New Nissan EV’s Canadian availability dependent on government incentives

If you haven’t heard, Nissan’s new Leaf electric vehicle is becoming a big deal. The five-passenger car will be the first fully electric car launched by a major automaker. It is designed to provide a 160 km range on a full charge. And it looks like people are ready to buy into its promise of zero emission driving.

The Japanese automaker said this week it is on track to book 25,000 U.S. Leaf orders by the end of the year for when it goes on sale in the U.S. in December.

In Canada, Nissan also announced this week that the Leaf would be going on sale in the “second half” of 2011.

Said Mark McDade, director of marketing with Nissan Canada in a release, “There has been a lot of interest from Canadians to learn more about electric vehicles and what the ownership experience would be like.” The automaker has launched a Web site if you are interested in more info.

All fine and dandy. But the question of how much the Leaf will cost in Canada, and how many will be available to consumers here is still a mystery.

In the U.S., the Leaf is priced at $32,780 U.S.—not including federal tax credits of $7,500. In fact, Californians will get additional EV credits to drop the price of a Leaf to $20,280.

Nissan Canada spokesperson, Didier Marsaud, told The Crank that Canadian Leaf pricing and availability will depend if Canadian governments—either at the federal or provincial level—step up with incentives. Less discounts will cause less demand. And less demand will force Nissan to allocate initial Leaf production to other markets that are making EV ownership more affordable.

In Quebec, you can get up to $8,000 off the purchase. But in Ontario, we’re still waiting to find out what—if any—EV purchase incentives will be available.

Last July, Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty announced rebates of between $4,000 and $10,000 for plug-in hybrid and battery EVs purchased after July 1, 2010. But since then, nothing further has been heard to indicate these rebates will become reality.

“At this point, we don’t know what they’re intention is,” said Marsaud.

So, a couple of questions. Are you ready to pay the full price for the Leaf and other EVs, if governments don’t come through with taxpayer subsidies?

Or are you quite happy to pay the full ticket for EVs like the Leaf to enjoy its ability to use no fossil fuels?

2010 Beijing: Fiat’s missing the boat in China

One Western automaker that was noticeably absent from this year’s Beijing auto show was Chrysler’s new caretakers over at Fiat. This is the third time Fiat has skipped a major Chinese auto show, after taking a pass from the Shanghai show last April and the Guangzhou show in November.

And while all the big Western players unveiled new models or announced new production or joint ventures expansion deals at this year's Beijing show, Fiat keeps missing the boat on the largest new car market in the world.

Of the almost 14 million new vehicles made in China last year, Fiat manufactured zero, zilch, none. The Italian automaker hasn’t made a car in China since it stopped production there nearly two years ago, after it withdrew from its joint venture with local Nanjing Automotive following  years of sluggish sales.

Funnily enough, observers there cited many of Fiat’s China-market problems resemble those that have plagued troubled Chrysler: a slow response to customer need and lack of competitive product. In the eight-year relationship with nanjing, it only offered three aging models, changed presidents four times and replaced its sales and marketing chief seven times.

Just to be clear: Fiat still sells cars in China. It exports the Linea, Grande Punto and Bravo. But the numbers are downright microscopic. In 2009, sales were down 62.5 per cent, to just 454 units.

Compare that to General Motors and its joint ventures. They sold a record over-1.8 million vehicles in China in 2009. Volkswagen, over-1.4 million.

On the surface Fiat hasn’t given up on China. Although construction of a new plant started in November, there’s been no work since. And Fiat is still negotiating range of issues including new model introductions and the internal management.

If the Italian automaker can’t get its act together in China—a market that can balance out weaker sales in Europe and the U.S.—how can Fiat survive as a truly global automaker?

 

2010 Beijing: Audi stretches its flagship

BEIJING – China may be the world’s largest new car market, but no one wants to really drive here. Especially in the larger cities, like here in Beijing (population 22,000,000) or Shanghai (19,210,000.)

The uninitiated are stunned by the telepathic confluence of cars, trucks, pedestrians, motorcycles, rickshaws and bicycles, where traffic lights and lane markings are mere suggestions on the jam-packed streets

True story: On the way to the show on Friday, I saw a car drive towards our bus the wrong way on a four-lane boulevard. Right by a police car. No one blinked.

