Google is planning a national roll out of their new car shopping service sometime in early 2014, and dealers are preparing themselves – with varying degrees of enthusiasm.

Automotive News quotes one internet manager for a mid-western dealer lamenting the loss of site traffic for his stores. As much as 66 percent of dealer website traffic comes from Google itself, but that number could plummet once Google Cars is online across America.

On the other hand, dealers such as the Fladeboe Automotive Group, which operates 4 stores in Orange County, are being proactive in approaching Google, even though Google’s auction process for leads will likely be more expensive than other lead generation services. Google’s advantages, such as an immensely strong brand, a simple and easy-to-use shopping tool and the ability to place itself as the first result on any given search page will help ensure a solid footing for the service. And while Google Cars has a similar mission to TrueCar, Google’s enormous resources could prevent it from facing the same kind of meltdown and reinvention that forced TrueCar’s hand in their war against the OEMs.

Ironically, the big losers in any Google Cars victory could likely be automotive journalists themselves. Many “content sites” that make up the bulk of online automotive journalism are simply arms of car sales sites like Kelly Blue Book and Edmunds. If revenues fall dramatically, editorial budgets are often the first to go. Google Cars will notably stay out of the content game, since Google’s primary strength is aggregating everyone else’s content. Forget the new car sales race amongst brands – this will be the competition to watch over the next 18 months. Especially if NADA gets involved.

Google’s autonomous car program tends to get the lion’s share of attention when discussing the tech giant’s auto initiatives. But lurking in the background is a more immediate project that has the potential to finally “disrupt” (as Silicon Valley types are so fond of saying) online automotive sales.

The last party to attempt such a feat was TrueCar, an innovative and well-intentioned company that ultimately ran afoul of dealers, regulators and the OEMs. TrueCar was forced to pull itself back from the brink and re-invent itself as a more dealer-friendly company, a process painstakingly documented by Ed and Bertel before I ever appeared on the masthead.

What TrueCar did was distort the information asymmetry that car dealers rely on to make money. TrueCar was able to provide data on everything from dealer invoice to transaction prices and allowed dealers to compete with one another for a sale – a major taboo in the world of car sales.

Now, Google is rolling out a service, the imaginatively named Google Cars, beyond its initial Bay Area test market. Consumers will be able to log onto Google Cars and use the handy one-stop filter box (rather than clicking through various menus and sub-menus to boost a given site’s pageview count) and get inventory, pricing and retailer information for the exact car they’re looking for, down to the color. With 66 percent of dealer website visits arriving from Google, it only makes sense for the tech giant to try and capture some of that value. Under the Google program, users can shop for their cars via the first page of any given Google search. Google will get a minimum of $10 per lead, which is determined by a bidding system. One California Toyota dealer told Automotive News that he was paying $22 per car and $26 per truck or crossover, slightly more than the $20 paid to competing services.

Reviews have been mixed, according to AN. Some dealers like the flexibility of bidding for leads, while others expressed frustration that potential customers can contact dealers anonymously (via disposable phone numbers or email accounts, which expire after a set number of unanswered calls or emails), which they say diminishes the effectiveness of the leads.

Regardless of the potential issues, Google Cars cannot be ignored. Google’s massive size and resources will allow it to be far more aggressive than TrueCar ever was when interacting with dealers and OEMs. Regulators may be a thorn in Google’s side (never underestimate the lobbying power of NADA and other dealer bodies), but again, it has the resources to put up a proper fight against the usually dominant entities.

On a smaller scale, Google Cars is likely to cause a lot of headaches for the established players in the online auto retail spaces. Current juggernauts like Edmunds, Kelley Blue Book, Cars.com and even TrueCar are all threatened by Google Cars, thanks to the strength of the Google brand and most of all, the superior user experience. Once consumers know that they can access a high-quality car shopping tool without ever leaving Google and have the benefit of Craigslist-style anonymity it will be a tough sell for the other sites to get their customers back. About the only criticism levied at Google Cars in this area is the lack of content, like car reviews and automotive news. But Google has never been a content company and they are wise in avoiding this space. Better to aggregate the near-infinite amount of automotive content (aggregation is one of Google’s strengths, after all) that will likely be consumed by dedicated auto enthusiasts rather than consumers. A successful Google Cars could also cause indigestion further down the on-line food chain, at sites that live mostly off selling leads, and who dress-up the lead generation with content, which all too often is not their own.

