AllTheRides.com

Here comes the hangover from the cash for clunkers program. Recall that last month, the seasonally adjusted rate of car sales was 14.1 million vehicles. That was a banner month considering that sales rates for most months this year were around 10 million cars. For most of the decade, Americans were buying easily 16 million cars and trucks a year. But the economy tanked last year and we only bought 13.5 million. So the cash for clunkers program was a welcome boost for carmakers, parts companies and dealers. [...]

The U.S. Government sure is hot on these electric car programs. The Energy Department granted Fisker Automotive, a California electric-car startup, a $528 million loan to finish work on its $88,000 Karma plug-in electric sports car and to develop a smaller, cheaper model. The loan deal follows a $465 million loan to Tesla Motors, another California electric-car startup, made by the DOE in [...]

China automakers are beginning to gain more credibility in terms of their future in the West.

Goldman Sachs is considering an investment in Geely Automobile Holdings Ltd. And there is no question that in investment by Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway has given credence to what Chinese battery maker/automaker BYD Co. might achieve in the export [...]

Chrysler this week will hear presentations from several ad agencies pitching its Chrysler, Dodge and Ram Truck accounts.

The task given to the agencies was the following: Give the company a plan and creative ideas for the fourth quarter with an eye toward re-positioning the brands long term. The agencies that win will literally be in commercial production this coming weekend.

For Chrysler brand, the agencies were told to concentrate on the Town & Country minivan and 300 sedan. For Dodge, they were told to hone in on Charger and Journey. No mention of Dodge Caliber or Challenger in the brief.

The dictum for Dodge was to position the brand around an idea of “Modern American Performance.”

For Chrysler, it was trickier. There was a thought and direction conveyed to agencies to position the car upscale. But the problem is that Chrysler isn’t really getting any meaningful new product for a few years. The five year old 300 is, at best, a “value” proposition when compared with cars more expensive. With rebates, for example, one could drive away a 300 Touring for around $26,000, a few thousand less than the new Ford Taurus, and, arguably, even more below other cars one could conceivably compare the 300 with: Nissan Maxima, Toyota Avalon.

But I find comments reported in Automotive News and attributed to Peter Fong, Chrysler CEO and head of sales for all the brands, a bit…well…interesting.

“Fong envisions the Chrysler brand as ‘a notch above Lincoln, a notch above Cadillac.” This suggests a substantial change, because Chrysler vehicles generally sell for many thousands of dollars less than Cadillacs.”

” ‘The [Chrysler] Sebring and the [Dodge] Avenger attract different customers, but their prices are too close to each other,’ Fong said.”

“Chrysler executives vow to separate Chrysler and Dodge.”

Trying to position Chrysler above Caddy seems like a reach. We have seen this movie before. The Chrysler Crossfire? The original Chrysler 300C managed to achieve transaction prices well above $30K with a Hemi. But its age has caught up with it. A loaded Town & Country, too, managed prices well North of $30K in the good old days.

But here is the problem. Fong’s comments indicate an intention to take Chrysler where it has never really been in the lifetime of today’s buyers. And don’t talk to me about the 1930s and 40s. At least Cadillac, still amidst its recovery and makeover, was, in my lifetime, a benchmark; as in “That stereo is the Cadillac of stereos.”

Chrysler’s makeover under CEO Sergio Marchionne is starting to look a little like a paper tiger. The company seems to be charting the course of its brands on a clean sheet of paper, with the intention of taking them where they would like to see them go; where it seems logical.

The company doesn’t want to wind up with Chevy and Buick when it repositions Dodge and Chrysler. It wants to have a Chevy/Cadillac or Toyota/Lexus kind of offering.

Good luck with that in terms of selling Chrysler as a Caddy, Lincoln or Lexus alternative. Brand futures are not earned on paper. They are earned with a smart, sound product plan plus clever engaging marketing. But this idea that you can market your way passed a brand’s history and past is folly. Chrysler brand is still K-car for many buyers. And it will take a long time to put PT Cruiser and Sebring behind us before we start thinking of Chrysler as an alternative to a Caddy CTS or even Lincoln MKS.

