Throughout the history of the automobile in America, one city has been synonymous with the industry and culture of cars. Booming with America’s great period of industrialization, Detroit became the Motor City, the hometown of an industry that created a blue-collar middle class and a culture based on personal mobility. But as America has entered the post-industrial age, as the focus of our economy has shifted from production to consumption, Detroit has been left behind. Long used to defining consumer tastes, Detroit was caught unawares by the changes wrought by globalization and the rise of information technology. And as America’s traditional auto industry struggles to redefine itself in the new economy, another Motor City is rising to meet the challenges of a new age.

Though not often recognized as such, Los Angeles has long been America’s “other” car capital. Developing during the rise of the automobile, Los Angeles has become a place where automobile ownership is not just a necessity, but a fundamental aspect of the culture. And as a result of its headlong embrace of the automobile, Southern California has contributed some of the most important elements of automotive culture. From the drive-through fast food joints that now dot America’s landscape to Harley Earl’s design revolution, from hot rod culture to smog control, it is impossible to imagine modern American life without L.A.’s unique automotive achievements.

Industrial-age Detroit was surely grateful for Southern California’s innovative attempts to reshape society around the cars it produced. But as long as the automakers dominated the wealth produced by America’s love affair with the automobile, Los Angeles was seen as little more than Detroit’s best customer. Though an important ally in promoting automotive culture, Los Angeles’s value to the industry was little more than offshoot of its major industry: entertainment. But as global competitors entered the US market, Southern California’s car-crazed culture became one of the first to embrace the imports. And as Detroit’s near-monopoly began to erode, the balance of power shifted: from this point on, consumers would drive automotive tastes with increasing independence.

With this shift, Los Angeles began its ascent in the automotive world. While Detroit lay mired in the industrial age, Southern California developed a taste for the new global menu of automotive options, and simultaneously embraced the new revolution in information technology. Its status as a taste-maker grew, and its focus on consumer opinion, fashion and communication put it in close touch with the values that were reshaping America’s economy. Now, with the information and consumer-economy revolutions largely realized, Southern California is becoming the new center of gravity for America’s auto business.

In fitting with the values of this new world, L.A.’s automotive juggernauts neither produce nor themselves sell automobiles. Instead of factories and dealerships, they have invested in server farms and data models. Rather than controlling information to maximize profits in support of an industrial supply chain, they create and share information in service of the consumer and market efficiency. And through this revolution, the two titans of Southern California’s “automotive industry,” Edmunds and Truecar, have become some of the biggest players in the business of buying and selling cars.

Edmunds.com got its start just as Los Angeles was coming into its own as the capitol of American automotive consumption, and well before the information revolution began to take hold. In 1966, it began publishing booklets which consolidated automotive specifications as a tool to help buyers make informed decisions. Over the years, it has evolved this service from print to CD-ROM, to web page and mobile app. And with new technology, it has dramatically expanded its services, offering everything from news, reviews, and specifications to industry analysis and forecasting, from a live consumer-advice hotline to dealer reviews and its “True Market Value” pricing tool. Never losing focus on its original insight, that consumers need help navigating the crowded new car market, Edmunds has embraced every new technology to expand on its mission and become the most established gatekeeper to the burgeoning world of online auto research and sales.

Entering Edmunds’ brightly-colored offices in Santa Monica, it becomes instantly clear that the company looks to Silicon Valley rather than Detroit. With its whiteboard walls, open cubicles, espresso machines and video game room, the ambience is clearly inspired by Google rather than GM. And like Google and Facebook, Edmunds is finding that its consumer service is just the beginning of its opportunities. So massive is the traffic that Edmunds’ car buying website generates, it has developed its own value as a model for the larger market. As the patterns of research at Edmunds.com shift, the company can track changes in interest in specific cars and brands with an ingenious in-house application, giving it insights into the market that no automaker  can ignore. By serving consumers with the latest technology, Edmunds can not only generate huge revenue from advertising and sales leads, but create valuable intelligence for the industry as well.

Though Edmunds’ business model may now embrace the industry as well as consumers, it hasn’t lost sight of its original mission. Indeed, as it has assumed leadership in the burgeoning auto consumer services industry, it has embraced its role as an advocate for automotive consumers in every venue. Leading this charge is former CEO and current Vice Chairman, Jeremy Anwyl, an intense, often-iconoclastic dynamo who has become the closest thing the automotive business has to a public intellectual. Rising to prominence through his regular commentary and industry analysis, Anwyl has become a regular figure at Washington D.C. hearings on everything from fuel economy regulations to distracted driving. Over a brief lunch, he jumped with ease from topics as diverse as EV tax credits and NHTSA incident reporting to sales forecasting and media criticism, fusing a generalist’s fascination with every aspect of the automotive business and culture with an unshakeable focus on serving consumers. While Detroit’s executives often seem inward-looking and overly focused on their traditional industry patterns, Anwyl demonstrates the importance of an automotive culture that engages every arena in which automobiles play a role. His ability to serve as the auto consumer’s advocate-in-chief, not only serves Edmunds’ mission and image well, it helps cement the consumer power that launched his company to prominence.

But Edmunds’ rise, from booklet printer to market-making, policy-influencing juggernaut, has not gone unnoticed. Numerous companies have tried to match its success and compete for its influence, but few have given it any real trouble. The simple fact is that Edmunds has been working at its mission so long, and has been so in tune with cultural and technological shifts, that any rival would have to make enormous investments in order to match its suite of services and aura of leadership. And yet, in just a few short years, one company has managed to break through Edmunds’ near-monopoly, and join it as the second Southern Californian juggernaut of automotive consumer services. That company is TrueCar.

The short roots of TrueCar’s stunning rise to prominence lead back to Edmunds. Formed by a core of Edmunds employees, TrueCar grew out of just one element of Edmunds’ sweeping empire: the “True Market Value” pricing tool. While the larger site spread its resources across an entire ecosystem of consumer information and advocacy, TrueCar’s mission was laser-focused on creating the best real-time pricing tool on the web. By investing in every possible source of data on new car sales, and by developing a slick, intuitive interface focused solely on delivering localized market price transparency, TrueCar has been able to claw out a niche in one of the most lucrative automotive consumer services. And though Edmunds downplays comparisons with TrueCar, it’s clear that the upstart firm has established itself as a major player.

TrueCar’s more focused culture is evident in its almost zen-like offices high atop Santa Monica’s historic clock tower. In sharp contrast to Edmunds’ primary colors, copious espresso machines and young employees blowing off steam at the company pinball machine, TrueCar’s headquarters are smaller, less self-conscious, and a more obviously-focused workplace. Not that TrueCar couldn’t have a vast Google-like complex if it wanted: just last year, in the depths of of the economic downturn, the company brought in a $200 million round of investment. But, as CEO Scott Painter explains, TrueCar’s spends its millions largely on acquiring and analyzing pricing data. Where Edmunds seeks to offer a complete research and shopping experience, Painter refuses to break focus on pricing until total market transparency is achieved.

But where Edmunds’ broader focus has allowed it to assume the mantle of consumer advocate in a generally non-confrontational manner, TrueCar’s narrower but deeper approach to serving consumers has ruffled feathers among dealers and manufacturers. For an industry long used to consumers overwhelmed by the vast variety of brands, models and trim levels, and for dealers who have long relied on asymmetrical information to pad their profits, TrueCar’s crusade for pricing transparency has tipped the balance of power so far towards consumers as to be seen as a threat.

Towards the end of 2011, TrueCar, falling victim to its own success, came into conflict with dealer groups, manufacturer “dealer marketing allowance” schemes, and state regulators tasked with protecting local franchise laws. In the wake of that confrontation, TrueCar has had to make some specific changes in how it operates its business, but the industry’s reaction showed that TrueCar’s mission to deliver real pricing transparency was changing the way automotive retail works. And as Detroit has proved over the last 40 years, businesses who cling to a comfortable past in the face of inexorable historic forces get left behind.

Though Edmunds and TrueCar eye each other warily, and though there is certainly some overlap in their business models, they aren’t really competitors. Together, they form the vanguard of a movement to use information to empower consumers, and I would argue that a consumer that wants to make the most of this new movement would use Edmunds to help decide what kind of automobile might suit them best, and use TrueCar to help price and negotiate for it once that decision has been made.

Competition between the two will make both better, which in turn will arm consumers with ever-greater power in the marketplace. In this way, the two behemoths of online car buying services will continue to strip power from the automakers, force them to pay closer attention to consumers, and drive the innovations that will allow producers to more efficiently serve an increasingly-informed market. And as this dynamic plays out, the producers and marketers of Detroit and elsewhere will have no choice but to recognize the rise of America’s new Motor City in sunny Southern California.

If you want to pretty-up the P&L of a car company, there are two quick fixes: You cut marketing expenses, or you cut R&D. A cut of R&D expenses won’t show up negatively for three to five years, when you suddenly lack new cars to sell. In the meantime, you look like a hero. General Motors plans to cut about a quarter of the workers at its R&D facility at the Warren Technical Center in suburban Detroit, Automotive News [sub] says.

According to the report, GM plans to lay off about one fourth of the roughly 400 R&D personnel at the Warren complex. 90 R&D workers at a GM research facility in India will also receive the pink slip, an Automotive News source said.

In a statement, GM confirmed a restructuring of its R&D department, but would not confirm the number of layoffs.

Old habits die hard. Whether it’s GM’s desire to slice-and-dice its fuel economy achievements to make them look better than they are, or our instinct to correct the record, it’s all just a little bit of history repeating.

GM, like most of the Detroit automakers, has never had an easy time marketing its fuel economy achievements. With a huge percentage of its sales and an even higher percentage of profits traditionally coming from full-sized trucks and SUVs, GM has had to respond to rising gas prices with some questionable claims. Perhaps the most infamous: 2008′s campaign touting the assertion that Chevrolet sold more cars getting 30 MPG on the highway than Honda or Toyota. Not only did this claim ignore the most accurate measures of fleet-wide efficiency, but it also stretched the truth rather badly. When TTAC’s readers analyzed this claim, they found that Chevy was counting different bodystyles as different models, effectively “double counting” cars like the Aveo (which was counted the four- and five-door models as separate cars). When the same counting technique was applied to Toyota’s model range, it was shown to have even more 30 MPG-capable cars than Chevy, essentially invalidating what was already a fairly marginal marketing claim.

But since 2008, the pressure has only mounted on GM to show improvement in its fuel economy. Though gas prices aren’t higher than they were back in the Summer of ’08 (yet), GM’s bailout has created a new kind of pressure. As I pointed out in a December 2010 NY Times Op-Ed, President Obama’s green justification for the bailout seemed to be something of a mirage. With gas prices then falling and pickup and SUV sales picking back up, Detroit was hardly living up to Obama’s vow that

This restructuring, as painful as it will be in the short term, will mark not an end, but a new beginning for a great American industry. An auto industry that is once more outcompeting the world; a 21st-century auto industry that is creating new jobs, unleashing new prosperity and manufacturing the fuel-efficient cars and trucks that will carry us toward an energy-independent future.

Now, not only is GM facing pressure put on it by a President who seemed to offer fuel economy leadership from Detroit as a public reward for the public’s investment, but gas prices are also beginning to rise once more. And though GM has absolutely improved its fuel economy in the meantime, it still significantly lags the rest of the industry on an objective fleet-wide basis. And what’s worse, it’s marring its modest but admirable achievements by falling back on the old “most models over 30 MPG” chestnut.

In a post titled “Digging Into GM’s Fuel Economy Record” at his new “BTW” blog, GM’s VP for Communication Selim Bingol resurrects GM’s pre-bailout canard by arguing

GM has been selling a lot of fuel-efficient vehicles in many different sizes and styles – and more than you may think.

Just look at March.  We sold more vehicles in the United States that deliver an EPA-estimated 30 mpg or better on the highway than ever before – more than 100,000 – and the figure includes cars like the Chevrolet Camaro V-6 and crossovers like the GMC Terrain.

It might surprise you to know that these results make GM far and away the leader among the “Detroit” Three automakers, and we’re not that far off the pace set by Toyota.

So, instead of “more models over 30 MPG than Toyota,” GM is claiming 30 MPG option leadership over its Detroit competitors. And, to its undying credit, it’s not misleading the public by double-counting models this time around. Thanks to its genuinely improved offerings, GM legitimately has 12 options rated at over 30 MPG on the highway. On the other hand, the fact that GM sells more 30 MPG cars than its Detroit competitors is, as Bingol admits, at least

partly a function of our scale.

But although Bingol makes a more credible case for the “more models over 30 MPG” claim than his predecessors, achievements like these don’t get better with age. For one thing, the competition has moved on: Hyundai, for example, now reports the percentage of its sales that are rated at 40 MPG on the highway… some 41% as of March. Bingol as good as admits that GM is still playing catchup when he notes

Of course, 30 mpg is not the goal line.  We can and will move the needle higher because customers and our CAFE commitments demand it.  Soon enough, 40 mpg will be the new 30.

Here’s the thing: it already is. GM is touting a claim that might have been impressive four years ago… had it been accurate. Today, with well over 20 models available with at least 40 MPG highway ratings, it’s a yawner.

But not only has the industry moved on since 2008, the market has as well. Thanks to the rise of sites like TrueCar and Edmunds, consumers have access to more data on new cars than ever before. And since transparency has improved in the auto market, there are now far more accurate ways to compare manufacturer fuel economy than existed in 2008. With the fuel economy leader Hyundai self-publishing its sales-weighted fleet fuel economy numbers, TrueCar has stepped in to provide similar data for the entire industry. And isn’t the best way to compare fuel economy by measuring what the manufacturers actually sell?

By this measure, however, GM does not come out looking like an industry leader. In fact, as a manufacturer, GM doesn’t even make the industry average fuel economy. And its greatest deficit is in the car segments, where it’s nearly two MPG off the industry average. Moreover, GM’s rate of improvement in March was one of the lowest in the industry, which means it’s actually falling behind the competition. By brand, the picture is similar: each of GM’s brands comes in below the industry average, with truck-free Buick coming the closest at just .1 MPG off the mean.

This is not to say that GM hasn’t made improvements. As Bingol points out, GM sells a far more balanced mix of cars, trucks and crossovers than ever before. By segment, GM’s offerings beat the industry average for Large Cars, Large and Small Trucks and Large and Midsized SUVs. In fact, TrueCar shows that GM’s Midsized SUV offerings are by far the most efficient in the industry, at 24.1 MPG compared to a 21.9 MPG average.

Though these are clearly signs of movement in the right direction, they’re not enough to give GM a credible claim to fuel economy leadership… even among the Detroit automakers. But then, that was fairly apparent from the moment The General dusted off an ineffective marketing claim from  2008. Thanks to the relatively slow run-up in gas prices, pickup and SUV sales are remaining strong and GM needs their profits far more than it needs to become a fuel economy leader. But if the market experiences another Summer ’08-style rush towards high-efficiency cars, GM is going to have to come up with a better pitch to economy-minded consumers. And ultimately, it’s going to have to work harder than everyone else if it ever wants to make good on Obama’s promise of fuel economy leadership.

Officially, carmakers around the world are putting on their best “what me worry” faces and say that they are unaffected by a sudden shortage of a key component, caused by a factory explosion in Germany. Behind closed doors, they are freaking out. Carmakers and suppliers met in Detroit for an emergency summit under the auspices of the Automotive Industry Action Group (AIGP). After the meeting, the first admissions of impending doom surfaced.

In a statement issued after the meeting, AIGP said:

“It is now clear that a significant portion of the global production capacity of PA-12 (nylon 12) has been compromised. In the automotive industry, PA-12 is used pervasively in coatings and connector applications for fuel handling and braking systems. These are highly engineered products produced via very complex manufacturing processes.”

Cyclododecatriene, or CDT, is an vital ingredient in the manufacture of resin that is used in essential automotive components, such as brake and fuel lines. Researcher IHS said in a comment after the meeting:

“The impression is that this is very much a rapidly developing situation and the full implications of the stoppage of CDT production has yet to be properly understood. However, the rapid response of the US industry suggests that problem is serious and has no easy or quick fix.

 If suitable alternative materials already existed, they would already be in widespread use and there would be no discussion of a crisis. How easy it will be to find an alternative resin that does not use CDT is open to some conjecture. Given the component testing and approval processes employed by the OEMs and Tier 1 suppliers, it is unlikely to be the work of a moment to find or develop a substitutable alternative material.”

In other words, as noted yesterday, while it can take several months for CDT production to be restored, looking for a replacement will most likely take longer. Even DuPont, supplier of replacement candidate polyphthalamide (PPA) is careful. DuPont spokesperson Carole Davies said:

“We’re working very closely with our customers to understand the issue and where we have materials that can help. There are a number of solutions that automakers are looking at. There are other materials that some automakers use, some don’t. It’s just a matter of finding alternatives that work, getting them qualified and, hopefully, they’ll be enough at the end of the day to get everyone through it.”

