Mad Scientist Matt's Lair

I've seen a couple articles about the restructuring plans that GM and Chrysler submitted to the government, but leave it to Fox News to post links to where you can find the actual plans online.

Chrysler LLC Restructuring Plan

General Motors Corporation Restructuring Plan

Naturally, both of them read like corporate propaganda pieces. For example, "GM’s Plan emphasizes the Company’s continued focus on great products" makes me immediately wonder, "Wasn't this the same company that rolled out the Aztec, and only killed off the long outdated Cavalier a few years ago?" On the other hand, I suppose you can't actually say, "We are now making a commitment to stop building outdated clunkers!" in a document like this.

Still, there are a couple things in there that do look like good choices rather than just a puff piece. For example, GM seems to have gotten that they don't need eight divisions and giving each of them copies of cars from the other division. Chrysler, I'm not so sure about, unfortunately. (You may notice that a lot of people who like vintage Chrysler products aren't exactly loyal to the modern Chrysler Corporation...) I'll have to wait until later to post more detailed reaction.

Labels: The Automotive Industry

About ten years ago, GReddy was an icon of the import performance world. I saw their logo everywhere - even people who didn't have GReddy parts on their car would put GReddy stickers on, hoping to impress people who didn't look under the hood. But I haven't seen their logo that much recently. Now I've found out that GReddy / Trust filed bankruptcy.

Some people have blamed cheap Chinese knock-offs for GReddy's decline. The knock-offs did steal the market for things like wastegates and blow-off valves, and some of Greddy's basic cast parts. And the market for performance parts has not been at its best in the past year with the economy going the way it is and the whole riceboy thing falling out of fashion. But I think there was more to GReddy's problems than that - GReddy's looked like a sitting target for quite a while, and it wasn't just the cheap knock-off sellers that took aim at them.

I've been active in the Miata parts market for a while, as the company I work for sells a plug and play ECU for Miatas. GReddy builds a turbo kit for Miatas, and I had the chance to see this kit more or less get shoved to the sidelines in the US market. This looks like it was something of a backwater for GReddy and they may have handled other particular projects better, but this may have a rather exaggerated demonstration of where GReddy went wrong.

GReddy jumped into the Miata turbo market early, with a basic, affordable kit for the '89-'93 Miatas with the 1.6. It was smog legal, but it was a pretty basic kit. No intercooler, and the only engine management was a rising rate fuel pressure regulator. Greddy also offered a piggyback engine controller called the eManage, in a couple different versions. The eManage Ultimate was a pretty advanced piggyback, able to control fuel and timing.

The trouble is, they stopped there. They didn't offer kits for the later 1.8, come out with a higher powered kit with an intercooler, or anything. When plug-in standalone engine management came out, GReddy ignored the Link, Hydra, and MSPNP systems and stayed with the eManage. Meanwhile, American companies like Flyin' Miata and BEGi started building kits that offered newer turbos, bolt on intercoolers, and many other advances over the GReddy kit, built these kits to fit the later Miatas, and backed them with better technical support too.

GReddy didn't take any steps to defend their position and stayed with offering the cheapest kit out there from a reputable manufacturer. They could have tried to take on the American tuners by expanding their range to fit the 1.8s, adding a kit at a higher price point that could compete on maximum horsepower, or otherwise try to hold onto the market. They just ignored Keith and Corky, possibly figuring that the higher price tag on the American kits meant that buyers didn't comparison shop between the two. This ensured they still had a niche in the Miata turbo market - until BEGi rolled out a stripped down kit within striking distance of GReddy's, and the option to later order more BEGi parts to upgrade it to the features on their more advanced kits. On the other hand, if you wanted to upgrade your GReddy kit, you bought the upgrade parts from BEGi or Flyin' Miata - or sometimes from the Chinese knock off sellers.

I can't say for certain if GReddy fought a better fight on other battlefields, but the Chinese knock-off industry and a sour economy aren't the only things to blame for this bankruptcy.

(It's worth noting that Greddy isn't actually gone at this point. Just in serious business trouble.)

