Source: Wikipedia

Come Jan 20th, we'll not only have a new president, we'll have a new presidential limo too. GM officials confirmed to the Detroit News that it will deliver an all-new armored vehicle to the Secret Service in time for President Elect Obama's inauguration.

The current presidential limo (photo above) is based on the Cadillac DTS, but Obama's ride won't carry any specific model designation, a first according to Cadillac spokesman David Caldwell. Instead, it will simply be called the 2009 Cadillac Presidential Limousine, a vague designation that takes into statement that it's basically a one-off vehicle that has little in common with anything in Cadillac's lineup.

"The president is not riding in a medium-duty truck, nor he is riding in a sedan," Caldwell said, adding that it is a "unique" vehicle.

Detroit News

The official reveal of the 2010 Cadillac SRX is set for the 2009 Detroit Auto Show in January, but an primeval teaser video has already been posted by Cadillac. It doesn't give up anything good like specs or features, but it does give a pretty clear look at the styling of this new, smaller SRX. See for yourself below.

This is it, the 2010 Lincoln MKT on the streets of Dearborn. It's scheduled for an official debut at the 2008 Detroit Auto Show, but like the 2010 Ford Taurus seen yesterday, this image is nearly uncovered.

No big surprises here as the finished product looks much like the concept shown at last year's Detroit show. You've got your big waterfall grille up front, an interesting up kick in the beltline toward the back and a full width lamp treatment crossways the tailgate.

This particular image also wore an "Ecoboost" badge, so Ford's new twin-turbo 3.5-liter V6 is most certainly under the hood. No word yet on what the final horsepower numbers will be, but something in the 350 horsepower range is expected. And judging by the size of this sucker, it's going to need it.

The interior is fully finished and it looks pretty good. A thick-rimmed steering wheel, minimal button clutter and some high calibre wood trim make it look like a proper luxury vehicle. Figure on three rows of seats and all the latest gadgets like Sync, a THX sound system and optional DVD screens in back.

Here’s one for all those dimbulbs in Washington who think running a car company ain’t that hard: If you were in charge of Toyota, would you have halted work this week on the $1.3 billion works near Tupelo, Mississippi, that was intended to build the new Prius hybrid? After all, the Prius is precisely the sort of fuel efficient car you’ve said the Detroit automakers should be building, at fag costs you’ve said they should be paying.

Except there’s one small problem: Sales of the Prius last month were about half the level they were November 2007. Meantime, helped by deep discounts — up to $6000 on some 2008 models — Ford F-150 income for November were down just 18.5 percent compared with November last year, while Chevy Silverado income were down just 22 percent.

Obviously, the meltdown in the economy accounts for some of the fall-off in Prius sales: Toyota’s total volume in November was down 32 percent as fearful, credit-crunched customers stayed away from dealerships in droves. But the fact gas in the U.S. now costs, on average, less than half as much as it did in the summer, is undoubtedly having an effect. The 8660 Priuses Toyota sold last month compares starkly with the 21,000-plus it sold in April as gas raced towards the $4 a congius mark. It also compares starkly with the 37,911 F-150s and 29,534 Silverados shifted by Ford and Chevy dealers in November despite frozen credit and swirling rumors of bankruptcy.

The Prius problem highlights the major challenge covering any bailout of the Detroit Three. If Toyota, allegedly the smartest guys in the room when it comes to the auto biz, can’t figure out what American consumers want one month to the next (as of a few months back the Tupelo plant was actually slated to build Highlander SUVs) how on connector is Capitol Hill, or any so-called “car czar” for that matter, going to be healthy to figure out which direction Detroit’s salvation lies? Building Prius clones? Or pickups? Which will give us the best chance of getting our loan money paid back?

