Free Republic

Incentives: Doubling down on industrial policy failure, the administration decides to bump up the taxpayer subsidy for Government Motors' touted electric car. Who said its range wasn't enough to drive us to the poor house? Tucked away in the recesses of President Obama's 2013 budget, a budget that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid says he will not bring to the Senate floor, is a nugget that speaks volumes about the troubles we're in: While delaying the Keystone XL pipeline, the administration plans to increase the subsidy for the Chevy Volt and other "new technology" vehicles to $10,000 per car. "We...

Ex-President George W. Bush tells auto dealers he'd bail out automakers again

Clint Eastwood and Chrysler ticked off plenty of conservatives who usually back the actor and director. The ad’s message is that everything is peachy keen now that taxpayers bailed out Chrysler for a second time. It is halftime in America, the ad said. That ticked off conservatives. Saying it is halftime in America is echoic of Ronald Reagan’s morning in America and is seen as a political ad for President Obama’s re-election. From Mark Steyn: “Do you know who owns almost 60% of Chrysler, this great American institution? Fiat! Yes, nothing could be more American than an Italian company that’s...

After dissing Ford in the Super Bowl advertisement for its Chevrolet pickup trucks, General Motors' head of marketing has now taken a dig at Chrysler and everyone else who makes full-size trucks in the United States. During a web chat on Monday hosted by Jalopnik.com, GM Vice President and Global Chief Marketing Officer Joel Ewanik responded to a question about why it singled out Ford in the ad, which featured a group of Chevrolet drivers that survived the predicted 2012 Mayan Apocalypse while their Ford-driving friend “Dave” didn’t make it. Ewanik wrote “The two big players are Ford and Chevy....

If you’ve learned anything from Super Bowl XLVI so far, it’s that driving a Ford will get you killed when the apocalypse comes. Unsurprisingly, this spot from Chevy is already generating the most controversy. In it, a man drives through a post-apocalyptic landscape and finds the only survivors are fellow Chevy drivers. Their friend, sadly, drove a Ford and is dead.

Washington - Lest anyone doubt his solidarity with the American blue-collar worker, President Obama left the office Tuesday afternoon and spent some quality time with a Camaro. He never cranked up the stereo and took it for a spin, of course, but rather admired it on the showroom floor of the Washington Auto Show. But the photo op with the classic American muscle car gave Obama the chance to brag that the 2009 bailout he pushed through Congress ended up saving the big automakers. “The U.S. auto industry is back!” Obama declared. Cars are becoming a regular talking point for...

If you're in the market for a new set of wheels, you might be surprised to find out that your spiffy new car may not have spare tire - and instead be equipped with a sealant kit. In 2010 the U.S. Department of Transportation required new vehicles to meet certain fuel efficiency standards. In order to meet the new mandate, some car makers are doing away with traditional spare tires and the corresponding tools to bring the car's overall weight down. Tara Hanley of AAA MountainWest noted, "Our first concern was that motorists were aware of it and that they...

On Thursday, General Motors announced an alert system under development that would instruct the Chevy Volt to charge only when a relatively high percentage of renewable energy was available. Being plugged in at those times would further minimize the carbon footprint of the plug-in hybrid. When a substantial percentage of the energy transmitted to the grid came from a renewable source like wind power, OnStar would receive a signal from P.J.M. Interconnection, a company that manages the electric-power transmission grid for numerous utility companies. The telematics system would then cue the vehicle to begin charging. “This demonstration shows that in...

BMW has introduced a new range of M Performance Automobiles featuring a new 6-cylinder in-line diesel developed exclusively for those applications. The engines, which feature three turbochargers, deliver maximum output reaching 280 kW/381 hp and peak torque of 740 N·m (546 lb-ft). The new engine is applied in the BMW M550d xDrive Sedan, BMW M550d xDrive Touring, BMW X5 M50d and BMW X6 M50d. The vehicles are also equipped with an eight-speed sports automatic gearbox and the intelligent all-wheel-drive system BMW xDrive tuned to suit each model, as well as BMW EfficientDynamics technologies, including Auto Start-Stop and ECO PRO mode....

