South Africa’s main auto union threatened to “halt production” at a Volkswagen after union members were fired, Reuters says.

“We call on the Volkswagen South Africa oligarchy to immediately stop these dismissals of workers. If VWSA fails to adhere to this demand, we will be forced to halt production until this impasse is resolved,” the National Union of Metal Workers of South Africa told the wire.

Tensions in South Africa are high. On Tuesday, ten striking South African miners were hit by rubber bullets, as labor strife spread ahead of mid-year pay negotiations. A Mercedes-Benz plant in the country was shut for two days when workers walked out after they were asked to remove their overalls when going outside, and not to wear them when returning..

Metal workers in South Africa demand a 20 percent industry-wide salary hike.

Henrik Fisker paired up with Hong Kong billionaire Richard Li to get his company back. Fisker is a co-founder of severely troubled Fisker Automotive. Li and Fisker are trying to buy the U.S. government loan to Fisker at a big discount. Henrik Fisker was ousted in March.

Another group, China’s Wanxiang with Bob Lutz as a friendly face, is trying to buy Fisker for $20 million.

Around Fisker Automotive hangs a $171 million loan payable to the DOE. The DOE is currently looking into the legal ramifications of selling the loan, Reuters heard. Last month, the DOE seized $21 million from Fisker’s bank account to apply against the first priority loan. Then, there are payables to suppliers.

Just-Auto recently wrote, and I wholeheartedly agree:

“As any rational person in the industry understands, the odds of any automaking start-up succeeding in the long run are about the equivalent of winning the national lottery: it could, statistically, happen, but in reality, it almost certainly won’t. In fact, you might say that starting a firm to make automobiles in hopes of building the company into a global brand is a task mostly for masochists and the deluded.”

 

Says Reuters:

“Italian Industry Minister Flavio Zanonato said he asked automaker Fiat to stay in Italy after its planned merger with Chrysler, which has led labor unions to fear it plans to move its headquarters to the United States.”

Zanonato said earlier this week he would seek a meeting with Fiat Chief Executive Sergio Marchionne: “I’ve spoken to Marchionne. It was a friendly phone conversation and I told him what I will tell him when we meet face to face: I will ask him for Fiat to stay in Italy and continue being an Italian company,” Zanonato said on Thursday on the sidelines of an annual meeting of business lobby Confindustria.”

German launch catalog for the Polo

Where did the names of Volkswagen’s Passat, Golf, Scirocco, Polo come from? What is their meaning? For four decades, it was shrouded in mystery. Forty years later, a famous former Volkswagen CEO, Dr. Carl Hahn, and his illustrious former sales chief, “WP” Schmidt, help TTAC get to the bottom of an unsolved question,

Some of the worst performers in the truth department are the gossip press and the automotive media. A good deal there simply is fantasy. Knowing well that no-one will complain or check, bogus new product plans are being published.  The large-scale availability of cheap 3D rendering software (here is how it’s done) and of WordPress turns this disease into a pandemic.

Most of these lies come and go. Some stay and turn into history. A dark chapter of automotive history falsification is about the names of the new generation of cars that, in the early 1970s, rescued Volkswagen from the brink and that helped turn VW into the powerhouse it is today: Passat, Golf, Scirocco, Polo.

There is so munch nonsense written about those names, that we had to go to the very top, and ask the people who decided these names 40 years ago.

German launch catalog for the Passat

Before the Volkswagen Passat came out in 1973, all Volkswagen were sold by the number: VW 1200, VW 1303, VW 1600 and so forth. Then came a car called “Passat.” Although nothing was ever officially published, everybody in Germany was convinced that the car was named after the same named trade wind. It had to be.

A year later came two new cars, the Golf, and the Scirocco. The latter is another famous wind. It is called Qibli in Africa, it changes to Scirocco in Italy, and after it crossed the Alps, it is called Föhn and becomes famous for causing headaches and distracted driving in Munich and surroundings.

In Germany, and especially at Volkswagen, everything supposedly goes according to plan and has a system. There was no system announced, so a system was fabricated. Passat, Scirocco: It had to be winds. But where did the Golf fit in?

Even before the Golf appeared, a German auto magazine wrote that the car, following the supposed wind logic, was originally named “Blizzard.” According to the report, an Austrian ski manufacturer with the same name they objected, and instead, the car was named Golf.  Or so the apocryphal history says. That story has been written in many books and magazines, and it is wrong. If you believe the story, you have been snowed.

German launch catalog for the Golf

A little research in the annals of the German Patent and Markenamt would have shown that, before the Golf arrived, the name “Blizzard” was trademarked for products like floor cleaners, perfume, even for socks. There was no entry for cars. In 1973, there wasn’t even one for skis.

The ski trademark was registered half a year after the introduction of the Golf, on October 31, 1974. Most likely by a now highly alarmed Blizzard ski maker, who had not bothered before, and who had read the stories about them allegedly blocking the name for the Golf.  What’s more, the Blizzard trademark for cars remained up for grabs until 1979, when a company called Toyota Jidosha Kabushiki Kaisha of Toyota, Aichi, Japan, took the Blizzard trademark in Germany. Yes, that Toyota. The mark was used for a luckless Toyota Blizzard, a small Daihatsu-built pocket Jeep. Toyota abandoned the mark in 2010, if you want Blizzard for a car, you most likely will get it.

