TTAC’s forays into areas like law, politics and economics are not everyone’s cup of tea, but they do matter. The dry, dense topics like regulation and financial topics have real implications for car enthusiasts, not to mention society as a whole. One subset of that is urban planning, a discipline which can have an enormous impact on our favorite hobby.

Witness the remarks made at the Energy Tomorrow Conference. Sponsored by the New York Times, the theme of this gather is “Building Sustainable Cities”. The IEEE Spectrum quotes Lerner as stating that in the future, the private automobile will become a socially unacceptable vice

Jaime Lerner, a former mayor of Brazil’s Curtiba, known for the work he did there introducing an integrated mass transportation system that has been copied the world over, expressed the belief that cars some day soon will be seen as noxious as tobacco is today. “The car is going to be the cigarette of the future,” Lerner said.

For Lerner, who is best known for pioneering innovative public transportation programs in Brazil, the private automobile is an issue of social justice itself. It is not just a matter of carbon emissions or energy conservation, but the automobile’s mere existence offends him. His sentiments were echoed by Enrique Penalosa, the former mayor of Bogota, who said that

 ”If we are all equal before the law, a bus carrying 100 people should be entitled to 100 times as much road space as a private car.”

If you think that these are just the senile ravings of aging Latin populist politicians, then you might be a bit surprised to find that these kinds of opinions will wind up on your doorstep sooner rather than later. To these types, the private automobile represents a mobility solution based on top-down hierarchical structures (as my least favorite sociology professor would say) that empowers the individual. They would like to see it replaced with collective forms of mobility, like car sharing, public transportation and cycling. I got my first taste of it a number of years ago when a prominent local politician hit a cyclist, resulting in his death.

It didn’t matter that the cyclist was found to be intoxicated and the aggressor in the situation, while the motorist was later absolved of any wrongdoing. The mere fact that he was a wealthy white male driving a Saab convertible while the other party was an Indigenous Canadian of a lower socioeconomic background with a history of mental illness and substance abuse provided the perfect catalyst for these sorts of theories to be floated among the more radical newspapers in my town.

As a resident of a dense, urban neighborhood, it would be disingenuous of me to dismiss cycling, public transit and even walking as real alternatives to our mobility needs. Practicality is another matter. On a balmy 70 degree day like today, walking or biking to the grocery store to buy a carton of eggs is not a big deal. When the forecast calls for freezing rain, getting a whole load of groceries on foot is unpleasant, to say the least. And not all public transit systems are created equally either, as one of our writers discussed last year.

Congestion is a major issue in urban centers, and something will have to be done about it. Cities are experimenting with congestion charges, road tolls and expanded public transit, but nobody has a definitive solution. I wish I knew what the answer was, and if I did, I would be racking up appearance fees rather than writing at TTAC. But heavy-handed, top down solutions are not the answer. The next generation of urban planners are being educated in universities by liberal arts faculty members hold views that are largely not representative of the opinions and needs of the general public. Combine that with a growing apathy for the automobile among young people and you create a situation where anti-car sentiment is easily bred. Look no further than the move to ban EV charging stations from urban areas as a perfect example of their utter refusal to meet reality on reality’s terms.

Even as gas prices rise higher and higher and the cost of new cars increase, people still opt for their own private transportation in record numbers. For some it is a matter of convenience, while for others who must commute from the suburbs, it is one of necessity. While top-down directives for public transportation may fly in parts of the globe where no previous infrastructure existed and cars remain unaffordable, I can only imagine that it would be poorly received in countries which emphasize individual choice and the free market as pillars of society. But still, don’t be surprised if this line of thought becomes part of the discourse at some point in the near future.

President Obama announced the nomination of Anthony Foxx, the current mayor of Charlotte, North Carolina, as his choice to succeed Ray LaHood as the next head of the Department of Transportation.

While LaHood’s legacy will largely relate to distracted driving legislation and an increase in the CAFE standard, little is known about how Foxx will align himself and the DOT on auto related issues. So far, much of Foxx’s transportation related work involves infastructure, specifically mass transit projects for his home city.

Those who watched the State of the Union address last night and have an interest in autos may have noticed a conspicuous absence; Barack Obama failed to mention his goal of putting 1 million EVs on the road by 2015.

Obama last mentioned the figure in 2011, stating

At the California Institute of Technology, they’re developing a way to turn sunlight and water into fuel for our cars. At Oak Ridge National Laboratory, they’re using supercomputers to get a lot more power out of our nuclear facilities. With more research and incentives, we can break our dependence on oil with biofuels, and become the first country to have 1 million electric vehicles on the road by 2015.

Since then, the figure has been absent from the address. In 2012 did see Obama promise to  ”…not cede the wind or solar or battery industry to China or Germany…” Well, we all know what happened to A123 Systems.

As we come to yet another hiccup in the launch of the Dodge Dart, it’s worth taking a look backwards to examine how we got to this point; the elimination of a second shift at the Dundee, Michigan plant that builds the Dart’s 1.4L FIRE engine, as well as the firing or re-assignment of 58 workers.

As both Ronnie and Michael Karesh noted, the same 1.4T FIRE engine that’s so delightful in the Fiat 500 Abarth is weaksauce in the Dart. The 1.4T’s clunky dual-clutch auto doesn’t help matters either. If it weren’t for government mandated fuel economy targets imposed as a condition of the bailout, that engine – and possibly the Dart – wouldn’t even be here right now.

Just over a year ago, UAW members at the plant had just authorized a strike at the Dundee plant over a change in shift schedules – despite an apparent agreement not to strike, as another condition of the bailout. The FIRE engine, widely panned in the Dart, seems to exist solely to satisfy the requirement that Fiat build a 40 MPG car in America – a requirement that TTAC summarily exposed as bogus, since the agreement stated that the car must get 40 MPG “unadjusted”, or roughly 30 MPG combined in the “real world” fuel economy figures that everyone is familiar with.

But without the 40 MPG Dart, the diminutive FIRE engine and U.S. production of the FIRE engine, Fiat would not have received their 20 percent stake in Chrysler, along with the option to increase their share in 5 percent increments once these milestones (the third being Fiat recording $1.5 billion in revenue outside the NAFTA Zone).

