Steve Parker Motoring / The Car Nut

LA AUTO SHOW PART TWO, WHERE MUSTANGS AND CAMAROS SELL HYBRIDS AND EVs

(Ferrari's all-new California, above, claimed the "Most Eponymous Car Award" at the 2008 Los Angeles Auto Show. It's not a bad-looking little piece, either).

How anxious are the Detroit Three carmakers to make sales?

My wife and I were at the Los Angeles Auto Show last night, "Black Friday," at the Los Angeles Convention Center. At the hustling and bustling Ford display, several Ford employees approached us with an almost unheard-of offer: If we agreed to test drive - just test drive - a new Ford Fusion, Ford would give us $50.

That's desperation.

Even more frightening, it also means I might finally look respectable enough to appear a model, trustworthy citizen. The kind of guy you'd like to test-drive one of your cars. Ah, where did I go wrong?
(Ford's alll-new gas/electric hybrid Fusion, twin car to the Mercury Milan, had trouble outdoing the excitement of the 2010 Mustang at the LA Auto Show, but Ford staffers told me they were getting a lot of interest - very welcome interest - in Ford's second-generation hybrids).

In Ford's large exhibit area, replete with spinning DJs (or is it "DJs spinning?"), video crews, Las Vegas-style electronic billboards and even a magician performing close-up tricks to entertain kids while mom and dad car-shop, my wife filled-out a form to enter some sort of contest. The next day - today - she got a call from one of our local Ford dealers (and we live 100 miles from downtown Los Angeles), asking her if she would come to their dealership and test-drive one or a few new cars.

With our emphasis on green and/or significant cars and trucks, let's make our final visit to this year's Los Angeles Auto Show.

(Intimate was handing-out info on their EV, a glorified golf cart with few amenities, the kind of EV which makes many people edgy about the whole green concept. To the right is the handiwork of a company called Smart Madness ... Adding horizontal doors to the Smart. Legendary King of the Kustomizers, Hollywood's George Barris, showed a similar car at the recent SEMA Show in Las Vegas, but, naturally, Barris' was a Batman tribute car; Barris built the real Batmobile, too).

LA AUTO SHOW - THE GREENING OF AMERICA AND MORE, PART 1

 At this year's version of the Los Angeles Auto Show, the 205-mile per hour, $100,000, 2009 Corvette ZR1 is relegated to the very rear of the Chevrolet exhibit, like those sleazy "adults only" section in video stores. The Green Car of the Year is a diesel (VW's Jetta TDI) and the usually standout exhibits from GM and Chrysler/Dodge/Jeep were discouragingly quiet.

(Pontiac's new Solstice coupe hardtop, top photo, looks great, and for under $30,000, buyers get a turbo'd 2.0 liter inline-4 pumping out 260 horsepower while averaging around 24 mpg, while the similarly styled Mazda MX5 Miata offers a hardtop convertible for under $25K, but there's about 100 fewer horses from the car's 2.0 liter I4 and the mpg figures for both cars is almost the same; Corvette's over-600 horsepower 2009 ZR1, above, a 205 mph $100,000 car, was relegated to an empty space in the back of the Chevrolet exhibit, just like so much automotive pornography).

For the past two years, Green Car Journal has given an award titled Green Car of the Year. Toyota's Camry hybrid won the first, and Chevrolet's Tahoe hybrid won last year, which, although a good choice, was hard to explain to non-tech-types.

Volkswagen's Jetta TDI clean diesel won this year, the first car with clean diesel technology approved for sale in all 50 states. Now we await the first pure, mass-produced EV to win (which will be from Nissan, if you believe company chief Carlos Ghosn, who spoke to the media at the Los Angeles show about that very thing), then the first mass-produced hydrogen-fueled fuel cell EV.

(VW's Jetta TDI was named Green Car of the Year; this is a turbocharged racing version of the car built for VW's "TDI Cup" racing series).

