(Source: via Real Talkies)

Just noticed this post on my favorite documentary blog  –  Real Talkies and couldn’t help but share. Oh, I’m planning to see it on June 25th when it gets screened at the AFI Silver Docs Documentary Festival.

Here is a snippet of what Real Talkies wrote:  In “Who killed the electric Car?” they followed a group of activists. “REvenge of the Electric Car” sets out to follow Tesla’s CEO Elon Musk, GM’s vice chair  – Bob Lutz, Nissan’s CEO Carlos Ghosn and DIY expert  Greg “Gadget” Abbott . Each one allowed access to their journey over three years on condition that the film will not be released until 2011.

This is one rare occasion when we want all of them to win, their cumulative success is success for the earth, for us and for a life without dependence on fossil fuel. This remarkable film is on its festival circuit. DC folks can see it at SilverDocs on June 25th. For future screenings visit their website.

Click here to read the full story.

(Source: Studydriving.com via Infographlove)

Interestingly, the infographic below summarizes the data into this nugget: Americans make better cars than Japanese.  No wonder GM and Ford are making a comeback.  After all, this country love a good comeback.

(Sources:  White House.gov & Freep.com)

Watching GM turn the corner from a disastrous dud and morph into a Detroit’s Stud and a Wall Street darling, no could’ve been happier than President Obama and his team of economic advisors at the White House, who advised him on the bailout that rescued thousands of jobs and the iconic brand from a collapse.  The stunning turnaround culminated with a successful IPO debuting in the marketplace today. General Motors stock closed at $34.19 today, just above the $33 price of the initial public offering.

An elated President Obama convened a press conference this afternoon and shared his sentiment and belief in GM’s recovery strategy.

Today, one of the toughest tales of the recession took another big step towards becoming a success story.

General Motors relaunched itself as a public company, cutting the government’s stake in the company by nearly half.  What’s more, American taxpayers are now positioned to recover more than my administration invested in GM.

And that’s a very good thing.  Last year, we told GM’s management and workers that if they made the tough decisions necessary to make themselves more competitive in the 21st century — decisions requiring real leadership, fresh thinking and also some shared sacrifice –- then we would stand by them.  And because they did, the American auto industry -– an industry that’s been the proud symbol of America’s manufacturing might for a century; an industry that helped to build our middle class -– is once again on the rise.

Our automakers are in the midst of their strongest period of job growth in more than a decade.  Since GM and Chrysler emerged from bankruptcy, the industry has created more than 75,000 new jobs.  For the first time in six years, Ford, GM and Chrysler are all operating at a profit.  In fact, last week, GM announced its best quarter in over 11 years.  And most importantly, American workers are back at the assembly line manufacturing the high-quality, fuel-efficient, American-made cars of tomorrow, capable of going toe to toe with any other manufacturer in the world. Click here to read the president’s entire speech.

Freep’s awesome cartoonist Mike Thompson charts this wonderful recovery from a dud to a darling with a series of cartoons on his blog.  He also adds the following to go with his nice drawings:

As if this weren’t bad enough for auto bailout critics, the Ann Arbor-based Center for Automotive Research has released a report that validates the logic behind the bailout. As Free Press business writer Greg Gardner reported, “The CAR study says the federal government would have spent $28.6 billion more than it did on unemployment benefits, Medicare, Social Security and other programs had the automakers liquidated. So the entire rescue will pay for itself if the government can generate $38 billion from selling its shares.” But perhaps the most chilling details in the story were the report’s conclusions that liquidation of the two auto companies would have meant the loss of 1.4 million jobs and $121 billion in personal income.

Whew!  This above facts-full paragraph must be making many of the naysayers, like the conservative columnist Mr. George Will feel like throwing up.  A couple of days ago, he wrote an op-ed titled , Toxic Volt, on Washington Post saying a whole lot of negative things about the President’s Bailout for GM.  The President and Steven Rattner, the brains behind the execution of the bailout plan, should be chuckling over the phone talking about how bad they feel for George Will.  Sadly enough, the doubters still continue to find a way to question the legitimacy of success. Fox Business  News in an article on its website says massive dilution from existing shares, warrants and grants, as well as unfunded pension costs. And GM’s cash flow is still heavily reliant on tens of billions of dollars in tax breaks and taxpayer-backed loans from the Dept. of Energy.

