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GM CEO Rick Wagoner just showed up to Capitol Hill driving the Chevy Volt mule. No clue where the other CEOs are. We kind of hope the Chrysler Aspen hybrid carrying Bob "The Builder" Nardelli made it. Ford CEO Alan Mulally may have accidentally gone to the Senate Armed Services Committee, so someone should check up on him. But, according to Wagoner, there's one overwhelming reason why America needs to save their automakers: "It's very important for the U.S. to have a home team in the global auto industry..." Photo Credit: Win McNamee / Getty Images News
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The CEOs of the not-so-Big Three made it to DC for committee hearings beginning today at 10:00 AM. According to Bloomberg 's sources, GM and Chrysler execs are considering a pre-arranged bankruptcy (which we've already said is a good thing ) as a last-resort of getting a multibillion-dollar government loan. This flies directly in the face of GM CEO Rick Wagoner's past comments that a bankruptcy would mean liquidation because customers would refuse to buy cars from a company that might not be able to back warranties or supply parts. Our sources, whether from inside the General or from the outside, have given us similar arguments in the past. That hasn't stopped staff for three members of Congress, who've asked restructuring experts if a pre-arranged bankruptcy — negotiated with workers, creditors and lenders — could be used to reorganize the industry without liquidation. But it's not just the congressional committees at work here. According to another...
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We spent the night reading the the not-so-Big Three's business plans presented yesterday to Congress and after we graded them below, we've one huge question. Given the Carpocalypse , what's with the overwhelmingly optimistic sales projections for the next three years? The biggest factor into how well a cash loan will work with the automakers will be the number of total auto sales in the United States. If an automaker makes the right projections they should be able to figure out how much money they'll need to get them through this downturn. So how did they each do in their projections? Let's take a look and grade them. Here are the sale projections from the three automakers: Ford U.S. Total Vehicle Sales Projections (Slightly Improved Rate / Current Rate / Worse Rate) 2009: 12.5 / 11.0 / 10.5 million units 2010: 14.5 / 12.5 / 11.0 million units 2011: 15.5 / 14.0 / 12.0 million units Analysis: Yesterday on CNBC, we said we were unimpressed with Ford's submitted business...
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We spent the night reading the the not-so-Big Three's business plans presented yesterday to Congress and after we graded them below, we've one huge question. Given the Carpocalypse , what's with the overwhelmingly optimistic sales projections for the next three years? The biggest factor into how well a cash loan will work with the automakers will be the number of total auto sales in the United States. If an automaker makes the right projections they should be able to figure out how much money they'll need to get them through this downturn. So how did they each do in their projections? Let's take a look and grade them. Here are the sale projections from the three automakers: Ford U.S. Total Vehicle Sales Projections (Slightly Improved Rate / Current Rate / Worse Rate) 2009: 12.5 / 11.0 / 10.5 million units 2010: 14.5 / 12.5 / 11.0 million units 2011: 15.5 / 14.0 / 12.0 million units Analysis: Yesterday on CNBC, we said we were unimpressed with Ford's submitted business...
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We just received a hot-off-the-wires report from the WSJ that the UAW is currently in talks with some of the not-so-Big Three to kill the "Jobs Bank" program. The program, a bane of contention by everyone but the UAW and it's membership since the inception of unionized labor at automakers, basically pays workers when they're not working. Good for the membership? Sure. Good for the automakers? Not so much. Good for everyone's image? Not in the least. Although UAW officials and their allies counter the banks have been an effective way to keep a flexible job pool available and allow the companies to implement new technology while reducing overall numbers responsibly. More view that as complete hogwash. Not much is known as of yet about specifics on the discussions. As of now we've only got a wire service report from the Journal telling us: "The United Auto Workers union is in talks with some of Detroit's Big Three auto makers to stop a program that pays idled...
