Trendsetting: China Rising

I've used a lot of blog space to cover trends concerning China as an emerging powerhouse of both vehicle consumption as well as production. I think it's well deserved. This NYT article helps detail why.

Much like the financial, management, and labor troubles of the 1970s led to the consolidation and eventual failure of the British auto industry, the U.S.'s manufacturing base is in upheaval and seems likely to lose its predominance in the auto manufacturing sector, at a minimum. While I doubt the U.S. will lose it's world influence and might as a result (as the U.K. did), it's clear that we leaving a void and that China will be filling it. And I agree with the NYT article that it seems unlikely we'll regain the "lead."

What does that mean for us as consumers, or simply as citizens of the U.S.? In the long run, I think we'll continue to lose auto manufacturing jobs, although we might pick up foreign factories. (I assume you know that many Toyotas and Hondas are built in U.S. factories with U.S. workers, although most parts are still foreign sourced.) Look at BMW: they own Mini and engineer the Mini cars, which are mostly assembled in the U.K. rather than being sent to Poland or something. It is beneficial to the company to keep a British marque in the U.K.

There will also be less American cars on the road - that is, cars made by American companies in the U.S. This was happening long before the financial crisis hit - GM uses it's Korean subsidiary Daewoo to build small cars in Korea.

It'll take a while for the Chinese to want to build their factories here. Our labor costs are MUCH higher than native Chinese labor. But auto trends and preferences will change - no longer will American ammenities dictate global design requirements, as the article points out by noting the American trend for cupholders and the Chinese preference for chauffeur-driven cars.

Things are changing. Get used to China being a carmaker and a precedent-setter. Don't run for the hills, it'll be fine. But be on the lookout for protectionist and sensationalist nonsense, just to give yourself a laugh now and then.

Small cars are UNSAFE!!!! Run, panic, stockpile guns! Resurrect Charleton Heston!

This might expose a lot of my biases and personally philosophies when it comes to car buying, but the new IIHS study that claims that mini- or subcompact cars are less safe than mid-size ones really drives me crazy.

Not because it’s wrong. It isn’t. Not because I dislike midsize cars or think they aren’t as safe as the study claims. They are. And they’re “safer” than mini-cars.

What pushes my buttons is that the byline, “mini- or subcompact cars are less safe than mid-size ones” is so easily misunderstood or misinterpreted. I fear that folks considering outstanding cars like the Honda Fit or Scion xD will now look at them as “unsafe,” rather than understanding that no car is 100% safe in every circumstance. (By the way, if you want a small car like these, get the side airbags! That’s just some advice. They really work. Back to your regularly scheduled rant …)

For example, let’s design a test to prove that the same mid-size sedans vindicated in this IIHS test are “unsafe” by crashing them at 50mph into a large “light” truck, like a Chevy Silverado 2500. I can’t actually run this test, but I think you can assume that hypothetically the byline could be “Mid-Size Sedans Unsafe in New IIHS Study.” It’s just misleading. It’s designing a study to produce an easily misunderstood result. It makes “safety” seem like a binary situation – safe, or unsafe – rather than a continuum where safety increases almost every model year.

I think most folks, if you explained to them that you were designing an offset 40 mph (80mph closing speed) test between a Hyundai Sonata and a Toyota Yaris, that one would fare more poorly than the other. But it’s not like the “exploding Pinto” situation that scared generations of people away from smaller cars into large metal safety cages. Your Yaris won’t instantly entomb you by disintegrating instantly. The IIHS test represents an artificial, laboratory test that is not reflective of real-life accident scenarios. In fact, that hitting anything at an 80mph speed could even possibly be survivable represents the vast leaps we’ve made in midsize car safety even in the last 10 years.

What the test DOES demonstrate is that weight differential is always an issue. Smaller vehicles usually fare worse in an accident when they hit something larger. That is reality. New technology increases the survivability or likelihood of injury dramatically. (You should use your best judgment when determining what size of vehicle to buy, of course.)