ELEVEN MARKETS WORLDWIDE WITH BIG AUTO INDUSTRY PROBLEMS

(Alfa-Romeo's gorgeous new 8C comes from the Italian auto industry, which at the moment seems strong, from Ferrari to Fiat).

What this post does, I hope, is create awareness of how huge and crucial the car-making business is throughout the world. Here's some of what's happening (mostly with GM) in Europe and Asia, two markets outside the U.S. hit hardest by the slowing automobile business:

1- Poland

General Motors has been making informal approaches to the Polish government for financial help. Officials in Poland also are bracing for huge job losses, maybe as many as 10,000 in their auto sector. Suppliers in Poland are likely to be hit hard because most of their products are exported to western Europe, where production and sales are falling sharply as a result of the global economic slowdown. Renault dealerships will remain open in Warsaw (more on that below).

2- Belgium

GM is also having informal discussions with the Belgian government in Brussels about receiving financial assistance for keeping GM facilities in that country open. Also, the vice chairman of GM's union said he was speaking to GM management in Belgium about approaching the Belgian government for funding to support the carmaker's plant in Antwerp. He said the talks focused on pushing forward GM's Antwerp factory production start date for a Corsa-based small SUV, which has been postponed by a year to 2012. An investment of €100 million (USD $127,000,000) to €120 million (USD $152,000,000) will be needed to bring the launch date of the vehicle forward to January 2011. (Former GM CEO Roger Smith at the Spring Hill, TN., Saturn factory. Smith wil be remembered for creating Saturn; maybe a return to Saturn's original emphasis on customer service is what's needed at dealerships worldwide).

3- Spain

Another country where GM is trying to open discussions with the government in Madrid to help keep their production facilities in Spain open and producing cars.

EUROPE'S, CHINA'S CARMAKERS ASK FOR HELP; WAXMAN WINS KEY CONGRESSIONAL POST

In a major win for all consumers, Democrats in the House of Representatives voted Thursday to put Rep. Henry Waxman of California in charge of a key panel that will have oversight over global warming issues in the new Congress.

He'll head the House Energy and Commerce Committee, replacing Michigan Democratic Rep. John Dingell, 82, the most senior member in the House. Waxman is probably best-known nationally for his tenacity in taking-on the tobacco industry and developing and passing many laws concerning their manufacture and, especially, their sale. In his new post, Waxman can now demand better mileage, lower emissions and more safety from Detroit-made cars and trucks.

(Above, vehicles like GM's hydrogen fueled fuel-cell EV Equinox, are slowly capturing the public's imagination; Henry Waxman (l) will be a pit bull, but without lipstick, working with Detroit to try and save the US auto industry through sensible but quick development of more vehicles like Equinox; below, Rick Wagoner testifies to Congress with GM VP Bob Lutz just to his right).

The 82-year old Dingell has represented a suburban Detroit area since 1955. Often called, "The Congressman From General Motors" for his non-stop support of the Detroit Three and for his chairmanship which guided what his important Committee would discuss when it came to fuel mileage, emissions and many other car-related issues. Dingell and Waxman have fought often through the years. Click on this line to see the NY Times article documenting Dingell's fall and Waxman's rise.

In front of two House committees this week, the Detroit Three were represented by their respective CEOs, Chrysler by Robert Nardelli, Ford by Alan Mulally and GM by Richard Wagoner. Their testimony was that they believe the crisis in their business is all about tight credit, forcing consumers who want to buy cars and trucks to wait until the economy comes back.

They still refuse to take any responsibility for making vehicles which many Americans simply don't want to buy. Poor product has been Detroit's problem since the middle of the 1970s, the same time that Japanese-made cars entered the U.S. market, when many consumers had their first experience with better reliability. Also, Japanese cars included many items, such as rear window defoggers and dual side mirrors, as standard equipment, things which had always been expensive options on Detroit's vehicles.

And it's been a severe downhill run for Detroit ever since.

What the economic crisis really did create was a sense of urgency for "saving Detroit," which resulted in the Detroit Three chiefs put on public display under the glare of TV lights in front of Senate and House committees, and what America saw, they didn't much like.

