Ask The Best And Brightest: Your Wild-Eyed Predictions For 2011?
It’s that time of year: the media dead zone between Christmas and the New Year, when traditional “news” and “content” gets laid aside in favor of lists of things that happened last year and might happen next year. We’re not great list-makers here at TTAC, and we’re still waiting on December sales data to sum up last year’s industry performances, so rather than offer our “top ten moments” and “trends to watch,” we’ll simply ask you, our Best And Brightest, to whip out your crystal balls (in a safe-for-work manner, please) and make a wild prediction about next year. Will gas prices spike or recede? Will trucks outsell cars again? Will GM’s stock hit the $53/share price needed to pay back taxpayers, or will more tax money be funneled to the automakers? Will the Chinese market collapse or carry on? Will Chrysler’s rushed updates like the 200 sell significantly better than last year’s equivalent models? Will the return of Fiat to the US market be cheered or ignored? Can we expect another big recall scandal next year, and if so, from whom? Will the Motor Vehicle Safety Act be exhumed and passed, or will it rest in peace? So many questions… time to start predicting!
More by Edward Niedermeyer
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I only have bad news :( Saab, my beloved Saab, will leave the U.S. market despite having darn good products (finally). This is entirely their fault for not advertising. VW will regret trying to lure CamCord buyers in N.A. Traditional VW buyers will hate the bloated, decontented messes that the new Jetta/Passat have/will become and they still won't be big enough and cheap enough to entice mainstream Americans to bite. The Fiat 500 will fizzle out, IF it ever takes off. Here is a wish: Ford and Mazda start making the front clips of their cars optional/interchangable. Like the Fusion but hate the grill? Here's a Milan grill for ya!
Scary, but: In light of the upcoming hybrid and pure-electric vehicle sales increases over the next decade, some greedy bureaucrat with broach the subject in front of the press of supplementing gasoline tax revenue by introducing national road-user fees to be collected using transponders. No major or secondary highways are to be exempt. In a feeble attempt at damage control, his (or her) superiors will drag him by the collar into the back room. The verbal reaming will sound something like this: "You $@%#ing idiot!! STFU about that! The peasants aren't supposed to know about this until AFTER they've all bought electric cars, not before! You and your big mouth! You may have just killed the whole $#@%ing scheme! How the hell are we going to put the genie back in the $#@%ing bottle?!!"
A TV show (maybe Brian Ross?) will hire an engineer to defeat the overcharge protection mechanisms in the Volt and or Leaf. The end result will be a huge roman candle from the lithium batteries. Not sure if there will be an effect on sales.
These are my perpetual predictions that I'll continue to use from 1990 to 2040... 1) Diesels are now clean, not like those from ______ (today's year minus 5). 2) The new Porsche 911 is the best handling yet, not like the woolly handling monsters of ______ (today's year minus 10). 3) Fuel cells are only 10 years away. 4) Detroit will be on a turnaround once next year's model of _____ comes out. 5) Product is king! (Except where price is king! Or promotion is king!) 6) The domestics have almost caught up to the Japanese in quality.