Cars! Cars! Cars!

Toyota: Say! That Ridgeline Is Purty Sweet

AutoWeek reports: Toyota brings A-BAT pickup to Detroit.

We don't have a lot to say since the thing is a truck and we're strickly a cars and Alison site, but, come on! Way to run of ideas, Toyota.

Shoulders make us swoon. And that's a snap of the Ridgeline -- the original funky truck.

Two Roads: GM Takes The One Often Traveled

We liked the contrast of these two articles (even though they weren't written to be contrasty or anything):

AutoWeek reports: 2008 GMC Yukon hybrid: Welcome, alien.

The Detroit News reports: Subcompact sales boom.

So in one article we have GM making a big ol' SUV use less fuel and the other we see how, for non-US makers, subcompact sales are booming.

We wonder which strategy will work.

GMC Yukon hybrid: $50k, 21 city/22 highway (2WD)
Subcompacts: $13k+ over 30mpg in every scenario

Speaking of subcompacts, we find it interesting that Nissan seems to be the sales leader with the Versa, yet it takes 69* days to sell one compared to just 22 days for the Honda Fit. According to the article, Honda would sell more if it could make more -- you'd think Honda would make it a priority. Oh, it's also interesting that Honda claims the Fit is not eating into the sales of the Civic. We have to bet that one of Honda's models is suffering (since Honda's sales aren't up that much -- 4.6% for 2007). Wow, the Element is off by 33% this year? Sounds like Honda's gonna have to move them suckas off the lot right quick -- deal time! Sorry this turned into a Honda post.

Anyway, it's interesting to us that GM is pushing a huge hybrid SUV (for $50k!) and many others are doing well with subcompacts.

*Alison, call us.

CAFE? No CAFE?

Man, this fuel economy crap is confusing the hell out of us. And U.S "President" Bush is going to veto it anyway, so what's point? Here are the latest articles:

The Detroit News reports House OKs 35 mpg rule.

AutoWeek reports Big CAFE hike stalls--for now--in Senate.

AutoWeek reports Lutz says 35-mpg CAFE will scuttle GM product plans.

OK, it passed the House, stalled in the Senate and despite the "Automakers, in a historic about-face, support the higher CAFE standards." (from the "Senate" article above), GM VP Bob Lutz says that new standard will mess up GM's future gas guzzlin' machines.

Clearly the Unions are at fault here. Damned unions.

It's pretty insane that we'll have to wait until 2020 to get vehicles with decent mileage. By then the sweet Honda Clarity FCX will be rockin' out everywhere and it won't matter, but the point is that we should be far ahead in terms of fuel efficiency. It's a shame that horsepower and top speed are more important than lowering pollution and lessening our dependence on foreign oil. You'd think some egg-head engineer would get a kick out of the challenge of combining power with fuel efficiency...

Imagine, them walking down the street and bumping into each other: "You got your fuel efficiency in my high horsepower engine!" "No, you got your high horsepower engine in my fuel efficiency!" Hilarity ensues and we all fly up to Heaven to be with Jaysus.

Can you imagine if these two were the egghead engineers? It'd be like: "We have a crotch explosion in sector two! Of the sexiest kind!" Also, Alison.

MaliEatItBitchSaysGM

Autoblog reports: GM exceeds Malibu sales expections in the first month by, oh, 2,500 cars.

We were pretty sure, based on the images we saw of the Malibu, that it was going to be a winner. We're not 100% sure long-term, however, since we thought the Aura was going to do a lot better than it appears to be doing. Also, the previous Malibu was soooo snore-city that the '08 was surely ready for some shopper love.

We did find this article Malibu delivers (as promised) a bit odd with the

Nothing is more boring for a newspaper than a company actually doing what it said it would do.

General Motors Corp. promised the world it was going to make a fantastic midsize sedan. We scoffed.

The company said this car would have a world-class interior. The press snickered, while toying with different headlines: "Malibu busts" or "Mali-Snooze."

We were wrong.

What's a newspaper? Who is reading them? Oh, no one.

Anyway, congrats to GM on successful launch of the Malibu. Even though it's only one month. And reliability is still an unknown. And Alison won't return our calls.

And You're Ugly, Too

Can the domestic auto news get any crappier? Check these out -- and this is just within the last few days!

The Detroit News reports GM takes $39B charge in quarter.

The New York Times reports: Ford Warns of New Steps if Sales Decline.

AutoWeek reports: Chrysler cuts four models, five shifts.

What could be worse? Well, maybe if the competition was kicking arse that would be an issue. Let's just (shuffles the pages of the internets) see what we have here. Oh, crap. The Detroit Fress Press reports: Toyota reports record income.

