AD #1572 – Hidden Costs of GM’s Shakedown, Jeep’s Off-Road Cruise, Opel Corsa Styling Trick
March 9th, 2015 at 11:56am
Runtime: 7:44
- GM’s Shakedown
- Design Spotlight: Opel Corsa
- Jeep’s Off-Road Cruise Control
- Renault-Nissan’s Roadmap to Autonomy
- Hyundai’s Watch App is Ready
- Differences Between Fiat 500X & Jeep Renegade
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On today’s show… GM manages to keep Harry Wilson off its board, but at a big price… Carlos Ghosn outlines Nissan’s plans for autonomous cars… and Jeep comes out with cruise control for off-road driving. All that and more coming right up on Autoline Daily.
This is Autoline Daily for March 9th, 2015.
GM’S SHAKEDOWN
General Motors announced this morning that Mr. Harry Wilson is dropping his bid to get on the GM board. But there was some considerable horse trading to get him to drop his bid. Mr. Wilson wanted GM to buy back $8 billion in stock to try and drive up the price. Instead, GM will buy back $5 billion worth by the end of 2016. GM also promised to give all available free cash flow to shareholders, as long as it maintains an investment grade rating. GM also promised to achieve a 20% return on invested capital. Here’s my Autoline Insight. Mr. Wilson and his Wall Street backers just undermined GM’s negotiating hand with the UAW. The union will now argue that if GM can hand over $5 billion to shareholders, with the promise of a lot more to come, then surely it can pay the workers who make its cars a lot more money. At a time when there is so much debate about income inequality, the UAW is going to use this as Exhibit A during contract negotiations later this summer.
WHAT’S WITH THAT WINDOW?
At last week’s Geneva show I was walking past the Opel stand when something weird caught my eye. Check out the rear quarter window on this Opel Corsa. It’s got the strangest shape I’ve ever seen on a car. But guess what? That’s not the shape of the window. They just added a small piece of plastic at the back of the window to create this odd graphic. Automakers are trying all kinds of styling tricks to make their cars stand out from the rest, and I couldn’t resist pointing this one out. By the way, you can check out all my Tweets from that show on the Autoline website, just look for the Geneva show graphic on our home page.
Still to come… Jeep comes out with cruise control for driving the Rubicon trail… Carlos Ghosn lays out Nissan’s plan for autonomous cars… and Hyundai let’s you control parts of your car with your watch.
JEEP’S OFF-ROAD CRUISE CONTROL
Jeep just came out with an unexpected feature. Mounted in the Cherokee TrailHawk’s off-road selection center, what it calls Select Terrain, are the normal hill descent control and rear axle lock buttons, but you may notice an unfamiliar one in the bottom right corner. It’s called Select Speed or maybe a better name would be off-road cruise control. Once in low range, Select Speed can be engaged and vehicle speed can be adjusted 0.6 mph by ratcheting up or down on the shifter in manual mode. Gear and speed information are displayed in the instrument cluster. So, when off-road you don’t need to touch the gas or brake pedal, just set the speed you want. The system allows the brake controller to take over the engine, transmission, and 4-wheel drive system and actively control the vehicle. When going uphill it will maintain speed, use engine torque to do the same as you crest the hill and engage hill descent on the way down to minimize wheel slip. The idea is to let the driver focus on driving the terrain. The only thing that takes getting used to is which gear or speed you needed to be going when in different situations or on different terrain. But it does let you concentrate better on driving.
RENAULT-NISSAN’S ROADMAP TO AUTONOMY
Speaking of automated driving, Renault-Nissan CEO, Carlos Ghosn just laid out the path those companies will follow to introduce autonomous technology. Next year we’ll see vehicles equipped with Traffic Jam Assist, in 2018 its cars will have the ability to drive themselves on the highway, including changing lanes, and the third wave will feature technology that allows more complex city driving. Higher-end Renault and Nissan vehicles will be the first to have these abilities.
WATCH OUT!
If you watched our coverage of this year’s Consumer Electronics Show you may have caught our interview with Hyundai’s Michael Deitz. He touted the automaker’s smartwatch app, which allows Blue Link equipped vehicles to be remote started, locked and unlocked right from your wrist. At the time the app wasn’t ready, but it’s now available to download from Google Play for Android users. It will also be available for iPhones shortly after the Apple Watch is released.
Coming up next, the Jeep Renegade and Fiat 500X share the same platform, but other than that they don’t share a lot in common.
FCA’s new small crossovers, the Jeep Renegade and Fiat 500X, both share the same platform. But according to the chief engineer of the Renegade, Art Anderson, that’s about all they have in common. He joined us on last week’s Autoline After Hours and talked about the differences behind the wheel of those CUVs.
(The excerpt from Autoline After Hours is only available in the video version of today’s program.)
There’s some great info about the new Jeep Renegade in that show and you can watch it now on our website, Autoline.tv or Youtube channel.
And that wraps up today’s report. Thanks for watching.
Thanks to our partner for embedding Autoline Daily on its website: WardsAuto.com
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Comments (19)
March 9th, 2015 at 12:13 pm
Off road cruise control: How much is too much. Assuming you bought an AWD vehicle (and you actually want to take it off-road), why would you want it to propel itself? And concentrating on driving: well, braking and accelerator control is very much part of the driving equation (driving experience. Repeating, just seems too much to me.