Participants of the AIGP meeting characterized the mood as “extremely serious.” They noted “significant concern over the potential for production disruptions in the component industry, with obvious knock-on effects for the OEMs.” The other worry: The material is not used exclusively by the automotive sector. Demand from other manufacturing industries could trigger a run on the ersatz-CDT, if and when it has been found.

When government, media and industry agree that a trend exists, it’s generally taken as fait accompli. After all, these three institutions wield immense cultural power, and together they are more than capable of making any prophecy self-fulfilling. But there’s always a stumbling block: acceptance by the everyday folk who actually make up our society. And when a trend is taken for granted, the ensuing rush to be seen as being in touch with said trend often generates more heat than light. Such is the case with the trend towards “green cars.” Few would deny that they are “the future,” but at the same time, there’s been precious little examination of how this future is to be realized. And when such examination does take place, it tends to raise more questions than it answers.

Case in point: the Union of Concerned Scientists recently published a report examining just how “green” the “greenest” cars available, namely electric cars, are. By examining the average C02 emissions of the various regional power grids, they are able to show on a roughly apples-to-apples basis how carbon-efficient EVs are in comparison to their gasoline-sipping cousins. And their findings show that in broad swathes of the US, pure-electric cars are little better than hybrids like the Prius in terms of average C02 emissions.

This ACS report is something of a dual-edged sword. On the one hand, it makes an important point about EVs: that they are only as environmentally-friendly as the grid from which they draw their power. This fact has long been ignored by policymakers who take the “greenness” of EVs for granted and create uniform national EV stimulus, as if EVs were uniformly “green.” On the other hand, the ACS clearly has a pro-EV agenda, and its report concludes that

There are no areas of the country where electric vehicles have higher global warming emissions than the average new gasoline vehicle.

Given that EV offerings are currently limited to the Compact and Subcompact segments, this is hardly a fair comparison. And since the EPA includes cars like the Bentley Continental GTC as a “subcompact,” a fair comparison would take some real work. To be fair though, the UCS is correct when it points out that 45% of Americans live in the coastal regions where relatively clean grids offer strong environmental incentives for EV use. More importantly, those areas which have dirtier grids tend to be the same regions (the South and Midwest) where geography and development patterns create more practical disincentives for EV use. For this reason, the somewhat disappointing results of the study are unlikely to dramatically hurt the nascent EV market.

Still, this geographical distribution has important consequences for public policy. For one thing, it points out the futility of a nationwide EV incentive program, at least as an environmental policy. Luckily, this reality seems to have taken hold in D.C., where EV-only incentives are being broadened to include multiple fuels and encourage local solutions. On the other hand, the fact that EVs are a hot trend means local governments are often more anxious to show off their trend-awareness than craft sensible policy based on local realities.

For example, Colorado has one of the least “green” grids in the country, and yet its state government has been one of the most aggressive in handing out EV tax credits. Prior to 2010, Colorado allowed Tesla buyers to take up to $42,000 in credits. Today EVs get a $6,000 incentive in addition to the $7,500 (soon to be $10k) federal credit, and a local group has received half a million dollars in federal grants to promote EVs in the state. Given that Colorado-based EVs emit equivalent emissions to a 33 MPG combined gasoline car (think: Hyundai Elantra), this is proof that hopping on a PR-driven bandwagon often outweighs the actual benefits of such “environmental” policies.

But, in a profoundly ironic twist, Colorado may well become a leading market for EVs… and not just because of its generous government incentives either. In fact, Colorado’s relatively dirty grid actually makes it one of the cheaper states in which to operate an EV. In its cost analysis of individual cities, the UCS finds that Colorado Springs’ 2.4 cents-per-mile operating cost for a Nissan Leaf is one of the cheapest in the country, especially when compared to cities with the best emissions scores. Though there’s not enough evidence in this study to support a direct link between the cost and cleanliness of electrical grids, it’s no surprise to find that they do trade off with each other to some extent.

This is one of the key takeaways from the report for the simple reason that running cost, rather than pure environmental benefit, is what will drive the EV market beyond its early adopter niche. And as utilities invest in ever-greener powerplants in hopes of improving the environmental performance of EVs, running costs will rise. And as EVs become more popular, increased demand on the grid will further drive up prices. This tradeoff encapsulates the dilemma of all EV stimulus: the hoped-for environmental benefits are dependent on the mainstream economic viability of EVs, which in turn depends on cheaper (rather than cleaner) power and much, much cheaper EVs. The UCS report’s conclusion attempts to square this circle by pushing EV adoption as the overriding concern, noting

Of course, cleaning up the nation’s electricity production won’t deliver large reductions in the transportation sector’s emissions and oil consumption unless electric vehicles become a market success. While they are now coming onto the market in a much bigger way than ever before, EVs still face many hurdles, including higher up-front costs than gasoline vehicles. Lower fueling costs for EVs, however, provide an important incentive for purchasing them, and our cost analysis of 50 cities across the country shows that EV owners can start saving money immediately on fuel costs by using electricity in place of gasoline.

While this is true enough, it fully ignores how the market works. For one thing, the fuel savings touted in the report are in comparison to an “average gasoline compact vehicle,” and therefore fails to account for most of the market segments. Consumers buy cars that fill their needs, and many Americans need cars larger than a compact. Furthermore, though those savings are estimated to be as much as $1,220 per year (for a Nissan Leaf), these savings do not include amortization of the EV’s up-front cost premium. Consumers will see “immediate savings” on fuel costs, but will be far behind on total ownership cost for years.

Currently the EV market is truly a “green” market, as potential EV consumers are currently motivated by the desire to reduce their carbon emissions. But EVs simply won’t have much of an impact on national emissions until they offer the kind of “green” that actually motivates consumers: money, in the form of real savings. As long as federal and state governments focus, as the UCS has, on carbon emissions, EVs simply won’t find much of a market. If, as the UCS claims, reductions in transportation-sector C02 emissions require mass EV adoption as a prerequisite, the carbon question is currently little more than a distraction. Environmental benefits must give way to economic reality, lest all of the possible “green” benefits of EVs remain a permanent mirage.

With the government still waiting to see how much it will get out of its equity in General Motors, The General seems to be attracting more of the media commentary than Chrysler these days. And not without good reason: GM saw the greatest drop in market share last month of any Detroit automaker, its government-hyped Volt is flopping, Opel continues to be an open sore and it can’t help but flaunt its cluelessness about youth marketing. But interest in GM’s shortcomings seems to be driven by little more than election-year political implications, which Chrysler was able to avoid by borrowing cash and misleadingly claiming to have squared up with the American taxpayer. After all, Chrysler is facing just as many challenges as GM, if not more. And despite having formally closed the bailout chapter of its history, Chrysler’s performance still bears on the decision to rescue America’s weakest major automaker.

Evidence that Chrysler is receiving something of a free pass from the media is not difficult to find, with Sunday’s CBS interview with CEO Sergio Marchionne serving as Exhibit A. A fluffy profile of the Fiat/Chrysler boss, the CBS piece is so lacking in journalistic rigor that ends up providing more misinformation than verifiable facts. The “paid back the loans with interest” line makes an appearance, without any qualifications that might have explained the full truth of Chrysler’s “payback.” Another straight-up whopper: Sergio’s assessment that Chrysler can “afford” to screw up on a single car. Chrysler only has one new post-Fiat car on the immediate horizon, the 2013 Dodge Dart… if Chrysler has “screwed up” that car, it will be a PR disaster that the company might not survive. Besides, with Fiat 500s piling up on dealer lots (82 days supply as of 3/1, down from 132 days supply on 2/1) despite $500 rebates or 0% financing, it seems that Fiat/Chrysler has already used up the one “screw up” that Marchionne says it can afford.

Speaking of the Dart, Marchionne claims that the crucial compact is “mechanically outstanding” and has “nothing to apologize for”… and yet, it appears that it’s already facing some challenges. Earlier this month, Marchionne said he was bumping the Dart’s rollout from April 1 to “avoid being jinxed” by April Fool’s day (Allpar notes that the April 1 launch was a “delay” from the planned January launch). That excuse is flimsy on face value, but the fact that Mopar will only build 2,000 Darts in May and that full dealer availability won’t finalize until June shows that there are probably bigger problems under the surface than mere superstition. And Dodge boss Reid Bigland seems to already be turning down the wick on expectations, saying the delay is

“not a concern. Given the size of the segment throughout North America and the enthusiasm for the Dart, we think it’s going to go OK.”

What Bigland leaves out is that, although the segment is large, the competition among compact sedans is fierce. And the Dart is likely not as well-positioned as CBS implies when it claims its “base price just under $16,000 with 40 miles to the gallon.” The EPA doesn’t have fuel economy numbers for the Dart, but with an efficient 1.4 Turbo engine listed as an option, it seems highly unlikely that a 40 MPG highway version of the Dart will be available at the base price (at least until a 9-speed transmission becomes available next year). Oh, and the government’s condition that Fiat build a 40 MPG Chrysler only requires 40 MPG combined unadjusted, a benchmark that is far less than 40 MPG EPA, and barely competitive with compact sedans already on the market. And with only 120,000 or so units of production planned at Belvidere, and exports planned from there to 40 different markets, it seems that Chrysler isn’t banking on competitive sales figures (Focus and Cruze have been selling over 20k units per month).

But if you dig deeper, you find that the mainstream media’s breathless boosterism is sharply contradicted in the online press, where rumors of trouble in Auburn Hills are starting to pile up. Over at Autoextremist, the auto industry insider’s outsider is posting emails from sources like “Anonymous in Auburn Hills,” which indicate that there are either a few truly bad apples at Chrysler or (as the Autoextremist himself concludes) the Fiat-Chrysler marriage is facing serious issues. “Anonymous” writes

All you need to do is work at CTC [Chrysler Technical Center] and you will see just how correct AE [Autoextremist] is on this Fiat issue.

In that building resides a morass of poor decisions, poor planning, poor time management, and ass backwards 80′s era engineering think…

…They want to build good cars but can’t make a decision to save their live.

My God, they can’t even get their CAD system figured out! I mean who is stupid enough to introduce a new CAD system on a whim?? did they not think you need time to integrate all of the other computer related systems?

It is a joke of epic proportions.

Another AE reader adds:

Arrogant. Irrational. Belligerent. Such a perfect description of Fiat management, [Autoextremist] must be moonlighting within the walls of CTC somewhere…

…Fiat practices finger-snap management as its true core philosophy. Cut product development time in half! How? Just cut it in half, easy! What testing should be eliminated? What efficiencies should/will allow this? No answer. Build a new production line but with half the capital funding! How? Easy, just spend half as much! You get the picture.

In an industry that so closely controls its PR, this burst of leaks is evidence enough that some serious dissatisfaction is brewing at Fiat/Chrysler. Add the Dart’s delay to this, and the emerging picture at Chrysler is not of a company bound for great things. More troubling still is the counterpoint between these worrying signs and the dizzying ambition of Fiat/Chrysler’s new product development plans. The Dart is built on a widened version of Fiat’s C-EVO platform, but according to Allpar, that platform will be stretched further and converted to rear-drive to accommodate the forthcoming midsized Alfa Giulia and Dodge Avenger replacement. Oh, and the LX platform also has a front/rear-drive replacement under development as well, the E-EVO, which will underpin everything from minivans to an Alfa sports sedan. According to an Allpar source,

This new D architecture is a joint project, but it’s being developed in Detroit with Fiat engineers who have been flown over to be embedded permanently in the project. … This decision (having a RWD D-segment architecture) was a costly proposition, and they took a good two years of tinkering between finance and marketing before they finally reached the decision to go ahead with this. … E-Evo was discarded [for this purpose] last year, when it became obvious that if you shorten it too much you can’t produce an aerodynamic, sexy looking D-segment car, on that huge beast.

So, an apparently-dysfunctional, trans-Atlantic team is developing expensive, complex D- and an E-segment platforms that are convertible between front-drive, rear-drive and all-wheel-drive, and will underpin mass-market offerings as well as premium cars. If this sounds oddly familiar, it should: it’s like a worst-of mashup of the cross-cultural issues of the DCX days and the engineering overreach of the early LH platform development (which Bob Lutz describes as having been “trapped in the classical ‘more is more’ planning maze”). And at the root of this mind-boggling complexity is yet another unsolved issue: Fiat/Chrysler’s bloated brand portfolio, which demands this ultimate (and expensive) platform flexibility.

Meanwhile, the context for all this is even worse, as Fiat faces a crushing downturn in the European market, made worse by the fact that Fiat is dependent on the Mediterranean markets that are being hit the hardest. Fiat lost half a billion dollars last year, its stock is on a 12-month downward spiral, it has frozen European investments, and it is grappling with numerous union issues (including a hauler strike that could cost it 10% market share in Italy). And with essentially no presence in China to offset European contraction, Marchionne’s solution is another alliance with yet another struggling automaker, like Mazda or Suzuki. But the “tying two rocks together to see if they float” plan clearly isn’t a path forward, and more merging will only wreak further havoc on Fiat/Chrysler’s troubled culture. Meanwhile, Fiat is only just starting [sub] its third attempt at a Chinese production JV (building Fiat-branded Darts), and it’s moving into Russia just as that market’s growth slows.

With huge losses likely to come out of Europe, and giant outlays likely on both Chinese and Russian expansion as well as investments in complex, multi-purpose platforms, Fiat-Chrysler has a seriously tough row to hoe over the next year or so. Successes will have to come from its stronghold in Brazil, which is seeing disappointing sales numbers so far this year, or from the US. With only the Dart coming down the pike, one hopes that its delays yielded serious results and that it makes an unequivocal case for Chrysler’s Fiat-led future. Otherwise, we could easily find ourselves here a year from now, wondering once again if Fiat/Chrysler is going to make it through another 12 months.

“The electric things have their life too. Paltry as those lives are.”

Phillip K. Dick, Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?

At the High School I attended, progress reports were never a good thing. Halfway through each term, students who were averaging a D or lower would receive a print-out of their grade accompanied by a line from the teacher explaining how the miscreant in question was failing to live up to expectations. True to form, the White House’s just-released “One Year Progress Report” [PDF] on President Obama’s “Blueprint For A Secure Energy Agenda” includes some devastating evidence of abject failure. But unlike my post-progress report conversations with the parental stakeholders, Obama has a lot more to explain to voters than a simple “insufficient homework turned in.”

Just over a year ago,  in his 2011 State Of The Union, President Obama unveiled plan to stimulate “One Million Electric Vehicles By 2015,” arguing that

“With more research and incentives, we can break our dependence on oil with biofuels, and become the first country to have a million electric vehicles on the road by 2015″

Shortly thereafter, his Department of Energy released a report that touted wildly-optimistic production goals for several pure-electric cars, concluding that

Reaching the goal is not likely to be constrained by production capacity. Major vehicle manufacturers have announced (or been the subject of media reports) that indicate a cumulative electric drive vehicle manufacturing capacity of over 1.2 million vehicles through 2015.

Strong incentives, research and development, and assistance in establishing manufacturing and infrastructure is underway or planned. These activities directly support consumer demand of these technologies, and mitigate some of the uncertainty associated with the large-scale adoption of electric drive vehicles.

That argument became conclusively moot this year, when production of the Chevrolet Volt was stopped for the third time in its short lifetime, as unwanted cars piled up on dealer lots. Though the Volt has been defined as a symbol of GM’s bailout, it is even more politically significant as a component of Obama’s bold million-plugin plan. In last year’s report, the Department of Energy estimated that 120,000 Volts would be put on the road in the US this year, when the Volt hs actually only just broke 1,000 units sold per month for the first time in February. That 90% discrepancy between expectation and reality is crucial to Obama’s pledge, as the “1.2m production capacity through 2015″ that the DOE took for granted included some 505,000 Volts (at 120k/year from 2012-2015). With the Volt selling at 10% of DOE estimates, the entire goal falls apart (the next-closest vehicle, Nissan’s Leaf, isn’t estimated to hit 100,000 units per year until 2014).

Having seen the Volt’s underperformance coming, I’ve been wondering when the Obama Administration would recognize reality and admit that its goal was out of reach. But this being politics, you can’t just hand ammunition to your opponents. Admissions of failure must be couched in obfuscation and swaddled in unrelated good news. Which brings us to the just-released “Progress Report,” which is something like the polar opposite of landing on an aircraft carrier festooned with “Mission Accomplished” banners.