After Passat, Golf, and Scirocco came the Polo. Its naming still causes great apprehension: Where is the wind? Future cars by Volkswagen had wind names (Jetta, Santana, Vento, Bora,) therefore, members of the media decided that all Volkswagen cars must have wind names, somehow. This leads to the fact that today, Wikipedia, while citing reliable sources, can claim that “the Golf name is derived from the German word for Gulf Stream and the period in its history when VW named vehicles after prominent winds.”

Never mind that a gulf stream is no wind, but an ocean current, the Internet is convinced that the Golf is named after the Gulf Stream. According to Wikipedia, the Polo is named “after Polar Winds.” The latter is said without sources, but by now, the story of Polo and Polar Wind has been copied so many times that it is very easy to find a polar wind source for Wikipedia, even if it is a circular reference – nobody will find out.

I know it differently. I did every launch campaign, I supervised the writing of the catalogs (all pictured here) of the four models, I wrote some myself. All, except those for the Passat. That car was already done when I arrived on my job as Volkswagen copywriter in 1973. No system for the name was ever announced, neither officially nor confidentially. The briefing documents said everything about engine, displacement, they espoused the “Negativer Lenkrollradius”-  but nothing was said about the etymology of the names. Each car had a name, that was it, we were not supposed to ask where it came from, we never knew who created the name, or why. Never ever did anyone think or even joke about the Golf being named after the Gulf Stream, or the Polo after the Polar Wind. Sure, at the agency we joked about “The new  popular sport, Golf.” Sure, the GTI had a golf ball as a shifter knob, and plaid seats. Those were puns, no proof of a meaning.

German launch catalog for the Scirocco

However, who would believe a former copywriter? I decided to go straight to the source.  Volkswagen has a great new and well-funded department, Volkswagen Classic. It is responsible for Volkswagen’s history.  If anyone knows for sure how these names came about, then it’s the people in charge of Volkswagen’s history.

I asked Eberhard Kittler, spokesman of Volkswagen Classics, whether there was a system to this name madness, whether all Volkswagens of that time were named after winds, or the Golf after the Gulf Stream, or the Polo after the Polar Winds.

Kittler had no idea. That allegedly widely known part of history has no presence in Volkswagen’s history department.

Kittler went through the archives, he pulled old internal marketing plans. He found “no conclusive records.”

Herr Kittler continued digging. He reached former, long retired members of Volkswagen’s sales and Marketing departments. They had never heard of a system, or of any official etymology of these names.

Kittler contacted Dr. Carl Hahn, the famous Volkswagen of America Chief who approved the famous Volkswagen ads of the late 50s and early 60, and who was CEO of Volkswagen from 1982 to 1993. Hahn did not know either. “At that time, I was at Continental, doing tires,” Hahn told Kittler. “But if anyone knows, it’s WP Schmidt.”

WP Schmidt was sales chief at Volkswagen when Passat, Golf, Scirocco, and Polo came, and he was so for 27 years. Schmidt is a living legend at Volkswagen. Matters as important as the naming of a car had to cross his table, and had to be approved by “WP.”

Doing research on behalf of TTAC, Hahn contacted Schmidt. “Prof. Hahn asked  Schmidt what was behind the names of Polo, Golf, Scirocco and Passat,” reported Kittler yesterday. “Schmidt did not know about anything behind the names.”

After a thorough review of the documentation, and interviews with prominent witnesses, no support for any of the naming theories was found.

Kittler confirmed that there are many “legends and speculations” about the names, for instance that “Polo could have been a riff on Marco Polo, to hint on Volkswagen’s global vision.” However, as far as the man in charge of Volkswagen’s history is concerned, these explanations came after the fact.

The quest for a meaning is as powerful as nature’s abhorrence of a vacuum. We may have to accept that some things in life are meaningless.

42 journalists who had the honor of being invited by Porsche to what was called a “Plug-In Hybrid Technology Workshop” found themselves used as lab rats, and to produce a mileage rating that supports Porsche’s published results for the hybrid Panamera. It didn’t quite work out that way. Says a Porsche press release:

”On the occasion of an international press event – in which over 42 test drives were conducted with journalists in the Panamera S E-Hybrid covering a total distance of over 1,200  kilometers – the model consumed just 4.4 l/100 km (53.5 mpg) averaged over all drives. The top value recorded on the circuit course for the world’s first plug-in hybrid in the luxury class was a low 2.8 l/100 km  (84 mpg). These results illustrate that in real everyday operation, it is entirely possible to attain fuel consumption values of the same magnitude as the value determined in NEDC testing, which is 3.1 l/100 km.”

On a strictly non-EPA  conversion,  the average 4.4 l/100 km would equate 53.5 mpg. The top value of  2.8 l/100 km converts to 84 mpg. Porsche’s published 3.1 l/100 km rating would convert to 75.9 mpg. For the unwashed, NEDC refers to the New European Driving Cycle, which supposedly mimics the typical usage of a car in Europe, which it gloriously doesn’t.

The circuit, and the usage profile also were slightly atypical. According to Porsche, “the test circuit, which had a total length of 28.7 km, followed a course through and around the city of Hockenheim and comprised 6.5 km city driving, 9.2 km of country roads and 13 km of German Autobahn – some without speed limits. A prerequisite for attaining such values is systematically exploiting opportunities for charging the 9.4 kWh lithium-ion battery on the electrical grid.”

Great, in the meantime, we exploit opportunities to show pictures of the Panamera in a Stau, in a picturesque village, and in use. We also ask our Porsche-insider Doug Demuro for an inside view.