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Saturday Night Live took on the not-so-Big Three's congressional testimony and "jetpooling" incident in this weekend's "cold open," and unfortunately fell into the trap of shamelessly mocking tired stereotypes. Which is sad, because we'd watched SNL take on a new level of relevancy as of late thanks to the uber-adorable Tina Fey and an election season devoid of real political commentary. That's not to say watching Will Forte as Rick Wagoner, Darrell Hammond as Bob "The Builder" Nardelli and Jason Sudeikis as Alan Mulally isn't funny, but hearing about quality issues on the upcoming Ford Fiesta and a Cadillac XLR-V is a bit ol' and busted if you ask us. Now quality issues on a Chrysler 300C? That's comedic genius. But hackneyed and tired jokes aside, we were more concerned with further evidence the automakers have done the world's worst job of getting their message out. newVideoPlayer("/SNL_Open.flv", 506, 423,""...
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Saturday Night Live took on the not-so-Big Three's congressional testimony and "jetpooling" incident in this weekend's "cold open," and unfortunately fell into the trap of shamelessly mocking tired stereotypes. Which is sad, because we'd watched SNL take on a new level of relevancy as of late thanks to the uber-adorable Tina Fey and an election season devoid of real political commentary. That's not to say watching Will Forte as Rick Wagoner, Darrell Hammond as Bob "The Builder" Nardelli and Jason Sudeikis as Alan Mulally isn't funny, but hearing about quality issues on the upcoming Ford Fiesta and a Cadillac XLR-V is a bit ol' and busted if you ask us. Now quality issues on a Chrysler 300C? That's comedic genius. But hackneyed and tired jokes aside, we were more concerned with further evidence the automakers have done the world's worst job of getting their message out. newVideoPlayer("/SNL_Open.flv", 506, 423,""...
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Saturday Night Live took on the not-so-Big Three's congressional testimony and "jetpooling" incident in this weekend's "cold open," and unfortunately fell into the trap of shamelessly mocking tired stereotypes. Which is sad, because we'd watched SNL take on a new level of relevancy as of late thanks to the uber-adorable Tina Fey and an election season devoid of real political commentary. That's not to say watching Will Forte as Rick Wagoner, Darrell Hammond as Bob "The Builder" Nardelli and Jason Sudeikis as Alan Mulally isn't funny, but hearing about quality issues on the upcoming Ford Fiesta and a Cadillac XLR-V is a bit ol' and busted if you ask us. Now quality issues on a Chrysler 300C? That's comedic genius. But hackneyed and tired jokes aside, we were more concerned with further evidence the automakers have done the world's worst job of getting their message out. newVideoPlayer("/SNL_Open.flv", 506, 423,""...
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Saturday Night Live took on the not-so-Big Three's congressional testimony and "jetpooling" incident in this weekend's "cold open," and unfortunately fell into the trap of shamelessly mocking tired stereotypes. Which is sad, because we'd watched SNL take on a new level of relevancy as of late thanks to the uber-adorable Tina Fey and an election season devoid of real political commentary. That's not to say watching Will Forte as Rick Wagoner, Darrell Hammond as Bob "The Builder" Nardelli and Jason Sudeikis as Alan Mulally isn't funny, but hearing about quality issues on the upcoming Ford Fiesta and a Cadillac XLR-V is a bit ol' and busted if you ask us. Now quality issues on a Chrysler 300C? That's comedic genius. But hackneyed and tired jokes aside, we were more concerned with further evidence the automakers have done the world's worst job of getting their message out. newVideoPlayer("/SNL_Open.flv", 506, 423,""...
