Car Industry Group to Public: It's Not All Our Fault, It's Yours Too

If you think car-makers, especially the Detroit Three, aren't interested in life out here in the
real world, rest easy.

I hold in my hands a press release from a car-maker industry group which demonstrates that they are indeed paying attention to the rest of us. Not fast enough or with the sense of urgency it demands, but maybe they're finally figuring out what a lot of us have been demanding from our cars and trucks ... and not in 15 years, either. Don't tell us how much longer we need to wait when dealing with technologies which have been around for 100 years or more.

This press release intends to remove the car-makers from any blame whatsoever, saying little to nothing about the future product they're trying to design, build and market. In fact, they think that we buyers and drivers also need to straighten up and fly right, as the old standard song goes, so they do offer some help for we poor plebeians, something they've dubbed "EcoDriving."

(This is artist David Kimball's ghost view of the Chevrolet Corvette engine; looks great, but belongs, mostly, on a race track).

Among these tips to drivers are knowing which oil to use in your car and don't tailgate. And no, I'm not kidding. More on Ecodriving in a bit.

First, meet the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers (AAM). It's a trade association (lobbyists) of 10 car and light truck manufacturers making or selling cars and trucks in the US, including BMW Group, Chrysler, Ford Motor Company, General Motors, Mazda, Mercedes-Benz, Mitsubishi Motors, Porsche, Toyota and Volkswagen.

Never heard of the group? Well, they usually keep a pretty low public profile. But it's an interesting story, nonetheless.

From 1993 to 1998, Andrew Card (yes, that Andrew Card, President George W. Bush's ex-Chief of Staff) was President and Chief Executive Officer of the American Automobile Manufacturers Association (AAMA), the Americans-only car-maker lobbying group whose first, and only members, were Chrysler, Ford and General Motors.

(In the California central coast town of Gorda, the pumps forecasted the future for the rest of the nation almost 3 months ago).

In order to speak with one and a more powerful voice, and under pressure from overseas car-makers and captive imports (companies which build and sell cars in the US, but whose profits go overseas), the AAMA dissolved in December, 1998. The group reformed and welcomed "foreign" companies, all car-makers as the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers (AAM).

What follows, in part, are what I thought were some highlights of the EcoDriving press release; you can see it in its entirety at www.ecodrivingusa.com or www.autoalliance.org.

So, the big news this week is the AAM announcing a new outreach program called EcoDriving.

What is EcoDriving? "A comprehensive, nationwide effort to save consumers money at the gas pump, reduce fuel use and cut carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. EcoDriving produces the highest mileage from every single vehicle, regardless of vehicle size and age, so it offers an unmatched reach in addressing energy and climate issues by potentially affecting the nation's entire fleet of 245 million automobiles.

(GM's Chevrolet Volt concept is planned to be a plug-in gas/electric hybrid which can cover 600 miles from a single 12-gallon tank of gasoline ... which runs a generator which makes electricity with which to drive the wheels through electric motors ... do-dah, do-dah. Kind of complicated, like an old Rube Goldberg cartoon, or am I aging myself? And oh, they've already downgraded that 600 mile mark to about 300, like most current cars).

Sample EcoDriving practices include: Not tailgating, knowing the proper way to accelerate and brake, using synchronized traffic lights to a driver's advantage, driving at the optimum highway speed, understanding when to use air conditioning and much more.

Sample maintenance practices include: Knowing which motor oil to use, understanding the importance of proper tire pressure and what affects tire pressure, understanding aerodynamics and much more."

In conjunction with the unveiling of EcoDriving, the National Automobile Dealers Association (and I guess you can figure out who they are) announced that September will be free "Green Check-up Month" nationwide." (end press release quotes)

You have to respect how they were able to plug auto dealerships, but just what is this "free Green Check-up Month nationwide?" Consumers already know that many new car and truck dealerships make only negligible profits when selling new cars and trucks; the real money is in their used car sales (and especially "certified used cars") and their "back of the store" parts and service departments.

(This is a great picture which doesn't really belong here, but I like it. It's Andy Granatelli planting a wet one on none other than Mario Andretti, who had just won his first ... and still only for his family ... Indy 500).

The release is all about what's wrong with us, their customers, and not what's wrong with their industry; no explanation from this "trade group" telling us why we haven't been able to buy the high-mileage, low-emissions cars and trucks which should have been available at least a decade ago.

The numbers of gas/electric hybrids and the coming clean diesels will be too small to make any significant dent in the myriad of problems caused by global warming and the end of the oil economy. Seeing the Beijing Olympics, with air you could almost cut with a knife, reminded me of Los Angeles 20 years ago and Tokyo 30 years ago (I was first in Tokyo in 1979).

These EcoDriver ideas have been around forever; they're good, basic rules which everyone can practice. And I bet most US drivers have adjusted their driving style in the past year, in relation to the price of gas or diesel.

The group suggests we "drive at optimum highway speed." Actual "speed limits" aren't mentioned, and the group seems to endorse the California concept of "prime facie" speed limits, where the driver is actually considered wise enough to take responsibility for determining the speed safe for the road and the overall driving situation.