Ronnie hit the nail on the head with his summation that the Dart, as Chrysler’s first product overseen by Marchionne, was at best the victim of a botched launch, and at worst a failure made of cobbled together Chrysler and Fiat parts. But the 1.4T seems to have been a victim of meddling by the current administration instructing car companies to build vehicles consumers don’t want – a charge often leveled at the Chevrolet Volt by its more vocal critics. In this case, it’s not a complex hybrid/electric pseudo-hatch, but an underpowered version of a nicely executed compact car that was hamstrung by political pressure – that may or may not have led to a botching of the car’s launch.

The initial batch of Darts that arrived on dealer lots used the 1.4T or 2.0L non-turbo engine and were largely equipped with stick shifts – popular among “Petrol Hipsters”, but poison for the other 95 percent of American car buyers. The mismatch in product mix has been blamed for the Dart’s slow start. Next up, Sergio Marchionne himself blamed the lack of a 9-speed automatic, telling the media that buyers found the 6-speed dual clutch gearbox to be an oddity. Now it looks like the issue may lie with the FIRE engine itself; too pokey and too small for American tastes, let alone for a 3200 lb car (for comparison, the Fiat 500 Abarth that uses the FIRE engine weighs 2500 lbs and provides fairly rapid acceleration). The irony is that only one model, the 1.4T equipped Dart Aero, actually gets 40 MPG or above. Since the government agreement specified that the 40 MPG car be “produced in commercial quantities”  without any concrete definition, it’s impossible to know how many 40 MPG Darts actually made their way into the hands of consumers. Interestingly enough, the Dart Aero is broken out as a separate model on the EPA’s fuel economy website

As a replacement for the FIRE and its capacity at the plant, Chrysler will use Dundee to build the 2.4L Tigershark 4-cylinder engines that will apparently be a much better fit for North American drivers, rather than the small turbo engine that’s more at home in A and B segment Fiat products. The 2.4L hasn’t been rated by the EPA for fuel economy yet – it likely won’t hit the 40 MPG mark, but its smoother, torquier nature is more akin to what American consumers are used to. But if it weren’t for politicians deciding that they knew better, and that filling some nebulous “green car” mandate was a holy task, this whole mess could have been avoided, and the Dart may have had a much better chance to succeeding in an already tough compact car segment.

Retired Chrysler CEO and former Ford president Lee Iacocca has endorsed Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney. Iacocca is a political independent with a record of endorsing both Republicans and Democrats for the United States’ highest elected office. In his endorsement statement, which was also published as an op-ed piece in the Detroit News, Iacocca stressed his and Romney’s experience in “turnarounds”, America’s need for leadership, and his opinion that the future of the country depends on the results of this particular presidential election.

It’s safe to assume that the Romney campaign will see Iacocca’s endorsement as helpful in both the retired Chrysler chief’s native Pennsylvania and in Romney’s native Michigan. Both of those states have been considered to be solid electoral votes for President Obama but some recent polls have been trending towards Romney, with reports of his campaign starting to allocate funds for campaigning in those states, indicating that they might still be in play. Iacocca is widely admired in Michigan and his opinions still carry weight in the automotive community. Chrysler has its headquarters in Auburn Hills as well as a number of engine and assembly plants elsewhere in Michigan. The automaker is one of that state’s biggest employers.

It’s probably also safe to assume that the endorsement of Iacocca, who shepherded Chrysler through its first bailout, backed by federal loan guarantees in the early 1980s, is intended to sway automotive related voters who are favorable to Obama because of the more recent bailout of Chrysler and GM. That has to be assumed because Iacocca never explicitly references the 2009 bankruptcies and restructuring in his statement. In a 2010 interview with the Detroit News, Iacocca is on record as supporting the Obama administration’s actions to save GM and Chrysler, though he expressed reservations about how the deal was structured.

Though they’re probably accurate, most of those assumptions can’t be confirmed. At 88, Mr. Iacocca is enjoying his retirement and he no longer does press interviews or speeches. He also won’t be doing any public appearances with Romney or on his behalf.

Some of Iacocca’s reservations about how the bailouts were structured might have been about his not insignificant ego. According to Iacocca, Pres. Obama’s task force on restructuring the domestic auto industry asked for his advice but ignored his recommendations.  In that 2010 interview Iacocca said that the task force had “called me for my advice [in the spring of 2009], but they didn’t follow it too well.” Iacocca has also been critical of the number of Chrysler and GM  dealers culled in the bankruptcy (“they went too far”) and of micromanagement of those automakers by that same task force. Iacocca told the DetNews that at the time he told task force co-chairman Larry Summers, who was President Obama’s economic adviser, “Keep your hands off of (the auto companies). You can’t run a business out of Washington, D.C.” Iacocca had a personal stake in the bankruptcies. To reference Robert Farago’s question of Bob Lutz’s over his personal finances, Iacocca lost 80% of his Chrysler pension in the restructuring.

It’s possible that there’s more to this endorsement than politics. It might be personal. The men do know each other. Iacocca was a rising star at Ford at the same time that Mitt’s father, George Romney, was running American Motors and Iacocca has expressed admiration for the senior Romney. The social world of Detroit auto execs living in Grosse Pointe, Bloomfield Hills and Grosse Isle has always been incestuous and nepotistic never been that large and Iacocca socialized with George and Lenore Romney and has known Mitt since he was a boy.

In his 2008 book, Where Have All The Leaders Gone?, Iacocca expressed praise for Romney’s competence in business and governance as well as his personal character while expressing concerns about the former Mass. governor’s embrace of more conservative social issues. It appears that Iacocca’s concerns for the economic future of the United States now outweigh those reservations.

The Paris Auto Show is about to kick off tomorrow, and some of the product set to debut has me cursing myself for not maxing out my Visa on a flight and a room at the lovely hotel that’s walking distance from the Porte de Versailles, where the pretty girl with crooked teeth sits patiently at the front desk. And how could I forget the wizened gran-mere hovering over the table at breakfast, replenishing your plate with cheeses and baked goods that one could never hope to find at Publix?

Alas, I am not part of the A-List club that gets driven from the Georges V to the Expo Hall in an S-Class, and so rather than sucking down a Gauloises or getting a glimpse of Carla Bruni (I was blessed with such a privilege in 2010) I’m stuck in North America, having to use my brain rather than just repeating back what my PR minders told me over a glass of Cotes-de-Rhone. 

