CalCars' Felix Kramer, Ron Gremban and Randy
Reisinger have been at the the LA Auto Show, an
increasingly important event for the industry.
(Last year, it's where GM announced the Saturn
Vue PHEV and hinted at the Volt.) We had a chance
to meet some of the Volt team and hear their
progress, and attend the media preview events. We
hope to have more to say about that in a few days.


LA EVENT: Today we will be providing the
technical services to enable a mid-day public
conversion of a Prius right in front of the Auto
Show, in a Freedom From Oil event organized by
Rainforest Action Network and Global Exchange,
co-sponsored by Plug In America and CalCars.
Working with Plug-In Conversions of Poway, CA
that supplies the Nilar nickel-metal hydride
batteries and Plug-In Supply of Petaluma that
built the battery box, we hope the messsage will
be that while most carmakers say PHEVs are a long
way off, they, like us, could start getting PHEVs
on the road much sooner, with today's batteries
of all chemistries, using line extensions of
today's vehicles. See the press release at
http://ran.org/media_center/news_article/?uid=2439
and the news report at the end of this posting.


Here's a roundup of other developments:

FORD: CEO Alan Mulally was the keynote speaker at
the Motor Press Guild (MPG!) opening event. In
addition to steps to improve business efficiency,
he emphasized goals of improved fuel economy and
lower emissions. The "cornerstone" is TGDI:
smaller-displacement turbo-charged direct
injection engines that can save 20% of fuel. With
Mulally coming from Boeing, a focus on
lightweighting of cars and improved aerodynamics
is not surprising. PHEVs featured a little more
in his speech thn in his "Blueprint for
Sustainabililty." He mentioned the plan to work
with Southern California Edison, emphasizing that
it would be research to develop a broad "systems
solution" that includes use of off-peak
electricity. He said that this approach had "a
real chance of making a substantial improvement
on a system-wide basis to sustainability." And he
said that batteries were a key "enabling
technology" that had to be improved. ("Enablers"
seemed to be the buzzword of the Auto Show.)

VOLLKSWAGEN: VW showed its "Space Up! Blue" van
that echoes the company's vans of other
generations. It's a boxy, highly-styled 65-mile
range series PHEV with a photovoltaic roof that
contributes a symbolic amount of power and a
high-temperature hydrogen fuel cell range
extender. rUlrich Hackenberg, Head of Technical
Development, made no commitment to production of
anything except a diesel version of the vehicle.

VOLVO: The Ford subsidiary showed its Recharge
flex-fuel series 60-mile PHEV. First shown in
Frankfurt, it's based on the Volvo C30. Science
Officer Ichiro Sugioka seems optimistic that the
lightweight motors from British company PML
Flightlink will solve the "unsprung mass"
problems traditionally associated with in-wheel electric motors.

GM: Bob Lutz explained the company's intention to
make Chevy the "world fuel economy leader" and
said that powering cars with electricity was
"nothing less than a transformation...as big a
shift as the transition from horse and buggy to gasoline cars."

TOYOTA: The company's focus was on its large
trucks and its fuel-cell vehicle that travelled
across Canada accompanied by two large hydrogen
tanker trucks. As you can see in the AP stsory
below, the company is increasingly becoming the
target of environmental criticism -- here's how
the Wall Street Journal's Mike Spector described
it, not specifically for Toyota: The delicate
minuet of marketing and lobbying shows how car
makers are bowing toward pressure for
earth-friendly, fuel-efficient autos while at the
same time tiptoeing around the fact that
fuel-thirsty trucks and sport-utility vehicles
are big sellers.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119500527081792239.html?mod=todays_us_marketplac\
e

HONDA: Continued its focus on fuel cell
development, announcing the public availability
of fuel cell cars for lease in Southern
California for $600/month for three years. Among
its first three customers is Terry Tamminen,
former California EPA Secretary, who continues to promote hydrogen globally.

More news to come...


Toyota faces questions about quality, environment at Los Angeles Auto Show
The Associated Press
Published: November 14, 2007
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/11/14/business/NA-FIN-US-Auto-Show-Toyota.ph\
p

LOS ANGELES: Toyota Motor Corp. is usually the
darling of the Los Angeles Auto Show, but testy
relations with environmentalists and questions
about quality are making the show a headache for the automaker this year.

