"Live Every Litre" is a collaborative project between Honda and Swiss filmmaker Claudio Von Planta. Von Planta, the man behind Ewan McGregor and Charlie Boorman's Long Way Round motorcycle series, wants to put real people behind the wheel of the CR-Z on their own road trip.
Cameras, mounted around the car, will record the entire trip. The footage will then be edited into a feature-length film. The trip will take place in May, shortly before the CR-Z European market launch.
A very, very interesting idea. For the record, though, Claudio is more of a cameraman than a "filmmaker," at least the last time I saw him with Ewan and Charlie.
Here’s what’s in today’s show. Toyota’s recall problems are getting worse. The Pope scolds Marchionne for closing a plant. And Autoline Daily sets out to show automotive enthusiasts a better way to measure the potential performance of a car.
Up next, we’ll be back with the news behind the headlines.
This is Autoline Daily for Thursday, February 4, 2010, and now, the news.
Uh-oh. Now the Toyota Prius is under NHTSA’s microscope for braking problems. The company blames an overly-sensitive ABS system. Adding insult to injury, the other day Apple cofounder Steve Wozniak says he suspects there's a software problem with the Prius cruise control. As the old saying goes, when it rains, it pours. According to the LA Times, congressional investigators are looking into sudden acceleration in the Tacoma pickup. When you add it all up, Reuters reports that Toyota could lose as much as $2 billion from all of its recent callbacks.
Reuters also reports that Honda is concerned that Toyota’s recalls will tarnish Japan’s reputation for quality. But it’s not just the Japanese. Now the Chevy Cobalt is under federal investigation for steering-related safety issues. NHTSA has received more than eleven hundred complaints about a loss of power assist. The Cobalt uses electric power steering. Dun-da-dun-dun-dunnnn. I’ve got a feeling all electronic controls will come under attack now.
Financial results for the last quarter are coming in for Japanese automakers and man, are they turning things around. Toyota, which was losing money last year, managed to turn in a net profit of $1.8 billion for the third quarter, compared to a loss of $1.9 billion a year ago. Honda turned in a net profit of nearly $1.5 billion, despite a drop in revenue of over $3 billion. And Mitsubishi Motors produced its first quarterly profit in 5 quarters. It posted a profit of $118 million, despite a 43 percent drop in revenue. To me, these are very impressive turnarounds, and they show the Japanese automakers have been slashing cost to deal with the global downturn.
Even though Chinese automaker Geely will buy Volvo. Ford's joint venture partner in China, Chang'an, will continue to build Volvos. According to Gasgoo, Chang'an will keep building the S40 and S80 models.
And Geely and Chery are set to enter the Australian market this year. Chery's A1 and Tiggo3, as well as Geely's MK, Emgrand EC7, and Panda models will be offered.
And it's a good thing some Chinese automakers are starting to export because according to a new report the country's domestic automakers face overcapacity in just two years. Gasgoo reports that China's top 14 automakers will have a combined capacity of 23 million units by 2012, when demand is only expected to reach 20 million.
Poor Sergio Marchionne. The CEO of Fiat thought he just had labor unions and leftist politicians to deal with as he tries to close an assembly plant in Italy. But now, the AP reports, even the Pope is weighing in on this one. Of course, he put it very diplomatically. But Pope Benedict XVI said that the company needs to show a great sense of responsibility. I know he’s supposed to be infallible, but I’d remind the pope that it was by ignoring tough decisions like that that ultimately brought the American auto industry to the brink of destruction.
Coming up next, Autoline Daily is out to convince automotive enthusiasts that looking at horsepower and torque is an inaccurate way to determine a car’s potential performance.
Here’s a trick question for you. What performs better in the quarter mile, a Nissan Altima Hybrid or a Hemi-powered Dodge Ram crew cab that has twice the horsepower? Surprisingly, they’re nearly identical. How’s that possible? Well, it all boils down to the power-to-weight ratio. Let’s take a look at some numbers, starting with an American performance machine.
The Chevrolet Corvette ZR1 blows the doors off with 638 horsepower on tap and a curb weight around 3,300 pounds. This gives it a shockingly low power-to-weight ratio of just 5.2 pounds per horsepower.
Now, let’s compare the Chevy to something a little more practical, like a Volkswagen Jetta TDI. It also weighs about 3,300 pounds, but it only has 140 ponies. This works out to a much higher 23.5 pounds per horsepower.
Predictably, the performance numbers closely follow the power-to-weight ratios. The Corvette can accelerate from 0 to 60 in less than four seconds (3.8). The Vee-Dub takes almost nine seconds (8.9) to reach the same speed.
Just for fun, we threw in something really old, a Ford Model A. It’s pretty light, weighing right around 2,400 pounds, but it only has 40 horsepower! That gives it a power-to-weight ratio of 60, which is a big part of why its top speed is only about 55 miles an hour!
