Posted by Michelle Krebs at 4:51 PM under Chrysler , Commentary , Ford , GM , In the Media | Comments (5) | digg this | del.icio.us
NYT Columnist: Detroit Aid Should Hinge on Hybridizing Everything
By Bill Visnic
With a pending vote Congressional vote on a bailout package to extend so-called "bridge loans" to Chrysler LLC, Ford Motor Co. and General Motors Corp. by perhaps as soon as this week, New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman -- often prominent for his provocative views on the auto industry -- is calling for one unique "string" to be attached to federal bailout funds: forcing the domestic automakers to present plans to hybridize their entire model ranges in three years.
Friedman has been a vocal advocate for hybrid-electric technology and has been criticized for a view of the industry that typically is unkind to the Detroit auto-industry establishment. Friedman often argues in favor of the management style and operational practices of Detroit's chief competitors, the Japan-based automakers -- and caused fireworks when he once suggested GM should go out of business and let Toyota assume GM's longstanding role.
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Posted by Michelle Krebs at 1:32 PM under Business , Chrysler , Commentary , Companies , Ford , GM , In the Media , Toyota | Comments (8) | digg this | del.icio.us
7 Myths About Detroit Automakers, Detroit Free Press
The debate over aid to the Detroit-based automakers is awash with half-truths and misrepresentations that are endlessly repeated by everyone from members of Congress to journalists. Here are seven myths about the companies and their vehicles, and the reality in each case.
This column by Detroit Free Press auto critic Mark Phelan originally was published on November 17 and was updated last Friday to debunk the myths as Congress was about to fashion an automotive rescue package.
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Posted by Michelle Krebs at 5:33 AM under Analysis , Chrysler , Commentary , Ford , GM , Technology , Toyota | Comments (1) | digg this | del.icio.us
Saudi King Suddenly Hopeful For $75 Oil; Us, Too
By Bill Visnic
At a meeting of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) over the weekend, Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah reportedly said the "fair price" for petroleum is $75 per barrel.
The figure is demonstrably more than the sub-$50/barrel price oil plunged to this week as OPEC members squabble about the need for production cuts to bolster the price of petroleum. But King Addullah's newly announced fair price also is almost half the peak of $147 per barrel oil reached this summer - a figure none in the petroleum industry indicated was excessive or unreasonable as giant oil refiners defended $4-per-gallon gasoline and $5 diesel fuel in the U.S.
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Posted by Michelle Krebs at 6:13 PM under Business , Commentary | Comments (1) | digg this | del.icio.us
COMMENTARY: For Bailout Blueprint, GM, Ford Might Finally Burn Rubber on Underperforming Brands
By Bill Visnic
The plans the Detroit Three automakers are developing to submit on December 2 to Congress in justification for their entreated $25-billion federal loan probably are being more closely guarded than the manuscript for Sarah Palin's first book, but we can guess one aspect that seems certain to feature in the bailout blueprint of both Ford Motor Co. and General Motors Corp.: ditching some brands that have long dogged their ever-more-fragile bottom lines.
For at least a decade, critics have shouted down both GM and Ford for refusing to do what it now appears must be done -- stop supporting underperforming divisions.
Rumors howling in Detroit's November winds point to brand-burning as one of the primary ways the companies plan to demonstrate to Congress they will be able to sustain their operations in a U.S. auto market that is expected to be decidedly unkind for all of 2009 and possibly well into 2010.
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Posted by Bill Visnic at 3:15 AM under Analysis , Business , Commentary , Ford , GM | Comments (9) | digg this | del.icio.us
Tracking the Bailout: When the Music Stops, Who's Going Bankrupt?
By Bill Visnic
The CEOs of Ford Motor Co., General Motors Corp. and Chrysler LLC loaded up on their much-maligned corporate jets and winged out of Washington, DC, this week with no bailout money -- but the assurance of a shaky holiday season.
After Democratic deal-makers conceded this week there would not be sufficient bipartisan support to approve a bill to "repurpose" the existing and already approved $25-billion Department of Energy loan (originally intended to promote the development of fuel-efficient technology and retool factories), the initiative was shelved until a possible vote on December 8.
That promises to be a rocky 17 days for GM and Chrysler, whose bosses insinuate the companies may not have the funds to enable them to see the New Year.
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Posted by Michelle Krebs at 4:25 AM under Chrysler , Commentary , Companies , Featured , Ford , GM | Comments (3) | digg this | del.icio.us
Mitt Romney: Let Detroit Go Bankrupt
By Michelle Krebs
Detroit-born Mitt Romney, a candidate for this year's Republican presidential nomination and whose father was Michigan governor and an auto company executive, advocates letting Detroit automakers go bankrupt.
In an OpEd piece carried in Wednesday's edition of The New York Times, Romney, who is expected to make another presidential run in 2012, wrote: "Detroit needs a turnaround not a check." He suggested the turnaround path is through a managed bankruptcy.
What a difference a failed presidential run makes! Romney won the Michigan Republican primary against the eventual presidential candidate John McCain by being a booster for Detroit's auto industry.
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Posted by Michelle Krebs at 9:42 AM under Chrysler , Commentary , Personalities | Comments (2) | digg this | del.icio.us
GM's Wagoner: Industry Collapse Would Represent a "Massive Economic Dislocation"
General Motors Chairman and CEO Rick Wagoner told Congress a collapse of the U.S. auto industry would have a devastating impact across the entire U.S. economy.
Wagoner defended GM's progress in transforming itself and negotiating a favorable agreement with its unions.
Here is Wagoner's opening statement to a U.S. Senate committee on Tuesday and a House Committee on Wednesday holding hearings on the bridge loans:
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Posted by Michelle Krebs at 7:29 AM under Commentary , GM | Comments (0) | digg this | del.icio.us
Ford's Mulally: Needs Cash Available to Complete Transformation
Ford President and CEO Alan Mulally detailed to Congress how the automaker has changed 
its business model since he joined the company a couple of years ago from Boeing. He said Ford believes it has enough money to get through 2009 if the economy doesn't worsen. However, he added, the automaker would like the availability of government loans in case the economy sours more so Ford can complete its transformation to building more small cars than large vehicles.
Here is Mulally's opening statement to a U.S. Senate committee on Tuesday and a House Committee on Wednesday holding hearings on the bridge loans:
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Posted by Michelle Krebs at 7:27 AM under Commentary , Ford | Comments (0) | digg this | del.icio.us
Chrysler's Nardelli: Running Out of Cash
Chrysler Chairman and CEO Bob Nardelli told Congressmen in the past couple of days 
that the automaker is rapidly running out of cash due to the economic downturn and has explored all bankruptcy and bankruptcy-like options, deeming them unworkable. As a last resort, Chrysler has joined General Motors and Ford in seeking $25 billion in bridge loans from the U.S. government.
Here is Nardelli's opening statement to a U.S. Senate committee on Tuesday and a House Committee on Wednesday holding hearings on the bridge loans:
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Posted by Michelle Krebs at 7:24 AM under Chrysler , Commentary | Comments (0) | digg this | del.icio.us
Yeah or Nay on Bailout, But Don't Blame Detroit's Problems Only on Labor
By Bill Visnic
DETROIT - Any day now, the country and its decision-makers will decide whether to extend a massive financial lifeline to sustain Detroit's suddenly cash-anemic automakers. Judging from the rhetoric coming from the auto industry and sympathetic voices in Washington, DC, it needs to be any day now, or Detroit won't be around to hear the verdict.
And every day now, there are colliding opinions regarding whether an automaker bailout is wise - or politically and socially proper.
As has been said many times as the domestic auto industry continues its frenetic unraveling, there's plenty of blame to go around, and a portion of it lies with the unions. The United Auto Workers has rarely been out of the conversation of what's ruined Detroit Inc., but arguments centered on the notion that fat, uncompetitive unionized labor is the root cause of Detroit's ills are specious - and little more than an excuse for some good-old-fashioned union-bashing.
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Posted by Michelle Krebs at 5:10 AM under Chrysler , Commentary , Companies , Featured , Ford , GM | Comments (4) | digg this | del.icio.us
Sen. Shelby: How Sweet Is the Auto Business in Alabama? Not Very
By Michelle Krebs
Richard Shelby, the top Republican on the Senate Banking Committee, took to the airwaves over the weekend as the chief opponent of loans to Detroit automakers. His premise: This is a Detroit problem not a national problem and taxpayers shouldn't subsidize these poorly managed dinosaurs.
"I don't believe they've got good management. They don't innovate. They're a dinosaur, in a sense, and I hate to see [them get government loans]," Shelby said on NBC's Meet the Press.
With all due respect Senator Shelby, this is not only a Detroit problem. It's an Alabama problem. It's a national problem. And it's a global problem. Recession is spreading around the globe like a California wildfire. Once-hot auto markets have caught cold. And automakers everywhere -- not just in the U.S. -- are asking their governments for a helping hand.
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Posted by Michelle Krebs at 7:44 AM under Chrysler , Commentary , Companies , Ford , GM , Toyota | Comments (3) | digg this | del.icio.us
Congress: Vote Yes on Automaker Loans
The future of the American auto industry rests in the hands of the U.S. Congress, which this week debates whether the government should make loans to Detroit automakers to get them through the current economic crisis.
We at Edmunds.com urge Congress to vote yes.
Theoretically, we believe the free market is preferable to government intervention. But this isn't theory. This is reality, and an ugly one at that. The pragmatic answer to these unprecedented circumstances demand action.
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Posted by Michelle Krebs at 6:09 AM under Chrysler , Commentary , Featured , Ford , GM | Comments (14) | digg this | del.icio.us
GM-Chrysler Deal To Save $10 Billion -- From Where?
By Bill Visnic
DETROIT -- Late yesterday, a number of media outlets reported General Motors Corp. and Chrysler LLC were "accelerating merger
discussions" and suddenly have identified a reputed $10 billion in "cost synergies" (one-time? annual?) a merger would generate.
Ten billion is a very round, very large and very convenient number. And a number that is highly dubious. From whence would that plump $10 billion come?
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Posted by Michelle Krebs at 4:34 AM under Business , Chrysler , Commentary , Featured , GM | Comments (5) | digg this | del.icio.us
2008 Paris Auto Show: Similar Shapes of Things To Come
By Bill Visnic
PARIS -- There's a lot of talk these days about how auto styling is converging -- or being ripped off.
At the 2008 Paris Auto Show earlier this month, there wasn't much mistaking the distinctive shapes presented by France's home-market biggies, Citroen and Peugeot; French styling remains unique (and largely uncopied, perhaps for a reason).
But a number of vehicles on display at the show looked strikingly similar to other vehicles on the show floor -- or ones we've seen elsewhere.
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Posted by Michelle Krebs at 7:43 AM under Commentary , Companies , Featured , GM , Technology , Toyota | Comments (0) | digg this | del.icio.us
GM-Chrysler: No Move Is Smart Move
AutoObserver Staff
DETROIT -- It appears cooler heads prevailed at General Motors long before the media frenzy over a possible merger between GM and Chrysler started. Wisely.
The Wall Street Journal is reporting Monday that GM's directors "gave a cool reception" to the idea of acquiring Chrysler's automotive business when it was discussed at last week's board meeting.
The board's reception is the right one, in our view, as there's little in such a deal for either of them, especially for GM.
The Journal confirmed the story broken by The New York Times over the weekend which led to a media feeding frenzy that GM recently held talks with Chrysler's majority owner -- private-equity firm Cerberus Capital Management LP. Cerberus proposed swapping its 81.1 percent stake in Chrysler for GM's 49 percent stake in home and auto lending firm GMAC. Cerberus owns the other 51 percent of GMAC. The paper further reports talks between the two automakers have broken off for now, but could be revived.