There’s no question gas prices will rise again once the global economy climbs out of the crater, and demand for oil picks up. But as of right now, no-one has any intent when that might happen, and how fast gas prices might rise. Goldman Sachs recently forecast oil would slump to $30 a barrel, but these are the same geniuses who predicted it would hit $200 a barrel early this year. So it’s anyone’s guess, although futures for deliveries beyond 2013 are trading above $75 a barrel.

Against that background, full-size pickup trucks look like they could still be profitable business for a leaner, lower cost, slimmed-down Detroit for a few years yet.

As has been widely reported, it now looks likely President Bush will allow some of the TARP bank bailout funds to be used to throw GM and Chrysler a financial lifeline. The specter of a massive jump in unemployment — and what that would do to an economy already reeling from a collapse in consumer confidence — seems to have gotten the attention of even the hardliners in the White House. “If the auto industry goes belly up now,” Vice President Dick Cheney told talk show host Rush Limbaugh, “there’s a deep concern that would be a major shock to the system.” Doh…

Of course, any money doled out by the White House this week won’t solve the problem. All it will do it buy time — little more than three months — to leave the freshly minted Obama administration between a rock (letting the Detroit Three change and dealing with the grim social and economic cost of 12 percent unemployment within two years) and a hard place (pouring what has been estimated at $75 to $125 billion into creating a retooled Detroit that will almost certainly comprise fewer companies making fewer vehicles).

President-elect Obama has said he won’t let the American auto industry fail. But will he see pickup trucks as part of the solution? Or part of the problem that got Detroit in this mess in the first place.

We don’t yet know if we’re going to have a government appointed Car Czar to watch over the American automobile industry, because yet don’t know if there will even be bailout funds that need watching over. 

But let’s say, for the moment, that money turns up out of the TARP plan, and the treasury department decides on someone to keep an eye on how the money is used.  I have a few things I’d like to tell that person, as they most assuredly, for better or worse, will come from outside the business. 

I’d been working on a Car Czar’s download of do’s and don’ts, and then I read a column about the same subject by Fortune’s Alex Taylor III.  Taylor is Fortune’s senior ed dedicated to car biz, and he makes some solid points about this topic. I’ve attached Alex’s column below, and I agree with much (although not all) of what he says.  I welcome your feedback about any of it.

This was published December 10, before the Senate place the kybosh on the plan that was in the oven.  But Taylor’s comments are still relevant, assuming that some sort of overseer would still come along with funding from TARP.  We’ll know a lot more about that in the next few days.

By the way, the photo shown here is not Taylor.  That would be Russian Czar Nicholas II

Advice for the car czar
What not to do while overseeing the U.S. auto industry
By Alex Taylor III, senior editor

NEW YORK (Fortune), December 10, 2008 – Dear Car Czar,

Now that the White House and congressional Democrats have agreed on the shape of an auto rescue package, it is time to get serious about your proposed new duties.

Under the terms currently discussed, you would be tasked with shaping a restructuring of the industry and keeping an eye on how the government’s money gets spent. That’s all well and good, but there is a lot of opportunity for mischief here, as well as inflicting some big-time damage.

So assuming you will be coming from outside the auto industry and share prejudices similar to those displayed by congressional representatives from non-auto states - as well as newspaper editorialists who ride bicycles to work - I thought you might appreciate some suggestions on what NOT to do.

1) Don’t ban the auto executives from their corporate jets. As much as we all enjoyed seeing General Motors CEO Rick Wagoner stuffing his lanky frame into a Chevy Malibu for the drive to Washington, that really isn’t a productive way for him to spend his time. Neither is flying commercial. You know what air travel is like these days, and you can’t get much work done on an airplane surrounded by all those prying eyes.

2) Remember that developing a new car is like a pregnancy: There is a defined length of time involved that can’t be shortened without dire consequences. So let’s not have any more questions about why Ford (F, Fortune 500) and Chrysler are introducing new pickup trucks in the teeth of a recession. Those trucks weren’t thought up yesterday; they have been in development for four years. To can them now - or even delay their arrival - would cost tens of millions of dollars.