When we crunched the numbers for other vehicles, we found some common break points. A power-to-weight ratio of less than 10 is supercar territory. Something that rates in the low double digits will be quite a performer. Average vehicles seem to rank in the mid teens, while slower cars fall in the 20s and up. We also correlated power to weight with 0 to 60 time, and came up with a general scale that makes it easy to estimate how a car will perform.
Beyond the raw pounds-per-horsepower figure, there are a lot of other variables that affect performance, like aerodynamics, transmission type, weather conditions and more. In fact, some vehicles with better power-to-weight ratios actually accelerate slower. Back to the Dodge Ram and Nissan Altima. The truck checks in at 15 pounds per horsepower and the car nearly 18, but the Hybrid beats the Hemi from 0 to 60 by three-tenths of a second. The Dodge catches up by the end of the quarter mile, though, probably because it has so much more torque.
Moving forward, we’re going to include power-to-weight figures whenever possible. We believe it’s a more useful way of comparing vehicles and rating performance.
Don’t’ forget to tune in to Autoline After Hours tonight at 7 p.m. Eastern time. Our special guest will be Jamie Allison. That’s tonight at 7 p.m.
And that’s it for today’s top news in the global automotive industry. Thanks for watching, we’ll see you tomorrow.
This week: trying not to talk about the Toyota recall, the last automotive tech we got excited about (thanks, @sloppymccheese!), early Formula 1 testing talk, and why America can't produce a good sports car or Formula 1…or rally team.
Want to participate? Go here: http://bit.ly/carchat-03022010 (scribblelive.com) at 8PM EST on February 3! (Or search for "#carchat" on Twitter itself if you don't mind being behind the conversation…) On to the goodies! Photo, quote, video, car, and commercial of the week will be done from inside the chat, and not in the preview. Why? So we can all look, read, watch, laugh, and enjoy together. Agenda for the evening's discussion • Photo of the week • Creating Toyota's next ad campaign • Picture topic: Your next car • Quote of the week • The last automotive tech we got excited about (thanks, @sloppymccheese) • Commercial of the week • Formula 1 talk • Car of the week • Why Americans are hopeless at motorsport with turns • Video of the week Required reading "Has Toyota’s quality control declined? Or is the real problem the company’s reaction?" truedelta.com "Running out of juice," economist.com "Is Woz's Prius acceleration just Toyota's wacky adaptive cruise?" greencarreports.com Watch #carchat:
Here are today’s top headlines. Big changes on the sales front. Ford takes advantage of Toyota’s problems. Nissan almost captures the “best-selling car in America” title. And GM turns in an impressive performance.
Up next, we’ll be back with the news behind the headlines.
This is Autoline Daily for Wednesday, February 3, 2010, and now, the news.
Lots of big news on the sales front today. With all of Toyota’s problems there’s been a lot of jockeying for position. The big winners, by company, start with Ford which was up nearly 37 percent, and Nissan, which was up nearly 26 percent. Hyundai, the brand, was really strong too, nearly 35 percent, but Kia was not up that much. In other words, Hyundai benefited from Toyota’s problems, but Hyundai/Kia did not. By the way, all these numbers come from Ward’s (subscription required).
The best-selling car last month was the Honda Accord which sold 19,000 units. Hot on its heels was the Nissan Altima. In fact, the Altima came within a whisker of knocking the Accord off as the best-selling car in America. Next on the list was the Toyota Corolla/Matrix which came in at 17,000 units. But Toyota’s kind of cheating here. It combines sales of the Corolla and the Matrix whereas both cars would fall far down the list if sales were broken out separately. And then looky here, next up is the Chevy Malibu which has started to come on strong. And it even outsold Toyota Camry. The big news here is that the Chevy Malibu easily outsold the Ford Fusion.
The best-selling truck last month was the Ford F-series. No surprise there. It was followed by the Chevy Silverado, again, no surprise. But the third best-selling truck last month was the Ford Escape, and that represents a big shift in the market. The Escape outsold the Dodge Ram and even the Honda CR-V, which had been the best-selling crossover up until now. And the Chevy Equinox came within a whisker of out-selling the CR-V. No doubt about it, Chevrolet is starting to come on strong.
In fact, GM’s sales numbers to me are the most impressive for the month. GM picked up market share despite dumping four brands. The big highlights at GM include a 56 percent sales increase at Buick and a 48 percent increase at Chevrolet.
You could even see Chevy’s strength in the numbers for pony cars. Even though the Mustang had a very good month, with sales up almost 75 percent, the Chevy Camaro easily outsold the Mustang. The Dodge Challenger really comes up short with only 1,700 units sold, down 34 percent. So is the Hyundai Genesis coupe eating into pony car sales? Hard to tell, but it sure doesn’t look like it. Hyundai combines sales of both the Genesis coupe and sedan together, even though they are completely different cars. Even so combined sales of the Genesis were only 1,700 units.
