What's Wrong With This Picture: Just What Tesla Needed More Of Edition

HYPE! Yes, according to a pimptastic Morgan Stanley report [via BusinessInsider], Tesla is about to become “the 4th American Automaker,” despite the fact that it hasn’t actually built a car in any kind of volume. The report enthuses

The confluence of structural industry change, disruptive technology, changing consumer tastes and heightened national security creates an opportunity for significant new entrants in the global auto industry. California dreaming? We don’t think so. In our view, the conditions are ripe for a shake-up of a complacent, century-old industry heavily invested in the status quo of internal combustion. The risks are high. So is the opportunity. Enter Tesla.

Did you just throw up in your mouth a little? Don’t worry, there are highly convincing charts to help you learn to stop worrying and love the auto industry’s answer to Apple. After all, when it comes to Tesla, charts always tell the whole story.

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Quote Of The Day: Imported From Europe, Re-Imported From Detroit Edition
A news brief from the Agenzia Giornalistica Italia notesAGI) Turin – FIAT CEO Sergio Marchionne has said that it is not true that FIAT is Americanizing…
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Will Tesla Lose Its Top Gear Lawsuit?

Tesla has sued Top Gear for depicting its Roadster running out of electricity in the 2008 segment shown above. According to the San Jose Mercury News, Tesla is suing because

Top Gear’s allegation that the car’s range is 55 miles is defamatory because it suggests Tesla “grossly misled potential purchasers of the Roadster,”

But Top Gear spokesfolks tell the BBC

We can confirm that we have received notification that Tesla have issued proceedings against the BBC. The BBC stands by the programme and will be vigorously defending this claim.

And, as long as the Tesla Roadster that Top Gear tested was a first-generation machine (and we think it is), Tesla’s going to have a little problem making the case that the BBC defamed their car…

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UAW Transplant Organizing Campaign DOA?

Do you recall the UAW’s last-ditch bid for relevance, its campaign to organize the transplant auto factory workers of America? The union’s campaign against the Hondas, Toyotas, BMWs and Hyundais of the world was supposed to begin in earnest in January, but all they have to show for it thus far is a perfunctory slap-down from Honda. So what happened? Where’s the confrontation, the picketing, the accusations of human rights abuses? Remember, the UAW has all of its skin in this gambit, now that i ts President has confirmed that

If we don’t organize the transnationals, I don’t think there is a long-term future for the UAW.

But based on the dearth of media reports on either the campaign’s success or failure, it would seem that the UAW has given up on the effort and is hoping everyone just forgets about it…

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Quote Of The Day: Mulally Doubts The Cinquecento Edition

It’s been a good day for drama, what with GM losing its CFO, Saab’s principals turning on each other, Carlos Ghosn showing the first signs of losing his grip on his global empire, and Rs and Ds battling over GHGs. But what today was missing in the drama department was a spat between two legitimate stars, a throwdown featuring the hot young celebs of the automotive world. Well, thanks to ASCA.it [via Carscoop], we have it. Speaking to the Italian press, Ford CEO and industry darling Alan Mulally took on Fiat-Chrysler’s up-and-coming global starlet, the Fiat 500, bashing its chances of success in the US.

Mulally also talks of competing with Chrysler and about the market prospects of the Fiat 500 in the United States, provides: ”I do not see big market space for one car in the U.S. more ‘smaller Fiesta.” He added: ”Who has tried has failed.”

Presumably Mulally was comparing the 500 to Daimler’s Smart brand effort, in which an established automaker attempted to bring a new brand and a premium A-segment city car to the US and failed badly. And Mulally isn’t just idly speculating either: if he thought a sub-sub-compact car would sell profitably in America he’d bring Ford’s Ka, which is built on the same platform as the Cinquecento, here and make a fight of it (hell, it’s already appeared in a Bond movie). And with Chrysler’s plan to sell 55k Fiat 500s in the US this year already “a little bit behind,” it seems Mulally’s skepticism may be well-placed.

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Bill Ford On The Global Traffic Jam

That’s right, the Executive Chairman of America’s only automaker to have never taken a bailout just raised concerns about the problem of selling too many cars. It’s not as if he doesn’t have a point… it’s just little like listening to Charlie Sheen leading an AA meeting.

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Geniuses Fight Back For American Jobs

These three men have been charged with criminal damage of property after vandalizing seven 2011 model-year Toyotas at the Chicago Auto Show, reports the Southtown Star.

Police said they caused about $30,000 worth of damage to the vehicles, which had speakers cut open, dashboards ripped apart, seats sliced and windshields scratched.

Responding officers caught the three in a blue Toyota Camry, damaging the interior with razor knives and flathead screwdrivers, according to police.

