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Saturn is planning on launching a new web-based purchasing scheme which will place even more of the buying process online. The plan is aimed at moving functions like checking dealer inventories, applying for credit and scheduling a test drive to a unified Saturn online platform. Down the road, the website could also be used to handle the evaluation of customers’ trade-in vehicles and to negotiate price using online chat and e-mail. Although this last goal is particularly strange given Saturn’s “No Haggle” pricing. Of course, this program is not being pitched as “the end of the Saturn dealership,” although Edmunds AutoObserver notes that it came out of efforts aimed at “developing the Internet as a tool that might someday enable them to eliminate the middleman entirely.” Since these efforts were thwarted by legal concerns, Saturn will just be centralizing a few online capabilities which most dealers already offer. At enormous expense.

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As you know, TTAC has a simple posting policy: no flaming the website, it’s authors or fellow commentators. As some commentators have [rightly] pointed out, the policy contains a glaring inconsistency: we allow flaming of third parties. GM Car Czar Bob Lutz, Toyota, The New York Times, President Bush, etc. have all been flame-broiled on this site. [NB: if Bob Lutz or George Bush posted on TTAC, they’d have anti-flame protection.] My only defense for this obvious double standard: it works. I’m not going to make that case by pointing to any of the incisive remarks penned by our Best and Brightest. Instead, I’d like to draw your attention to the comments (and picture of a douche) underneath a Jalopnik link to my last GM Death Watch. If you share some of these sentiments about TTAC, I invite you to voice them right here, right now. All I ask is that you do so in a civilized manner. Because that’s who we are, and that’s what you do. Meanwhile, Justin and I discuss the day’s news.

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Sales of portable GPS units for use in cars “have skyrocketed,” and according to a CNN video, so have the number of thefts. Portable navigation units bring “about $100 on the black market,” and in 2007, about 800 of them were stolen from cars in Nassau County near New York City- and while it’s still early in 2008, about 450 have already been stolen. Removing the device from your windshield and locking it up in the car may seem an easy way to prevent theft, but Detective Sergeant Anthony Repalone says leaving the mount in place indicates a GPS unit is likely stashed in the center console, glove compartment, or under the seat. He advises that you remove the mount and wipe off the telltale ring its suction cup can leave on your windshield. If your car does get broken into by a thief looking for your GPS unit, Detective Repalone ticks off the potential costs: “The damage to the windshield, couple hundred dollars, stolen device, several hundred dollars, so the person who owns it is now out maybe seven- eight hundred dollars.” While you might question his math skills, it’s difficult to argue with his logic.

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Rumors are flying that Chrysler is in talks with a second Chinese manufacturer. They already have an agreement with Chery to rebadge subcompacts for Mexico and South American markets markets and develop a subcompact for the U.S. (all under the Dodge brand). Now Reuters says they’re looking into an alliance with Great Wall. Great Wall builds small SUVs, a small CUV and pickup trucks with some of the coolest model names going: the Wingle (say “Great Wall Wingle” fast three times) and the Socool. Obviously, Chrysler doesn’t need more SUVs or CUVs. However, Chrysler hasn’t had a small pickup since the rebadged Mitsubishi pickup they sold in the previous century. With sales of the Dakota “midsized” pickup in the cesspool, and big truck sales circling the toilet, they could be looking at Great Wall to provide a small truck– a vehicle Chery can’t supply. So if the rumors turn out to be true (and inside sources say they are), the next small Dodge truck could come from the People’s Republic of China. And pave the way for… the end of domestic car production.

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CAW President Buzz Hargrove has been in a feisty mood lately. After telling all of Detroit where it can stick two-tier wages, Hargrove got personal with Cerberus Capital Management, owners of Chrysler LLC. Bloomberg reports that Hargrove is irate at the three-headed hedge fund over promises its president made while seeking support for its purchase of Chrysler. Cerberus President Steve Feinberg had “promised that they weren’t going to slice and dice and sell,” Hargrove said in an interview. But with Chrysler cutting tens of thousands of jobs and slashing its model line, the CAW leader smells betrayal. “We were misled,” says Hargrove, “(Feinberg’s) trying to cut his way to profitability, as opposed to grow(ing) the business… (he) has never met with us since then to explain the shift in thinking.” Of course, most people don’t expect private equity groups like Cerberus to operate accountably, and strip-and-flip rumors have been plentiful since the Cerberus takeover. So what finally made Hargrove think that Cerberus wouldn’t make good on its promises? The axing of Chryslers Pacifica CUV. Thats right, Hargrove calls the cancellation is “very concerning” because the crossover segment is hot at the moment and “they discontinued it without having a replacement.” Anyone think Buzz ever looks at the sales numbers?

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The MinnPost reports that the local E85 lobby is joining the Minnesota Auto Dealers Association’s opposition to California-style emissions standards. Although ethanol had been [tortuously] justified as an eco-friendly fuel, Minnesota corn growers say the standards would “make it difficult to certify E-85 vehicles.” (This despite the fact that California has already certified 300k flex-fuel vehicles.) James Erkel of the Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy argues that the corn growers have stopped making sense. “These bills would not curtail ethanol markets and in some respects actually help it.” Erkel added that the new regs wouldn’t affect Minnesota’s attempt to “upgrade” its E10 fuel to 20 percent ethanol. But the Minnesota Auto Dealers Association have convinced their agricultural pals that stricter-than-the-feds tailpipe standards would kill the market for new pickups and SUVs, including flex-fuel versions of same. 

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I own a people carrier and take my hat off to those truckers who stop arrogant BMW and sporty cars from racing down the outside lane and hoping to pull in at the last second, they get away with it because there are too many weak-willed sissys who just give into them, and allow them to pull in.

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Just been talking to Mark Bursa about Tata and JLR. Just who owns the Rover brand now? Ford bought it off of BMW and stopped Shanghai Auto getting it a couple of years back (and SAIC therefore had to resort to Roewe). Have the rights to the Rover name simply transferred over to Tata now under the terms of the JLR sale deal? We’re not 100% sure, but it would be strange if that was not the case.

Don’t laugh but there might be worse things to do than revisit the ill-fated CityRover badge that Tata did with the Indica and MG Rover. It’s an option and maybe not quite as nuts as it sounds. The car would have to be brought up to half-decent European spec and you wouldn’t sell it through Jag outlets, but maybe it could work as a sub-brand in a Land Rover showroom? Or find another, more direct, route to market? Could be a brand there that might also conceivably work for a European spec Nano in a few years time (can’t quite see European Fiat dealers falling over themselves for that)?

If Tata has acquired the Rover brand, might it even consider a brand licensing deal of some sort with Shanghai Auto? There are possibilities perhaps. Lots of them.

There again, why would Tata help give the Chinese auto industry a leg-up? Ratan Tata may well be enjoying the fact that he has acquired a couple of good brands that sell in substantial volume in Western markets and are in pretty reasonable financial shape. There are profits to be banked, global sales to be developed with already there and upcoming product. Three years on, it’s not quite the same story with MG Rover and the rather messy Chinese acquisition of those assets is it?

The Indians can perhaps be forgiven for enjoying this moment. Jaguar and Land Rover are now fully owned by an India-based company. A good bit of class and international prestige has been puchased off the shelf (albeit a wobbly shelf that Ford was having trouble supporting). This catapults India’s standing in the global auto industry into the top league. And Nano has just wowed Geneva. And this all comes in spite of having to observe the tidal wave of Western FDI money heading into China over the last ten years.

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