Shock! Ford beats the Japanese at there own game

"The first thing you need to know about the 2010 Ford Fusion hybrid is that it’s the best mid-size hybrid sedan on the market. Yes, that’s right: it wipes the floor with the Toyota Camry hybrid." -Car and Driver

Today, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) rated the new 2010 Ford Fusion Hybrid at 41 MPG in the city and 36 MPG on the highway. That's 8 MPG better in the city than the Camry and 2 MPG better on the highway, and that makes the new Fusion the most fuel efficient midsized sedan on the market. In addition the standard gas powered 4 cylinder Fusion is also the most fuel efficient midsized sedan you can buy without a battery. That's right, a Ford. What is interesting is that over the past year Ford has carried out a kind of assault on the auto industry. Ford now has the fuel economy title in 5 major categories. Lets begin with the SUV category, Ford's Escape hybrid holds the crown for most efficient SUV on the planet, along with its gas powered version tying with Honda CR-V 4 cylinder for most efficient. Along with the Flex, Focus and Ranger tying or besting the best in there respective class' this gives Ford one powerful line up. So today's announcement comes as no surprise. It sure looks like Ford is turning the ship in the right direction.

In 2009 The Domestic Autos Will Look Verry Different

The new year has given me the time to reflect on the future of the Big 3. First I will start with Chrysler, because it seems to be in the most difficult position. As many of you are aware Chrysler was sold by Mercedes Benz to private equity group Cerberus. Cerburus bought Chrysler in order to get Chrysler financial. The problem with this is that Cerberus is NOT interested in floating Chrysler, the perfect example of this is when at the Congressional hearing's in November when a member of congress asked Nardelli as to why should the government bailout a company when the parent company has no in tension of using it's multi billion dollar reserve to stabilize the car company. Now, the other problem is that MB still owns 20% of Chrysler making any sale of the car company very difficult. We also know, through Cerberus actions, by way of gmac(GM's Financial Institution). What transpired was absolutely observed. Cerberus, through GM's financial trubble bough 51% of gmac from GM. GM sold it's sare in order to rasie money. When Cerberus decided it wanted to separate itself form Chrysler it tried to merge it with GM. After GM said no, Cerberus locked down gmac virtually eliminating GM's ability to sell cars. By raising the credit score to an unobtainable level (750 score to by any car). This eliminates about half of GM customers, basically forcing GM to take on Chrysler or have almost no loans available for customers. This is why I feel that once Cerberus can get rid of Chrysler it will to anyone, including even the Chinese.
Second is GM, they are in a different position entirely. They have received a bridge loan along a hand full of limitations in witch ad hear to. GM has untill March to complete an entire company transformation. This will not happen GM doesn't have enough time. So lets look forward to March. If GM does not met turn around criteria it will have to file for chapter 11. In my opinion this will lead directly to chapter 7 (asset liquidation) which will be the end of GM.
Lastly FORD. Ford is in an envy able position because there turn around plan is working. Ford has said the money is there until 2011, there products are the best in the word (according to J.D. Powers & Associates, AutoPacific)and the business plan for the future works. According to Ford they are fine as long as GM and/or Chrysler don't fail. The problems are with the suppliers as about 80% of them supply of more then one of them, the repercussion of one supplier falling hurts all of the auto makers. If/when GM collapses this could spell doom for Ford. However I don't think it will, read my fallow up column and you will understand why.
So I hope not but predict buy 2010 all three will be gone or in the proses of bankruptcy. It will be a sad day when this happens, it will hinder are ability to remain a world super power, without any real manufacturing we will be in real trouble. During world war 2 president Truman called Detroit the arsenal of democracy,when America needed Detroit was there and when Detroit needs us Congress was SILENT. I say through the bastards OUT!!! Lets save Detroit, please buy quality buy reliability Buy AMERICAN.

GMAC a community bank?

GMAC – and ergo General Motors – just got another Christmas present: the Federal Reserve has granted GMAC bank holding status. GMAC has billions of dollars of bonds coming due over the next 12 months, but doesn't have the liquidity to cover the obligations. As of last week, the financing company was in the midst of a bond buyback effortin order to raise enough money to qualify for bank holding status. Now that it's been granted, GMAC can tap the Troubled Asset Relief Fund intended for financial institutions, pay its debts and (probably) avoid bankruptcy. 

It isn't clear, however, whether or not GMAC actually raised enough money through the bond buyback. The Fed said "emergency conditions" justified its actions, which makes us think the Fed just said "Here, take it." Looked at from a dealer perspective, it makes sense: if GMAC had gone under, one dealer estimated that it would have taken 30-40% of GM dealers down with it, and that could imperil GM itself. It wouldn't make much sense to let that happen when the government just loaned GM a bunch of money to stay in business.

And while GM is still a long, long way from getting the kind of money that any number of banks have, it's still beginning to add up. As a result of the new status, both GM and Cerberus are required to lower their stakes in GMAC. Cerberus has been told to lower its share to 33%, down from 51%; GM has said it will go below 10%. As for Cerberus' other headache, Chrysler Financial, it has said that if dealers don't stop making a run on its funds, it will cease financing for dealer inventories.