DETROIT'S DAY OF RECKONING IN THE U.S. SENATE

 
(Left to right, Ron Gettelfinger, head of the UAW, Alan Mulally of Ford, Robert Nardelli of Chrysler, Rick Wagoner of GM and Peter Morici, a university professor who specializes in macro-economics and who argued with his fellow panel members).

Well, it looks like the jig is up, the party’s over, the lights are out and Detroit has left the building.

And instead of a $25 or $50 billion golden goose, it appears Chapter 11 bankruptcy, which allows a company to stay in business while they reorganize with a government overseer, seems to be where the Detroit Three are headed.

Today, predictably and correctly, the heads of the Detroit Three are being raked over the coals – again - not only for their performances at yesterday’s Senate hearings, but for how they got from Detroit to D.C. and back again for the hearings. (A member of Code Pink holds a "Shame" sign behind Chrysler's Nardelli during his testimony; this group of brave women are at every important Congressional hearing, always making their case in imaginative ways).

Each of them used corporate jet aircraft, and estimates of their round-trip costs are $20,000 for each Detroit Three leader. Keep in mind these were three men coming from the same place and going to the same place at the same times (and yes, we took note that something was wrong with the hearing’s very appearance - the entire panel of those testifying and everyone asking questions were white men, if I remember correctly).

FIVE MISTAKES DC AND DETROIT ARE MAKING WHICH HURT DETROIT THREE SURVIVAL

 

(Corvette's all-new ZR1 has a top speed of 205mph - With the very existence of the Detroit Three now in serious question, as crazy as that sounds. Anyone wanting one of these cars better be ready to pay cash).

Five mistakes Washington and Detroit are making which could kill any help or support for our American car companies:

Mistake #1- Consumers and the environment are no longer considered in Washington's loans to the Detroit Three.

In Sen. Harry Reid's new bill to allow direct and swift loans to the Detroit Three, consumers and environmentalists are being forgotten, left out in the cold. While top industry executives would have to give up bonuses and golden parachutes and stockholders would receive no dividends (all good and necessary), the bill does not set additional fuel-economy requirements on automakers getting loans. Nor does it establish a government oversight board to help manage the companies. That's two strikes against getting our money's worth; can hardly wait for strike three.

(We've used this photo in other posts, but that's because it's so interesting. What's Harry Reid, on the left, and appropriately so, doing hanging with Kirk Kerkorian at a Las Vegas prizefight? Kerkorian has owned hundreds of millions of dollars' worth, and probably more, stock in all the Detroit Three at one time or another. His sale of his Ford holdings a few weeks back lowered Ford stock to under $5. Interesting bedfellows to say the least).

MISTAKE #2 - The General a no-show in Los Angeles.

GM canceled any new vehicle introductions and all press conferences at this week's Media Days before the public opening of the Los Angeles Auto Show this Friday, Nov 21. The corporation also announced last week that they are halting all research and development on future cars and trucks. This would seem to make their Volt plug-in hybrid - and the high-mileage Chevrolet Cruze, already on-sale in South Korea and slated for Europe in mid-2009 - both dead issues - at least for the time being. This is all how not to build confidence in your company.

(GM's CEO of their Daewoo operation, Micheal Grimaldi, the one on the right, and two models/actresses, introduce the all-new Daewoo Lacetti, the Korean version of the Cruze, already being built and sold in its home market. Chevrolet's high-mileage Cruze will be built in Lordstown, Ohio, if and when GM gives the go-ahead. It's already being built by GM division Daewoo in Korea and sold there, and St. Petersburg, Russia, will be the site of the car's building when it goes on-sale next year in Europe. So far, no word on when - or if - US production might begin).

MEMO TO DETROIT: CHANGE NOW OR DIE!

The “saving” of the American auto industry has become a comedy of errors, a circus with

seemingly no good end in sight.

Feeling somewhat helpless about it all, I decided, in that great American business tradition, to

send a memo!