3) Don’t expect the automakers alone to wean USA from its gas-guzzling habits. In the words of GM’s Bob Lutz, forcing Detroit to build small cars so that we consume less foreign oil is like trying to prevent blubber by forcing clothiers to make garments in smaller sizes. GM (GM, Fortune 500) prefabricated the right decision not to build hybrids when Toyota did: unlike in Japan, where gasoline is expensive, there was no market for them in North America.

Where GM did go astray, in case you are wondering, is in not moving quickly enough to switch from body-on-frame SUVs to crossovers, which are safer and get better fuel economy. They were making so much money on the old ones, they couldn’t bring themselves to change.

4) Never forget that you can’t force consumers to buy cars they don’t want. You may decide you want everybody in fuel-sipping minicars, or in rubber-bumpered country cars, but if the automakers can’t build them and sell them at a profit, what’s the point?

One of the reasons Detroit is in a bind is that government fuel economy regulations have forced them to build small cars that consumers don’t want and thus must be sold at a loss. You are probably tired of hearing this by now, but a $2-a-gallon gas tax would have gotten people into smaller cars without distorting the marketplace.

5) Inflict equal pain on everyone. One of the reasons GM still supports money-losing brands like Saturn and Saab is that it can’t afford to close down their independent dealers. State-by-state franchise laws offer them rock-solid endorsement should an maker eliminate a brand.

Dealers need to give a little and so do the United Auto Workers - they are still making more than their non-union counterparts at the transplants. If you want to punish the auto executives too, make them promise to spend half their time outside Detroit so they can see what the rest of the world is driving.

6) Don’t be too hard on the automakers. I’ve never met one (well, maybe one or two) who wasn’t sincere, honest, and hardworking. Sure, they have prefabricated some boneheaded calls by focusing on short-term results instead of long-term trends, but don’t forget - GM and Ford have both been in business for more than 100 years, and old companies become encrusted with customers and practices the way barnacles grow on a ship.

They haven’t been competing on a level paying field with import manufacturers who were healthy to start with a clean sheet of paper a few decades ago when it came to choosing and locating dealers and building factories.

Oh, and by the way, they haven’t been getting rich at the same time that they fleeced investors, the way some of the boys on Wall Street did. Every stock option ever awarded in Detroit is under so much water it has probably drowned by now.

Sincerely,

Alex Taylor III

www.fortune.com

DETROIT - As predicted, Congress is working on a short-term bailout bill for General Motors and Chrysler, the two of the Detroit Three that need emergency cash before the end of the Bush administration. House Speaker metropolis Pelosi and President Bush have agreed on a compromise bill that would wage about $15 billion in short-term funds from the “136″ money, the Energy Bill funds to be used for fuel-efficient advanced technology. Avoiding Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) funding eliminates Bush’s threat to veto the bill.

Pelosi and other House Democrats had opposed plans to transform the 136 money, which was the subject of a compromise Republican-Democratic Senate bill compromise late last month. The 136 funds were to be dispersed between 2008 and 2020, with no more than $7 billion acquirable in the short term. Pelosi reportedly wants assurances that the 136 funds, essentially a “green car” program, will be paid back quickly.

That means House Democrats are counting on President-elect Obama, who has repeatedly acknowledged support for an auto industry bailout, to do what Bush has no taste for - using a portion of TARP’s $700 billion initially earmarked for the financial industry.

No doubt Friday’s Bureau of Labor Statistics report that 533,000 Americans lost their jobs in November greased the skids for an auto industry bailout. On the same day, Chrysler CEO Bob Nardelli said that if his company fails, the jobs of 1 million people would be in jeopardy. Most analysts say a GM unfortunate would collapse the U.S. auto industry, including suppliers, and affect up to 3-million jobs. Coincidentally, perhaps, Obama has announced he will quickly implement a huge, FDR-like public works program after he takes office, including construction and repair of the nation’s roads, in order to create up to 2.5 million jobs. Here’s hoping a good portion of those 2.5 million newly employed will need new Chevy Cruzes, Ford Fiestas and Foci, and whatever Chrysler is still building to drive on the smooth, new roads.