Aside from the millions it should generate for Google, the car shopping tool is yet another way for them to collect data on consumer purchases. In this case, Google will amass significant personal information relating to what is likely the second largest purchase of one’s life, data that goes beyond whether you like a tan interior or a manual transmission. Google already can sense purchase intent from your browsing data, actively perusing a shopping service would confirm this intent. Yes, it’s ironic considering that Google subscribes to the idea that “information wants to be free“, but there’s a reason behind the internet adage “if you’re not paying for it, you are the product”.

Google received the first license the Nevada Department of Motor Vehicles to test driverless cars. The Las Vegas Sun believes this is the first such license issued in the country. Does that mean that driverless cars will roam Nevada? Not exactly.

State regulations require a person behind the wheel and one in the passenger’s seat during tests, says the Las Vegas paper. Google’s test fleet has a distinctive bias towards imports: six Toyota Priuses, an Audi TT and a Lexus RX450h.

Google’s nutty pseudo-utopian autonomous car project faced a reality check at a legal symposium sponsored by the Law Review and High Tech Law Institute at Santa Clara University. Among the challenges raised were the prospect of insuring such a car, and whether the car would be able to stop for law enforcement or construction workers.

While Google claims that their autonomous cars have driven more than 200,000 miles  of accident-free driving, issues like whether police can pull over autonomous cars, as well as technological limitations with artificial intelligence, still remain as stumbling blocks. Google is throwing a lot of time and energy into having laws changed so that autonomous vehicles are road legal, but based on the concerns raised by experts, it looks like self-driving vehicles still have a long way to go before becoming viable.

Talk about unfortunate timing of a product launch: Just as Google is getting ready to pack up and leave China, SAIC is making last preparations to launch their Google Android powered homegrown luxo-barge Roewe 350 at Beijing’s Auto Show (April 25 -May 2, 2010, I’ll be there.) The Rover Roewe will be added to the growing list of Google Android-based devices just as the spat between Google and China is turning into a full-fledged brawl.

According to ZD-Net, the Android platform will help the Roewe 350 “keep drivers and passengers connected to the web while on the open road.” The DVD and GPS system will be running the most recent OS release: Android 2.1. ZD-Net says “amenities include direct web access and real-time traffic reports. The system also provides access to chat applications.” (Don’t tell LaHood. He could start at trade war over driver distraction in China.)  Chinese drivers will be protected from the distractions of Facebook, Youtube, Twitter, Blogspot and more, as these sites are blocked in China anyway.

How the car will connect to the Internet is not clear yet. There is conventional GSM in China, which doesn’t have the bandwidth. Then there are two competing 3G standards. One, used by China Unicom, is compatible with worldwide UMTS standards, the other is a homegrown system that is used by the world’s largest mobile phone provider, China Mobile (527.398 subscribers as of January 2010.)

Google had planned to launch its Android phone in China in January with China Unicom, but delayed the launch over the row between Google and the Chinese government. The silence over RoeweÄs  network provider probably has a reason.

Government-owned China Daily reported yesterday that “Google will close its business in China next month and may announce its plans in the coming days.” The move appears to be definite.

A Google-obituary already appeared in China Daily, saying that “Google’s relations with the US government cannot be deeper. US media has said Google was the fourth-largest supporter of Barack Obama in his election campaign.”

Today, China’s state-owned news agency Xinhua launched a defiant op-ed missile in the direction of Mountain View: “Whether Google leaves or not, the Chinese government will keep its Internet regulation principles unchanged.”

