TOP 100 RACING SITES
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| Stoner wins opening MotoGP race in Qatar Casey Stoner led from start to finish to win the MotoGP season opener on Monday and complete a personal hat trick of victories ... rssfeeds.usatoday.com |
With Nascar Struggling, Petty Stays Optimistic About Racing’s Future The King, as Richard Petty is known, has been caught off guard by the severity of the recession that has caused Nascar to tap its brakes. nytimes.com |
Earnhardt Jr. hoping to build momentum, team chemistry Dale Earnhardt Jr. complained vociferously about Sprint Cup competition Friday, and he jetted off Saturday to watch a sports-car ... rssfeeds.usatoday.com |
Fisker to convert a GM plant in Delaware to build plug-in hybrid cars Out with the old, in with the new. California electric-car startup Fisker Automotive will announce plans tomorrow to turn an old General Motors plant in Wilmington (Dell.) into a hybrid electric-car plant, says a source with knowledge of the announcement. Fisker plans to use the 52-year-old factory to build its $48,000 Project Nina plug-in hybrid starting in 2012. Readers will recall that I have been pretty skeptical about electric cars and high-mileage plug-in hybrids. It’s not that the technology isn’t great. It is. But the economics still don’t work so well. Fisker wants to use the plant, which until recently assembled the Saturn Sky and Pontiac Solstice roadsters, to build a mid-sized plug-in hybrid. With a $528 million credit line coming from the Department of Energy, Fisker should have the cash to get the project off the ground. My question is about sales. Even after getting a $7,500 tax credit, a Nina buyer (that won’t actually be the car’s name, it’s a code name right now) will cost $40,000. That’s at least a $12,000 premium over a mid-sized family car. A 26-mpg Chevrolet Malibu costs $1,500 a year to gas up at today’s fuel prices. If Fisker’s car gets over 100 mpg, it would save about $1,200 a year at the pump. That means the owner needs to drive it for a decade to get the savings back. That’s one hurdle for CEO Henrik Fisker’s and his mission to sell 100,000 copies of Project Nina a year. He does want to sell half the volume overseas, where the business case is better. But it’s still going to be tough for these expensive fuel savers to hit big sales numbers. Mr. Fisker does make another case for his cause. Nina and his company’s first car, the $88,000 Karma sports car, will both be upscale. The Karma will actually be a luxury sports car. So there’s more to it than just selling fuel economy, he says. And he makes a good point. Fisker thinks his selling point will be a green alternative for luxury buyers. Prius owners have high incomes and can afford much more than their $25,000 hybrid. So there may be some willing buyers. There will also be a lot of competition selling expensive greenery. Tesla Motors makes the same pitch as Fisker. GM will have the Chevy Volt, Toyota will be selling plug-in Priuses priced around $50,000 and Nissan also has an electric car coming. Ford will have some high-tech alternatives coming. Fisker will fine some buyers, no doubt. But will the company find enough to make its bold plan work? I’m still skeptical. rss.businessweek.com |
Caddy tries to resurrect the wagon Will Americans buy wagons? History says no. And by history I mean after 1980. Sure, Subaru sells wagons quite successfully to some outdoorsy types on the coasts. You also see the occasionall BMW lover in a 3-series wagon. But the jury has been in for years. Americans would rather have a crossover suv of some kind. It’s easy to understand why. Wagons were America’s family car of choice before the minivan forced their near extinction. How nerdy does a car have to be for a minivan to beat it on pure coolness factor? Just think about fake wood-grain panel wagons and the picture is complete. Enter the Cadillac CTS sport wagon, which I took on a test run a week ago. It’s quite impressive. GM engineered a tight handling ride. The direct injection 3.6-liter V-6 is powerful and smooth and the fuel economy is pretty good with 26 mpg on the highway. Combined fuel economy is less exciting at 21 mpg. But this is a luxury car that gets 304 horsepower. That’s the same impressive combination that can be had in the Chevrolet Camaro RS. With the 2010 CTS, General Motors has proven that Cadillac is in step with what luxury cabins are all about. The dashboard and surrounding decor is as modern-looking as anything on the market. It’s more artistic than Audi’s interior appointments and just as posh as a Lexus. When you close the doors, for example, they seal shut automatically. It’s a nice touch that shows a bit of craftsmanship. The best thing about this wagon is the styling. GM didn’t just take the CTS sedan and stretch it back with some extra sheet metal. The company spent the money to design a different back end. It’s the right way to go. Design is subjective, but the CTS wagon looks like it’s cocked and ready to go. In the past, carmakers just stretched their sedans, creating oblong wagons with awkward design proportions. Past-generation Toyota Camry and Ford Taurus wagons come to mind. This one is actually a head turner. As fine a car as this is, don’t expect Americans to come pouring into showrooms for a CTS wagon. GM is launching a Cadillac SRX crossover suv at the same time. That will pull in many buyers who want a Caddy with some storage space. Plus, a lot of what makes this a good car have less to do with the fact that it’s a wagon and more from the fact that the CTS is the best car made by a resurgent Cadillac brand. Surely GM will sell a few thousand CTS wagons. But don’t expect this car to resurrect a market that has been dead for years. It’s a shame, too. Most buyers who want a luxury car with cargo space would opt for the SRX, which gets lower fuel economy with a combined 23 mpg. The CTS wagon has 53.4 cubic feet of cargo space compared with 61.2 cubic feet in the SRX. So most buyers will opt for worse fuel economy and pass up on the tighter handling of the CTS wagon just to ride up high on the road and get a few more feet of cargo space that they’ll probably never use. Maybe this wagon will break through. If not, there’s always the European market. rss.businessweek.com |