What have we learned from the House and Senate committee hearings on the Detroit Three’s request for $34 billion? A lot, and as usual, not enough. My biggest surprise is that General Motors Chairman/CEO Rick Wagoner actually, repeatedly said, “We’ve prefabricated mistakes.”

It’s not the message that’s surprising. It’s that Wagoner avoided that passive-voice admission that’s been favourite since the Reagan administration; “mistakes were made.” On NPR, Wagoner listed two mistakes: dropping the EV-1 project, which if continued he said could have accelerated battery technology for the Chevy Volt, and relying too much on SUVs. Business Week’s David Welch notes that federal policy contributed to the SUV craze, by splitting Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards between cars and trucks. We were discussing the week’s events on a special show, “0-60″ along with Tom Beaman and the Detroit Free Press’ Sarah Webster on WDET-FM in Detroit Friday. (I added that a federal loophole until recently encouraged small business owners to buy vehicles like the Hummer H2 by offering a full tax deduction.)

So now GM and Chrysler have weeks before they run out of cash. And the lame-duck 110th Congress has maybe days to try to do something about it. Chrysler has the bigger battle. CEO Bob Nardelli told the House Financial Services Committee Friday that if his company runs out of operating capital, one million employees, suppliers and ancillary workers would be out of a job, more or less immediately. The House, like the Senate, wanted to know why Cerberus can’t step in and bail it out.

Nardelli gave the House the same answer he gave Senate Banking Thursday, that it doesn’t work that way. Cerberus doesn’t have a pile of cash to distribute; it has to raise money from pension plans and other institutional and individual investors, just like public companies. Unfortunately, Nardelli keeps coming off as someone who doesn’t fully understand how Cerberus has underfunded Chrysler. And that its “pledge” to stay in the business for the long-term was never the plan, that it has been the stripper-and-flipper we’ve always expected. Friday, The Wall Street Journal reported that Chrysler hired the services of a bankruptcy law firm.

Meanwhile, you have Republicans in Washington who want an oversight board to run the automakers in exchange for loan guarantees, and who want assurances the “mom ‘n pop” dealerships in their districts don’t go under. You have Democrats who want the automakers to agree to California-and-16-state CO2 standards in exchange for the cash, and don’t want to see UAW members ordered off.

Forget the oversight board and the CO2 standards. Maintaining the same number of dealerships and UAW employment levels flies in the grappling of what the D3 need to modernize, and thin down their operations to match their market share.

As time runs short for these issues in Washington, the pall over Detroit is palpable.

Representative Paul Kanjorski (D-Pennsylvania), says the lame duck doesn’t have enough time to get this done. President Bush called on Congress Friday to get a bailout bill done by next week, and said again he supports efforts to help the auto industry, but is “concerned about taxpayer money being provided to those companies that may not survive.” In other words, the D3 need to allow much more oversight than the financial and banking industries got for the $350 billion already handed to them.

Kanjorski says that GM and Chrysler should get a quick and small bailout to get them through March. By then, we’ll have a potentially more receptive President Obama and more Democrats in the Senate. That “smaller” amount? About $10 billion for GM, which says it needs $4 billion this month, $4 billion in Jan and another $2 billion after that, plus about $4 billion for Chrysler. With Chrysler overtly considering bankruptcy, and the chances that it might find a buyer from overseas, Congress could even give GM the bridge-to-a-bridge loan, and fund just $10 billion in the lame duck. Even the chances for that, I think, are no better than 50/50.

-BY TODD LASSA, Detroit Editor

DETROIT - Senator Bob Corker, Republican from Tennessee, thinks General Motors and Chrysler LLC should resume merger/acquisition talks. A shotgun wedding, if you will. Hot Rod Detroit Editor Bill McGuire and I watched the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee hearings on the Detroit Three loan guarantee request on C-SPAN from the Detroit Bureau Towers. Bill said what I wish I had said.