Audi was the big winner in the luxury car segment, with sales up nearly 50 percent. Mercedes-Benz had a good month, with sales up by nearly a third, and BMW was up 17 percent. Cadillac sales were up modestly, but Cadillac owes everything to the new SRX. Every other vehicle Cadillac sells saw sales drop by double digits.
Hybrids are selling okay, I guess, but they’re not picking up any market share. Total hybrid sales came to less than 2 1/2 percent of the American market last month. And it could go down from here. The American and Japanese governments just announced today they are looking into a potential recall of the Prius regarding its brakes.
All in all it was not a great month, but it wasn’t bad either. Total sales hit 695,707, which translates into a SARR of 10.76-million units. That puts us on track to see sales increase by 1.1 million units compared to a year ago. That’s a little more than four assembly plants worth of production. Now the race is on to see who gets to fill their plants.
Coming up next, it’s time for You Said It!
And now it’s time for some of your feedback.
A lot of you responded to our report that Japanese media are reporting that the American media’s coverage of Toyota is nothing more than Japan bashing.
Tom Martin wrote in to say, “How can Japan scream that the U.S. is protectionist? Look at Japan’s protectionist policies and taxation against U.S. cars.”
G.A. Branigan, picked up on the same theme, “Look at the Japanese whining about our media,” he writes in to say, “Take it like a man Toyota, they are just starting.”
Alex Kovnat, also had this to say, “Regarding Japan-bashing: Come on! I remember when Ford was heavily attacked in the news media when reports began surfacing of people being immolated in gasoline fires, when early versions of the Pinto were hit from behind. Was that necessarily America bashing or Ford-bashing?”
I would say that the Japanese media really does not know how to react to recalls like this. They’ve never seen anything like it before. And they’re automatically assuming that this is just Japan bashing. All I can say is, now you know what the Big Three have been going through for the last 30 years.
Don’t forget to join us tomorrow night for Autoline after-hours when our special guest is going to be the director of Ford racing, Jamie Allison. That’s tomorrow night at 7 p.m. Eastern.
And that’s it for today’s top news in the global automotive industry. Thanks for watching, we’ll see you tomorrow.
We've all been asked what our dream cars would be. Not just "what car would you have if you could pick anything in the world", but "what would you design from scratch." Or maybe you haven't, and I'm just horribly socially inept. In any case, I thought about doing this thought excercise for some of my friends at #carchat.
Suzanne Denbow: A four-door, mud-tire equipped Volvo pickup truck, compete with a 5-cylinder 850 power plant, a shotgun rack hidden beneath some spectacular blonde wood paneling, seats upholstered in fabric that doesn't show dog dander and a standard AM/FM/CD/Shortwave/Police scanner.
Brian Makse: Brian and I once talked about how all road cars suck compared to race cars, so he can stick with his Cobalt.
Brian Driggs: All-wheel drive, SYNC (for hooking up social media devices), four doors, a trunk with a parcel shelf for spare parts and tools, off-road tires, weld-in roll cage, and a price under $3000. Oh yeah, it comes with 250,000 miles on the clock.
Sam Burnett: I designed something for you, but it got bought by SAIC.
Michael Banovsky: Rear-engine, flat six, built in France by some defunct Japanese company now swallowed up by some conglomerate. It will look vaguely like an insect, hit 60mph 3 minutes flat and come with optional bosozoku exhaust pipes. Nothing would make him happier.
Me:Â Melted down Nardi wheels and shift knobs for the frame (ala Morgan) and a special hard drive with Bob Seger's Greatest Hits pre-loaded. Car will not operate on the Sabbath. -- Derek Kreindler 416-520-6714 http://derekkreindler.blogspot.com
Ok, so it's not a car and this is CarChat. Fair enough. But this is about as cool as alternate transportation gets (ekranoplans not withstanding), and once again it comes from the deep pockets of one Sir Richard Branson.
Scheduled to begin duty in a few weeks on Necker Island in the British Virgin Islands, this underwater plane for 2 scuba-wearing guests plus "pilot" is sure to be one hell of a ride.
If you think that car models are for kids, think again. These photos are taken by setting up stunningly detailed models of cars and environments in the real world and snapping incredibly realistic moments in time. Check out his flickr page for behind the scenes views and descriptions.
Here's a little experiment. I'll be inviting some of my most trusted and respected voices in the auto industry to contribute short, snippet-style articles. What, exactly? I'm not too sure…
You can read bios on our spectacular and diverse team here.
If you'd like to read/see/hear more from me, my Twitter handle is michaelbanovsky, and my full website is banovsky.com.