The only way it could get worse (for us, you see) is if we read our court-delivered restraining order. There's no way Alison said that about us. And she too does like husky, bald dudes. With bad eyesight. And weak bladders.

She's smiling because she's thinking of the Cars! Cars! Cars! editorial staff.

Saab Fighting Wrong Sleepytime Battle

Autoblog reports: Wake up! Saab jumping on the drowsy driver bandwagon.

This would have a lot more impact if the Saabs themselves didn't put us to sleep. Oh, wow, a 9-3 wagon! Man, that gets the blood pumpin'. And, look, yawn, a 2001 9-5. Or, yawn, is it a 2007? And is that a 9-7... zzzzzzzzzz.

Now Volvo... the C30 and V50 both get us pretty chubbed up. Come on, peoples, tell us the C30 isn't friggin' awesome. It is.

That's a snap of the 2008 Volvo C30. So friggin' sweet.

Now With More Pounce!

Come on! GM's gotta be chomping at the bit (is that the correct expression?*) about all of this. See, Toyota's been doing a lot of whoopin' lately, but it seems the whoopin' has turned on the master! (How's that for barely making any sense?)

Anyway, what we're saying is that for a long time Toyota was kicking GM's arse (well, lots of arses, not just GM's) in terms of quality. But now something's changed over in Toyotaville and quality is slipping. Here's a few recent articles:

The New York Times reports: Toyota Loses Top Spot in Reliability Rankings.

CNN reports: Toyota skids in reliability rankings.

Autoblog reports: Toyota Tundra hit with two more quality issues.

This following piece is pretty interesting because a few should-be homeruns from GM have turned into solid singles. Here's one example:

CNN reports: Déjà vu for GM: 2008 Chevy Malibu.

So, with the Camry having some issues and now the Tundra having issues, GM has to be pretty excited with the timing of the all-new Chevy Malibu and equally excited to have the Silverado matched up against the problematic Tundra. The key question here is, "Can GM keep up the quality?" We're not so sure. But we hope so.

*We were going to use the expression "Foaming at the Alison" but it's still a bit obscure. Feel free to use it. Liberally. All over your body... There we go again, foaming at the Alison.

Pounce!

CNN reports: Toyota skids in reliability rankings.

The Detroit News reports: Ford gains,Toyota slips in Consumer Reports' annual quality survey.

Autoblog reports: Toyota hit hard by new Consumer Reports predicted reliability ratings.

So, is it "Poor Toyota" or "Go, Ford!"? Oh, screw Toyota. We wonder, however, if this is somehow a union fault? If domestics slipped further we'd bet the anti-union people would be all over the UAW for suckin'.

Anyway, glad to see Ford doing better. Sorry to see Toyota slipping. Chubbed to see Alison Alisonin'.

Remember, for Detroit to win you don't need Toyota (and others) to lose. Anytime a maker starts slipping in reliability the end results is one of us getting stuck somewhere. As Detroit struggles to lift itself from poorly engineered cars, let's hope others take a stronger look at their engineering, too.

Chevy Builds Car They Are Proud Of

Autoblog reports: Chevy budgets more than $150 million for Malibu ads. Oh, we're sure they are proud of the Corvette, too, but let's get real. The family sedan is where the booty is at, friends. By booty we your sweet family. By sweet family we mean screaming, spolied kids and a wife who just hates your friggin' guts. By wife we mean Alison.

Anyway, see what happens when Chevy builds a good ol' American sedan? They get all spendy and want to tell the world about it. The only way to top this is to spend another $100 million to apologize for ever building the turdific Monte Carlo.

License To Drive

Kicking Tires reports: OnStar Adds Theft Prevention in 2009. Pardon for not jumping up and down at this idea, but... YIKES!

Can you imagine the abuse potential here? We'd not buy a car with this technology in it until there was a way to disable it. But we'd bet if it was disabled then the car wouldn't run. So, if this technology becomes standard (we bet it will), do you really own the car if, at any time, the car can be told (by someone other than the driver) to slow to a crawl? What if speeding in a certain area is a problem, say a construction zone? Can the same technology be used to slow you down? Think of the road crews! How about a school zone? Think of the children! How about if you talk bad about the system or bad about the government? Don't let the terrerists win!

If this technology becomes ubiquitous, do you really own the car or just possess a license to operate it assuming you agree to these conditions?

Gah, this is so F'd up! If this does happen, will older cars, without these systems become more expensive? Will we all be required to turn in our old cars that don't have this technology? Gah! Alison, save us!