The same people who are attending the show on the Sponsored Content plan will no doubt be running beautifully shot feature articles on the Jaguar F-Type, the McLaren whateveritscalled and the new Range Rover. I wish I was there to see them all, but I’d probably give them a once over at the show and then wait another 6 months for them to crop up in Forest Hill Village on a Sunday morning.

What I’m really interested in is the low end flotsam that we won’t ever get.Car makers can be put in one of three categories nowadays; low-cost, volume and premium. In Europe, volume car makers are getting pulverized by the godawful economic conditions on the continent. If you’ve read TTAC for longer than a week, you have seen at least one story about this. It’s arguably been the overarching narrative of 2012, and nobody is getting hit harder than European car makers. Peugeot Citroen is closing plants in France, Ford is hemorrhaging money, Opel is shrugging off the hand of the grim reaper.

Premium cars, buoyed by markets outside of Europe, are doing better, but even Mercedes-Benz is predicting falling profits and cutting costs to the tune of 1 billion euro in 2012. The shining star in Europe is the low-cost car, and to me, the Dacia Sandero is the most compelling car at the Paris Auto Show. Aside from its 15 minutes of fame on Top Gear, the Sandero’s story is so complex and politically loaded that even if the car was an irredeemable piece of garbage, it would still be fascinating.

Dacia was bought by Renault in 1999, and in 2004, the Logan was launched as a low-cost world car. Since then, roughly 1.8 million units have been sold, as buyers in emerging markets flocked to the Renault-engineered car that sold at Lada pricepoints. Later on, Dacia has launched the Lodgy minivan and Duster SUV, which have been critical and marketplace successes, with sales up 16 percent this year in an absolutely dreadful European market. In fact, Dacia has been so successful, that they’ve even been accused of cannibalizing sales of their big brother, Renault.

As if that weren’t pouring salt into the wounds of an ailing domestic car industry, Dacia products are now being built in the former colony of Morocco, where workers are paid 13 percent of what a French Renault worker makes.The Moroccan plant is said to be capable of exporting 85 percent of ts 400,000 unit annual capacity, and most of those will end up in Europe. In a country where immigrants from the Maghreb still struggle with their role in French society, this is, to put it mildly, a controversial issue.

Trade unionists and newspaper columnists have cried foul about the low wages and the outsourcing of jobs that have led to the erosion of the French middle class lifestyle. The outsourcing of low-cost vehcle production has led to the demise of good jobs – but the very people who hold them are unwilling or unable to buy a new mainstream car as it is. They want the low-cost Dacia, the one that could never be sold so cheap as long as they are built by workers making 1,800 euro a month and taking 5 weeks paid vacation. The whole situation is an interesting allegory for the decline of the state-subsidized “la belle vie” that has been enjoyed in Post-WWII France.

All that for one little hatchback that is slow, boring looking and will sell for under $10,000. Isn’t that more interesting than an 800 horsepower McLaren? I think so.

General Motors hasn’t announced their Q3 financial results prior to November in six years, but they intend to announce them on October 31st, 2012 – just prior to the U.S. general election on November 6th.

The timing, reported by MLive.com, is apparently coincidental, with GM spokesman Jim Cain telling the outlet that

 ”…scheduling is based on committee meetings, executives’ schedules and other internal factors.”

Chrysler and Ford have yet to announce the timing of their Q3 result announcements. Chrysler has traditionally released their numbers at the same time as parent company Fiat. The Italian conglomerate will release their results on October 30th.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Overlooked in the announcements by General Motors and Chrysler that their factories will not be hosting any presidential campaign events such as photo ops or speeches by either the Obama or Romney campaigns is the fact that GM, which for 30 years has supplied both major US political parties’ national conventions with hundreds of new vehicles used as courtesy cars, will not be doing so this year. Frankly though the Big 3 are rather notorious for the casual way in which they provide complimentary cars to high profile celebrities, and though I was familiar with the practice of providing courtesy cars for major sporting events, I had no idea that GM has been doing so in connection with the big political conventions.

With some events, providing courtesy cars seems like a smart marketing move, though with others the car companies don’t seem to getting much value for loaning out millions of dollars worth of vehicles. When Buick or Cadillac sponsors a golf tournament, supplying courtesy cars is part of the deal. For the many decades that Buick underwrote the Buick Open in Flint, after the golf tournament was over, those almost new courtesy cars would be distributed to dealers in the area and ads would run on regional tv and radio about getting great deals on those barely used cars. I presume the same is true for other events as well. I’m sure that after the 2011 Super Bowl in Dallas, when local dealers sold off the pickup trucks and SUVs provided for the big game, they made a point of stressing how those trucks were made in Texas, at GM’s Arlington factory.

When it works, it’s a win win win situation. The events need the cars to shuttle staff and journalists around. Car dealers need demos to sell to folks looking for a bargain and the car company is looking for publicity. That last point is where I see a problem and I think that’s why, in addition to avoiding some of the mud being slung by the politicians, GM is not supplying the conventions this year. There’s just not enough national publicity value derived compared to the cost of loaning the cars. I bet that until you read the previous paragraph or unless you live in the Dallas area, you had no idea GM supplied courtesy vehicles for last year’s Super Bowl. At least with golf tournaments, there’s usually some tie-in with advertising during the event and the manufacturer usually gets to display some cars out on the course, so they end up being on the tourney broadcasts. There’s no comparable exposure available at a political convention. Not supplying the conventions may be part of a reassessment of the way that GM works with courtesy and complimentary cars.

The entire issue of comped cars is problematic and seems to be more about car executives hanging around with jocks and celebrities than it is about promoting product. TTAC has addressed the topic of celebrities getting free cars before, first when GM gave a Cadillac to 2009 Super Bowl MVP Santonio Holmes just as they were getting bailed out by the U.S. government and about to enter bankruptcy, and later when they gave a Corvette in 2010 to then Detroit Tigers pitcher Armando Galarraga as a consolation prize after an umpire’s bad call cost the Bengals‘ hurler a perfect game. You’d be surprised how many famous folks who could afford to pay for them get free cars to drive, and they are not just getting short term loans so the cars can get photographed as the celebs step out onto the red carpet. For example, I bet you didn’t know that celebrity chef Wolfgang Puck has been driving a free Cadillac Escalade for the better part of the past decade. To his credit, Puck plays the game and makes sure to mention the car in interviews and articles but as I said, I bet you didn’t know about it, and if you didn’t know about it, what’s the point of giving a celebrity a free car? Without the attendant publicity, it’s just a perq for someone who doesn’t really need it. Though, with the attendant publicity it becomes obvious that it’s a perq for someone who doesn’t really need it.

