(Sources: WSJ, NPR, LA Times)

Hundreds of auto dealers in the New York area have withdrawn from the government’s Cash for Clunkers program, citing delays in getting reimbursed by the government, a dealership group said Wednesday.  The Greater New York Automobile Dealers Association, which represents dealerships in the New York metro area, said about half its 425 members have left the program because they cannot afford to offer more rebates. They’re also worried about getting repaid.

“(The government) needs to move the system forward and they need to start paying these dealers,” said Mark Schienberg, the group’s president. “This is a cash-dependent business.”

Many dealers have said they are worried they won’t get repaid at all, while others have waited so long to get reimbursed they don’t have the cash to fund any more rebates, Schienberg said.  Schienberg said the group’s dealers have been repaid for only about 2 percent of the clunkers deals they’ve made so far.

“The program is a great program in the sense that it’s creating a lot of floor traffic that a lot of dealers haven’t seen in a long time,” he said.  “But it’s in the hands of this enormous bureaucracy and regulatory agency,” he added. “If they don’t get out of their own way, this program is going to be a huge failure.”

In contrast, today’s LA Times article notes that in California, which tops the list of states in terms of clunker transactions, most dealerships appear to be sticking with the program. The frenzy of buyer interest that greeted the program when it kicked off July 24 has dropped considerably partly because of shortages of popular cars such as the Toyota Corolla, Honda Civic and Ford Focus.

“The gold rush is over,” said Eric Choi, fleet manager at Hollywood Ford. “We’re still getting some business from it, but like every other dealer, we’re pretty much out of cars.”

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood sought to reassure auto dealers Wednesday that they would be reimbursed for discounts given to customers under the program. With weeks-long delays in processing reimbursements, many dealers have feared the program’s $3 billion funding would run out before they received the money owed them.

An administration official said on Monday that the Transportation Department hoped to have 1,100 public and private sector workers processing the vouchers by the end of the week, up from a work force of about 350 through the end of last week.

Employees at a department service center in Oklahoma City have taken the lead in processing the vouchers, the official said, and workers have responded to calls for voluntary overtime to process the forms.

Meanwhile, Wall Street Journal reports that Obama administration will wind down its popular “cash for clunkers” incentive program on auto sales — and may do so as soon as early September, according to one person familiar with the matter.

When to end the program is a tricky question. The administration is closely watching the money remaining in the program, and expects there to be a surge in last-minute clunker deals once an end date is announced, said the person familiar with the matter. The administration wants to avoid having dealers agree to sales after all the funds have been used up, this person said.

Through Wednesday morning, dealers had submitted requests to be reimbursed for roughly 435,000 vouchers totaling more than $1.81 billion, though many of those hadn’t yet been approved.

The backlog at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration also has dealers worried that authorities won’t know when the funding is gone, he said. “That has clearly been something that the industry has been constantly asking: When is it at $3 billion and one and there’s no money left? You need to have a soft landing kind of approach.”

Click here to read the entire article.

Date:  August 19, 2009

Time: 3:00 PM -4:30 PM EST

Speakers:

• Balaji Prabhakar, Stanford University
• Nicholas W. Ramfos, Director, Commuter Connections, National Capital Region Transportation Planning Board

This webinar will examine a project in India, led by Dr. Balaji Prabhakar, where a variety of payments and lottery awards were tested to encourage bus commuters to shift their schedules to just outside of peak periods. Dr. Prabhakar’s presentation will discuss the specific tests that were conducted and the results of each.

Closer to home, Dr. Prabhakar is also beginning to help try to solve some of Stanford University’s parking and commuting challenges in a policy climate that leaves little room for error¿the university is subjected to heavy penalties if the campus exceeds its allowance for peak-period car commuters.

Dr. Prabhakar has some very creative ideas for testing incentives related to parking at Stanford, which he plans to share in this Webinar, and the technological know-how to implement them and determine their effects.

The webinar will also provide a brief look at incentive programs implemented in the Washington DC metropolitan region to help reduce congestion. Nicholas Ramfos, the Director of the Commuter Connections program at the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments will highlight incentives including a region-wide Guaranteed Ride Home Program, free consulting services and equipment lease reimbursements to employers that start or expand a telework program, and a new demonstration program that will be launched this fall which will pay commuters to carpool in designated congested corridors in the region. Nicholas Ramfos’ brief presentation will focus mostly on this newest demonstration program.