On the other hand, if you take that philosophy and decide “I want to put every member of my family into a giant SUV like a Nissan Armada,” then we’re locking ourselves into this cycle of up-sizing and putting others at risk. Ideally, all cars would be lighter (and thus more fuel efficient), reducing our environmental impact while working on getting the size differential issue under control. I’m not saying I want you to get rid of your big truck that you need for work, I’m saying I’d like it to be as strong or stronger, but lighter and safer and also more fuel efficient (for example, through the use of lightweight composites or light metals like aluminum).

I just hope that folks will be able to read the results of the IIHS result and understand what the limitations of it are. And I’d encourage you to think about safety, but not to fall into the “bigger is ALWAYS better” trap. Better is relative. Be an educated consumer and weight the considerations. I trust you’ll make a good decision, especially if you’re concerned enough to read this whole rant.

New sh** has come to light!

[from Jalopnik.com, commenting on Rick Wagoner's demise]:

JackMaz got wagon fever
7:37 PM on Sun Mar 29 2009

@nhubbell84, morphing to ThreeLitre: I've got information man! New s&it has come to light! And s&it... man, he arranged it himself. Well sure, man. Look at it... a failed exec, in the parlance of our times, you know, and GM, uh, uh, owes money all over town, including to the Treasury and taxpayers, and that's cool... that's, that's cool, I'm, I'm saying, he needs money, man. And of course they're going to say he didn't get it, because... he wants more, man! He's got to feed the monkey, I mean uh... hasn't that ever occurred to you, man?

Mr. Wagoner has left the (shabby) builidng

Lots of news today. Check back for more.

First of all, godspeed, Rick Wagoner! In case you haven’t heard, Rick was shown the door by one of President Obama’s auto industry group folks, and will resign, as evidenced by this quixotic email:

“GM Message from Rick Wagoner
On Friday I was in Washington for a meeting with Administration officials. In the course of that meeting, they requested that I “step aside” as CEO of GM, and so I have.

Fritz Henderson is an excellent choice to be the next CEO of GM. Having worked closely with Fritz for many years, I know that he is the ideal person to lead the company through the completion of our restructuring efforts. His knowledge of the global industry and the company are exceptional, and he has the intellect, energy, and support among GM’ers worldwide to succeed. I wish him well, and I stand ready to support him, and interim Non-Executive Chairman Kent Kresa, in every way possible.

I also want to extend my sincerest thanks to everyone who supported GM and me during my time as CEO. I deeply appreciate the excellent counsel and commitment of the GM Board and the strong support of our many partners including our terrific dealers, suppliers, and community leaders. I am grateful as well to the union leaders with whom I have had the chance to work closely to implement numerous tough but necessary restructuring agreements.

Most important of all I want to express my deepest appreciation to the extraordinary team of GM employees around the world. You have been a tremendous source of inspiration and pride to me, and I will be forever grateful for the courage and commitment you have shown as we have confronted the unprecedented challenges of the past few years. GM is a great company with a storied history. Ignore the doubters because I know it is also a company with a great future.
Rick Wagoner “

Ignore the doubters? Um, dude, one of the doubters just fired you. It’s sort of like you’re saying “ignore those guys over there who are accurately and truthfully assessing our company’s ill health.”

Anyhow, the buzz around the industry has mostly centered around how Mr. Wagoner is viewed as some sort of sacrificial lamb on the alter of accountability, but as the NYT points out, Wagoner has presided (their word) over probably the worst period in GM’s history ever. I applaud the decision to oust him, and I’m hoping that new blood will ease the transition to a smaller, leaner, and more competitive GM.

Free cars and free gas for employees! YAY!!!

Boy, that sounds great. Too bad those lucky employees are the white collar workers at that shining star of American corporate culture, General Motors. Need I remind you that this is the same GM who is rapidly burning through $13 billion of your tax dollars?

Whoa, hey now. Put that pitchfork of populist anger away! You see, it only cost $12 million to run the program last year. That's chump change! I think the CEO blew that much to rent a private jet to Washington to get harrangued at that Congressional hearing.

Oh, wait a sec ... didn't that draw enough negative press to force GM to sell it's corporate planes? So, clearly, the PR people have NOT learned their lesson.

[Hahaha, I just read the article further, and the NPR reporter also compared it to the corporate-plane fiasco. Except not dripping with sarcasm. Great minds think alike!]