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Posted by Michelle Krebs at 9:10 AM under Chrysler , Commentary , Featured , GM | Comments (1) | digg this | del.icio.us
Q&A: Edmunds.com CEO Jeremy Anwyl: A New Phase for Consumers
Edmunds.com data, released last Friday, shows a continued downward spiral in car sales in early October. AutoObserver caught up with Edmunds.com's CEO Jeremy Anwyl for his take on what's going on in the automotive market.
You note that the consumer is barraged with bad economic news. What role does the media play in this?
Something that's not been acknowledged is the fact that this is the first widespread economic downturn in the Internet era. Literally, millions of competing outlets -- fighting for attention -- have found that bad news draws audiences. The volume and breadth of 24/7 inflated negativity is assaulting the consumer from all sides is overwhelming and unprecedented.
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Posted by Michelle Krebs at 12:47 PM under Commentary | Comments (0) | digg this | del.icio.us
2008 Paris Auto Show: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
By AutoObserver Staff
PARIS -- Everyone loves coming to the Paris auto show. Mostly this is because it is not the
Frankfurt auto show, with which it alternates on the yearly schedule of auto shows.
When you go to the Frankfurt auto show, it is all about the Germans. It is all about BMW and Mercedes, really. They're telling you, "We understand machines and technology, and that's why we own the history of the automobile. You can buy a ticket if you wish and come visit us in our big tents in Frankfurt and worship the spectacle of our technical competence."
Paris is the City of Lights, and the French car manufacturers like to demonstrate that they have the same competence as the Germans, only with romance and flair. The French tell you, "Yes, our cars might look funny, but we understand joie de vivre, the joy of life. Of course our cars might look freaky and whacked out, but you are stupid if you don't understand."
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Posted by Michelle Krebs at 12:01 PM under Commentary , Companies , Technology | Comments (3) | digg this | del.icio.us
2008 Paris Auto Show: Mood in the City of Lights Is Dark
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.
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Posted by Michelle Krebs at 6:38 AM under Commentary , Companies , Technology | Comments (0) | digg this | del.icio.us
European Carmakers Want "Green" Loans - Theirs and Ours
European automakers plan to ask the European Commission for $55 billion in loans to develop environmentally-friendly vehicles, similar to loans approved this week by the U.S. government, to put them on a level playing field. At the same time, however, some European automakers also want a piece of the U.S. funds, the Financial Times reported in Friday's edition.
Fiat CEO Sergio Marchionne said unanimous agreement exists among automakers to ask the European Union's executive body for the loans. "We will approach the European Commission for a similar idea to the U.S. Forty billion Euros ($55 billion) is a good number given the bigger size of the European industry. We need a level playing field," Marchionne told the Financial Times in an interview on Friday.
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Posted by Michelle Krebs at 7:29 AM under Chrysler , Commentary , Companies , Technology | Comments (1) | digg this | del.icio.us
Testosterone Truck Crowd May Turn to Muscle Cars
By Michelle Krebs
DEARBORN, Mich. - The Dodge Challenger and the upcoming Chevrolet Camaro and Ford
Mustang might get a sales lift as truck owners, who bought pickups to show of their machismo, seek more fuel-efficient rides.
Rebecca Lindland, analyst for Global Insight, told the audience at the forecasting firm's economic outlook conference held here last week, that the days of fashion buyers for full-size pickup trucks like the Ford F-150, Dodge Ram and Chevrolet Silverado are over. "The designer buyer is gone," she said.
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Posted by Michelle Krebs at 7:12 AM under Chrysler , Commentary , Companies , Ford , GM | Comments (0) | digg this | del.icio.us
Intrigue, German-Style, in Ongoing Porsche-VW Tussle
By Bill Visnic
Take volatile and imperious-but-brilliant exec Ferdinand
Piech. Add a dash of labor-union maneuvering. Spice comes from high-line maker Porsche. Throw into the pot that is Germany's largest automaker, VW.
The resulting stew is on the boil in another late-summer German industrial power play.
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Posted by Michelle Krebs at 4:57 AM under Business , Commentary , Companies , Featured , Personalities | Comments (0) | digg this | del.icio.us
GM Chooses Its Best-Ever Cars; Money-Making Trucks Noticeably Absent
By Bill Visnic
DETROIT - As part of its GMnext centennial celebration which concluded this week, General Motors Corp. released a list of its "Top 10 Production Vehicles" from the thousands of models it has developed since the company's inception in 1908.
And the "Like a Rock" crowd won't necessarily be pleased - although GM's full-size pickups often were best-sellers and profits from pickups and SUVs filled the corporate coffers for much of the 1990s and early part of this century, there's nary a truck or SUV on the list.
GM says the choices were selected by company archivists and historians and reviewed by "GM senior leaders." None of them must have been truck guys. Or Camaro guys. Or - okay, you get the idea: the list may be skewed by a kind of historian's mindset, and is unlikely to fully please even the most ardent GM supporter.
The company avoided further controversy by refusing to actually pick a No. 1 model. Instead, it lists the 10 most significant models in chronological order:
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Posted by Michelle Krebs at 5:44 AM under Commentary , GM , Technology | Comments (1) | digg this | del.icio.us
Chevy Volt Styling Is A Short-Circuit
By Bill Visnic
DETROIT - If images circulated on the Web this week are representative of the Chevrolet Volt General Motors Corp. plans to deliver in two years, the General had better hope potential customers appreciate the engineering - because the Volt's design is a corporate brownout.
AutoObserver's all-day cruise around auto-related Web sites noted heavy-traffic comment about the leaked images of the Volt extended-range electric vehicle; some are mildly complimentary, but critics seem to outnumber approvers by at least four to one.
The most common reactions range in a bandwidth from disappointment to derision. The Volt concept car was widely applauded, and although GM subsequently warned certain aggressive aspects of the Volt concept would be sacrificed on the altar of production-car realities, the overwhelming blandness oozing from the images of what is purported to be the production Volt is inescapable.
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Posted by Michelle Krebs at 4:05 AM under Commentary , Featured , GM , Technology | Comments (8) | digg this | del.icio.us
Ford's European Models: We Want Them Today -- Even Better, Yesterday!
Because Ford Motor Co. intends to eventually sell the same small Fords everywhere in the
world - similar to the ones Ford of Europe has been selling for years - the automaker hosted media from North America, South America, South Africa and Australia to test-drive its current European offerings.
At Ford's proving grounds in Lommel, Belgium, journalists test drove the current C-segment Focus and Focus-based models already sold in Europe. When the next-generation Focus is introduced in 2010, it will be the same around the globe. Ford also will sell derivatives of that Focus in world markets.
On the following day, journalists test drove the all-important Fiesta on the winding, mountainous roads of Italy. Ford's even smaller B-segment car now is on sale in Europe, soon goes on sale in China and arrives in North America in early 2010.
Here's the review from Chris Walton, chief road test editor for Inside Line, AutoObserver's sibling within Edmunds.com:
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Posted by Michelle Krebs at 8:23 AM under Commentary , Ford | Comments (4) | digg this | del.icio.us
Whatta Re-Voltin' Development: Chevy Volt Images 'Leaked?'
By Bill Visnic
DETROIT - Media manipulation or "human error?" Only General Motors Corp.'s public-relations office knows for sure.
Either way, images of the production version of the Chevrolet Volt "extended-range" hybrid-electric vehicle - possibly the most heavily hyped, highly anticipated vehicle in GM's history - made it to the Web Monday in what GM reputedly attributed to an accident. Until now, the Volt - which remains under a pressurized development schedule and is not slated to reach showrooms for more than two full years - had not been fully seen in final production form.
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Posted by Michelle Krebs at 4:32 AM under Commentary , Featured , GM , In the Media , Technology | Comments (2) | digg this | del.icio.us
Memo to Chrysler's Ralph Gilles: Speak Plain English and Don't Let 'Em Push You Around
By Bill Visnic
It's the end of an era at Chrysler LLC, as design chief Trevor Creed now is retired, pulling down the curtain on a period in which Chrysler attained a reputation for adventurous and often outrageous design initiatives, particularly for concept vehicles - of which a refreshingly high proportion made the transition to production models.
Taking Creed's place - starting this week - is Ralph Gilles, 38-year-old father of Chrysler's 300 sedan, which launched in 2004 with near-universal admiration.
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Posted by Michelle Krebs at 4:46 AM under Chrysler , Commentary , Personalities | Comments (1) | digg this | del.icio.us
COMMENTARY: Election Year Promises Will Meet Automakers' Harsh Reality, CSM Worldwide Analysis Shows
NORTHVILLE, Mich. -- The domestic auto industry is the subject of
much recent rhetoric by
the presumptive presidential candidates. Both candidates now say they will back domestic automakers with loan guarantees to help the industry restructure, support 'cap and trade' programs to reduce carbon emissions, develop new energy sources and fund the development of green vehicles.
But their platforms diverge sharply where the rubber meets the road, according to an analysis by CSM Worldwide, a global automotive forecasting firm headquartered in Michigan but with offices spread globally.
"Sen. Obama and Sen. McCain have been focusing on pocketbook issues like $4 gas, global warming and security issues like energy independence. Now the auto industry's financial crisis has their attention," said CSM Senior Economist Charles Chesbrough. "It may seem like the candidates' positions are closely aligned, but they actually have radically different approaches to CAFE, the vehicle technologies they champion and the support they're willing to lend to automakers."
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Posted by Michelle Krebs at 7:24 AM under Commentary , Companies , Featured | Comments (0) | digg this | del.icio.us
Moscow Motor Show: Western Carmakers Are Gaining Ground on Local Producers
By Pal Negyesi
MOSCOW - Tucked away in the very last hall at the Moscow auto show, which held its press day Tuesday, is the stand of Russia's biggest car manufacturer, AvtoVAZ. Its status eroding, AvtoVAZ, maker of Lada cars, still commands a respectable a 20 percent market share in Russia. But it is no longer the ruling force on Russia's roads or at this show.
Years ago, when the Moscow International Motor Show was held at the old Moscow Expocentre, the AvtoVAZ press conference was the show's biggest spectacle. Russian media gathered en masse to hear ambitious projections from AvtoVAZ managers, like Vladimir Kadannikov. Kadannikov is no longer around, the show is held at the shiny new Crocus Center and AvtoVAZ is being steered towards a brighter future by French automaker Renault.
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Posted by Michelle Krebs at 5:47 AM under Commentary , Companies , Featured | Comments (0) | digg this | del.icio.us
GM: Selling Assets to Raise Cash May Prove Tough
By Michelle Krebs
General Motors' plan to sell assets to raise much-needed cash may be easier said than done.
In July, GM outlined a plan for cutting expenses and selling assets in an effort to conserve and raise cash, which it is burning through so quickly that one investment firm said Wednesday the automaker needed $7.3 billion in fresh capital to pay its bills through 2009.
But also on Tuesday, Navistar International backed out of a deal to buy GM's medium-duty truck unit. And, while GM says it has received much interest in Hummer Division, a number of expected suitors have said no thank you in a variety of languages.
(Read more...)
Posted by Michelle Krebs at 7:21 AM under Business , Commentary , GM | Comments (0) | digg this | del.icio.us
Daimler: A Takeover Target?
Speculation in Europe is intensifying over the possibility of a takeover of Daimler AG, parent
of Mercedes-Benz and smart and the former parent of Chrysler.
Daimler CEO Dieter Zetsche has been drilled on the takeover question since the German company sold off Chrysler last year. He has insisted that Daimler is less vulnerable to takeover without. Company spokesman reiterated of late that Daimler is not a takeover candidate nor does the company see indications of an investor building a large stake.
However, sources close to Daimler management told the Financial Times, for a story in Tuesday's edition, that company executives indeed are very concerned about a possible takeover because of a number of converging factors.
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Posted by Michelle Krebs at 8:48 AM under Chrysler , Commentary , Companies | Comments (1) | digg this | del.icio.us
When In Doubt, Quote 'The Man'
By Bill Visnic
TRAVERSE CITY, Michigan - One quantity there's plenty of at any "management" conference is advice, and there was definitely no lack here at the Center for Automotive Research Management Briefing Seminars, the annual auto-industry schmooze where it always seems to be about 90 percent giving advice - and maybe 10 percent taking it.