There probably is a lot of head-scratching at government-owned SAIC over the choice of the Android platform. But there is no going back. According to China Car Times, production of the Roewe 350 has already started on March 17, including the gadgetry based on “the 2.1 Android operating system, which is the same as what you will find in Google’s latest Nexus handset.” If the Chinese will ever find the handset in China. In Hong Kong, the phone is available.

There are a lot of people who are convinced that a ghost lurks in the machine of the Toyota cars. Now imagine the magnitude of the fall-out if Google evacuates China, leaving Google-powered orphaned Roewes behind. Then, a Roewe 350 smashes into a group of bicyclists …

I’ve been warned before by the B&B not to read too much into the forward-looking statements in SEC filings, especially the ones where companies ruminate over all the things that could still go wrong with their struggling firms. These legal disclosures of worst-case-scenarios often reflect unlikely scenarios and can be downright misleading, so we held off from diving too deep into Tesla’s IPO S-1 filing [complete document here]. Others around the web have jumped in without compunction, and this week has yielded a steady drip of troubling revelations. It’s a wild and woolly collection of issues, but given that people are going to be asked to invest in this nightmare of a company, it’s only fair that we give the grievances an airing.

One serious issue hidden in the forced doom-contemplation exercise is this one, uncovered by Wired Autopia: Tesla doesn’t own the name Tesla in Europe. It has two trademark filings pending, but these

are subject to outstanding opposition proceedings brought by two prior owners of trademarks consisting of the word Tesla

Egads! How did that one slip by Tesla’s leadership? Speaking of which, another worrying issue is the fact that Tesla can’t dump its chief egomaniac officer, Elon Musk, before the Model S goes into production. Wired Autopia teased this nugget out of the S-1 filing, and strangely, it seems that keeping Musk is a condition of Tesla’s DOE loan. Per the S-1:

Our DOE Loan Facility provides that we will be in default under the facility in the event Mr. Musk and certain of his affiliates fail to own, at any time prior to one year after we complete the project relating to the Model S, at least 65% of the capital stock held by Mr. Musk and such affiliates as of the date of the DOE Loan Facility.

This is mainly troubling in the sense that the S-1 reveals Musk “does not devote his full time and attention” to Tesla, a wholly unsurprising disclosure in light of Musk’s other ventures like private space firm start-up Space X. Musk’s history of Nixonian tendencies doesn’t make a strong case for lashing him to the wheel either.

Meanwhile, Wired dug up another interesting bit: Daimler, which invested $50m into Tesla requires Musk to stay in charge until the Model S rolls out, or the end of 2012, whichever comes first (bets, anyone?). Moreover, Daimler’s investment fund Blackstar enjoys

a right of notice on any acquisition proposal we receive for which we determine to engage in further discussions with a potential acquiror or otherwise pursue. Blackstar then has a right, within a specified time period, to submit a competing acquisition proposal.

And yet, Gawker’s Valleywag suggests that Google could be moving to rescue Tesla through some convoluted financial manouvering. This would be the final nail in Tesla’s coffin, proving once and for all that it’s a Silicon Valley toy company (the alleged Google front is also investing in a zeppelin company) rather than the world-changing automaker Musk has thus far touted it as.

A Google-backed buyer is possible in the sense that Daimler is developing its own battery thermal management system and has other, bigger irons in the battery-supplier fire. Besides, Tesla’s deal was only to supply drivetrain components for an EV version of the dead-in-the-water Smart. In short, the only OEM to touch Tesla with a 50-foot pole has largely moved on. Meanwhile, BMW is showing Daimler how the EV-development game is played, getting overenthusiastic early-adopters to shell out $850 per month for the right to be guinea pigs for its MINI E development. Not only is this a smarter model than investing in start-ups like Tesla, it also soaks up the rather limited EV-at-any-price demand that might otherwise spend their money at Tesla.

All in all, the signs don’t look good.

From the Calculated Risk Blog comes this manifestation of the cash-for-clunker boom, as measured by Google’s auto buyer index. Because of seasonal downturn, it seems that pull-forward may not have been as devastating as was once thought. But will next January see the usual post-holiday recovery again?