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Back Seat Driver: Clean diesel blagger exposed

It’s always interesting to talk to someone who knows what they are talking about.

Sobering, too.

For some time, I have been singing the praises of clean diesel and have regarded this year as a breakthrough one with the introduction of a number of mostly German models.

Then I had a chat with Allen Schaeffer, executive director of the Diesel Technology Forum, and while he is bullish on clean diesel, he is not starry-eyed about it.

As he pointed out, there is already a sizeable market in diesels in this country. Indeed, while hybrids have the ‘green’ spotlight over here, sales of diesels totaled about 480,000 vehicles last year compared to 350,000 hybrids.

“Diesels have been out there, outselling hybrids,” he said in telephone interview from Michigan on Friday. “But there have been few new (diesel) choices in the salesroom.”

That will change.

“This year, twelve auto manufacturers will make at least thirteen firm diesel model introductions and announcements, along with unveiling four future diesel concepts, in half a dozen market segments,” he wrote in his blog from the Detroit Auto Show, where nearly twenty diesel vehicles were on display.

But he said that while clean diesel might get more publicity this year, there are still substantial issues, not least of which is price.

“The price of diesel today works against consumer interest,” he said, noting it was 40 cents to 50 cents a gallon more than gasoline.

At the same time, he said diesel offers distinct advantages over hybrid technology, such as not having to worry about batteries, providing towing capacity and higher resale values.

As far as “a breakthrough” is concerned, he said there were two ways to look at it – sales and awareness. He said he thought diesel was on the crest of a substantial increase in awareness, but whether that translates into sales in the showroom remains to be seen.

“Certainly we believe that once a consumer gets behind the wheel of a new diesel, (he or she) is going to be sold on it,” he said.

And as far as diesel hybrids are concerned, he was wary. I confess that I have long thought it is an ideal combination of technologies.

Well, it may be, but as Schaeffer pointed out, it represents the combining of two premium – read expensive – power trains.

“It’s the great calculus for auto companies,” he said. “Anything is possible, they know how to make these technologies work, but what is the consumer willing to pay? What can the consumer afford?

As I said, by the end of the conversation I felt like a bit of a blagger – or someone who has been expounding on something I know less about than I thought I did!

- Peter C.T. Elsworth

Posted by Peter C. T. Elsworth  at 3:28 PM to commentary | Permalink | Comments 0

Bob Tasca III moves up to Nitro Funny Cars

Bob Tasca III is moving up.

In a deal announced Friday, Ford Customer Service Distribution’s Motorcraft brand will be sponsoring Tasca’s Shelby Mustang Nitro Funny Car for the 2008 National Hot Rod Association season.

Motorcraft and Ford’s Quick Lane Tire & Auto Centers will also have a major interactive presence at 14 NHRA events.

Tasca is Rhode Island’s most successful race car driver and a vice president of the Tasca dealerships. He is moving up to the nitro-powered Funny Car after two seasons driving Alcohol Funny Cars, where he currently holds the record for the fastest quarter mile – 5.541 seconds at 263 mph.

He will be running for Rookie-of-the-Year in the Nitro Funny Car and will make his first appearance in the new car during pre-season testing at Firebird Raceway in Phoenix on Jan. 24. The season opens with the NHRA Winternationals at Pomona, Calif., on Feb. 7-to-10.

“I’m just really excited about taking a step up and racing a Nitro Funny Car in the 2008 season with Motorcraft and Quick Lane,” he said in a prepared statement.

“It’s going to be an exciting year for us and certainly we have big goals,” he said in a prepared Q&A. “We’re building a program, certainly we’re new, but my crew chiefs aren’t new, they are very experienced and veterans in the top fuel ranks.”

“The Fuel car [Nitro car] from 300 feet on is a much faster and much more aggressive vehicle to drive than an Alcohol car,” Tasca said. “It’s just accelerating so much harder from that point forward. From zero to 60 feet, they’re comparable. … Then from 300 feet to the finish line, there’s a huge difference. The car at half-track, the Fuel car is going faster than the Alcohol car is going at the finish line. There is a significant difference from that respect.”