The best endorsements, of course, are unsolicited and uncompensated. The fact that Dale Earnhardt Jr. is a paying member of iRacing.com (and does commercials for them for free) is a stronger endorsement than anything he could say about them while on their payroll.

Daniel Howes of the Detroit News points out, in an article about banning political events from car factories for the duration of the campaign, that being identified with either political party is problematic for an American car maker. You just might offend close to 50% of the country, which seems to currently have a polarized electorate. Also, by providing the free use of millions of dollars worth of new cars to either political party, GM runs the risk of appearing to be buying influence. The NFL and the PGA don’t pass legislation. Mostly, though, I think it was a simple ROI based business decision. The courtesy cars provide no real publicity benefit during the conventions, and whatever marketing is done with the courtesy vehicles after the conventions are over will likely only touch consumers in the Charlotte and Tampa areas, not the national market.

Perhaps the people at GM are getting tired of their company’s entanglement in politics. Howes says, “If it were up to CEO Dan Akerson, his management team and GM’s directors, they would move to end government ownership of GM tomorrow — if not sooner. The feds’ stake doesn’t help sell cars and trucks. Nor does it enable the company to easily eschew political entanglements or to close finally a controversial chapter in its history.” From my talks with GM executives, designers, engineers and PR folks, I’d say that sentiment extends well beyond the boardroom. They are unquestionably appreciative of the bailout but they chafe living under a microscope with every product, marketing and business decision second guessed by folks unhappy with the very notion of “Government Motors”.

Howes says that GM personnel are also not exactly thrilled with the fact that Treasury apparently has no exit strategy in place to divest the 26% or so of GM that it owns. That alone, in the opinion of some GM folks, suppresses the price of GM’s stock. Of course being the recipient of that bailout, the people in the RenCen are not going to bite the hand that feeds and go public with their resentments. No, they are more likely to leak that attitude to journalists like Howes, and then take a position that quietly but firmly makes it clear to both political parties that they are tired of being a political football. According to the DetNews, Republican national convention organizers and logistics managers are scrambling to get enough vehicles, renting 450 buses and contracting with car rental companies. In previous years GM provided about 400 courtesy cars and trucks to each convention.

Auto plant visits, long a staple of election-year vote-courting for politicians, are now banned at both GM and Chrysler plants until after the votes have been counted.

GM and Chrysler implemented the move in response to the highly politicized nature of the auto industry following the bailout. An article in the Detroit Free Press contains a summary that could have been lifted right from the TTAC comments section, complete with references to “Government Motors”, the Chevrolet Volt and the question of when the Treasury will dump GM’s stock.

The most encouraging quote comes from GM’s Bob Ferguson, VP for global public policy, who told the paper

“We would like to put all of our energy behind selling our cars and trucks…it’s an understatement to say we can’t wait for November to get here.”

Amen to that.

Bloomberg is reporting that House Republicans, led by California Congressman Darrell Issa, are set to produce a report that heavily criticizes CAFE as a politicized move designed to curry favor with bailed out auto makers and environmental groups.

Issa called CAFE

“a raw political process designed to appease environmental extremists…The impact of this process will not be immediate but will be felt by manufacturers forced to make, dealers forced to sell, and consumers forced to purchase far different, more expensive and less safe vehicles,”

Singled out in particular by Issa were the influence exerted by California (which can write its own rules if it is unsatisfied with the federal government’s own rules) and environmental groups. The Detroit News reports that Toyota, along with other foreign automakers, were unhappy with the deal, and they perceived favoritism towards the home team.

Automotive News, quoting the paper, recounts how Toyota Motor Sales U.S. head  Jim Lentz told Ron Bloom, then the White House chief negotiator, how Toyota felt.

“Japan is angry. Feel like they have been screwed,” according to handwritten notes from Toyota, the News reported today. The paper said Toyota wanted credits for hybrid vehicles — similar to credits that were extended to natural gas, flex-fuel and electric vehicles — and wanted more flexibility to use car credits for meeting truck standards.”

Another sticking point for Toyota was the slippery definition of what exactly constitutes a truck. The Big Three had been using this as a way to shift vehicles, like the Chrysler PT Cruiser, into the “truck” column to help bring down their fuel economy averages on the truck side.

Toyota also argued that the definition of a full-sized pickup truck — a stronghold of Detroit automakers for years — had been written to exclude the Toyota Tundra. Lentz said the deal was an “old Detroit tactic. It may hurt me, but it hurts my competitors more,” Toyota’s notes said, the News reported. But the White House was eager for Toyota to support the deal. “It looks bad for me and bad for you if Toyota is not there,” Bloom told Lentz at one point during the process, the News reported.

The Detroit News interviewed presidential hopeful Mitt Romney on Tuesday, and the Republican candidate-to-be shared his thoughts on government ownership of GM stock and the future of CAFE.

Romney told the paper that he would like to see government-held GM stock sold as quickly as possible

“There is no reason for the government to continue to hold (its GM stake),” Romney, a Detroit native and son of an auto executive, said Friday…The president is delaying the sale of the shares to try and avoid the story that the taxpayer took another loss. I would get the company independent from government and run for the interests of the consumer and the enterprise and its workers — not for the political considerations of government officials.”

Also put on the table was the notion of revisiting the CAFE regulations and perhaps seeking ”a better way of encouraging fuel economy”. Romney suggested a market driven approach, with “…vehicles that people want…”rather than government mandates, as a means of spearheading fuel economy increases. Romney claimed that co-operation would be essential to such measures, and also said that electric vehicles are “…a technology that people aren’t interested in.”

Romney’s words will find praise with a certain element on TTAC, but lest we forget that increasing fuel economy also means less revenue for the gas tax…and who knows where that could lead.

Sanctions imposed on Iran by the EU and the United States have compelled PSA to delay parts shipments to Iran Khodro until September at the earliest.

Iran Khodro needs parts to build cars like the 206 and the ancient (by modern standards) 405. The delays are expected to cost both parties about $10 million per month.