Labels: The Automotive Industry

A while ago, I poked fun at Chevy for their rather creepy Super Bowl ad that appeared to be saying, "Hey, ladies, buy an HHR and you'll get mobbed by pervy-looking guys at every stoplight!" Well, for the Olympics, they've been running an even worse ad. The ad opens with a bunch of thought bubbles coming from gridlocked traffic, people thinking about how much they'd like to get more miles per gallon. Then it cuts to a Chevrolet showroom, and we find it's an add for...

The Avalanche, Tahoe, and Suburban! And they state the deals don't apply to the Tahoe Hybrid, either. The only way I could see an ad tying together those two halves would be if they said, "Well, if you're not one of these guys stuck in traffic, we have an incredible deal since nobody's buying these!" The media has been picking on GM for concentrating on trucks and failing to deliver enough small cars as it is.

This has got to be the second most clueless thing I've seen on TV during the Olympics. Luckily for GM, they'll have a hard time topping the number one contender, with the Chinese government at once proclaiming, "We're proud to be a totalitarian regime!" and "We have no idea how silly it looks to walk like this!" I'm speaking, of course, of their decision to start things off with a public display of goose stepping soldiers.

Labels: Automotive Awefulness, The Automotive Industry

Laysons has been known in the Mopar community for hard to find parts at hard to swallow prices. Well, it seems the police busted them at Chryslers at Carlisle for as of yet unknown charges. I doubt many Mopar fans will cry over having been denied the chance to buy overpriced weatherstripping.

Speaking of weatherstripping, the driver's side window seal on the Civic came apart today, binding up the window. I've cut part of the offending seal away and will try to get a new one from the Honda dealer next week. I'm not aware of any Honda restoration shops out there just yet.

Labels: Civic, Dodge Dart, The Automotive Industry

Philip emailed me this link to an interesting effort at building a 150 mpg car. It's not from one of the big automakers, but from an upstart called Loremo. This one isn't a hybrid, either. Instead, in the great Colin Chapman tradition, they've decided to "simplify and add lightness." It's not exactly fast since it only has 20 hp, but with a sub-600 kg (that's 1,320 lbs), it's not much heavier than a typical Lotus Seven knock-off. Only a Seven doesn't have a roof, or air bags, or a back seat - all of which are standard on the Loremo. It's kind of like a revived CRX in many ways, and might even be fun to autocross.

But one thing worries me: It uses a front-opening door, Isetta-style. This sounds like it would create the same safety hazard it did on the Isetta - if you're in a head-on collision, how do you open the door to get out? It looks like it may be possible to get out the hatchback in a Loremo, which could be a way around that problem.

Labels: Gas Mileage, The Automotive Industry

The latest issue of Popular Mechanics had a cover story with a rant about the problems with corn based ethanol. It includes some very pointed comments, such as "There’s a simple reason that ethanol is popular with politicians: money." Very true. Mandating 15 billion gallons of corn based ethanol be used in 2015 isn't just a stupid corporate welfare law - it reminds me of Communist Russia's central planning, where it wasn't uncommon for the Party to set a goal to cut down X amount of trees, only to find that nobody needed that much lumber and they had to let the trees rot.

I'm going to have to write to Congress on this one, soon. When I do I will post a copy of the letter.

Labels: Automotive Awefulness, Environment, The Automotive Industry

About a week ago, I wrote about how I hope small sports cars might make a comeback. About five days after I posted that, CNN had an article looking back at one of the models that defined the breed, the Honda CRX. They noted that the CRX in HF trim even manages to beat the Prius when it came go mileage, with considerably less technology but also less weight. You just don't see too many tiny cars out there, and certainly not ones that have styling in the same league as a CRX or with any hint of sportiness. I have to wonder why manufacturers think that customers want miniaturized minivan looks on their small cars instead of something sportier.

Well, the government has finally decided to raise CAFE limits to 35 miles to the gallon, so it's possible we may see a revival of this sort of micro-rocket.

Labels: Gas Mileage, The Automotive Industry

As a car guy, I'm starting to wonder if there is a good side to these high gas prices. Perhaps it will revive a type of car that's pretty much dead in the US market, tiny sports cars. I know there's a couple of good roadsters on the market right now - the MX-5, BMW Z4, Honda S2000, and the Solstice / Sky twins. But I'm thinking of a slightly different type of car, one that produced a lot of interesting results in the 1980s and early 1990s. And this type of car is pretty much gone now, but many of the surviving ones from that era have a cult following.