Posted by Peter C. T. Elsworth  at 1:08 PM to Racing | Permalink | Comments 0

GM looks to slim down, save billions

General Motors will offer retirement incentives to 46,000 of its hourly workers next month as part of a plan to cut labor costs, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Rick Wagoner said during a presentation to analysts Thursday afternoon, according to the Detroit Free Press.

The analysts were encouraged by the move to shore up GM's sinking stock price and said they expected up to 20,000 workers to accept offers to leave.

That would allow the company to hire workers in nonassembly jobs at much lower cost under the UAW contract completed last fall, saving the company billions.

It wasn't known Thursday exactly who will be eligible or what will be offered. GM has 73,000 hourly workers.

Posted by Peter C. T. Elsworth  at 10:00 AM to GM , Unions | Permalink | Comments 0

Oil Prices Back Above $90 a Barrel

Oil prices rose Friday following the lead of higher stock prices in Europe as traders bought crude contracts ahead of the holiday weekend in the United States, according to the Associated Press.

Light, sweet crude for February delivery was up 68 cents to $90.81 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange by midafternoon in Europe. It had fallen below $90 in earlier trading on worries that weakness in the U.S. economy could curb demand for oil.

Posted by Peter C. T. Elsworth  at 9:55 AM to Crude oil market | Permalink | Comments 0

Ford, Toyota, GM get charged up for hybrid plug-ins

Major automakers say they can have plug-in hybrid vehicles in showrooms within five years, offering big increases in fuel economy for what they hope will be modest price premiums, according to USA Today.

Based on results from prototypes, plug-ins appear capable of 50 to 100 miles per gallon on short trips when the vehicles operate mainly on their increased battery power. "If we can't decide within five years whether we can do this, something is wrong," says Greg Frenette, chief engineer for plug-in and fuel-cell vehicles at Ford.

Posted by Peter C. T. Elsworth  at 9:53 AM to Alternative fuels | Permalink | Comments 0

Audi's Super Bowl ad oozes drama

NEW YORK — Audi is betting it can rev up its image with a parody of rivals in a Super Bowl commercial backed by a Hollywood-size production budget, according to USA Today.

The Volkswagen-owned carmaker is looking to crown itself as the new luxury auto brand. Audi's first Big Game ad in 20 years features its new $109,000 R8 speed machine. It uses a send-up of an iconic scene from The Godfather to poke fun, without naming names, at luxury car rivals.

Posted by Peter C. T. Elsworth  at 9:51 AM to Audi | Permalink | Comments 0

2008 sure to be 'a crummy year' for automakers

DETROIT — In a year when much seems uncertain, including whether the USA will have a recession, there's no question that 2008 is going to be tough for the auto industry, according to USA Today.

It's going to be tough on sales, which could hit a decade low. It'll be tough on production, which hasn't been this weak since the recession of 1992.

Posted by Peter C. T. Elsworth  at 9:49 AM to Auto industry | Permalink | Comments 0

Providence considers Ferris-wheel type parking garage

PROVIDENCE — A Florida company is proposing what may soon be the strangest part of the Providence skyline: a pair of 13-story, translucent parking towers that operate like Ferris wheels, loading cars at the ground level and then moving them high up into the structure for storage, according to the Providence Journal.

The Weybosset Street project would be the first public parking garage of its kind in the continental United States, said Douglas Dodd, chief operations officer of Mechanical Vertical Parking Inc., the West Palm Beach, Fla., company backing the project.

“We picked Providence to be the introduction of this to the United States,” Dodd said.