Speaking to Just-Auto, a PSA spokesperson said

“We have withheld shipments to Iran until July…It is for financing reasons because of the sanctions. I guess in May or June it will be reviewed. Most factories are closed in France in August, so if you start again it will be in September.”

Some have suggested that General Motors, which has entered into an alliance with PSA, has put pressure on the French firm to suspend or end its ties with the Iran Khodro, but GM steadfastly denies this.

Just-Auto also spoke to an Iran Khodro spokesman who was optimistic that the company could find replacement parts, and expressed hope that negotiations regarding Iran’s controversial nuclear program would go well, leading to a resumption of business as usual. PSA’s Iranian business interests are worth $1.57 billion, or 1.5 percent of PSA’s total revenue.

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.

Days after Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney penned an op-ed in the Detroit News over his thoughts on the bailout, UAW President Bob King is firing back.

In a statement released to the media, King said that

 ”He’s trying to rewrite history and attack President Obama and the UAW for successfully saving the auto industry. He is misleading voters about the president’s bold and decisive rescue of the auto industry and about sacrifices made by workers. But voters deserve the truth.”

Romney is hardly the only Republican candidate who has come out against the bailout; 2008 nominee John McCain spoke out publicly against it, and Rick Santorum, a candidate in this year’s race, has also come out against it, but placed the blame largely with President George W. Bush. Nevertheless, Michigan Governor Rick Snyder endorsed Romney this past Thursday.

A Chevrolet Volt owner in Ottawa, Ontario has been blocked by his condominium board from charging his Chevrolet Volt – even though he has offered to reimburse the board for the $1 (approximately) in electricity it takes to charge the Volt at local rates.

Mike Nemat, who bought a Volt a couple months back, lives in a high-rise condominium building where tenants collectively share the cost of things like electricity bills. Nemat has an electrical outlet near his parking spot, originally intended for an engine block heater, that he’s been using to charge his Volt.

Under the condo’s rules, Nemat is allowed to use a block heater, which consumes almost as much electricity as a Volt. But if Nemat wants to use his outlet for charging purposes, the board says he must install a separate electrical meter, at a cost of $3,000. The board claims that they do not subsidize the fueling of other vehicles, and therefore shouldn’t be paying for electricity for the Volt – Nemat offered to reimburse the board for any electricity used, but the board still declined (though without a meter, a precise figure couldn’t be determined), and will disable that particular outlet.

One of Nemat’s neighbors had a pragmatic take on it, suggesting that someone using a toaster or leaving the lights on all night is just as much of a drain on electricity as Nemat’s Volt. Increasing numbers of Canadians in urban areas live in these buildings, and some are friendlier than others – one Toronto condo even hosts Tesla Toronto’s vehicles and allows them use of a 240V charging station. Nemat and his Volt are likely the tip of the iceberg with respect to this issue – as plug-in vehicles and higher density housing take root (and really, a downtown condo owner is the kind of person that a Nissan Leaf is perfectly suited for), there will be increased demand for charging stations.

Disclaimer: The above photo is not Nemat’s Volt. I tested a Volt for a week in December, and parked it at a public garage which has a 240V EV charging station. One day, a Durango took my spot, and so I parked it next to a standard 110V outlet and used the factory trickle charger. I came back to find the unit unplugged, thus ruining my 4-day streak of not using a single drop of gasoline. In typical Canadian fashion, the cord was neatly drapped across the side-mirror, the charge port door had been closed and the trickle charger unit placed off to the side and out of harm’s way. I can only assume it was done by a security guard who thought I was “stealing electricity” from the garage.

The most senior Texas state lawmaker admitted last week that he voted to save red light camera programs even though he knew they had no effect on public safety.

State Senator John Whitmire (D-Houston), who was first elected to the legislature in 1973, appeared on KTRH radio’s morning news program to discuss how public opposition to red light cameras persuaded legislators to devote some of the camera profit to trauma centers.

“People went to Austin protesting it, and so John Carona — a senator from Dallas — didn’t want to eliminate them,” Whitmire explained. “He said, you know, it’s obviously a revenue source. Local communities try to sell it as public safety, cutting down on red light running. He and I and I think most people would realize it’s really a revenue source. John Carona in Austin said, I’m not going to eliminate but let the state have half of that revenue dedicated to trauma care which is badly underfunded.”

Though the money was promised to trauma care centers, over $4.1 million of this money has remained in the state’s general fund and not been distributed to the trauma centers.

“The budget writers in an effort to find resources and money to balance the budget never sent that,” Whitmire explained. “It’s wrong. It’s wrong.”

Whitmire played an essential role in 2005 in blocking House legislation that would have banned red light cameras as well as an amendment that would have forced municipalities to obtain voter approval before instituting a red light camera program. The Senate voted 18 to 13 to against the referendum requirement. Whitmire explained that the mayor of Houston, a fellow Democrat, had pressed him for that vote.

“Bill White came to Austin and he had two issues,” Whitmire said. “The next vote that came up was to try to repeal red light cameras. The vote was whether we’d take that away from the cities. And I don’t think Austin ought to be trying to run the cities on a day-to-day basis.”

Houston’s cameras were ultimately shut down, but only after a heated legal and political battle. A federal judge even intervened to overturn the results of a public vote on the matter.

“It is a bad deal and the people acted on it and repealed it,” Whitmire said. “The issue of red light cameras, I was always suspect about it. I never thought it was about public safety. The greatest number of red light citations are issued to people who don’t come to a complete stop on turning right or similar violations. It’s a civil ticket, that shows you how insincere they are about it.”

This article courtesy of thenewspaper.com

Who’s ready for some politics? With the presidential election still over 14 months away, recent Iowa straw poll winner Michelle Bachmann is upping the campaign promise ante by telling a Greenville, SC crowd

The day that the president became president gasoline was $1.79 a gallon. Look at what it is today. Under President Bachmann, you will see gasoline come down below $2 a gallon again. That will happen.

Without even taking a side in the muck of presidential politics, it’s plain to see how ridiculous this statement is. As Politico helpfully notes:

Bachmann didn’t detail how she would cut the price of gasoline, which is tied to the global price of oil. [Emphasis added]

Personally, I think gas should probably be taxed to a point where Americans pay about what the rest of the world does, in order to pay for the externalities of oil consumption. Most auto execs agree, arguing that America’s artificially low gas prices play hell with product planning. But even (or is that especially) if you’re a hard-core anti-tax free-market fundamentalist, Bachmann’s statement should be treated with scorn. After all, markets, not presidents, should be setting oil prices. But what’s principle (or even good practice) when compared to the need for political pandering?