Memo - To Rick Wagoner (GM), Alan Mulally (Ford) and Robert Nardelli (Chrysler):

1) You’re all fired.

Please leave this memo behind for the new leaders of your companies.

(Top photo, GM CEO Rick Wagoner, left, and Gary Shapiro, president of the Consumer Electronics Show at the group's annual Las Vegas convention. Sharing the stage is the GM/Chevrolet Volt plug-in hybrid concept, now a dead issue unless GM gets a cash infusion which some analysts say must be close to $22 billion, otherwise the company will be history).

2) America doesn’t trust you.

Most Americans think you have brought this disaster upon yourselves, with inferior, irrelevant

products the past 35 years.

3) Stop fighting.

Since 1970, when the EPA and NHTSA were created, you have fought tooth-and-nail every

advancement and improvement in your industry.

In doing so, you’ve wasted untold billions of dollars and the efforts of thousands of your

smartest and highest-paid employees.

4) Don’t build what we don’t need.

Shoe-horning your biggest V8 engines into full-size trucks and SUVs, because it was an easy

way to make hundreds of millions of dollars, is wrong.  And selling them to an audience conditioned to buy them is also wrong.

(Photo above right, what possible statement Chrysler is making with this shot of their newest Ram truck atop a Dodge flatbed escapes me. Why hand it out to the media? It can only result in bad jokes. Photo, above left, Robert Nardelli was hired by Cerberus to run Chrysler, but with no experience in the car business, one wonders why they really hired him for this job; Cerberus also hired Jim Press, highest-ranking American in Toyota/Lexus/Scion, but he has to report to Smilin' Bob, and we haven't seen Press' name in the news lately. He might be biding his time until his contract is up; he is a very smart guy).

5) Create a 21st century franchise system along with your dealerships.

Though there’s much to be done, a good start is to instill a version of GM’s Saturn sales

system in your showrooms; that would surely be welcome by car-buyers.

Click below for more on why Detroit must change now - or die!

SEMA SHOW -2008 - 150 IMAGES NOW ONLINE!

Our new SEMA 2008 photo album is now available!

To view, simply click here or find the Photo Album section in the left-hand margin.

Enjoy the views, and be sure to let us know any questions or comments you may have!

Next up - The Los Angeles Auto Show. We'll be there for the show's two media days, November 19th and 20th, and make sure you'll have access to all our photos and videos as soon as soon as we post them!

SEMA, 2008 - A TIME TO PONDER THE FUTURE OF PERFORMANCE

(Only at SEMA could one see a Bentley-looking Chrysler 300 and with vertical doors, yet; why someone built it, we're not so sure, but it sure got our attention - for better or worse!).

Flush with victory and a good old-fashioned mandate, President-elect Barack Obama, in his first press conference since the election said, "The auto industry is the backbone of American manufacturing and a critical part of our attempt to reduce our dependence on foreign oil. I would like to see the Administration do everything they can to accelerate the retooling assistance  that Congress has already enacted."

But many observers think that grave damage has already been done to the Detroit Three, and that the $25 billion in direct government loans already approved and starting to trickle into GM, Ford and Chrysler will be too little, too late.

Several analysts have said that if even one of the Detroit Three files for Chapter 7 bankruptcy, when a company dissolves, rather than Chapter 11, which allows a company to stay in business while it reorganizes, more than two million Americans will lose their jobs. (The 2009 Pontiac Solstice Turbo GXP looking better with its hardtop than even Mazda's MX5; but the Mazda's hardtop opens and closes at the touch of a button; below, a T-bucket sponsored by Firestone and the American Trucking Assoication captured many eyeballs at SEMA).

Last week, we spent time at the annual automotive high-performance orgy known as the SEMA Show. Founded in 1963, the Specialty Equipment Market Association is a lobbying group and professional organization made-up of some 7,000 companies worldwide, which manufacture performance and appearance products for a near-$40 billion automotive aftermarket: consumers wanting to personalize their cars and trucks.