Posted by Peter C. T. Elsworth  at 12:24 PM to Design | Permalink | Comments 0

Toyota Will Offer a Plug-In Hybrid Vehicle by 2010

The chief executive of the Toyota Motor said Monday that he is pushing his company’s engineers to develop a plug-in hybrid-electric vehicle with a lithium-ion battery before 2010, raising the stakes in a race with General Motors, according to the New York Times.

The comments by Katsuaki Watanabe came at a briefing here on the sidelines of the Detroit auto show, which opened to the press on Sunday.

Mr. Watanabe said he welcomed a competition with G.M., which plans to introduce its own lithium-ion hybrid, the Chevrolet Volt, around 2010.

Posted by Peter C. T. Elsworth  at 12:17 PM to Toyota | Permalink | Comments 0

Interest Fades in the Once-Mighty V-8

DETROIT — The V-8 engine, long a symbol of power for American car companies, is sputtering, according to the New York Times.

At the Detroit auto show this week, Detroit’s Big Three are promoting smaller engines and alternative-fuel vehicles, eliminating the V-8 from many models and relegating it to niche status.

Ford Motor, which first popularized the V-8 in the 1930s, will start using a turbocharged 6-cylinder in many vehicles, including the next generation of its Explorer sport utility vehicle. The company has named its new engine technology EcoBoost, a nod to consumers’ concern for the environment.

Posted by Peter C. T. Elsworth  at 12:09 PM to Design | Permalink | Comments 0

Concepts at Detroit Auto Show

Check out these concepts at the Detroit Auto Show, courtesy of USA Today.

Posted by Peter C. T. Elsworth  at 11:56 AM to Shows | Permalink | Comments 0

Tiny Tata has all of Detroit talking

DETROIT — The most talked-about car at the Detroit auto show is a car that isn't here, and isn't intended to ever be sold in U.S. showrooms, according to USA Today.

It's the Tata Nano, a car that will cost just $2,500 and was unveiled last week at a car show in India. The bare-bones vehicle is meant not as an aspirational car but as a safer replacement for mopeds, which can even be seen carrying small families around neighborhoods in India.

Posted by Peter C. T. Elsworth  at 11:54 AM to India | Permalink | Comments 0

Toyota pursues alternative fuel-saving technology

DETROIT — Toyota Motor, known for gasoline-electric hybrids such as its Prius, says it's branching into other alternative power plants to stay ahead of rivals, according to USA Today.

It will offer low-pollution diesel engines on the Tundra pickup and Sequoia SUV, while doing more research on ethanol, President Katsuaki Watanabe said.

Posted by Peter C. T. Elsworth  at 11:52 AM to Alternative fuels , Toyota | Permalink | Comments 0

Car engines squeeze power out of every drop of gas

DETROIT — Looking to cut gasoline consumption by up to 20%, automakers aren't just rolling out pricey diesel-powered models or gas-electric hybrids, according to USA Today.

General Motors, Ford and others are launching big initiatives to get more mileage out of what they sell now: tweaking internal-combustion engines with turbochargers and a technology called gasoline direct injection. The goal is to make fuel-stingy small engines perform like big ones.

Posted by Peter C. T. Elsworth  at 11:50 AM to Fuel economy | Permalink | Comments 0

Chinese automakers make presence felt, target U.S. market

DETROIT — Hundreds of media representatives crowded around two Chinese vehicles at the North American International Auto Show Tuesday, somewhat confused and befuddled about what they were looking at, according to USA Today.

Posted by Peter C. T. Elsworth  at 11:48 AM to China , Shows | Permalink | Comments 0

Oil Gyrates on Bernanke Comments

NEW YORK -- Oil futures fluctuated Thursday after Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said he expects slower growth in 2008, but no recession, according to the Associated Press.

Bernanke's comments added to the negative economic sentiment that has been the market's dominant driver in recent days, pushing prices down nearly $10 from their record over $100 a barrel two weeks ago. Despite Bernanke's comments, many investors fear a recession is imminent.

Posted by Peter C. T. Elsworth  at 11:45 AM to Crude oil market | Permalink | Comments 0