AutoNation boss Mike Jackson has long been the front runner to inherit Bob Lutz’s mantle as the most opinionated guy in the car business, and recently he’s been moving to lock up the distinction. Jackson recently gave the world the concept of the gas price “freak-out point” as well as delivering memorable quips on “green car” demand (while calling for higher gas prices), and has been outspoken about the industry’s struggles with “push” production, oversupply, fleet dependence and more. And now he’s laid out what may very well be the basis for a solid “car guy consensus” for political progress on safety issues. Autoobserver reports:

The main points of Jackson’s outline to improve road safety: 1) Make text-messaging illegal – and since that’s unlikely to make much difference, install technology to block text messages in moving vehicles; 2) Raise the gasoline tax to fund safety-enhancing and congestion-reducing traffic-management technology, including intelligent road signals and total automation of toll collection; 3) Get serious about lane discipline by restricting trucks to right-hand lanes and passing only in the left lane.

Can I get an “Amen”? Politics are one of the most divisive issues in American life, and TTAC struggles with the inevitable polarization caused by political topics every day… so hats off to Jackson for solidifying a non-partisan agenda that all (or at least most) car guys can get behind.

At least one of the institutions financing ads damning Democratic candidates this election season wants to put ethanol in your gas tank. The American Future Fund was founded by one Bruce Rastetter, the CEO of Hawkeye Energy Holdings, one of the larger ethanol companies in the US, according to an article in the New York Times. The fund is financing ads aimed at Democrats in key positions to influence booze fuel… so is the problem their “liberal” policies, or the fact that they’re insufficiently supportive of the farm lobby’s beloved corn juice?

“Of the 14 “liberal” politicians singled out in a list it released last month, nearly every incumbent sits on a panel with a say over energy or agriculture policy,” according to the Grey Lady. “Five sit on the Agriculture Committee; four others are on related committees with say. One candidate was a staff member on a related panel.”

One of the first politicians the American Future Fund supported was former Minnesota Republican Senator Norm Coleman, who had been co-chairman of the Senate Biofuels Caucus. American Future also attacked the Indy Racing League, because of a deal the League made to power Indy cars with Brazilian ethanol, in sharp contrast to its proclaimed mission “to provide Americans with a conservative and free market viewpoint.” Rastetter also helped start a trade group, Growth Energy, that pushes for tariffs on foreign producers, according to the NYT.

The NYT quotes a spokesperson for the American Future Fund, who claimed that ethanol and agriculture policy were not the reasons behind its attack ads. “We’re targeting liberal spending policies,” the newspaper quotes her as saying. Sure. As long as they get their ethanol subsidies.

A surprisingly vigorous effort is being made to urge Florida Governor Charlie Crist to veto the red light camera authorization bill passed by the legislature last month (view bill). The normally pro-camera group AAA launched a nine-page assault on the legislation in a letter to Crist last week. The group was joined yesterday by Crist’s former regional campaign chairman, state Representative Tom Grady (R-Naples). Crist has until May 14 to sign or veto the red light camera bill which would devote more money to the Wall Street giant Goldman Sachs than it would to public safety.

“Other than $13 from each citation earmarked for public health purposes ($3 to Brain and Spinal Cord Injury Trust Fund and $10 to Department of Health), HB 325 does not require that funds received from violations — by the state, counties or municipalities — be used for public safety purposes,” AAA Auto Club South Senior Vice President Kevin Bakewell wrote.

American Traffic Solutions (ATS) runs the cameras in over thirty cities in return for a share of the revenue generated. Aventura, Collier County, Naples, Vero Beach and West Palm Beach opted to compensate ATS at a tiered rate that starts at $47.50 for each ticket that the company issues. In 2008, Goldman took a thirty percent stake in ATS meaning the Wall Street giant’s share of the tickets issued in Florida would be $14.25. Although these contracts would need minor adjustment to meet the compensation provisions of the new law, the total amounts paid to private vendors is not likely to change. The amount of money going to the private companies irked Grady, who resigned from the Crist campaign last month but remains a friend of the governor.

“Every organization supporting this bill (local governments, the vendor of the equipment, etc.) has a stake in the revenue it will produce,” Grady wrote. “Despite the admirable goals of this bill, a closer analysis shows it for what it is — a money grab and monopolistic sop to a single vendor: American Traffic Solutions. I urge you to veto this bad bill, governor.”

AAA normally has a financial stake in photo enforcement. As an insurance company, AAA profits directly from rate increases imposed on automated ticket recipients in Arizona, California and Illinois where certain types of camera tickets come with license points. Florida’s AAA chapter blasted the bill as poorly drafted and raising a number of concerns specific to the state. It went further, however, with a general attack on the presumption of guilt and other issues that apply generally to any jurisdiction that employs automated enforcement.

“There is some debate whether or not red light cameras improve safety,” Bakewell wrote. “A recent article in the St. Petersburg Times, April 24, 2010, referenced a University of South Florida study conducted by the School of Public Health that concluded cameras actually make intersections more dangerous. The article pointed out the great debate across the country on both sides of the argument. A 2007 Virginia DOT study shows accidents increased by nearly a third where red light cameras were used (view studies).”

The National Motorists Association, which strongly opposes all photo enforcement, has also weighed in against the bill. These pleas for a veto face an uphill battle. In an editorial board meeting with a strongly pro-camera newspaper after taking office, Crist suggested he would sign a red light camera authorization bill. Crist’s spokesman has also recently told a number of media outlets that the governor is leaning toward supporting the legislation.

[Courtesy: Thenewspaper.com]

Last week’s announcement that had Chrysler turned a Q1 profit and GM had “repaid” taxpayer loans brought a flurry of political posturing about the success or lack thereof of the auto bailout. With Republicans laying into the auto bailout from several angles, President Obama dedicated his weekly address to a defense of industry assistance. Obama still frames the bailout as an unpleasant necessity, but argues that last week’s news means the chances that taxpayers will recoup their “investment” are improving. And apparently the Treasury agrees. According to the Detroit News, Treasury has revised its estimate of auto bailout losses (not counting GMAC) downwards, from $30.6b to $28b. Progress, sure, but hardly a sign that taxpayers can expect full payback from its state-owned automakers.