Good things are happing at the Blue Oval

Though Ford has yet to admit it, all of us know what is coming to Detroit. The 2010 Ford Taurus that's been spied and rendered is on its way, and although Ford's design director, J Mays, won't go on the record as saying that the new Taurus will be unveiled in Motor City, he did say the automaker will show off the next iteration of its global styling theme this January. As of now Ford uses two very different design themes, one in Europe one here. The style used in North and South America is called "Bold", basically it is boxy with straight lines and a three bar grill of some form. In Europe and Asia the use what is called "Kinetic" this is more sharp edged sweeping lines and large mouth grills. Ford is now beginning to combined the as they move to one philosophy. Enter the new Taurus.

Death To Hybrid's "UPDATE"

Am I nut's? Well maybe a little but I hope after reading this you might understand why. A lot of people I know ask me why I dislike the Prius so much. The Toyota Prius which has become the flagship car for our entire generation, those in our society so environmentally conscious that they are willing to spend a premium to show the world how much they care. Unfortunately for them, their ultimate ‘green car’ is the source of some of the worst evnvironmental pollution in the world, it takes more total energy to produce each Prius than to produce than a Ford Expedition. Before I delve into the seedy underworld of hybrids, I must must add that one of the things that get overlooked in the war on CO2 is the fact that emissions are far more important than whether your car is hybrid or not. Now you must first understand how a hybrid works. For this, I will use the most popular hybrid on the market, the Toyota Prius. The Prius is powered by not one, but two engines: a standard 76 horsepower, 1.5-liter gas engine found in most cars today and a battery- powered engine that deals out 67 horsepower and a whooping 295ft/lbs of torque, below 2000 revolutions per minute. Essentially, the Toyota Synergy Drive system, as it is so called, propels the car from a dead stop to up to 30mph. This is where the largest percent of gas is consumed. As any physics major can tell you, it takes more energy to get an object moving than to keep it moving. The battery is recharged through the braking system, as well as when the gasoline engine takes over anywhere north of 30mph. It seems like a great energy efficient and environmentally sound car, right? You would be right if you went by the old government EPA estimates, which netted the Prius an incredible 60 miles per gallon in the city and 51 miles per gallon on the highway. Unfortunately for Toyota, the government realized how unrealistic their EPA tests were, which consisted of highway speeds limited to 55mph and acceleration of only 3.3 mph per second. The new tests which affect all 2008 models give a much more realistic rating with highway speeds of 80mph and acceleration of 8mph per second. This has dropped the Prius’s EPA down by 25 percent to an average of 45mpg. This now puts the Toyota within spitting distance of cars like the Ford Focus, which costs less then half what the Prius costs. However, if that was the only issue with the Prius, I wouldn’t be writing this article. It gets much worse. Building a Toyota Prius causes more environmental damage than an Expedition that is on the road for three times longer than a Prius. As already noted, the Prius is partly driven by a battery which contains nickel. The nickel is mined and smelted at a plant in Sudbury, Ontario. This plant has caused so much environmental damage to the surrounding environment that NASA has used the ‘dead zone’ around the plant to test moon rovers. The area around the plant is devoid of any life for miles.The plant is the source of all the nickel found in a Prius’ battery and Toyota purchases 1,000 tons annually. Dubbed the Superstack, the plague-factory has spread sulfur dioxide across northern Ontario, becoming every environmentalist’s nightmare.“The acid rain around Sudbury was so bad it destroyed all the plants and the soil slid down off the hillside,” said Canadian Greenpeace energy-coordinator David Martin during an interview with Mail, a British-based newspaper. All of this would be bad enough in and of itself; however, the journey to make a hybrid doesn’t end there. The nickel produced by this disastrous plant is shipped via massive container ship to the largest nickel refinery in Europe. From there, the nickel hops over to China to produce ‘nickel foam.’ From there, it goes to Japan. Finally, the completed batteries are shipped to the United States, finalizing the around-the-world trip required to produce a single Prius battery. Are these not sounding less and less like environmentally sound cars and more like a farce? Wait, I haven’t even got to the best part yet.When you pool together all the combined energy it takes to drive and build a Toyota Prius, the flagship car of energy fanatics, it takes almost 50 percent more energy than a Expedition - the Prius’s arch nemesis.Through a study by CNW Marketing called “Dust to Dust,” the total combined energy is taken from all the electrical, fuel, transportation, materials (metal, plastic, etc) and hundreds of other factors over the expected lifetime of a vehicle. The Prius costs an average of $3.25 per mile driven over a lifetime of 100,000 miles - the expected lifespan of the Hybrid. The Expedition, on the other hand, costs a more fiscal $1.95 per mile to put on the road over an expected lifetime of 300,000 miles. That means that an Expedition will last three times longer than a Prius and use less combined energy doing it. So, if you are really an environmentalist - ditch the Prius. There are also several cars from both Ford and GM available now with comparable fuel economy. I like the idea that some people have that fuel efficiency is important, to keep us from buying more oil from country's THAT HATE US! Dont get me wrong I like Hybrids beacuse they are more fuel efficent. However if you buy one to be enviromently responsibe you are causing more problems then you solve. But for now I believe that these are the best solutions, untill further research is done on the alternative fuels front. Drilling off our coast seems like the best solution, until we can come up with a Hydrogen car that works (GM and Ford already have them) and the government gets a hydrogen network in this country, that is the best solution.