A sunny, upbeat document, the “Progress Report” introduces itself with wide-eyed optimism:

On the one-year anniversary of your Blueprint for a Secure Energy Future, which outlined your goals for American energy, we wanted to present a report on the significant progress we have made. During the last year alone, we established new incentives to increase safe and responsible domestic oil and gas production; proposed the toughest fuel economy standards for cars and trucks in history; provided millions of Americans with efficient and affordable transportation choices; launched new programs to improve energy efficiency in our homes, buildings, public transit, aviation and roadway systems; and took unprecedented steps to make the United States a leader in the clean energy
race.

But if we skip ahead to the section regarding EVs, we find that all the sugary good news is just helping mask the rank scent of failure. So, how does a sitting president admit failure? It’s as easy as writing

“By 2015, the United States will be able to produce enough batteries and components to support one million plug-in hybrid and electric vehicles.”

Notice the key difference: then, the argument was that government action would put a million EVs on the road, now the argument is that the infrastructure will be in place to meet the goal. Oh, and in case you’re a fellow ADD-sufferer, remember that the DOE determined just one year ago that

Reaching the goal is not likely to be constrained by production capacity.

In essence this report repeats the exact same thing. The difference is simply that a year ago, the President could pretend that the market would simply soak up whatever number of EVs the car companies (most of whom had received some form of government support) said they would build. Now even the most hardened partisan can’t maintain such obvious self-delusion, as the demand for EVs (the Volt in particular) has been proven to be well below expectations. This failure is made explicit in the Progress Report, which notes that

in March 2012, the President launched a clean energy grand challenge to make electric-powered vehicles as affordable and convenient as gasoline-powered vehicles for the average American family within a decade.

In short, the message has gone from “thanks to government intervention, the future is now” to “thanks to government intervention, the future might be here in a decade.” Or, to quote a certain former presidential candidate, “whoops!”

Some might argue that this is a textbook example of government wasting money trying to affect the market, and a clear sign that the market is going to do what it wants regardless of our publicly-funded exercises in futility. Instead, President Obama is “doubling down” by requesting a billion dollars be spent on a “Community Deployment” scheme aimed at boosting demand for “advanced technology vehicles” through local partnerships, and tax credits for advanced technology vehicles be bumped to a maximum of $10,000. To be fair, the retreat from EVs is reflected in the new “technology neutral” approach, which doesn’t limit subsidies to EVs but

allow[s] communities to determine if electrification, natural gas, or biofuels would be the best fit.

But the proposed changes to the consumer tax credit [PDF] have some very vague and confusing stipulations, namely that

(1) the vehicle operates primarily on an alternative to petroleum; (2) as of the January 1, 2012, there are few vehicles in operation in the U.S. using the same technology as such vehicle.

The vagueness of those rules makes them hard to interpret, but it seems that clause (1) excludes high-efficiency, small battery plug-ins like the Prius Plug-In while clause (2) could well exclude natural gas vehicles (there were well over 100k NGVs on the road as of 2010). In which case, this policy is merely a continuation of the attempt to create a market for EVs (and since we’re talking disappointing technologies, possibly hydrogen cars). The community deployment scheme seems more technologically neutral, but is flawed in the extent that it assumes that local solutions will be more broadly applicable. Besides, most local governments with strong “green car” demand potential are already incentivizing public EV charging stations and the like. And don’t get me started about the fact that the government is even pretending that biofuels are a serious solution to either environmental or energy security concerns.

As gas prices go up, we could see EV and plug-in sales improve, but it’s clear that there won’t be one million EVs on American roads by 2015. Especially with policy appearing to shift towards a more “technology neutral” mode, there is a very real threat that the huge oversupply of natural gas could create a short term market for NGVs that could doom EVs for another decade or more. If the goal of Obama’s energy policy were to improve energy independence or help the efficient use of resources, this would be good news as it’s much easier and cheaper to build (and therefore, subsidize) NGVs than EVs (even without considering the low cost of natural gas itself). Unfortunately, we have already made a significant national investment in EV/battery technology, which satisfies yet another political constituency: environmentalists.

Without clearly communicated goals, government policies will never gain the credibility with markets they need to impact. And given President Obama’s track record so far, it’s clear  he needs to more clearly admit that his EV initiative has failed and express a clear set of goals for America’s transportation and energy sectors. Unfortunately, the fact that that he’s chosen to admit that the EV dream is over in such an oblique manner indicates that expecting such forthrightness would seem more than a little naive. All of which simply confirms that this issue, like so many others facing the nation, is no longer a question of policy, but of politics.

Today, at 2:46 pm, Japan came to a stand-still, again. Trains and subways stopped. People did fold their hands, faced in the general direction of the northeastern coast of Tohoku, and said a silent prayer. Japan and the world marked the one year anniversary of the earthquake and tsunami that left whole towns razed, more than 19,000 people dead or missing, 344,000 people displaced, and a large area around the destroyed Fukushima Daiichi power plant off-limits for decades, if not permanently.

Writers often like to equate the power released by the quake to the nuclear bombs that had been dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Depending on who you read and believe, it was anywhere between 31,700 and 600 million Hiroshima bombs. Large parts of the coastal areas are dotted with huge, neatly stacked piles of rubble which nobody wants to take and nobody knows what to do with. The devastation was so big that it turned into an attraction on Google Earth.  Considering the immense damage, it is amazing how quickly the country did rebound. On Friday, I visited what was presented to me as an emblem of the amazing turn-around, Toyota’s plant in Kanegasaki, Iwate Prefecture. Here, 1,700 employees are working overtime to build Toyota’s Aqua / Prius c, for which everybody is screaming.

“The Aqua has turned into a symbol of our recovery,” says Tetsuo Hattori, CEO of Kanto Auto Works, one of the members of the sprawling Toyota Group empire. His company is the sole manufacturer of the Aqua / Prius c compact hybrid that itself is turning into a symbol for the turn-around of Toyota. Touted as the world’s cheapest and most fuel-efficient hybrid car, the Aqua sold 13,485 units in January, the first month after its launch. It sold 21,951 in February. It could have sold many more, would the factory in Kanegasaki be able to build more. Toyota sits on 120,000 backorders for Japan alone.

The two lines in Kanegasaki have an annual capacity of 300,000 units, that comes out to 25,000 cars a month. With overtime, output can be raised to 30,000 per month. The plant made 30,000 Aqua in January, 30,000 Aqua in February and will make 30,000 Aqua in March. 24,000 of those stay in Japan. 6,000 are being exported.

The plant is supposed to make other cars than the Aqua. The Iwate plant is also responsible for the production of the Blade, Ist/Scion xD, the Belta/Yaris Sedan, and Ractis. These cars had to make way for the Aqua. All traces of these cars have vanished from the factory.

From the two manufacturing lines to the tree-lined lots where finished cars await shipment, it is Aqua/Prius c as far as the eye can see. Asked what he will do to create more capacity for the Aqua, Hattori says that production of the Ractis may be gradually shifted to the Kanto Auto Works plant in Higashi Fuji. Here, old Toyota standbys such as the Century, or the Crown Comfort, popular with notoriously overpaid Japanese taxi drivers, are being built. A look at the numbers shows that shifting production will bring no relief. It simply cements the status quo. Nevertheless, Hattori flatly denies rumors that the Aqua/Prius c might be built elsewhere than at Kanto Auto Works, or even in a different plant than in Iwate.

We are up in the north of Japan. 500 miles westward, across the sea, is Siberia. The ground is still covered with snow. That snow is “a pain in the neck,” says plant manager Kazutoshi Yoshida. He will keep 1,500 tons of the pain in the neck literally under wraps, and use water from the melting snow to cool the air-conditioning in summer. Once the snow is gone, it will be time for the goats. 12 of them do lawn care duty without using any fuel. They also “create a relaxed mood amongst our workers.” I don’t dare to ask what happens to the well-fed goats come wintertime.

A year ago, I had visited Toyota’s new plant in Ohira, 70 miles south of Kanegasaki. Back then, I had speculated that the plant may be a pilot plant. This time, that title is official. “We want to be the global model plant for compact vehicles,” says a proud Hattori, and his plant manager Yoshida says it again. The workers are highly trained, encouraged to acquire a multitude of skill sets. Workers regularly act as production engineers, providing creative solutions. “This is not something that can happen in emerging nations,” says Yoshida. In 2007, 60 percent of what this plant made was exported. Now, the rate is down to 30 percent, with further reductions likely unless the yen gets weaker and the dollar stronger. If this plant can’t export cars, at least it can export plants.

Some 50 miles from the coast, and sheltered by two mountain ranges, the plant survived the earthquake only slightly damaged. It was back up four days after the quake. Then, it had to wait for parts from less lucky suppliers. One factor in its survivability is the gas-fired cogeneration plant that can provide two thirds of the plant’s electrical power. It will be put to the test this summer. In March and April, the last two of Japan’s 54 nuclear power plants will go off-line for maintenance, leaving Japan’s power grid in an even more precarious state than last summer.

Last Friday, the plant opened to outside visitors for the first time since March 11, 2011. As our plant tour draws to an end, the line stops, workers fold their hands, bow their heads, and face east in silent prayer. It is 14:26, time to remember the dead. But it is Friday, two days ahead of the anniversary.

“Tomorrow, we work with one shift,” says my guide. “On Sunday, people want to rest.“

No work on Sunday. A year after the monster quake, normalcy has returned to Japan. In this part of Iwate, at least.

 ”Do you want to accompany? or go on ahead? or go off alone? … One must know what one wants and that one wants”

Friedrich Nietzsche, Twilight Of The Idols

This week’s news that GM would stop production of the Chevrolet Volt for the third time in its brief lifespan came roaring out of the proverbial blind spot. Having watched the Volt’s progress closely from gestation through each month’s sales results, it was no secret to me that the Volt was seriously underperforming to expectations. But in the current media environment, anything that happens three times is a trend, and the latest shutdown (and, even more ominously, the accompanying layoffs) was unmistakeable. Not since succumbing to government-organized bankruptcy and bailout has GM so publicly cried “uncle” to the forces of the market, and I genuinely expected The General to continue to signal optimism for the Volt’s long-term prospects. After all, sales in February were up dramatically, finally breaking the 1,000 unit per month barrier. With gasoline prices on the march, this latest shutdown was far from inevitable.

And yet, here we are. Now that GM is undeniably signaling that the Volt is a Corvette-style halo car, with similar production and sales levels, my long-standing skepticism about the Volt’s chances seems to be validated. But in the years since GM announced its intention to build the Volt, this singular car has become woven into the history and yes, the mythology of the bailout era. Now, at the apparent end of its mass-market ambitions, I am struck not with a sense of schadenfreude, but of bewilderment. If the five year voyage of Volt hype is over, we have a lot of baggage to unpack.

When a history of the Volt is written, it will be difficult not to conclude that the Volt has been the single most politicized automobile since the Corvair. Seemingly due to timing alone, GM’s first serious environmental halo car became an icon of government intervention in private industry, a perception that is as true as it is false. I hoped to capture this tension in a July 2010 Op-Ed in the New York Times, in which I argued that

the Volt appears to be exactly the kind of green-at-all-costs car that some opponents of the bailout feared the government might order G.M. to build. Unfortunately for this theory, G.M. was already committed to the Volt when it entered bankruptcy.

But by that time, the Volt was already so completely transformed into a political football, the second sentence of this quote was entirely ignored by political critics on the right. The culture of partisanship being what it is in this country, any nuance to my argument was lost in the selective quoting on one side and the mockery of my last name on the other. One could argue that that this politicization was unnecessary or counter-productive, but it was also inevitable.

The Volt began life as a blast from GM’s Motorama past: a futuristic four-place coupe concept with a unique drivetrain (which still defies apples-to-apples efficiency comparisons with other cars), a fast development schedule and constantly-changing specifications, price points and sales expectations. It’s important to remember that the Volt was controversial as a car practically from the moment GM announced (and then began changing) production plans, becoming even more so when the production version emerged looking nothing like the concept. But it wasn’t until President Obama’s auto task force concluded that the Volt seemed doomed to lose money, and yet made no effort to suspend its development as a condition for the bailout, that a car-guy controversy began to morph into a mainstream political issue.

At that point, most of the car’s fundamental controversies were well known, namely its price, size, elusive efficiency rating, and competition. Well before the car was launched, it was not difficult to predict its challenges on the market, even without the added headwinds of ideological objections (which should have been mitigated by the fact that they were actually calling for government intervention in GM’s product plans while decrying the same). But GM’s relentless hype, combined with Obama’s regular rhetorical references to the Volt, fueled the furor. Then, just two months after Volt sales began trickle in, Obama’s Department of Energy released a still-unrepudiated document, claiming that 505,000 Volts would be sold in the US by 2015 (including 120,000 this year). By making the Volt’s unrealistic sales goals the centerpiece of a plan to put a million plug-in-vehicles on the road, the Obama Administration cemented the Volt’s political cross-branding.

When GM continued to revise its 2012 US sales expectations to the recent (and apparently still wildly-unrealistic) 45,000 units, I asked several high-level GM executives why the DOE didn’t adjust its estimates as well. But rather than definitively re-calibrate the DOE’s expectations, they refused to touch the subject. The government, they implied, could believe what it wanted. Having seen its CEO removed by the President, GM’s timid executive culture was resigned to the Volt’s politicized status, and would never make things awkward for its salesman-in-chief. And even now, with production of the Volt halted for the third time, GM continues to play into the Volt’s politicized narrative: does anyone think it is coincidence that The General waited until three days after the Michigan Republican primary (and a bailout-touting Obama speech) to cut Volt production for the third time?

Of course, having used the Volt as a political prop itself from the moment CEO Rick Wagoner drove a development mule version to congressional hearings as penance for traveling to the previous hearing in a private jet, GM is now trying to portray the Volt as a martyr at the hands of out-of-control partisanship. And the Volt’s father Bob Lutz  certainly does have a point when he argues that the recent Volt fire controversy was blown out of proportion by political hacks. But blaming the Volt’s failures on political pundits gives them far too much credit, ignores GM’s own politicization of the Volt, and misses the real causes of the Volt’s current, unenviable image.

The basic problem with the Volt isn’t that it’s a bad car that nobody could ever want; it is, in fact, quite an engineering achievement and a rather impressive drive. And if GM had said all along that it would serve as an “anti-Corvette,” selling in low volumes at a high price, nobody could now accuse it of failure. Instead, GM fueled totally unrealistic expectations for Volt, equating it with a symbol of its rebirth even before collapsing into bailout. The Obama administration simply took GM’s hype at face value, and saw it as a way to protect against the (flawed) environmentalist argument that GM deserved to die because of “SUV addiction” alone. And in the transition from corporate sales/image hype to corporatist political hype, the Volt’s expectations were driven to ever more unrealistic heights, from which they are now tumbling. Beyond the mere sales disappointment, the Volt has clearly failed to embody any cultural changes GM might have undergone in its dark night of the soul, instead carrying on The General’s not-so-proud tradition of moving from one overhyped short-term savior to the next.

Now, as in the Summer of 2010, I can’t help but compare the Volt with its nemesis and inspiration, the Toyota Prius. When the Toyota hybrid went on sale in the US back in 2000, it was priced nearly the same as it is today (in non-inflation-adjusted dollars), and was not hyped as a savior. Instead, Toyota accepted losses on early sales, and committed itself to building the Prius’s technology and brand over the long term. With this approach, GM could have avoided the Volt’s greatest criticism (its price) and embarrassment (sales shortfalls), and presented the extended-range-electric concept as a long-term investment.

Even now, GM can still redefine the Volt as a long-term play that will eventually be worth its development and PR costs… but only as long as it candidly takes ownership of its shortcomings thus far and re-sets expectations to a credible level. And whether The General will defy and embarrass its political patrons by destroying the “million EVs by 2015″ house of cards in order to do so, remains very much to be seen. One thing is certain: as long as it puts PR and political considerations before the long-term development of healthy technology and brands,  GM will struggle with a negative and politicized image. And the Volt will be seen not as a symbol of GM’s long-term vision and commitment, but of its weakness, desperation, inconstancy and self-delusion.

The two-by-four, the 4×8 plywood sheet, the standard brick: Without standardized building materials, building houses would be a mess. The car industry is in that kind of a mess (more or less.) To get out of the mess, to shorten development times and to lower cost, just about every large automaker is on some kind of a standardization drive. Usually, these standards won’t go beyond the company, even alliances have problems agreeing on a common standard. When Nissan unveiled its Common Module Family (CMF) last Monday at its R&D  center in Atsugi, we asked whether this Common Module Family also would extend to Renault. After all, both companies had standardized on the same CEO.

We received an evasive answer.

The idea behind standardization is this: Just like houses are built from standard building materials and yet maintain their individual style (unless we have lazy architects,) cars could be designed from standard building blocks. Common platforms were one step in that direction, but it was just a first step on a very long road.

When GM announced its standardization drive last year, it was looking at 30 “core architectures” and a huge number of regional solutions. By 2014, GM wanted to shrink the number of “core architectures” to 24. By 2018, GM wanted to have eliminated all regional architectures and be ready to serve 90 percent of the volume with 14 global architectures. GM is at the very beginning of standardization.