Some of our favorite advice (meant to be taken) this week came from Mark Fields, Ford Motor Co. executive vice president and president-The Americas. In his presentation, he advised colleagues that the industry's current turmoil will be solved, "Not by looking back. But by bringing out great products and game-changing technologies, with the right cost structure to deliver profitably."
Okay, that actually seems like good advice. The dichotomy was that Fields devoted the early part of his speech to looking in the rearview mirror.
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Posted by Michelle Krebs at 6:40 AM under Commentary | Comments (1) | digg this | del.icio.us
Engine Sharing: Even Desperate Times Don't Call for This
By Bill Visnic
Alert to the American medical community: new evidence proves severe lack of corporate operating capital causes dull and even impaired judgment.
How did I arrive at this breakthrough mental-health discovery? Reading early this week that General Motors Corp. and Ford Motor Co. reputedly are considering co-development of engines.
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Posted by Bill Visnic at 3:00 AM under Analysis , Commentary , Companies , Featured , Ford , GM , In the Media , News , Technology | Comments (3) | digg this | del.icio.us
No Automakers Among Top 10 Global Brands
By Bill Visnic
The 2008 ranking of the 100 most prestigious global brands says no automaker has earned a spot in the list's top ten. In 2007, Toyota Motor Corp. was recognized as the globe's No. 10 brand.
There are several competing "top brand" lists, each using different methodology, but the Brandz Top 100 Most Powerful Brands, this year conducted with Britain's Financial Times newspaper and market research and consulting firm Milward Brown, seems to be the most recognized. This year's list is topped by Google and is dominated by multinational powerhouse corporations, of course, but Toyota has dropped out of the Brandz top ten - falling two places to No. 12 overall.
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Posted by Michelle Krebs at 4:40 AM under Analysis , Commentary , Companies | Comments (1) | digg this | del.icio.us
Out-Of-Touch Alert: McCain Doesn't Know Cost of Gasoline
Just about everyone's already exhausted from the daily political finger-pointing about who's responsible for the cost of gasoline.
But the interplay of politics and gas prices achieves a new and comical aspect today with The Huffington Post's sarcastic replay of a conversation earlier this week between Republican presidential nominee John McCain and a reporter from California's Orange County Register. In that interview, reports Huffington, McCain admitted he had no idea how much a gallon of gas currently costs.
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Posted by Bill Visnic at 2:24 PM under Analysis , Commentary , In the Media , News , Personalities | Comments (3) | digg this | del.icio.us
AutoObserver Readers Have Fun, Get Frothy Over 'DOA'
A storm of response greeted this week's story listing new or coming-soon models that were
conceived and developed long before gasoline topped $4 per gallon and thus "don't stand a chance" in the fuel-cost-frenzied U.S. market. Most readers took issue of some kind with our choices, or the rationale behind which models were selected as instant losers.
To be sure, some of AO's selections already have proven themselves as strong sellers, or surely will become big sellers. But the variety of commentary from readers adds plenty of spice to the already tongue-in-cheek piece - and in many cases, adds more to the dialogue.
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Posted by Michelle Krebs at 4:15 PM under Commentary , Companies | Comments (4) | digg this | del.icio.us
Dead on Arrival: New Models That Don't Have a Chance
By Bill Visnic
One bizarre fallout from the wild-ride shift in consumer tastes is a spate of new or soon-to-be-released models that were designed and developed under assumptions about the U.S. market that now are absolutely invalid.
The result: a slew of white elephants designed when gasoline was $2 per gallon (or less) and Americans were still buying 800,000 F-Series pickups and everything else that looked big, sucked gas and telegraphed that you had arrived at that special entitlement heaven espoused by Rush Limbaugh and everyone else who insisted cheap energy and cheap mortgages are an American birthright.
It might be almost laughable if the U.S. domestic auto industry weren't in such disastrous shape -- and had the luxury of time to once again make amends for decades of single-minded product-development choices.
Here's a short list of our favorite vehicles that, thanks mostly to the new rules governing the auto industry, suddenly look titanically dumb:
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Posted by Michelle Krebs at 6:14 AM under Chrysler , Commentary , Companies , Featured , Ford , GM , Toyota | Comments (15) | digg this | del.icio.us
Honda Civic: Favorite of Edmunds.com's Consumer Test Drivers
The best-selling car in America last month, the Honda Civic has won even more fans.
Edmunds.com, parent of AutoObserver, recently hosted a comparison test of three economy sedans - the Honda Civic, Mazda Mazda3 and Toyota Corolla. Six regular consumers representing a cross section of America evaluated the cars.
Five of the six consumers ranked the Honda Civic No. 1. The Mazda3 was first for the sixth consumer-tester; the Mazda3 had four testers ranking it second behind the Civic and one rated it third. The Corolla was listed third of five of the consumer test drivers; it ranked second with one of them.
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Posted by Michelle Krebs at 11:06 AM under Commentary | Comments (0) | digg this | del.icio.us
Oil Jumps to $129 Barrel; Pickens Predicts $150
Crude oil rose above $129 a barrel in New York for the first time after billionaire hedge-fund
manager T. Boone Pickens predicted on CNBC that oil would reach $150 a barrel this year.
Pickens noted supplies aren't keeping up with demand Earlier this month, Goldman Sachs estimated second-half prices at $141 a barrel. Similarly, on Tuesday, Credit Suisse Group AG and Societe Generale SA raised oil-price forecasts for 2008 and 2009.
Last week Edmunds' Green Car Advisor reported that Pickens warned the Alternative Fuels & Vehicles annual conference in Las Vegas that the planet is using more oil than it produces, the situation isn't improving and nobody's doing much about it. "America is in a hell of a bad spot," he told the conference, warning the U.S. was at risk for becoming "less than the superpower we are now."
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Posted by Michelle Krebs at 10:45 AM under Commentary , News | Comments (0) | digg this | del.icio.us
American Axle Strike: Was It Worth It?
By Michelle Krebs
DETROIT -- The United Auto Workers (UAW) union finally settled its 84-day strike against American Axle and Manufacturing Holdings Inc., a major supplier to General Motors, on Friday.
After holding information meetings Sunday described as "ugly" by one union official, the UAW is holding ratification votes, scheduled to begin Monday and run through the week at various plants. The contract requires a majority approval by the 3,650 striking workers, and there's no guarantee it will pass as many workers are angry about the large pay cuts.
The costs for this long and bitter strike have been high for all involved. For striking workers, it has been 11 weeks of lost wages and benefits. For American Axle, it has meant lost business. For GM, it has resulted in lost vehicle production and financial losses.
Was it worth it?
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Posted by Michelle Krebs at 9:02 AM under Commentary , Companies , GM | Comments (0) | digg this | del.icio.us
Remember the Last "Quick Fix for Gas Addicts"?
Ah, how quickly some of us forget.
It was almost two years ago to the day that General Motors announced a fuel price protection program, much like the one Chrysler launches on Wednesday. GM offered buyers of certain vehicle models, mostly large SUVs, in Florida and California a guarantee of gasoline capped at $1.99 a gallon for a year.
The promotion didn’t move the needle on sales, and it opened the floodgate of criticism of GM, especially in a now-famous column by The New York Times’ Thomas Friedman.
We're betting GM won’t be following Chrysler’s lead -- and we're wondering if Friedman is dusting off his old column to blast Chrysler.
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Posted by Michelle Krebs at 7:54 AM under Chrysler , Commentary , GM | Comments (4) | digg this | del.icio.us
GM Slashes Truck, SUV Production Due to Slow Sales
Continued slow sales prompted General Motors to announce Monday that it will cut
production of large pickup trucks and sport-utility vehicles this year.
In total, GM said it is slashing production by about 10 percent, or about 138,000 vehicles at four plants in the U.S. and Canada. About 3,550 workers will be out of jobs as a result.
The question being asked is will sales of those high-profit vehicles, in light of skyrocketing gasoline prices, ever bounce back?
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Posted by Michelle Krebs at 10:02 AM under Commentary , GM | Comments (1) | digg this | del.icio.us
Ford’s Early Agreement with Canadian Union a Positive Sign
By Michelle Krebs
The news that Ford reached an early agreement with its Canadian union is being overshadowed by Las Vegas billionaire Kirk Kerkorian's purchase of the automaker’s stock, but the Canadian deal is every bit as significant -- maybe even more so.
Talks between Detroit’s three automakers and the Canadian Auto Workers union regarding a new contract to replace the current ones that expire in September appeared as if they could be extremely rancorous. A strike appeared to be a distinct possibility.
But Ford’s announcement Monday that it had reached an agreement with the Canadian union -- especially in an unheard of four months plus ahead of schedule decreases -- lessens the odds.
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Posted by Michelle Krebs at 6:49 AM under Chrysler , Commentary , Companies , Ford , GM | Comments (0) | digg this | del.icio.us
Toyota-Subaru Coziness Could Yield Retro-Corolla, Celica
By Bill Visnic and Peter Nunn
Normally stolid Toyota Motor Corp. hasn’t been shy in doubling of its stake in Fuji Heavy Industries Ltd. and openly admitting the two will jointly develop new vehicles – including an all-new rear-wheel drive sport coupe on a dedicated platform.
Whew. Quite un-Toyotalike. This is the company that rarely “buys” anything or anybody, preferring joint ventures, particularly when it comes to vehicle development and vital components. When it decided to build cars with General Motors, Toyota bought nothing; it established New United Motors Manufacturing Inc. (NUMMI) in California, which jointly makes vehicles for Toyota and GM.
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Posted by Michelle Krebs at 4:22 AM under Commentary , Featured , Technology , Toyota | Comments (3) | digg this | del.icio.us
Cerberus’ Feinberg: “A Recluse Lifts the Veil a Little”
A rare interview with Stephen A. Feinberg, the founder of Cerberus Capital Management, which now owns most of Chrysler and much of General Motors Acceptance Corp., provides the ever-so-slightest glimpse of Feinberg the man, but provides not a morsel of what he’s got in mind for the much anticipated end game of Chrysler.
New York Times’ “Dealbook” columnist Andrew Ross Sorkin spent two hours interviewing the reclusive Feinberg -– “the money man some hope will save Detroit” as he describes him -- at his Manhattan office. It was Feinberg’s first interview in a couple of decades –- and he still refused a photograph. His yearbook picture is the one media outlets are forced to use.
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Posted by Michelle Krebs at 8:01 AM under Chrysler , Commentary , Personalities | Comments (1) | digg this | del.icio.us
Former UAW President Douglas Fraser Remembered
Hundreds of union members, political figures and corporate executives gathered with 
family members Saturday for a memorial service honoring former United Auto Workers President Douglas Fraser, who died Feb 23 at age 91.
Fraser led the union through its zenith in the 1970s and through the bleak times of the 1980s. He played a key role in saving Chrysler from bankruptcy. In exchange for workers agreeing to concessions to save Chrysler, Fraser gained a seat on Chrysler’s board, making him the first major union chief on the board of a large corporation.
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Posted by Michelle Krebs at 8:31 AM under Commentary , Personalities | Comments (0) | digg this | del.icio.us
The Jaguar/Land Rover Sale: It’s Best Not To Add Up How Much Ford Wasted
By Richard Feast
So, Ford has finally stitched together the long-trailed sale of Jaguar and Land Rover to Tata. It is the inglorious end of the vainglorious Premier Automotive Group that was supposed to challenge the mighty Mercedes-Benz and BMW.
We can now see the venture was doomed nanoseconds after it was created.
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Posted by Michelle Krebs at 3:53 AM under Business , Commentary , Companies , Ford | Comments (5) | digg this | del.icio.us
Alfa Romeo: A Legend Returns, But Do We Care?