- Some Chevrolet dealers are turning down Volts that General Motors wants to ship to them, a potential stumbling block as GM looks to accelerate sales of the plug-in hybrid. For example, consider the New York City market. Last month, GM allocated 104 Volts to 14 dealerships in the area, according to a person familiar with the matter. Dealers took just 31 of them, the lowest take rate for any Chevy model in that market last month. That group of dealers ordered more than 90 percent of the other vehicles they were eligible to take, the source said. In Clovis,...

With NHTSA's closure of the investigation into the Chevy Volt, General Motors is now trying to rebuild the plug-in hybrid's image . But a new stumbling block has appeared on the road to higher sales — dealers turning down Volts from GM. General Motors sold only 7,671 Volts in the United States in 2011, well short of its 10,000-unit target for the first year. GM spokespeople have attributed weakness in demand to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's investigation into the risk of fires in the car's battery pack. But I'm not entirely certain that can all be blamed...

DeLorean Motor Co., Inc. has unveiled the DeLorean EV, an electric car that marries the legendary Back to the Future DeLorean automobile of the 1980s with a lithium-ion-based, DC-powered, electric drivetrain of today. "It turns out the DeLorean is a perfect platform for electrification," noted Chris Anthony, CEO of Flux Power, Inc. and Epic Electric Vehicles, both of which worked with DeLorean Motors to develop the powertrain for the new vehicle. "It's well designed, it's lightweight, it never rusts, and it has a design aesthetic that's meant to blow you away." DeLorean's "new" EV maintains the look of the legendary...

Less than two years after emerging from bankruptcy,General Motors Co.has regained the title of the world's largest automaker. GM's worldwide sales rose 7.6% to 9 million vehicles in 2011. The Detroit manufacturer last held the top spot in 2007 before it was surpassed byToyota Motor Corp.the next year. Chevrolet, GM's flagship brand, set a record by selling nearly 4.8 million vehicles. That was more than what many entire auto companies posted in sales last year, including Nissan and Honda. "It is an accomplishment that GM has been able to reverse the tide in the U.S. and Asia, and they are...

General Motors Co will cut production of its Chevrolet Volt if sales of the plug-in hybrid fall short of estimates in the first half of the year, GM vice chairman Steve Girsky said on Tuesday.

In an unprecedented move, General Motors will lend Chevrolet Volt owners another GM vehicle for free until the automaker resolves a federal probe over three fires in Volt battery packs. Following Friday’s announcement by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration that it was opening a formal defect probe into the plug-in hybrid Volt, GM told reporters today it was standing behind the car and would do everything it could to ease any owners’ concerns — including borrowing a non-electric set of wheels. No other automaker has ever handed out free loaners simply because of a defect investigation which may or...

There are some ideas that, no matter how often they rise and how spectacularly they fail, just won't go away. Perpetual motion machines, for example. Passive exercise machines. Diets that work. These technologies sound great in theory, but don't seem to pan out in practice. Add to the list, electric (or largely electric) cars. People who have looked into the history of automobiles have noted that while electric cars have never managed to rival internal combustion cars for their performance, comfort, reliability, or customer-attractiveness, they persist in inspiring a small segment of the public. And would-be social engineers have always...

General Motors Co. may be the largest of Detroit’s Big Three, but it is the only one to not be represented on Automobile Magazine’s ‘2012 All-Stars’ list. The magazine, which ranked the 2012 Audi 7 the best vehicle of next year, feature vehicles from Ford Motor Co. and Chrysler Group LLC on the top 10 list, but left GM in the dark. Ford drove onto the list with its compact Focus, which was awarded car of the year by the magazine in 2000, and the highly-acclaimed Mustang Boss 302, which the magazine dubbed “the best Mustang ever.” January 2012 issue,...

