Oracle of Delphi

I wonder what the NHTSA's safety ratings will be or should I say won't be ???

On a side note, I wrecked a Chevy Cruze rental last week on a weekend get a way, $7000.00 damage and the damn airbag never went off, although that may be a blessing in disguise, with all the airbag issues going on today. The Cruze folded up like an accordion, but hey I'm still alive and that's the important thing right? That and the fact I didn't wreck my Porsche company car ...

Das ist gut, ja ???

Oh the memories ...

Hmmmm, what does Cadillac of today mean to me? Well to be honest (NOTHING), the names of their vehicles stand for or mean nothing ... Bring back the legacy names !!! Remember when Pontiac brought you the first ever G8? Where's Pontiac now ???

Danke mein herr ...

Bwahahahahahahahaha !!!

Link: http://goo.gl/9tzxl

BMW is not up at night worried about Cadillac's ATS-V ... Trust me when I say this ... Cadillac may even sell one or two in Europe too, this time ...

+1

BMW has more cash than it knows what to do with, besides unlike Australians, German voters are pretty nationalistic when it comes to purchasing vehicles, they have a German first mindset, too bad Americans don't think that way ...

We are sentimental but no Australian brand is going to survive simply because it is Australian. No Aussie brands are more ingrained in the national consciousness than Qantas or Holden but the flying kangaroo is facing extinction as a long-haul, full-service carrier within 10 years and GM Holden may not even last that long. You don't have to look far to see why. This week, I'm flying to London and needed a one-way fare. Checking the Qantas website was once my benchmark and my habit but I was reminded again why it ceased to be so. Advertisement: Story continues below <iframe id="dcAd-1-3" src="http://ad-apac.doubleclick.net/adi/onl.smh.news/opinion/politics;cat1=politics;cat=opinion;ctype=article;pos=3;sz=300x250;tile=3;ord=2.7652609E7?" width='300' height='250' scrolling="no" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" allowtransparency="true" frameborder="0"> < /iframe> On the Qantas website, I was offered a one-way economy fare of $1558, premium economy for $3278 and business class $7547. The last time I flew Qantas long-haul economy, it was bad and I want this time to get to London without an aching neck and sleep deprivation. So, economy was out. I've also tried the premium economy and won't again. As for Qantas business-class fares, they are out of my range as I pay my own airfares. A few clicks on the internet and a new world of value was available: Emirates was offering a one-way business-class ticket for $3757 with flat-bed seats, five-star service (I've tried it before), a convenient late-evening departure time, business-class lounges, a limo service to the airport and a limo service from the airport to my hotel in London (blessed relief after 26 hours of travel). All this for $479 more than the price of Qantas's glorified economy class and less than half the price of Qantas business class. For almost the same fare, I could have flown business class on China Southern Airlines, which is developing a ''Canton route'' between Australia and London via its hub in Guangzhou - while Qantas cuts back its famed ''kangaroo route'' to London because it is not making money. There was also a competitive business-class fare from Etihad Airways, with which I've enjoyed superb service in the past, but it was more expensive and the timing was less convenient. Etihad and Emirates are booming, taking Australians to Europe via their hubs in Abu Dhabi and Dubai. Dubai. Abu Dhabi. Guangzhou. It's a new world for Australian travellers. It was no contest. I booked Emirates. So, another Qantas frequent flyer will be going overseas without a backward glance at the flying kangaroo. As I was writing this, a post popped up on my wife's Facebook page and she sent it on. It was from a friend, Ella, who wrote: ''Dear Qantas, do not send me an email promising me a sale when it's not. Your price was $200 above what I can get on Webjet … and travelling when I like, not between May and June. Get a grip, Qantas.'' These structural pressures were the backdrop to the tensions that exploded last year when Qantas was subject to rolling industrial action, furious public abuse from three of its unions and a lockout and fleet grounding by management. The turmoil has since given way to collective agreements but the structural problem remains. My understanding is that in order to buy industrial peace, Qantas has locked itself into restrictions on the number of casual staff it can hire. This may buy industrial peace but it will not buy survival for Qantas international, which is unprofitable, according to management. Qantas may have an indelible brand name, a dominant position in the domestic market and a reliable record of profitability but the profit is coming from the Qantas Group, not the glamorous long-haul Qantas flagships. The company will survive and can expand and prosper but the full-service, long-haul flying kangaroo we grew up with may not be around. Then there is Holden. For that matter, there is the entire Australian car manufacturing industry. Surely its future lies in making specialised parts for global markets, not entire cars for a small and impossibly crowded open marketplace? For decades, Holden enjoyed more than 50 per cent of the market in Australia. Last year, GM Holden's market share was 12.8 per cent. In January, sales of the Holden Commodore were the worst monthly sales yet, down 18 per cent from the previous January and continuing a long-term downward drift. GM Holden also announced it was cutting 100 jobs from its plant in Adelaide. It was not alone. Toyota announced that it was cutting 350 manufacturing jobs at its two plants in Melbourne. Ford reached an agreement with the Gillard government to receive $34 million in subsidies. How much subsidy is a car-making job worth? What all three of these car-makers have in common are generous and unsustainable labour costs, padded by government subsidy. The GM Holden collective agreement is a case in point. Over the past seven years it has delivered a cumulative wage increase of 29 per cent, an average of more than 4 per cent per year - a real increase over inflation. The agreement also obliges GM Holden to pay generous redundancy benefits and is generous in numerous other ways. So, too, are the collective agreements made by Ford and Toyota. Providing generous wages and conditions is intrinsically laudable but not if it compromises the survival of the enterprise. This is exactly what we have with the Australian car manufacturing industry, which wants more and continued government subsidies. The workplace agreements at GM Holden, Ford and Toyota commit to wages and redundancy obligations the companies could not afford under present market conditions were it not for transfer payments from the federal government. What unreality is the Gillard government propping up? It raises the question - why are Australian taxpayers being asked to make sacrifices, via subsidising higher costs, that the local auto-makers and their staff have not themselves been willing to make? Members of the public are already voting, with their wallets. Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/aussie-icons-now-species-in-danger-20120205-1qzm1.html#ixzz1lWUOgVJ9