So it’s no wonder that chauffeur-driven cars are the cat’s pajamas here. Status symbols, too. It seems like every executive car is a black Audi A6 stretch sedan of some vintage or another. That’s why almost every Western automaker shilling here in China here offers a lengthened version of a standard sedan.

Stretched versions of BMW (535Li), Mercedes-Benz (E Class) and Volkswagen (Phaeton) sedans, all made world debuts at this year’s Beijing show. But the most impressive may have been Audi’s new stretched version of its new-this-year flagship A8.

As I wrote in this week’s Autonews, the long-wheelbase A8L is about 150 mm longer than the regular-length A8 that debuted earlier this year, and 500 hp W12 will be the sole engine at launch.

Audi Canada’s Cort Nielsen says, expect the long wheelbase A8 to arrive in Canada before Christmas this year, about three months after the regular length version goes on sale at the end of the summer.

2010 Beijing: BMW jumps on oxymoronic four-door coupé bandwagon

BEIJING – In addition to a stretched wheelbase version of the 5 Series for the Chinese market, BMW debuted its Concept Gran Coupé, er, concept car here at Auto China 2010.

If you haven’t guessed already, it's a near-production version of Concept CS show car that was shown at the Shanghai show three years ago (designed by Canadian Karim Habib, who has moved on to rival Mercedes and recently penned the F800, a precursor to a C Class four-door coupé that look eerily similar to the CS) and allegedly a thinly-veiled version of the four-door 2012 BMW 6 Series.

If you think the Gran Coupé looks like a Mercedes CLS by BMW, get in line.

Just as Mercedes started this trend by giving the 2005 CLS the oxymoronic “four-coupé” label (hey, it has four-doors and a B-pillar, but it isn’t a coupé!) BMW has followed suit.

BMW’s product ideology seems to be changing as well.

From a 2008 article in U.S. Automobile magazine, then BMW head pen, Chris Bangle, vehemently denied calling the CS concept a “four-door coupé”.

"With this car, we wanted to shy away from the idea that anything that is sporty automatically has to be labeled a coupe. That's not the case. Coupes are, by the nature of the word, a derivative of something. You take something and you coupe-ify it. The word means 'cut' in French. That's why, if you look back to the 1960s, a lot of the GTs were never called a coupe—they were called a GT. Because in doing them, you didn't take a big car and make it smaller."

But in the Concept Gran Coupé release, BMW has no problem going there: ”The aspiration of the BMW brand to build four-door high-performance coupés with the sportiest proportions and the most elegant design.”

The Concept Gran Coupé is also another indication that the days of controversially-styled BMWs seem to be over. It’s back to "the same sausage, different links" approach that was the BMW norm before departed Bangle started shaking things up in the late 1990s. As you can see, the new 6—which I can only assume will continue to be sold as a “real” two-door coupé and convertible—is yet another conservatively-styled BMW, losing its distinctive looks that date back to 199’s Z9 Gran Turismo.

Do you think a four-door 6 makes sense for BMW?

Is there a big enough market for a Mercedes (CLS), Audi (A7) and BMW “four-door coupes”?

Or is this yet another example of a German automaker trying to fill every single product niche known to man?

[Sources: BMW, Automobile]

2010 Beijing: China’s the land where old Saabs retire

BEIJING – It’s the first of two media days here at Auto China 2010. And while trolling the massive halls of the China International Exhibition Center, about an hour’s drive outside of China’s capital city, I stumbled across the ghosts of Saab past.

As most Saabistas already know, China's Beijing Automotive Industry Holding Co. (BAIC) bought the old Saab 9-3 and 9-5 tooling for about $200 million U.S. late last year from General Motors, after a it couldn’t to reach a deal to buy Saab outright from the U.S. automaker. Eventually, GM would sell Saab to Dutch super car maker Spyker.

Now, it’s not an uncommon story for Chinese automakers to buy older tooling from out-of-date Western models and then do a bit of a styling makeover to at least give the pretense that the car isn’t past its due date.

But if you thought the last 9-5 facelift left something to be desired, check out the rhinoplasty BAIC’s pens have conjured up, above, now known as the C71. I guess BAIC is counting on its Sino customers not to care that the new/old 9-5/C71 will run on 11-year-old hardware.