Chrysler, the company may find out after they have spent a bunch of money on this plan, doesn’t so much equal Cadillac, but Oldsmobile.

In its day, the Camaro was a cheap sports car for the buzz cut and gold chains crowd. But the new one, packed with a high-tech V-6 engine that kicks with 304 horsepower and 29 mpg on the highway (V-8 is optional) is far more sophisticated than the old generations of the car. General Motors wants to up its sophistication up a notch with an Executive Express edition of the car that will look snazzier than the stock version of the car, GM Vice Chairman Bob Lutz told me. The car will be all black, may have some aluminum trim touches on the outside and a European-looking interior like an Audi, Lutz says. The car pictured above is not the Executive Express, it’s just a black Camaro. But you get the idea.

Why not? The car’s design certainly has cues from the Camaros of yore. But it’s not a retro knock off. It really is a modern interpretation of the Chevy pony car. So far, it has been a success. GM sold 8,700 last month, compared with 6,300 Ford Mustangs sold last month, and it remains in short supply at dealerships even in this dismal car market. A spruced up version may just hit.

Surprise, surprise. When Fiat CEO Sergio Marchionne took over operations at Chrysler upon its emergence from bankruptcy in June, he found something of a mess, he told reporters at the Frankfurt Motors Show this week. He told the Wall Street Journal that he found, a “whole pile of surprises.” According to the paper, Marchionne added that, “We were surprised by how little had been done in the past 24 months,” he said. “I am now confident that we have the right plan and people in place.”

He shouldn’t be surprised. After two years of private equity ownership under Cerberus Capital Management, Marchionne should expect nothing more than a tired model lineup, a dribbling of new models coming and a gutted staff. No matter what private equity players say about fixing companies, they often resort to cut, cut, cut as the answer. Cerberus’s hand-picked CEO for Chrysler, former Home Depot and General Electric executive Robert Nardelli, came in talking about bringing fresh eyes, new perspective and a desire to save an American icon. But the ground beneath Nardelli soon shifted and he started the purge. It wasn’t a sharp ax Nardelli was swinging, but a high-powered chain saw.

Sources in the company say that Nardelli’s buyouts and layoffs indiscriminately gutted some departments like purchasing, marketing and finance while other groups were less affected. Many experienced powertrain engineers left. Capital spending was slashed and now the only new cars coming in the near future are a Jeep Grand Cherokee and a Chrysler 300 sedan. It’s no wonder Cerberus was happy to walk away from Chrysler, handing it to Fiat, the federal government and the UAW while forgiving some $2 billion in loans. Given the company’s condition, Cerberus was having a tough time giving the company away to anyone else. Only Marchionne had the derring do to step in.

Consider these facts. With so few new models coming, Chrysler will replace just 33% of its sales volume with new vehicles between now and 2013, according to Merrill Lynch. That’s one-third the rate that Ford, Honda and the Korean carmakers will replace their models and less than half the industry’s 72% average. The larder is truly bare.

It’s not all Nardelli’s fault. German owner Daimler AG wasn’t exactly lavishing cash on new models. And in fairness to Nardelli, he came in when Chrysler was already in trouble. Then the financial crisis and recession hit him like a freight train. Some argue on his behalf that had he not cut so drastically, that the company would have gone bankrupt before the government was ready to step in and shepherd the Chapter 11 process.

Perhaps, but the troubles at Chrysler are now Marchionne’s to fix. Insiders say he is pushing hard to get Fiat’s cars to the U.S. in record time, as little as 20 months, to get revenue rolling in. He is pushing for some other Chrysler models to speed up, too. For Chrysler’s sake, that has to happen. It’s the only hope for the company to survive.

Frankfurt–Speaking publicly for the first time at the auto show here, Porsche’s new president and CEO, Michael Macht, revealed that the company is considering an electric-powered sports car that would meet the high demands of the Porsche brand. “I am also convinced that one day Porsche will have an electric sports car in its line-up,” said Macht at the company’s press conference today.