They said other Toyotas were found in the immediate area with similar damage, and the three were taken into custody by McCormick Place security personnel, who contacted Chicago police. The men told police they were angry about American jobs going overseas. [emphasis added]

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Quote Of The Day: I Can Stop Any Time Edition

Bloomberg [via AN [sub]] reports that Chrysler’s fleet sales mix was at 25% in the month of January (according to Edmunds anyway, as Chrysler doesn’t release fleet numbers), the lowest level since a Cash For Clunkers-fueled August 2009. According to the same Edmunds data, however, the industry average fleet mix is just under 20%… and Chrysler’s 2010 average was 38%. But now that Chrysler’s been under 30% fleet for three months, sales boss Fred Diaz figures meeting the industry average is just a matter of time. Specifically:

By the end of the year, we will definitely be at industry average. That’s the goal; that’s our plan.

Considering Chrysler’s fleet sales fell from 56% to the 25%-range over the course of the last year, it sounds like the last few steps of this journey will be the most difficult. Especially when you remember that Chrysler’s also trying to increase volume some 45% this year. That means some 300,000-450,000 more Americans will have to decide to buy Chrysler Group products this year than did last year if the Pentastar wants to achieve both its volume and fleet goals. That’s going to take some serious selling…

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Chris Harris Exposes The Ferrari Spin Machine
EVO Magazine’s Chris Harris was recently taken to task here at TTAC for daring to diss the Mazda MX-5, a move that had many of our readers bemoaning th…
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Controversial EV Burns, Mystery Deepens

Back in October, a firm called DBM Energy announced that an Audi A2 fitted with one of its “alpha-polymer” (lithium-metal-polymer) batteries would drive 600km without stopping to recharge or swap batteries, a claim that caused TTAC’s Martin Schwoerer (and others) to sit up and take notice. Schowerer noted

There is nothing new under the sun. You can expect battery capacity-per-weight-unit to expand by around 10% per decade, by incremental improvement. Maybe more. Don’t put your money or stake your rep on anything supposedly revolutionary. There is no way a small four-seater electric can do 600 KM non-stop with one set of batteries (with a $500k fuel cell system: yes, but that’s something else).

Then, days later, the trip was made, and DBM’s battery was hailed as having powered the “Miracle of Berlin.” Of course, Schwoerer pointed out that there were a number of unresolved issues with the stunt, including

DBM Energy GmbH is a mailbox company.

DBM’s website states as contact a non-registered entity named DBM Headquarters, which is located in a smallish office building. In that office building, there are several small-sounding firms such as a long-term storage company, a fire-extinguisher company, and a “battery-service” company.

When companies with no reputation defy the expectations of everyone in the EV business, skepticism is going to take hold. Especially when the car in question burns to a crisp shortly after its record breaking trip.

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South Carolina: AAA Endorses Illegal Speed Trap

A century ago, the forerunners of the American Automobile Association (AAA) provided a service that warned motorists about upcoming speed traps. AAA Carolinas turned away from this history and used its considerable influence on Monday to support a speed trap declared illegal by South Carolina’s attorney general and several of its lawmakers. Since August, the tiny town of Ridgeland has allowed a private company to operate a speed camera on Interstate 95 in direct defiance of a state law enacted in June specifically to stop the program ( view law).

“All branches of government are facing constricting budgets,” a AAA Carolinas statement explained. “Law enforcement agencies will not be able to simply add staff to handle the growing traffic volume and therefore must look to creative solutions to do more with less. This photo-radar enforcement program in the Town of Ridgeland is one such example and should be replicated as opposed to rejected.”

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"This Is The Motor City. This Is What We Do."
Chrysler’s extended Super Bowl ad for its 200 sedan is making waves in the American auto business, for “bringing back the pride” in America…
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Quote Of The Day: "Shyster" Edition
You want the good news or the bad news first? OK, the good news is that Fiat/Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne told attendees at NADA’s annual convention…
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Motor Trend Tells Its Side Of The Mercedes F-Cell Fiasco Story
So, what really happened when two of the three hydrogen fuel-cell cars on Mercedes’s F-Cell World Tour ran out of fuel on an early leg? Previously we&r…
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Quote Of The Day: Das Beste Oder Nichts Edition

When GM’s head of North American operations, Mark Reuss, was giving The Detroit Bureau some choice quotes about GM’s newfound commitment to excellence, it may not have occurred to him that Mercedes had recently laid claim to the very cliche-laden territory he found himself on. To wit:

Reuss insists the new GM philosophy is to “be the best, or we’re not going to do it,”

Yes, Daimler may have to answer to some higher power for the insipid video above, but at least its lack of imagination has pedigree: the line “The Best Or Nothing” killed for Gottlieb Daimler back in the “good old days” of the early 20th Century. Reuss’s lyrical inspiration, on the other hand, is a corporate process. To be fair, the “knothole” as it is known, is a Lutzian legend of a mythical corporate process, aimed at

The perpetuation of excellence and the destruction of mediocrity.

Which sound like mighty fine goals for our fine public investment. So let’s give Reuss a pass for stomping into Mercedes’ marketing-cliche territory, and ask: what is this amazing “knothole” and why doesn’t every automaker have one?

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