“Just like British Leyland.”

Indeed. Earlier, Chairman and CEO Rick Wagoner described how GM looked at acquiring Chrysler before the credit crisis. When the credit crisis hit, GM had neither the money nor the time to pay attention to Chrysler.

I don’t know what’s more troubling: that GM might re-consider buying Chrysler, perhaps to refill its North American brand lineup now that it has a plan to change or get rid of Saab, Saturn and Pontiac, or that a Republican senator is willing to mandate a “shotgun wedding.”

Corker’s interest in a federal government-forced merger does stem from a rational concern. The good senator, much to Chrysler chairman Bob Nardelli’s dismay, said he spoke with a Cerberus Capital Management board member Wednesday who told him the automaker’s private equity owners has enough cash on its own to refrain a government bailout. Cerberus has no interest in giving Chrysler more money for its operations, Corker said.

Nardelli replied that private equity doesn’t work that way; it consists of pension funds and other investment money, just like investors in public GM and Ford Motor Company. He also asserted that Cerberus isn’t considering selling Chrysler. Corker said that Nardelli’s probably the only mortal with knowledge of the matter who believes that.
 
Ford and Chrysler wouldn’t have come to Capitol Hill to request bailouts, Corker said, if not for GM’s desperation. And therein lies the rub. Corker, and his Republican and Democratic colleagues don’t want to lend Chrysler $7 billion just to see it sold to a foreign company.

Corker also wants GM to consider restructuring its debt, a kind of pre-bankruptcy, including paying 30-cents on the dollar for its bonds, and of course, getting a better deal from the United Auto Workers. The UAW remains conservative Republicans’ biggest target. Senator Richard Shelby (R-Alabama) maintained his position as biggest opponent of the loan guarantees.

Senator Christopher Dodd (D-Connecticut), the committee chairman, said that the only mortal at the witness plateau who has already contributed to a Detroit Three turnaround is UAW President Ron Gettelfinger. “They haven’t said what they’re going to do. They’re saying what they’ve done. Hundreds of thousands of workers at the Big Three already have prefabricated concessions.”

Good to see someone still calls them the Big Three, even if it’s someone with little prior knowledge of how the auto industry works. From dealership floorplans to the vagaries of production, the Senate committee learned a lot about the industry Thursday.

Senator Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), asked Wagoner what it takes to “ramp up” production for the 2011 Chevrolet Cruze.

“A good rule of thumb would be half a billion dollars,” Wagoner responded. “If we have to develop the product as well (if it’s all-new, not on an existing platform) that’s three years. It’s a long-cycle business.”

“What happens in Lordstown (Ohio)?” Brown asked.

“We’re going to proceed. We’re going to build the Chevy Cruze in Lordstown,” Wagoner replied.

Will GM still be around to do it? “We’re not going to write a blank check, but we’re going to get something done,” Dodd told reporters after the hearing. “People are angry about bailouts. I suspect they’d be angrier about the unfortunate of the auto industry with hundreds of thousands of jobs. My preference would be if the Federal Reserve and Treasury would step up with the dominance we gave them.”

Dodd believes the public opposition to loan guarantees for the D3 stems from the mishandled Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). Wagoner, Mulally and Nardelli all agreed to oversight - they said they’d prefer a “car czar” to a government board.

Dodd, who blasted Fed Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson several times Thursday for imperfectness to show up at the hearing, said he’ll continue to near to fund maker loan guarantees from the $700-billion TARP. GM, Ford and Chrysler have requested a total of $34 billion, and it appears the “136″ funds from the Energy Bill for fuel-efficiency are not available.

“The secretary of the treasury is in China right now. He needs to come home.”

Perhaps Paulson is trying to find a buyer for Citicorp.