Expect May auto sales to come in 6 percent to 8 percent higher than in May 2012, and the SAAR to rise above 15 million. This according to Reuters, and “after a disappointing result in the prior month” – for some.

Reuters analyzed the predictions of a few analysts, so we don’t have to:

“Sales of new cars and trucks in May are expected to top 1.43 million vehicles, while the annual sales pace is forecast to hit 15.2 million vehicles, according to a report by J.D. Power and Associates and LMC Automotive, as well as one by TrueCar.com.

Kelley Blue Book’s forecast is slightly more conservative, as it sees sales rising 6 percent to almost 1.42 million and an annual sales rate of 15 million.”

Ommm – ummmm

The first thing they drummed into me when I started as a copywriter for Volkswagen: “Never use superlatives. They only get you in trouble.” Now, Elon Musk is in trouble over who was first to fully pay back the government loan. 

Yesterday, Tesla wired $452 million to repay the remaining portion of its DOE loan with interest. The company told Reuters it is “the only American car company to have fully repaid the government.”

Chrysler fired back four hours later: “Not exactly, Tesla.”

Having repaid $7.6 billion in federal loans in 2011, Chrysler said today : “Tesla’s information is unmistakably incorrect.”

Musk went on Twitter and came back with a retort that will enrage red, white and blueblooded  Chrysler fans. He said Chrysler is no U.S. car company, it is a division of Fiat and besides, Chrysler never fully repaid its loans.

Says Reuters: “The U.S. government recouped about $11.2 billion of its funds. In 2011, Treasury said it is unlikely to fully recover $1.3 billion owed by Old Chrysler.”

All I can say: Stay away from superlatives. They only get you in trouble.

When Autoblog was invited to one of those hurried and harried press conferences at the Shanghai Auto Show, and asked GM China president Bob Socia about car exports from China to America, they were told:

“It could very well happen. It could very well happen. You know, I’m not sharing any plans with you, but we try to keep open as to what makes sense … We’re open to be doing that. There’s no reason why we can’t be exporting to the States.”

We gave the matter short shrift. We know China-made Honda Fits are in Canada and elsewhere without giving people fits. Also, we have been following GM China’s export activities for many years. GM started exporting the Sail from China in 2010, making it “the first time a world-class automaker will export from China a model it developed in the country,” as the Nikkei said. Actually, it was GM that got China’s heretofore sputtering auto export machine going.

For some folks, like Chris Butler at the Franklin Center’s Watchdog site for Tennessee, GM’s exports from China were new. Butler called GM and asked whether China will become an export base for the General: He reached spokesman Greg Martin, who said:

“There will be no exports of these cars built in China. Cars that are built in China are sold in China.”

When asked about Ed Niedermeyer’s Wall Street Journal op-ed that said that “GM is targeting 100,000-plus exports of Chinese-made cars this year” Martin backpedaled, saying:

“Well, some of those vehicles may go to Indonesia, Taiwan or Korea. I don’t know if it’s 100,000 plus, but those places I just cited are also bases for smaller Asian markets over there for us.”

The spokesman did not know what he was talking about. He was wrong about 1) no exports of cars built in China, and 2) the Chinese exports only going to Asian markets. As a matter of fact, GM has been exporting from China for a decade:

2002: Shanghai GM to Export Engines to Canada:”The export of engines to North America represents a milestone for China’s most advanced automaking facility.”

2006: GM Bets China Will Become Crucial Export Base: “GM sends engines made by one of its joint ventures with state-controlled Shanghai Automotive Industry Corp. to its plants in Canada and the U.S. The partners have also exported small numbers of Chevrolets, designed by a GM affiliate in South Korea, from China to Russia and Chile.”

2010: Shanghai-GM: Chevrolet Sails to Chile and Libya: “The passenger car joint venture of SAIC and General Motors said that it has received initial order for close to 10,000 Chevy Sails from countries outside China, mainly Chile and Libya.”

2012 (GM Annual Report): “Export sales from China reached 76,000 units in 2012 and are expected to reach 100,000 units in 2013”

2013: General Motors accelerates China push: …”[Bob Socia, who runs GM of China] said …GM plans to boost its exports from China to 300,000 by 2015. This year the company expects to export between 100,000 to 130,000 vehicles.”

2013: “Through its China-based business, GM exports vehicles such as the Chevrolet Sail to other markets, including South America and the Middle East.”

2013: “Shanghai GM doubles exports of Chevy New Sail … Its main export markets include Chile, Peru, Algeria, Ecuador, Colombia and India.”

GM has been exporting from China for more than 10 years. It is shipping cars from China not just to smaller countries in China’s periphery, as Martin said. The cars go to South America, Africa and the Middle East. Cars that go there from China don’t go there from America. GM wasn’t bailed out to create jobs in China. It was bailed out to create jobs in America. It wasn’t bailed out so that its spokesmen can lie to the taxpayers that were forced to fund the bailout.

Those were the days, my friends: LaSorda, Wagoner, Mulally

Tom LaSorda,  formerly CEO of Chrysler and before that a key man at GM, will lose a lot of  money when Fisker goes down and/or bankrupt and/or is sold for pennies on the dollar. The man has a plan to recoup his losses: He started his own venture fund with racing and auto dealing magnate Roger Penske, as Reuters has it.