On the other side of the spectrum appears to be Volkswagen with its MQB, MLB etc. kits. Volkswagen is about to take the next step, abandon platforms altogether and instead will design its cars from building blocks with clearly defined measurements and interfaces.

Nissan is somewhere in the middle. Nissan’s CMF uses four modules – engine compartment, cockpit, front underbody and rear underbody and a common architecture for electronic components. They call that 4+1. Then, they change the modules. They will need at least two engines compartments, three front underbodies, three cockpits, and three rear underbodies. Full standardization will take a while.

I pulled a Nissan engineer to the side and asked him how CMF compares to Volkswagen’s MQB. After the requisite quantity of air was sucked through the teeth, my engineer said that Volkswagen is in an enviable position. VW already had been building its cars from a handful of platforms, whereas Nissan “more or less did build a new platform for each car.” So for Nissan, it’s a big step to go to 4+1, which actually is 2x3x3x3+1=55

Indeed, Volkswagen makes its cars from 5 platforms, A0 through D, with most of the volume in A and B. When it comes to standardization, Volkswagen is way ahead of the crowd and can now take the next step towards the holy grail of standard building blocks, “Lego Blocks” as the dream is called in the business.

One indicator of the much higher granularity of the Volkswagen kits: Volkswagen specifically said that the kits allow them to design and built low volume cars quickly and reasonably. Nissan on the other hand stops using the CMF architecture if a car is built less than 5,000 times a year.

Designing cars from common building blocks and making them with standardized parts should lower the cost. Both Volkswagen and Nissan interestingly talk about a 30 percent cost reduction. Don’t think prices will drop because of this. Nissan says that government demands on safety and fuel efficiency raise the cost by 30 percent. The savings from standardization pay for compliance with government rules.

All larger car companies are busy with one standardization project or the other. By the end of last week, Toyota announced that it wants to develop common parts for about half of its 4,000-5,000 components within the next four years. A carmaker that is not thinking about standardization should be thinking about retirement.

The Godzilla of all standardization drives does not seem to happen: Still under the shock of the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, the Japanese government had demanded that automakers standardize most of the parts used by all Japanese makers. As things went back to normal, this demand was quickly ignored and forgotten.

Editor’s note: While our erstwhile Editor-in-Chief, Edward Niedermeyer, is on sabbatical, he will continue to weigh in on automotive issues in a (hopefully) weekly column entitled Blind Spot. This is the first installment.

Back in 2008, as the worlds of automobiles and politics headed towards a dramatic collision, the founder of this site and I had a series of conversations about political perspectives on automobiles. Though these conversations were wide-ranging, I kept coming back to the same conclusion: for all of the talk about guns as “tools of freedom,” it seemed to me that cars were even more worthy of the title. After all, most people use an automobile in the pursuit of freedom and mobility every day, whereas guns are (relatively) rarely used to secure individual rights.

But embracing the car’s role as a tool of freedom raises a number of troubling questions, most of them inherent to the very cause of liberty. Though cars make us more free as individuals, we must recognize that it comes at the cost of (among other things) dependence on gasoline, an “addiction” that many now seek freedom from. As new energy sources and mobility concepts become available, citizens will have to navigate a complex thicket of issues as they seek to maximize the freedom that personal mobility offers.

That private transportation fundamentally increases personal liberty is difficult to argue against. On the theoretical level, it’s not difficult to understand how private mobility frees individuals to choose where they live and work, empowering individual choice over collective planning. And for those who see humans as essentially freedom-seeking creatures, the headlong rush towards private car ownership in developing countries could be a sign of the car’s inherently liberating power.

But as is so often the case with expanding liberty, the democratization of the automobile has a flip side. Indeed, the very expansion of the global auto market puts pressure on our energy sources, creating something of a zero-sum global market for private transportation.

Even more troubling for proponents of the car as a tool of freedom, the expansion of the global car market in developing countries is being accompanied by a transition away from automobiles in developed countries. Beyond even the impact of rising gasoline prices, social, cultural and technological conditions are making automobiles less of a liberating force in developed nations. Particularly among young people, automobile ownership is increasingly seen as a burden rather than a freedom.

For some, the answer to this automotive apathy lies in new technology, most notably in electric cars (EVs, or electric vehicles). New technology, cleaner energy sources and a more high-tech image will, argue EV boosters, make cars more relevant and sustainable to new generations of developed world consumers. But can electric cars really serve as tools of personal freedom?

On the most superficial level, EVs offer considerably less immediate freedom than gas-powered cars. Once its battery is used, an EV must sit immobile for 6-12 hours before it can drive again, limiting (if nothing else) the perception that ones car could cross a major land mass efficiently should one need it to. This gut-level reaction is, among admitted fans of freedom, a major stumbling block to the acceptance of EVs.

Add to the EV’s fundamental limitations the fact that the market for them is being stimulated by government tax dollars, and i shouldn’t be surprising that EVs have become something of a punchline on the right. After all, a gut-level appreciation for continent-crossing levels of freedom and an appreciation for the free market tend to go hand-in-hand, and the EV fails on both counts.

But by making EVs out to be nothing more than a patronage plot based on Global Warming hysteria, the political right does a disservice to both the EV and itself (however true individual accusations may be). For a significant number of Americans, the EV holds the long-term promise of an almost unheard-of level of freedom from external energy sources: what could be more enticing to the lover of freedom than the idea of local private transportation powered by solar panels on your roof? And on a national level, the hidden costs to taxpayers of gasoline dependence aren’t often brought up by the deficit hawks (or hawks of any kind, for that matter), but they are very real.

In the real world, though, microgeneration and EVs themselves are too expensive to be available to all but the most wealthy freedom freaks. And frustratingly, the most convincing solution to the EV’s problems with range and cost, namely battery lease/swap infrastructure like Better Place’s, are hardly a libertarian dream come true. Only by centralizing grid management and paying for a battery swap infrastructure, a task necessitating government involvement, do EVs make sense on a large scale.

This leaves the EV in a frustrating impasse with the value of personal liberty. Though holding profound promise for self-sustainable private transport, the range-limited, heavily-subsidized reality is as bad for many lovers of liberty as its obvious cure, the “natural monopoly” of a centralized swap/lease entity.

And yet, if we look to the markets, we see it moving toward electrification. The number and variety of hybrids available today would astound American observers of the introduction of the Prius just over ten years ago. Those who believe in the market’s wisdom can not deny the steadily increasing electrification of the car market, nor ignore its implications. And as is ever the case when technology and markets shift, those seeking to maximize their personal freedoms will have to choose carefully from a new set of imperfect choices.

Given the interruptions endured by their Japanese arch-rivals, Ford and Chevy  were nearly guaranteed to win the brand volume sweepstakes. But look closer and all is not entirely well at the top of this heap. Ford, the volume leader, grew its overall sales by just 11% last year, in a market that grew 10.3%… in short, Ford didn’t lose any market share, but it didn’t win much either. More troubling for the brand’s long-term prospects, much of that growth came from trucks (up 15.1%), while car volume improved only 3.7%. In short, despite launching a brand-new Focus (which had a disappointing 2011), Ford lost ground in the car game (which grew more slowly than trucks, but nearly matched them for volume). The news was better at GM, where overall sales rose 13.2% on 17.8% car growth and 10.6% truck growth. Still, given the weakness at Honda and Toyota, one would have expected more from a GM that is still rebuilding from its bailout-era downturn.

Toyota and Honda posted similar results, having lost 6.7% and 6.8% volume drops respectively. But Nissan, which recovered far faster from the tsunami and was hit less hard by the Thai flooding, made up for some of their losses, putting a  14.7% volume increase in the Japanese side of the ledger. All three Japanese brands lost volume on their luxury brands, however, bowing before the German onslaught. And though Toyota’s losses were evenly-distributed by vehicle type, both Honda and Nissan relied on truck sales (including non-BOF CUVs) to boost volume. More importantly, the qualitative weaknesses of newly-launched products from Honda and Toyota helped fuel a sense of Japanese downturn that could prove to outlast any impacts of 2011′s natural disasters… but only time will tell.

With Detroit’s offerings enjoying the benefit of comparisons to their ignominious predecessors and new Japanese products enduring the exact opposite, Detroit’s market share growth continues to be mysteriously stalled. Chrysler’s turnaround continues apace, with 26.2% corporate volume growth, but with truck volume dropping in an otherwise strong market for the segment, profits will not grow commensurately. And a 66% increase in car sales growth looks a lot less impressive when you realize that its car sales were a mere 354,359 units… which is fewer than VW/Audi sold in the same period.

So, what happened? Think of the current Republican presidential nomination process as a parallel: Instead of the long-running pitched war between Detroit’s “Big Two” and Japan’s “Big Two”, the market is fragmenting, creating a thick pack of contenders rather than clear winners and losers. Hyundai/Kia enjoyed 26.5% combined growth on record volume. Nissan began to emerge as a rising power after decades of playing catch-up to Honda and Toyota. Volkswagen began its new value-oriented volume blitz, growing VW-branded car volume 29.4%. 44% growth at Jeep propelled Chrysler up and away from unsustainable volumes. Even Mitsu and Volvo posted some of the biggest volume percentage gains, up 41.9% and 24.6% respectively. The days of Toyota-Honda-GM-Ford dominance seem to be coming to an end, forcing brutal battles for every tiny sliver of growth.

Things have not changed dramatically in the truck world over the last year. Though truck volume outstripped car volume by nearly 400k units and though truck sales growth outstripped car sales growth, those gains largely came on the back of non-BOF CUVs. My analysis on the truck front has changed little since I wrote about The Great American Downsizing, and the new CAFE regulations that came out this year show that the days of BOF truck/SUV dependence for any manufacturer are coming to an end. On the car front, the action has been in the compact/midsized arena, the former of which is unsurprisingly exhibiting the wealth of solid options and killer competition that is beginning to define this industry. As 2012 unfolds, I’ll continue to look at the compact segment as a bellwether for the strength of brands. And with new versions of the Camry and Passat out, new Malibu and Fusion models coming, and an Altima replacement likely waiting in the wings, look for the midsized segment to continue to heat up as well. Meanwhile, with the luxury sedan segment essentially treading water, nearly all of the Japanese and American brands will need to dig deep to fend off the German takeover of the market.

The best news coming out of 2011 was that North American-sourced vehicles continued their strong turnaround. Fueled by Japan’s Yen crisis, the weak dollar and overseas natural disasters, insourcing of US sales picked up pace after a decade of precipitous declines. And given the larger trends in the industry, this dynamic should continue as production flees Japan… at least until Chinese imports gain acceptance in the marketplace. Given that this trend is being driven by foreign brand insourcing rather than a resurgence of sales from Detroit, it seems clear that the prospects for US auto industry employment have improved independently of the bailout. Though GM and Chrysler would not have survived this long without government intervention, and though they seem to have stabilized, there’s little to indicate that either GM or Chrysler is en route to juggernaut status in the US market (and GM could well take a PR and sales hit if the government exits its “investment” with a taxpayer loss).

Of course there is much more to analyzing 2011′s sales results than volume alone… from pricing to incentives, from fleet sales to inventory, there are a million qualifiers to the volume numbers that I simply don’t have the data to analyze effectively. Luckily TrueCar, which looks at as much data as anyone, has released a grade sheet for the industry by manufacturer and by brand. And the results there seem to reinforce my perception of 2011: an inevitable loss by the Japanese, and not much momentum gained by Detroit. In short, 2011 appears to have been the year of the insurgent brand (with the notable exception of Subaru, which saw its share peak in 2009-10 and is now falling off), and the opening of a new, more competitive chapter in the US market. This bodes well for consumers, who can anticipate better vehicles over the next product cycle or two, but it also foreshadows another shakeout further down the road. And this time it seems just as likely that Honda or Toyota could find themselves knocked out of the top tier as Ford or GM. In short, there’s never been a more exciting time to be watching the US auto market.

I remember looking at the then brand new Ford Five Hundred and thinking to myself, “This would make one heck of a Volvo.”

Like the Volvos of yore this Ford offered a squarish conservative appearance. A high seating position which Volvo’s ‘safety oriented’ customers would have appreciated. Toss in a cavernous interior that had all the potential for a near-luxury family car, or even a wagon, and this car looked more ‘Volvo’ than ‘Ford’ to me with each passing day.

Something had to be done…

Hmmm… why not subtract ‘twenty’ from the Five Hundred name. Call it a 480, and put in a nice classic Volvo styled fascia on the front end. Throw in an interior inspired by the best of Swedish design and, Voila! Ford would have offered a Volvo that would have hit the square peg of the brand’s main customers… and maybe even a few others who were considering an upscale Camry or a Lexus ES.

Sadly Ford never made a Volvo version of the Five Hundred, or the Flex for that matter. Instead they mis-balanced the diverging priorities of competing simultaneously with BMW (S40′s, C30′s, S60′s) and conservative middle-aged Americans who valued luxury transport over driving dynamics (Xc90, XC60, C70).  The brand became a disaster.

I am starting to see the same ingredients mixed into other brands these days. Take for instance Scion.

Yes this brand will get a nice pop and halo in the form of the upcoming FR-S. Then again, halo sports cars that are shared with other brands tend to be short-lived. Just ask Pontiac and Saturn about the Solstice and the Sky.

So what would be the perfect car to put into Scion’s kinship?

Two years ago I would have strongly argued for making the CT200h a Scion. It didn’t have the luxury trappings of a Lexus. However it offered tons of sporting character and attracted the type of youthful and educated audience that Scion sorely needed at that point.

You know. The type of people that quickly walked away from Scion after they started marketing bloated SUV-like compacts that should have been marketed as… Toyotas… or Volvos. Who knows.

Wait a second. YOU know!

A lot of potentially great cars over the years have been marketed to the wrong brands for the wrong reasons.  So I ask the B&B, “What cars were given the wrong brand, and where should they have gone?”.

Like most marketing classes in modern day MBA-land there are no right answers. Just SWAG’s and opinions. Feel free to demote a Cadillac to a Chevy if you must. So long as you can defend it, let’s hear it.

General Motors announced changes to the Chevrolet Volt’s design after a NHTSA investigation into why a Volt caught fire following crash testing.

The changes will go into effect once production restarts at the Hamtramck, Michigan facility, but customer cars already sold will follow a different protocol.

Starting in February, GM will initiate a “voluntary customer satisfaction program” to make the necessary changes to the Volt. According to GM’s Rob Peterson said that  formal recalsl must be initiated by NHTSA, and their lack of movement prompted GM to enact a voluntary one instead.

The fix involves changes to the Volt’s battery pack housing, as well as a coolant temperature sensor and a special bracket to prevent overfilling. The previous system allowed the battery housing to be punctured, which then resulted in coolant overflowing onto a circuit board causing an electrical short. The short was determined to be the cause of the fire.

All told, this has been a successful holiday season for your humble editor. I have showered myself with gifts, avoided annoying family entanglements, kept my pimp hand weak strong, and made sure there’s a three-hour gap in my Christmas to re-watch Michael Mann’s Heat in its glorious entirety.

And yet… I’m dissatisfied. Perhaps because there are ten simple things the automotive industry and/or its various players could do to make this the best season ever, and as of yet, none of them have been done. So here’s my list, delivered nice and late. Warning: mixture of hatred, sarcasm, and foolish sincerity ahead.

#10: Get the Chinese crap out of iconic American automobiles. There’s no simpler way to say it. Ford, please fit a decent, American-made transmission to all the Mustangs. If you need to, just toss in the GT500 transmission, charge everyone a fair amount for the difference, and rest secure in the knowledge that the right thing has been done. GM, you don’t get a pass on this either. Every Corvette sold in this country should have American-made wheels. It’s that simple. I don’t want to do 195mph on wheels made by suppliers who can just close their doors and reopen the next day under a different name. We won’t even talk about the electronics. Just fix the running parts, okay?

#9: Mercedes-Benz should formally apologize for the W220 and W210. Every customer who purchased a new S-Class or E-Class from those infamously troubled generations should receive a letter in the mail, hand-signed by Dr. Panzer Kampf-Wagen or whoever is running the show nowadays, apologizing for selling them an utter piece of junk. Hundreds of thousands of customers were basically swindled. They thought they were buying a Mercedes-Benz, not a cost-cut half-plastic embarrassment. Make it right. And throw them a little incentive towards the price of a new (and presumably better) Benz, just to make up for the abysmal resale on, say, the 2001 S430.

#8: Kill the Caliber. Okay, I guess that one’s been done.

#7: Buy all the Calibers back. Well, a guy can dream.