March 9th, 2015 at 12:22 pm
I agree totally with you regarding the Harry Wilson situation and General Motors. This is going to weaken GM not only with labor but also with an future corporate raiders like Mr. Wilson. These guys were waiting for the US Government to sell their final stakes in GM as not to inquire the wrath of the US Treasury. Why question is why didn’t the UAW attempt to help GM fend off these corporate raiders? Isn’t the UAW a major stakeholder in GM. Isn’t it the Union’s job to protect their members jobs? Mr. Wilson and his group have done a major disservice to the American Taxpayer that helped to bailout GM in order to protect those American Jobs just so they could line there own pockets.
March 9th, 2015 at 12:53 pm
Isn’t what happened to GM “Extortion”.?????
March 9th, 2015 at 1:06 pm
Why can’t these greedy “investors” like Wilson just let GM make cars, which they are actually doing a pretty good job of these days.
March 9th, 2015 at 1:48 pm
Re: GM
I feel that, as long as Wall Street thinks the Fed is going to rush in and prop up any economic recession with a QE program, these kind of financial shenanigans are going to happen over and over…* sigh *
March 9th, 2015 at 1:52 pm
I believe the US Government sold the last of their GM shares in Dec 2013, just weeks before the switch recall became public.
As for “extortion” morally yes, legally no. Still GM has done a huge dis-service to itself and other companies. There is a reason the US government will not negotiate with terrorist as doing so just breeds future repetitive actions. Of course GM has a history of doing this… Remember Ross Perot extorting GM for billions to go away?
March 9th, 2015 at 2:23 pm
Wilson and his ilk are just setting GM up for another bankruptcy. The company NEEDS cash on hand, to get through the next down turn in car sales, whenever it comes. They want to make a few tens of billions now, and to hell with what happens in the longer term.
March 9th, 2015 at 2:46 pm
So how much did Barra and Amman have to pay to get this guy to just go away and stay off their board? At least he won’t be telling them how to make cars.(prolly what he was thinking anyway. he never wanted to on the board, it was leverage) And GM can borrow money cheaply from the markets now, unlike fall of 2008 when markets experienced an epic case of “Weekend at Bernie’s”
March 9th, 2015 at 2:46 pm
Isn’t the short term view what is always in Wall St outlook? They don’t care for the US economy or any company just their pockets. Why do we let them get away with this? Why didn’t GM put up a fight? Why didn’t the UAW help GM? So many questions no answers just a bunch of money in a small group of greedy people’s pockets.
March 9th, 2015 at 3:06 pm
The “masters of the universe” on Wall Street only care about short-term gains. Our financial system is broken, folks!
March 9th, 2015 at 3:31 pm
Wall street owns our congress so nothing will happen to prevent this in the future.
March 9th, 2015 at 5:27 pm
I can only imagine the GM buy back(bribe money)is partially due to timing. Many industries find it advantageous to borrow money now, while it is cheap to do so,and use it to remove their stock from the market. I doubt the UAW’s stock holdings would carry the weight may of us think. The whole idea for the buy-back is to increase stock prices which would benefit the union, anyway.
March 9th, 2015 at 6:13 pm
What enquiring minds want to know is whether Dan Ammann had previously counseled GM to get rid of that extra cash. Dude was a Morgan Stanley I-banker before going car guy.
March 9th, 2015 at 7:04 pm
I saw the Jeep renegade at the Philly Auto show at the end of Jan. I really liked it. I’m not or never have been a Jeep guy . However I liked the styling and the size is right. $ people can comfortable sit in the vehicle. My wife would like something in AWD if we get a new car so between in a the Subaru XV and maybe a few others we’ll have to see if we like any of them enough to actually buy one.
March 9th, 2015 at 7:14 pm
14 Despite my odd taste in oddball cars, I’ll be shocked if that Renegade doesn’t connect with buyers. Remember, I thought the ELR would sell like hotcakes, and I like the Crosstour and Juke pellets. “Baby, baby, please!”
March 9th, 2015 at 9:14 pm
15 I thought the ELR would sell, but that was when I thought the price would be in the mid-high 40′s.
I think the Renegade will sell. I just hope the reliability is half decent, and they get that 9-speed autobox dialed in.
March 10th, 2015 at 2:00 am
There is a whole universe of Wilson leaches out there
March 10th, 2015 at 10:36 am
John, All of this share buy back brings only short term profit to a percentage of shareholders. It saps from investments needed to keep the business relevant, whether that be R&D, buying a company to fill in a product line, or paying key staff to retain talent. People like this clown who pressured GM will inevitably take the profits short term and run. Oh, and don’t look to the boardrooms for help. They are part of the club at the top and complicit in the stripping of long term value. Throw in an analyst community that provides little to no value, a dysfunctional government that is antiquated and out of touch and you have…today’s United States economy.
March 10th, 2015 at 10:52 am
Off topic, but…
There has been a new round of talk about the Apple watch, since they have now shown actual pictures. Can any of you tech geeks tell me, what’s the point of an Apple watch?
You need an iPhone nearby for it to work, so why not just look at the iPhone? It has a bigger, easier to read screen. Maybe I’m missing something here.