LaSorda left Chrysler after its 2009 bankruptcy. He later started a venture capital fund called Stage 2 Innovations with Manoj Bhargava of 5-Hour Energy drink fame. That deal brought LaSorda to Fisker. LaSorda invested in the startup, only to become CEO of Fisker, tasked with reorganizing the already teetering company. Six months later, LaSorda was out, and Tony Posawatz of Volt fame was in. That didn’t help either.

LaSorda’s new fund is called  IncWell LP, and it “will provide initial investments ranging from $50,000 and $250,000. IncWell has “strong interests” in the areas of clean energy, medical, healthcare, transportation and information applications,” says Reuters.

In the VC biz, initial investments of $50,000 to $250,000 are seen as bupkis and barely cover the lawyers’ fees for the stockholder memo. A typical angel investment in a small garage-type technology startup is a few millions. Venture capital funds can be a great business. As my friend, who runs such a fund, and who invested a few million in a company which we then gloriously ran into the ground liked to tell me: “Don’t worry, Bertel, if it goes wrong. Typically, one out of 15 goes right. And that brings in a lot of money.”

Also, the trick seems to be to find other people who invest into your fund. Then, you can’t lose at all.

After accumulating some $9 billion in losses, Mitsubishi Motors is bringing its financial house in order. According to Reuters, “Mitsubishi Motors is considering asking shareholders to approve plans for a 10-for-1 reverse stock split. At the same time, the company may ask shareholders to approve a capital reorganization – a change in accounting that would make it possible to resume paying dividends.”

Reuters’ sources say the first steps could be announced as soon as Friday and put it before shareholders at the annual meeting at the end of June, “to close a chapter that began with a 2004 bailout for Mitsubishi Motors.”

Being part of the Mitsubishi group, one of the largest in Japan, Mitsubishi Motors has rich parents that were able to finance an often rocky career of its offspring. Mitsu had a partnership with Chrysler, which was dissolved in the 90s. A decade later, Mitsubishi and Chrysler were back together, as part of a tumultuous threesome with Daimler. In 2004, Mitsubishi dropped out after a boardroom drama at DaimlerChrysler prevented a financial salvage operation of the money-leaking company. At this point, Mitsubishi Motors basically moved in with its well-to-do parent.

Mitsubishi gave up production in Europe by the end of 2012, and is focusing on the developing markets, mostly Southeast Asia, where it is strong. Mitsubishi has three assembly plants in Thailand alone. At home in Japan, it is streamlining its production. At the Mizushima plant on Monday, I saw nearly to complete catalog of Mitsubishi cars come down the same assembly line. Mitsubishi had  two lines, one for Kei cars, one for regular cars. Even those were combined into one – rather long – multi-model line.

Mitsubishi’s best-selling models on a global basis are the Triton pickup truck and the small SUV sold as both the RVR and Outlander Sport.

Prepare for a low intensity price war over electric vehicles. GM announced that its all-electric  Chevrolet Spark, going on sale next month in California and Oregon, will sell for as low as $19,995 after the full federal tax credit of $7,500.  According to the calculations of Reuters, that’s “as much as 38 percent less than what it takes to buy its larger sibling, the hybrid Volt.”

The larger Volt sells for about $32,500 after the tax credit. MSRP of the base Spark will be $27,495, undercutting the Mitsubishi i-MiEV ($29,975) and the Nissan Leaf ($29,650). It is expected that there will be a reaction.

The car can be leased for as low as $199 a month for 36 months with $999 due at signing. California EV owners may also qualify for other state and local tax credits and incentives of up to $2,500, reducing the price to $17,495. EV owners in California are also eligible for carpool lane access with only a solitary driver in the car.

Fisker is worth around 200 Karmas at retail. “A team including former General Motors Co executive Bob Lutz and China’s largest parts maker is looking to buy Fisker Automotive for $20 million, a fraction of the “green” car company’s estimated worth almost a year and a half ago,” Reuters says.

Late 2011, Fisker told prospective investors that its total capitalization was “approaching” $2 billion, according to an investor document filing obtained by Reuters. If the bid is successful, Fisker would have officially lost 99 percent of its valuation over the course of  less than two years.

Fisker now owes the DOE some $171 million in loans. Another deal is in the works to buy out the DOE’s position in Fisker at a discount. The DOE had no comment.

.

The tweet was true:  As indicated on Tuesday, Tesla paid off its DOE loan on Wednesday. Nine years before the note was due, Tesla “wired $451.8 million to repay the full loan with interest,” as Reuters says.

The Obama administration has been massively criticized for its largesse towards Fisker Automotive, A123,and Solyndra. Both A123 and Solyndra filed for bankruptcy, Fisker is teetering on bankruptcy. The DOE is understandably effusive over the repatriated money, and Tesla. Said U.S. Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz.

“When you’re talking about cutting-edge clean energy technologies, not every investment will succeed – but today’s repayment is the latest indication that the Energy Department’s portfolio of more than 30 loans is delivering big results for the American economy while costing far less than anticipated.”

Moniz said more than 90 percent of the loan loss reserve Congress established remains intact, while losses represent about 2 percent of the overall $34 billion portfolio.

It’s not that Tesla suddenly made half a billion dollars to repay rich uncle Sam.  Tesla used money from a $968 million stock and note sale that closed Wednesday to repay the debt. The TSLA stock has been on fire lately, Tesla has a higher market cap that Fiat, and  it probably was a good time to issue more.

