Sorry about the lateness of tonight’s clue. You Easterners are probably in bed by now, but the left coasters will take up the slack. Speaking of slack, Loser guessed the Ford cop car on the first comment. That makes you a Winner! Hopefully, it won’t go quite so quickly tonight.

Or is it the other way around? Based on the latest readings from our official TTAC losing-the-plot-ometer, Porsche is still at least ten years away from matching this spectacular achievement in short-sighted brand narcissism.

GM earned some goodwill with dealers in recent weeks by reinstating over 600 dealers, most of them rural Cadillac stores. But as always, as soon as one grating issue in GM’s relations with its dealers is resolved, another one appears. Automotive News [sub] reports that GM is seeking five- and six-figure sums from what it terms “a very small” number of dealers who allegedly violated the terms of its Standards for Excellence Incentive program. This might be a relatively normal occurrence, if it weren’t made more complicated by GM’s recent bankruptcy. Because GM audited its dealers before bankruptcy, but didn’t act on the information until now, GM says that its penalties aren’t debatable, and that the normal audit process will not be available to dealers receiving the bills.
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After early versions of the 2010 Mustang Convertible were caught crushing crash dummy heads, Ford re-worked its retro cruiser for a less “mind-blowing” crash test performance. If you’ve got a 2010 ’stangvertible in mind, you might want to make sure it was built after December of last year.

Just as Toyota has coasted in recent years on a reputation built some time ago, Audi’s latest round of interior-cheapening has gone largely unremarked-upon in the motoring press. Sitting in the new A4, I don’t find myself thinking, as Motor Trend did, that its “high-quality materials and clean, attractive design continue to live up to Audi’s stellar reputation as the industry benchmark.” In fact, the interiors of nearly every current Audi (except the A8 and TT) strike me as cheap, disappointing and monumentally uninspired. In other words, the opposite of living up to Audi’s reputation.

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China has become a world automobile producing and consuming power, but it should also be noted that the industry still lacks core technology and has weak innovative capabilities… This creates hidden dangers for public safety

The closest thing Toyota has given to an explicit accounting of its unintended acceleration woes is the admission that rapid growth detracted from the company’s previously unquestioned commitment to quality. With the Chinese auto market growing even faster than Toyota was, the Chinese Central government is anxious to prevent such nasty side-effects of rapid volume growth from manifesting themselves in the domestic auto industry. And well it should be: with Chinese automakers like BYD poised to launch overseas sales campaigns, the Chinese auto industry is at a crucial stage in developing its international image. China’s Ministry of Information and Technology has released a statement [via DetNews] urging its domestic automakers to heed Toyota’s example, and adopt “new technology, new techniques, new equipment and new materials” to master the balance between profit and quality. And hopefully move past the image of hand-assembled batteries and carbon-copy design while they’re at it. Meanwhile, Toyota is feeling the hurt. Stung by calls by the government to compensate Chinese drivers, Toyota-FAW fell from China’s top ten sales list. Toyota China reported a 30 percent rise in sales in February, but at 45,400 units the firm was still way down from its 72,000 unit January performance.

Jim Sikes’ Prius high-speed dash to fame or infamy is a media hype-fest, with wild swings in sentiment from Toyota bashing to Sikes trashing. The rush to judgment is innately human, and Sikes certainly makes an easy target. But in the process, very little effort has been made to analyze what actually happened, or what might have actually happened, on the basis of the facts rather than Jim Sikes’ financial history and sexual proclivities.

There clearly are valid questions in Sikes’ seeming inability to bring the Prius to a stop, and certain inconsistent and contradictory statements. But Toyota, which should know better, is not helping either. The brakes on the Prius were utterly worn down in examination, and were witnessed to be smoking. Yet Toyota continues to assert that “the hybrid braking system used in the Prius would make the engine lose power if the brakes were pressed at the same time as the accelerator”. (WSJ 3/14/10) That statement smells as bad as some of Sikes’, so I rented a 2008 Prius to determine what could or couldn’t have happened, and examine some of the other claims and counterclaims. You be the jury.

A memo released by the Congressional aide who witnessed the tear down of the Prius clearly shows that the front brake pads were worn completely off, and grooves had been cut into the discs from the pad retainers or calipers. The rear drum brakes shoes, which tend to wear much more slowly, were worn down to one-eighth of the normal depth. The discs showed signs of heat discoloration. Sikes claimed he smelled the brakes. The CHP officer said he saw the brakes smoking. There is no doubt that the brakes were being applied by Sikes.

This morning, NHTSA issued the following statement: “Further, the Prius is equipped with a system that detects simultaneous brake and accelerator pedal applications. When the brake applications are moderate or greater, the system will close the throttle allowing the vehicle to slow down and stop,” said NHTSA officials. “The system on Mr. Sikes’ Prius worked during our engineers’ test drive.”

The key here is the degree of brake pressure, and what variance there may be from car to car, or if that system is prone to malfunction. I tested the system initially by applying very strong pressure, and the system worked, cutting power from the engine. But there is a wide range of pedal pressure less than a full-on application that did not cut the power.

I drove along for quite a few miles, with wide open throttle (WOT), and kept the Prius’ speed reduced by continuous left foot braking to various degrees. Depending on terrain and brake pressure, vehicle speed was restrained to as little as 45 mph and as high as 90 mph.

Coincidentally, as the battery depleted (from e-motor assist), the brakes also began to lose some effectiveness from excess heat and fade. Describing the amount of pedal pressure used is subjective, but I would call it moderate, comparable to what one would use to come to a stop from high speed in a reasonably short time.