(Chinese car-maker Brilliance, not a major player, but big enough and probably looking for a US partner to join them in China, just announced they are planning an exhibit at next year's Detroit Auto Show; this photo shows one of their current models).

EcoDriving appears to be keeping with the car industry's return to the muscle cars of the 1960s and '70s, with advertising extolling the virtues of high horsepower, big engines and, no matter the challenge, "mine is bigger than yours." The Detroit Three voluntarily stopped advertising high-performance and racing for a short time in the 1960s. Then the three quickly created "parts outlets" at dealerships known for their attraction to and understanding of high-performance, like including Royal Pontiac just outside Detroit and Yenko Chevrolet in Pennsylvania. People suddenly couldn't buy racing parts from the factory; they had to go to a dealership, which kept the Big Three's hands clean of racing, at least officially.

EcoDriving also means having a driver who "understanding aerodynamics." There are plenty of men and women with one or more PhD's in mathematics, aerodynamics, aviation wings and related topics working for the world's top racing teams. Maybe they feel we should hire our own aero expert, or admit that possibly we're smart enough to understand why your cousin shouldn't put that mattress on the roof of his Econoline.

Comparisons abound in the complete release, many of them vague and without clear-cut meanings or goals. For instance, what does "annual CO2 emissions could be reduced by about 100 million tons, or the equivalent of heating and powering 8.5 million households" really mean, in English, so we can all relate? Perhaps that amount is so small it only means negligible improvements.

(Chevy's new Malibu is doing very well in the marketplace and it's available as a gas/electric hybrid; only problem GM has with the car is making them fast enough to send to dealerships).

In the group's single mention of their business, making cars, the release says, "Automakers are aggressively developing and introducing new technologies, but it takes 15 years or more for these technologies to become widespread on the road. EcoDriving helps consumers reduce carbon dioxide emissions today."

In the end, this is the same story we've been hearing from car-makers, especially those in Detroit, for the past 30 years: "Just wait a little longer and we'll have those new cars and trucks you've been hoping for. Really, they're just around the corner."

What do you think?

Comments

[ferrarimanf355]

A little OT, but that crack about the Corvette ZR1 you made a few weeks back, where you sarcastically said that it's just the car America needs, wasn't funny. It's a low volume car (2000 units per year), nobody in their right mind would use it as a daily driver, and it gets decent gas mileage for the power (14/20) And a base Corvette gets 16/26, and there are reports of people getting 30 on the highway.

Between that crack and the trashing of some reporter in Dallas who has the gall to love a Mustang, the demonizing of sports cars is in full force, and it has to stop. I like to have a little fun in my drive. I want the new Camaro badly, not some mamby-pamby electric car. Greenpeace is attempting to legislate the fun out of driving, unaware that a similar attempt failed in the '70s. Oh, it came close, but the Mustang, Camaro, Corvette and many others survived.

The demonizing of sports cars has to stop now. I don't want to drive a soulless Prius, even with a bayonet around my neck. Give me a Camaro or Corvette anyday, and let me enjoy the journey.

(And before anybody brings up the Tesla Roadster- no manual transmission, no defining engine noise, no sale. Sorry.)

[bugdog]

Despicable... My Neon gets better mileage at 85 mph than an Escalade gets at 25 mph... Screw anyone who tells me to slow down for those creeps.

Anyone notice fatalities are going down? The watchdogs lack the balls to admit why, offering a series of distracted analyses instead, but it's obvious: People are parking their pigmobiles.

Oh, but SUV's are safer... Not if you're the guy they run into and over. Typical pig thinking: I want a tank so I'll be safe when i road rage the other guy into the rail...

Prediction: The more of those evil behemoths that are parked the safer the roads will become. SUV's should be banned, or at the least subjected to a permit system where the permittee would have to demonstrate a real need.

[JScott]

Seems like for a lotta US auto mfrs. market and gov't haven't been enough to prod them into making better product. When ya think about it, after WWII almost all US autos were all alike-Carb'd big V-8 engines, live rear axles on leaf springs, drum brakes, recirc. ball steering (except maybe Chrysler with torsion bar suspension) and a few mfrs. from offshore had the innovations-MBZ/BMW et al. FFwd to the 21st cent. and it's only then that all that stuff (small efficient engines, multivalving/hemi, fuel injection, rack and pinion steering, disc brakes, all independent suspensions, and the great advances in safety) finally trickles out in sufficient number of PASSENGER CARS, while the US mfrs. still are tied to their SUV's that are relatively lo tech and until recently profitable. Seems to me they are looking too much at their bottom line and not long term. And interesting that one of the coolest cars now the Pontiac G8 is AUSTRALIAN. What are these folks thinkin?

[dadw5boys]

WOW !!!!!!
NOW THIS IS NEW WORTHY!!!!!!

The auto industry says they make a mistake by using the cheap gas caused by people actions to conserve oil for many years so they could make and sell huge vechiles that in onlt a few years destoryed all the hard work of people around the world who tired to conserve oil !!!!!!!!!

Wow, they really are waking up to reality !!!!!!!!!