By Richard Feast
Alfa Romeo’s decision to sell cars in the United States once more is wonderful news for the marque’s handful of aging enthusiasts in the country. If Europe’s experience is any guide, though, the overwhelming majority of American car buyers won’t even notice its return.
It is probably best to stop reading now if you are one of those unreformed Alfisti. It is time for a touch of automotive heresy.
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Posted by Michelle Krebs at 4:20 AM under Business , Commentary , Companies | Comments (3) | digg this | del.icio.us
Mazda2 Wins 2008 World Car of the Year; Still Not Coming to America
By Peter Nunn
TOKYO — Mazda grabbed the headlines at the New York Auto Show last week when its new Mazda2 compact drove off with the prestigious 2008 World Car of the Year award.
Call it a surprise result, in more ways than one.
For those just tuning in, the Mazda2 is this smart, new-age compact launched in 2007 that’s doing great business for Mazda in Japan, Europe and many other places around the globe.
Everywhere, that is, but North America.
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Posted by Michelle Krebs at 4:16 AM under Commentary , Companies , Featured | Comments (3) | digg this | del.icio.us
AAA Launches New Web site Dedicated to Older Drivers
By Kate McLeod
NEW YORK — During last week's press days at the New York auto show, AAA
held a conference covering the challenges facing senior drivers and their families. It also marked the launch of AAA's Web site devoted to the topic and includes a checklist of vehicle features that are useful for senior drivers, the fastest-growing segment of the driving public.
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Posted by Michelle Krebs at 6:14 PM under Commentary , News | Comments (0) | digg this | del.icio.us
New York Auto Show: The Good, Bad and Ugly
By Jane Nakagawa
NEW YORK — The New York International Auto Show opens to the public Friday, and what a difference a year makes.
Toyota is the nation’s second-largest brand not Ford. Jim Press is the vice chairman and president of Chrysler, not Toyota. Cerberus Capital Management, not Daimler, owns Chrysler. The national average price for a gallon of premium gas is $3.60, not $2.80.
And the most interesting cars at the New York auto show are diminutive and original, not colossal and extravagant.
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Posted by Michelle Krebs at 4:19 AM under Chrysler , Commentary , Companies , Featured , Ford , GM , Toyota | Comments (10) | digg this | del.icio.us
AO Readers Sound Off on Volkswagen Foibles
By Bill Visnic
A recent commentary suggesting the Volkswagen Group of America Inc.’s tactics to improve dismal U.S. sales should focus on reconnecting with the brand’s loyalists prompted a spate of thoughtful and vociferous replies — analysis that VW management might do well to heed.
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Posted by Michelle Krebs at 11:10 AM under Commentary , Companies | Comments (1) | digg this | del.icio.us
Volkswagen: Time To Get a U.S. Life
By Bill Visnic
The Volkswagen Group sold a lot of vehicles in 2007, a record number at just less than 6.2 million.
That’s good for fourth in the world. Yet in the U.S., typically viewed as the world’s most important — if not prestigious — market, Volkswagen Group of America Inc. stumbled through another miserable year to ring up 230,572 sales.
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Posted by Michelle Krebs at 4:22 AM under Analysis , Business , Commentary , Companies | Comments (14) | digg this | del.icio.us
Commentary: Detroit Back to Its Old-School Tactics
By Bill Visnic
Despite stock prices and market shares nosediving toward near-historic lows, Detroit scions General Motors Corp. and Ford Motor Co. once again are doling out bonus cash to blue- and white-collar workers alike — but the implied justification that “turnaround” goals are being met is, in the grandest tradition of car-town back-slapping, a bit self-serving.
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Posted by Michelle Krebs at 4:35 AM under Chrysler , Commentary , Featured , Ford , GM | Comments (0) | digg this | del.icio.us
Geneva Motor Show: The Good, The Bad, The Ugly
By Jane Nakagawa
There are three big reasons to love the Geneva International Motor Show, which held its press days this week and now is open to the public.
First, Geneva is the only international auto show besides Detroit that takes place every year, and consistency builds precedence.
Second, Geneva is a great place to see world-class luxury trends as the city serves as the neutral yet high-stakes epicenter for the British, Germans and Italians.
Finally, it’s the best place to see what the famous Italian design studios such as Bertone, Giugiaro and Pininfarina are up to since the Turin auto show has been declining in prestige and attendance over the years.
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Posted by Michelle Krebs at 5:19 AM under Commentary , Companies , Featured | Comments (1) | digg this | del.icio.us
Geneva Auto Show: If These are Eco-Friendly, Sign Us Up
By Bill Visnic
The Geneva auto show turned out as expected: It was a singular stage featuring fuel-efficiency and carbon-dioxide-reducing abilities as essentially the only act. Most automakers showed up in Geneva with actors capable of assuming roles in this new-age play. Those without the talent promoted the understudies’ virtue, that primarily being performance.
But what we liked most about the eco-positive hardware fronted in Geneva is how visually and intellectually appealing some of it turned out to be. In no particular order, our green favorites:
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Posted by Michelle Krebs at 7:09 AM under Commentary , Featured , GM , Technology | Comments (1) | digg this | del.icio.us
The More They Learn, the More Automakers Eye Internet
By Dale Buss
Automakers will always do brand building via traditional advertising media such as TV, radio, outdoor and print. But in an ever-toughening marketplace, they’re more and more intent on obtaining solid sales leads and on buttressing relationships with existing customers — so they’re putting their marketing resources into the channels that best deliver on those goals.
That’s the main reason the Internet will be vacuuming up a much bigger share of vehicle-advertising dollars in the U.S. market in 2008.
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Posted by Michelle Krebs at 8:00 AM under Chrysler , Commentary , Companies , Featured , Ford , GM , Toyota | Comments (0) | digg this | del.icio.us
GM and Ford Should Have Learned Lessons from Lada and Russia's Central Planning
By Richard Feast
LONDON — Ford’s sale of Jaguar and Land Rover, to be finalized within days, and General Motors’ continued stumbling in search of a role for its Saab subsidiary, which shows off new concepts at next week's Geneva Motor Show, remind me of something I saw during a tour of the shabby, sprawling AvtoVAZ factory in the Soviet Union in the early 1980s.
The events are unrelated except for the way in which they highlight the laughable results of central planning. For the Kremlin then, read Dearborn and Detroit today.
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Posted by Michelle Krebs at 4:03 PM under Commentary , Featured , Ford , GM | Comments (2) | digg this | del.icio.us
Formula 1 Opus: Conspicuous Consumption of the Literary Kind
By Bill Visnic
At last, an automotive book truly equal to the tastes — and pocketbooks — of moneyed “car guys” — a heftily proportioned, 850-page tribute detailing the history of Formula 1 racing titled Formula 1 Opus.
The book, more than a foot-and-a-half square and weighing 82 pounds, is priced at £3,000 — about $5,800 at current exchange rates.
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Posted by Michelle Krebs at 4:28 AM under Commentary | Comments (0) | digg this | del.icio.us
Tata Shareholders Not Thrilled with Proposed Jaguar, Land Rover Purchase
A lot of people — investors, specifically — are not thrilled with India’s Tata
buying Jaguar and Land Rover from Ford. They insist the company should focus on the $2,500 Tata Nano microcars, not $100,000 Jaguars.
Bloomberg News reported a number of investors, including A.S. Thiyaga Rajan, who manages a $250 million fund, are dumping their Tata stock.
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Posted by Michelle Krebs at 7:19 AM under Commentary , Companies , Ford , Personalities | Comments (1) | digg this | del.icio.us
Delphi’s Steve Miller Publishes Memoir, Turnaround Lesson Book
The turnaround of Delphi Corp. is far from complete. The latest chapter in that saga came last week when the banks were unable to find funding that would allow the nation’s largest auto-parts supplier to emerge from bankruptcy.
Nevertheless, Delphi executive chairman Robert S. “Steve” Miller, a former Chrysler executive and a veteran of a dozen turnarounds, has written a book, The Turnaround Kid: What I Learned Rescuing America's Most Troubled Companies (Collins, $25.95, 272 pages). It is due out in April.
Fortune magazine’s Editor-at-Large Allan Sloan reviewed the book in an article picked up Tuesday by the Washington Post, entitled “Self-Portrait of a Turnaround Artist.”
Sloan said he got hooked immediately on the book, not only because the autobiography talks about Miller’s 30 years of corporate troubleshooting but more because it shows him to be a human being, “a business man in full” and “not a calculator with legs.”
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Posted by Michelle Krebs at 11:55 AM under Chrysler , Commentary , Companies , Personalities | Comments (0) | digg this | del.icio.us
Cerberus Dragged Reluctantly into Spotlight by Chrysler, GMAC Stakes
If Stephen Feinberg, the ultra-secretive founder of Cerberus Capital 
Management, which owns 80 percent of Chrysler and 51 percent of GMAC, hates the public spotlight now, he’s seen nothing like what he will if the automaker goes under, according to a column in Tuesday’s New York Times.
“If Chrysler, which has $18 billion in pension and health care liabilities for at least the next two years, winds up sinking into bankruptcy, it would be a watershed event,” wrote Andrew Ross Sorkin in the paper’s Dealbook column. “Such a failure might take down the entire private-equity industry — everyone in the business, bystander or not, would be tarred. It would be on the 6 o’clock news. Mr. Feinberg would be hauled in front of Congress. It would be considered a national crime. Remember the outcry when Kohlberg Kravis Roberts bought RJR Nabisco for $25 billion back in the 1980s? That was just a dress rehearsal.”
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Posted by Michelle Krebs at 7:32 AM under Chrysler , Commentary , Featured | Comments (0) | digg this | del.icio.us
What Else Will $2,500 Buy?
India's Tata Motors grabbed headlines when last month it unveiled the Tata Nano with its $2,500 price tag. Tata Motors' founder, Ratan Tata, sees the cheap Nano as way to get drivers in India off their motor scooters and into cars.
That got AutoObserver wondering: What would $2,500 buy in the U.S. aside from the car?
Jane Nakagawa, AutoObserver's design editor, set to work researching the Top 10 things she'd rather buy for $2,500 than a Tata Nano.
Here's what we came up with:
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Posted by Michelle Krebs at 8:28 AM under Commentary | Comments (1) | digg this | del.icio.us
Chrysler Won't Survive; Sell It, Advises Ex-Chrysler Exec
Chrysler LLC won't survive on its own and its private-equity owners should sell the company to a foreign automaker, Dow Jones reports a former finance chief of the automaker.
"Step A is that Cerberus Capital Management should do everything they can to fix it, and step B is that they should sell it to a foreign automaker that has strong market share in emerging markets," said Jerry York, who was Chrysler's chief financial officer between 1990 and 1993. He now serves as a representative of billionaire investor Kirk Kerkorian.
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Posted by Michelle Krebs at 10:57 AM under Chrysler , Commentary , Personalities | Comments (0) | digg this | del.icio.us
Toyota’s 7-Year Loans Offer Reward, Risk
Toyota has begun offering customers 84-month loans on new cars to help dealers sell cars during the current economic downturn, an initiative that has some upside potential but also some risk for Toyota, said Joe Spina, Edmunds.com’s senior manager of remarketing.
“If Toyota Financial Services indeed offers these loans to customers with high credit scores and doesn’t do many 84-month loans as a percentage of its loan portfolio, then the risk of credit loss is low,” said Spina.
But, he added, “The risk with an 84-month loan is that customers may be purchasing a vehicle they really cannot afford. That could put them upside-down in the loan for longer. Then the loans become a tool that perpetuates negative equity financing.”
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Posted by Michelle Krebs at 1:09 PM under Commentary , Toyota | Comments (0) | digg this | del.icio.us
Chicago Auto Show: Best and Worst of Show
By Jane Nakagawa
It’s hard to outshine the glitz and glamour of Detroit’s North American International Auto Show. But the Chicago auto show has always drawn crowds, and this year is cause for a true celebration because the nation’s biggest and oldest auto show marks its 100th anniversary.
