The Detroit Auto Show

Presidential Drive-Bys

2008-01-15T16:41:40Z

There was a traffic jam on the floor of the Detroit Auto Show Monday afternoon, but it wasn’t cars going bumper to bumper. The floor was lousy with presidential candidates and their surrogates trying to gain some traction in the final day before Michigan’s Tuesday primary.

First came Sen. Joe Lieberman stumping for his man John McCain, followed by a modest entourage of media and handlers. Then came native son Mitt Romney, whose late father George was a popular Michigan governor in the ‘60s, but, more important to this crowd, was CEO of American Motors in the 1950s. Romney was accompanied by his wife Ann, son Tag and a mob of media. After checking out Ford’s new pickup truck, he headed for the big General Motors display next door, where GM VP Mark LeNeve gave him a politically correct tour of the automaker’s greenest vehicles – the hybrid Chevy Malibu family car and a hybrid Tahoe SUV. The gas guzzling 602-horsepower Corvette ZR1 sitting a few feet away did not merit a walk-by from the candidate.

But then, as Romney gave an impromptu press conference on the fake grass in front of a fuel cell powered Chevy SUV, another mass of media moved into his orbit. Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee was taking his own tour of the GM display, looking over the very same eco-friendly models Romney had just worked for photo ops. The candidate near-collision caused a commotion among GM’s traffic controllers. A GM official quickly approach company VP Debbie Dingell and said: “When McCain comes in later, you need to lead Huckabee around the back of the Saturn display.” Dingell, who knows the ways of Washington as wife of powerful Democratic Congressman John Dingell, moved into action. And no presidential pile-ups were reported on the show floor.

Let's go to the tape:

Green and Glam

2008-01-15T16:40:21Z

Even Ferrari is trying to get in on the green act. It showed its F430 Spider Biofuel model that runs on 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent gasoline. It might sound like the ultimate in green washing, but Ferrari says it derived its it ethanol model from its Formula One Race cars that run on a mix of 10 percent ethanol and 90 percent gas. Adding ethanol even boosts horsepower, Ferrari claimed in a somber press release on its eco-racer.

That all sounds very high-minded. But what about those glam gals in body hugging gowns writhing all over the fabulous Ferraris? The Italian automaker is one of the few remaining exhibitors (Lamborghini is another) who still employ the old school auto show “models” to attract attention to its metal models. (And it still works). But there was something disconcerting about the sight of a Paris Hilton look alike rubbing her curvaceous caboose against the silver Ferrari with the green “Biofuel” logo on the hood. Still, the photographers and the slack-jawed journalists crowding around the Ferrari display couldn’t look away. Must have simply been a case of professional curiosity.

Move Over, Tesla

2008-01-15T16:37:46Z

Last year, the Hollywood crowd lined up to put down deposits for the $98,000 Tesla roadster, a warp-speed fast electric sports car powered by advanced lithium ion batteries found in laptops. The problem is, Tesla, a tiny Silicon Valley start-up, can’t seem to get its car on the road, having missed several launch deadlines. Now Tesla already has a competitor: The Fisker Karma. No, this is not another car from India. It’s a long, low-slung, four-seat sports car that also happens to be a plug-in electric hybrid, powered by those same laptop batteries.

The stylish supercar is the brainchild of former BMW and Aston Martin designer Henrik Fisker and backed by some serious Silicon Valley money, including Kleiner Perkins, the venture capital firm that just hired Al Gore. The Karma can go 50 miles on pure electric power before a tiny 4-cylinder engine kicks in to recharge the batteries. The car can also be juiced up by plugged it into a regular household outlet for 8 hours or a 220-volt outlet (like you have for your washer and dryer) for 3 and a half hours And it is topped off by a solar roof that can cool the car’s interior or even recharge the batteries.

But this certainly is no boring, eat-your-peas hybrid. It goes from zero to 60 mph in 5.8 seconds and has a top speed of 125 mph. Best of all, it looks fast standing still. “I see all these movie stars driving around in their Priuses,” says Fisker. “This car is all about making green sexy.” It is scheduled to go on sale in the fourth quarter of 2009 with a sticker price of $80,000. Hollywood, start your checkbooks.

The Randy Roundup

2008-01-14T18:50:40Z

Automakers spend millions at the Detroit Auto Show to carefully script flashy introductions for their new models that stand out among the wall-to-wall press conferences at Cobo Hall. Chrysler, which has a history of dropping cars from the ceiling and smashing them through plate-glass windows, came up with a new gimmick this year that it might want to steer clear of in the future. To introduce its macho new Dodge Ram pickup truck, Chrysler corralled 150 Texas longhorns (the bull type, not the football type) to ride herd with its truck in the streets of downtown Detroit.

But when the Ram broke free of the running of the bulls to receive its close-up in a press conference just outside Cobo Hall, the longhorns had other ideas. While Chrysler President Jim Press gamely attempted to describe the truck’s new features, the longhorns got, well, horny. They began to mount each other, causing the giggling crowd to look away from Press and watch what appeared to be Animal Planet’s newest reality show. Noticing he was losing the crowd, Press joked: “The bulls just want to see the truck.”