The old Saab story, though, doesn’t end there. BAIC has big plans for the stale 9-5 and 9-3. It’s going to build a Chinese factory to make 300,000 examples a year of these old war horses.

As Spyker moves forward with the plans to introduce  the new 9-5, 9-3X and eventual 9-4X crossover to Europe and U.S., there’s still no official word if Saab will return to Canada.

But now, at least, if you’re still hankering for a new/old 9-5, a trip to China looks like your only option.

Bailout Blues: Despite headlines, Government Motors still has our money

Interpreted one way, General Motors announcement this week that the U.S. automaker has paid back $8.1 billion in government loans a full five years ahead of schedule could be considered “good” news.

Especially considering where GM was less than a year ago.

But let’s get one thing straight: GM—and Chrysler—still has a lot of Canadian and U.S. tax-payer money tied up in equity shares.

For those keeping score at home, GM received about $61.5 billion in loans from both the U.S. Treasury and Export Development Canada, with the majority of those funds converted into GM stock. (As of now, the U.S. Treasury holds a 60.8 per cent stake in the common stock of GM, Export Development Canada 11.7 per cent, the UAW health care trust 17.5 per cent and old GM, now known as Motors Liquidation, holds 10 per cent.)

Now, until GM can launch an initial public offering (IPO) that, in theory at least, would allow the governments to sell off their stakes in the automaker, tax-payers on both sides of the border should hold off on popping the champagne for awhile.

And remember, GM keeps on losing (our) money.

GM reported a net loss of $4.3 billion for the period from its emergence from bankruptcy in July through the end of 2009, including a $3.4 billion net loss for the fourth quarter.

So…do you think GM has done a good job getting back on its feet?

Do you think the investors will reward GM with a healthy enough stock price (when or if its IPO happens) so the company can pay ALL the tax-payer money back?

 

The Trouble with Toyotas: Automaker pays the fine, but denies committing the crime

Let’s get something straight: The $16.4-million (U.S.) fine—the largest in history since the $1 M fine Government Motors paid in 2004—Japan’s Toyota will have to pay to the U.S. Transportation Department is barely coffee money.

The automaker has assets of over $23 billion. And despite months of bad PR associated with the massive recall crisis and questions of poor quality control, some estimate this penalty will cost Toyota a mere $2 for very vehicle it old around the world last year.

But Toyota wants you to get something straight as well: It’s paying the fine, but isn’t admitting to doing the crime.

“They did try to hide it—that’s what we accused them of—and they agreed to that,” said U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood.

Despite LaHood saying Toyota “put consumers at risk” by waiting until this January to issue recalls on the 2.3 million cars that had defective accelerator pedals the automaker knew about last September (thus violating a U.S. law that requires automakers to notify the government of such problems in five business days; Canada’s toothless legislators have no such law in place) the automaker is admitting no guilt.

It’s officially saying it agreed to the penalty “to avoid a protracted dispute and possible litigation” but is not admitting that it broke any law.

Okay then. Toyota didn’t do the crime. Then why is it paying the fine?

Over to you: Do you think Toyota has really learned a lesson here?

How do you feel about buying a car from a company that’s happy to write cheques to keep legislators happy, but not admit when its been caught doing wrong?

 

The Trouble with Toyotas: Is the Japanese automaker finally getting it right?

Another week, another rash of bad news for Toyota, eh?

At the beginning of the week, it was suffering from one of America’s most well respected consumers’ group warning not to buy one of the company’s Lexus 2010 GX 460 SUVs because of a tendency to get a little loose in the corners. Okay if you’re Burt Reynolds, circa 1978. Not so good if you’re avoiding an accident on the way to your kids’ violin lessons.

Then, to end the week, a trio of recalls, involving the Toyota Sienna minivan, Highlander crossover and Tundra pickup

Copywriters may be working overtime this weekend on a replacement for Lexus’s longstanding Relentless Pursuit of Perfection tagline. And really, does another round of recalls change your view of Toyota after the past few months?

But even if you take the most optimistic view that, hey, making a car is complicated, and well, you know, “stuff” happens, it’s how Toyota pointed fingers and stalled in its communicating its problems in the past that critics still take issue with. Toyota’s handling of the current Consumers Reports/GX 460 incident, though, bears some fresh fruit. Toyota may finally be getting it right on the PR front.