It seems in the 1970s, some American and Japanese manufacturers either realized that there would be a market for people who now needed great gas mileage but didn't want cars to be boring, or at least in one case found this would be a good way to spin a project. This led to quite a few tiny cars, usually with two seats, armed with revvy engines, sporty bodywork, and excellent handling. So you get an all around great car (unless you're trying to carry children around), one that looks cool, is fun to drive, and gets great mileage too. The prime examples would be the Honda CRX (pictured at right is the Team Gutty CRX from the GRM $2007 Challenge) and Toyota MR2, both of which still have cult followings. GM got into the act with the Pontiac Fiero. The Omni-based Dodge Charger of the era had more seats than this formula calls for, but it's still pretty close to the formula, and it also has some pretty determined fans.

Granted, this category did produce a few stinkers. It seems Ford Motor Company for some reason just couldn't pull this off even after trying with the Escort EXP and the 1990s Mercury Capri. GM also built a two seater version of the Chevette. But I've got to wonder if this is being dusted off somewhere around automotive boardrooms with gas prices climbing. Right now there isn't much out there that fits this formula - the closest thing I can think of is the MINI or the roadsters I mentioned above. You could drive the original CRX to an autocross, then take home a trophy and get 50 miles to the gallon on the way home. I don't think any automotive industry execs read this blog... but I can dream.

Labels: Gas Mileage, The Automotive Industry

One question I've sometimes seen is "Why do cars in the early 21st century still rely on technology invented in the 19th century?" Behind this question is an assumption that surely someone in the 20th century would have come up with a better operating principle for an engine. The trouble is, that isn't necessarily the case - while engineers can refine engines based on 19th century designs, most of the discoveries in the 20th century didn't provide useful ways to design a new engine. The biggest one, nuclear power, wasn't exactly a good power source for cars (and nuclear power plants still incorporate devices that would be recognizable to a 19th century engineer, as they're fundementally steam engines).

19th century engineers had at least a working knowledge of the types of science used to build motors - thermodynamics, kinematics, and electricity. Just about everything that's been talked about as an alternative to the internal combustion engine also, in fact, dates back to the 19th century or earlier. Steam engines existed before the 19th century, as did piston-cylinder devices and crankshafts. And the following devices were all available to a 19th century inventor, at least by the end of the century:

• The internal combustion engine (both gasoline and diesel versions)
• External combustion engines, such as Stirling engines and the Ericson engine
• Batteries
• Generators
• Fuel cells
• Electric motors
• Solar cells

Trying to come up with a list of engine types that are entirely 20th century designs isn't easy. There were a few designs that you could argue are 20th century. The first gas turbine engine didn't appear until the 20th century, but it built on turbines that had been designed in the 19th. Felix Wankel came up with his magical spinning triangles in the 20th century, but there were steam powered rotary engines in the 19th century. Interestingly, there have been cars built that used both of these technologies - and neither one has proven to be so much better than four stroke piston engines to have replaced them or even picked up a large market share.

Of course, put a 21st century gasoline engine next to a 19th century one, and you'll notice huge differences. A modern gasoline engine will be made from much more advanced materials, spin at RPM ranges that Otto would have thought impossible, and make far more power while burning less gas. But it is still something Otto would have recognized as his four stroke engine.

So there's three reasons we still have 19th century technology in 21st century cars. One is that when you've got a design that works well, engineers don't usually scrap it as much as just make a lot of improvements. Second, there aren't really any new operating principles that 21st century scientists have for cars at the moment- it's either burn fuel to get heat, use a fuel cell, or store electricity in batteries, all of which could be done over a hundred years ago too. Third, the engineers in the 19th century weren't stupid.

Labels: The Automotive Industry, Tinfoil Hat

One conspiracy theory I've often seen is the claim that Detroit is being bribed by the oil industry to keep a 100 mpg car off the market. The classic version of this conspiracy theory also stipulates that this is a relatively normal car (in some versions, it's even the size of a Chevy Caprice) and neither some sort of microcar with a 50 cc motor or some sort of $100,000 techno-beasty with a carbon fiber body, a two stroke diesel-electric hybrid powertrain, and virtually every other trick in the book applied at once regardless of cost. No, the usual version of the conspiracy theory claims this 100+ mpg car is also affordable and practical. And it passes all EPA regulations - or the EPA's in on it and put some regulation on the books specifically to ban these cars.