A recurring theme from the current administration is that to be pro-organized labor is to be pro-worker. Concurrently, the administration has consistently refuted that it is using class warfare as a theme. A comment from Vice President Biden in March 2011 summed it up when he stated, "We don't see the value of collective bargaining; we see the absolute positive necessity of collective bargaining. Let's get something straight: the only people who have the capacity -- organizational capacity and muscle -- to keep, as they say, the barbarians from the gate, is organized labor. And make no mistake about it:...

The White House’s green technology revolution is sitting in an auto lot in Butler, Pa., and nobody is buying. “Nobody comes in to ask, nobody comes in to look … The American people are smarter than the government — they’re not buying that car,” said Republican Rep. Mike Kelly, who owns the auto lot where one of General Motors’ combined electric-and-gasoline powered Volt autos sits unwanted, unsold and unused. The Chevy Volt would cost its buyer almost $40,000 — even after a $7,500 federal check — and that’s more than twice the price of a comparable Chevy Cruze, Kelly told...

"Marty, you've got to come back with me! Back to the future!" It is one of those great bits from film history -- Doc Brown, the mad genius inventor from 1985's "Back to the Future," builds a time machine out of that iconic-but-failed sports car of the early 1980s, the DeLorean DMC-12. There is still a DeLorean Motor Co. of Humble, Texas, which supplies parts and occasionally builds new cars for DeLorean lovers, and it has now announced a new version -- a DeLorean powered entirely by electricity. "The car of the future has really become the car of the...

A new book chronicling the financial collapse of General Motors and Chrysler in 2008 reveals new details about just how desperate the situation was for the giants of the automobile industry. New York Times reporter Bill Vlasic's new book, "Once Upon A Car," relates the fiscal turmoil facing General Motors in the months leading up to the financial collapse.

Electric carmaker Tesla got gearheads buzzing this weekend with its announcement of a tweak to its Model S luxury sedan to give it super speed. The souped up version will go 0-60 mph in 4.5 seconds and get about 320 miles per charge. Green Car Reports has more on the specs: The sportier version features the same 85 kilowatt-hour, 300 miles-per-charge battery pack found in the 2012 Model S Signature series. “That’s quicker than a [Porsche] 911 [Carrera],” joked [Tesla CEO Elon] Musk. “Not bad for an electric luxury sedan.” In fact, it’s better than some of the gas-powered cars...

Federal bailout funding may have prevented General Motors from going through a normal bankruptcy process, but it has come at a significant price in terms of reputation and potential buyers. Fifty percent (50%) of American adults are less likely to buy a GM car because of the bailout. A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds just four percent (4%) are more likely to buy from the company that critics refer to as Government Motors. Forty-two percent (42%) say the bailout has had no impact on their buying plans one way or the other. The flip side of the data...

General Motors Co and its Chinese partner SAIC Motor Corp signed an agreement on Tuesday to develop and build electric vehicles in the world's largest auto market. The agreement finalizes a nonbinding memorandum on cooperation for green-vehicle development SAIC and GM signed last November. At the time, SAIC agreed to buy a 1 percent stake in GM through an initial public offering held to make GM a public company again and cut the U.S. Treasury's stake in the company. The Shanghai GM joint venture builds Chevy, Buick and Cadillac vehicles in China.

"MUCH loved, seldom bought" might soon be the epitaph of Sweden’s struggling Saab. It seems unlikely that Trollhattan car firm will manage to swerve around its creditors once more. After a court last week rejected Saab’s request for a breathing space to reorganise its finances for the second time in three years, two unions opened bankruptcy proceedings on September 12th for unpaid wages. Saab now has only until September 26th to convince the court that the money for a rescue is on the way. Saab has been on the skids for some months. It has hardly made any cars since...