When I noticed increasing fade, I pulled over and the front wheels were engulfed in a cloud of smoke. I had also begun to smell the brakes through the ventilation system. I did not drive long enough to induce significant brake wear, but I have little doubt in my mind that they could be fully worn down driving in this fashion for an extended period, such as Sikes’ thirty-some miles at speeds between 80 and 94 mph.

Several scenarios are possible. The brake override that normally kicks in at high braking pressure could have failed. If his Prius suffered some sort of random electronic “ghost” to cause the UA, than it seems safe to assume that could theoretically also affect the brake override. But even then, it still should have been possible to stop the Prius, IF one strong application was undertaken. If Sikes cycled the pedal repeatedly, like the SD CHP officer in the Lexus did, the relatively modest-sized Prius braking system could have begun to exhibit terminal fade fairly quickly, and the engine would have been able to overpower it to some degree.

If the override system didn’t fail, that leaves two possibilities. Either Sikes purposefully and carefully modulated the brakes just to the degree that allowed the Prius to continue to travel at fairly high speed, using both feet like I did. Or if his Prius really was running wide open against his will, he is such a tentative and poorly skilled driver that he never actually pushed the brake pedal harder than a moderate amount.

Unless his performance on his cell phone was remarkably well controlled, it sounds to me like he was genuinely panicked and was putting all his effort in steering the car and maintaining some degree of control. It’s also clear from the 911 tape that most of the time the phone was on the seat or elsewhere, because he wasn’t responding to almost any of the 911 operator’s requests or questions.

It is possible that since he thought putting the car in neutral might cause it to lose control, he may have felt the same about the consequences of a full-on brake application: that it might throw the Prius into a skid. Many drivers have never explored the full range of their vehicle’s dynamic responses to unfamiliar or extreme control inputs, and are loath to find out.

Speaking of neutral, putting a Prius into that realm is not as simple, obvious or intuitive as might typically be the case. The joystick has to be held to the N position for a more than a moment, because the stick has no detent. And then it goes back to its normal position. This is similar to D and R, but it might be a challenge to ponder during an actual emergency.

One aspect of Sikes’ story is suspect. He claims that the actual gas pedal was stuck to the floor, and that he reached down to try to pull it up, unsuccessfully. First, this is an e-pedal, and a Denso one that has no history of sticking. Even if it was a bit sticky, it would have been easy to pull free,assuming you could reach it. I’m tall, and had no trouble reaching it; Stephanie did (have trouble).  Sikes wants us (or himself) to believe that the engine running wide open would somehow cause the pedal to also be wide open, as would be the case if there was a mechanical linkage or throttle cable.  But he may have said that to convince himself and/or others that he was trying to do something about the runaway Prius.

The hoax theory is compelling, but why would Sikes put himself at serious risk by destroying his brakes, when he had no way of ascertaining when the police would actually show up, if at all? Why not just drive down the freeway at 85 to 90, and just say the brakes didn’t work at all, like others have done? Or run into a wall at slow speed? Somehow, Sikes doesn’t strike me as a high-speed daredevil, willing to risk his life at ninety with completely shot brakes. Of course, that could also just as well confirm his stupidity.

The comparison to the Balloon Boy is appealing, but conveniently leaves out one important fact: the Ballon Boy was never in the balloon; it was launched empty. Sikes actually was in his brakeless Prius at ninety, audibly panting hard, so in that regard at least he was either a lot gutsier or a lot stupider than the Ballon Boy perpetrators. And a hell of an actor, to boot.

We still own the Ralliart name, and we still intend to brand our cars with it. The biggest change for us is that we won’t have to pay royalties to use the name anymore,

Mitsubishi North America spokesman Maurice Durand explains to Automotive News [sub] why the death of Mitsu-owned racing firm Ralliart is actually kind of a good thing. After all, how many Americans really watch rallying often enough to know or care whether Mitsubishi’s erstwhile rallying partner has anything to do with the cars that bear its name? The fact that the Lancer Ralliart has a two-liter turbocharged engine and AWD is what consumers will notice; using a brand name that leaves no doubt as to the inspiration for the trim level does everything it needs to from a marketing perspective. Whether a team named Ralliart actually races similar vehicles is, in the modern marketing context, almost completely irrelevant. After all, Subaru isn’t even competing in the World Rally Championship at all anymore… the old “win on Sunday, sell on Monday” adage couldn’t be more dead.

Remember Maybach? With eight years and untold millions now spent in a futile attempt to dethrone Rolls-Royce at the tope of the automotive pecking order, it seems that the monument to Daimler’s arrogance and greed will be going the way of Pontiac and HUMMER. Auto Express reports that

The firm plans to launch mildly facelifted versions of its three-model line-up – with new grilles and LED lights likely to be the only changes – before the marque is allowed to slip away.

Bosses have now privately admitted plans to wind down the brand – resurrected in 2002 – due to disappointing sales. The Maybach decision is part of Mercedes’ wider plans to take the next-generation S-Class upmarket.

Will there be any tears for the world’s most pimped-out S-Class? Of course not. Despite actively courting celebrities, and later, actually marketing the brand, Daimler was never able to break its super-luxe brand into the stratosphere of household-name luxury. At least not for more than a few months during relatively go-go economic times. As we recently noted, the experiment has conclusively failed. Maybach has nowhere to go but the ash heap of history. If we ever miss it too much, we’ll be sure to buy a brand-new, fully-loaded S-Class and take it to the least-tasteful tuner we can find.

That Bible of the intelligencia, Consumer Reports, has released its 2010 Annual Auto Issue, and once again, denizens of Cambridge, Austin, Berkeley, Eugene, and their sister university towns all over the land are parsing its pages, seeking cars that will maximize their utility. Or maybe I’m projecting. Anyway, with apologies to Michael Karesh and True Delta, here’s a summary of the work of the wonks from Yonkers and East Haddam.
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