GM reportedly to sell Saturn brand to Penske
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DETROIT - General Motors Corp. has a tentative deal to sell its Saturn brand to former race car driver and dealership  group owner Roger Penske, according to two people briefed on the deal.GM
has scheduled a conference call for Friday morning to discuss the sale,
and Penske will be on the call along with Saturn General Manager Jill
Lajdziak, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the
deal has not been made public.
Penske would get Saturn's dealership network, which consistently has scored highly in customer satisfaction surveys.
Penske has said his company, Penske Automotive Group Inc. of Bloomfield Hills, Mich., is interested in the Saturn brand and intended to make an offer.Penske
Automotive Group also distributes Daimler AG's Smart subcompacts in the
U.S., but Smart has its own dealership network and Saturn dealers would
not distribute the tiny cars, one of the people said.
Initially GM would continue to make cars for Saturn, but Penske would also sign deals with other automakers to manufacture vehicles for the brand, said both people, who asked not to be identified because the plans have not been made public.
Penske
Automotive owns the second-largest U.S. automobile retail chain in
terms of sales. It also owns heavy-duty engine manufacturer Detroit
Diesel and has race teams in the IndyCar, NASCAR and Grand-Am series.
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Car buyers may be off endangered species list
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After a long hiatus, American consumers appear
ready to return to auto showrooms to buy new cars, experts say,
 although not in the large numbers seen in past years. A
rise in new U.S. car sales in coming months would be a welcome
development for the nation's automobile industry. A nasty recession has
decimated sales to less than 10 million vehicles a year - a drop of
more than 40 percent from past years - and helped force General Motors
Corp. and Chrysler LLC to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.
May
sales data appeared to confirm a bottoming in the U.S. car market,
however. On Tuesday, Ford Motor Co. reported a 24 percent drop in U.S.
sales for May, but sales were up 20 percent from April. GM's sales in
May fell 30 percent versus a year ago, but were up 11 percent from
April.
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Bankrupt GM changes its tone with consumers
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After filing for bankruptcy protection,
General Motors is pushing a new ad campaign promising it will emerge
from its  financial troubles leaner and stronger.Is this a good marketing approach? Will it allay consumer fears about buying from a carmaker with an uncertain future?
Advertising
experts say GM - and fellow Chapter 11 filer Chrysler - should move
past the negative and focus on their brands as they try to get car
sales rolling again. Consumers are staunchly loyal to their car brands,
they say.
GM says its brands are key to emerging from
these tough times. But first it has to tell consumers how it will
remake itself and what to expect, Jay Spenchian, GM executive director
of corporate advertising strategy, said Tuesday."There are lots of questions," he said. "The best thing we can do is quickly get out there and assure them."
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Ford pulls ahead as GM, Chrysler get 'rinse'
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With GM and Chrysler both now in bankruptcy, a
relatively healthy Ford stands to benefit, even as its two struggling
Detroit rivals gain the advantages of powerful government backing.Unlike
GM and Chrysler, Ford hasn't taken any  money from the government. Two
years ago, Ford's Chief Executive Alan Mulally mortgaged every
conceivable asset owned by the automaker to the tune of $23 billion to
finance its turnaround plan.
While
industry observers enthuse about the salutary effects of "quick rinse"
bankruptcy plans for General Motors and Chrysler, as if these companies
are simply changing hair color, Ford seems to hold onto the quaint
notion that insolvency is better avoided.
It's a position that's pushing customers into
Ford showrooms by default, as it were, according to Jack Kain, owner of
a Ford dealership in Versailles, Ky."We've
had so many people come in who have never come into a Ford dealership
before, who have told us they were so happy Ford wasn't having to
borrow money from the government," said Kain.
These customers are coming from both domestic and foreign nameplates, he noted.
"We've never had so many foreign cars on our [used car] lot," Kain said.
It's a perspective echoed by Rik Paul, automotive editor for Consumer Reports.
"A
lot of people are thinking of buying American because they want to do
their bit for the economy, but they are turned off by the problems at
GM and Chrysler," he said.
In
fact, 63 percent of consumers surveyed by AutoPacific reported concern
about buying from Chrysler, and 54 percent worried about buying from
GM, even before the company filed for bankruptcy Monday, according to
Ed Kim, director of industry analysis for the consultancy. By contrast,
only 13 percent of consumers expressed concern about buying from Ford,
he added.
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The mobile Internet makes its way into cars
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Just as radios evolved from hulking home
consoles into expected accessories in virtually all cars, so may Wi-Fi
Internet access break free to become a commonplace automotive feature.
That's the hope of Autonet Mobile, a company that  supplies in-car Wi-Fi routers that let passengers use laptops and other mobile devices in their vehicles. By
2016, consumers will consider such Internet connectivity as important
as traditional features such as safety and fuel economy, said Thilo
Koslowski, vice president of the Automotive Manufacturing Industry
Advisory Service at market researcher Gartner, Inc.
Autonet
Mobile sells its $499 routers through Chrysler and Cadillac dealers as
manufacturer-endorsed, dealer-installed options for those cars, branded
as Uconnect Web and Cadillac Wi-Fi, respectively. Its routers can also
be added to any car after a vehicle is purchased
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Electric Hummer gets 100 mpg - more or less
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A Hummer that gets the equivalent of 100 miles
per gallon or more? That's something even President Barack Obama  could
live with - not to mention California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, the
unquestioned celebrity champion for Hummers.A
company that says it's done just that - running the full-size SUV on
batteries - is showing off its Electric Hummer H3 on Capitol Hill on
Wednesday. But whether it really gets 100 mpg depends on just how far
and hard it's driven.
The
four-wheel drive vehicle with a top speed of 100 mph has been put
together by Raser Technologies, a Utah company that until recently had
focused on developing geothermal energy sources. It's timing is
impeccable, just a day after Obama unveiled a program to raise vehicle fuel efficiency, and cut greenhouse gas emissions, by 30 percent.
Raser Chairman Kraig Higginson has said he
expects the Electric Hummer to be available in showrooms in 2011, and
has no qualms offering it as a silver bullet for the country and
consumers. "We
believe this vehicle may hold the key to solving the most important
challenges facing the nation by reducing our dependency on foreign oil,
addressing climate change, and reinvigorating American manufacturing
with American technology," he said in a statement announcing the
Capitol Hill event.
As
for consumers, Higginson was just as ambitious. "Americans value the
versatility of trucks and SUVs, the number one selling vehicles in
America, but we also want to do what's right for the environment," he
said. "This vehicle demonstrates that through innovation, we can do
both."
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The man who has done his level best... is a success, even though the world may write him down a failure.
B.C. Forbes
Sincerely,
Frank Kimbrough
Franks Automobile Shipping & Transport
Our website
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