#6: Extend the warranty on the Cadillac Northstar. All of them. As dismal as the Mercedes-Benz S430 was, at least the basic mechanical parts were generally sound. Not so the Caddy four-valver. It’s great to drive and the name is also really cool, but they have become infamous for reliability issues. Now would be a good time for GM to show that they are serious about making Cadillac a world-class brand. They could do this by extending the warranty to match that of existing world-class brands like Hyundai, Kia, and Mitsubishi. If you really want to impress people, and if you really want to do something about Cadillac residuals, extend the warranty backwards in time. There’s precedent. Honda did it on the exploding-tranny Acuras. Surely Cadillac can match Acura.

#5: Go ahead and release the real 2012 Honda lineup. Oh, you’ve certainly had your fun with us, you crazy Japan-people, you. We Got Punked! I’m laughing. I really am. So now you can pull the wraps off the Civic, Acura TL/TSX, and CR-Z that you really want people to buy. I can hardly wait. DO EEET NOW. Obviously anybody who accidentally bought the current cars will get to trade, right?

#4: Let’s get Car and Driver and Road & Track off the newsstands. And AutoWeek while you’re at it. Seriously. Those of us who remember these magazines in their prime (not that AutoWeek ever had a prime, but you get the idea) are just depressed by reading them now — and the younger drivers don’t care. Close their doors and give existing subscribers, none of whom paid more than $6.95 a year anyway, their choice of Grassroots Motorsports or Shaved Asians to finish out their terms. Reading these once-great magazines now produces the same uncomfortable feeling I had when I heard that Jaco Pastorius had died in a gutter. Let’s make the dignified choice.

#3: End trim discrimination for manual transmissions. We live in an era where just-in-time manufacturing and supply have revolutionized the way cars are built. There is no reason whatsoever why the Hyundai Elantra Limited can’t be had with a manual transmission. Same goes for any other number of cars on the market. I’m not asking anybody to take the completely wacky step of fitting optional manuals on cars which don’t have them available now. I’m not living in dreamland. I understand that it’s critical for every Nissan Maxima sold to be crippled with that ridiculous Completely Vapid Transmission, and I can see how it’s simply too much hassle to offer a stick-shift in US-market Mercedes-Benz sedans, what with the extra $10 million it would cost to test the powertrain combination. That kind of cash pays for a lot of hidden goodwill programs on the W210 (see #9, above). I’m just saying: if you offer a manual transmission in one trim level, offer it in all of them. TSX Wagon, I’m looking directly at you. It can be special order only. That’s okay. I will wait.

#2: Porsche. Try finding it in your God-damned hearts to engineer, build, and sell a sporting 2+2 made to last a lifetime under a combination of four-season street and casual racetrack usage. Take all the money you waste on lifestyle marketing, accessories catalogs, special promotions, unique tie-ins, PR, free trans-Atlantic business-class flights for sycophants, hybrid drivetrains for five-thousand-pound crapwagons, special advertising sections, long-term loaners, Peter Cheney’s garage door, full-color glossy posters featuring frog-faced, thyroid-deficient trucksedans, whatever special tools are required to make sure the Cayman’s engine pushes less air than the 911′s, and any other unbelievably stupid thing you’re currently doing — and put all of it into creating a decent car. Just do that. Just put aside the thirty years of self-aggrandizing detritus you’ve built up around a once-legendary brand. Just build a car that will run 200,000 miles with careful maintenance the way (some of) the air-cooled cars did. I want to buy a Porsche. But I’m not a big enough fool to give you $85,000 for something that will have major, unresolved defects and a 35% residual five years after I take delivery.

#1: I’d like my colleagues to look in the mirror. If you’re writing in this business, today would be a good day to take stock of who you are, what you’re written, and the things for which you personally stand. Today would be a good day to remember that, although your super-best-friends in the PR business may pay for your daily driver, send your family on vacations, and pick up the tab for your drinks, your genuine and true responsibility is to the people who read your articles. My son is two and a half years old. The day will come when I am dead and he will only have what I’ve written to guide him as to who I was. He will see that I was flawed, intemperate, promiscuous, and occasionally naive to a fault — but he will also see that I believed in my readers and was passionate about creating content in which they could believe. Will your son be able to say the same? Or will he say, “My father (or mother) was a pawn of people who bought and sold him for the price of a monthly car payment”? Here’s a litmus test. If you had more interactions with PR people, fleet managers, and industry buddies than you did with your own readers last month, you’re part of the problem. Fix your wagon.

What are the chances I will get any of these gifts? Let’s be honest. It’s between slim and none. I have received one thing for which I am grateful, however: all of you at TTAC. Time and time again you have demonstrated that, collectively, you are the greatest group of partners any writer in the automotive world could wish to have. Merry Christmas to me, indeed.

Brethren, we are once again gathered together to mourn the passing of another automobile company. Saab was of that rare breed of car that always had a band of devoted, aye, fanatical followers. In her prime, Saab could not fail to ignite the after-burners of anyone with a predilection to genuine character, speed, innovation, intelligence, and even sexy good looks (at times). Not bad for a company that never once designed a clean-sheet new engine and borrowed more platforms than Heidi Klum. But when you’re small and from Sweden, resourcefulness is essential: Saab finagled an existence in this brutal industry far longer than might have been expected.  But now she joins an august group of other fallen automotive heroes in Valhalla: Borgward, Panhard, Tatra, Kaiser, Glas, TVR, Jowett, etc…better that then whoring herself to another rich benefactor. But Saab’s story is worth retelling.

Forget the “Born From Jets” tag line; it was propellers anyway. And in actuality, Saab was born out of necessity, as so much else at the end of the war. We built the factory, now what do we do? Do what everyone else was doing: build a car. And how? Easier said than done. Contrary to endless attempts to prove otherwise, there’s hardly anything in common between the two. So where to start?

How about with this? Saab wouldn’t be the only ones looking to DKW for inspiration. And what a brilliant car DKW’s F9 prototype was, especially in 1939. A highly aerodynamic body and a two stroke engine driving the front wheels. The car of the postwar future. What’s not to like?

Initially, the sixteen Saab aviation engineers (of which only two had a driver’s license) assigned to the task  came up with something a bit more radical and avaition-like, as in all the openings in the car being stressed members, like airplane hatches. Not practical. So they scoured junkyards, and bought some new cars, including a DKW. The more functional end result, the 92001, or Ursaab, certainly pays homage to the F9 as well as their relentless pursuit of an even lower coefficient of drag.

The prototype was powered by an actual DKW engine and transmission, a two-stroke twin producing 18 hp. With an (ac)claimed Cd of 0.30, the 92001 undoubtedly made the most of that modest power. Or at least looked like it. And rarely has an automobile company (save VW) had a more iconic birth-mobile.

And like the VW, it was hardly original. But what car is? Originality is largely overvalued anyway. As with any birth, what counts is  the harmonious convergence of genes. And although the Ursaab was more fetus than progeny, it embodied the qualities that would hence define (real) Saabs: feminine, creative, intelligent, feline, eccentric, distinctive, progressive.

No wonder Saabs came to be embraced by those attracted to its inherent qualities, to the extent of being stereotyped as a college professor’s car. As limited as any such generalization ever is, that expression did mean something more once than today. Or did it? Is the Prius a college professor’s car?

Maybe it’s easier to define Saab’s intrinsic personality by contrasting it to that other Swedish car company, Volvo. The two are almost perfect complements. Volvo dates back to 1927, and its cars have traditionally been, well, traditional. Firmly embraced by the more conservative set, there is a saying that captures its place in the Swedish mindset perfectly: Volvo, villa, vovve (Volvo, house, dog). No wonder Volvo came to be famous for their wagons, like the legendary Duett.

Volvo’s all-new car for the post war era, the PV444, may have adopted a bit of hump-backed aero-pretense, but it was fundamentally a brick compared to the Saab. And built like one too: tough, masculine, conventional in configuration and execution.  A solid and reliable burgher.

Of course, it was a bit different in the States, where Volvo was one of dozens of import brands, and also came to be associated with college professors as well as engineers and parents with kids in Waldorf schools. But that’s all relative; and even in the US, Saabs were always one or two steps to the quirky side of Volvo. And which company is still around, even if owned by the Chinese?

After a few years of refinement and the deft hand of the gifted industrial designer Sixten Sason, the Saab 92 entered production in 1949. The DKW engine gave way to Saab’s own interpretation of it: 746 cc, 25 hp, thermo-syphon cooling, and a three-speed transmission with column shift.  Top speed: 64 mph (105 kmh). Time to get there: indeterminate.

The nattering two-stroke spewed a plume of blue smoke on acceleration, and blubbered on over-run. A bit ironic then, that the stinky,smoky Saabs were so favored by the progressive set. But the idea of two stroke was enthralling to certain minds. Only seven moving engine parts! Just the thing to brag about over chianti while listening to a jazz combo. Smugness is born from (ram)jets: No moving parts at all!

But two-strokes are very receptive to tuning. By 1952, a Saab 92 (now with 35 hp) brought home the first of many victories at Monte Carlo, copping the Coupe des Dames there, with Greta Molander at the wheel. A delicate foreshadowing of greater things to come.

The skirts were really lifted for the Sonett I, Saabs first tentative foray into genuine sports cars. Developed in a barn by a few enthusiasts, the Sonett had a 57.5 hp version of Saab’s new three-cylinder two-stroke. Weighing some 1300 lbs, this was a brisk little barchetta good for 100 mph, nothing to sneeze at in 1955. Racing would have been its purpose in life, had the rules not suddenly changed. Although only a handful were built, it was not forgotten. How could it be?

The Saab was thoroughly re-engineered for 1955, now called 93. The new three-cylinder yielded 33 hp, still feeding through a three-speed, with over-run. The first Saab to be exported, it arrived in the US just as the great fifties import boom was really getting under way. Yes, these are what I used to see as a kid blowing smoke around the University of Iowa campus, confirming their stereotype.

And one of the kids in my grade school class rode in one of these. His Mom was at least as good looking as this one. Although the Type 95 had a perfectly functional rear-facing third seat despite its compact dimensions, I preferred to sit in the second seat, directly behind her. The back of her neck smelled much better than the exhaust sucked in from the open rear window.

The definitive first-generation Saab was the 96, built for some twenty years, until 1980. A more in-depth write-up can be found here, but  let’s just say Saab was doing a VW during all those years, with the biggest change coming in 1967, when impending emission regs killed the two-stroke once and for all. Ironic too, that an American-designed engine would be the only thing to fit under the hood in front of the axle line.

The little 60 degree V4 was originally intended for Ford’s VW fighter in the late fifties, the aborted Cardinal. The car and engine were shipped off to Cologne, Germany, where the V4 and its six cylinder offshoot powered millions of Euro-Fords, before finding its way back home into millions of Explorers and such. And of course Saab 96s, where it was embraced with welcome engine mounts. A number of other engines had been tried, but the Ford was right-sized and right-priced. Just not right-sounding, as it’s nigh-near impossible to make a V4 sound like its not missing a cylinder or two. But for the 96, it just was just another continuation of its eccentricities: from engine blubbering to engine stuttering.

Saab carved out an impressive corner in the world of racing by sticking mostly to rallying, if not all four wheels. The high-performance GT 850 Monte Carlo two-stroke, and the later V4s racked up repeat wins at Monte Carlo and elsewhere, especially in the hands of the legendary Erik Carlsson.

The Sonett re-emerged in 1966, this time as a coupe and production-ready, with the US as the prime intended market. Making room for the V4 only challenged its intrinsically compromised lines further. It was one of the most eccentric sports cars ever, at least from a mass-producer of automobiles. There were plenty of British limited-production plastic-bodied weirdos then, but who ever actually saw a Fairthorpe or Berkeley Sport? Sonetts, yes. Better to be inside it than the other way around.

The attempt to smooth out its bulbous nose on the Sonett III was somewhat successful. But with arrivals like the cheaper and infinitely more powerful and handsome Datsun 240Z, the Sonett’s few buyers were serious Saabistas, especially since it had all of 65 hp. A Karman Ghia without the Italian styling. But this was no damensportwagen; it was a gnarly little troll, and its buyers were certainly not needing for public expressions of their virility.

By the mid sixties, Saab was now twenty years old, and ready to make its mark in the automotive world. It was an ambitious act, and the most defining one. As well as the last truly all-new all-Saab. The 99 arrived in 1967, ready to take up battle with the likes of the small BMW, Alfa Romeo Giulia, and of course Volvo’s also-new 140 Series.

Despite reflecting a more rectilinear world-view of the times, the 99 still cut through the air with a very respectable Cd of 0.37. It was roomy, handled well, had fine brakes, was comfortable, offered excellent traction, and was powered by…well, nobody’s perfect (except BMW, of course).

The engineering firm Ricardo had assisted Saab in developing its own four stroke engine, but it was going to be too expensive to finalize and put into production. So Ricardo put Saab in touch with another client, Triumph, that was just about to put its own new SOHC “Slant Four” engine in production. Saab once again did the (seemingly) expedient thing, and had engines shipped from England. It won’t come as a surprise to hear that this didn’t work out so well. By 1972, Saab started building its own improved version of the engine, now known as the B engine.

As is fairly obvious, Saab 99 and 900 engines were mounted “backwards”, with the output and clutch at the front, then feeding power to the transaxle mounted underneath the engine, although with its own oil supply. Mustn’t be too conventional.

In 1974, Saab added a sloping rear hatchback to both its two and four door 99s, creating the combi coupé, or Wagon Back, in Americanese. This became a defining aspect to most Saabs hence, or it least it seems that way. And it was remarkably roomy back there, thanks to the low floor height. It was the closest Saab got to building an actual wagon in a long time. Meanwhile,Volvo was churning out wagons by the boatload.

During the seventies, when American cars lost their mojo, Saab’s was very well intact, and growing. The 99 started out reasonably powered by European standards of the time, but that was just a starting point. Increases in displacement, fuel injection, and the sporty EMS model countered the trend convincingly. But the real kicker was the 99 Turbo, which blew a fresh and stiff new breeze upon the automotive landscape. And made indelible impressions on those who ever got behind its wheel.

At a time when Detroit V8s were making as little as 110 hp, the two-liter turbo four packed all of 145 hp. Sounds ridiculous now, but in 1978, it was a revelation. Especially compared to the BMW 320i, which had all of 105 hp. It’s all relative, and the Saab Turbo helped spark the whole turbo revolution. Soon Dodge Caravans would be proudly sporting turbo badges. The Saab 99 Turbo was a prophet of the eighties, as malaise gave way to yuppiedom.

The short-nosed Turbo 99 had a brief life, and is hard to find in the wild anymore. Replaced in 1979 by the 900 series, which featured a longer sloping hood to help meet US front impact standards. The (original) 900 probably defines the “Classic” Saab better than any other. Certainly more so than the Vectra-based neo-900.

Convertibles, and higher performance models, along with an ever-greater refinement in technology, 16 valve heads, electronic engine controls, and minor body tweaks kept the 900 going all the way to 1993. A remarkable 25 year run for the definitive Saab.

Well before the 900′s protracted demise, Saab knew it had to be replaced. But the complexities and costs of developing a brand new car was too much, so Saab joined hands with Fiat on the Type Four platform, that would constitute the Saab 9000 of 1984, as well as the very similar Fiat Croma, Lancia Thema, and the better disguised Alfa 164. A competent and roomy car, it was a bit more challenged in taking on the deeply entrenched and successful mid-sized premium cars like the Mercedes E-Series and BMW 5-Series. Buyers in this class were not so readily moved by the inherent advantages of fwd and a hatchback. A sedan version soon followed, but obviously the fwd was here to stay.

The usual progression of styling tweaks and performance updates tried to keep the 9000 relevant and attractive. The reality was that the 9000 was not a hit, and Saab was in a pickle. The 900 was aging quickly, and the 9000 was not producing the profits necessary to even contemplate successor cars for either of them. Saab’s ambitious push into the premium sector was stalled, and the nose was pointing earthward, precariously so. Time to bail out, or be bailed out. Where are the parachutes?

That GM would be the one to buy Saab was not a good omen. It was obviously a case of Jaguar envy, after Ford snapped up that equally desperate automaker. Undoubtedly, GM would have preferred BMW, but it kept saying nein danke! Everyone was getting into the Euro premium car game, and never being one to be left out, GM bit where it could. Who would have thought?

Thinking didn’t appear to be the primary factor; more like fear of getting left behind. That’s one of the most powerful decision drivers ever, usually for the worse. And how exactly was GM going to successfully manage another weak brand? At the end of the worst decade of its existence, when its own market share was imploding? In the usual way, by platform sharing.

Ok, but execution is the key, and Saab’s (unfortunately named) neo 900, riding on an Opel Vectra platform, was quickly seen for what it was: the future of Saab, for better and for worse. Saab now had access to capital, technology, and GM’s euro-V6 engine, but quality and genuine Saab-ness were sorely missing.