Image Courtesy: Freep.com

If this is not victory enough for the President, today GM notched another impressive feat, which is more like a beautiful foil to the wonderful present inside – the IPO. The Detroit Free Press reports that the Chevrolet Volt extended-range electric vehicle has won Green Car of the Year, beating out the pure-electric Nissan Leaf, hours after General Motors returned to the stock market. The award, decided by judges that include environmental enthusiasts and Green Car Journal editors, comes the same week as the Volt won MotorTrend Car of the Year and Automobile Magazine’s Automobile of the Year.  How awesome could that for a man who was chided constantly by his opponents for the decisions he made to save the brand and the thousands of jobs associated with the existence of the brand.

I bet tonight the President of the United States will have a drink to celebrate one of his biggest victories since assuming office.  He will probably sleep a little better tonight with one less thing to worry about.

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(Source: Washington Post)

The iconic American carmaker went bankrupt last year, but its Indian operations have never been busier, evidence of India’s booming economic growth and the rising prosperity of middle classes that are increasingly demanding first-world trappings in one of the fastest-rising countries.

“The new generation wants to hold the steering wheel in their hands,” said Prabhjot Singh, manager of a driving school who said young Indians who used to go to him to learn how to drive scooters are now flooding in to learn how to drive cars.

With rising household wealth, the growth of suburbs and highways and a youthful population, India is the second-fastest-growing market for car sales in the world after China. India’s auto industry reported a 26.4 percent growth in sales in 2009-10, partly because a government stimulus package lowered once sky-high interest rates and made financing easier, according to a study by the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM).

The Indian government also cut manufacturing taxes in late 2008 and early 2009 to protect domestic markets and attract overseas partners. India’s economy continued to grow at 8 percent, second only to China’s.

Part of the secret to India’s success is that it is producing cars that fit the “sweet spot,” or a budget of less than $7,000 for first-time car buyers. While the United States continues building gas-guzzling tanks, India has perfected the “mini-car.” Tata’s famed Nano, the world’s cheapest car, is an extreme example. It costs about $2,000 and sales are reportedly brisk.

With far lower labor costs, GM India is more willing to be innovative. The company recently announced that it will join Reva, India’s electric-car company, to roll out a new vehicle this year.

Click here to read the entire article.

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• Tata May Beat Hyundai in India, Helped by $2,500 Car (Update1) (businessweek.com)
• India’s Urban Future (wallstreetpit.com)
• Vehicle penetration in India & China (linusfernandes.com)
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(Sources: Wired; RTTNews, Associated Press, The Detroit News GM Press Release)

Image Courtesy: GM

General Motors always dreams big, no matter how much money they have in their bank account.  Now that Uncle Sam’s treasury is backing up the financial future,  GM continues its tradition of dreaming big and the latest outcome of this is a future where people navigate crowded cities in big Segways that look kinda like a Dyson vacuum cleaner and can drive you home when you’ve had one too many after a long day at work. . Seriously.

Today, GM unveiled a trio of electric “urban mobility vehicles,” built with help from the über-geeks at Segway, today in Shanghai. They’re called Electric Networked Vehicles (EN-V) and they’re designed for cities bursting at the seams with traffic.  The EN-V, pronounced “envy,” is GM’s latest effort to burnish its credentials as a future-focused, environmentally friendly company and shed its image as the bastion of the gas guzzling Hummer. The automaker is in the process of winding down Hummer after a deal collapsed to sell it to a Chinese heavy equipment maker. The helmet-shaped two-seater vehiclesunveiled today in Shanghai will be now showcased at world expo 2010 to be held in Shanghai starting May 1 through October 31. The pavilion will be shared by GM with its Chinese partner SAIC Motor Corp.  There will be three models on display in Shanghai:

• Red – Jiao, or Pride – Created by designers at GM Europe, the vehicle was influenced by bullet trains and Chinese opera masks.
• Black – Miao, or Magic –  Sculpted by designers at GM’s Advanced Design Studio in California and influenced by the consumer electronics industry’s sleek, masculine looks.
• Blue –  Xiao, or Laugh –  Created by GM Holden’s designers in Australia, who took a more lighthearted approach to the vehicle’s “gumball blue” paint and nautical design.

Shanghai is the perfect place to show the funky runabouts because China is the largest automobile market on the planet. A lot of thought is going into figuring out how all those people buying all those cars will get around. Sixty percent of the world’s population will live in urban areas by 2030 and there will be 2 billion cars on the road. Automakers are looking for ways to build cars that pollute less and take up less space.