This impressive milestone is well chronicled on the show’s official Web site, where the history of America’s automobile culture can be viewed through myriad photographs gathered from manufacturers’ and private collectors’ archives. Simply click on the decade of your choice and you can practically hear the music.
The Chicago show was closed during World War II and reopened with well-deserved fanfare in 1950. Through the next two decades you can see America’s soaring confidence, initially through fins and chrome, and then through muscle cars. But signs of a breakdown began to show in the late 1960s. First came Ralph Nader and the safety crusade, and then the oil shock of 1973.
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Posted by Michelle Krebs at 4:31 AM under Chrysler , Commentary , Companies , Featured , Ford , GM | Comments (0) | digg this | del.icio.us
Super Bowl Car Ads: Making the Grade, Failing Marks and No Shows
By Dale Buss 
The New York Giants certainly achieved their Super Bowl objectives Sunday. Did car companies?
It’s too early to tell. But automakers led the way in a field of Super Bowl ads that largely disappointed on their creative merits and failed to generate the kind of instant excitement that could help them meet their marketplace goals. In some cases, it didn’t seem as if their advertising approach was actually consistent with the strategic challenges faced by the company.
And when you’re paying $2.7 million for 30 seconds of rapt attention by the biggest TV audience of the year, you really should take advantage of the opportunity.
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Posted by Michelle Krebs at 7:03 PM under Chrysler , Commentary , Companies , Featured , Ford , GM , In the Media , Toyota | Comments (1) | digg this | del.icio.us
BMW Chief Hits the Roadshow Circuit
Norbert Reithofer will this week become the first chief executive of BMW to go on an investor roadshow as the German automaker seeks to deflect worries about its profitability and shed its reputation as an industry laggard, the Financial Times reported over the weekend.
Reithofer will visit London on Wednesday as well as New York and Boston on Thursday and Friday to update investors on his efforts to cut costs.
The paper noted these visits mark a cultural break for the German carmaker, which until now only made its chief financial officer or other lower-ranking executives available to its shareholders.
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Posted by Michelle Krebs at 8:29 AM under Commentary , Companies , News , Personalities | Comments (0) | digg this | del.icio.us
Is the Prototype Honda Pilot a Disturbing Sight?
By Dale Buss 
If the next-generation Pilot that Honda actually produces looks pretty much like the prototype the company displayed at the recent Detroit auto show, the new version may not do much to address the model’s sinking popularity.
The reason: In a styling-conscious market where sleek crossovers rank as some of the hottest vehicles, the blocky 2009 Pilot might fit like a square peg into a round hole.
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Posted by Michelle Krebs at 9:36 AM under Analysis , Commentary , Companies , Featured | Comments (14) | digg this | del.icio.us
New Delhi Auto Expo Recap: A Look Back at India’s Automotive Future
By Nick Kurczewski
NEW DELHI, India -- “It’s a great time to be in India,” said Dr. Wilfried Aulbur, managing director and CEO of Daimler India, immediately following Mercedes-Benz’s press conference at the New Delhi Auto Expo.
Dr. Aulbur’s optimism is well founded. Thanks to continued double-digit growth in India’s automobile sales - not to mention huge investments being poured into the country’s manufacturing capability - India could soon surpass China as being the biggest and brightest automotive star on the horizon.
But this economic boom has its perils, and at times the New Delhi Auto Expo seemed a microcosm of India itself.
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Posted by Michelle Krebs at 5:51 AM under Commentary , Featured | Comments (0) | digg this | del.icio.us
New Delhi Auto Expo: Hydrogen’s Three-Wheeled Future in India
By Nick Kurczewski
NEW DELHI, India -- Squeezing into the non-existent passenger space of a vehicle built for one turned out to be the easy part. The driver, seated in the center, and directly behind what looked to be a set of motorcycle handlebars, attempted to fire up the engine once again. A sputter, a grumble from the exhaust, one or two feet of forward motion, and then nothing.
The bright blue three-wheeler came to an abrupt stop.
India’s hydrogen-powered future faces similar false starts and the occasional stumble. But the fact that the world’s third largest economy (in purchasing power) has a roadmap for hydrogen in the first place – not to mention a Ministry of New and Renewable Energy – might come as something of a surprise to those who expect the country’s emissions regulations to be woefully outdated.
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Posted by Michelle Krebs at 5:50 AM under Commentary , Technology | Comments (0) | digg this | del.icio.us
Detroit Auto Show: The Best, The Worst of Show
By Jane Nakagawa
The 2008 Detroit Auto Show makes me think of Japan, in that it is the tale of two cultures.
It’s common to hear stories of how easy it is for young foreigners in Japan to fill their apartments with TVs, rice cookers, and a myriad of other consumer electronics that middle-class Japanese have thrown away. This is because the Japanese are eager to own the latest and greatest thing, and even if something doesn’t need replacing, they have no problem getting rid of it.
Conversely, Americans are more practical. There is something buried deep into the psyche of every red-blooded American that makes us believe, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” The pickup truck has been the number-one selling vehicle for over 10 years, but signs of a breakdown in its appeal are starting to show, and there was evidence of it on the floor of the Detroit auto show.
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Posted by Michelle Krebs at 4:40 AM under Commentary | Comments (15) | digg this | del.icio.us
Detroit Auto Show Hangover: Impressions from Press Days
By AutoObserver Staff
DETROIT – The Detroit auto show party’s over – at least for the media; it only just begins on Saturday for the public. The confetti, which came in the form of cattle droppings this year, is cleaned up. The cars and trucks are locked so the public won’t steal radio knobs.
So what did we come away with? Automaker execs always ask: what did you think of the show? What did you like? What didn't you like? What did you think of this or that?
After another spin around the floor, here are some unvarnished impressions of the show from AutoObserver’s writers:
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Posted by Michelle Krebs at 2:33 PM under Commentary , Companies , Featured , Technology | Comments (3) | digg this | del.icio.us
Unabashedly American Design
By Jane Nakagawa
Now that Toyota has become the second-largest selling carmaker in the U.S., it appears that the Japanese brand is on the way to becoming the world’s largest automobile manufacturer, surpassing General Motors. In every competition, there are winners and losers, and in this case, slow and steady looks set to win the race.
Toyota’s decades-long pursuit of QDR (quality, durability, and reliability), plus consistent brand building has made the company the darling of business schools as well as consumers. Yet the good news for Detroit is that there is another round to this race, and even the best of companies has an Achilles heel.
And with the 2008 Detroit auto show on the horizon this week, it’s a good time to talk about it. Because it all has to do with design.
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Posted by Michelle Krebs at 3:30 AM under Commentary , Companies , Featured , Personalities | Comments (6) | digg this | del.icio.us
Cerberus-Chrysler: “Reality Bites” Says The Economist
Five months after Cerberus Capital Management was handed the company (for 
nothing, in effect) by Chrysler's former parent, Daimler, there are growing fears that the acquisitive private-equity group may have bitten off more than it can chew, The Economist magazine writes in this week’s edition.
The British publication notes three main problems facing Chrysler’s new management team with little or not time to solve them:
(Read more...)
Posted by Michelle Krebs at 5:42 AM under Analysis , Chrysler , Commentary , Rumors | Comments (2) | digg this | del.icio.us
Maruti Suzuki A-Star Shines at New Delhi Show
By Nick Kurczewski
NEW DELHI, India -- Flashing lights, an elaborate stage, thumping dance music, 
and not one but three show cars on display; Maruti Suzuki’s press conference at the New Delhi Auto Expo was a none-too-subtle reminder that this Indo-Japanese company controls over 50% of the Indian passenger car market.
Maruti Suzuki was the first company in India to mass produce passenger cars and is known for having revolutionized the Indian auto market. Models like the 800 and recently discontinued Zen brought cheap motoring to millions of first-time car buyers.
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Posted by Michelle Krebs at 6:05 AM under Commentary , Companies , News | Comments (10) | digg this | del.icio.us
Manufacturers Still Thinking Big in New Delhi
By Nick Kurczewski
NEW DELHI , India -- With all the attention focused on tomorrow’s launch of Tata’s much-anticipated “1-Lakh” ($2,500) city car, it’s all too easy to forget all the other industry news and car launches taking place here at the New Delhi Auto Expo.
Several companies choose to think large, and used the first press day to unveil a variety of sport-utility vehicles and crossover vehicles. Chief among them were General Motors with its Chevrolet Captiva and Tata with its Sumo Grande.
(Read more...)
Posted by Michelle Krebs at 11:38 AM under Commentary , Featured , GM | Comments (0) | digg this | del.icio.us
Jaguar, Land Rover Good Fit for Tata? Moody’s Says Possibly Not
Moody’s Investors Service confirms what many observers have thought: India’s Tata, the maker of inexpensive cars, may not a good fit with luxury marques Land Rover and Jaguar being sold by Ford and wanted by Tata.
Moody’s has placed Tata Motors’ current rating on review for a possible downgrade, according to AFX International Focus, a European financial news service. It sees Tata's swallowing up of Jaguar and Land Rover as creating digestive problems.
(Read more...)
Posted by Michelle Krebs at 1:17 PM under Analysis , Commentary , Ford | Comments (0) | digg this | del.icio.us
Toyota vs. Chevy for Brand Leadership: Chevy Wins
Toyota and General Motors are in a you-know-what match about who owns brand leadership for 2007: Toyota or Chevrolet.
We’ll settle the argument: Chevrolet.
Toyota’s argument to count Scion in Toyota Division sales doesn’t wash.
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Posted by Michelle Krebs at 6:02 AM under Commentary , GM , Toyota | Comments (7) | digg this | del.icio.us
Nardelli, Cerberus Defendeth Too Much?
By Bill Visnic
After issuing a statement just before the holidays saying recent media characterizations of the financial situation at Chrysler LLC “painted an inaccurate picture” of the company’s fiscal health, media and analyst tongues are wagging with suspicion that the company’s hedge-fund owner, Cerberus Capital Management L.P., is scrambling to salvage its car-company investment.
Cerberus, which owns 80.1 percent of Chrysler and typically is closed-mouthed in its dealings with the media, hastened to back up Chairman and CEO Bob Nardelli when The Wall Street Journal reported Nardelli recently told some Chrysler employees the company was “operationally” bankrupt.
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Posted by Michelle Krebs at 9:21 AM under Analysis , Business , Chrysler , Commentary , Companies | Comments (1) | digg this | del.icio.us
Buick Design Will Grow Bolder,GM’s Top Design Exec Says
By Dale Buss
Expect future Buick vehicles to rip a big page from the success of the aggressively styled Enclave crossover and move quickly away from design-legacy retreads such as the company's Lucerne and LaCrosse midsize sedans.
Ed Welburn, GM’s vice president of global design, told AutoObserver that Buick is shifting decisively toward “bold” and “dramatic” design statements such as Enclave while still trying to retain some “elegant” and “romantic” elements from its design theme over the previous generation. He said to expect more iterations of the sort of overstated approach used with Enclave, which is distinguished by cues such as big curves in the sheet metal, lots of chrome exterior trim and huge, elongated headlights.
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Posted by Michelle Krebs at 6:46 AM under Commentary , GM , Personalities | Comments (3) | digg this | del.icio.us
Fiat Revival Celebrations Are Premature
By Richard Feast
It’s being hailed as the turnaround story of the year, but put the champagne back in the cellar. Celebrations about a Fiat revival are premature.
I was a judge on one of those auto industry Man of the Year award panels last 
year. Sergio Marchionne, the 55-year-old Italian-Canadian who has done so much to stop the rot at the Fiat group, emerged as the clear-cut winner.
My nomination for someone else stood little chance in the face of overwhelming voting for the “saviour” of Fiat. Still, I have reservations about whether Marchionne deserved the award – because we’ve been here before.
Anyone who’s studied Fiat long enough knows it’s a boom-or-bust group. It is Europe’s equivalent of Chrysler, one year a glamorous master of the automotive universe, another a down-and-out bum.
