“In 1967 there were 103 million drivers and 9.54 million light vehicles sold; now there are about twice that many (205.7 million licensed drivers in 2007).”
And in June 9.69 million light vehicles sold (seasonally adjusted annual basis).
Category: Automobiles
Bad day to drive
I read several years ago that traffic fatalities were not particularly more significant on holiday weekends than any other days. Safety advocates just had us all thinking they were with their public service advertising campaigns and police check points.
A new study by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety confirms this. For the period 1986 through 2002 there were an average of 117 traffic fatalities a day in the United States. And, while July 4 was the worst day of the year with an average of 161 fatalities, 158 people were killed on any given Saturday. July 4 is the only date in the year less safe than any given Saturday.
The worst dates:
July 4 — 161
July 3 — 149
December 23 — 145
August 3 — 142
January 1 — 142
Days of the week:
Sunday — 132
Monday — 96
Tuesday — 95
Wednesday — 98
Thursday — 105
Friday — 133
Saturday — 158
This year, July 4th, the worst day of the year, is on Saturday, the worst day of the week. Be careful out there.
Tragic
Five teenagers were riding in this Subaru early this morning near Santa Fe. Four were killed. The driver of the other vehicle has been arrested. Charges include four counts of vehicular homicide. Alcohol suspected, of course.
Best analogy line of the day
“The new Porsche Panamera is the best-handling big sedan in the world, which I grant is a little like being the smartest kid on the Arizona State football team or the most chaste governor of South Carolina.”
Dan Neil reviews the 4-door Porsche
“What is a Porsche? If you’ve spent much time in a Boxster, Cayman or 911 Carrera, new or old, you know the feeling of these cars: cold-rolled and heat-tempered, hard and light, nap of the Earth, edgy and reactive, ineffably masculine, a disposition that is to other sports cars what Dexedrine is to Geritol.”
He doesn’t really like it, but he did get it up to 180 mph.
Too big, but this one can fail
BEIJING (Reuters) – China’s top economic planning agency is likely to reject Sichuan Tengzhong’s bid to buy the Hummer brand from bankrupt General Motors Corp, state radio reported on Thursday.
. . .Besides, Hummer, as an expensive, gas-guzzling sports utility vehicle, would not fit in with the government’s policy of encouraging energy-efficient vehicles, the radio said.
Angriest cities to drive
Cities with the worst road rage:
1. New York City
2. Dallas/Ft. Worth
3. Detroit
4. Atlanta
5. Minneapolis/St. Paul
Cities with the least angry drivers:
1. Portland, OR
2. Cleveland
3. Baltimore
4. Sacramento
5. Pittsburgh
Talk about synergy
“It will take some time for Consumer Reports to gather data on new Fiats sold in the United States. But British consumer publication Which? Car ranks Fiat as 35 out of 38 makes in reliability.”
And guess who is 38th. Chrysler.
The automakers make us feel sorry for the dealers
… but it’s just another in the automakers endless list of screw-ups.
| Be a F@#king Person – Dealer or No Dealer | |
Stuff
The 100 Million Views Club: The Most Watched Viral Videos of All-Time? 18 online videos that have had 100 million or more views. Most are music videos or film trailers, but still an interesting list.
TRUECAR – The Authority on New Car Pricing uses sales data to tell you what people are actually paying for new cars (2008 and 2009 models).
April’s 20 top-selling vehicles
Interactive graphic: April’s 20 top-selling vehicles.
And Chart: April auto sales. “U.S. light-vehicle sales totals, individual automaker results and market share for April compared to April 2008.”
Auto sales are worse than they appear
Reports today indicate that auto sales in April were down from last April about 25-42% depending on the manufacturer.
Bad enough, but here’s the vital piece of information. At the time, April a year ago was the worst auto sales month in a more than a decade.
Zoom Zoom
The New Dodge Hemi
‘This isn’t really going to go all that smoothly, is it?’ line of the day
“National groups representing thousands of General Motors Corp. (GM) and Chrysler LLC auto dealers have hired law firms to protect them against potential bankruptcy filings by the auto makers.”
Does the U.S. Need an Auto Industry?
“With its survival, at least in the short term, so dependent on public assistance, it seems fair to ask, do we need a domestic auto industry? Many American manufacturing industries, like textiles and electronics, long ago moved to other producing countries. Why is the auto industry different?”
Four economists respond to the question. It’s more interesting than it sounds.
Key auto industry line of the day
“State franchise laws protect dealers from automakers forcing them out of business. Once a company enters bankruptcy, federal law takes priority and dealers lose leverage.”