Macht cautioned that so far the available battery technology is not “sufficient to meet Porsche’s strict requirements,” he said “our engineers are already working hard on this challenge.” “An electric sports car would therefore only make sense for Porsche if it offers performance and a cruising range similar to that of current sports cars in the market,” he said. “We are therefore taking the first step in this direction with a full hybrid – in the Cayenne, the Panamera and maybe in the not too distant future also in a racing car or a production 911. Why not?”

Macht pointed out that Porsche has a long legacy with hybrid technology as it was exactly 109 years ago that Professor Ferdinand Porsche built the first fully functioning car with hybrid technology. Speaking about Porsche’s newest model, Macht said the new Panamera Gran Turismo is already generating thousands of orders just three days after its market launch in Europe.

The highly anticipated Panamera represents Porsche’s fourth model line and is the brand’s first-ever four-door sports car. It goes on sale in the U.S. on October 17, 2009. “Although the car has only been at the dealership for three days, we already have 4,500 orders for the Panamera, most of them from customers who have not even seen the car yet,” he said Macht. “And since test drives for customers have only just started, sales of the Panamera are already making a very positive start.”

Frankfurt–Ford Motor Co. today said today that it is not only showing the new Ford C-Max, which will go on sale in Europe next year, but a second all-new design, the Grand C-Max (pictured above), which will be sold in Europe and other markets, including North America, in 2011.

The new C-Max, the original design of which launched with great success in Europe in 2003, looks very much like the big sibling of the Ford Fiesta. Pursuing Ford’s kinetic design scheme, the five passenger C-Max has a muscular, almost chiseled look, but comes across as the nimble utility runabout that it is.

The news for the U.S. though, is the addition of the Grand C-Max to the lineup in 2011. The regular five-door C-Max may not come, because when the new Focus arrives in the U.S. next year it will have a five- door version that is probably too close to the C-Max in price and package.

The Grand C-Max, though, is a longer and slightly taller version of the C-Max, also built off the new global Focus vehicle platform. It has three rows of seats, and seats seven. It also has two rear-sliding doors, but without the slab-side appearance of a minivan.

In fact, you will never see the word “minivan” used around the C-Max, whiich is billed as a “multi-activity-vehicle,” or MAV.

Ford has been out of the minivan business since discontinuing the Freestar minivan in 2007. But many families, especially those with just one or two kids, like the sliding door for getting kids in and out of carseats in cramped parking lots.

It’s a conundrum for vehicle designers and engineers. Sliding doors signify “minivan,” but lots of people like the sliders for parking lots. Just try and get a two year old not yet walking in and out of a backseat carseat through a conventional hinged door in a Whole Foods or Kroger parking lot. Ford thinks it has licked the problem by choosing a smaller vehicle and maintaining an almost SUV-style shape and body accents.

There isn’t much room behind the third seat when it is in use, based on the photos made available. But Ford says there is enough for a few pieces of luggage, a stroller and the like.

The real selling point of the Grand-C-Max, Ford believes, is the versatility in a smaller, more fuel efficient package. People with large families are still going to opt for minivans and SUVs. But there is a trend in the U.S., as well as Europe, to smaller one and two child families. And Ford’s global product boss Derrick Kuzak said Ford designed the Grand C-Max specifically to offer utility, versatility and the sliding door, “without resorting to the vehicle looking like a refrigerator on wheels.”

With Ford, there is always a little confusion over model names. And this is no exception. Since the C-Max is not coming to the U.S., Ford says it will call the seven-passenger vehicle that is selling as Grand C-Max in Europe just “C-Max” in the U.S.

Today, U.S. competitors for the seven-passenger C-Max would include the Mazda5 and Kia Rondo. The Chevrolet Orlando will arrive in 2011.

Ford said 10 models will be created off the new Focus platform for North America. Besides the U.S. version of the C-Max, they include four- and five-door versions of the Focus, the electric Focus model, the next generation Ford Escape and Mercury Mariner, and a Mercury sedan. Three other models are under consideration. The gasoline-powered Focus models will debut in late 2010, while the other models will debut later.

Ford Motor Co. on Thursday became the first automaker to formally support a bill that would ban cellphone texting while driving.

It seems like a no-brainer endorsement, though car companies are often hesitant to back laws that impose restrictions on drivers. Good for Ford for jumping on the obvious opportunity to be the first automaker to support the ban.