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Posted by Michelle Krebs at 11:08 AM under Analysis , Commentary , Companies , Featured | Comments (1) | digg this | del.icio.us
GM’s Dream of Mid-Engine Corvette Not Off the Table
By Bill Visnic 
With General Motors Corp. unveiling the ultra-high performance ZR-1 and its six-figure price, the possibility of the next-generation Chevrolet Corvette moving to a more exotic mid-engine configuration still is being discussed at the highest levels of GM engineering, planning and marketing, sources close to the situation tell AutoObserver.
The iconic Corvette has used a classic front-engine/rear-drive layout since its inception in 1953. But some factions within the company believe the car should migrate to a mid-engine design for a variety of reasons, not all of them engineering-related.
It is a virtual assurance, however, that a mid-engine design would dictate a price point well in excess of $100,000 – a matter many at GM believe jettisons the Corvette’s heritage for quasi-affordability.
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Posted by Michelle Krebs at 4:29 AM under Commentary , Featured , GM , Technology | Comments (9) | digg this | del.icio.us
Edmunds.com Readers Compare Chevy Malibu, Honda Accord and Toyota Camry in Professional Road Tests
SANTA MONICA, Calif. -- Edmunds.com recently selected six applicants from the “Editor for a Day” 
submissions to experience and write about a professional comparison test of three midsize family sedans: 2008 Chevrolet Malibu, 2008 Honda Accord and 2007 Toyota Camry.
The winners were flown to Los Angeles, given appropriate accommodations and training, then encouraged to put the comparison test vehicles through a series of driving exercises at Willow Springs International Raceway on November 29. The winners carefully evaluated the vehicles and their commentary was published on Edmunds.com.
“This is the first time we invited real consumers from around the country to work with us on an actual road test,” said Kevin Smith, editorial director for Edmunds.com.
In the end, three of the demographically and geographically diverse group were split: three (including the two women in the group) chose the Malibu as their favorite; three chose the Accord.
Here is a summary of the “Editor for a Day” winner profiles and their comparison test experiences:
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Posted by Michelle Krebs at 11:37 AM under Commentary , GM , Toyota | Comments (5) | digg this | del.icio.us
Nissan GT-R Goes Underground
By Peter Nunn
TOKYO -- Deep underground, the guests and media throng were waiting. Then, suddenly with lights ablaze and engines roaring, two Nissan GT-Rs sped past in the semi-darkness, sending a flurry of excitement through the crowd lined up against the wall.
A film? Some kind of fantasy? Nope, this was the “Tokyo Underground Night Nissan GT-R X Shutoko Yamate Tunnel,” a full-on media whiz-bang staged on the eve of the new Nissan GT-R super coupe that went on sale in Japan this month.
It’s not every day a new car gets to be launched at night in deep mid-winter in a yet-to-be-opened roadway tunnel in Tokyo, but then the new GT-R is no ordinary car.
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Posted by Michelle Krebs at 7:35 AM under Commentary , Companies , Featured , Technology | Comments (2) | digg this | del.icio.us
Forget BMW. Forget Honda. Europe Car of the Year Says Fiat Makes the Finest Cars
By Richard Feast
LONDON -- Orders for the Fiat 500, the cute little city car that was recently named 2008 Car of the Year in Europe, suggest it will be popular with buyers.
That would make a change. All too frequently in the past, the model COTY judges pronounced ‘the best’ in a given year proved anything but when a more important group of judges had their say: the people who buy new cars each year.
There is clearly a significant divide between what critics acclaim and what consumers will part with their money for. It is evident in many spheres. Theatre critics applaud challenging new dramas, but what the public wants are frothy, tried-and-trusted musicals. Their literary peers recommend Don DeLillo and Thomas Pynchon but buyers in their millions prefer Dan Brown and Robert Ludlum.
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Posted by Michelle Krebs at 7:14 AM under Commentary , Companies , Featured | Comments (4) | digg this | del.icio.us
Porsche Boss Collects Giant Paycheck
By Bill Visnic
It will be a merry Christmas this year –- and for many Christmases future –- for Porsche AG CEO Wendelin Wiedeking, as the Financial Times cites sources within Porsche AG as estimating Wiedeking last year made between €60 million to €70 million -'– a thundering $88.5 million to $103.4 million based on current exchange rates.
The figure is gaudy by almost any measure short of Wall Street compensation, but particularly in the perspective of typical European (and German) executive pay. The FT indicates the most extravagant 2006 pay for a German executive was €13 million (slightly more than $19 million at today’s exchange rates) by the head of Deutsche Bank.
Wiedeking’s bulging pay packet reminds that 2007 is unlikely to be as remunerative for most automaker executives in Detroit, a region with a long-earned reputation for outsized pay. But times are hard in Detroit, and many executives now have either taken symbolic cuts or have large portions of their compensation tied to company performance.
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Posted by Michelle Krebs at 6:28 AM under Commentary , Companies , Featured | Comments (1) | digg this | del.icio.us
Ford Explorer Settlement: Not a Bad Deal
SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- Ford’s settlement of class-action lawsuits filed in California related to Explorer rollovers doesn’t sound like a bad deal for the automaker at all.
For starters, it marks the last of the outstanding lawsuits against Ford stemming from the Explorer rollovers.
And the settlement – excluding what must be astronomical legal fees – doesn’t sound that costly. It allows vehicle owners to apply for $500 vouchers to buy new Explorers or $300 vouchers to buy other Ford or Lincoln Mercury products. That’s less than some incentives Ford has offered.
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Posted by Michelle Krebs at 7:11 AM under Commentary , Ford , News | Comments (1) | digg this | del.icio.us
General Motors’ “Cowboy” Rides Off into the Sunset
Few true characters have filled the automotive industry’s top ranks, but John Rock, the former General Motors executive who put GMC on a growth path and later tried to resuscitate Oldsmobile, was one of those.
Rock, 71, died Friday after a brief illness at his ranch in South Dakota, where he’d grown up, the son of a Chevrolet dealer.
A hulk of a man, Rock strode into a room like a cowboy, commanding everyone’s attention by his very presence. His talk was as straight as a cowboy’s shot -- and every bit as salty.
Anyone who knew Rock, in fact, immediately recounts the famous John Rock angry cowboy story.
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Posted by Michelle Krebs at 6:08 PM under Commentary , GM , News , Personalities | Comments (0) | digg this | del.icio.us
Mazda2: More Accolades but Still No U.S. Plans
The Mazda Demio, aka, Mazda2, won yet another major accolade: It was the winner of Japan’s Car of the Year.
Despite the accolades and shifting tastes of Americans for fuel sippers, with the sizzling sales of the Mazda3 as evidence, the Mazda2 still isn’t headed for the U.S. anytime soon, the automaker said.
We said it before and we’ll say it again: a missed opportunity.
Posted by Michelle Krebs at 7:02 AM under Commentary , Companies | Comments (0) | digg this | del.icio.us
VW: Backpedaling on U.S. Plant Comment. Déjà Vu.
Volkswagen of America posted a short press release on its media Web site, backpedaling on what a company official reportedly told a reporter at the Los Angeles Auto Show about its plans for the construction of a U.S. assembly plant.
Déjà vu.
The German automaker did similar backpedaling when one of its executives revealed plans to move its headquarters out of Detroit. And guess what? VW is moving out of Detroit.
(Read more...)
Posted by Michelle Krebs at 8:02 AM under Commentary , Companies | Comments (1) | digg this | del.icio.us
China’s Chery and Chrysler: “Conceptualizing” Small Car Options
China’s Chery and Chrysler are in the “conceptualization” phase, considering options for a small car to 
be built by the Chinese automaker and sold by Chrysler in North America and Europe.
But no timetable is set for the debut of the car, which was originally to go on sale in the first quarter of 2008.
Zhang Lin, general manager of Chery International, said at a China automotive conference sponsored by J.D. Power and Associates in Detroit the “conceptualization” phase could take a couple of years as the companies consider various options.
Zhang, who got his doctorate in engineering from the University of Michigan and worked for Chrysler in manufacturing engineering from 1995 to 2003 before joining Chery, said the two companies would use a current Chery platform for a small car and apply a “top hat” –- or “top hats” for specific markets.
But more than the timetable seems out of kilter.
(Read more...)
Posted by Michelle Krebs at 12:05 PM under Chrysler , Commentary , Featured | Comments (0) | digg this | del.icio.us
VW To Build U.S. Plant; Location Selected in 2008
As anticipated, Volkswagen plans to build an assembly plant in the United States.
Stefan Jacoby, CEO of Volkswagen of America, tells reporters at the Los Angeles auto show that the German automaker will announce where it will build the plant in the first half of 2008. A U.S. assembly plant is part of VW's plant to increase sales and image in the U.S. as well as offset currency fluctuations.
(Read more...)
Posted by Michelle Krebs at 4:13 AM under Commentary , Companies , News | Comments (0) | digg this | del.icio.us
Detroit: Don’t Worry About Cheap Chinese Cars
China’s ambassador to the U.S. visited Detroit Tuesday to speak to the Detroit Economic Club –- and to calm Detroit automakers’ fears that China is about to flood the market with cheap cars.
In fact, Ambassador Zhou Wenzhong told the media before his speech that there’s little risk of Chinese automakers flooding the U.S. automarket anytime soon because the demand for vehicles in China is expected to continue to grow. Pointing out that less than 1 percent of China’s population owns a vehicle now, Zhou said Chinese automakers won’t have the capacity for “a long time to come” to sell a large volume of cars in the U.S.
Posted by Michelle Krebs at 11:52 AM under Commentary | Comments (1) | digg this | del.icio.us
Iacocca: Chrysler on "Right Path"
Former Chrysler CEO Lee Iacocca, credited with turning around the near-bankrupt automaker in the 1980s, says the New Chrysler is "on the right path for sure'' with owner Cerberus Capital Management LP and CEO Robert Nardelli in charge.
"They've got real problems yet. It's not solved, but it's looking up,'' Iacocca, 83, told Bloomberg News in an interview Tuesday at his Los Angeles home. Iacocca retired from Chrysler in 1993.
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Posted by Michelle Krebs at 5:01 AM under Chrysler , Commentary , Personalities | Comments (0) | digg this | del.icio.us
The Lighter Side of the Auto Beat
It’s been a grueling week for serious automotive business: more financial losses for General Motors and Ford fueling fears of more job cuts; a lousy economic outlook with oil skyrocketing near $100 a barrel and the U.S. dollar at the bottom of the barrel; and a jittery stock market.
So now for something completely different to end the week on a lighter note.
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Posted by Michelle Krebs at 10:02 AM under Chrysler , Commentary , Ford , In the Media | Comments (1) | digg this | del.icio.us
Hot Topics: Chrysler Future Products
AutoObserver’s analysis of Chrysler’s product and plant strategies -– “Chrysler Product Cupboard is Strikingly Bare” –- and an article Chrysler’s SRT performance division escaping the cost-cutting knife prompted a flurry of feedback from readers this week.
Readers readily recognized, indeed, how bare Chrysler’s cupboard is. Chrysler’s new management better be doing the same. No company can save its way to prosperity. Turnarounds only occur on the strength of good, new products.
Readers used words like “scary,” “weak” and “depressing,” to describe Chrysler’s condition.
(Read more...)
Posted by Michelle Krebs at 9:25 AM under Chrysler , Commentary | Comments (0) | digg this | del.icio.us
Ford Has a Plan: Keep Volvo and Buff It Up
Ford said Thursday it has a plan for Volvo -- keep it for now, cut its costs and buff up the image of the Swedish marque as a premium automaker.
But that doesn't necessarily mean Ford will keep it forever.
Ford CEO Alan Mulally said Ford will keep Volvo for now, focus on improving its cost structure -- i.e. cut costs -- and reposition it as a premium brand more than a near-premium one.
But reading between the lines, Ford could be sprucing up Volvo to sell it further down the line.