One of my favorite things to do with conspiracy theories is figure out what it would take to implement them - that's a lot more fun than trying to turn up evidence that there isn't a systematic campaign of bribery. That sort of debunking would take too much actual research. Instead, I'll explore the question of how big a bribe Big Oil would need to perpetuate this conspiracy.

As a starting point, we'll look at some sample information about how much money some of the major players make. In 2006, GM's total sales were $207 billion, and they lost about $2 billion. Honda had $84 billion in sales, and $5 billion in net income. Exxon-Mobile had $365 billion in sales, and nearly $40 billion in net income.

We have to figure that this bribe, if it were to exist, would need to be big enough to make it worthwhile for the auto manufacturers to keep this off the market. An automaker that rolled out a 100 mpg car at a reasonable price could sell a lot of them - I don't think a million in the first year would be out of the question, and it seems reasonable that maybe they'd sell at least 250,000 a year equipped with such technology even after the hype dies down. And such a car would sell at a premium - let's say they could make an extra $1,000 per car on each car with this mileage technology. That doesn't sound unreasonable, does it? So you're looking at a $250 million extra profit from rolling out this technology, each year. So let's say that Big Oil has to pay double that to keep it off the market - half a billion.

Except that would be half a billion to just one company. Limiting this to Detroit would be incredibly shortsighted. You'd need to bribe every major automotive company out there - and just about any company with some level of volume production capacity would become a major automotive company overnight if they rolled out this hypothetical technology. You couldn't just stick to bribing US manufacturers; you'd need to bribe Japanese, Chinese, and European ones too. After all, US gas prices are pretty low - the other countries would have even more reason to want this technology. So figure you have to bribe Ford, GM, Chrysler, Mercedes, BMW, the VW-Audi Group, Fiat, Renault, Hyundai, Nissan, SsangYong, Toyota, Honda, Geely, Diahatsu, Subaru, Tata, and a couple others I can't remember. Figure you have to pay 25 companies a half billion each, that's $12.5 billion in bribes each year.

But that's not all. This secret would have to be something a fair number of executives, engineers, even some of the testing crew are aware of. And these employees become ex-employees eventually, not always on friendly terms. What's to prevent an ex-employee from deciding, "Oh, I'll go to a venture capitalist and sell that secret - it's got to be worth a couple million." The conspiracy theory answer would have to be more bribery - or at least some hit men and a cover-up, but either way, it'd cost money. Let's assume that there's 100 people per automotive company in any year that need to be dealt with, and it costs a million dollars a person. That's another $100 million per company, bringing our total up to $15 billion in bribe payouts.

However, it's not likely you would have to stop your bribery campaign there. If there really were a secret to an easy 100 mpg car, there's others who would be in a position to find it and promote it through the aftermarket industry. What's to stop Bruce Crower - a fellow smart enough to have invented a new type of engine cycle - from coming up with it? Or how about NASCAR - after all, if this could somehow be built according to NASCAR rules or sneaked on through, it would cut down the number of pit stops dramatically, and word could leak out from there. Government funded or private research institutes might pick up on the secret, too, and would need to be bribed. Another example of something that you might have to worry about would be if it were a tuning secret - suppose you had to keep an eye on things like every EFI 101 class to make sure Ben Strader's not disseminating your secret, or worse, have to bribe every dyno shop in the US not to use the secret calibration on customer's cars! More bribes to go around.

So the bribery would need to amount to $15 to $20 billion, with thousands of people who either take the bribe and don't blow the whistle. Although a company like Exxon does indeed have the ability to spend $20 billion on such a program, that's not chump change, even for Big Oil. Plus, that kind of spending isn't easy to hide; about the only place where it seems possible to hide that kind of money is Pentagon budgets. Worst of all, it also runs the risk that somebody out there would decide that they could make more money selling 100 mpg cars than they're making from bribes (or having a conscience attack and putting them into production anyway).