The coronation went exactly according to Ford’s script. At the North American International Auto Show in Detroit 2,400 reporters hushed as video screens the size of tractor trailers flooded their vision. A booming voice shook Joe Louis Arena: Two household names, Toyota Camry and Honda Accord, dominated the midsize car business last decade. “Then,” said the voice, “something changed.” Their sales and market share ran flat in 2008. When the recession hit, they plummeted. “What you might not realize is that Camry and Accord never recovered.” Camry sales fell 31% ­between 2007 and 2010. The Accord fell 28%. Both slid further after the 2011 quake in Japan. But not the Ford Fusion. Its sales rose 66% in the last four years. By 2011 it passed the Accord, but still trailed the Camry and Nissan’s Ultima. Cue the loud music, the smoke ­machine and the car: the reinvented ­Fusion, a pretty sedan with premium features like technology that keeps you in your lane or helps you parallel park. When it goes on sale later this year, it’ll be available with a variety of fuel-efficient power trains: gasoline, hybrid and plug-in hybrid that Ford says will get the equivalent of 100mpg—better than a Chevrolet Volt or a plug-in Toyota Prius. No price just yet. The message is unmistakably aggressive, arguably arrogant: Ford just redefined the midsize-car market. The rest of the field, including General Motors’ redesigned Chevrolet Malibu and the popular Hyundai Sonata, should pack it in. “I think we’re going forward with some quiet confidence,” Ford’s president of the Americas, Mark Fields, said later that evening over a filet mignon dinner with reporters at the stately Detroit Athletic Club. Aggressive? Nah. “We’re just laying out some facts.” As anyone in this town will tell you, believing one’s own hype in the car business is more reckless than texting while driving. Just ask General Motors. Ford should keep this in mind. While it would have you believe that the new Fusion is the latest in a string of product home runs—stylish, fuel-efficient cars, loaded with technology, that consumers around the world are dying to drive— here in the U.S. facts suggest otherwise. Let’s start with the Fiesta, Ford’s smallest car. Introduced in 2010, it had a decent first year, but it’s already fading. In the last two months of 2011 Chevrolet’s new Sonic handily outsold the Fiesta, which is among the highest priced in the segment. Ford ended the year with 126 days of supply but says that’s typical for December. Dealers generally like to have 60 days’ supply or less. Then there’s the Focus, Ford’s new compact. It, too, has great looks and lots of premium features (and a premium price). But it was outsold by the Toyota Corolla, Honda Civic, Chevy Cruze and Hyundai Elantra in 2011. Launch issues last spring hurt production—some bad dashboards and transmissions—but those seem to have been ironed out. Now there’s a glut: 89 days’ worth. Continued: http://goo.gl/HwXK7

would it really be all that different than losing pontiac or olds...? i know it's a brand with big history and possibly a huge future, but those that work there could still work for GM, and the IP that they hold won't go anywhere. even if the brand disolved, aussies could still have a design place down there if GM thought it needed one....and could afford it. No news here as we already knew the RWD is not going away all together. We knew Holden, Chevy and Cadillac are active here in a RWD sedans and we also know Buick has been active in China with Holden based products and could bring it to the states if they choose. As for the name Holden is just that anymore a name. WIth more and more Chevy product coming in to their line they are just the Chevy of down under. It only goes to reason Chevy here could and should get Police cars and a Sports sedan to offer here. Even if Holdens name would ever vanish [i don't expect it to] that does not mean the people who design and the group building these cars would also vanish. I expect we will see the Zeta replacment and it will be well designed to fit the needs of all of GM's Global divisions. I also expect it will lose a lot of weight too. There is a lot going on and we will see some cool suprises here in the future. Your prognostications make me laugh, I can tell you this, Aussies won't just simply start buying Chevys, and if Holden goes, everything will go. If the AU government doesn't acqiuesce to the GM shakedown, everything that GM owns in Oz will go in 2016. But look on the bright side, at least your spelling has gotten better, spellcheck is a wonderful thing, huh?