After five years of GM’s involvement and sanitizing, Saab finally showed an operating profit for 1995. It was not to be a regularly recurring feature. Not that it kept GM from buying the rest of the company in 2000; they were too committed by then not to. Welcome to the growing GM orphanage!

GM’s versatile 2900 platform was duly enlarged a bit to accommodate the long-overdue 9000 replacement, the awkwardly named 9-5. Like the 900, soon to be called 9-3, these cars had their virtues and vices, lovers and haters. You can duke that out yourselves, but what can’t be argued is that they failed to save the brand, in more ways than one. GM had the answer to that problem too: brand extension, the formula that also worked so well at Saturn.

Have we almost forgotten (or repressed) the Saaburu? Graft a Saab nose on the Subaru WRX, and it’s…just about the best Saab made in ages! Here was the true successor to the spirit of the real old Saab. Too bad Subaru had co-opted that decades earlier. Subaru probably mopped up more ex-Saab and Volvo drivers than any other brand.

And as appealing as the 9-2x might have been with GM’s crazy discount prices at the time, the ruse was seen for what it was: another pathetic joke in GM badge-engineering’s comedy club. Also known as the Improv.

That was just the warm-up act. The headliner was the 9-7. An Saab born from truck frames and V8s. Probably the best SUV of its kind GM ever built; what more can be said? Poor Saab, now a sex change operation in its old age. What next?

Nothing. Our Eulogy ends here, because if the true Saab was still alive to some extent then, the 9-7 was the final straw. Everything that happened since are the twitches and jerks of a zombie. And we’ve been well inundated with the antics surrounding it.

Many may well have enjoyed a genuinely positive experience with their 9-5s and 9-3s and such, but the level of Saab fanaticism in these recent months is remarkable. It seems to be a reflection of the times: I’m entitled to have Saab, because I’ve pinned my self-identification to it. I’m owed Saab.

I’d have been much happier to see Saab go to its inevitable grave twenty years ago, without the GM years and recent histrionics. Death is never a pretty thing, car companies included. We might have spent the past twenty years arm-chairing endless “what -ifs” and “could-have” scenarios. But its hard to imagine anyone coming up with a more bizarre outcome.

So will we spend the next twenty years debating alternative outcomes? Not me. Saab was an iffy proposition from the get-go, and there’s really no room left in the market for what Saab once embodied. Others have long plucked its remaining useful attributes and made them their own.

If there really was to be a true Saab born from airplanes today, it might look something more like this. And we all know how that turned out. Everything has a season, and Saab’s is well over.

 Thanks to Ingvar Hallstrom for the insights

 Paul Niedermeyer is the Editor of Curbside Classic, where every car has a story

The rise of the internet has had myriad effects on everyday life, not the least of which has been its profound impact on consumer behavior. With ever more data being made available online, and with the rise of independent alternative media outlets like TTAC, car buyers in particular are fundamentally changing their relationship to the car buying process. Dealers have been noting for some time that the internet has created better-informed buyers who, armed with more information, are demanding the car they want at the best possible price, wreaking havoc on traditional car dealer tactics like upselling and opaque pricing policies.

But as the eternal dance between supply and demand shifts in favor of consumers, some dealers and OEMs are having a tough time adjusting to the new reality. At the same time, the need to make money off of online consumer education has created some tension for the new breed of consumer-oriented websites. This conflict has now broken out into the open, as the auto transaction data firm TrueCar has found itself locked in a battle with American Honda over the downward pricing pressure created by more widely accessible transaction data. And the outcome of this conflict could have profound impacts on the ever-changing face of the new car market.

Early last week, TrueCar CEO Scott Painter took to the TrueCar blog with an “Open Letter To The Automotive Industry,” in which he argued

Our world is changing. Unprecedented access to information and a massive shift in consumer behavior has resulted in a challenging new automotive retail landscape. It has also enabled a consumer appetite for data transparency. To hide from evolving consumer behavior is to deny change. At TrueCar, we embrace this opportunity. We also believe that transparency is the centerpiece of trusting relationships. Some in the industry disagree.

And indeed, from personal experience I feel comfortable saying that TrueCar does provide consumers with some highly valuable information by tracking vehicle transactions from several data sources and publishing the range of transaction prices on a local level. This clearly helps consumers navigate the often opaque and confusing world of dealer-level pricing, and facilitates a more efficient interaction between supply and demand. And if that’s all TrueCar did, it would be impossible to argue with the valuable service it provides.

But in order to fund its business model, TrueCar cannot simply give away data and hope everything pans out for the best. In order to generate profits, TrueCar works with “dealer partners,” allowing them to present a lower “haggle-free” price for the model being researched at no upfront cost. If the consumer buys that car, TrueCar gets a $299 commission from the dealer; if not, the dealer pays nothing. Dealers can tailor these “guaranteed lowest prices” based on TrueCar’s data, and they seem to generally beat non-”guaranteed” prices in the TrueCar “price curve” display by only a few hundred dollars. But by offering this service to its dealer partners, TrueCar has opened itself to conflict with OEMs, as this fiscally-necessary service muddies TrueCar’s role as a pure consumer service. Which is where the conflict with Honda comes in.

In his “Open Letter,” Painter mentions no OEM by name, and TrueCar’s EVP for Dealer Development Stewart Easterby tells TTAC

 We’re not trying to pick a fight… we very much value Honda/Acura. We have strong OEM relationships through our recent acquisition of Automotive Lease Guide, and we have lots of people on staff who have work for OEMs, so we generally have strong relationships with the industry.

But in an Automotive News [sub] piece published on the same day as Painter’s “Open Letter,” the TrueCar CEO claimed that American Honda was warning dealers away from advertising below-invoice “guaranteed lowest” prices. After talking to American Honda, AN updated its piece, noting that it had

incorrectly reported that Honda singled out TrueCar.com when the automaker warned dealers that they would put their local marketing payments from Honda at risk if they offered prices below invoice on Internet shopping sites

In fact, what had happened was that American Honda had simply warned its dealers that any advertisement of below-invoice prices could jeopardize the marketing assistance money Honda sends dealerships. American Honda’s Chris Martin clarified the automaker’s position in an emailed statement to TTAC, noting

Dealers who wish to receive marketing funds are expected to adhere to certain guidelines that govern dealer participation in its Honda Dealer Marketing Allowance (DMA) Program and its Acura Carline Marketing Allowance (CMA) Program.  Among the many advertising guidelines to which dealers must adhere to in order to receive DMA/CMA Funds, Honda dealers are restricted from advertising new Honda vehicles at a price below dealer invoice plus destination and handling charges and Acura dealers are restricted from advertising new Acura vehicles at a price below MSRP plus destination and handling charges.  Such guidelines do not limit a dealer’s discretion to advertise a new vehicle at any price if the dealer is not seeking DMA/CMA Funds.  Furthermore, the dealer is free to charge customers any price it chooses, in its absolute discretion, for a vehicle.

Martin goes on to identify the central bone of contention:

The development of third party websites used for advertising is not any different than advertising pricing in a traditional newspaper or on TV.

And here, American Honda has something of a point. Whereas TrueCar’s price curve is a pure reporting tool, simply reflecting otherwise available data, it’s not entirely unfair for Honda to characterize TrueCar’s service to dealer partners as an advertising service. In practice, the only real difference between this service and any other form of advertising is that TrueCar only gets paid if a car gets sold at the “guaranteed lowest” price offered by one of its dealer partners. If you accept that reality, Honda has some very valid reasons for threatening to withhold dealer marketing assistance, as Martin’s statement explains

The function of these [DMA] guidelines is three-fold. First, it encourages dealers to use the advertising money provided by American Honda for interbrand advertising.  That is, rather than providing funds to dealers so that they can engage in discount advertising against other Honda and Acura dealers (which does American Honda and consumers no good), American Honda wants dealers to use the funds to promote the advantages of Honda and Acura vehicles when compared with competing brands. Second, discount advertising is detrimental to the Honda and Acura brand images.  American Honda has no wish to pay for ads that portray its products as “cheap” or “low-end” vehicles.  This may be appropriate for other manufacturers; it is not appropriate for the Honda and Acura brands.

So far, so reasonable. TrueCar’s service may be more palatable than the local, low-rent “Check Out Our CRAAAAZY Prices!” ads you see on TV, but in practice there’s little meaningful difference. Besides, the choice belongs to dealers: either accept Honda’s money with the inevitable strings attached, or throw in your lot with the new lower-price, but potentially higher-volume TrueCar (or CRAAAAZY Prices!) strategies. But with its third rationale for its policies, Honda strays from this reasonable territory, and betrays a distinct bias against TrueCar, arguing

Third, American Honda believes that much discount advertising is bait-and-switch advertising, which is not beneficial to the consumer and reflects badly on the manufacturer that condones it.  Dealers that advertise vehicles for extremely low prices (as some do on the TrueCar site) may engage in either direct bait-and-switch tactics or using the automobile’s brand name to sell expensive accessories, service contracts and the like.

Memo to Honda: these practices are as old as the auto industry itself. Suggesting that these tactics will never be used at dealers who toe Honda’s DMA line is just as disingenuous as the implication that TrueCar’s dealer partners are more likely to use them. If anything, TrueCar’s major sin is that it makes below-invoice advertising easier for the OEM to monitor and therefore squelch than in the pre-internet days, when consistently maintaining these DMA standards would have required a survey of every local publication and TV/radio broadcaster (not to mention direct-mail marketing), a task that no automaker was or is equipped to do.

But Honda’s apparent antipathy towards TrueCar is just the tip of a growing resentment towards the site. In a speech cited in the AN piece published last Monday, AutoNation CEO Mike Jackson expressed the angst that appears to be spreading across the auto retailing industry, especially in light of its recent deal with Yahoo [sub].

The good deal that they’re pitching to the consumer is lower than average. So to the extent that everyone goes with the TrueCar price, it moves the average down. It’s a death spiral, and the question is whether they are powerful enough to unleash that dynamic in the U.S. marketplace.

But Jackson’s implication, that TrueCar can essentially manipulate the market in favor of consumers, simply doesn’t hold up to scrutiny. On an abstract level, you can’t repeal the law the law of supply and demand. As Painter puts it

They’re trying to say Hondas are worth more than invoice, but if everybody’s paying less than invoice, that’s not true

More practically, however, TrueCar’s own data seems to refute the industry’s fears. Specifically, Easterby tells TTAC

TrueCar represents two to three percent of new car sales… we’re flattered that people think we’re influencing the market, but at that share, we clearly aren’t. The 21st C consumer demands transparency in all products and services, that’s what the web has done. TrueCar reflects the market, just as Zillow reflects the market for real estate, rather than determines it.

Even more importantly, Painter insists

Our goal at TrueCar is to foster healthier relationships between manufacturers, dealers and consumers through data transparency. To deliver on this promise, we require a high standard from our 5,800 dealer partners – an upfront competitive price and a commitment to a great customer experience. A discoverable upfront price is the cost of getting noticed. Contrary to popular concerns this does not create a “race to the bottom.” The lowest price only secures the sale 19.2% of the time within the TrueCar network. The sale is still won by location, selection and good old-fashioned customer service. [Emphasis added]

So where does this all leave us? Clearly Honda has the right to withhold DMA money from dealers violating its reasonable conditions on that money. By the same token, dealers have the choice of pursuing higher volumes with less traditional advertising by choosing the TrueCar strategy, or continuing to follow the time-honored tradition of collaborating with the manufacturer. And here, TrueCar’s price curve, which it says is not populated by dealer partner data but from independent, anonymized sources, becomes the killer app: it’s so good (reflecting a claimed 90% of all new car transactions), it can’t help but draw ever more buyers, who will then be exposed to its dealer partner “advertisements.”

Ultimately, it’s difficult not to conclude that TrueCar (and sites like it) won’t continue to draw ever more dealers away from the old DMA agreements, especially as online research becomes more important to the car-buying process and as traditional advertising dollars flow from TV, radio and print towards the internet. And if dealers and brands are sufficiently hurt by downward pressure on pricing, the alternative is always there. This is how competition works, and because TrueCar has more fundamentally aligned itself with consumers and the power of the market, it’s tough seeing them not coming out ahead in this struggle. And if they do, car buying could be changed forever. Again.

Click here to view the embedded video.

This is one of my favorite music knock offs, the Hindi version of Europe’s “The Final Countdown”. My point? If the folks at Mahindra Planet are right, it’s only a matter of time before the Bollywood Music types rip off Skynyrd’s classic, “Sweet Home Alabama.” Which will be pretty awesome, I assure you!

The big box of a building in Muscle Shoals is rumored to be the future home of the Mahindra TR20 and TR40 compact pickups. The truck gurus at Navistar supposedly signed a 10 year lease on the facility this October: could the company that fought Ford tooth and nail take Ford’s compact truck market share once the Ranger officially dies next week?

But let’s not get too excited about our prospects for a pure compact pickup, a stickshift, gutsy Miata with a bed if you will. Nothing’s ever perfect.

If the EPA figures are right, the TR40 is a bit of a buffet slurping Yankee. Considering the price volatility of diesel and the fuel economy of gas trucks, that’s a big problem. And who knows if these rigs have enough engineering prowess to overcome the road/dirt driving dynamics of a Tacoma. It’s same (potential) Achilles’s heel that put the Model T out of production and Chevrolet on the map.  Then again, this interior shot suggests the TR isn’t a bad place to do business.

Rear HVAC vents?  Not too shabby! Who knows what the future will provide?

Off to you, Best and Brightest.

With NHTSA opening a formal defect investigation into the Chevy Volt, GM is moving to defend its rolling lightning rod (no pun intended) and allay consumer fears about its safety. Yesterday I briefly appeared on Fox Business’s Your World With Neil Cavuto show to talk about what the intro to my segment referred to as “the hybrid from hell” and the “killer in your garage.” I tried to explain that the danger to consumers was basically nil, and that the real concern is for rescue, towing and salvage workers. And I would have explained why NHTSA’s tests still leave some serious questions open, but my “fair and balanced” approach meant that my segment ended up being extremely short. So let’s take the opportunity now to look past the hysteria and pinpoint the real issues with NHTSA’s investigation into the Volt.

A recent GM press release on the issue was accompanied by a conference call to reporters [transcript in .doc format here], in which GM’s top product executives, North American President Mark Reuss and Product Development Boss Mary Barra, gave GM’s perspective on the flap. But in a key passage, Barra confirmed that the most reasonable criticism of GM is essentially legitimate, as she confirmed that GM had not fully developed post-crash safety procedures before putting the Volt on the market.

Three weeks after the [initial NHTSA side-pole] test, the Volt caught fire.  This vehicle crash test was conducted before GM had finalized its battery depowering procedure.  We have learned that significant electrical charge, or energy, was left in the battery after the test.  When electrical energy is left in a battery after a severe crash it can be similar to leaving gasoline in a leaking fuel tank after severe damage.  It’s important to drain the energy from the battery after a crash that compromises the battery’s integrity – or you risk potential fire.

That’s why we have developed a process to depower the Volt’s battery after a severe crash.  We have been using the protocol since July of this year and we have now shared this process with the NHTSA and are working to extend this process and the needed equipment to those who handle or store vehicles after a severe crash.

Unable to deny that it should have had post-crash protocols in place before launching its first lithium-ion battery-powered car, GM seems to be trying to broaden the issue to extend beyond the Volt. Said Barra

But I also have to put this into the proper perspective:  Battery safety isn’t just a Volt issue. This is an issue we’re already working within the industry.  In fact, we are currently leading a joint electric vehicle activity with the Society of Automotive Engineers and other automotive companies to address new issues such as a process and protocol for depowering batteries.

The problem is, this does appear to be a Volt issue. Between the Nissan Leafs already on the road and the Prius Plugins that Toyota has been testing for years now, there are no documented thermal events that I’m aware of. Furthermore, the loss of battery integrity that the Volt experiences in side impacts seems to be caused by the lack of a steel battery case, which Nissan fits to its Leafs. Though it’s not clear what post-crash procedures Nissan has proliferated, it seems that its decision to protect its batteries with steel casings maintains battery integrity in government crash testing, eliminating the risks seen in the Volt.

Meanwhile, there is one question that nags at me. In the wake of the June fire at a NHTSA facility, GM shared its post-crash safety protocols. But the latest Volt fire, which happened a week after NHTSA, DOE, DOD and GM engineers test-ruptured a Volt battery, ”sparked a fire of a wooden structure” at the DOD’s Hampton Roads facility. Here’s what’s not clear: whether that battery pack was subjected to GM’s post-crash protocols. If it was, this fire proves that GM doesn’t have a handle on this problem, and that its safety procedures are insufficient. If the post-crash protocols were not followed, NHTSA, DOE and DOD were incredibly stupid to store a battery pack they knew might catch fire in a wooden building. Furthermore, GM’s communications team has yet to clarify whether this latest fire was caused because safety procedures were not followed intentionally. One way or another, this needs to be clarified, even if it makes the government testers look foolish.