Executives of major automakers roll their eyes when Elon Musk talks about disrupting their business.  Boutique makers  of $100,000 cars sometimes do OK during an uptick of the economy, only to get wiped out when the economy goes sour and corrodes disposable income.  The big challenge comes when boutiques enter the mass market and find themselves confronted with many billions of investments in R&D, plants, and marketing which won’t show profits for decades. Tesla has for all intents and purposes what little market there is for itself, especially after large OEMs cooled on the idea of EVs.  Should  EVs ever become a viable market, major OEMs can dust off their digital blueprints, slap an updated body on it, and disrupt the dreams of Tesla.

Ford has long been at the forefront of the currency debate, claiming currency manipulation when the yen went to levels that nearly killed the Japanese auto industry, and shouting “currency manipulation” now that the yen is back to normal levels. Now, Ford itself experiences the devastating effects of changing exchange rates:  Ford is shutting down all its manufacturing operations in Australia. The reason: A strong Australian dollar.  Says Reuters:

“Ford Motor Co  will shut its two Australian auto plants in October 2016, blaming a strong currency and costs that are hitting manufacturers just as the country looks for other sectors of its economy to cushion the end of a mining boom.”

According to the report, the closure of Ford’s  engine plant in Geelong and its vehicle assembly plant in Broadmeadows will cost 1,200 jobs. Ford  built 37,000 vehicles in Australia last year, and has been in the country since 1925.

“Our costs are double that of Europe and nearly four times Ford in Asia,” Ford Australia CEO Bob Graziano told Reuters. “The business case simply did not stack up. Manufacturing is not viable for Ford in Australia.”

The Aussie has climbed from just over 60 cents in 2009 to above parity with the U.S. dollar, where it has been for more than two years. Currently, one AUD costs 97 cents.

A few weeks ago, Jac Nasser, the former head of Ford, warned that Australia’s car industry has passed the point of no return, and said it would die within the next few years.

I am sure that in this case, Ford would have been grateful for a little currency manipulation – or shall we call in central bank intervention – and would not have complained.  GM’s Holden said it will cut 500 jobs, citing damage from the high Australian dollar.

Muller and lawyer Geers in court – Both are suspects of tax evasion

As suspected, the Swedish Saab scandal  over avoided taxes grows wider.  Yesterday, it reached the failed takeover artist Victor Muller. “Muller prime suspect in Saab tangle,” headlines Swedens Svenska Dagbladet, The paper obtained court documents that say Muller is wanted for questioning.

“Victor Muller is going to be called into the Financial Crimes Unit,” Chief Prosecutor Olof Sahlgren told the paper.  Says Reuters:

“Prosecutors are looking into allegations that executives at Saab, which collapsed in 2011, obstructed proper tax checks over the years 2010 to 2011, a turbulent time for the company, when it was sold by General Motors to small Dutch sports car maker Spyker, and when problems which led to its collapse emerged.”

While Saab continued losing all the money given to Muller by shady Russian financiers  and the European Investment Bank, and while therefore no taxes on profits were due, the Swedish government wanted its rich share of payroll taxes and social contributions. As suspected by TTAC commenter Piffpaff, the Muller case appears to focus on consulting payments made to Victor Muller’s  Latin America Tug Holding NV (later renamed to LAT Management NV), based in the Netherlands Antilles, Svenska Dagbladet says.

According to the files and the Stockholm paper, some $540,000 were invoiced by Muller’s tugboat company in the tax haven. The prosecutor thinks Saab’s management should have paid taxes and social security contributions on Muller’s compensation. Invoices from entities in tax havens are a favorite tool for tax avoidance.

Prosecutor Sahlgren told the Dagbladet that Muller has not been formally charged with a crime. However, by law, Muller “is responsible for the company because he has been a director, president, and later CEO of Saab.”

The scandal could widen. According to the prosecutor, more people could come under suspicion. The matter also is likely to involve generous bonus payments made to Victor Muller when Saab was going down the drain. Unusually high payments to the boss, especially before a bankruptcy rarely fail to attract the attention of the prosecutor.

Ford is adding a week of production at most of its North American factories this year for an additional 40,000 vehicles, Reuters says. Plants will be idled for just one week this summer instead of the traditional two.

GM and Chrysler will also limit downtime. Three of Chrysler’s U.S. factories, including the Jefferson North plant in Detroit, will not observe the summer shutdown. GM does not have a formal summer shutdown period for its factories. Earlier this week GM North America chief Mark Reuss said GM could not afford a break.

First signs of the interaction between Opel and its  Bochum workforce getting nasty.  Today, Opel workers in Bochum stopped the lines for several hours to attend a so-called “information session” with the works council, Germany’s Automobilwoche [sub] says.

Workers and works council have not agreed that the production of the Zafira will be moved to Rüsselsheim at the end of 2014. They want to know how much Opel will pay in severance, and whether there will be other jobs for the more than 3,000 workers.  The move of the Zafira production from Bochum to Rüsselsheim will cost Opel  about $130 million, said Rainer Einenkel, head of the works council.

Technically, these information sessions are not a strike. There could be more  “information sessions” if there are no answers. Yesterday, Opel said it will keep the spare-parts distribution center in Bochum open until 2016 at its plant in Bochum, Bloomberg says. This in fulfillment of a contract with a logistics company not as a concession to the unions.