America is still fighting over President Obama's costly bailout of Chrysler and General Motors. Especially the owners of Ford, the only member of Detroit's "Big Three" who rejected the government dole and emerged perfectly healthy. [Check out our editorial cartoons on President Obama.] In its most political ad in the so-called "Drive One" ads where real drivers are thrust before cameras to explain why they picked Ford, a real Ford F-150 pick-up driver is featured.

Criminals seem to have a thing for big vehicles. The Cadillac Escalade remains the car most likely to be stolen, according to new data from the Highway Loss Data Institute. This is the fourth year in a row the Escalade has topped this list. The rankings for most stolen cars are based on auto insurance claims data from 2008 and 2009.

Obama to automakers: ‘You can’t just make money on SUVs and trucks’ By Andrew Restuccia - 08/15/11 02:37 PM ET The country’s automakers should ditch their focus on SUVs and trucks in favor of smaller, more fuel-efficient vehicles, President Obama said Monday. “You can’t just make money on SUVs and trucks,” Obama said during a town hall forum in Cannon Falls, Minn. “There is a place for SUVs and trucks, but as gas prices keep on going up, you have got to understand the market. People are going to try to save money.” Obama has positioned the revival and reshaping...

SALINAS, Calif.- Green Vehicles is empty and it's doors are locked. The worst part, Salinas lost $540,000 in the closure and now it needs to find something else to hang its economic hat on. $240,000 the city paid and $300,000 came from a one-time grant for new tech jobs. Last year, Salinas mayor Dennis Donohue test drove one of the new green vehicle proto-types. Salinas was beyond excited when start up company "Green Vehicles" wanted to come to their city, but, "This is disappointing as all get out," said economic development director Jeff Weir. As of last week, and this...

A Salinas car manufacturing company that was expected to build environmentally friendly electric cars and create new jobs folded before almost any cars could run off the assembly line. The city of Salinas had invested more than half a million dollars in Green Vehicles, an electric car start-up company. All of that money is now gone, according to Green Vehicles President and Co-Founder Mike Ryan. The start-up company set up shop in Salinas in the summer of 2009 after the city gave Ryan a $300,000 community development grant. When the company still ran into financial trouble last year, the city...

Now in retirement, Lutz is still as vocal as ever about cars and the auto industry. In his new book, Car Guys versus Bean Counters: The Battle for the Soul of American Business, Lutz documents what he believes was the greatest factor in the demise of the U.S. auto industry. No, it's not the unions (although that contributed). No, it's not uncompetitive wages compared to Asian manufacturers. His answer: "Management incompetence" Over the course of his career, "management became way too scientific, B-school oriented; way too cost focused; and it was almost considered childish to be to be enthusiastic about...

WASHINGTON, July 6 (UPI) -- Youngstown, Ohio, Mayor Jay Williams will lead the Obama administration's efforts to help communities dependent on the auto industry recover, officials said. Beginning Aug. 8, Williams will be executive director of the Labor Department's Office of Recovery for Auto Communities and Workers, Labor Secretary Hilda Solis said Wednesday in a release.

A lot of words have been written in the past few post-tsunami weeks about the negative impact of the disastrous tragedy on the short-term future of Japanese cars in the U.S. market. In parallel, many articles proclaim this to be a “historical window of opportunity” for the “Detroit Three,” now able to deliver to waiting customers an abundant supply of new vehicles while, at Toyota, Honda and Nissan, the cupboard is bare.

10) Olds Cutlass Ciera(GM A-Bodies)1984-1996 9)Geo Prizm 1989-2002 The what? Here’s the story, in short: It’s a Toyota Corolla with a different nameplate, and everyone knows Corollas last forever. 8)Subaru Wagons(All of Them) 1990-Present If all of these failed to start tomorrow, thousands of college professors in the Northeast and Pacific Northwest would have to walk to class. 7)Volvos (Rear-Wheel-Drive Ones)Dawn of Man-1996 To some extent, these are the Subaru wagons’ spiritual and actual predecessors. Volvo's secret? It basically built one car for 25 years under a variety of nameplates. 6)Ford Crown Victoria/Mercury Marquis 1992 - 2011 If these can...

