Some people (like about half of the nation) are convinced the Government has a conflict of interest when it comes to Toyota. Many believe there is a witchhunt against Toyota by a government, and by unions that want GM’s major competitor bleed money and market share before the big GM IPO. 25 percent believe the criticism stems from an outright desire to help GM, while 38 percent disagree and 37 percent aren’t sure. Whatever the reason may be, Toyota is beginning to show battle fatigue. (Read More…)

Noticed that things have been a little slower around here this week? Yes, well, it’s summer and I’m much harder to motivate in the summer. Also, I’ve been working on this op-ed on the Chevy Volt for the New York Times. My conclusion on the Volt?

In the end, making the bailout work — whatever the cost — is the only good reason for buying a Volt. The car is not just an environmental hair shirt (a charge leveled at the Prius early in its existence), it is an act of political self-denial as well.

If G.M. were honest, it would market the car as a personal donation for, and vote of confidence in, the auto bailout. Unfortunately, that’s not the kind of cross-branding that will make the Volt a runaway success.

The Obama administration went here before, when it tried to quantify how much worse things would have been without its stimulus bill. And considering the task force has enjoyed access to GM and Chrysler’s business plans, it’s surprising that this graph (from the Auto Task Force’s just-released Bailout “report” [PDF]) is based on notoriously iffy BLS data. Instead of projecting how many jobs were saved by Detroit’s $86b life raft, couldn’t the White House have cited GM and Chrysler’s pre-bailout Chapter 11 plans? Or were there pre-bailout bankruptcy plans? Either way, the Task Force’s claim that 56k jobs have been created in Automotive since mid-2009 is a bit hard to swallow given the SIGTARP’s recent finding that

Treasury made a series of decisions [regarding the bailout-era dealer cull] that may have substantially contributed to the accelerated shuttering of thousands of small businesses and thereby potentially adding tens of thousands of workers to the already lengthy unemployment rolls.

By narrowing a broad bailout to just the manufacturing side (the report leaves out dealer cuts and the GMAC rescue), the Task Force is simply defining its way to victory. Besides, the problem is that there’s really no way of knowing what might have happened without last year’s landslide of government sugar. For all we know, Fiat might have bought a bankrupt Chrysler with its own money. GM might have shuttered dying brands and cut its bloated capacity of its own volition. Both might even be in mediocre-to-OK shape right now. The only thing we know for sure is that the auto bailout has been a qualified success at best so far. Luckily for the bailout boosters, it will be years before Treasury fully divests from GM and Chrysler, so there will be plenty of other opportunities to declare victory.

The idea behind the Automotive X-Prize was to prove that 100 MPGe (miles per gallon equivalent) is attainable in practical, daily-driver-type cars. And with competition moving into the final stage, 15 cars are still in the running. But how good are those cars actually? With only $10m in prize money, the X-Prize attracted few established OEMs to the competition, and as a result only a single car has made it through to the finals in the Mainstream class. This class was the main focus of the competition, as its requirement that each car “must seat at least four passengers, have four wheels, and have a minimum 200 mile range” meant Mainstream entries could be alternatives to “real cars.” Instead, the competition is being dominated by the “Alternative” class (two passengers, 100 miles range and any amount of wheels), which was included to open the competition smaller teams. And despite the fact that most of the entries had few restrictions on their designs, you might assume that they have performed impressively. The numbers, however, paint a very different picture.
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Some folks are convinced that EVs are taking over the world. So convinced they are that they are already publicly worried about peak Lithium. Lithium is found in unstable places. An internal Pentagon memo states that Afghanistan could become the “Saudi Arabia of lithium,” writes the New York Times. Then there are distressing news that countries like Chile, Bolivia and China sit on piles of lithium. Should we be worried? Nein, says a study from Germany. (Read More…)

Things did quiet down since March after Geely signed the contract to buy Volvo from Ford. A lot of people think Geely already owns Volvo. Geely doesn’t own Volvo until the deal is closed. But Geely might own Volvo as early as next week. (Read More…)

A motorist who avoids a police car is inherently suspicious, according to a ruling handed down by the Minnesota Court of Appeals on Tuesday. A three-judge panel found that even if the officer observed no illegal conduct, a traffic stop and interrogation is justified when a driver seems not to want to be around a patrol car.

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I’m still shaking when I think back to my first ride in the passenger seat of a brandnew Phaeton. It was piloted by a known reckless high executive of Volkswagen. Near Hannover, we barreled down the Autobahn, with the speedo indicating something above 250 km/h. I didn’t dare to inspect it closer, because I was scared to death. We were in the thickest of fogs. Visibility zero. “Aren’t you worried?” I inquired with a shaking voice. “Nope. We have RADAR.” Actually, it was called Abstandswarnung (distance warning). Now, Nissan will make it available to the common Joe. (Read More…)

Did we mention that there is a remake of the economic miracle in Europe going on? Despite tanking car sales, despite daily stories about near bankrupt EU-countries, European manufacturers are in high gear. Did we mention that despite imploding sales at home, Volkswagen delivered 16 percent more units to customers in the first six months of 2010? One would think that might have some bearing on VeeDub’s financials. It sure did. (Read More…)