March 2009 Archives
The US Government has done a wonderful job, long term, with Social Security, entitlement programs, the banking industry, the home lending industry, agricultural safety programs (thrown out your peanut butter recently?), fuel savings programs (remember the 55 MPH speed limit? It'll be back soon, along with traffic cameras to capture you more efficiently...), AMTRAK (don't get me started....), primary and high school education, building highways (the Big Dig in Boston?), making taxes simple (ask our Treasury Secretary, and any number of politicians appointees in Washington), and a myriad of other plans, so, they're going to be running the car business in the US pretty soon.
You can read the text of the plan, in full, right here:
Do you think $15,000.00 or so for a used car is "cheap"?
Read on about the Tata Nano, now on sale in India...
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1887070,00.html
Interesting thing about the Tata Company....they are involved in many businesses, from tea to TV. They also own Jaguar (which has its own set of problems...), and when the CEO of Tata bought the company, the first thing he did was get on his plane and visit a (relatively) enormous number of dealers, many in the US. A Michigan-based Jag dealer was quoted as saying (and I'm paraphrasing here...) something like: "....here we are, less than 20 miles from Ford HQ. I never, never got a visit from anybody with stripes from Ford in all the time they've owned the brand. Here we are sold to a company, and a guy, that's 5,000 miles away, and he spends the first two weeks visiting and listening to dealers around the world. Go figure...".
Yep, go figure.
I live in the Detroit area, and I've been hearing about the Chevy Volt for a couple of years. Never seen one yet, though. I've also been hearing and reading about the new Chevy Camaro for getting on four years now, and they are just now showing up in dealers around town....it takes four years to reintroduce a 35 year old car?
With all the rage about electric vehicles, it looks like somebody, somewhere, has some common sense. Please read below about how Ford is partnering with parts-and-automotive-systems-builder Magna (headquartered in Canada) to come out with an electric vehicle on the "now plan" rather than the "manana plan" like other manufacturers.
http://money.cnn.com/2009/03/20/autos/ford_electric/index.htm?postversion=2009032005
Little recognized in all this auto manufacturer mess is the huge underlying role, and now shaky foundation, that the supplier base has for the auto industry in the United States.
It doesn't matter if the manufacturer is "domestic" or "foreign" (whatever that really means any more...) - if the supplier base starts to fail, there won't be many cars built anywhere in the U.S.
In recognition of this, there is some help coming...read on:
http://www.crainsdetroit.com/article/20090319/FREE/903199997/-1
Personally, I'd rather see "GM Sales Skyrocket", or, "GM To Announce New Hybrid Available for Sale on Friday", or even "GM to Announce Stock Buyback", but, in the absence of news like that, you can read about some "little pinky" good news....
http://money.cnn.com/2009/03/12/news/companies/gm_cash/index.htm?postversion=2009031213
It's snowing here, but, at least we can THINK of spring coming soon!
Please click below to read a nice little article about the drag car we sponsor....
http://www.hometownlife.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/200903010650/NEWS03/903010513