Anyhow, if you can contain your rage, read more here.

[Source: NPR via, of all things, FARK]

Basics: My brake pedal is vibrating/pulsing. What's up?

So you're driving down the freeway and hit the brakes to slow for an exit, and the brake pedal and/or steering wheel vibrates. What's going on? This is a pretty common problem on cars, and it's usually referred to as a "warped rotor." That's kind of a misnomer, so let me explain a bit. If you already know how disc brakes work, skip the next paragraph and I'll discuss the issue at hand.

The image to the left represents a typical disc brake setup. The pads are held by the "caliper," which is grey and on the left part of the disc. To the right, you can see a picture of the pads. Most modern cars have these disc brakes. Basically, a metal disc (called a rotor) rotates with the wheel when the car is moving. When you step on the brakes, hydraulic pressure forces two pads against the metal discs, creating friction, heat, and stopping power. The pad material wears down over time, causing brake dust and eventually requiring replacement. The rotor also wears down over time but more slowly than pads.

So, what's a "warped rotor?" From the name, you'd assume the rotor became warped and caused the pulsing. In my experience, usually this is NOT the case. It's usually caused by an uneven depositing of the brake material onto the rotor as you wear it down. That is, as you use the brakes, hot spots form for one reason or another on the brakes and cause extra pad material to fuse onto it. When it cools, it gets really hard, and causes unevenness on the rotors that leads to vibration.

What can you do about it? Probably the best thing to do would be to take your car into your trusted mechanic and have him or her check the brakes out. The usual course of action is to "turn" the rotors - that is, to take them off the car and sand them down so you have a clean new surface. Then the mechanic will clean the brake pads and inspect them, and either reinstall or replace them.

The most important thing is what happens next. Some pads need to be "bedded in," which means that you'd go through a short series of prescribed stopping maneuvers to wear off any hot-spot areas. This will prevent the brakes from having depositing issues in the future. I would ask your mechanic if this needs to be done, and have the mechanic do this. It's easy to do it wrong, and requires some hard, fast braking, so it's best to leave it to a professional.

If you want to know more about brake pads or how to bed them in, feel free to email me. My email is in my Blogger profile.

So now they tell me ...

After years of forking out extra bucks to get fancy removable faceplates for car stereos, NPR is reporting that an FBI compilation of crime data shows that car audio theft is falling of dramatically (down by half in the past 15 years).

Check out the full story here.

A really interesting statistic would be how many folks actually took the faceplates off their stereos regularly. I was certainly pretty lazy about it.

[Source: NPR]

I want a 4GB version: the Tata NANO

If you follow such things, I’m sure you’ve heard of the Nano, as it’s gotten a lot of press. And thankfully, much of it has actually been devoted to some deep thinking about what a $2,000 car will mean for the super-dense Indian subcontinent. If not, it’s easy to get you to speed: Indian mega-firm Tata’s Nano is a tiny gas-powered car meant to replace the “school of two-wheeled anchovies” thing that India has going on (ie, tons of scooters and small motorcycles). The goal was a cheap enough “real car” so that more Indians would be able to avoid the heavily-polluting, unsafe scooters or over-packed busses. And they delivered: the Nano is going to be around $2500, and it gets a decent 47 MPG and has OK emissions equipment. It’s not really meant to be a green car, and at that price point it might be impossible to make it blow nothing but flowers and happy thoughts out the tailpipe. However, it’s undeniably cheap, and they will sell a ton of them, which has lead to nearly endless jokes about it (like the one in the headline! Aren’t I clever?).

So what will it mean for India? Opinions are really mixed. Some say it will lead to crushing traffic congestion on an already stretched-to-the-limit road system. Predictably, boosters say that it will improve the quality of life for many Indians who can’t afford a larger car, as India’s upwardly mobile classes begin to increase their buying power.

Whatever ends up happening (likely, both extremes will be equally true), I think it’s a good idea that folks are thinking critically about what this could mean for India. The public dialogue here needs to happen, and policy makers need to pay attention.