That seems to be the biggest weakness of the conspiracy theory - that with at least 25 CEOs who could potentially bring it down at any time, there isn't one who has decided to secretly tool up for production, get a big jump on the competition who would be caught with no tooling to build such a thing, and make money hand-over-fist for a couple of years selling 100 mpg cars before the competition can catch up. Sure, there could be some additional element to the conspiracy theory, that Big Oil's made some sort of threats for CEOs who don't take the bribe, but face it - as the head of a multibillion dollar corporation, in conspiracy world, an automotive exec should have the same level of access to hired thugs, bribed politicians, and black helicopters that an oil exec would have.

Then again, this sort of conspiracy theory doesn't have to make sense to be believed. It just has to have enough people wishing they could have a 100 mpg car without any downsides, and looking for something to blame besides the laws of physics.

Labels: The Automotive Industry, Tinfoil Hat

I read it in the USA Today this morning: A judge ruled that a laws in a dozen states limiting how much carbon dioxide cars put out can stay. The automotive industry calculates that its requirements would translate into a 43.7 mpg average requirement for cars. It doesn't say if that is according to old EPA estimates or the newer, stricter estimates, but I'll assume it is current standards.

That got me to thinking: How will the automotive industry meet these targets? There isn't much out there in current production that can stand up to something that strict. The EPA list of most fuel efficient cars has only one car that meets the rules, the Toyota Prius. And the Honda Civic Hybrid comes close. So it's possible that we might see a few other medium-to-small hybrids in the pipeline. The only other option is to make cars tiny - really tiny. If automakers have to hit these targets with existing models or ones that are rumored to be showing up soon, here's what the California lineup might look like. This assumes they'd be able to get Federal approval for these models, as most of these would need to be brought in from elsewhere. I'm not entirely sure where some of these would place on EPA tests; the ones I'm not sure about are so tiny I suspect they'd fit in.

Ford: Ka, Fiesta
GM: Opel Corsa (probably sold as a Saturn or Chevrolet)
Honda: Civic Hybrid, possibly the rumored Fit Hybrid or CRX sequel
Mercedes-Benz: Smart
Toyota: Prius

Subaru and Suzuki could have a field day with their line of keicars, while it's possibe that BMW and Chrysler may pull out altogether rather than design a model specifically so they can sell cars in these states, since they wouldn't be able to bring in their existing lineup.

But there wouldn't be much room for large sedans or performance cars here. This list makes a present day Civic Si look like a gas hog. And California has no shortage of enthusiasts who'd want something larger or more powerful than this selection, not to mention people who want a new car but would rather pay $12,000 for a normal econobox rather than $20,000 for a hybrid, families wanting safe large Camries, you name it. It's likely that there will be a large number of people who either bring in barely used models from other states, or simply keep "pre-ban" cars on the road for as long as possible. The end result may be that California winds up with much of the cars on their roads not meeting California emissions standards.

Part of this illustrates why trying to mandate breakthroughs are a bad idea. Calling for a little change and ratcheting things up gradually would be a better idea, one less likely to provoke people into trying to circumvent the law.

But I think this also illustrates why the federal government wants to be the ones who set fuel economy limits. They can impose much tighter rules on what gets imported in here, for one thing. Unfortunately, they've done a bad job of setting fuel economy limits - they've left them lower than they could have been, and they've also used them for corporate welfare programs. Did you know that those E85 cars get to count only the percent of fuel they burn that has to be gasoline in CAFE requirements? And they can do this even though most people won't be running them on ethanol. The federal CAFE needs to be tightened up a bit. But not so much they force everyone into Opel Corsas.

I think this CO2 measure is going to be a bad idea on several levels. Remember, the laws of unintended consequences are strictly enforced.

Labels: The Automotive Industry

Bloomberg.com notes that a deranged EU politician is calling for a ban on all cars faster than 101 mph. Which works out to 162 km/h. This idea seems so stupid on so many levels, I have to hope that this was something along the lines of the Kentucky resolution to have a submarine sink riverboat casinos. Sure, I'm in favor of raising CAFE limits a bit (and ditching that E85 corporate welfare loophole), but this is ridiculous. So I'll ridicule it. Here are some of my arguements against this bill.

