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Updates from February, 2012

  • After getting behind the wheel of shiny new American cars at the 2012 Washington Auto Show, U.S. President Barack Obama took a veiled swipe at his most likely White House opponent Mitt Romney for having opposed the 2009 auto bailout.

    Related

    Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images

    U.S. President Barack Obama sits inside a Ford C-MAX Energi plug-in hybrid as he tours the 2012 Washington Auto Show.

    “The U.S. auto industry is back,” Obama told reporters, who watched the Democrat take the driver’s seat in a number of vehicles, including fuel-efficient and electric models, muscle cars, SUVs and trucks made by General Motors, Chrysler and Ford.

    “It’s good to remember the fact that there were some folks who were willing to let this industry die. Because of folks coming together we are now in a place where we can compete with any car company in the world,” he said.

    Larry Downing/Reuters

    U.S. President Barack Obama sits in a Chevrolet Corvette ZR-1 at the 2012 Washington Auto Show.

    GM regained its title as the world’s top-selling automaker in 2011, less than three years after the bailout that many Republicans, including Romney, decried as wasteful.

    It included US$50-billion to GM and more than US$12-billion to Chrysler in taxpayer-funded bailout and bankruptcy financing, including loans and working capital. U.S. taxpayers still own about a third of GM’s equity.

    Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images

    U.S. President Barack Obama, left, talks with Ed Welburn, vice-president of global design for General Motors, alongside a 2013 Chevrolet Malibu and a Chevrolet Silverado as he tours the 2012 Washington Auto Show.

    Romney, a former Massachusetts governor who grew up in the car hub Detroit, has said GM and Chrysler would have recovered without the injection of government funds.

    The New York Times opinion piece he wrote in 2008 titled “Let Detroit Go Bankrupt” has haunted him on the campaign trail and Obama, who considers the auto revival one of his main accomplishments, has alluded to it in the past.

    Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images

    U.S. President Barack Obama sits inside a Chevrolet Silverado pickup truck as he tours the 2012 Washington Auto Show.

    GM was the world’s largest automaker until 2008 when Toyota took its place. Obama is pushing exports as a way to help the struggling U.S. economy recover ahead of the November 6 election and said on Tuesday he was “very proud” of the sector’s resurgence.

    “The fact that GM is back, No. 1, I think shows the kind of turnaround that’s possible when it comes to American manufacturing,” Obama said.

    © Thomson Reuters 2012


    12:14 pm on February 1, 2012
     

  • As is rapidly becoming the norm, the L.A. Auto Show was being promoted as a green fest. Nestled among the mega-horsepower monsters were the usual hybrid/electric rides that are growing in number. As such, there were plenty of green rides and the opportunity to test many of them in a short drive. However, not all was hunky-dory — there was an underlying theme that spoke to the la-la land syndrome.

    The first was Coda Automotive’s electric car. The Coda EV’s hardware consists of a 36-kWh lithium ion phosphate battery, the required power electronics and an electric motor that produces 136 horsepower and 221 pound-feet of torque. The company claims the EV will drive up to 240 kilometres on a single charge. It also says it has the fastest charge rate on the market — two hours for an 80-km charge, four hours for a 160-km charge and, by extension, six hours for a full charge using a 220-volt/30-amp outlet. So far, so good. Where it all came unravelled was in the car’s styling outside and in. The EV looked, and was finished, like a car from a decade or more ago. The materials were marginal, as was the build quality — and the style was bland to the point where it made a meal of dry toast seem appealing.

    Finally, the representative suggested that the battery has a life expectancy of 20 years, which, she proclaimed with a straight face, is why the company warrants it for 10 years or 160,000 kilometres. Why peg the warranty at half the expected life? The answer was not forthcoming. The other hitch is cost — the Coda EV is priced at $39,900, which is all but the same as the Nissan Leaf and Chevrolet Volt.

    The second anomaly was the Green Car of the Year award, which is presented annually by the Green Car Journal. Along with the Journal’s editors, the jury includes Carl Pope, chairman of the Sierra Club,?Frances Beinecke, president of the Natural Resources Defense Council, Jean-Michel Cousteau, president of Ocean Futures Society, Matt Petersen, president of Global Green USA, Jay Leno, host of the Tonight Show and Post Driving columnist, and automotive legend Carroll Shelby. This year, this esteemed group picked the natural gas-powered Honda Civic over the Ford Focus Electric, Mitsubishi i-MiEV, Toyota Prius V hybrid and the Volkswagen Passat TDI clean diesel.

    Usually, I’m on side with the Journal’s choice. This year, I am not. Certainly, the natural gas-powered Civic is clean and more than green, and it is typically Honda in that the car’s execution is first rate. As such, it might be a worthy winner but for one key factor — this derivative of the Civic is offered in limited numbers and only in select areas of the United States. In all, it is retailed in 36 states through a network of 200 dealers. It is not offered in Canada, which also means that its availability is far from being North America-wide.

    To my mind, the Toyota Prius V or Volkswagen Passat TDI would have made far more worthy winners. Although neither is cleaner than the Civic, the cumulative effect of the emissions removed by recognizing something other than a niche vehicle would have had a significantly larger effect on the environment — one-third of all VWs sold in Canada are diesel-powered. That, given the TDI’s cleanliness and operational efficiency, is a significant number, one that puts a big dent in pollution while lightening the load on one’s wallet.

    On a brighter note, the Doking XD provided the answer to environmental and congestion concerns. Here’s a three-seat electric vehicle that is about the size of a Smart fortwo. It is a funky-looking piece with a pair of scissor-hinged doors and tail lights that form an X — the inner portion of the X then forms an arrow indicating the direction of a turn.

    Inside, the driver sits in the middle of the vehicle with the other two passengers flanking the central seat on the outboard sides of the cabin. Yes, it is tight, especially for the rear riders, but it proved to be more comfortable than the description implies.

    There are two Doking models available ­— the XD2 and XD4. The difference is found in the number of electric motors. The XD2 features a pair of motors that produces a combined output of 120 hp and 265 lb-ft of torque. The XD4 doubles the number of motors and the respective output — with 220 hp and 530 lb-ft of torque on tap. Doking claims the XD4 will accelerate to 100 kilometres an hour in 4.2 seconds. The motors get their power from a 33-kWh lithium ion phosphate battery that delivers a claimed range of 170 km when the average speed of the drive is 80 km/h. Given that real-world commutes are usually conducted at an average driving speed of about half that suggests that the actual driving distance will be more than 200 km. The Doking XD2 starts at $50,000 and is only built on an as- ordered basis.


    2:00 pm on November 24, 2011