TOLEDO, Ohio (AP) — An Ohio restaurant mentioned last week by President Barack Obama as an indirect beneficiary of the government’s Chrysler bailout will go out of business Sunday after a more than 70-year history. Co-owner Richard Lawrence of New Chet’s Restaurant in Toledo says business has fallen victim to the economy and the workplace smoking ban approved by Ohio voters in 2006. He told The Blade newspaper of Toledo on Wednesday that auto industry cutbacks also hurt. Lawrence says he used to deliver up to $300 in food per week to Chrysler Group LLC’s Jeep plant in Toledo, but...

Electric cars make sense at amusement parks and golf courses -- and on the road, if the road is mostly flat, it's nice and warm out (but not too warm) you've got money to waste, don't have to go very far (especially in winter) and don't mind waiting a couple hours before you can go someplace else. Otherwise, they're marvelous. The Chevy Volt at least addresses that problem by carting around its own portable (and gas-fueled) generator, so that when your "up to 40 miles" range on electric power alone fizzles out, you're not stuck. The car's gas engine kicks...

"Baseball, hot dogs, apple pie, Mao Zedong and Chevrolet." That could be GM's new slogan if recent comments by CEO Dan Akerson are taken to heart. Akerson shared a somewhat bizarre vision for GM in an interview with the Detroit News when he stated, "Whoever comes after me; it's going to be a more important appointment than mine because he or she will have to carry on a cultural revolution here. It's just like the Communist Party in China in the 1960s, there has to be a cultural revolution here." These comments come just weeks after the Washington Times...

Mazda Motor Corp. is expected to end production of its vehicles in the United States. The automaker is considering selling its 50-percent stake in its U.S. joint venture with Ford Motor Co., AutoAlliance International Inc. in Flat Rock, Michigan, to Ford in two years, sources said June 3. Mazda is expected to shift production to its Hofu plant in Yamaguchi Prefecture and export vehicles to the United States. President Takashi Yamanouchi has said: "I want to fundamentally solve the problems that Mazda is saddled with (such as the U.S. operations)." In fiscal 2010, AutoAlliance International produced only 45,000 Mazda vehicles,...

“There are always going to be bumps on the road to recovery. We’re going to pass through some rough terrain that even a Wrangler would have a hard time with. You know that”

TOKYO (AP) -- Toyota recalled 106,000 first-generation Prius hybrid cars globally on Wednesday for faulty steering caused by a nut that may come loose. The single minor accident suspected of being related to the problem was reported in the U.S., according to Toyota Motor Corp. The latest recall from Toyota, which has taken hit to its reputation from massive recalls worldwide, affects 48,000 Prius vehicles in Japan, starting with the first Prius models that went on sale in 1997, and those manufactured through 2003. It also affects 58,000 vehicles sold abroad, including 52,000 Prius cars sold from 2001 through 2003...

Chrysler and the White House will celebrate the Detroit icon's $5.9 billion repayment of government loans Tuesday in a ceremony that will be hailed by both sides for the same reason: The government bailout had become a liability for both entities. In fact, government-free Chrysler is hardly off the debt hook, but is simply refinancing its debt with private rather than public debt-holders. For its part, the U.S. government will still have a 6.6 percent equity stake in Chrysler - but by removing itself as the company's loan shark, the White House can boast of the unpopular bailout's success in...

The market for pre-owned vehicles continues to keep up the pace in this challenging economic environment, forcing the car makers that have made a business out of selling used cars come up will all sorts of solutions meant to put them ahead of the pack. In the US, the competition on this segment is fierce. There are, however, only a limited number of things you can do, as a producer, to increase the appeal of a so-called certified pre-owned car. And most of those things have something to do with aftermarket gadgets and systems. Hyundai, one of the biggest players...

