San Diego Housing Bubble News and Analysis

This post made my day.

While in the middle of a recession GM is still marketing almost 90% of their products to the 5% of people who can now secure a loan to purchase the vehicle.

This is why we should never bailout any of the big three in IMHO.

http://www.whatgreencar.com/news-item.ph...

A UK Ford Focus clean diesel which gets 50+ MPG this must be a joke.

The government here needs to stop distorting the highway fund tax base by charging higher rates for diesel then letting companies use the expense of purchasing diesel as a deduction. This keeps diesel artificially high for consumers forcing them to use only gasoline as a primary fuel.

If only common sense could be brought into the energy policy we could probably be 10% more efficient right out of the gate without changing a single thing.

Gotta restructure. If the unions and management can do it outside bankruptcy, fine. If not, force than into Chapter 11.

If they're both too damn selfish to agree to a plan that allows viability going forward, then screw em. We'll survive the loss.

HAHAHAHAHA that's so funny. The best part of the ad is at end where they tell you that it has an estimated 20MPG city. All of this amazing new expensive hybrid technology to get a vehicle with 20MPG. Pathetic.

They're gonna get bailed out with our money though, comrades. That's the way things work here in the USSA.

The really funny, and deceptive part, is how much of a deal they make of the 20 MPG city figure. This sounds so awesome to people who drive standard vehicles. They think "wow it must get like 30 MPG on the highway!". What the ad fails to explain is that hybrid vehicles typically get significantly WORSE fuel mileage at highway speeds. Ever drive a Prius at 70 MPH? Sounds like the engine's going to fly apart. I'll bet this beast gets about 15 MPG on the freeway. Probably better off in the long run buying the standard version. At least it's likely to hold up. Although considering GM quality lately, that may not even be a safe bet.

I hate to say it due to the impending job loss, but I don't think GM's gonna make it. Maybe not any of the other US automakers either.

For the Republicans reading who are desperately trying to find new memes after having banished all the thinkers from your party to the hinterlands well north of Alaska, let me give you a little help.

The question I hear from the "conservative" hoi polloi is "Who will they bailout nexxxxxt?" That's the wrong question. The right question is "Who won't they bailout next?" The answer is, they won't bailout the overwhelming majority of Americans threatened with job loss, they will only provide some unemployment assistance and tax relief for retraining/education costs. Why are 250K autoworkers so important even though the majority of them, if not the great majority, would remain employed during a BK workout? Because they publicly gave so much money and support to the Dems. That's the danger of this sort of socialism, that unsustainable businesses are maintained with taxpayer funds purely for political purposes (ethanol also comes to mind.)

Is there a market for Escalades? Yes.
Can GM make good profit on Escalades? Heck yes. (Probably five figures on each one sold) That's why they were all so bent on making them in the first place.
Do people drive Escalades alone? Yes.
Does Escalade Hybrid get better gas mileage than non-hybrid? Absolutely. (Non-hybrid does 12 mpg city)

So what's your problem?

Are you suggesting that GM should stop building Escalades and leave a niche in the market for some reason?

GM can't compete with Japanese Big 3, because they've neglected fuel efficiency and build quality of their low-end cars for too long. They can retool factories, spend money on R&D, and maybe 2012 Ford Focus can soundly beat 2012 Toyota Corolla. They are getting there. 2005 Focus was a rather poor performer compared to 2005 Corolla, 2009 Focus and 2009 Corolla are very close. In the mean time, GM needs to survive. The best way they know how is by building Escalades.

Here comes the most absurd bailout for auto industry: you can get tax credit for buying new cars.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/prweb/20081112/b...

Hey, now that's a bailout I can vote for...Except I'd be buying something German....(no brand named).

Just a hunch, GM won't get a bailout.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/art...

WASHINGTON (AFP) — Hopes for a swift bailout of the US auto industry appeared to stall Thursday after a top Democratic senator said Republicans looked set to scupper the proposal until Barack Obama is president.
Top Democrats including president-elect Obama urged an accelerated bailout of the once-mighty US industry amid warnings from bosses that the sector, hammered by mounting losses and plunging sales, could collapse.

Spending billions of additional federal tax dollars with no promises to reform the root causes crippling automakers' competitiveness around the world is neither fair to taxpayers nor sound fiscal policy," Boehner said.

Boehner was the one screaming for the no banker left behind bailout.

Well, from a oil use reduction standpoint this is huge. The non hybrid gets 13mpg? So the increase is 53% better MPG. To get that same % improvement from a Prius at 50mpg, youd have to go to about 77MPG.

Or to think of it another way: gallons of gas needed to drive 15000 miles/year.