Click here to Register and for additional information on the event.

(Sources: Motor Authority, WSJ, Reuters Blogs)

In late July Porsche announced Wendelin Wiedeking would be leaving his position as the company’s CEOto be replaced by Michael Macht, clearing the way for the supervisory board atVolkswagen to lay the foundation for an integrated company with underVolkswagen leadership. Today that merger has moved forward, and reports indicate the Auto Union name could be revived to brand it.

A Reuters report says that details of a deal between Volkswagen and Porsche have been broadly agreed, with VW set to buy a stake of up to 49 percent in the sportscar maker.  The supervisory boards of the German auto makers are expected to vote Thursday morning on a so-called memorandum of understanding, which would be a precursor to a more detailed and firm merger agreement, one of the people said.

The crucial point here is that the family-owned holding company Porsche Automobil Holding SE will get a much-needed cash injection from the sale – anywhere between 4 and 5.5 billion euros –  as well as an additional 5 billion euros from selling a package of options on VW shares to the Gulf state of Qatar.

The Porsche clan has already agreed to sell shares to raise at least 5 billion euros, so it should finally be in a position to pay off debts of more than 10 billion euros it stacked up building up a stake of just over 50 percent in VW.  Stuttgart-based Porsche ousted its chief executive, Wendelin Wiedeking, in July and is working to pay down a debt pile of more than 10 billion euros ($14.13 billion).

After the successful completion of the VW deal, the Porsche marque will then enter into a new “Auto Union” as the 10th brand, under the leadership of VW CEO Martin Winterkorn.

The Auto Union name was originally given to a merger of four German carmakers – Horch,  DKW and Wanderer – in 1932. The brand went on to fame in motorsports through the 1930s, but was disrupted by World War II, and subsequently went through a number of reformations, eventually ending in a renaming to  AG in 1985.

The integrated automotive group will be formed from the progressive participation of  in AG and the subsequent merger of Automobil Holding SE and  VolkswagenAG.  Porsche will remain an independent company headquartered in Stuttgart.” Today’s report re-affirms  independence, and the Auto Union name is apparently being considered to help preserve the idea that it’s not running the whole show.

(Source:  Forbes)

GM. Those two letters call up a lot of emotion these days. People ask, “What went wrong?” “How could a company that large, that successful, go bankrupt?” The less polite say: “General Motors’ leadership is corrupt.” “They ignored customers.” “The union killed them.” “Government interference.” “Idiots.”

We used to expect size to benefit a company. Being large and established meant you were supposed to have market clout, and you could protect your profits. According to Michael Porter, Harvard Business School professor and author, being biggest meant you had created entry barriers that kept your turf safe. With economies of scale in manufacturing, procurement, distribution, marketing, sales, financing and research and development, you could get so giant no competitor could effectively attack your products or prices. And for many, many years, nobody was bigger than General Motors ( GMGMQ.PK– news – people ).

The myth of the invulnerability of the large company is dead. We all know that by now. But other than depressing us, what does it mean? What have we learned from these failures that can help us be more successful in the future?

Many theories of business–from the work of Fredrick Winslow Taylor, who introduced modern management practices a century ago, to that of writers like Jim Collins today–have posited that success comes largely from figuring out what business you want to be in and then focusing on it intently. Pay attention to the resources on which you rely, invest to gain advantages of scale, operate with a tight focus on your goals and you should succeed.

This approach is based on an industrial-age understanding of oligopoly, where over time a pool of competitors shrinks to just the most efficient handful that can all be profitable in the long term. In other words, as Jim Collins has argued, if you set yourself a big, audacious goal and focus on tight management, you should expect to grow large and profitable in the end.

It’s good that GM’s situation raises people’s blood pressure. The company’s trip through bankruptcy is a highly visible sign of how markets have changed. To pull out of this recession, we need to make sure other companies don’t follow GM’s route. Leaders need to stop focusing on traditional market leadership, size and scale. They must abandon that approach to success. Now, more than ever, they have to identify market shifts and reposition their organizations to play in growing markets.

Profit comes from leading customers into new markets, not from optimizing your position in historical ones. To pick a winner, look for companies that shift with markets rather than trying to wield clout. To create a winner, build such a company.

Click here to read the entire article.