Instead of finger-pointing or dismissing CR’s test results, Toyota took “the situation with the 2010 GX 460 very seriously,” asked dealers to temporarily suspend delivery of the SUV and promised loaner cars for the 149 Canadians who bought a ’10 GX and wanted to park them at their dealer until Toyota fixes the problem.

While instead of fighting it, Toyota Canada’s recall affecting about 270,000 first and second-generation 2WD Toyota Sienna vehicles because of excessive corrosion of the spare tire carrier assembly was voluntary.

While this past week’s actions by Toyota are really all that consumers can ask for—and perhaps for NONE of these issues to happen in the first place—this appears like an improvement compared to how Toyota has worked in the past.

Small steps, indeed.

Are you willing to forgive Toyota for its quality and engineering mistakes if at least the automaker is honest about it?

Or is it too late to clear up the Japanese’s newly tarnished reputation?

UPDATED: Toyota Canada responds to "Don't Buy: Safety Risk" on 2010 Lexus GX 460

During the ongoing Toyota recall crisis, it was important for all involved—observers and customers alike—to make sure it was communicated if there were any distinctions between the U.S. and Canadian models being affected. But with the most recent bad news emanating from the Japanese automaker, the impact seems identical on both sides of the border.

Toyota Canada's response to U.S. magazine Consumer Reports issuing a "Don't Buy: Safety Risk" warning after track testing a new 2010 Lexus GX 460 SUV mirror's its U.S. counterparts' response.

"We’re concerned with the results of Consumer Reports testing on the Lexus GX 460 and their suggested buyer recommendation.  Our engineers conduct similar tests and we feel these procedures provide a good indication of how our vehicles will perform in the real-world; however, we will try to duplicate the Consumer Reports’ test to determine if appropriate steps need to be taken," replied Toyota Canada spokeman, David Gollom, via email.

Gollom also wanted to remind Canadians the 2010 GX 460 "meets or exceeds all Canadian and US federal government testing requirements."

"We take the Consumer Reports’ test results seriously and appreciate Consumer Reports bringing it to our attention," he added.

The main difference this time is that all GXs sold in Canada and the U.S. are made in the same Japanese Toyota factory as the 4Runner and FJ Cruiser. While many of the Toyotas involved in the recent massive recalls were made on both sides of the border.

[Source: Toyota Canada]

The Trouble with Toyotas: U.S. magazine issues "Don't Buy: Safety Risk" on 2010 Lexus GX 460

For the first time since the 2001 Mitsubishi Montero Limited SUV, the U.S. based Consumer Reports magazine has deemed a new car a “safety risk”: the 2010 GX 460.

The Lexus SUV's electronic stability control program failed to keep the vehicle in line during a severe handling maneuver, allowing it to slide almost completely sideways, said Douglas Love, CR spokesman.

“In real-world driving, that situation could lead to a rollover accident, which could cause serious injury or death.”

The magazine said it is unaware of reports of accidents resulting from what it found in the completely redesigned and re-engineered for 2010 $68,500 ($52,000 U.S.) GX 460 tests.

CR said the problem did not occur on older GX models, and it was also absent during tests of its platform-mate 2010 Toyota 4Runner SUV. Plus the magazine admitted it is unaware of reports of accidents resulting from what it found in the GX tests.

Of course, how Toyota officials react to this latest bad news is key.

So far in the U.S., Lexus spokesman Bill Kwong has responded by saying, “We're concerned with the results of Consumer Reports testing on the Lexus GX 460 and their suggested buyer recommendation,” and that Toyota will try to duplicate the test results.

Here in Canada, Toyota Canada’s David Gollom told The Crank this morning that they will have a response on how the CR report will affect Canadian customers later on today. Stay tuned.

In the meantime—and after Toyota's recall of more than 8 million vehicles worldwide for defects linked to unintended acceleration and brakes, and a slap on the wrist from the U.S. Transportation Department that assessed a $16.4 million (U.S.) penalty against Toyota for delaying its recall of sticky accelerator pedals, and with the possibility of more fines to come—how does this latest bad news from Japan’s largest automaker affect your opinion of Toyota, if at all?

[Source: Automotive News, Toyota Canada, CNN]