Chrysler had 3,215 dealers at the end of March, more than Honda and Toyota combined.
Update: Felix Salmon has a brief solid piece on Chrysler’s future.
Such a deal
GM has been advertising employee pricing at times during the past several months. They’ll have a new gimmick now. Owner pricing. Yup, the general public will get to buy at corporate owner prices.
That’s because you and I and our fellow taxpayers in the general public will be owners of 50% of General Motors if the package they put on the table this morning is adopted. Congratulations. I want my share to be in the Corvette division.
The United Auto Workers get 39%; bondholders 10%, and current stockholders the remaining 1%.
Oh, and 2,641 dealers disappear.
Click and Clack
Fans of Click and Clack might enjoy seeing them talk about the Car of the Future on NOVA. Link is to the video, which is a year old.
For the uninitiated, Click and Clack are the Tappet brothers, Tom and Ray Magliozzi, of Car Talk, a call-in show about cars and car repairs that’s been on the radio in Boston since 1977 — and on NPR nationally since 1987. They can be an acquired taste, but I’ve always found them amusing and informative.
Bankrupt
It appears Chrysler for certain and General Motors most likely will go through some sort of bankruptcy. Chrysler will probably be liquidated; GM restructured as a much smaller company.
There are three reasons for bankruptcy that I can figure. Renegotiate with bondholders (those that hold the debt amassed by the companies). Renegotiate with labor unions (and get the government to assume the massive health and retirement obligations). And third, renegotiate with dealers.
GM has more than twice as many dealers (over 6,000) as Toyota (1,500) and Honda (1,300) put together. How many of those 6,000 GM dealers are unnecessary? How many GM dealers do you suppose will disappear in the next 12 months? (All the Chrysler and Dodge dealers will.)
And how will the loss of those stores affect the local advertising market? Will more newspapers close? Will TV stations? At times it seems as if local TV is nothing more than car dealer ads and live news stand ups.
And can we afford a society with that many out of work car salesmen on the streets?
(Chrysler has 66,000 employees. I never see mention of how many people work for Chrysler and Dodge dealers.)
Best negotiating tactic of the day
“We are big believers in dentist-chair bargaining,” he told a gathering of insolvency lawyers and accountants. “For those of you not familiar with this approach, it is inspired by the story of the man who walks into his dentist’s office, grabs the dentist by the balls, and says, ‘Now, let’s not hurt each other.'”
Ron Bloom, financial strategist and member of the president’s auto-industry task force quoted by Peter J. Boyer in The World of Business: The Road Ahead in this week’s New Yorker. Online article available only to subscribers, but an excellent read on the current state of the auto-industry.
Aside factoid. Honda has 1,300 U.S. dealers. Toyota has about 1,500 dealers. GM has more than 6,000 dealers (all protected by state franchise laws).
Filter Tips
Did you know most vehicles have an air filter for the cabin? Ever change yours? Manufacturers recommend you do so every 15,000 to 30,000 miles. Now, before you start using the A/C regularly, would be a good time.
Micronair Car Filters has a list of vehicles with instructions for each model. It appears to be rather simple and most cost around $20-25, some more.
Amazon.com has them cheaper.
Looks like
… no more Pontiacs.
It had been a GM brand since 1926; and before that as part of Oakland since 1906.
No more GM Hummers, Saturns or Saabs either.
Best line of the day, so far
“Let me tell you, it’s one thing to mouth the pieties of alternatively fueled transportation — hybrids, diesels, electrics. It’s quite another to feel the arch-adrenaline of dinosaur-fueled horsepower and say, ‘Never again.’ ”
Dan Neil in a review of the 2009 Corvette ZR-1
60 in 3.4.
Future Self vs. Present Self
Interesting way of looking at it.
People “irrationally” value “newness” in cars. That is, above and beyond the quality of the car itself, people will pay for newness, and the price drops substantially when it is no longer new (in a way that seems to go beyond observable capital depreciation). So the time-consistent, quality-optimizing consumer should not fall prey to the lure of the car being new and overpaying for it, but instead would think ahead about the depreciation and the eventual resale value of the car and instead buy a one-year-old car. The time-inconsistent buyer puts too much emphasis on the immediate experience of the new car and not enough on the asset depreciation.
Jeffrey Kling of the Brookings Institution via Economix Blog.
Most amazing line of the day, so far
“Things were so bad last year that a single Toyota model, the Camry/Solara midsize car, outsold the entire fleet of Chrysler LLC’s passenger cars.”
Thanks to John for the link.