(Source: Natural Resources Defense Council)

America’s addiction to oil continues to threaten not only our national security and global environmental health, but also our economic viability. Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) analyzed how heavily drivers in each state are affected by increases in oil prices and ranked states on their adoption of solutions to reduce their oil dependence — measures they are taking to lessen their vulnerability and to bolster America’s security. NRDC found that rising gas prices, combined with the economic downturn, are making people more vulnerable to changes in oil prices. But many states are taking significant steps to reduce oil dependence through smart clean-transportation policies.

Our analysis shows that:

• Oil dependence affects all states, but some drivers are hit harder economically than others.
• The trends in states’ vulnerability to oil price increases over the past couple of years are not encouraging — drivers in every state were more vulnerable in 2008 than they were in 2006.
• While some states are pioneering solutions and many are taking some action, a fair number of states are still taking few (if any) of the steps needed to reduce their oil dependence.

Image Courtesy: NRDC - Percent of Income Spent on Gasoline by the Average Driver, 2008

The NRDC report says that although some states are adopting strong measures to reduce their oil dependence, too many others are still taking little or no action. The solutions rankings in this report are based on the range of key actions that states can take to reduce oil dependence, with particular focus on policies that can have substantial impact and can be replicated by other states.

NRDC research shows that the 10 states doing the most to wean themselves from oil are:

1) California
2) Massachusetts
3) Washington
4) New Mexico
5) Connecticut
6) New York
7) New Jersey
8) Pennsylvania
9) Oregon
10) Florida

In contrast, the 10 states doing the least to reduce their oil dependence are:

1) West Virginia
2) Idaho
3) Wyoming
4) Mississippi
5) South Dakota
6) Oklahoma
7) Alabama
8) Arkansas
9) North Dakota
10) Alaska

Click here to download the full issue paper. A Fact Sheet developed by the study team can be downloaded here.

(Hat Tip: Elena Schor @ Streetsblog, Capitol Hill)

(Source: Washington Post, Jalopnik, Autoblog)

Car can extend its range to more than 300 miles with its flex fuel-powered engine-generator.

Image Courtesy: Autoblog

In case you missed it this morning, General Motors CEO Fritz Henderson made some big news just one month after the “new” GM emerged from bankruptcy protection.

General Motors announced today that its forthcoming electric vehicle, the Chevrolet Volt, will achieve city fuel economy of 230 miles per gallon, under testing that used draft federal fuel economy methodology standards for plug-in cars.

The Volt will become the first mass-produced vehicle to obtain a triple-digit MPG rating, the company said.

“The Volt is becoming very real, very fast,” chief executive Fritz Henderson said. “The price of oil is going to go up.”

According to Frank Weber, vehicle chief engineer for the Volt, the number is based on combined electric only driving and charge sustaining mode with the engine running. He declined to get specific about the proportions, but did say that the urban cycle would be predominantly EV only. The EPA has been studying real world vehicle usage and is developing the formulas to try and provide a representative number of what most customers could expect to achieve. In addition to the composite number, the new EPA stickers will likely also get numbers for mileage in charge sustaining mode and electric efficiency in EV mode.

Initial prices for the car may be as much as $40,000, analysts said.

But company officials said the car’s price is expected to come down over time. They note, moreover, that gas prices will rise again, making fuel-efficient cars more valuable.

The Volt, which is scheduled to start production late next year, is expected to travel up to 40 miles on electricity from a single battery charge. The company says the car can extend its range to more han 300 miles with its flex fuel-powered engine-generator.

Assuming the average cost of electricity is approximately 11 cents per kilowatt-hour in the United States, a typical Volt driver would pay about $2.75 for electricity to travel 100 miles, or less than 3 cents per mile.

This story’s still developing, but if our sources are correct, it would blow the Toyota Prius out of the water. Heck, it’d blow every other vehicle currently on the market out of the water with the exception of the Tesla roadster — and that’s no four-door mid-size sedan. So for GM this represents a huge marketing coup — the ability to claim the most fuel efficient vehicle in the world and a big blow to detractors who claim the big, sweaty ‘merican manufacturer can’t build quality products.

Click here to read the entire article.

(Source: Bloomberg; WSJ & Autoblog)

Image Courtesy: Autoblog

General Motors Co. will let customers buy cars and trucks online from some California dealers through EBay Inc., the operator of the most-visited U.S. e-commerce Web site.