A Florida state representative is standing athwart the legislative juggernaut that seeks to expand the use of red light cameras throughout the state. Representative Rob Schenck (R-Spring Hill) last month won approval by a 7 to 5 vote from the House Governmental Affairs Policy Committee for his bill expressly preempting the ability of local jurisdictions to operate automated ticketing machines.

“Current law requires that traffic citations be issued when an officer observes the commission of a traffic infraction,” the official legislative analysis for House Bill 1235 explained. “A 2005 attorney general opinion also reached the same concluding providing that legislative changes are necessary before local governments may issue traffic citations and penalize drivers who fail to obey red light indications on traffic signal devices as collected from a photographic record from unmanned cameras monitoring intersections… This bill could have a negative fiscal impact on those governments having installed red light cameras and on those local governments using such cameras to generate revenue through the collection of civil fees or fines.”

Since 2008, about fifty city and county governments have ignored the attorney general’s warning and enacted ordinances authorizing tickets of up to $500 mailed by a private company to the owner of a vehicle photographed by the automated camera. These jurisdictions claim that photo enforcement is necessary to combat a growing problem on the state’s roads, despite evidence that the number of such accidents had been decreasing without cameras.

“Injuries from disregarding traffic signals have steadily decreased since 1998, as have property damage-only crashes which were less than 3 percent in 2008,” the legislative analyst explained.

The legislative analyst also pointed out that red light cameras have not proved as effective as their advocates have suggested.

“Numerous studies have been conducted regarding the impact of red light cameras on safety and the findings have been inconsistent,” the legislative analyst explained. “Evaluations of red light cameras have been conducted in Virginia, Greensboro, North Carolina and Ontario, Canada. These evaluations were conducted over multiple years and data was gathered from intersections with and without red light cameras during the same time periods. The data showed that the intersections with cameras were associated with a significant increase in crashes…. The studies also documented that intersections with cameras were associated with increased injury crashes or crashes with possible injuries.”

Schenck’s bill faces an uphill battle as it moves toward a vote in the full House. Local jurisdictions have joined with the insurance industry — license points are assessed on red light camera tickets in states like Arizona and California, allowing these companies to increase rates — in pouring money into an all-out lobbying campaign to legitimize camera use. A bill to do so narrowly failed last year as special interests fought over how ticketing profits should be split. State Representative Ron Reagan (R-Bradenton) re-introduced his measure to “bring consistency” to the way cameras are used. Its primary purpose, however, is to insulate cities from lawsuits by retroactively approving ordinances that were adopted contrary to the attorney general’s warning. Reagan’s industry-backed measure was approved last month by the Health Care Regulation Policy Committee.

View House Bill 1235 in an 80k PDF file at the source link below.

Source: House Bill 1235 (Florida State Legislature, 3/17/2010)

[Courtesy: thenewspaper.com]

According to popular wisdom, the Koreans have no love lost for the Japanese. And likewise. What’s more, Koreans and Japanese car makers are bitter competitors for foreign market share. So wouldn’t it stand to reason that Korea would jump on the “down with Toyota” bandwagon with their 96 million feet? Just the opposite is true.

The Chosun Iibo, according to Wikipedia “one of the major newspapers in South Korea,” takes the position that Toyota could very well be “a scapegoat for U.S.-Japan squabbling.”

Back home, whenever someone utters the heretic words “cui bono?” (Latin for “a benefit to whom?” and one of the first questions a detective or investigative journalist learns to ask) it elicits gasps. The mere idea that Washington, now owner of two car companies, and deeply indebted to the union vote, could have more in mind than the well-being of John Q. Public, usually triggers a “can’t be, don’t even think about it. Come on – are you on drugs?”

Curiously, the Koreans, who you’d think wish that Japan would go to hell, have more sympathy for the Nipponese devil. Under the headline “Is Toyota a scapegoat for U.S.-Japan squabbling?“ the Chosun Iibo raises some uncomforting points, even more uncomforting given the fact that they are coming from a bitter rival of Japan.

Toyota’s crisis is not solely due to quality and safety problems. American cars have also had problems with defective parts. Ford Motor had to recall more than 14 million vehicles between 1999 and 2009 to fix faulty cruise control switches, but it did not have to face a grilling in Congress. The Congressional probe of Toyota is unprecedented.

Some critics say that Toyota has been unfairly targeted in the U.S. They claim that Washington is picking on Toyota in order to assuage America’s damaged pride following the decline of Detroit’s “Big Three” automakers, and as a way to deal with the U.S. trade deficit with Japan. U.S. sentiment toward Toyota worsened after the automaker decided in August of last year to shut down the joint venture plant in California, threatening 30,000 jobs. GM, which had entered bankruptcy protection, had pulled out of the plant before Toyota, but it was the Japanese company that caught the blame.

Also playing a part is the change in the U.S.-Japan alliance since the launch of the Yukio Hatoyama administration. Just after his inauguration, the Japanese prime minister irritated Washington by overturning an agreement on the relocation of a U.S. military base in Okinawa and calling for an “equal” relationship with the U.S. It seems the U.S. has seized a chance to strike back. Now Toyota is paying for the Hatoyama administration’s policy of prioritizing its pride above national interests.

They forgot to mention that in the U.S.A, the big health reform is going down the tubes (again,) that things aren’t going so well in Iraq and Afghanistan, that unemployment is at record highs, and that Barak Obama could turn into a lame duck come November. A diversion is sorely needed. Personally, I don’t believe in big conspiracies. You don’t just make things up. Politics is the art of spinmeistery: A 911 call. A car in the pond. You grab it, you put it on the political spindle and turn up the revs. There is so much spin on Toyota, it makes you dizzy.

Whenever Paul comes up from his deep data dives, I shake my head. 32 unconfirmed complaints per 100,000 units sold, that’s supposed to be news? 9.5 percent of the adult population suffers from clinical depression. Any hearings? 30 percent of the people die from a heart attack. Any hearings? Staying at home is more hazardous to your life than driving an automobile. Any hearings? Having a baby is murder: 100 percent die. There have been 736 reported UFO sightings in Canada in 2007. The British Ministry of Defense counted 650 UFO sightings in 2009. Swamped with work, they closed down their UFO desk, known as Air Secretariat 2A1, in December. There will be zero confirmed UFO sightings in the UK in 2010.