Based on GM’s reaction, deploying top executives, offering loaner cars, and vigorously defending the Volt in the press, it’s clear that The General takes this situation incredibly seriously… which is why I’m a little shocked that it hasn’t cleared up the circumstances of the most recent fire. After all, the Volt is easily the most controversial car in America, and based on my experience on Cavuto yesterday, it’s clear that many hope to use this investigation as the final nail in its coffin. But there is still much we don’t know about these thermal events, and what we do know indicates that they are not an immediate danger to owners and drivers.

So where is the danger? Clearly to the afore-mentioned rescue, salvage and towing workers… but also to the Volt’s sales. The Volt already has marketing challenges based on its price and association with the bailout. Even the hint of a fire risk is going to add the Volt’s sales headwind, making it even tougher to meet its goal of selling 45,000 units in the US next year. Meanwhile, the White House’s goal of putting 120k Volts on the road next year is pushed even further out of reach.

In short, this does not appear to be the death blow that Volt-bashers were hoping for, and GM appears to be handling the situation as well as can be expected. But this incident does highlight the downsides to pioneering new technologies, and shows how just one overlooked detail can create huge PR issues.

No one cares, at least not among the automotive press, as to what happens at the  (Phoenix) “Arizona International Auto Show” held every year over Thanksgiving weekend. There are no world or US product launches, no concept cars on display, and only a few attractive booth babes. Just a bunch of production (or almost ready to launch) vehicles for the masses to touch, feel and some even to drive (on the road) or experience (like Jeeps on an indoor obstacle course) sprinkled with a few exotics (roped off of course) to ogle over.

But TTAC cares. Why? Because the world of automotive retailing depends on the masses to buy cars, lots of them. The folks who go to smaller market car shows don’t go to see the whimsical fancies of vehicle designers (cause there aren’t any), they go to check out real cars that they might buy. Watching and listening to these attendees can tell those of us that care where the winds of favor will blow. What’s hot and what’s not.

Here’s my take. Toyota and Honda are mostly last decade’s news. The public blew past their booths, barely giving the new Camry a glance, and ignoring the already disparaged Civic. The Prius V – meh – just a larger Prius. And Scion’s new IQ? There’s no chance of this vehicle gaining sales traction except in dense urban environments where parking is a premium or for ZipCar users. It’s just too small, not “cute” enough for high school cheerleaders, and not macho enough for…meat eaters. Both of these Japanese brands have resorted to dumbing down their product so far that they’ve become messes of mediocrity. Functional perhaps but competitors are passing them by…and so are shoppers.

Nissan is a bit more interesting than its two Japanese rivals, but that’s not saying much. At least there were some folks looking at the Murano Cabriolet, admiring its soft palette color clearly reaching for the heart strings of the ladies. But it’s expensive, lacks any utility whatsoever, and seems almost as a desperate attempt to revive sales of its base platform. The other mainstream cars – Versa, Sentra, and the aging Altima – had few showgoers touching or feeling them. Maybe the public is getting bored with Japanese cars? I am.

On the domestic front, things look better but the skies are still cloudy. Jeep brought their indoor adventure ride to prove the ruggedness of the Grand Cherokee and the Wrangler. It’s impressive to watch these machines, loaded with attendees, tackle obstacles that would destroy ordinary sedans. The public loves it and Jeep, Marchionne’s savior brand for Chrysler Group LLC, is bringing home the bacon. How much can the Wrangler really cost to build? And the development costs of the GC got wiped out in the bankruptcy. On the other hand, the Fiat 500 is now definitely considered as a “chick” car thanks to J Lo’s advertising. It might be cute but didn’t seem to be generating the buzz it needs among the crowd.

GM’s main sales driver is Chevrolet. People still get excited about the Corvette, the Camaro found a nerve with the politically incorrect, and its trucks pay for all of it. But the new Sonic – believe it or not – is truly competitive as a B-segment offering. It’s fairly substantial feeling – the doors close with a solid thunk, the interior is one of the best in the segment, and when the turbo 1.4l becomes available, it will become a darling of the community college crowd. Buick on the other hand is nice but….soft. The new Verano will be a sales flop. A tarted up Cruze that’s too small for most old folks…oh wait, that’s not Buick’s target market any more. How could I forget that the Regal is going after Acura buyers now…really? Was Acura even at the show?? Did anyone notice?

Ford. Someone needs to tell Ford to stop messing around with the consumer electronics interface and get back to some basics. I drove the Fusion Hybrid and it’s lacking (more on this later). I know a new Fusion is due next year and it can’t come too soon. The switchgear in this car is awful – plastic parts from years gone by. The driveline made funny noises – a couple weird clunks here and there and engine noise penetrated the cabin. I hated it. I then switched out and drove an Ecoboost 2.0L Edge. Surprisingly, it seemed to be adequately powered for a blown four, quiet on the inside, and fairly plush although the MyFordTouch is completely baffling. But then I saw something astounding. The driver’s door edge trim (where the door skin overlaps the door frame) was poorly finished. Creases were obvious and there was some pocketing that had started to rust – on a brand new car! I checked the other doors – same thing. And opening and closing the doors – light and tinny. The door handle mechanisms felt like they would break off in my hand. Alan – if you’re listening – you’ve got some work to do on the basics.

The star of the show – wait – it’s Kia. Yes, Kia. In particular, the new Optima. Get inside one. Check out the interior, the switchgear, the roominess, and finally the price tag. Amazing. And that’s not the only car in the lineup that’s impressive – the public flocked to the display checking out the merchandise. I can see why. I experienced the Optima Hybrid at the test drive center before entering the show. I was a back seat passenger – but couldn’t tell it was a hybrid. Smooth and quiet unlike the Ford Fusion Hybrid I drove later that day. I also drove a loaded Optima Turbo. Heated and cooled seats in a $31,000 ride! The car was powerful, smooth, and better than any Japanese car now offered in this segment. No wonder Kia can’t make them fast enough.

So there it is…the future is being led by the Koreans. The domestics are in second. And the Japanese are trailing by a mile. The world is changing fast. Who would have guessed?

As Bertel pointed out earlier today, peak oil is here: the graph above is not from some fly-by-night EV firm, but Toyota, an auto industry giant. What years of environmental and security arguments failed to communicate, economics is now explaining with little difficulty. Namely, that demand for oil is growing faster than supply, forcing developed economies to look beyond oil for future growth. And, as you might expect from a conservative player in a conservative industry, Toyota argues that the solution to this growing disconnect is a portfolio of drivetrain technologies. But what if, instead of trying to adapt an existing business model to the new oil reality, you built a new business model from the ground up? That’s exactly what Project Better Place is trying to do, and the contrast between its approach and that of Toyota is fascinating to anyone interested in the future of the automobile.

Toyota’s approach to a world of constrained oil supply in the incremental manner that one would expect from a giant company selling millions of cars each year. In the words of Satoshi Ogiso

To control this gap, we must go multi track. We must improve gasoline and diesel engines. We must increase the number of hybrid models. We must produce the plug-in hybrid. We must develop city commuter electric vehicles. We already started small production of fuel cell vehicles.  We must do all these improvements at the same time.

That approach seeks to serve the entire global marketplace for cars, and places a huge demand on R&D efforts, requiring a company of Toyota’s size to execute the strategy. Better Place’s approach on the other hand couldn’t be more different. Rather than taking a multi-technology approach, BP is focused on one technology: EVs. And rather than building cars itself, BP is focused on providing the services, infrastructure and grid management tools to make EVs viable for more than “city commuter vehicles.” In short, whereas Toyota seeks to evolve, BP is attempting to create the circumstances under which EVs are the natural choice of technology for all automakers.

These vastly different approaches to the same problem have, at their cores, a conflict over philosophy. Toyota, along with the rest of the car industry, is trying to maintain the market for cars as best it can, while slowly introducing new technologies at higher prices which will then trickle down throughout the lineup. As conditions evolve, the market will demand different technologies from Toyota’s toolbox in different amounts. On the other hand, markets are notoriously bad at foreseeing and managing energy price spikes, as witnessed by the crazy segment fluctuations during and after the Summer of 2008. In contrast, rather than promising a steady evolution towards oil independence, BP offers the opportunity for a quantum leap. Its basic mechanism is the government, rather than markets, which can better prepare a nation for the future rather than relying on often-painful,inefficient market mechanisms. And with demand unlikely to drop below supply any time soon, Better Place is the only option for governments with enough political consensus to preemptively force themselves through petroleum-based transport withdrawals.

But just because Better Place is more fundamentally dependent on government assistance than its alternatives in the auto business does not mean it’s another Solyndra. In fact, Better Place has raised some $750m in equity financing, including a $200m round that was announced at the end of last week. Its backers now include, HSBC, Vantage Point, Lazard, Morgan Stanley, UBS, GE, and Israel Corp… none of which are blue-eyed dreamers. And their fiduciary reasons for backing BP appear to be well-grounded: although the company is “pre-revenue,” its valuation (post money valuation on a fully diluted basis) is now $2.25b. That’s an 8x increase for the first round of investors, who would have been hard-pressed to find a stronger return over the 2007-2011 period. So, where does all this value come from if there are no revenues yet? According to the firm’s communications director, Joe Paluska points to

the uniqueness of our model (i.e., investor confidence that we can unlock a hyper growth category for affordable electric cars) and the major trend lines of oil forecast to go up and battery prices continuing to decline with the delta being our operating margin.

Better Place also has another secret weapon that’s sure to attract investors: its CEO, Shai Agassi. The former software maven who created Better Place after being passed over for CEO of SAP, Agassi is one of those rare people who can communicate an idea as complex as Better Place’s network of battery swap stations, its decoupling of the EV and its battery, its under-covered grid management capabilities, and the macroeconomic backdrop that he insists will make it all work. Having met a number of brilliant and intimidating luminaries of the auto industry, it’s safe to say that none of them made quite the impact on me that Agassi did when I met with him earlier this fall. Between the sheer scope of his ideas, and his flinty, intellectual-street-fighter demeanor, it’s safe to say that Agassi is the closest to a truly historical figure that I’ve met in my years covering the auto business. And with the auto industry stuck in the model of slow technological evolution exemplified by Toyota, Agassi embraces the revolutionary approach that a clean break from the past is not only possible, but necessary.

When I ask Agassi if he wanted to “destroy the auto industry,” a charge often leveled against him by industry executives, he smiles and answers with another question:

Did Jeff Bezos want to destroy the publishing industry? Because that’s what he did. But he did it because he saw the potential for an entirely new business model with the Kindle. In effect, the world’s biggest bookseller killed off its existing business, selling paper books, in order to create an entirely new business in digital media.

No wonder then, that Better Place faces such resistance from the established forces in the auto industry, despite the market’s clear optimism for his approach. Thus far, only Renault has signed on to partner with BP; elsewhere, Agassi says the industry is deeply resistant to the idea that infrastructure can make electric cars viable for the majority of the auto market. He sketches a quick graph showing total cost of ownership over 300,000 miles: the cost of a car, gas and maintenance on one side, and the cost of a car, several batteries and electricity on the other. With battery prices near $500/kWh and headed downwards while gas heads upwards, he points to the difference and says

I don’t want to destroy the car industry, I want to destroy the oil industry. I want to share this money with the car companies. When was the last time they got a check from the oil companies?

It’s a question that’s as provocative as Better Place’s business plan, and the fact that it doesn’t convince the automakers shows how deeply conservative the industry is. But then, why get in bed with a plan that aims to kill off your entire gas-powered business when Better Place can’t even prove that there’s a market for their model?

That’s the challenge Better Place faces right now. Its first networks, in Israel and Denmark, are being built up as we speak, ahead of a slow rollout next year of the Project’s services and vehicles. And says Agassi, the first year will be slow and there will be problems. Like what kind of problems? Agassi smirks slightly and says

We’re going to find out. Imagine the first guys to install gas stations… you think they didn’t run into a few unexpected problems?

But it seems that Better Place’s problems thus far have little to do with implementation and everything to do with the fact that big ideas are scary and draw knee-jerk reactions. For example, take a recent Wall Street Journal [sub] piece which cites the concerns of one Moni Bar, chief executive of Budget Rental Cars Israel-Domicar Ltd. For example:

Mr. Bar said that he fears vehicles with switchable batteries might lose as much as 70% of their original value in four years

An interesting complaint, but one one that seems borne of paranoia rather than reality. After all, one of Better Place’s key advantages is that you don’t buy an EV battery, but just the car. The battery is owned by BP, which you then buy a mileage plan from, allowing you to swap batteries at will and insulate yourself  from the 70%-range depreciation that will afflict EVs where you do have to buy the battery. Though BP does not have a buy-back scheme to maintain resale values, it insists that the 70% depreciation number is way off. And with its new Fluence EVs selling for less than the Mazda3 (Israel’s most popular car) and offering a 20% improvement in Total Cost of Ownership (including gas and maintenance), it’s not too surprising that 400 of Israel’s largest corporate fleet owners have signed up to switch their fleets over to Better Place (the majority of new car sales in Israel are made through fleets). As Agassi puts it

We don’t have a demand issue, we have a rollout issue. The first year we are going to take care to have a carefully controlled rollout.

Getting that rollout right is the major challenge for better place, a it is not evolving an existing product to changing times, but is rather attempting to change entire parts of the world all at once. Today it’s Israel and Denmark, next it will be Australia (which Agassi describes as “two and a half Israels, linked by a freeway). Perhaps someday it will be the San Francisco Bay Area, a market Agassi also compares to Israel. Like everyone else, Better Place needs to build scale in order to bring prices down to the point where unlimited-range, limited-depreciation EVs can compete on pure economics; unlike everyone else, BP can be patient while it rolls out its first networks. After all, it doesn’t need to spend huge amounts researching multiple solutions… it just needs for gas prices to march ever upward and battery prices to keep dropping. And when the next big gas price spike arrives, you can bet that a number of governments with overnight mandates to solve, not “work towards solving” oil dependence, will be calling up Agassi. After all, if you want to “shoot the moon” in the race free private mobility from oil dependence, Better Place seems to be the only option out there.

What gets left out in the hue and cry is that Tesla and Fisker between them represent “only” about a billion dollars worth of DOE loans in a program that was supposed to be able to loan out $25b (the final tally could be closer to $18b). Dwarfing the half-billion-each investments in Fisker, Tesla, and Solyndra are projects that seem a lot less risky in contrast to the startups. Here, in Smyrna, TN, I got to see one of them being built.

This plant, which was still very much under construction when we visited two weeks ago, will be able to build 200,000 battery packs per year when it reaches full capacity. That will make it one of the largest battery manufacturing plant in the US, and will add 1,300 workers to Smyrna’s already Nissan-swollen economy. Perhaps most astonishing in the age of the global supply chain, it will be a remarkably integrated production center: batteries built from raw lithium will be assembled and mounted in Nissan Leafs built at the main manufacturing facility next door, using electric motors built down the road in Decherd, TN. It’s as close to Henry Ford’s ideal of the materials-in, product-out “complete factory” as you’re likely to find in the auto industry, let alone the green-car startups.

And though the Smyrna EV manufacturing capability may be a throwback to the days of vertical integration, the battery assembly plant itself couldn’t be more different than anything ever seen in the auto industry. We weren’t allowed to bring cameras into the plant, but it would have been difficult to photograph anyway. Instead of a huge, open space full of robots and stamping presses, this plant is a huge open space full of gigantic clean rooms. Materials move in one end of its U-shaped assembly flow, where they are assembled into cells. The completed cells are tested at the back in what looks like giant racks of servers, and then they move down the other arm of the U, where they are assembled into packs. But none of this is obvious from any point inside the main structure, as the huge clean rooms where assembly work is done obstruct any view of the complete process.

For now there’s not much to see at the Smyrna battery plant. Equipment is only just being installed amid the ongoing construction, and because the manufacture of cells is so unlike traditional automaking processes, it’s difficult to picture what these rooms-inside-of-rooms will look like when production gets rolling. Only the giant HVAC ducts which keep the clean rooms relentlessly ventilated speak to the kind of white-glove environment that will eventually take root in this plant. Some b-roll footage from the Leaf’s pilot plant in Oppama fills in a few blanks.

It doesn’t take a good imagination to understand what the Department of Energy invested in at Smyrna. Though EVs are, in the sweep of the industry, a relatively risky segment, Nissan already has a plant pumping out Leafs in Japan, and the resources to manage a ramp-up in volume. When Smyrna joins a Sunderland (UK) plant in production, Nissan could muster a quarter-million electric cars each year… and likely has left room to grow. There’s no awkward transitions in the business plan from high-price, low volume to low price, high volume, no question of the company’s manufacturing ability. The car was developed in-house, by a company that is backing it at a scale aimed at crushing the start-ups. If the US government wants to lay the foundations for an EV manufacturing base in the US, it’s hard to imagine a better project to stimulate.