A new Web site, gm.ebay.com, will offer Chevrolet, Buick, GMC and Pontiac brands starting tomorrow, GM and San Jose, California-based EBay said today in a statement. More than 225 dealers will participate, the companies said.

Offering GM autos on the Internet gives Chief Executive Officer Fritz Henderson a new venue to boost sales as he shrinks the ranks of U.S. dealers by about 42 percent to 3,600 by the end of 2010. Those reductions are part of a plan to return GM to profit after $88 billion in losses since 2004.

When GM emerged from bankruptcy protection in July, among a slate of changes, it said it would realign sales and marketing functions. Chief Executive Fritz Henderson had said GM was testing a new online auction system with eBay that would enable customers to bid on actual vehicles just like they do in an eBay auction, including the option of choosing a predetermined “buy it now” price.

“Exploring new online distribution alternatives is a good idea as GM downsizes its brick-and-mortar distribution system,” said Laura Martin, a Los Angeles-based analyst at Soleil Securities Group Inc. She rates EBay shares as “hold” and doesn’t own any.

In addition to acquiring vehicle through eBay’s “Buy It Now” and “Best Offer” formats, the site also will allow consumers to compare pricing across models or participating dealerships and get tips and advice while determining trade-in values and whether their current vehicle may also qualify for the government’s “cash-for-clunkers” incentive program.

The companies cited a recent J.D. Power & Associates study that said more than 75% of new-vehicle buyers in 2008 used the Internet during their shopping and research process, compared with 70% in 2007. The study also found that 2008 marked the largest year-over-year increase in online automotive shopping since 2001.

Autoblog’s comments on the news notes that this pact between GM and eBay will add functionality to the process, though, while giving dealers a greater online presence. Suspiciously absent from the program is GM’s Cadillac brand. It is not known exactly why GM chose not to include its luxury arm in the eBay auctions, but it is believed that the decision has something to do with giving customers a more premium, coddled car-buying experience. The trial program is reportedly set to expire on September 8.

Click here to read the entire article.

(Source: Green Car Congress) Sue Cischke, Ford group vice president, Sustainability, Environment and Safety Engineering, pointed to the “key role” government policies such as fuel standards and greenhouse gas emission regulations, play in the development and support of Ford’s product and technology pathways. Cischke was speaking at the Center of Automotive Research’s Management Briefing Seminars in Traverse City last week.

Image Courtesy: Green Car Congress - Actual and projected greenhouse gas emissions for passenger vehicles by region/country through 2022. Adapted from ICCT. Click to enlarge.

Cischke cited the recent agreement on one national standard for fuel economy and greenhouse gas emissions regulations as an example of how the government, the auto industry and the environmental community can work together toward common goals. (Earlier post.) The agreement provides a framework to reach an average fuel economy standard of 35.5 mpg in 2016.

The International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT) calculates that meeting the proposed Federal policy will require a 5.7% annual increase in average fuel economy through 2016. Meeting the California Pavley regulations will require about a 5.8% annual increase in average fuel economy, according to ICCT. By comparison, meeting Japan’s standards for 2004-2015 requires a 1.9% annual increase; meeting the EU targets for 2008-2015 requires a 2.5% annual increase to 2015; and meeting China’s 2004-2009 target requires a 5.3% annual increase.

To meet the demand for higher fuel efficiency, Ford will leverage and expand EcoBoost engine technology that will be available on 90% of the company’s nameplates by 2013. Other technologies such as six-speed transmissions and electric power assist steering, which yield additional fuel efficiencies, will also be widely applied across Ford’s vehicle lineup over the next several years. Ford has doubled the number and production of its hybrid vehicles and announced an aggressive strategy to bring four new electrified vehicles to market over the next three years.

They include a battery-electric Transit Connect commercial van in 2010, a battery-electric Ford Focus passenger car in 201l, and the next-generation hybrid and plug-in hybrid vehicle in 2012.

Click here to read the entire article.

(Source: The Guardian, UK)

Ana Portet has had an unusual commute to work. At 7.30am she popped down to Sants railway station in Barcelona. Three hours later she was in a meeting with colleagues from her brewery firm, 315 miles away in Madrid.

“I’ll be back in Barcelona by half past five,” she said as her early afternoon bullet train flew back along the new high-speed tracks at up to 210mph. “It’s so quick, sometimes you are there before you have even noticed.”