Their annual exhibition in Las Vegas draws about 100,000 participants from around the globe, including those from product manufacturers, buyers ranging from teams working for giant chains like Wal-Mart to a single person from a local hot rod shop, members of the enthusiast and general-interest media and the car-makers themselves.

Many of the people and companies we saw at SEMA last week may very well be out of a job or out of business by next year's show. And those on the losing side could range from a closed two-person aluminum wheel repair company run out of a garage to General Motors, Ford and Chrysler.

To its credit, SEMA did try to create some excitement for "green" products, services and marketing approaches. One exhibit showcased companies active in the development, deployment and marketing of green technologies, while SEMA tried to prove that being environmentally friendly can also be "cool."

Click below for more on the 2008 SEMA Show, why it was so important as a harbinger of all our automotive futures, and what the "green" quotient was at the show.

THE FINAL TALLY - CALIFORNIA'S DRIVING AND ENERGY PROPOSITIONS

We're off to the SEMA Show today, so no time for photos ... but bear with us, anyway. Thanks!

Okay America! Breathe out! It's over. No more Palin, Plumber or McCain.

Back to business:

With a state-wide victory for President-elect Barack Obama (I like typing that) a foregone conclusion here in California, it was, as it's been so many times in the past, the California ballot's propositions which garnered much of the attention.

We in California have turned the "state-wide proposition" into an art form of sorts. And yesterday there were twelve of them on our ballots, from National City in the southern part of the state to Carmel on the Central Coast and up to Yuba City, north of Sacramento.

Three of the twelve props were about energy and transportation. Two of my favorite topics.

Proposition 1A was entitled the Safe, Reliable High-Speed Train Bond Act, and who could argue with that? Imagine - A Bullet Train between Los Angeles and Las Vegas! A "gambler's special" which will get you from Union Station in downtown LA (you've all seen it a thousand times in films and TV shows) to Lost Wages, Nevada in under two hours.

But that's not what this proposition calls for.

Certainly there's no argument on a Yes for 1A vote from those who have been fortunate enough to visit parts of the country outside Southern California and other parts of the world where safe, inexpensive and fast public transit is the beating heart of many economies. Think of New York City without the subway. Scary, right? Four million people a day trying to drive into Manhattan? Fegideboutit.

1A calls for selling a little under $10 billion in state bonds to fund the planning for a system of high-speed rail linking San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Sacramento.

Looks like we in California have finally summoned up the gumption to at least look at tackling a huge engineering challenge, because Prop. 1A passed with about 350,000 more votes than the "no" side.

Prop. 7 was the Renewable Energy Generation Initiative.

Click below for more on California's energy and driving propositions and how they will affect you!

SALES SHOCKER: GM DROPS 45%, INDUSTRY DOWN 32% OVERALL

(Above, at last year's SEMA Show, Volvo displayed a hot rod version of the first Volvo, to the right in the photo. If Ford, Volvo and every other car-maker did things this original - and the concepts made it into production and offered great fuel mileage - you couldn't keep the buyers away from showrooms! But very few car companies have the necessary guts).

October's new car and truck sales numbers are in, and they're worse than anyone expected - at least publicly. Sales at General Motors, Ford and Chrysler plunged in October, their weakest performance in a quarter century.

GM plummeted 45.1% from a year earlier. Ford sold 132,248 cars and trucks, down 32%. Toyota outsold Ford on its way to their own 23% drop. Mercedes and Honda were down more than 24%, while Nissan, Hyundai and Chrysler were all down at least 31%.

Ford's US brands -- Ford, Lincoln, and Mercury -- fell 29.2%. Volvo plunged 52.1%.

Of the four biggest automakers in the United States, only two have reported monthly sales increases this year: Toyota in April and GM in January.

For the second time in just two months, industry sales fell below 1 million. It was the US market's 12th-straight monthly decline and the second straight of more than 25%.

US auto sales have averaged 16.8 million this decade through 2007. This year 12 million might be a realistic goal. It's like 25% of car and truck sales have just disappeared.