If the Koreans, Japan’s fiercest competitors, think that something may be rotten in the District of Columbia, then it probably is.

(Rules of the TTAC commenting policy are not in effect for this post. Everybody may fire at will without getting fired.)

Yesterday, a strange love-fest between U.S. Ambassador to Japan John Roos and Japan’s transport minister Seiji Maehara ensued. After their meeting in Tokyo, as reported by the Nikkei, the ambassador and the minister said that everything is hunky-dory, and that Toyota’s recent recalls won’t undermine relations between the U.S.A. and Japan. Which is odd in itself: Since when does a $15 gas pedal get a leading role on the world stage of international politics?

Ambassador Roos effusively told reporters that the recall issue ”in no way has any kind of direct or indirect impact on the strength of the bilateral relationship between the United States and Japan.” Who said it would?

Japan’s transport minister Seiji Maehara likewise said that Toyota’s troubles mean no harm to Japan’s relationship with the U.S.: “The issue shouldn’t damage the two countries’ relationship and shouldn’t hurt free and fair market competition.” Again, why should it?

Strange answers to questions nobody raised.

Kyodo News reiterated this morning in Japan that Toyota’s President Akio Toyoda will travel to the United States in March. Toyota spokeswoman Martha Voss said Toyoda ”would look forward” to the opportunity to meet with members of Congress when he visits the United States. The travel plans of the CEO of a car maker get more attention than a state visit.

There has been an odd amount of highest level governmental involvement with this issue recently, far beyond the regular regulatory ratcheting and the habitual grandstanding. The posturing is solely between the U.S.A, and Japan. Nobody in Europe, or China, which are just as affected by the recalls, turns Toyota into a political issue.

China’s state-owned news agency Xinhua couldn’t help but noticing today: “In a sharp contrast to media reports out of the US, voices of leniency and softened tones have emerged in China on the issue, with some people going as far as highlighting the massive safety recalls as a sign of ‘responsible business operations.’” China is Toyota’s second largest foreign market.

In Europe, where Toyota recalls 1.8m cars, the reaction is even more subdued. The German newspaper Die Welt yesterday cited a spokesperson of the powerful ADAC, Germany’s equivalent of the AAA: “The club does not have any complaints or claims from its members. There is no reason for panic.”

As commentator L’Avventura said: “It seems to me that a lot things are going to happen behind closed doors before the congressional hearings. The question is how it’s going to play out and how much of it is going to be predetermined and politically orchestrated.”

Out of the many possible explanations for the strange behavior, here is one of them:

Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama had campaigned on a platform that contained moving all U.S. bases off Okinawa, or even out of Japan. The Okinawa issue had received a lot of play in Japan. In the last weeks, it turned quiet.

When U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton complained with her Japanese counterpart Katsuya Okada about alleged discrimination of the Japanese cash for clunker program against American cars, it sounded oddly out of proportion. The number of cars affected wasn’t enough to fill a ship.

Now, the U.S.A. seems to have found a powerful pivot point, and Japan’s undivided attention.

As long as the U.S.A. sits on Okinawa, it doesn’t have to dump a lot of arms into Taiwan, a move that would make China increasingly grumpy. China already threatened to cut Boeing et al out of the Chinese market, after $6.4b of American arms made their way to Taiwan. China is estimated to need more than 3000 airliners worth $400 billion in the 20 years from 2009. Airbus already has the inside track in China and would be more than happy to fill the void.

Nobody claims Toyota doesn’t have problems. As many have said, they have had problems for years.  Their problem management is a mess. However, the timing and intensity of the diplomatic activity should give reason for thought.

Implications of a $15 gas pedal …

Thanks to the unionization of the US auto industry, its politics (and accordingly, those of the state of Michigan) tend to be of the center-left persuasion. This tendency was doubtless aggravated over the last year, as a congressional bailout of the industry was denied by southern Republican senators. But even in Michigan, the union-industry alliance isn’t strong enough to counter the trend towards ever more divisive politics, as two recent stories show some of the ideological cracks forming in this now highly politicized industry. First,according to the Freep, the National Tax Day Tea Party will re-open last year’s political wounds by staging a rally outside the RenCen during the Detroit Auto Show this year. The idea behind the rally is to “make a peaceful yet clear statement against government takeover of America,” specifically the government ownership of General Motors. Though it’s clearly an empty gesture intended to rally political support more than change anything, it will be a jarring contrast to the usual convivial mood at the NAIAS. And it’s just one of several ways in which the politicization of the industry is becoming steadily less containable.

Proving that ideological differences exist even within the UAW, one worker has reached out to what might well be one of the least popular organizations in Michigan, the National Right To Work Legal Defense Fund, in hopes of bringing his case against the UAW to the US Supreme Court. The NRTWLDF explains:

Jeffrey Reed, a resident of Bridgman, Michigan, assembles vehicles for AM General. Because his workplace is unionized, he works under a monopoly bargaining agreement which forces him either to join the UAW or pay compulsory union fees to it in order to keep his job. However, Reed, a devout Catholic, believes financially supporting the UAW union violates his sincerely-held religious beliefs due to the union hierarchy’s support for special rights for homosexuals and abortion-on-demand.

Under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, union officials may not force any employee to financially support a union if doing so violates the worker’s sincerely-held religious beliefs. The statute requires union officials to attempt to accommodate the worker – most often by redirecting the mandatory union fees to a mutually agreed upon charity – to avoid the conflict between an employee’s faith and a requirement to pay fees to a union he or she believes to be immoral.

However, because Reed is refraining from full dues paying union membership based on his faith, UAW union bosses forced him to pay a $100 premium and continue to pay 22 percent more than the amount workers who object on non-religious grounds must pay. Both full UAW members and secular objectors are allowed to pay an amount less than full dues if they wish to cut off the use of their union dues for political activities.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission found in 2006 that the UAW’s policy violated federal law, but the union has yet to change its policy. According to the lower courts, Reed would have to be “discharged or disciplined before he can challenge the UAW’s practice of forcing religious objectors to pay more than the forced dues paid by nonmembers who refrain from union membership for purely secular reasons.” Thus, the NRTWLDF and Reed are petitioning the SCOTUS to declare the policy unconstitutional.