Portet is one of hundreds of thousands of travellers who have migrated from the world’s busiest air shuttle, linking Madrid and Barcelona, to what is now Spain’s most popular train, the high-speed AVE.

The AVE, an intercom announcement has just told us, will leave us in the centre of Barcelona in two hours and 32 minutes. With Madrid’s AVE station a short walk from the Prado museum, the journey is from one city centre to another. What is more, the high-speed train does this in punctual, hassle-free and elegant style.

High-speed trains pulled by aerodynamic engines with noses shaped like a duck-billed platypus are grounding aircraft across Spain. The year-old Barcelona-Madrid line has already taken 46% of the traffic – stealing most of it from fuel-guzzling, carbon-emitting aircraft. As the high-speed rail network spreads a web of tracks across Spain over the next decade, it threatens to relegate domestic air travel to a distant second place.

A high-speed network is not designed overnight. Spain’s AVE story started in the 1980s, when the socialist prime minister Felipe González commissioned a line between Madrid and his home city of Seville. The project was overshadowed by corruption scandals and greeted with a certain amount of scorn. Why was sleepy Seville getting the line and not busy Barcelona? Some saw it as an expensive white elephant and a monument to González’s ego.

The line, however, was a spectacular success. Remote Seville was suddenly two and a half hours from Madrid. Spaniards, used to shabby, lumbering trains that crawled across the countryside following unpredictable timetables, discovered their trains could be stylish and run on time.

Previously the choice on the Madrid-Seville run was between a hot, tiring six-hour coach journey or an aircraft. Seventeen years later, only one traveller out of 10 takes the plane to Seville. The rest go by a train that is 99% punctual. The Seville line proved that high-speed trains could be part of the answer, albeit an expensive part, to some of Spain’s most enduring problems.

By 2020 Spain will have Europe’s largest high-speed network, its 6,000 miles of track outgunning even France’s TGV system. By then 90% of the population will be within 30 miles of a station. New lines have already been opened to Segovia, Valladolid and Malaga in the last 18 months. New links will eventually connect France and Portugal.

The high-speed train network also helps Spain control carbon emissions, with passengers on the Madrid-Barcelona line cutting their own emissions by 83% on the trip.

Click here to read the entire article.

Transportgooru Musings:

Something unusual is happening with the mainstream media these days.  There seems to be a renewed interest in pushing the idea of having a high-speed rail network in to the minds of the American public .  We have seen two articles on CNN/Fortune have brought too fore how China is pushing ahead with its investment in building a sophisticated, world class HSR network.  This spurred a good bit of debate on many popular infrastructure & transportation forums such as the Infrastrucrist.  Another one appeared in LA Times, by business writer David Lazarus whose sentiments about the American transportation system was summarized as follows after experiencing the highly systematic & super-sleek Japanese network: “It’s hard to appreciate how truly pitiful our public transportation system is until you spend some time with a system that works.” Many of us know that feeling.  Then he gushes about the consistently reliable, affordable and convenient transit systems in Japan. “I rode just about every form of public transit imaginable — bullet trains, express trains, commuter trains, subways, street cars, monorails and buses.”  Again, our good friends at Infrastructurist followed-up with a nice debate.

Now we have this Guardian article, that gushes about the glorious Spanish high-speed rail network.  I am sure this would stir another round of renewed interest in the minds of us transportation nerds, especially among those who keenly the TransportGooru and Infrastructurist columns on this topic. But do these discussions go beyond the comments section of these portals.  I wonder if the Government is even taking note of these anxiety-laden cries that advocate the need for a comparable HSR.  As the President and his administration staff reiterate his commitment to keep American workforce competitive in every field, pushing huge loads of money for all sorts of industries (Automobile manufacturing, battery research etc.) , everyone in the Government seems to forget that competitiveness should also extend beyond roads and vehicles.  The vast American bureaucracy is slowly pushing ahead with limited funding ($8Billion) and a massive goal (a HSR-network in pockets of nation with targeted connectivity), while other nations like China and Spain are blazing ahead with massive investments in a rail network.  Unless we as a nation get serious about investing in alternative transportation options such as rail, we will continue to remain dependent on our expensive oil addiction.