(Read more...)
Posted by Michelle Krebs at 4:57 AM under Commentary , Ford , News | Comments (0) | digg this | del.icio.us
Hillary Clinton Backs 40 MPG Standard
She wasn’t going to get many votes from the captains of Detroit’s auto industry anyway, but now Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton has guaranteed they won't vote for her as she upped the ante in the fuel economy debate.
On Monday, Clinton called for a 60 percent increase in fuel economy standards by 2020 for a combined fleet average of 40 miles per gallon and a combined fleet average of 55 miles per gallon by 2030. To soften the blow, she also called for $3 billion in battery research and $20 billion in government-backed “Green Vehicle” bonds to help automakers shift to more efficient vehicles. She also promoted tax breaks for plug-in hybrid and government purchases of plug-in hybrids -– 100,000 by 2015.
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Posted by Michelle Krebs at 7:27 AM under Commentary , News , Personalities , Technology | Comments (1) | digg this | del.icio.us
UAW Leaders Get Briefed on New Ford Contract
Leaders from UAW locals from around the country are gathering in Detroit Monday to be briefed on the tentative contract reached between its union and Ford.
Contract details have not been officially but the Ford deal reportedly has significant job security assurances, including Ford’s removal of several plants from its pending closure list in exchange for significant, but still unknown, concessions from the union.
It would seem that Ford will be challenged to meet its profitability objectives without the ability to close plants in line with its shrinking sales and market share.
(Read more...)
Posted by Michelle Krebs at 5:56 AM under Commentary , Ford | Comments (1) | digg this | del.icio.us
BREAKING NEWS Chrysler: End of the Line for Some Employees, Models and Production
Chrysler announced Thursday morning that it will slash its salaried ranks further, cut production at a 
number of plants and eliminate four models from its product portfolio.
The moves come as no surprise as such cost cutting is the MO for private equity firms, like Chrysler’s new owner, Cerberus Capital Management. Since taking over only in early August, the new Chrysler management has taken quick and decisive steps to turn the automaker around as the economy turns even further south than anticipated.
(Read more...)
Posted by Michelle Krebs at 7:26 AM under Chrysler , Commentary , Featured | Comments (2) | digg this | del.icio.us
Ford Exec: Taking Time Off – For Now
Richard Parry-Jones, one of Ford’s executives who last week announced his retirement from the company, told AutoObserver at the Tokyo Motor Show that he’s headed for the beach and three straight months of decompression after his departure at year-end.
But the talented engineer, who, at 56, seems too young and energetic to retire completely, appeared open to new possibilities after a vacation. Maybe he’s got something lined up already.
(Read more...)
Posted by Michelle Krebs at 5:52 AM under Chrysler , Commentary , Ford , Personalities | Comments (0) | digg this | del.icio.us
Tokyo Auto Show: A Race Between Green and Performance
TOKYO – Even before Wednesday’s first press day for the Tokyo Motor Show, the themes of the event were obvious -- and opposite: green and performance.
And on day one, performance outpaced green.
Nissan won hands down for most crowded press conference at which it unveiled the long-awaited GT-R. Even an hour before the designated starting time, the Nissan conference was jammed with no spots available remotely close to seeing the stage for the unveiling. Media excluded from seeing the unveiling, clamored for the highly sought after press kit., which Nissan refsed to distribute until after the press conference.
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Posted by Michelle Krebs at 5:41 AM under Commentary , Companies , Featured , Technology | Comments (0) | digg this | del.icio.us
Renault CFO: Nissan-Renault Set for Small, Cheap Car Boom
TOKYO – Renault intends to launch a next-generation Logan that costs even less to build than the 
current one while the automaker simultaneously develops a still cheaper car for India, the chief financial officer of the company told a group of reporters in Tokyo.
Thierry Moulonguet, Renault CFO and chairman of the Nissan-Renault management Committee for the Americas, told reporters in Japan for the Tokyo auto show and the world debut of the Nissan GT-R supercar that the automaker is positioning itself for an expected surge in small car sales globally.
Moulonguet said engineers and designers are working on the second-generation Logan due in 2012 that will cut costs by 15 percent of the original Logan, which has a starting price of about $5,000. Separately but simultaneously, Nissan-Renault is working in partnership with Indian electric rickshaw and motorcycle maker Bajaj Auto Ltd. on a completely new small car for India that will start at $3,000. India-based automaker Tata has announced a similar intention.
"We see this as the segment of the future," Moulonguet said. "Our early launch of the Logan puts us in a good position for selling a car at a very low price."
(Read more...)
Posted by Michelle Krebs at 5:40 AM under Commentary , Featured | Comments (2) | digg this | del.icio.us
Chrysler: What’s Chery’s Role?
Chrysler’s top exec in China says the automaker is exploring how to fill holes in its product portfolio in 
small-car segments, the largest-volume categories in the country. And the holes won’t be plugged by Chrysler’s current Chinese partner, Chery.
Simon Elliott, president and CEO of Chrysler Group China Sales Ltd., reiterated what AutoObserver reported during the Frankfurt auto show last month, when Chrysler’s top designer Trevor Creed said Chery would not be Chrysler’s partner in building the B-segment Hornet, a concept for an international people mover. Creed said Chery’s platforms were not appropriate for the Dodge Hornet, and the hunt for another partner was ongoing.
The comments by the two Chrysler executives beg the question: So what is Chery’s role with Chrysler?
(Read more...)
Posted by Michelle Krebs at 7:01 AM under Chrysler , Commentary , News , Rumors | Comments (0) | digg this | del.icio.us
Chrysler’s Turn in the Spotlight This Week
It’s often said in the auto industry that everybody gets their turn in the barrel. In recent weeks, it has been General Motors; next week, it’ll be Ford. But this week it is Chrysler in the spotlight.
On Wednesday, Chrysler faces an 11 a.m. strike deadline set by the United Auto Workers union.
At the same time, word is leaking out – or deliberately being leaked out to strengthen the automakers hand – that Cerberus Capital Management, Chrysler’s new owner, is planning even deeper job cuts than announced earlier this year.
And Chrysler’s top executives, including CEO Bob Nardelli, formerly of Home Depot, and vice chairman for sales and marketing Jim Press, formerly of Toyota, face dealers and meet with the media at Chrysler dealers’ national convention in Las Vegas this week.
(Read more...)
Posted by Michelle Krebs at 7:34 AM under Chrysler , Commentary , Featured | Comments (0) | digg this | del.icio.us
Et Tu, Tom Friedman!
In his October 3 column entitled “Et Tu, Toyota?” New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman expresses his shock and utter dismay that his beloved Toyota is siding with Detroit automakers in what he calls a Michigan-style “assisted suicide” –- opposing stringent fuel-economy standards proposed by the Senate.
In previous columns, the Pulitzer Prize-winning Friedman advocated Toyota take over General Motors and rule the automotive universe on the basis of its pioneering leadership in fuel-efficiency as expressed through a single model, the Toyota Prius hybrid.
Now, Friedman is disappointed and stunned: Toyota, along with GM, Ford and Chrysler, is opposing the tough mileage standards in the U.S. Senate’s draft version of the energy bill, and are lobbying for another bill that is more stringent and separates cars and trucks.
Toyota wasted no time in responding to Friedman's column. General Motors has as well. And so have other industry watchers, including columnists from Motor Trend and Fortune magazines
(Read more...)
Posted by Michelle Krebs at 10:13 AM under Chrysler , Commentary , Featured , Ford , GM , Personalities , Technology , Toyota | Comments (5) | digg this | del.icio.us
Exclusive One-on-One: Mitsubishi Motors President Osamu Masuko
By Peter Nunn
The past decade has been a true roller-coaster ride for 
Japan's Mitsubishi Motors. Beset by scandals in Japan, a dramatic fall off in North American profitability and having its main partner, DaimlerChrysler, part company, Mitsubishi had been buffeted by one storm after another.
After racking up huge losses on top of those storms, now comes the turnaround. A three-year business plan coupled with a string of hot new models, with the new Outlander and Lancer leading the way, has seen Mitsubishi undergo the classic product-led recovery.
On Monday, Mitsubishi, now Japan's fastest-growing car exporter, saw its stock jump to its highest level in two months on the Tokyo Stock Exchange. That came after Mitsubishi tripled its operating profit forecast last Friday.
Since January 2005, Osamu Masuko, 58, has been Mitsubishi's personable president and chief operating officer and the man at the helm as Mitsubishi trod the harrowing but now successful path back to profitability. Masuko, who has a business background from the Mitsubishi Corp. and is a 35-year Mitsubishi veteran, spoke to AutoObserver’s Peter Nunn in Tokyo.
(Read more...)
Posted by Michelle Krebs at 7:34 AM under Commentary , Featured , Personalities | Comments (3) | digg this | del.icio.us
Chevrolet Volt: Where Will It Be Built?
Now that General Motors has said it is proceeding with production 
of the Chevrolet Volt, the question is where will it be built?
That question may have been answered by negotiators for GM and the United Auto Workers union as they hammered out a new four-year contract overnight.
The UAW gave GM the union-managed health-care fund the automaker wanted, in exchange for GM's commitment to build some future models in U.S. plants by UAW workers. Among those future vehicles was believed to be the Volt.
No word yet on which plant won the prize.
Posted by Michelle Krebs at 6:19 AM under Commentary , GM , Technology | Comments (2) | digg this | del.icio.us
Ex-Hyundai Exec Bound for Ford?
Hyundai Motor America has confirmed its chief operating officer, Steve Wilhite, has resigned, effective Monday.
Wilhite is rumored to be a candidate for a newly created post of chief marketing officer at Ford, according to trade journal Advertising Age.
Ford will not confirm if Wilhite will be appointed to the job or is in the running.
(Read more...)
Posted by Michelle Krebs at 11:57 AM under Commentary , Ford , Personalities , Rumors | Comments (0) | digg this | del.icio.us
Chrysler's Jim Press Speaks Publicly for the First Time Since Leaving Toyota
Former Toyota executive Jim Press, now vice chairman and president of Chrysler, told a Detroit radio show host that Chrysler and Detroit automakers in general will regain market share, lost to companies like Toyota.
“I think every 37 or 38 years you ought to try a new career,” Press, who was at Toyota for 37 years, told Paul W. Smith on his WJR-AM radio show in his first interview since joining Chrysler.
"It's great to be back on the home team. It’s great to be on this team," Press said.
(Read more...)
Posted by Michelle Krebs at 1:33 PM under Chrysler , Commentary , In the Media , Toyota | Comments (3) | digg this | del.icio.us
GM-UAW: Still No Deal as Patience Wears Thin
Negotiators for General Motors and the United Auto Workers union head back to the bargaining table Wednesday after a marathon session over the weekend. Talks ended at 9 p.m. Tuesday night.
Meantime, the union is making noise that it is growing increasingly impatient by threatening to set a strike deadline to speed up the progress. Frankly, the strike talk seems more like bluster than substance. A strike would be devastating to the union, which is bleeding jobs and thus paying members, even more than GM, which can shuffle vehicle production offshore.
While contracts of the past have been wrapped up within a couple of days of the expiration, it is not shocking that these talks are lingering on. Both sides are confronted with the most complicated issues in recent times.
(Read more...)
Posted by Michelle Krebs at 7:39 AM under Commentary , GM | Comments (1) | digg this | del.icio.us
UAW-Big Three Talks: The Clock Is Ticking
The United Auto Workers' contracts with General Motors (which the union selected Thursday as its strike target), Ford and Chrysler officially expires at 11:59 p.m. Friday.
What will happen as the clock strikes midnight?
Exactly nothing. At least as far as the outside world is concerned.
Ford and Chrysler have signed temporary extensions. And even with GM as the lead target and UAW’s local preparing strike posters, the talks likely will continue on past the witching hour and possibly days, if not weeks, thereafter.
(Read more...)