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If you hadn't noticed yet, Tweedle-dee, Tweedle-dumb and Tweedle-how-stupid-are-you-to-take-a- fleet-of-jets and their scary Op-Eds haven't done anything to Save GM or either of the other not-so-Big Three. The Senate is not pleased with their behavior. But here comes Mitt Romney, "favorite son" of Michigan. The guy who took tons of auto-exec money and said this before the Michigan primary: galleryPost('mittrompander', 6, 'Do You Think He Is Saying Anything About Bankruptcy?'); "I want to bring Michigan back. I am not willing to sit back and say 'too bad for Michigan, too bad for the car industry, too bad for the people who lost their jobs, they are gone forever.' I will not rest when I am president of the United States until Michigan is brought back." January is a long time ago in Romneyville as Mitt said this in the NY Times earlier this week: IF General Motors, Ford and Chrysler get the bailout that their chief executives asked for yesterday...
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newVideoPlayer("/Obama_Hybrid_Cars_2.flv", 506, 423,""); Barack Obama took time away from talking about his mother-in-law and a college football playoff system to talk about the automaker bailout in an interview on CBS' 60 Minutes . While admitting Detroit needs help, he said it's important to make sure it's conditioned on the stakeholders (labor, suppliers, execs) coming up with a plan for a sustainable domestic auto industry as opposed to just giving out "a bridge loan to nowhere." Oh, yes, he went there. This was taped before the scary GM video , which at the very least we're hoping, convinced him to buy a Save GM t-shirt .
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It's not just GM employees and its dealers getting into the act. Do you know a member of Congress? Don't know a member of Congress but live in one of those, whattaya-call-'em — districts? Want to advocate for Chrysler and the rest of the domestic automakers to get a piece of the federal loan pie? Here's your chance. Chrysler's external affairs and public policy website aptly named " Grab Democracy By The Horns " has a way for you to connect with your member and start talking to 'em about jobs and — umm — are you not sure what to say to them? Well, other than talking about 'merica and stuff, there's all sorts of fun things to talk to them about — in fact, Chrysler's even put together some talking points for you to work from. Peruse them in the gallery below. They're a hoot and most of them read like they were written by interns. Well, it's certainly doing more than buying a " Save GM " t-shirt. Just not...
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Bad news for fans of drop top muscle cars: according to multiple sources, the Dodge Challenger Convertible has been canceled and the Chevy Camaro Convertible delayed for at least a year. Luckily Ford will be showing a 2010 Ford Mustang Convertible at next week’s LA Auto Show , with sales scheduled to start in Spring ’09. galleryPost('2011CamaroVertSpy', 3, 'Camaro Convertible'); galleryPost('teaser2010stang', 3, '2010 Ford Mustang Convertible'); galleryPost('semachallengerconvert', 3, 'SEMA Challenger Convertible'); Chrysler and GM’s decisions to respectively kill and delay the ultimate poser’s cars, convertible muscle cars were made for the same reason: money. The unibody Challenger is, unbelievably, not originally engineered to lose its top. So engineering a model capable of retaining its rigidity is, due to the financiapocalypse , now considered wayyy to expensive. Speaking to Motor Trend , a company insider described the Challenger convertible...
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MSNBC is reporting President-current Bush has said he'll consider amending the $25 billion automaker low-interest loan guarantee program to allow the automakers to get the money right now and use it for whatever they need. The decision is being made because many economists say helping US automakers is a big part of preventing the economy from going even further into the hole. This comes a day after would-be Detroit savior President-elect Barack Obama, who has said an automaker bailout is super important , met with President Bush to discuss steps he'd like to see taken, including part two of his three-part economic strategy — help for the auto industry . Why the sudden change from the Bush administration? According to the NY Times , the President would consider signing a stimulus package and help out the auto industry if Obama dropped his opposition to a free-trade agreement with Colombia. Maybe. Mr. Bush indicated at the meeting that he might support some aid and a broader...
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Our very own El Werto Dinero will be on CNBC at 11:30 am to talk about the GM-Chrysler merger and how quickly all of those important changes can be made to achieve some kind of cost savings to the companies. Unlike other recent appearances , we'll probably have more than 20 seconds to drink during this version of the Official Car Pundit Drinking Game . If you're in front of a TV and work at Sterling-Cooper, join the rest of us in raising an Old Fashioned and snark to autopunditry.
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