Chevy’s Volt “will likely be too expensive to be commercially successful in the short-term,” reveals the PTFOA in what amounted to stunning news for Volt boosters and no one else. Wasn’t the Volt supposed to justify the whole bailout in the first place? The DetN‘s Scott Burgess takes the “yeah, but” tack, spinning expensive impracticality into farsighted vision. With a little help from his friends, of course. “In hybrid technology, it’s hard to argue that we’re not behind,” GM’s Rob Peterson tells Burgess. “But we believe we have a better solution.” And what of that $40K price tag that the government says will require “substantial reductions in manufacturing cost in order to become commercially viable?” “It’s a transformational technology,” says Peterson. “That’s part of the reason the cost is so expensive. But we believe if you start in the right direction, as the supply base matures, the volumes of the vehicle increases and the costs will go down.” If. As. Will. As in “we hope.” Meanwhile, someone has to pick up the bill and worry about the viability of a firm that is staking everything on an unprofitable-at-$40K moon shot. Needless to say that someone ain’t Bob Lutz . . . .

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If it wasn’t clear before, it is now: GM will use the next 60 days to prepare itself for a Chapter 11 filing. Freshly-minted CEO Fritz Henderson told a suited and booted press Detroit press corps that he wouldn’t have taken the job from Rick Wagoner if he wasn’t prepared to do “whatever it takes” to return GM to profitability. Henderson spoke of his distaste for “messy” bankruptcies, but indicated his willingness to be the new broom. (Dream on, Fritz.) Meanwhile, despite repeated requests by the friendly press flacks, Henderson refused to be drawn out on how much GM will draw out of the taxpayer’s purse while it gets ready to file Chapter 11. He skated over the point faster than a duck landing on a frozen pond, saying that GM might scarf the $2 billion that it didn’t take this month, or the $2.6 billion it requested for April, or both. At the beginning of the conference, Fritz touted GM’s new “Total Confidence” program. TC is designed to protect GM buyers from losing their wheels after they lose their job, and insulate them from [some] negative equity at trade-in time. It doesn’t, however, protect TTAC’s Best and Brightests’ finely honed sensibilities by the unintentionally humorous irony implicit in the program’s name. If you know what I mean.

Big Brother could actually be her indoors, to use the British term for a female spouse. The Sun [UK] reports that a snooping wife was doing the electronic version of twitching curtains (Googling her friend’s house) when she spotted her hubby’s motor parked outside. “The love cheat is not the only husband trapped by Google’s controversial new 360-degree photo search which covers 25 cities and towns throughout the country. Top media lawyer Mark Stephens said: ‘I was talking about the Range Rover case when another divorce lawyer came up to say his firm was dealing with the same sort of thing. People are getting caught out on Google.’”

Mega dittos from our neighbors to the north. The Globe and Mail reports that the Canadian government is also playing hard man re: GM and Chrysler’s call on federal bailout bucks. Yada, yada, yada, restructure, union concessions, new plans, bankruptcy. And then, this:

Chrysler was unable to meet its Canadian payroll today without a $250-million advance on a $1-billion bridge loan from Canadian taxpayers. To qualify for up to $4-billion in long-term aid, Chrysler has to conclude now-stalled negotiations with the CAW on a cost-savings contract and complete the Fiat deal.

To stave off an immediate crisis, the federal and Ontario governments offered the bridge loans—including up to $3-billion for GM—to allow them to continue operating while they work to satisfy U.S. and Canadian government demands.

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The Blue Oval Boyz are launching the curiously named, Hyundai-trumping Ford Advantage Program. The deal—which runs from today to June 1—offers new car buyers 12 months of “payment protection” (leg breakers need not apply) up to $700 per month, zero percent financing and, of all things, a donation to a local charity. Strange times when it’s considered an “advantage” to know you won’t lose your car for a year if you lose your job. Hang on; I’m looking for the fine print now . . . nope, can’t find it. Will update ASAP.

Yesterday, GM’s new boss (president Barack Obama) announced he was firing The General’s CEO and six members of GM’s Board of Bystanders. The new chief executive in chief also elevated BOD member Kent Kresa to the top slot. Kresa, who came to GM from the world’s least consumer-focused industry (unless you count killing them), replaces Rick Wagoner as GM’s new Chairman of the Board. You may remember Kent from from last May, when Kresa told the Wall Street Journal that Red Ink Rick was good to go. I mean, stay. “Management has a handle on the situation.” At the time, I wrote that the former Northrop CEO’s faith in Wagoner’s unspecified turnaround plan reflected “Kresa’s seat-of-the-pants, high stakes poker management style, and faith in political influence peddling.” But really, who IS this guy? Why is Kresa sitting pretty after sitting schtum? A little help from TTAC’s Best and Brightest in the Google department, and some thoughtful analysis, would be most appreciated.

I always tell people that their footwear will have a greater impact on their life than the car they drive . . . and they laugh. Then they start to think about it. All that money that goes into purchasing, financing, repairing, and insuring a car can be used for so many better purposes (for a non-enthusiast). College. Vacations. Cheap wine. You name it. The list is endless and the knowledge to achieve those ends is definitely out there. But how can it “really” be done? How can the laymen amongst us overcome the stacked deck of MBAs and conspicuous consumption that is seemingly “the American way” when it comes to cars and so many other things?

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GM CEO Rick Wagoner promised to reveal the fate of the HUMMER brand today. Old Sparky was warmed-up and everything. Of course, that was before the President of the United States fired Wagoner’s ass. And so the maker of pseudo-military SUVs will spend its eleventh month on death row—sorry, “under strategic review.” Automotive News [sub] reports that GM will now postpone a decision “for a few weeks as it works to complete a sale.” No, they don’t mean “a” sale; they mean the sale of the entire brand. Wait! Does that mean . . . ?

“Our efforts to sell Hummer are proceeding, and there are several parties interested — and I would say really interested — in the brand,” Troy Clarke, GM’s president of North America, said during a call to dealers today. “We’re still very much in the process, although that process is maturing.”

WTH is a “maturing sales process”? Does GM have a buyer for the world’s most politically incorrect automotive brand or not?

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Porsche presented the numbers for the first half of their fiscal 2008/2009. There is bad news and there is pornographic news, says Automobilwoche [sub]. The bad news is that Porsche is not immune against carmageddon: Their unit sales dropped 27 percent to 34K slot cars. In Euros, their sales dropped 12.8 percent to €3B.

Now for the pornographic part. On sales of €3B, Porsche reports a pre-tax profit of—hold on to whatever you can hold on to—€7.34B. In the same period last year, it was only €1.66B. How did they pull this off? You guessed it: The hedge fund with a sheet metal bending subsidiary earned €6.84B at the stock exchange, wheeling and dealing with stocks and derivatives. Why were Euro sales much better than unit sales?
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So, where does DC vs. Detroit leave Opel, Vauxhall et al.? The “private intelligence agency” Stratfor [very expensive sub] summed it up most succinctly: “Add to this the complexity of Opel, a German car maker owned by GM, which Germany wants the United States to bail out but which the United States wants nothing to do with, and the fundamental problem is clear: While both Germany and the United States have a common interest in moving past the crisis, Germany and the United States have very different approaches to the problem.”

Germany’s approach: Do nothing.
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