Chris Davies, the bill's backer, claims "cars designed to go at stupid speeds have to be built to withstand the effects of a crash at those speeds. They are heavier than necessary..." Well, in the US, all cars have the same crash speed requirements. Hey, if you're going faster than legal, that's your choice. Chrysler is under no obligation to make sure their Viper can keep its driver safe if it crashes at 180 mph.

It's quite possible to drive like a dangerous maniac in a slower car. 75 mph is not safe in a 25 mph zone. Street racers will simply find other ways to race (or simply stick with pre-ban cars and keep the old technology on the road longer).

And in closing, the numbers are weird, pointless, and arbitrary. Why 162 or 101? These numbers seem a reflection of the strange and arbitrary nature of the law. Can't he make it a nice round number?

Labels: Automotive Awefulness, The Automotive Industry

I found on Drag Racing Online that the NHRA has been bought out by an investment group. This bothers me a lot more than the recent news about Chrysler being bought out by an investment group - after all, auto makers are in the business to make money, and my gut feeling about the Chrysler buyout is that their new owners want to make money by making cars and not by parting Chrysler out like a totaled Mustang. But an investment group buying a sanctioning body seems just a bit weird.

A sanctioning body is often something by car guys for car guys. Many of these start as car clubs to give their members a place to race and show off, and to draw up rules to keep their events safe. Sometimes money may also come into the equation - NASCAR sort of got started when promoters realized they could fill a horse track with spectators to cheer for their favorite bootleggers - but normally it's about racing.

This seems like a bad idea on several levels. First, there's not much profit in things like Friday night grudge racing - the money is in the pro races. Will this new NHRA pass by the enthusiasts who show up with whatever beat up old G-body they could drag in, in favor of the John Forces of the world?

Second, buying the NHRA includes their dragstrips and the land under them. Are the HD Partners right now looking at Atlanta Dragway and envisioning rows of of cookie cutter vinyl sided, detached and subdivided, mass production homes?

There used to be a drag strip right in my home town of Covington, long ago enough that I don't remember it. Maybe my Dart does. The pavement is still there, but where there used to be fans watching Hemis pound the pavement, now lines of trailers watch commuters head home after a long day's work. I'd hate to see Atlanta Dragway suffer the same fate. Maybe I ought to get a couple pictures of my Dart - or better yet, actual old race cars - staged where the drag strip in Covington used to be, lining up with their drivers staring at an unseen Christmas tree. Too many dragstrips and other race tracks have disappeared, often without even the asphault left behind to mark where they once were. Often they've been victims of everything from rich developer investors to annoying neighbors who move in next to a race track and then decide they don't like to hear the roar of the engines after all. Should have thought before you moved.

And they wonder why too many kids have taken their nitrous-fed wars to the street.

Labels: The Automotive Industry

Toyota's built some very cool cars before. However, they don't have much for sale right now besides maybe a mini-truck that interests me - many of their great models, from the MR2 to the old rear wheel drive Corollas to the Supra, have disappeared with no successors. This recent LA Times review checks out a new Yaris, and the reviewer, Dan Neil isn't impressed. Neil goes on to speculate on what this bodes for Toyota, including this interesting quote:

Do you think Toyota's execs, engineers and workers are somehow smarter than those of GM? They aren't. Given time, the dialectics of decline will take hold at Toyota just as they have in Detroit. The unraveling has to start somewhere.

One of my favorite car magazines, Grassroots Motorsports, also happened to review the Yaris, and their quoes were less provocative but more amusing. Some gems included "Unprecedented body roll ruins otherwise decent handling," and "Ugh, I wish this had more horsepower, a better suspension, and looked less like a toaster."

It does sometimes make me wonder if Toyota's heading down an all-too-recognizable path. They've made questionable calls with their enthusiast cars (leaving the 180 hp motor out of the newest MR2 even though it dropped in, or what about their Scion concept that attempted to make the xB look like an off roader with the stock suspension?), concentrated heavily on volume, and given their bread and butter cars a reputation for a soft ride at the expense of handling. Now they've started to spread out with a new division using cars that share the same underpinnings as their others but trying to attract buyers with different styling and bodywork. Is Toyota trying to immitate General Motors?

Labels: The Automotive Industry