[Missouri-l] Leaner Detroit rolls out hybrids, smaller cars

[Chip Hailey]

> Leaner Detroit rolls out hybrids, smaller cars Jessie Jones shines up a 
> 2010
> Chevrolet Camaro RS in the General Motors exhibit of the North American
> International Auto Show January 9, 2010 at Cobo Hall in Detroit, Michigan.
> The show opens to media on Monday and to the general public next Saturday.
> Jessie Jones shines up a 2010 Chevrolet Camaro RS in the General Motors
> exhibit of the North American International Auto Show January 9, 2010 at
> Cobo Hall in Detroit, Michigan. The show opens to media on Monday and to 
> the
> general public next Saturday.
> Getty Images
> At the International Auto Show, it's out with the muscle cars and
> gas-guzzling SUVs, in with Electric Avenue's plug-ins and hybrids omments
> (28) GREG KEENAN Globe and Mail Update Published on Sunday, Jan. 10, 2010
> 7:06PM EST Last updated on Monday, Jan. 11, 2010 3:39AM EST T here's
> something missing from the North American International Auto Show this
> year:
> good old-fashioned American horsepower.
> The watchwords are "small" and "electric" at the first Detroit auto show
> since two Motown giants collapsed into bankruptcy protection and had to be
> rescued with a bailout from U.S. and Canadian taxpayers that amounted to
> more than $75-billion (U.S.).
> "It is a new era," says David Cole, chairman of the Center for Automotive
> Research, an industry think-tank in Ann Arbor, Mich.
> In this new era, everything is smaller - the companies, the market, the
> vehicles and the show itself. Consider that in 1998, when Volkswagen AG
> introduced its New Beetle, the main show floor at the downtown Detroit
> convention hall was so packed that the German auto maker's unveiling was
> relegated to the basement.
> This year, some auto makers are skipping the event entirely and others 
> have
> shrunk so much that there's room between the Ford Motor Co. and General
> Motors Co.
> displays
> for an exhibition called Electric Avenue, which will showcase such new
> technologies as battery-powered vehicles and plug-in hybrids that 
> represent
> the industry's new arms race.
> That the stage that traditionally roars with the unveiling of muscle cars
> and behemoth sport utility vehicles is now the site of Electric Avenue 
> puts
> an exclamation point on the end of a decade of disaster and downsizing for
> Detroit.
> Beyond the shrunken size of Chrysler Group LLC, Ford, GM and even mighty
> Toyota Motor Corp., is the downsizing in the vehicles North Americans are
> buying.
> It's easy to point to the spike in gas prices to more than $4 (U.S.) a
> gallon 18 months ago as the culprit, but much of the transformation in the
> market is because the baby boomer generation is aging and their children 
> are
> in a massive group of people who are buying their first vehicles. First
> vehicle usually equals small vehicle.
> "For the next couple of decades to come, boomers are going to desire 
> smaller
> vehicles -maybe even fewer vehicles - as they go from two-income 
> households
> to one-income or no-income households, and this will be the dominant force
> in the downsizing of the vehicle population," says George Pipas, manager 
> of
> sales analysis for Ford.
> Sales of compact cars, for example, exceeded those of mid-sized cars last
> year for the first time in the U.S. market.
> In Canada, entry-level vehicles represented more than 50 per cent of the
> market last year, compared with 35 per cent in 2000, statistics compiled 
> by
> DesRosiers Automotive Consultants Inc. show.
> That massive switch in consumers' desires is reflected todaymon at the 
> first
> of two media days.
> Ford, which stayed out of bankruptcy protection and has begun turning a
> profit again, will show off the latest version of its Focus compact. It's 
> a
> car for all global markets, but the first time Ford has united its once
> disparate international operations to create one car for all markets 
> instead
> of different iterations for North America, Europe and Asia.
>>From GM, a new version of the subcompact Chevrolet Aveo and its new 
>>compact
> car, the Chevrolet Cruze, will be centre stage.
> Not at the show, but waiting in the wings to be introduced to North 
> America
> on Thursday at the Detroit Science Center is the tiny, ultracheap Nano 
> from
> Tata Motors Ltd.
> of India. Tata said last week it is developing a North American Nano that 
> it
> hopes will be available in three years.
> Meeting U.S. and Canadian safety standards and consumer tastes will raise
> the price of the car well above its $2,500 cost in India, but if Tata goes
> ahead, it will be another entry in the growing subcompact segment, which
> Detroit ignored for more than a decade.
> The downsizing of vehicles also shows up under the hood. Even if drivers 
> are
> replacing their current vehicles with new cars of the same size, they're
> moving to smaller engines.
> "Instead of buying a V-6 engine, they buy a four-cylinder engine," says
> Xavier Mosquet, who heads the automotive practice at New York-based
> consulting firm The Boston Group.
> Although fuel prices fell last year from the surge in 2008, the thinking
> among road warriors is: "If fuel prices rise again, I've just been smarter
> because I've made the right choice," Mr. Mosquet says.
> When Ford's mid-sized Fusion sedan went on the market in 2006, the split
> between four-cylinder and six-cylinder engines was about 50-50, Mr. Pipas
> says.
> Last year, 60 per cent of buyers chose a four-cylinder, another 10 per 
> cent
> bought a hybrid version and 30 per cent bought Fusions with V-6 engines.
> The absence of horsepower comes in part because there are no news
> conferences or unveilings by Chrysler, which in past years could be 
> counted
> on to roll out a super car with a top speed of 248 miles per hour, a 
> reborn
> Challenger muscle car or a four-wheeled motorcycle with a V10 engine.
> Instead, Chrysler's most intriguing new product will be from Fiat SpA, 
> which
> now owns 20 per cent of the No. 3 Detroit company and has management
> control.
> An electric version of the Fiat 500 subcompact car will troll Electric
> Avenue.
> The
> gas version of the 500 is coming to a Chrysler dealership near you, 
> perhaps
> as early as the end of this year.
> The Leaf, an electric vehicle developed by Nissan Motor Co. Ltd. will also
> be on display on Electric Avenue.
> Toyota will unveil a new hybrid-electric car that's smaller than its 
> Prius,
> which jolted the market a decade ago.
> The pure electric vehicles such as the Leaf and even the cars that will be
> mainly battery powered with a small gasoline engine, such as the Chevrolet
> Volt, are not expected to generate profits for the auto makers for years 
> or
> even to capture significant market share. But the small cars such as the
> Chevrolet Cruze and Ford's new Fiesta and the new offerings Chrysler will
> bring to the market with Fiat's help next year and in 2012 need to be
> profitable.
> "The small car issue is a big question mark for everyone," says Mr. Cole 
> of
> the Center for Automotive Research.
> But one way to generate profits from them and attract the millennial
> generation is to pack them with entertainment and information technology.
> So it was no accident that Ford chief executive officer Alan Mulally gave
> the keynote address at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas last 
> week.
> Ford used that show to announce that its vehicle communication and
> entertainment system known as Sync - developed with Microsoft Inc. - will
> soon offer Internet radio and access to Twitter messages.
> Mr. Pipas has noticed how that's a striking change from his teenage years,
> when friends connected by getting the keys to the family car and hanging 
> out
> at a drive-in or some other place.
> "People today hang out on YouTube, they hang out on Twitter, they hang out
> on God only knows where," he says. "But they don't have to go from A to B 
> to
> be connected, that's the point."
>
>