When former TTAC Editor-in-Chief and now Editor emeritus Edward “Op-Ed” Niedermeyer wrote an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal and warned that GM’s center of gravity shifts more and more to China, GM’s  retired multi-role fighter Bob Lutz  reamed Ed via Fortune.  Now, Bob Lutz himself appears to be an accessory in a deal that transfers  U.S.  government-financed  technology to China for pennies on the dollar.  Says Deepa Seetharaman, in-house alternative drivetrain expert at the Reuters Detroit office,  in her in-depth article:

“VL Automotive and China’s Wanxiang Group are looking to gain control of Fisker through a prepackaged bankruptcy. This comes alongside a separate push by investors in Europe and Hong Kong, including billionaire Richard Li, to buy out the U.S. Department of Energy’s position in Fisker.”

Here are the players:

Fisker hasn’t made a car since last July, and hasn’t built many before. Fisker hired bankruptcy advisers after firing most of its workforce.

The U.S. Government awarded Fisker a US$529 million green-energy loan in 2010, of which Fisker collected nearly US$192 million until 2011. Then, he government froze the loan.

VL Automotive is a venture between  Bob Lutz and his partner, industrialist Gilbert Villarreal, hence the VL.  At the Detroit auto show this year, VL Automotive showcased a car called the VL Destino, “which combines the shell of a Fisker with the guts of a Chevrolet Corvette ZR1,” says Reuters. The car is said to cost around $180,000.

Wanxiang is China’s largest automotive components manufacturing company. Wanxiang successfully bid for Fisker’s battery supplier, A123 Systems after the company went bankrupt.. This week, a judge approved the bankruptcy plan for A123.

The government loan is in the way of selling Fisker. “Prospective buyers have been unwilling to assume the obligations spelled out in the loans,” sources told Reuters.

According to Reuters, a deal is being negotiated in which a Hong Kong finance group would buy out the government’s loan, most likely at a steep discount. Then the assets could be sold to Wanxiang and VL. Especially independent Chinese automakers need to export to fill their idle capacities. To be able to compete, they need foreign technology.

WARNING:  The content following the jump, albeit taken from a popular car site, could be viewed as highly objectionable when viewed here. It could also get you fired at YOUR workplace, or get you in DEEP trouble at home. DO NOT click the jump if this offends you, and DO NOT complain if the warning is not heeded. Mature language. Parental guidance is advised.

It is now common knowledge (at least, it is familiar to the folks who are into this stuff) that longterm TTAC writer Steven Lang departed TTAC. His great stories about the secret world of car auctions, and his first person insider reports from the drive here pay here underground will be sorely missed, and I don’t mean this in mean jest.  I keep telling people that nobody is irreplaceable, but Steve is.  He will be, unless we find the owner of a drive here pay here joint, who is also an auto auctioneer, and who can write – an unlikely combination of talents. Wherever he goes, read his stories. But is Steve safe where he goes? It looks like he might be jumping from a small frying pan into sustained fire.

According to his story at Jalopnik, Steve departed TTAC over the use of a word that stands for short-haired women loving women, along with “random articles that feature sex toys and general meanness at total strangers.”  (The Jalopnik story linked to the respective shocking stories at TTAC. The story also repeated the D-word, which I don’t D-are to repeat for fear of waterboarding.) Apparently, he thinks he is in subtler hands at Jalopnik and Yahoo.

People have varying thresholds for disgust, I understand. What I have a hard time understanding is that someone with such well-developed sensitivities is proud to write for Jalopnik, a site, which we all know, knows no shame. This is no value judgement. A good journalist should not be bashful.

To assist Steve in his career, we developed this multipart look Inside Of The Auto Blogging Industry – with a special emphasis on Jalopnik and its corporate owners at Gawker. This is useful information to any new writer at Jalopnik. Gawker will exert  much more influence on  Steve’s stories than Verticalscope on ours. Which is easy to do: VS never exerts any influence on stories at TTAC, never did, never will.  I have been reliably informed that Steve not so much wanted to have a cleaner TTAC, he may have sought a job as the chief of the august publication. There is one way to create an immediate job opening: Make our corporate owners change or influence a story on TTAC, and I will immediately leave.

Too much has been written already, therefore, we let pictures speak for themselves.  Here, we provide a pictorial insight into the social dynamics that await a not so young writer at his new Jalopnik workplace.  We provide the pictures with full links as proof that we did not make it up. If you want to shoot someone, don’t shoot the messenger. Last chance to leave, we are entering the world of Jalopnik

At TTAC, Steve was upset about a regular, albeit high quality dildo. (Jack Baruth loved the sex aid.)  At Jalopnik, Steven sees himself confronted with a Christian dildo, used as an illustration for “Cab driver banned from displaying crucifix because it looks like a penis.”

At TTAC, Steven had to endure pictures of floppy ears. At Jalopnik: Pictorial cruelty to animals. Nobody seems to care, as shown by the headline “Well, There’s Your Problem.”

Jalopnik seems to be obsessed with reproductive organs: “Russian Drawbridge Defaced With Giant Penis.”

Jalopnik has a special section for Penis size News , Videos, Reviews. Probably just to fool Google, but they fooled me. Here, news about “Penis Size and Speeding Tickets: A Sizable Correlation.”

More reproductive organ obsession: “Yes, That’s A Snow Penis.” It’s huge, considering that it’s cold.

Save the whales: “Pam Anderson Forces Russian SUV-maker To Circumcise Whale Penis Leather Interior.” And more penis fixation.

Stereotyping, Lamborghini edition: “Meet The Most Stereotypical Lamborghini Owner In The World.”