Here are some interesting nuggets gleaned from the above sources:

• To that end, the two-seater concepts are about one-sixth the size of a conventional car.
• They’re made of lightweight materials like carbon fiber and weigh just 1,000 pounds apiece. GM says you can squeeze five of them into a single parking space.
• The 1.5 meter by 1.5 meter (about 5 foot by 5 foot) EN-V appears to build on GM’s earlier work with Segway Inc. in developing the Personal Urban Mobility and Accessibility (PUMA) concept vehicle. It will use the same types of battery cells as the Segway and the same battery supplier, Valence Technology Inc.
• The propulsion technique employed in the prototype was, however, introduced earlier by GM on its Hy-wire concept, introduced at the Paris Motor Show 2006.  The forward-thinking concepts build upon we saw last year in New York.
• Powered by Lithium-ion batteries and enriched with capabilities like dramatically smaller turning radius, the zero-emission vehicle is designed to travel at least 40 kilometers on a single charge.
• GM notes that the operating costs are one-fifth to one-sixth the price of a conventional motor vehicle and one-third to one-fourth the operating cost of a passenger car.
• The EN-Vs are super-connected. They’ll use GPS, distance-sensing technology and vehicle-to-vehicle communications to ease congestion and reduce the risk of accidents. GM says the vehicles can “sense” what’s around them and react quickly to obstacles or changes in driving conditions.
• There’s a motor in each wheel and a lithium-ion battery. It’s got “dynamic stabilization technology” so it can balance on two wheels, and GM says it can “literally turn on a dime.” It also says the vehicles have a range of 25 miles and a top speed of 25 mph, which it says is more than adequate for daily city driving.
• There will be an estimated 1.2 billion vehicles worldwide in 2030. That’s up from 844 million three years ago, according to the Motor & Equipment Manufacturers Association.
• People living in major cities will have a more difficult time commuting because in 20 years, 60 percent of the world’s population will live in urban areas, according to GM.
• In major cities, 30 percent of fuel is wasted while drivers hunt for parking spots, which adds to the cost associated with operating vehicles.

Click here for some interesting pictures and a detailed scoop.  If you are interested in reading more about the concept and have the time to enjoy some cool videos that demonstrate the technology and vision, click here.

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(Source: Wall Street Journal)

Today’s WSJ had a nice article about the Korean Automaker, explaining what makes it a successful car in the US.   Worth a read..

….The leading Korean car company’s name rhymes with the first day of the week, as in “Hyundai, Bloody Hyundai.” Which is pretty much what the company’s competitors are saying to themselves these days about Hyundai’s remarkable success over the past few years.

Last year Hyundai’s global sales bucked the industry’s decline and rose 5% to 4.2 million cars and trucks. Even in the U.S., the world’s most competitive car market, Hyundai’s sales rose 0.8% in the first eight months of this year, while Ford’s sales dropped 25% in the same period and GM’s plunged 35%. The major Japanese auto makers suffered declines between 25% and 30%.

Hyundai’s success stems from a sustained corporate effort at reinvention—the very same word General Motors is using to describe its mission these days. The Hyundai story should provide GM with a road map.

For years, Hyundai enjoyed a protected home market in Korea. This ensured its prosperity there, but the lack of competition meant the company didn’t develop the product quality or consistency to compete effectively in international markets. The result: Hyundai’s initial U.S. success in 1986 was undercut quickly by quality problems.

A decade ago, Hyundai acquired Kia, a victim of a mid-1990s shakeout in the Korean auto industry. It also established a new quality-control division charged with boosting reliability by emulating Toyota’s vaunted manufacturing methods. To allay lingering concerns over quality, Hyundai put warranties of 10 years or 100,000 miles on vehicles sold in America.

Their campaign began to show results, and the big breakthrough came in 2004, when Hyundai tied Honda for second place in the prestigious J.D. Power & Co. Initial Quality Survey. Also that year, Hyundai completed its first U.S. assembly plant, near Montgomery, Ala.

On the marketing front, last January the Hyundai division launched an innovative “Assurance Program” in the U.S.: Buyers return their cars if they lose their job within a year after their purchase. The offer generated buzz and resonated with the public, as Hyundai’s recent U.S. sales results demonstrate, even though buyers have turned in fewer than 50 cars under the program, which continues through year-end.

…..Both U.S. companies will have to make their marketing more relevant. Hyundai’s 10-year warranties and the “Assurance Program” succeeded because they addressed specific customer concerns—the former about the brand’s reliability, the latter about the economic environment…….

Click here to read the entire article.

