AAH #38 – Detroit’s Mojo Rising
January 15th, 2010 at 2:05pm
Well, this was the big week. The North Amer–sorry–Detroit Auto Show has arrived and everyone’s eager to see the future of the auto industry in the shadow of last year’s economic meltdown. GM is at the show with four fewer brands than a year ago, while Fiat brought Chrysler’s new Italian step-siblings in to class up the joint. Meanwhile, the other domestic auto maker, Ford, seems to have owned this year’s show. In to review the show as well as talk about some innovative new engine technology is Don Runkle, the CEO of EcoMotors. Peter De Lorenzo, the Autoextremist, and David Welch from BusinessWeek and Bloomberg News also join John McElroy in studio.
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Comments (1)
January 20th, 2010 at 3:43 pm
John, with the new safety and emmission regulations coming into effect, fwd cars have lost both their packaging and efficiency advantages for anything larger than a small compact. For every size class and for every manufacturer, rwd models now use less fuel than comparable fwd models, whether you compare rival manufacturers or the same engine in different cars. IS200d v. Auris, CTS and STS v. Lacrosse, A4 v. Passat, C6 v. XF, mounting the same engine transversely results in worse fuel economy; and with modern floor-mounted shifters and center consoles, you don’t lose any interior space with a rwd transmission tunnel. Even the latest small, low-floor commercial vans such as the Chevy N200, Suzuki APV and Toyota Lite-Ace all use rwd with no loss of packaging space. Mark Reuss admitted on Autoline After Hours that it is difficult fit everything required for economy and performance in the constrained packaging space of a fwd cars.