Stereotyping, Lamborghini edition, 2: “Meet The Most Stereotypical Lamborghini Owner In The World.”

Signs of clinical penis fixation: “Ten More Unfortunate Street Names”

The road less traveled: “Ten More Unfortunate Street Names.” Says Jalopnik:  ”Take too many trips down this road, though, and you’ll end up on Cockburn Street.”

Domestic violence: “The Ten Strangest Tanks Ever Built”

Illustration for a Viper V10 topic: “Y U NO HAVE MORE LOW END TORQUE!? Cars? What cars?

Expletive undeleted: “Tuesday Night’s Stock Car Race Was A Total Shit Show”

„The Diesel Dyke!” When Jalopnik used this highly pejorative word (trucks should be up in arms and demand that author Davey G. Johnson be fired,) nobody complained – as far as we know. However, there seems to be strange self-censorship going on. Where is the picture of the diesel?

Ah! Here it is! To access this picture, a cached copy had to be used. However, now we are totally confused. Not upset. Confused. What was wrong with the truck?

Jalopnik has a special section for Gay News, Videos, Reviews and Gossip. For news like “Top Gear “Bans” Gay Couples From Studio Audience.”

Or for reports like this one: “VW Rabbit Most Queer-ied Car In First Quarter, 2009.” Did anyone demand Matt Hardigree’s ouster over this disparaging word?

Sometimes, Google plays tricks on us. I’m sure Ray Wert did not say this about Jim Press. However, Google makes it appear as if he did. And if you can google it, it must be true, no?  Collateral damage caused by SEO saturation bombing, I guess.

Say stop. Ok, I stop. I leave it up to you: Was Steven’s outrage genuine? Or did he simply not do enough due diligence before his Jalop-hop?

PS:

The Jalopnik stories about Steven Lang resigning his editorship  appear to have been mostly removed from Jalopnik. The link under the Read …  leads to Kinja, and a click on the link gets this:

At least it does so on my machine.

Likewise gone is the picture of yours truly, in which Jalopnik caught me groping two men. The men are my former Typhoon offshore racing teammates Randy “Mad Dog” Schleuss (left) and Jim “J-O”  Natoli (right). Subliminal message: They are all gay. As if it’s bad. Too bad we aren’t, those long nights in the camper, dragging a black 29ft 525hp raceboat down never-ending freeways would have been more entertaining.

Still there among the comments at Jalopnik is the obligatory picture of the little Dutch boy sticking his finger in the dike, along with sundry “Lesbaru” references. On TTAC, there would be smoking ruins by now. At Jalopnik: Absence of outrage.

And how do we feel about this uncurated comment? Where Steve comes from, it’s “general meanness at total strangers” when a reporter at a Chinese auto show takes pictures of a floppy-eared booth professional who was put there so that reporters could take pictures of a floppy-eared booth professional. Meanwhile, at his new workplace, there are comments that could easily be seen as sexist, racist, and as a suggestion of trafficking. Where’s the reader revolt?

Besides, she’s not half my age. She’s 20 years younger. And, she says, “I’m not Asian, I’m Japanese.”

The discussion is open. Feel free to discuss the above. As far as the D-word goes, I have learned my lesson. I apologize to anyone who honestly felt offended. I won’t use the word anymore, now that I know that sensitivities are much higher at TTAC than at Jalopnik. The ban on a discussion of the D-word topic itself remains in place. We leave that to the other sites, and to people who need to be better at feigning outrage. 

(All pictures, except Google screenshots, courtesy Jalopnik.com, Groping picture: Tomoko Schmitt)

By the end of 2009, China was the world’s largest auto market – something we saw coming nearly a year in advance.  When the torrid double digit growth got stuck two years later, a lot of people called a bubble. However, the bubble did not burst. Now, analysts predict a return of the double digit growth.

Ryan Cui, an analyst with LMC Automotive, told China Daily that said his firm “forecasts passenger vehicle sales will rebound to 10.5 percent growth this year and a stable increase will continue in the next four to five years.” Cui doesn’t see “any chance of a decline.”

His colleague Lin Huaibin, an analyst with IHS Automotive, said that a falling market “is impossible” unless the nation’s economic fundamentals change.

The logic behind the reasoning: “About 67 of every 1,000 people in China now have cars, a much lower ratio than Western markets.” Many European countries now have 600 cars per thousand people. America has 800 per thousand. China’s car growth is directly connected ton the economy. Most car sales still are in cash, and Chinese tend to save when darker clouds appear on the economic horizon. As business picks up in China, car sales should follow.

One problem in China: Capacity utilization: A report released by China Galaxy Securities in January said domestic carmakers on average used only 58 percent of their production capacity last year, while joint ventures operate at 90 percent. Lin with IHS said over-capacity could be eased if domestic brands export more.  TTAC readers know this since September last year and can save the money for the study.

B456 Systems, the lithium-ion battery maker formerly known as A123 Systems, won court approval for its bankruptcy plan. It gives unsecured creditors of the company about 65 cents for each dollar owed, Reuters says.

B456 had received a $249 million grant from the U.S. government. About half the money was never released. B456 received court approval to sell its automotive battery business and related assets to China’s Wanxiang Group.

B456 makes lithium-ion batteries for Fisker Automotive, BMW hybrid 3- and 5-Series cars, and General Motors Co’s all-electric Chevrolet Spark. The company filed for bankruptcy in October due to weaker-than-expected demand.