With the Government pushing new thinking such as transit-oriented development, it is probably not too far in the future before urban living becomes “cool” again and the minor discomforts of not having the plush sub-urban life with white picket fences and acre-wide manicured lawns might fade away.   The Government facilitated the emergence of the sprawl and the suburban lifestyle with its policy and funding push for interstates.  Back in the past were days when railroading was the best alternative for longer distances.  Ford and other American automakers created a new way of life with the commercialization of automobile technology, which has now blossomed into a thriving industry.  Can the Government enable a similar push for building high speed rail networks around the country?

Before we even get there, let’s first ask: Is there a need for it?   Yes, clearly there is a need for it, at least for distances shorter than 400 miles and there is also a desire for it among folks.  But the only thing that is lack is the Governmental backing. The paltry $8B will not be enough but it is definitely a good start.  It is not always a bad thing to emulate successful strategies, irrespective of where it emulates from.  American ingenuity stems from this ability to take ideas irrespective of their origin and tweak to make them suitable for the American landscape.  We did this for years by simply importing foreign talent (from nuclear scientists to PhD students) propelled new ideas and thinking to create a huge economy that was atop the world for decades. Why not do the same for building a rail network?

We have the need, we have the people who can get it done. All we need is the willingness to invest and the determination to get it done. As demonstrated in the past, Americans can accomplish great things (from building the interstate system to the invention of the atomic bomb), when the Government stood firm and pushed ahead to finish these mega-projects.  Some of these projects not only became a rallying point for nation building (during and after WWII) but they also spawned new economies and industries, spurring job growth and economic development in communities.

For argument sakes, for the time being we can remain content that our nation has a sophisticated air transportation network, with even the tiniest of the towns boasting an airport.  In reality, many of our airports are overwhelmed and strained by heavy operational delays and operate with sub-par efficiency, at times also posing a risk to passenger safety.  But at the end of the day, we are still going to be an oil-dependent economy, ply our cars and planes with imported for the near future.  Of course, there is a lot more to it than just saying and writing it on these websites and newspapers.  But that’s where the Government comes in to figure it all out and to make it happen.  That’s what the American tax-payers pay for every year before April 15th – to fund and keep a massive bureaucracy working for the to safeguard the interests of its citizens and not budge for the disgruntled political masses.

For what it matters, we are blessed with a dedicated team of professionals who are a part of this massive bureacracy and the USDOT employs thousands of people under its railroad-ing arm, the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA).  The agency should be given special powers (agreed that we are not Communist China and it may all have to be worked out within a Democratic framework) to expedite the approval process for the pending HSR proposals.  It should also be taken into account that allied industres such as steel manufacturing be reviatlized with incentives for making steel locally.  This would be a really good way to resuscitate the long-shuttered steel mills of our nation.  Hire a new workforce to build these raillines (as a data nugget, consider what China had been able to do in keeping its workforce busy.  The CRCC now employ 110,000 workers on a single line connecting Beijing and Shanghai.  If you are running short of professional capacity to build and manage all this new work, employ the new grads coming out of our universities (FYI,  the CNN article on Chinese HSR plans offer this data:  Last year China Railway Construction Co., the nation’s largest railroad builder, hired 14,000 new university graduates — civil and electrical engineers mostly — from the class of 2008. This year, says Liang Yi, the vice CEO of the CRCC subsidiary working on the Beijing-to-Shanghai high-speed line, the company may hire up to 20,000 new university grads to cope with the company’s intensifying workload. But with the private sector cutting way back on hiring — and university students desperate for work — taking on that many new engineers and managers hasn’t been too difficult) and put them to work on this project of national importance.   If we managed to somehow put aside all our  political in-fighting and come together to accomplish this in the next 20 years, our future generations may have a better shot at being competitive.  We may even see a renewed interest in our nations private-sector players to invest and operate these new railroads (many foreign and local infrastructure firms are now buying rights to build and operate our nation’s ports and toll-roads).  Who knows! Someday in the future we may have a sophisticated system if we “get it right”).

It takes a special leader , who can stand tall amidst all the challenges and marshall his troops to get the mission accomplished and our President sure has shown glimpses of such qualities.  But as we all know, mere glimpses are not enough.  Unless our leadership shows some serious commitment and interest, the possibilities of an average American riding an Ave-like or Shinkansen-like or a TGV-like system will remain elusive.  Will the real leader stand up and deliver?