[cylindar]

Yeah well the auto industry can do what it wants to, but the cold hard bare assed facts are that if people don't buy their crap they are not going to make any money. So they can promote eco-driving all they want. The fact is that the exec's of these companies are going to have to be the ones who will need eco-driving the most as they won't have jobs. Bad karma coming home to roost. Hahahahaha!

[Freedoms Friend]

The auto industry in the US has been in constant decline since Ford decided to let people die on the roads of America rather than install an extra bolt on the gas tank of the Pinto(cost $1-00) because the Law suits that would follow would be less costly and when the memo of this board meeting decision was made public the government did nothing.
You have to legislate change when Industries first responsibility is to its shareholders.
Of course that requires legislators that care and so on and so on and so on!

[RobinSeattle]

The U.S. auto manufacturers' main problem is that they have been building garbage the last 30 years. I don't fault them for selling what their consumers want, but they have been taking it on the chin from Japanese car manufacturers, especially Toyota and Nissan, because those companies make more reliable autos than Detroit/Mexico does. If you live in my segment of the U.S., everybody is driving Japanese cars.

Now that those big old profit center SUVs and trucks are liabilities in the $4 a gallon energy environment, they have only added to their problems by not being more forward looking. And this is the problem with corporate America: it is a creature of inertia and whines and throws tantrums like a recalcitrant four year old when it is asked to actually do something good not just for the country, but for themselves, too.

So these guys are dinosaurs and, increasingly, they hate the American worker and love Mexico anyway. Let 'em go bankrupt. Screw 'em.

[mamacat]

Back in 1993, in the early days of the Clinton/Gore White House, they held a news conference on the White House lawn, proclaiming that the President was asking the Detroit automakers to come up with some new cars that we really needed to make our country a better place.

Just looking at the faces of the Detroit representatives there, I got the feeling they were thinking to themselves - ("Boy, are these guys rubes. They really think that we are going to make the cars that the country needs, rather than the cars that make us the most money? Well, we'll play along for awhile, but this program isn't going anywhere!")

I always felt that the problem with the Democrats isn't that they don't try, but that they think the people they are dealing with are honorable. Obama is doing it again; trying to play nice with the big boys in the GOP. This country didn't get in the pickle it's in because the GOP played nice. Does Obama think it is really an accident that his opponent, McCain, dumped his first wife for Cindy, a woman 19 years younger than him, and the richest womam in Arizona? Sure, it was just coincidence. And it is just coincidence that the woman he was cheating on Cindy with has disappeared since that story broke.

I am not suggesting that the Dems start acting like their opponents do, only that they wake up and realise what is going on in this country.

[jsarets]

The Clinton/Gore Partnership for a New Generation of Vehicles actually produced a new generation of automotive technology, but without any regulatory mechanism, it didn't translate into any new vehicles. GM's ill-fated EV1 project was the direct result of $500M of the tax dollars invested through this program, but there was no way GM was going to market an $80K two-seater that's not a Corvette unless there's some law that says they have to.

GM couldn't have embarked upon an expedited 3-year development cycle for the Chevy Volt if they hadn't brought in the head engineer and a great deal of other resources from the old EV1 project. So the research we bought may not have been a total waste. But I think that if the taxpayers are going to pay private corporations to develop technologies, then any documentation or patents produced should become public domain. We shouldn't have had to wait so many years for GM to productize the fruits of our collective investment.

[SisterAnn]

Sometimes it seems America lost her mind on 9/11 and has never regained her senses.

You would almost think the big 3 had put all their money in oil and gas stocks and love the way the big ones suck up the gas.

Maybe they think, we would get kicked out of the Mideast, if it wasn't for us buying their oil.

Maybe they don't care that dealerships are getting in financial trouble and all that.

[JBS]

Actually, the big 3 made higher per vehicle profits from those big gas suckers. That's why they cranked out as many as they could while they could.

Think about it; a thousand dollars or more profit from every Ford Excursion sold vs a couple hundred (or less) from every Ford Escort/Focus. One reason for this disparity was the SUV was exempt from CAFE standards, so it cost less to build those less efficient engines.

For a while the manufacturers continued to profit, no matter what happened to the dealers. Meanwhile there was no real investment into future technology required to make the transition to tight oil supplies and high prices.

Bad business practices long term, but nobody looks past next quarter's P&L. When you focus your attention that way, you're never going to look ahead to how to stay in business years and decades down the road.

So, now they're 10 - 15 years behind the power curve. And it's not just the "American" manufacturers. All of the foreign manufacturers committed themselves to selling bigger SUVs & pickup trucks.

Anyone looked at a Toyota Tundra lately? The thing's almost as big as a Dodge Ram!

[berkawoo]

The domestic auto industry from now on has to absolutely realize that Big Oil is not their friend.
The business and research and developement model they should apply to is that they cannot count on a stable oil market. They also have to realize that U.S government has not cared much about the health of the U.S auto industry since just after WW2. The government has cared more about the aircraft and aeronautics industry and the military industrial complex than the BIG 3. The import automakers design and build great cars because their governments want it and support. The USA builds great aviation products and weapons and defense products because this it what the powers that be in this country want.