At least, they kept their humor when naming their new old company.

During better times:Kristina Geers and Victor Muller

Key members of the board of bankrupt carmaker Saab were arrested yesterday on suspicions of tax evasion.  Former Saab General Counsel Kristina Geers, former CFO Karl-Gustav Lindstrom, and former CEO Jan Åke Jonsson spent the night in jail. After a serious grilling, the three were released today. At the same time, the offices of  Spyker in Zeewolde, Netherlands, were searched by police at the request of Swedish authorities, Z24.NL reports.

According to Saab fanzine Saabsunited,  the trio was booked on suspicions “of trying to seriously make accounting too complicated and difficult for the tax-authorities.” That alone does not justify an  arrest. Later, it was reported that the matter was about paying people as independent consultants instead as employees. This is a popular strategy to minimize tax and social security payments in many countries. It  usually starts a long discussion with the auditors, but no mass arrests, and no internationally coordinated raids. Someone seems to be fishing for more than confusing book entries.

Saab declared bankruptcy in late 2011. Their 2010 and 2011 books were audited, a normal procedure in most European countries after a company goes bust. During the bankruptcy, many suppliers were stiffed, however, the biggest loser was the Swedish government. It had guaranteed a $500 million loan by the European Investment Bank.

Loans from the Department of Energy seemed to be a great idea at the time, now they are a millstone one wants to get rid of.

“Given govt loan repayment this week (prob Wed), Supercharger update will be next week. Work continuing independent of announcement,” tweeted Tesla’s CEO Elon Musk today, right after other important announcements, such as “Petting zoo left a chicken behind at the park. Now we have a pet chicken.”

The tweet is a bit cryptic, so a Tesla spokeswoman had to tell Reuters that “Musk was referring to the full repayment of the DOE loan.” Last week, Tesla said it would use $452.4 million from a bond and stock offering to repay the balance of the loan with interest.

(In the video above – from March – you learn a little bit a about gaining – or losing – money from those tweets.)

Honda’s jet was supposed to be commercially available in 2012, and then in 2013, but it will be another wait of another year. The FAA certification of Honda’s small business jet is delayed until late next year, “due to a minor issue in the certification procedure, which has since been resolved,” says Reuters.

“There was a minor issue in the process of the engine approval, but the fundamental design of the jet is not being swayed by this,” Honda spokesman Shigeki Endo told Reuters.

Like Boeing’s grounded (and recently released) 787 Dreamliner, the HondaJet also uses a lithium-ion battery in its jet, but the delay in approval has nothing to do with its battery system, Endo said.

Nissan Dayz or Mitsubishi eK Wagon?

TTAC finally found the holy grail of the auto-blogosphere: We busted a stringent embargo that won’t lift for more than two weeks. We did that on cars that are unobtainable for most. We blew the tarps not off one, but two makes.  We didn’t find a dealer brochure, we caught the cars while they were made.

This is where they keep all the tooling

It was easier than it sounds. Last Friday, I was invited to a super-secret  briefing about an upcoming car at Nissan. I had to swear on a stack of bibles and the scriptures of various far-eastern religions that I wouldn’t write anything before June 6.  Actually, I didn’t go.

Nissan Dayz or Mitsubishi eK Wagon? No idea

That way, I didn’t perjure myself, and instead I got up at 5:30 today in the morning to go to Mizushima, near Hiroshima. Mizushima is home to one of Mitsubishi’s two Japanese car plants, and as of today, it is home to two new cars you can’t buy. Unless you come to Japan. With TTAC in attendance, Mitsubishi cranked up the line today for the cars that will go on sale when the embargo lifts, on June 6.

Definitely a Nissan

Three years ago, Nissan and Mitsubishi started a cooperation. One of the projects was a joint kei car, one of those Japanese oddities  with a pint-sized engine. Instead of rebadging  minimobiles made by Suzuki and Mitsubishi, as it had done in the past, Nissan co-developed a new kei car with Mitsubishi. The car is made in the Mizushima plant and sold as the  Nissan DAYZ and the Mitsubishi eK Wagon. The cars have small body changes on the outside – like a slightly different grille. On the inside, they are mostly identical. But then, all kei cars are quite similar on the inside, the tight specs (not more than 11.2 ft long, no more than 4.9 ft wide, engine displacement not over 660 cc, power not more than 63 hp) don’t leave much room for self-actualization.

High grade: Dayz Highway Star

Why joint development? “Having a car built somewhere else caps profits in the long run,” a Mitsubishi official tells me today. “Own development can be quite profitable if sales take off in a big way, and it can be much too expensive when sales don’t take off.”

Make my Dayz

Sharing development costs while realizing scale effects when the car is successful is seen as a good strategy. The kei segment is big in Japan and growing. Nearly 40 percent of all cars sold in the island nation are keis. However, that’s mostly it. Keis are a Japanese phenomenon, and nearly non-existent outside of Japan. This stunts their global growth potential.

Neither Nissan nor Mitsubishi want to give production targets, at least not before the official launch on June 6. The back of an envelope quickly reveals how many they want .to build. They are targeting 20 percent market share, together. That would be 20 percent of 2 million, or some 30,000 a month. Currently, some 230,000 keis are sold annually among Nissan and Mitsubishi, That would be around 20,000 a month. Somewhere in that neighborhood.

We’ll try to snag one for a from-the-backseat car review when one is available,.