Small car gets 40 mpg. Uses 375 gallons a year
Prius gets 50 mpg. Uses 300 gallons a year.
Large SUV gets 13 mpg. Uses 1154 gallons a year.
SUV hybrid gets 20 mpg. Uses 750 gallons a year.

Small cars being traded for a hybrid saves 75 gallons a year.
SUV's being traded for a hybrid saves 404 gallons.

Obviously it is way more valuable for Americans to upgrade to hybrid SUV's than it is for them to upgrade from small cars to hybdids.

How about upgrading from a Big ass SUV to a hybrid car? I would make the argument 80% of folks who have SUVs really don't need them.

The dude is driving solo in the commercial!

You must work for a GM dealer or proudly drive around in your oversized yellow Hummer.

NO BAILOUTS FOR DUMBASS CAR MANUFACTURERS.

As the saying goes....."Follow the Hummer to Foreclosure"

Correction:

Having banished all the GOP Thinkers to the Democratic party.

Where did all those Kansas Dems come from?

Republican moderates who were driven out by the Bible Thumpers.

bail them out, then they will give jobs to brazil. LET THEM GO BANKRUPT!!!!!!!

http://www.laht.com/article.asp?ArticleI...

General Motors to Invest $1 Billion in Brazil Operations -- Money to Come from U.S. Rescue Program

By Russ Dallen
Latin American Herald Tribune staff

General Motors plans to invest $1 billion in Brazil to avoid the kind of problems the U.S. automaker is facing in its home market, said the beleaguered car maker.

According to the president of GM Brazil-Mercosur, Jaime Ardila, the funding will come from the package of financial aid that the manufacturer will receive from the U.S. government and will be used to "complete the renovation of the line of products up to 2012."

"It wouldn't be logical to withdraw the investment from where we're growing, and our goal is to protect investments in emerging markets," he said in a statement published by the business daily Gazeta Mercantil.

Meanwhile, he cut the company's revenue forecast for this year by 14% to $9.5 billion from $11 billion, as the economic crisis began to cause rapid slowdowns in sales.

GM already announced three programs of paid leave, and Ardila added that GM Brazil "is going to wait and see how the market behaves in order to know what decision to take" with regard to possible layoffs.

For Ardila, the injection in Brazil's automobile sector of 8 billion reais ($3.51 billion) recently announced by the federal and state governments of Sao Paulo "has already begun to revive sales," which fell by 12% in October.

The executive said that the company will operate a "conservative" scenario in 2009 with an estimated production of 2.6 million units, and another more "optimistic" that contemplates sales of 2.9 million.

This year sales will reach 2.85 million vehicles, which represents a growth of 15% over last year.

Russ Dallen with EFE in Sao Paulo

SUVs tend to outsell compact cars in this country. Evidently, there is a need that's fulfilled by SUVs but not by minivans or trucks.

It's good for business to listen to your customers rather than design the product line around your own preconceptions of what may or may not be needed in the market.

Chrysler and GM are now very likely gonna enter bankruptcy. The govt has done all it can do and should do to prop them up. They will exist in much smaller form with focus on a couple brands e.g. Jeep

Hummer expected to be wound down shortly, no buyer expected.

http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2009/0...

GM to file bankruptcy on Monday.

Sad day, but probably good thing going into bankruptcy.

Unfortunately we are all now larger owners via the government's majority equity stake. The whisper is that the govt will pump $30B more into the company.

Bubblesitter

The stock market should soar...

Chrysler and GM are now very likely gonna enter bankruptcy

My prediction: Ford will join the crowd in about a year. Their comparative cost structure will be so uneconomical when competing with the ones in BK, they will be forced into chapter 11. This is what has happened to airlines. They just keep entering and coming out of Chapter 11 without ever making much profit. Same fate for the "Big 3" as far as the eye can see or they go away.

The stock market should soar...

This should help too..

Unemployment in U.S. Probably Surpassed 9% in May

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=2...

Ford actually has a pretty decent car line right now imho. Not "great", but decent... I hope GM gets back to building great cars in it's slimmer form, and hopefully this is a huge wakeup call for UAW...They really need to bring over the european designs (while they can)...As far as I'm concerned, it's only the big two now...Chrysler is no longer an american car company.

Until obama speaks....Heh heh.

US dollar overnight

might not be related but the US dollar opened strong last night - even gapped up from 79.23 to 79.44

then, right after the White House announced that we the people will be buying GM, the US dollar heads down

again, the action in the US dollar may or may not be related to the GM news but the timing sure fits

If I'm not mistaken, a lot of government agencies use Ford. Maybe they have a chance of surviving.

Correction : Until Obama starts Caug... Caugh.. Caughing....