The longhorns’ cowboy handlers attempted to settle down the frisky beasts, which milled and mooed just a few feet away from Press and his truck. But then the cattle began moseying a little too close to the fascinated journalists, who had their cameras trained on the herd, not the truck. Suddenly, someone screamed as a longhorn nearly gored her and a cameraman dove for cover to avoid having his lens speared. At this point, Press used his best schoolmarm voice to overcome the upstaging steers: “OK,” he said, “look at the truck.” After all, there’s a lot riding on the Ram, Chrysler’s top selling model. But it was too late. The cows had won the crowd, and Chrysler learned an old Hollywood lesson: Don’t share the stage with kids of animals.

The Bodacious Tata

2008-01-14T18:49:20Z

Chrysler wasn’t the only one upstaged. The entire Detroit Auto Show feels upstaged this year by the New Delhi Auto show, where Indian automaker Tata last week introduced the world’s cheapest car, the $2,500 Nano. The loudest buzz in Detroit this year is about what the Nano will mean for the world’s auto markets. Will it create an entirely new category of ultra-cheap cars that will open mobility to the underprivileged masses? Perhaps, but most of the auto execs here think the Nano will work best in emerging markets, where customers don’t expect the create comforts we’ve come to take for granted in the U.S. “To Gen Y kids, something without power windows or door locks is not a real car,” says Jim Lentz, president of Toyota’s U.S. sales arm. “Most wouldn’t know what this crank thing in the door does. It’s like a rotary phone.”

Still, every executive we spoke with admits they are studying the Nano closely. “Anyone who would discount a new entrant like that, does so at their peril. I remember when people laughed off Honda and said we’d be lucky to get 2 or 3 percent of the market,” said John Mendel, a senior VP for Honda, which now controls 8 percent of the U.S. market. “When somebody first said some one could build a $2,500 car, it was like ‘Yeah, right.’ But we’d certainly sell a lot more Civics if they were $2,500.”

Don’t look for that $2,500 Civic coming to a Honda dealer near you any time soon. But Honda CEO Takeo Fukui did reveal that his company is looking at developing a car that’s cheaper and smaller than the littlest car in its American lineup, the $13,850 Honda Fit. “We are challenging ourselves to develop something that would appeal to customers and be even lower (priced) than the Fit,” Fukui said through a translator. “It’s going to be smaller and cheaper, but with the Honda badge on it, you’ve got to comply with what people expect for the environment and safety.” If Honda can come up with such a smart small car, Fukui said it could sell 500,000 to 700,000 around the world.

Sadly, that cheap little Honda probably wouldn’t show up in America, where the big rigs on the highway would overwhelm it. “So far,” said Fukui, “we haven’t thought about it for the U.S. market.” Still, he expects cars in the U.S. to get smaller as all automakers work to meet tough new federal regulations requiring all their models average 35 mpg by 2020, up from 25 mpg today. “In the past, bigger was better,” Fukui said. “This will probably change.”

GM Juggles

2008-01-14T18:44:51Z

In advance of its press conference, GM sent a juggler out to entertain the crowd. It was an apt metaphor for the incredibly shrinking automaker that is juggling a dizzying array of eight different brands, from Chevy to Hummer to Cadillac. GM Chairman Rick Wagoner acknowledged as much when he took the stage and said: “The auto industry has a lot of balls in the air,” especially as it tries to adapt to the new reality of $100-a-barrel oil.

You can add to that the looming threat of recession, which a number of economists now view as likely. Does that worry Wagoner, as he struggles to end three years of losses at GM? Sure, but tough economic times are not foreign to Detroit and Michigan, which has the nation’s highest unemployment rate. “It feels like the auto industry has been in a recession for a while,” says Wagoner, who tried to remain optimistic. “If I had to bet on whether we’d go into the classic definition of a recession [six months of negative economic growth], I’d say no. But I wouldn’t bet a lot.”

Wagoner is also hedging his bets. He said he’ll announce a new round of buyouts for his workers this month, adding to the thousands who have already headed for the exits at GM. Despite all the downsizing, Wagoner still refuses to say when he’ll steer GM back into the black. That’s one ball he’ll keep hidden for now.

Can Detroit Go Green?

2008-01-13T19:35:12Z

This year's Detroit Auto Show, which opens to the media today, will be so overrun with green concept cars it should be renamed the Detroit Lawn and Garden Show. Hot off the wheels of its Washington Waterloo over the tough new gas-mileage regulations, Detroit is anxious to show the world that it finally gets green and is working hard to engineer cars that sip instead of guzzle. They'll roll out hydrogen-powered concept cars with names like ecoVoyager and fuel-friendly engines like the EcoBoost (eco, apparently, is the new i). There's just one problem with this eco echo chamber: The most important new model introductions at the Detroit show are actually two hulking pickup trucks, the redesigned Ford F-150 (with a grill inspired by steel girders) and the Dodge Ram (with what its creators call "get-out-of-the-way" styling). That sure throws a monkey wrench into this garden party.

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