(Source:  Mint.com via Autoblog)

Ever wondered what’s the state of the american auto industry? Over the past several months we came across several reports of the ailing American autopia, including those with horrific financial reports, Government bailout in billions, mergers and acquisitions that changed the auto industry landscape worldwide, the glorious performance of American automakers during the short lived Cash for Clunkers boost, etc.  Along the way, there were few attempts to depict the ever-changing amoebic state of the auto industry from a 30,000ft level, in an easy to understand format.  But so far (what little I have read), nothing comes close to what the brilliant folks at Mint.com have done.

Image Courtesy: Mint.com - Click the image to see an enlarged version

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, and we’d add that the above graph is tantamount to an engaging novella. It charts the massive brand exodus among the Detroit contingent, which looks like a quadruple reverse drawn up on the telestrator by John Madden. If that isn’t sobering enough, the text below shows just how much Detroit automakers have shrunk since 2006. Overall, attrition at Ford, GM and Chrysler accounts for an astonishing 144,600 workers in only three years. No wonder Michigan has the highest unemployment rate in the nation. The chart also gives a brief look at the up-and-coming members of the US auto industry, including Tesla, BYD, Tata and Smart, along with a quick blurb about the future of each of the automakers represented.

TranspotGooru Musings:    The only glitch that I spotted in the above graph is the introductory line on the blurb about Chinese Automaker BYD – “Recently bought by Warren Buffet….”  Actually, the company is publicly traded, and its major shareholder is Wang Chuan-Fu who started BYD (the letters are the initials of the company’s Chinese name).  Mr. Buffet’s Bekshire Hathaway has invested $232 Million  thus far and is consider to expand its investment further. Berkshire Hathaway first tried to buy 25% of BYD, but Wang turned down the offer. He wanted to be in business with Buffett – to enhance his brand and open doors in the U.S., he says – but he would not let go of more than 10% of BYD’s stock.

(Source: via Autoinsane)

Have you ever wondered while sitting inside your car at an automated car wash, what goes on behind the scenes to test and design a vehicle so that it doesn’t leak while your car is drenched with gallons of water?  Or have you pondered driving through that pouring rain about how to stop that annoying sound of rain drops hitting the sheetmetal roof and the windshield? Here is a glimpse into that world of designing and testing a car for its “water worthiness”, courtesy of our friends at Auto Insane.

Development on the Chevy Volt continues to progress at neck-break speed and GM has been sharing bits and pieces of the vehicle’s testing and engineering along the way. This new video caught our interest for the sheer fact that it combines the “electric” Volt undergoing leak testing in GM’s Universal Water Chamber.

(Source: Business Week & WSJ)

Ford Motor Co. is upping its production of fuel efficient vehicles in the third quarter to meet demand, the company, says for vehicles being purchased under the extended Cash for Clunkers program, as well as overall increased interest in new cars by consumers.

Cash for Clunkers is pushing August sales so far this month to levels not seen since before the global credit meltdown last Fall. In the first few days of August, Edmunds.com says the auto industry was cracking at a 16 million a year rate. That’s up from less than a 10 million selling rate in the first half of the year, and less than 12 million rate in July.

Ford increased its third-quarter production to 495,000 new vehicles, driven primarily by the demand for its Focus and Escape models. The company will build 6,000 more Focus vehicles during the quarter through overtime and Saturday shifts.

Ford senior sales analyst George Pipas says that it is too early to project the selling rate for August on the whole. “But I can tell you that retail sales we are seeing is eyepopping versus a year ago.”

Ford’s chief economist Ellen Hughes-Cromwick said the clunkers program could generate as much as 750,000 in new vehicle sales for the industry and is now on pace to run out of money within the next three weeks.

“This is what fiscal stimulus is suppose to do when you are in the financial situation we were in,” Hughes-Cromwick said.

Ford’s European executives said Wednesday they are holding formal talks with different governments to continue similar clunkers programs which are boosting sales in such countries as Germany. Russia, which is in a deep economic slump, also said Wednesday it too will start a scrappage offer.

Ford will build 10,000 more Focus sub-compact cars and Escape crossover SUVs than it had planned. In July, the first month of the government’s Clunkers program, the Focus was the top model purchased with the help of government rebates, while the Escape was the only utility vehicle to make the top ten.

Ford is increasing its North American production to a total of 495,000 units in the third quarter, an increase of 18% from the same quarter in 2008. Ford also plans to produce 570,000 vehicles in the fourth quarter, a 33% boost from the same quarter last year and 15% above planned third-quarter output.

The increased production will come after the Clunkers program has run out of money, but Ford says it will need it to replenish depleted inventories and deal with increasing demand for more fuel efficient vehicles as consumers anticipate higher gas prices with a recovering economy.

Click here to read the entire article.

(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.