Whether the government should be involved in developing any specific kind of economy is, as always, a matter for philosophical debate. Practically speaking, however, neither the Solyndra scandal nor the possible future collapses of Tesla and Fisker will have much bearing on real the value of the DOE’s ATVM program. Especially if political patronage did indeed play a role in Fisker, Tesla and Solyndra’s funding, they will simply prove that government programs are vulnerable to waste and corruption. No surprise there, nor any problems unique to the “green economy.”

If, on the other hand, events in a certain turbulent region of the world (combined with demand pressure from China and India) send gas prices soaring again, Smyrna could end up justifying the entire loan program.If the market turns to EVs in an energy crisis scenario, the Leaf will be the only EV with the combination of (relatively) low price, adequate performance and most importantly production scale to meet a spike in demand. In a scenario in which EVs are suddenly in high demand, what good are Tesla and Fisker with their expensive low-volume luxury cars?

Like any other investment or gamble, you always have to balance risk and reward. Not only does Nissan’s project offer the least risk, as it has the resources to absorb losses, but it also offers the most clear reward of any other EV bet. Certainly the government should have stayed away from Tesla and Fisker, but it’s difficult to say that we won’t one day be glad to be hosting the epicenter of EV manufacturing for the leading pioneer in EV manufacturing.

Disclosure: Nissan bought myself, Bertel and Steve Lang lunch at a “Meat and Three” on the day we visited the Smyrna facility. Don’t know what a “Meat and Three” is? I didn’t either…

I remember the look on my father’s face when I explained to him that I would be selling cars. It was the look any of someone who has just heard the details of a grisly murder; a bit of curiosity, quickly overtaken by disdain. He sank into his chair. “It’s a job,” he grunted, and I realized that was as strong an endorsement for my new job as I was going to get. Truth be told, I felt about the same.

It’s no surprise that the car salesman has been painted as a snake-oil pusher; a charlatan peddling his wares to people in an unethical manner. Like all stereotypes it’s a vast overgeneralization, but I had the same perceptions of car salesmen as anyone going into my first day at work. I wondered: how accurate were the portrayals in popular culture? Would I have to get white shoes and slick back my hair? Would I have to wear a pinky ring?!

My fears were assuaged as I was let in on the trade secrets. Here’s the dirty, sordid summation of car salesmanship: guide, but don’t push. That’s it in a nutshell. Sure, we accentuate the positive attributes of a car and explain why the car fits the needs you, the buyer, have laid out for us, but it does neither you nor us any service to try and push you into a car you don’t want.

The nature of the business is a strange one; both sides, neither friends nor foes, feigning small-talk while each wanting to retain money that is up for grabs. As my contempt for my new profession faded and I discovered that a few bad apples had soiled the reputation of all car salesmen, I began to observe the odd interactions between buyers and salesmen. Certain unexpected truths quickly revealed themselves.

Truth #1: Everybody Wants to Buy, but Nobody Wants to be Sold

On my second day at the job, a veteran salesman summed up every buyer: everybody wants to buy, but nobody wants to be sold. He was right.

Instead of pushing anything, I began to familiarize myself with cars and whenever I talked to an “up” (an on-the-lot customer), I started by asking buyers what were “musts” and what were “preferences”. The process started with them narrowing in on what they envisioned for their ride. If people envision driving down the freeway in a luxury SUV, no matter what kind of sedan you show them, they will feel conned if you push them towards a sedan. Then, you will have lost their trust and most likely, their business. So, we always take the buyer’s lead. “You want a ½ ton Chevy with an extended cab? Great, we have several of them. You mentioned you would like it black. If the price was right, would you consider a different color?” Every preference has its price.

Despite the shady reputation, car salesmen really do listen and care what car you want. The problem is that most buyers aren’t sure of what they want themselves. We have to guide you to the sale, but make sure it’s your idea. Honestly, it’s exhausting. Our persuasive skills mainly come into play in the negotiation process. So, before you step on the lot, write out your “musts” and be prepared to articulate them to your salesman and you’ll make it easier to find that for which you are looking.

Truth #2: Buyers are (Most Likely) Not Professional Negotiators

As we walk amongst the rows of cars, buyers are wary of salesmen. They’re fearful we will pull some voodoo magic mixed with a Jedi mind-trick and force them into buying a car against their will. Once they’re in the office, a façade of skepticism and unearned bravado washes over them and anxiety dissipates like a Xanax in full effect. Husbands will swagger as if to say, “I’ve got this. I know how to haggle.” It’s an odd phenomenon because this is where buyers should feel the least confident.

We know the buyer likes the car. The average person goes through the car buying process a handful of times in their lives. Yet, while the salesman deals in car sales frequently, the buyer often puts forth a confident front. It’s reminiscent of the stereotypical tourist who saddles up to the blackjack table in Vegas insisting that he has a “system” after having read a book about gambling on the plane. Remember: they didn’t build Caesar’s palace by losing to tourists, and we don’t sustain a living by being bested by buyers. Does it happen? Sure, but not often.

It’s weird to witness; the theatrics people pull to show they won’t be pushed around. They will stomp out in a huff and hope we chase after them. They will low-ball us and claim that they saw the exact same car down the road for that price. If they had, they would be down there buying it.

The best way to get a killer deal is to approach the negotiation from a prepared standpoint. Do your research! Know, realistically, how much the car is worth (not according to Kelley Blue Book, but local market value), and understand that the dealership needs to make a profit, too. If they offer you a ludicrous deal, showing them that you know your stuff goes a long way to getting them to knock off the high-balling. If you come prepared with a reasonable offer, based on facts and not wishful thinking, things will go a lot smoother for everybody and you won’t appear foolish. While bravado is often a sign of unsure footing, preparedness illustrates to us someone who is not easy fooled and will often yield a better deal.

Truth #3: The Real Savings are in the Trade-in Allowance, not the Price

People do whatever they can to not pay sticker price. Paying full sticker can feel like a moral defeat. However, where salesmen often have the most wiggle room is in the trade-in allowance.

We get a commission based on the profit the dealership made. We also give you the littlest amount for your trade-in so that when we sell it, we make the most money. Furthermore, we need to allow as much room as possible in case your trade-in (that you swore “runs like a top”), needs costly repairs.

When you come into our office and demand we lower the asking price, we are hesitant to do so because it eats away at the profit margin as well as our commission. A better tactic is to ask for a better price on your trade.

This is tricky. Don’t be defensive. Everybody is defensive when that jewel of a car is appraised for two-thirds its actual value. Instead, insist that the sticker price is a bit high, but that you are more concerned with the trade-in allowance. Getting a thousand dollars more for your trade-in is the same as getting a thousand dollars off the selling price. But it can be easier to get the trade-in number to budge.

Of course, every dealership is different and may have different policies as to how they figure commission. So it won’t necessarily work at every dealership. But if raising the trade-in allowance doesn’t affect the salesman’s commission, then you will likely get less resistance from him.

It’s a strange business, alright. However, people need cars and as my dad said: it’s a job.

On the way to TTAC’s Southern Tour, I filled some of the gaps in my automotive history by reading Car Wars by Robert Sobel. Written in the same year that Nissan opened its first US plant, a sprawling complex in Smyrna, Car Wars documents the early years of the Detroit-Import wars, starting with the Beetle and ending with the rise of the transplant factories. The book is full of lessons, but its most rattling reminders was that Nissan was the major Japanese automaker during the early days of the Japanese industry. Nearly thirty years after Car Wars was written, Nissan often gets lost in Honda and Toyota’s shadow when it comes to perceptions of the Japanese OEMs. And lately Nissan has fallen off more than a few radar screens for the simple fact that its key products are aging: Sentra, Maxima and Altima were introduced for the 2007 model-year, while Rogue is just a year younger. Together these four models account for over half of Nissan’s monthly volume… and yet despite this aged core lineup, Nissan’s sales (as a brand) are up over 17 percent year-to-date, maintaining the brand’s consistent growth.

And, after touring the Smyrna facility last week, Nissan’s VP for Communications David Reuter told us that this fact was what made him so optimistic about Nissan’s future. If sales are doing this well with product this old, he wondered aloud, what might happen if.. say, models representing 75% of Nissan’s sales volume were replaced in a two-year span? He admitted that one of the brand’s biggest issues was breaking through the Honda-Toyota monopoly on media perceptions of Japanese automakers, and he suggested that a new product blitz was the only way to really accomplish that. I was reminded of the current darling of the mass-market brands, Hyundai, which grew sales steadily with aging and stolid but value-laden products, before replacing its entire lineup with eye-catching new models. Could a fresh batch of new designs do the same for Nissan?

Of course, a lot of that depends on product execution. Hyundai would not have garnered the attention it has if it had replaced its entire lineup with new but dowdy or uninspired models. And on that front the picture is still mixed: critics have been cruel to Nissan’s newest car, the Versa, but consumers have been snapping them up in the first two months of sales. Meanwhile, the brand’s recent niche products (Juke, Murano CC) have received mixed and polarized responses. And Nissan’s got a raft of new technology to play with for its new cars, including a next-gen CVT and its first-ever in-house front-drive hybrid system (look for Bertel to bring you more on that from Japan shortly). And though the brand likely won’t be jumping on the turbocharging bandwagon wholesale, it seems likely that our prayers have been answered and that the Juke’s delightful 1.6 turbo engine will make its way into an SE-R-type vehicle to celebrate the revamped lineup. This couldn’t hurt Nissan’s flagging reputation for sporting mass-market vehicles.

One thing is certain: Nissan may not get a lot of press these days, but the brand has been thriving given where it is in its key product cycles. If the new high-volume models (which Reuter says we’ll learn more about at the Detroit Auto Show) bring some pizzaz back to the brand, it could well be poised to exploit Honda’s recent product weaknesses and Toyota’s battered image. With the right execution, we could find ourselves returning to a time when Toyota and Nissan are once again the Japanese standard-bearers. On the other hand, Detroit isn’t sleeping on the competition the way it once was. And Hyundai will certainly have a few things to say about any company looking to steal its momentum.

So while we wait to learn more about Nissan’s upcoming product blitz, we’re curious to hear your take on the brand’s fortunes. What explains Nissan’s resilience in the face of old product? Do you expect the new products to vault the brand into the “hot” category, or do the downsides of recent products like Versa and Murano CC leave you a bit suspicious? Will Nissan surpass Honda as a leading Japanese brand, or is the Honda-Toyota duopoly cemented in the minds of consumers? What do you hope to see from the next-generation of Nissans? So many questions…

[Disclosure: Nissan bought me lunch when I toured their facilities in Smyrna and Franklin, and I am about to be bought dinner by the company in Seattle, where I will be hearing more about this subject from Director of Product Planning Mark Perry. If you have any questions for Mark, you have a few hours to post them in the comments below]

You know, it’s getting goddamned hard for a chap to enjoy a decent corporate-sponsored nosebag from time to time what with the ever-imminent prospect of Jack “Banquo” Baruth popping out from behind a silver soup tureen and shouting “J’accuse!” like some sort of admonitory, jort-clad Visigoth. At least, such I was thinking to myself as I lined the walls of my pericardium with the rich yellow fat best produced by overly-sauced food and moderately crappy wines.

This was in the latter stages of a lunch – sorry - launch I was attending in, admittedly, a very unprofessional capacity. I’m still not entirely sure how I ended up here, but I’m one of those people who can’t say no when offered work; here though there would be no byline, and theoretically therefore, no conflict of interest.

Still, I was keeping one eye open, metaphorically-speaking, for our own favourite Sword of Damocles, as – pardon me good sir, but I believe your trotter is in my trough!

Lifer Automotive Journalist the Size of a Small Moon: “Oh, do beg pardon. Snarfle-snarfle-glub.”

Think nothing of it. Now where was I? Ah yes, the dining room. There I was, surrounded by the ambiance of several tonnes of avoirdupois on the hoof rapidly consuming their considerable body weights in alcohol, rich meats and cream-based sauces. The sound was akin to that of creating a vast clone army of Cookie Monsters and then turning them loose to attack the Nestle Toll House central warehouses. Om, as they say, Nom.

As I sat, replete and idly wondering how much leftover ribeye I could secret away in my pockets for homeward economy-flight consumption before I became drunk enough to lose basic motor skills, a voice hissed at me.

“Psssst!” came the hoarse whisper, “Lime-Green Audi S5!”

Thus it was that I received the secret verbal handshake that identifies those of us for whom the gravy train remains a bemusing through-the-looking-glass experience, best described by TTAC contributor Derek Kreindler as a luxury vacation with people you hate. Not that I object to the free bacon of course.

Fast-forward a bit and here I am again at yet another free-for-all, sipping a Stone IPA I didn’t pay for, noshing on some quote-unquote “vintage”  ribeye – hipsterism for carnivores? – with port-wine reduction. As our gracious host rises to his feet to thank the assembled journalists for coming, thus reminding us all about how important we really are, I’m thinking about Jeff Glucker.

A better writer than I has already covered this topic, but moving forward, the immediate fallout of Gluckergate has been the usual 10-10-80 polarization of those who read, follow and comment on the various automotive blogs and websites that are part of Interwebs 2-point-whatever-we’re-at-now. 10% of people were outraged at Mr. Glucker’s ethical mis-step, and applaud Jalopnik’s no-holds-barred outing. 10% of people (including yours truly) were outraged at Jalopnik’s mean-spirited sensationalization of Mr. Glucker’s misstep, their gleeful attempt to score points off a rival blog, and the offensive odour of holier-than-thou adopted by a site that used to be a cool place to get COTD.

For 80% of folks however, it seems to have been no big deal, business as usual, a Pontiac Tempest in a GM-stamped Teapot that showed up in a giftbag in the free hotel room you were flown to on business class. By the way, these are only approximations – I don’t know how accurate my Scion calculator is.

The consensus seems to be, and I apologize in advance as I’m about to start slopping around the whitewash of generalization here, that automotive “journalism” should forever be aware of the invisible quotes surrounding the latter half of its appellation. At the end of the day, to seize hold of one of the most hackneyed phrases available, the public sees us as little different from those who review TV shows or toasters.

For me, it’s even more simple: there but for the grace of God, go I. Like Jeff Glucker, I am no Baruth or Farago when it comes to “tirelessly savaging his enemies”. Quite frankly, the thought of even mildly inconveniencing an enemy makes me yearn for a nice, long, mid-afternoon nap. No, I’ll have to be content with merely savaging the English language.

And really, fat jokes aside, who am I to begin to cast the stones of ethics at my colleagues when I myself am working towards the same equipment list as the current Nissan Altima: full-size spare tire as standard. If there’s a sin too often revisited at the TTAC offices, it’s that of patting ourselves too hard on the back for being independent, and incorruptible, and outside the mainstream.

But when our own Edward N. half-despairingly asks the question, “where is the pride?” I bristle. It’s right goddam here.

No, not necessarily only in the articles and reviews before you now, but in the company I am privileged to keep. It’s in the excellent weirdness found at Glucker’s own Hooniverse website. It’s in the riotous anarchy of the 24 hours of LeMons. It’s in the sensible debate of a Best and Brightest comments section and the in-sensible arguing on the facebook page of a certain be-flipflopped TTAC alum.

Surely, the face of automotive journalism has changed as the face of traditional media has changed; not always for the better, but with a new host of writers and thinkers, and most importantly, with a new kind of audience. Not only that, but also the shoulders of the giants we stand upon are not always as sloping as we New Breed hacks would have you believe: there are many print journalists to whom I humbly doff my cap.

The cogs of the PR machine grind grimly on, just as they always have done, with free lunches and free cars, jewel-like launch settings for economy-grade rides and endless giveaways. But the cogs have chipped a tooth: in internet forum discussions, in the musings of those automotive writers I’m honoured to call colleague and in, quite frankly, a higher calibre of PR folks who actually care about the companies and products they represent, there is pride to be found.

Most of all, dear reader, there is you, the TTAC audience; the some of the people you can’t fool any of the time. It is my humble privilege to lay before you such scribblings as I do and have your own finely-tuned bullshit-o-meters waver the needle if you detect the influence of a comped bar-bill.

In the meantime, I happily wade though rivers of bearnaise to bring you The Truth, ever mindful of my responsibilities to the pull-no-punches ideals set out by our founder, and carried on by the writing and editing staff of TTAC.

Obsequious Waiter: Would Sir laike an aftair-dinnair meent?

No, sod off. I’m absolutely stuffed.

Obsequious Waiter: Oh, but Sir, it’s only wafair-theen.

Oh all right, just the one then.

Kaboom!