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newVideoPlayer("WertFlashpointDetroit_gawker.flv", 475, 376,""); I had the opportunity to be a guest on WDIV's Flashpoint yesterday. The show is the Detroit NBC affiliate's micro-sized version of Meet The Press . As you'd expect from a Meet The Press Detroit version -- it was all about the auto industry, and this week the topic of the 2008 Detroit Auto Show was front and center. While I got a chance to talk about the enthralling topics of fuel economy (via GM's garbage-laden ethanol announcement on day one of the show), the marketing hype that is the hybrid and of course, GM and jobs. How exciting. I didn't get a chance to talk about the one thing I really wanted to talk about -- the issue of "buzz." See, the Detroit Auto Show is different from most auto shows. If this show in particular were only about trying to sell cars to people in Metro Detroit, it'd be a non-event -- just one in an endless string of regional auto show non-events...
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As our time at the 2008 Detroit Auto Show draws to a close we're ready to crank up our powerful evaluation device, based on technology available to any third grader, to grade each of the automakers ( and major quasi-subsidiaries) on the most important metric of this, the Super Bowl of auto shows, buzz. Prepare for As, Bs, Cs, Ds, pluses and minuses--and yes, an F! The grades are subjective, but then again, so is buzz. Remember carmakers -- this all goes down on your permanent record and yes, Chrysler -- before your hands go up -- your parents will be receiving a copy. The pain and the pleasure, after the jump. Audi A- Most of us loved the breakfast sausages served in the Audi cafe each morning of the show. They were as delicious as the Audi R8 V12 TDI -- which just staring at gave us more enjoyment than almost anything else at the show. The two-liter Audi TTS goodness was nothing to sneeze at either. But Wert kind of wishes the sausages had been beef. BMW B Flat, but competent. The...
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"Holy shit, my boss just drove into the auto show" When I went down to the booth of BYD Auto, a Chinese car maker trying to break into the US market, all I hoped for was a few honest answers to my questions. The motto of the company is "Build Your Dream," but that last thing I'd dream was that BYD's Chairman would drive me through someone else's press conference during an illegal, surreal and American-media first test drive around the floor of the Detroit Auto Show. Breaking all the rules of proper auto show behavior, BYD Auto's chairman Wang Chaunfu hopped in the driver's seat of his prototype hybrid and took off with me in the passenger's seat, thus proving to the world that he's ready to show that his company's car works. The story of how one small upstart Chinese automaker turned our Detroit Auto Show upside down with the turn of one key below. When I attended the BYD Auto press conference for the Ferrous Battery-Powered Dual Mode...
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