Ford issued a statement in support of legislation proposed by Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, that would cut by 25 percent the federal highway funding given to states that did not comply with a texting ban. Ford also said it supports a similar proposal in the House of Representatives by Carolyn McCarthy, Dem. of New York.

“The most complete and most recent research shows that activity that draws drivers’ eyes away from the road for an extended period while driving, such as text messaging, substantially increases the risk of accidents,” Susan Cischke, Ford’s group vice president for sustainability, environment and safety engineering, said.

Ford officials, though, were concerned on THursday that it’s support of the bill might be seen as actually supporting the act of texting while driving when the Associated Press issued a story with the headline: “Ford Backs Texting While Driving Bill.”

The ban would not affect use of Ford’s in-car communications and entertainment system, called Ford Sync, which allows most mobile phones to be used hands-free. The system can also read text messages aloud to the driver–a safety and convenience feature that Ford has touted and which has been a pop;ualr option on its vehicles for the past two years.

Ford Sync is standard equipment on many models and is available on other vehicles for about $400.

Senator Schumer praised Ford for its support of a ban. “Ford deserves credit for stepping up as the first car company to endorse a ban on this dangerous habit,” he said in a statement. “We are gathering a critical mass of support for this bill, which will give us the momentum we need to get it passed.”

The Governors Highway Safety Association has said it favors a nationwide text-messaging ban. It had earlier said that it opposed such a law because enforcement would be too difficult.

Text-messaging bans have already been enacted in 14 states and the District of Columbia.

A study by the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute concluding that text messaging by drivers makes them 23 times more likely to crash or nearly crash.

The long saga surrounding the fate of General Motors Corp’s European strategy appears to be drawing to a close. After all the wrangling and hard ball played by GM’s board, the company still will recommend selling a controlling stake in its German Opel unit to Canadian parts maker Magna International, GM said today.

GM’s board initially passed on CEO Frederick A. “Fritz” Henderson’s recommendation in late August to sell a controlling stake to Magna because they didn’t like some provisions in the deal. As proposed, the sale would have given Magna control over passenger car platforms and engine technology. The fear was that Magna and its Russian partner OAO Sberbank, which has ties to Russia-based automaker GAZ, would use the technology to compete against GM in Russia and other emerging markets.

But it’s now clear that the board was playing a game of poker. Or perhaps it was good cop, bad cop with Henderson recommending Opel but his board refusing to accept it until the terms got better. Bloomberg reported that the intellectual property issues and financing terms that originally clouded the deal were cleared up to push the deal through.

GM must have also gotten its way on how long the company can use Opel’s car platforms. One of the burning issues for GM all along was what the company would do to develop passenger cars. Opel’s Russelsheim, Germany engineering center did the base work for GM’s compact and mid-sized car platforms.

If they lost control of that engineering work, GM would have to come up with new platforms for the next-generation Chevy Malibu and Buick LaCrosse mid-sized cars and Chevy Cruze compact. GM could have used its Daewoo operations in Korea and U.S. engineers to develop the next-generation cars, but GM executives worried that its best expertise for those models was still in Germany and would be lost in a deal.

Henderson was never keen on the Magna deal all along, say sources inside GM. But with Opel burning cash and the U.S. Treasury Department and German government unwilling to fund a GM-led restructuring, selling the company became the only clear option. GM talked to governments in the U.K., Spain and Poland (homes to other Opel plants) about financing, but no deal was reached that would get the funding needed for GM to keep the German car division.

The German government favored Magna as a buyer believing that the company would save more of Opel’s 25,000 jobs than RHJ International, a Belgian private equity firm which placed a rival bid. GM favored RHJI but the German government would not give the needed $4.5 billion in financing to get that deal done.

GM’s chief negotiator, John Smith, flew to Berlin last night and was scheduled to meet with members of the Opel Trust Board, which oversees the company’s sales and restructuring, this morning. He will recommend the Magna deal to the trust board. GM will hold a press conference to discuss the deal at 11 a.m. today and we’ll see then what the details and conditions are. That may give a clearer picture of how this deal will work.