And to put it in perspective, if a Model T cost $290 in 1925, even by the most conservative conversion measures it would still be approximately $3000 (in 2006 dollars). The least expensive car in the United States is the Kia Rio at $10,800 (as of July 2008). No matter what you think of the Nano in any other sense, that is a startling figure.

[Source: NYT]

Don’t be a sucker. Just say no to ZAP.

One of the funny things about a fuel crisis is that it leads to a lot of snake-oil sales (“better MPG through Snake Oil brand additive!”). And the funny thing is that even though living in a capitalist society requires some small modicum of common sense when it comes to purchasing goods, there are always some stunningly idiotic propositions that simply won’t die. Thus, the motto “if it’s too good to be true, it surely isn’t” goes unheeded as folks fork over cash without thinking. (Insert parallels to housing crisis here.) But I’m not here to lecture about the economy – do I look like Keynes? What does this have to do with cars?

I’m so glad you asked. But first, let me ask YOU a question: how would you like a car that got the equivalent of 200MPG, didn’t require fossil fuels, protected baby seals from typhus, and has a range of 16,000 nautical miles? If you said “yes!” then have I got a proposition for you! Test drive a ZAP today!

(Quiz: did you actually get excited about a ZAP car? If so, please continue reading the rest of this article and remember that I’m not judging you.)

ZAP is one of the more recent and media-savvy snake-oil purveyors of late. They essentially sell several versions of their Xebra electric vehicle, which comes in a sedan and a truck and (if you like) with a zebra-themed paint job. They pitch this as some sort of messiah of urban transportation, much as the Segway. Much like the Segway’s most iconic image, President George W. Bush falling flat on his face when the batteries died, the Xebra fails to match the hype. Essentially a dangerous, Chinese-built golf cart with 3 wheels, dangerously slow acceleration, a miserable range of 25 miles in optimal conditions, and poor reliability, the Xebra is really a $12,000 Power Wheels car.

In fact, I think ZAP sells more hype than cars. A celebrated expose that Wired did in 2008 exposed ZAP as essentially being an undercapitalized franchise wholesaler. They sell you on vaporware, you plunk down thousands to purchase a dealer franchise! Isn’t that a Ponzi scheme? Well, technically maybe not, but Bernie Madoff would approve. In any event, it’s SHADY with a capital “T” and I wouldn’t be surprised if there was some sort of criminal investigation commencing soon on a variety of fraud charges.

Of course, ZAP is innocent until proven guilty, but look, no one is forcing you to buy their crappy cars. Take that $12,000 and go purchase a lightly used Honda Civic GX, which runs on clean-burning natural gas with almost no emissions whatsoever (it was actually certified as the cleanest burning internal combustion engine in the world for a production car), a range that is approximately 10 times the range of a Xebra, and the reliability of a Honda. And you can send me a thank-you note too.

One Problem With Writing Your Own Epitaph …

(BTW, I’m going to try to get back to discussing car news, trends, and interesting tidbits on a more regular basis. Bear with me!)

The New York Times has an interesting article up right now about Saturn’s new ad campaign. Here’s the two line summary:

1. The ads’ main message is that Saturn is still around and not dead yet.
2. The other message is that Saturn is about to die.

When the reporter notes that the campaign is “risky,” I personally think that’s the understatement of the century. Let me get this straight – the company is doing so badly that they specifically need to risk alerting potential customers that they will DIE in 2012, just to let them know that they STILL EXIST?

Two other notable factoids from the article. First of all, less than 50% of surveyed potential customers even realize that Saturn is a GM brand. (Psst … hey Saturn, you should keep it that way!!!) Secondly, the spokespersons in the ad are … wait for it … auto dealers!!! The most trusted folks on the face of the earth, right after those Nigerian princes who seem to have a lot of trouble transferring their enormous treasure out of the country without your help, are going to explain why you should remember that they are still around.

You know what, GM? You should just offload all of the tooling for Saturn cars to some Chinese company and recoup your costs …wait, what? There is no tooling, because all of Saturn’s cars are simply rebadged vehicles from other GM brands? So you’re saying that Saturn is just a nameplate, with no tangible assets other than a bunch of angry dealer franchises and a severely eroded customer base?

Sheesh. I’m going to cut off the bitterness tap before I make someone cry.