It does not help that Toyota chose to introduce a
full-size sport utility vehicle at the show, and
the redesigned Sequoia does not have a hybrid
option like full-size SUVs from General Motors
Corp. and Chrysler LLC that are debuting across
the show floor. The Los Angeles show opens to the
public Friday after two days of media previews.

After the Sequoia was introduced Wednesday, an
environmental activist with a video camera
approached Toyota's general manager for U.S.
sales, Bob Carter, and asked why the company will
not withdraw from a lawsuit against California,
which has sued the U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency to establish tougher fuel economy rules.

Carter refused to answer and knocked the camera
out of Brent Olson's hands. Olson, of San
Francisco-based Rainforest Action Network, was
eventually led away by two policemen.

A handful of protesters also picketed Toyota
outside the show and planned further protests Thursday.

After the spat, Carter said Toyota and
environmentalists have more in common than not,
and that Toyota supports tougher fuel economy
standards but does not want them decided at the state level.

"We believe it's best applied at the federal
level," he said. "We're a full-line manufacturer
and we want to meet consumer needs."

He added that despite the rise in fuel prices,
many U.S. buyers simply need the utility and space of a full-size SUV.

The Sequoia has a new 5.7-liter, V8 engine that
is more powerful — at 381 horsepower — and more
fuel efficient than the old engine. It also has
improved aerodynamics to save fuel, and the
company plans to introduce an ethanol-capable
version in the fall of 2008. Pricing was not
announced for the new Sequoia, which goes on sale in December.

Fuel economy numbers have not been released, but
Carter said they will improve by about 12 percent
over the old model, or 2 to 3 miles per gallon.
The current Sequoia gets around 15 miles per
gallon in the city, compared to 21 miles per
gallon for the new hybrids from Chrysler and GM,
including the Dodge Durango and Chrysler Aspen
SUVs, the Chevrolet Tahoe SUV and Chevrolet Silverado pickup.

Carter said Toyota plans to offer hybrid versions
of every vehicle in its lineup and is also
studying combinations such as hybrid diesels. But
it hasn't managed to develop a system that works
well in large trucks like GM and Chrysler did in
their consortium with Daimler and BMW.

"We're not there yet. There's no technology to
meet all our customers' needs," he said.

Toyota's sterling reputation has taken a beating
in recent months because of quality problems and
environmentalists' anger. Toyota also was stung
this fall by the departures of some key
executives, including its North American chief,
Jim Press, who left to become vice chairman of
Chrysler LLC, and its U.S. manager of Lexus, Jim
Farley, who went to Ford Motor Co.

Last month, Consumer Reports said Toyota "is
showing cracks in its armor" and will no longer
get automatic recommendations from the magazine
when it releases new or redesigned vehicles. It
also removed several Toyota vehicles from its
recommended list because of quality issues.

Toyota recalled 766,000 vehicles in the United
States last year, down from 2.2 million in 2005
but still up significantly from the 210,000 vehicles it recalled in 2003.

Also last month, the Natural Resources Defense
Council and other groups sent thousands of
e-mails and faxes to Toyota urging it to support
a Senate energy bill that would set a
35-mile-per-gallon average fuel economy standard
by 2020. Toyota backs a more modest approach on
so-called CAFE standards that would require 32 to 35 mpg by 2022.

The company's most recent embarrassment came
earlier this week, when it pulled an ad that
called Fresno a "low-budget tourist stop" after
U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein wrote to complain. The
inland California city has the reputation of
being a high-crime and boring — particularly in
comparison to other cities in the state.

Still, Toyota has a lot in its favor. Toyota
still has 17 of the 39 most reliable vehicles on
Consumer Reports' influential list, far more than any other automaker.

Toyota last week reported a hefty $4 billion
(€2.72 billion) profit in its fiscal second
quarter, the same day that GM reported a record
$39 billion (€26.53 billion) quarterly loss
because of accounting changes. Toyota also is hot
on the heels of GM to become the world's largest
carmaker. Toyota sold 7.05 million vehicles in
the first nine months of this year, just 10,000 less than GM.

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Felix Kramer fkramer@...
Founder California Cars Initiative
http://www.calcars.org
http://www.calcars.org/news-archive.html
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