The car manufacturers launch new models on regular basis to surpass each other and capture the Indian market. It is expected that in the coming year, we will witness flourishing growth in the small-car sectors with the intrusion of auto majors like Fiat, Ford, General Motors, Honda, Skoda, and Volkswagen. JD Power statistics show a steady growth in the number of small-car buyers in India. Representing 24 percent of the total market in 2009, the number has increased to 32 percent in 2010. Experts believe that the small car segment is set to expand even more.After establishing themselves in urban...

TOKYO (AP) — Toyota Motor Corp., which is likely to lose its spot as the world's No. 1 automaker to General Motors Co. later this year, reports its fiscal fourth quarter results Wednesday. WHAT TO WATCH FOR: Toyota's production capacity was sorely hurt by a devastating earthquake and tsunami in Japan on March 11. The twin disasters nearly washed away Japan's northeastern coast, home to a network of key auto-parts suppliers. The maker of the Camry sedan and Prius hybrid overtook GM as the world's biggest automaker in 2008, a distinction that the American car manufacturer had held since 1932....

Imagine turning your car’s steering wheel, or giving it a gentle tug, and having it break away from the steering column. Now you’re speeding along holding the suddenly useless wheel. It sounds like a vision from a cartoon, or every driver’s nightmare. And it happened to at least one driver of a 2011 Chevrolet Cruze compact car last month, and General Motors Corp. is recalling 2,100 of the cars as a result. While the recall affects a relatively small number of vehicles, it is an unpleasant development for Chevrolet, which has been riding high on the success of its new...

Who can forget the frenzied all out bashing of Toyota on all government propaganda stations after the brake pedal got stuck just at a time when GM was emerging from bankruptcy, and before it was forced to engage in stuffing dealers with its bloated inventory. Yet very little if anything has been said about the curious case of the Chevy Cruze... and the falling steering wheel. The WSJ writes: "Imagine turning your car’s steering wheel, or giving it a gentle tug, and having it break away from the steering column. Now you’re speeding along holding the suddenly useless wheel....

Toyota to Halt Output in N. America after Japan Quake New York, April 8 (Jiji Press)--Toyota Motor Corp. <7203> said Friday it will suspend vehicle production at 13 of its 14 North American plants due to disruptions in Japanese-made parts and component supplies caused by the March 11 massive earthquake and tsunami. The 13 plants will stop operations for four to five days in the April 15-25 period, the top Japanese automaker said. Production plans for April 26 and beyond have not been decided yet. (2011/04/09-13:21)

Toyota just announced it will shut down all of its North American factories due to shortages of parts from Japan. This is a temporary shutdown, which will affect about 25,000 workers. The length of the shutdown is unknown and depends on how fast Japanese parts factories can get back in operation, spokesman Mike Gross told the AP. Toyota gets about 15 percent of its parts from Japan. Last month GM's Shreveport plant was shutdown temporarily due to troubles in Japan.

Kia Motors Corp unveiled the "Naimo (KND-6)" electric concept car at Seoul Motor Show 2011, which opens for the public from April 1 to 10, 2011, in Seoul, South Korea. The electric vehicle (EV) has a lithium-polymer (Li-polymer) rechargeable battery with a capacity of 27kWh under its trunk. Its drive range is about 200km per charge. Its battery cells seem to be manufactured by LG Chem Ltd. The release date of the EV has not been determined yet. The Naimo has a permanent magnet synchronous motor in the front side of the vehicle. The maximum output and maximum torque of...

On a day that Toyota has announced plans for a possible shutdown in the US because of supply problems in Japan, the United Auto Workers said that they are on the verge of the "largest boycott in the history of the global economy," according to the Michigan's Royal Oak Daily Tribune. The UAW is organizing the boycott to protest the refusal of transnational automakers to unionize employees in the US. The head of the union, Bob King, has admitted that declining union membership rolls means that if the UAW doesn't "organize these transnationals, I don't think there's a long-term future...