Posted by Michelle Krebs at 6:25 AM under Chrysler , Commentary , Featured , Ford , GM , Toyota | Comments (1) | digg this | del.icio.us
Another Shocker: Chrysler Steals Expert on China
As the industry recovers from the shock of Thursday’s announcement that Chrysler had hired Toyota’s top-ranking, Jim Press, the automaker dropped another bombshell: it has hired Phil Murtaugh away from Shanghai Automotive Industry Corp., General Motors’ joint venture partner in China.
In Chinese circles, the news of Murtaugh joining Chrysler in China is nearly as big as the news of Press joining Chrysler in the U.S. as he is credited with building GM’s extraordinarily successful China business.
And the move demonstrates, yet again, Chrysler’s new owner, Cerberus Capital Management, is pulling out all of the stops to buy the world’s best automotive talent to turn Chrysler around.
Murtaugh’s hiring also suggests what AutoObserver has long suspected – that there is a serious China connection involved in Cerberus’ purchase of Chrysler.
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Posted by Michelle Krebs at 4:35 AM under Chrysler , Commentary , Personalities | Comments (1) | digg this | del.icio.us
Volkswagen's Jacoby: HQ Move Tip of the Iceberg
By Bill Visnic
In a conference call with journalists following Thursday’s announcement that Volkswagen of America Inc. will move its headquarters from the suburbs of downtrodden Detroit to tony northern Virginia, new VWoA president and CEO Stefan Jacoby insists the relocation is much more than a change of scenery: this time, VW intends – really intends – to change its thinking.
Jacoby says the move is the beginning of the company’s urgent, there-is-no-tomorrow philosophy to re-connect with customers and offset years worth of brand-management missteps. In addition, macroeconomic forces have built up, demanding a more focused attack in the increasingly challenging U.S. market.
He says the strategy is based on addressing five crucial areas: product, brand positioning, its dealer network and its internal organization. Ah, but that’s only four. The fifth point – the very real possibility of VW building a new U.S. assembly plant – is the most provocative.
The following are some select snippets from Jacoby’s question-and-answer session:
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Posted by Michelle Krebs at 4:17 PM under Commentary , News , Personalities | Comments (14) | digg this | del.icio.us
Volkswagen: Packing Its Bags for Virginia
Volkswagen of America is expected to announce at a press conference today that it is moving its corporate headquarters from the Detroit suburbs to Herndon, Va.
The company said it would bring 400 jobs to Virginia, eliminate 400 positions and leave 600 employees and contractors at its current headquarters in the Detroit suburb of Auburn Hills, Mich. The company said the move would be completed by the end of 2008, adding it would invest more than $100 million to establish its headquarters in a new office building near Washington Dulles International Airport.
Reading between the lines of an interview with VWoA’s new president and CEO, Stefan Jacoby, in charge only since Saturday, Northern Virginia is a better place for VW employees to live than Michigan and a better place for VW to do business.
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Posted by Michelle Krebs at 1:46 PM under Commentary , Companies , Featured , News | Comments (3) | digg this | del.icio.us
On a Lighter Note: Animal Sacrifice or Animal Giveaway?
Maybe automakers are going about this sales thing all wrong.
Maybe what they need is a good old-fashioned animal sacrifice to please the gods into delivering higher sales. Or maybe they need a clever marketing gimmick -– like giving away an animal with every vehicle sale.
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Posted by Michelle Krebs at 6:03 AM under Commentary | Comments (0) | digg this | del.icio.us
John Edwards: Fellow Americans, Sacrifice Your SUVs
Democratic Presidential Candidate John Edwards is calling for Americans to make a sacrifice for the environment by getting out of their SUVs and into more fuel-efficient vehicles.
"I think Americans are actually willing to sacrifice," Edwards told the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers Wednesday. "One of the things they should be asked to do is drive more fuel-efficient vehicles."
It didn’t take long for one automaker to respond.
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Posted by Michelle Krebs at 11:04 AM under Chrysler , Commentary , Personalities , Technology | Comments (6) | digg this | del.icio.us
Indian-Owned Jag, Land Rover?
It is looking increasingly likely that an automaker from India could become the new owner of the now Ford-owned Jaguar and Land Rover.
Two Indian automakers, Tata Motors Ltd., and Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd., are among the bidders for Jaguar and Land Rover, which Ford hopes to sell as a package. And they may well be the front-runners among the bidders.
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Posted by Michelle Krebs at 7:55 AM under Commentary , Ford , Personalities , Rumors | Comments (0) | digg this | del.icio.us
Chrysler: Whole Lotta Shaking Up Going On
Cerberus Capital Management has owned Chrysler barely over three weeks with 
CEO Bob Nardelli at the helm during that time. Yet, there’s already a whole lotta shaking up going on at the auto company.
Chrysler made a number of significant moves this week:
* proposed plans to shed a couple of non-core operations –- Chrysler Transport and all or parts of Mopar;
* reshuffled the manufacturing management ranks, with some veterans taking retirement;
*appointed an up-and-comer to specifically be responsible for executing (and possibly accelerating and deepening?) the automaker’s recovery plan;
*held management meetings at which Nardelli shared his vision of Chrysler's future.
And the week's not half over.
These moves are but a precursor tremor to what is likely to take place in the future as Chrysler’s new owners attempt a quick turnaround of the automaker -– and likely sell it within the next few years.
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Posted by Michelle Krebs at 7:40 AM under Commentary , Companies , Featured | Comments (0) | digg this | del.icio.us
Guest Commentary: Why the West Need Not Fear China
By Richard Feast
The People’s Republic of China has set its auto industry the task of destroying the rest of the world’s automakers.
We know this is true because every newspaper, magazine, TV channel, Web site and blog keeps sounding the alarm these days. “Beware! The Chinese auto industry is coming,” is the dire warning.
Zap – there goes General Motors.
Bang – that’s Toyota finished.
Blam – good-bye, Mercedes.
This is PlayStation stuff, only less plausible.
It is time for a more level-headed assessment of the potential of China’s auto industry beyond the country’s borders.
In reality, China will have little impact on the West any time soon -– if at all.
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Posted by Michelle Krebs at 5:58 AM under Commentary , Featured | Comments (6) | digg this | del.icio.us
Chrysler Lifetime Warranty: Short-Lived Buzz?
Chrysler’s recently announced lifetime warranty is quite the buzz in the industry and on the airwaves, but the buzz may be short-lived.
Trade journal Automotive News reports that Chrysler’s lifetime warranty has been met with near universal praise by dealers, who say it is generating showroom and online traffic.
“Our whole dealership is energized by it. Our customers are shocked by it. They don't believe it. You've got to explain it to them," Ralph Mahalak Jr., a Chrysler dealer in Monroe, Michigan, told Automotive News.
Indeed, explanation is required: Lifetime means not the owner’s lifetime but the lifetime of the Chrysler vehicle if that one person owns it. And those buyers are few and far between, according to Edmunds.com.
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Posted by Michelle Krebs at 7:36 AM under Chrysler , Commentary | Comments (0) | digg this | del.icio.us
Honda Lifts the Covers on the Accord
Old timers fondly recall the days when dealerships covered their showroom 
windows and tore the coverings away giving the crowds amassed outside their first look at that year’s new model.
The same thing happened this week in the virtual world as Honda lifted the covers, so to speak, on the popular Accord, redesigned for the 2008 model year. Edmunds.com’s forum visitors, in fact, waited up for the midnight lifting of the embargo Monday and provided instant feedback on the new model.
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Posted by Michelle Krebs at 7:20 AM under Commentary , Companies | Comments (2) | digg this | del.icio.us
Chevrolet Volt: 60,000 Copies a Year, Sources Tell Bloomberg
General Motors may build as many as 60,000 of its Volt electric cars for their 
inaugural year on the market, four times the sales of Toyota's Prius hybrid on its U.S. debut, people with knowledge of GM's plans told Bloomberg News.
Production at that level may allow GM to sell the plug-in Volt for less than $30,000 (the Prius starts at $22,175 with 60,000 a year sold in the U.S.), the sources said.
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Posted by Michelle Krebs at 6:36 AM under Commentary , GM , Technology , Toyota | Comments (2) | digg this | del.icio.us
Chevrolet Malibu: “Very Important” to GM and Chevy
Ask anyone at General Motors how important the upcoming 2008 Chevrolet 
Malibu is and you’ll likely get a rather reserved response.
Like the one Chevrolet General Manager Ed Peper (PEEP-er) gave AutoObserver in an interview Monday: “It’s a very important vehicle for us.”
That’s an understatement.
Still somewhat restrained especially for him, GM Vice Chairman Bob Lutz goes a tad further. In his GM FastLane blog, in which he wrote about his recent "weekend with a Bu," he called its introduction “one of the most important passenger car launches in recent General Motors history.” He added: “We’ve put a lot of blood, sweat and tears into this vehicle.”
GM executives’ caution is understandable and wise, since the automaker has oft been accused of over promising and under delivering. But the launch of the 2008 Chevrolet Malibu is beyond “very important.”
Let us count the reasons why:
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Posted by Michelle Krebs at 5:11 AM under Analysis , Commentary , Featured , GM | Comments (11) | digg this | del.icio.us
Auto Parts Makers: More Trouble Ahead
A number of North American car parts makers may miss sales forecasts this year as falling demand for cars and trucks force GM and Ford, particularly, to cut production, Bloomberg News reports.
"Hundreds or thousands'' of auto suppliers may go out of business in the next five years, Laurie Harbour-Felax, a Farmington Hills, Michigan, consultant who advises parts makers told Bloomberg. “Some of these suppliers will go into bankruptcy and be bought up in pieces; some will just go away. It will be devastating.''
Obviously, the most vulnerable are those who have hitched their wagons largely to GM, Ford and Chrysler. Conversely, the least vulnerable are those who supply Toyota and other import makes as well as those that have diversified into overseas markets like China.
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Posted by Michelle Krebs at 6:54 AM under Commentary , Companies | Comments (1) | digg this | del.icio.us
China Defends Product Quality Via TV
Chinese state television launched a weeklong series of programs called “Believe in Made in China” to defend the country's reputation as a safe maker of global goods, the Associated Press reported this morning. At the same time, New Zealand is investigating unsafe chemicals used on children’s clothing from China.
Automakers have been mum on the topic, but, hopefully, are quietly focusing more intently on quality controls of increasing number of parts they buy from China. Exports of auto parts from China are predicted to double to $40 billion by the end of 2010, the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers forecasts.
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Posted by Michelle Krebs at 6:34 AM under Commentary , News | Comments (0) | digg this | del.icio.us
Lexus Marketing Exec Headed to Chrysler
Lexus marketing vice president Deborah Wahl Meyer is headed for the top Chrysler marketing post.
Chrysler confirmed today that Meyer is the new vice president and chief marketing officer of Chrysler, effective Aug. 28.
Meyer, 44, is considered a marketing whiz kid; Chrysler needs some marketing magicand some first aid for its damaged dealer relations; new Chrysler owners are bound to sweep some current folks and bring in new troops to achieve its ambitious plan to turn the company around in three years.
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Posted by Michelle Krebs at 8:04 AM under Chrysler , Commentary , News , Personalities , Toyota | Comments (2) | digg this | del.icio.us
Chevrolet Volt Generates Buzz From Gun Owners
Forget about granola-nibbling Californians as the mainstay of electric cars. Gun-toting pickup drivers want ’em, too.
AutoObserver’s entry on General Motors’ Chevrolet Volt electric car generated quite the buzz when it was picked up on a forum of a gun-owners’ Web site, billed as the “Home of the Black Rifle.”
The general consensus of those on the gun-owners' Web site was in favor of electric vehicles -- as long as they have the performance, range, price, etc. of their current vehicles. They want them not for highfalutin reasons like energy independence and energy security or environmental cleanliness but for gas and money savings.
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Posted by Michelle Krebs at 11:14 AM under Commentary , GM , Technology , Toyota | Comments (6) |