Americans should know that only Barack Obama has offered to meet with the heads of the Detroit Three and the UAW immediately after his election, and that he still remains in favor of the original $50 billion bailout which Detroit's car-makers have asked for, not the $25 billion which the Bush White House (and, not surprisingly, John McCain) has said should be "enough."

(Ford's European Focus SST is exactly the kind of car the company should be selling in the US, and they should revive their SVT division to develop SVT or SST versions of the Focus, Fusion, and even the Taurus and the Lincoln MKS).

Click below to read more about the bad sales numbers for the US car market and the need for Barack Obama to lead the country - and the Detroit Three - into the 21st century - Whether they like it or not!

LEWIS HAMILTON WINS F1 TITLE; FIRST BLACK RACER IN THE SPORT

In a motor racing season with a unique similarity to the US Presidential contest and which might bode well for Barack Obama's chances, Lewis Hamilton, 23 and the first Black driver in the history of Grand Prix racing, won the World Driving Championship on Sunday, the most coveted title in all of motorsports, at the Interlagos track in Sao Paulo, Brazil. This season was just the Brit's second in F1; last year, a series of "rookie mistakes" cost him the title.

Ferrari won the Constructors' World Championship; that team's drivers scored more points overall than Hamilton and his McLaren Mercedes teammate, Heikki Kovalainen.

(Below; Lewis Hamilton leads the F1 pack in his McLaren Mercedes).

F1 race cars are the world's most expensive and technologically- and aerodynamically-advanced. This season  there were 11 teams with two cars each at the 18 races on the schedule. The teams included powerhouses like Hamilton's McLaren Mercedes, Ferrari, Renault, Sauber BMW, Honda and Toyota. A new team, Force India, entered F1 for the first time this year. The F1 "circus" travels throughout Europe, much of Asia and Oceania, Shanghai, to Suzuka in Japan and, of course, the fabled street race in Monte Carlo.

Currently, there are no American drivers in F1 and no F1 races slated for North America in the sport's 2009 schedule. The Brazil race is now the only F1 stop in the western hemisphere. A new race in Abu Dhabi replaces Montreal for 2009.

Click below for more on Lewis Hamilton's phenomenal World Driving Championship victory!

OCTOBER NEW CAR/TRUCK SALES REPORTS SHOULD FAVOR OBAMA

This Monday, the new car and truck sales reports for the month of October will be announced, and are expected to be the worst in 25-or-more years.

Those numbers should be used to bring more voters to the polls the next day, solid members of the Democratic Party and those who might vote that way for the first time. Democratic candidates and volunteers working phone banks in some key states should use these numbers to convince those still (somehow) undecided or too depressed by their own economic situation to vote to do something positive and vote for Barack Obama and other Democrats running for office, locally, statewide and nationally.

(Above, The Daewoo Lacetti was put on-sale in South Korea last week, and Michael Grimaldi, on the right, CEO of GM/Daewoo, along with the prerequisite-in-Asia models, made its public introduction; Below, the Chevrolet Cruze, US version of the Lacetti, was introduced at October's Paris Car Show, but may be delayed in the US until 2011; Bottom, Cruze's interior).

Friday on CNBC, an auto industry analyst said that if General Motors were to go bankrupt, more than two million Americans would lose their jobs, including those working directly for GM, at their hundreds of supplier companies, all of their dealership personnel – the list goes on and on.

And several analysts agree that GM is burning through $1 billion a month – in cash they don’t have.

GM’s condition is so bad that one of their most important new high-mileage vehicles, the Chevrolet Cruze, could be delayed in the US until 2011 or farther, while the car is being built and sold in South Korea now and plans call for its sale in Europe in March, 2009. And GM’s much-vaunted Volt plug-in hybrid may also be delayed for the same reason.

(If the high-mileage Cruze's interior turns out to be as spacious in its production cars as it is in this artwork, Chevy might have a winner on its hands).

Click below for more on why Barack Obama should be elected President and why the auto industry - and all of us - will benefit from his election.