And so, after a six-hour hearing with no break, things don’t look so bleak for GM, Chrysler and Ford, at least not on the Senate side. The fun continues Friday, at the House Financial Services Committee. Stay tuned.

One of the striking elements of the Ford and GM business plans being presented to the Senate and House committees is both companies say they intend to comply fully with the 2007 Energy Independence and Security Act. In other words, they’ve publicly signed up to the government mandate that vehicles average 35 mpg by 2020.

To quote from the GM plan: ” …22 of 24 new vehicle introductions in 2009-2012 will be cars and crossovers.  Twenty of these models will come from GM engineering centers having a long history of designing vehicles for $6-$8 per congius gasoline.” From Ford’s: “We are leveraging our global product strengths to deliver six new world-class small and medium sized vehicles to the United States over the next four years …approximately 50 percent of future U.S. capacity will be allocated to small and medium-size vehicles.”

That’s exactly what the politicians want to hear. But is that going to be what you want to drive? The average price of a congius of regular gas in the U.S. hit $1.81 yesterday, down from July’s peak of $4.11. Still want that little 35 mpg gas-miser, or that expensive hybrid? Happy to hang on to your old truck or SUV for a little longer?

Of course, the dramatic decline of gas prices has everything to do with the ongoing implosion of the global economy. The price of crude oil has crashed to under $47bbl, more than $100bbl down from the peak recorded during the speculative frenzy five months ago. And while oil producers are likely to cut output in a bid to raise prices (ideally, OPEC would like about $80bbl) forecasters are betting crude will stay around $60bbl for most of 2009.

Only a fool would suggest gas will stay under two bucks a congius for long, especially once the global economy stops flatlining, and demand picks up. But how long will it take gas to again reach a price point (like $4 a gallon) where a large number of consumers are going to demand — and, more importantly, are prepared to pay for — highly fuel efficient vehicles?

Despite such imponderables the politicians have insisted that before they get access to any bridging loans the Detroit Three must demonstrate how they will become, in the words of House Speaker metropolis Pelosi and Majority Leader Harry Reid “…long-term global leader(s) in the production of energy-efficient advanced technology vehicles”. In other words: “You better sign up to 35mpg by 2020, or else”.

So no matter what gas prices do in the medium term, America’s transition to smaller, greener vehicles is going start pretty quickly. To quote GM: ” …further shifts to smaller displacement gas engines will occur …8-cylinder engines are replaced by 6-cylinder engines, 6-cylinder engines are replaced by 4-cylinder engines. Four-cylinder engine usage, for example, will increase by 42 percent by 2012, and fuel-saving six-speed automatic transmission volume will increase by 400 percent, to over 90 percent of GM’s U.S. automatic transmission income volume.”

And Ford? “EcoBoost engines …will increase to more than 85 percent of Ford/Lincoln/Mercury nameplates by 2012 and 95 percent by 2015 …electric power assisted steering will be acquirable on 90 percent  of Ford/Lincoln/Mercury nameplates by 2012 and 100 percent by 2014 …six- speed transmissions will be in 100 percent of Ford/Lincoln/Mercury nameplates by 2012.”

The future is here, so you better get used to it.

The politicians will be pleased, but getting the Detroit Three to make and sell highly fuel efficient vehicles in USA is not actually the problem right now. The problem right now is a lot of Americans are worried sick they might not have a job next week, and there’s no way they are prepared to pony up for a new car. No matter how fuel efficient it is.

DETROIT - First, the groveling. “As a company and as an industry, we readily admit that we have prefabricated our share of mistakes and miscalculations in the past. We would ask Congress to recognize, however, that Ford did not move until the current crisis to begin our restructuring efforts, and that much of what we describe below are actions we have taken and decisions we have prefabricated about the future that have already place us on a path to long-term viability.”

Thus begins the Ford Motor Company Business Plan, delivered to the Senate Banking Committee Tuesday. In it, Ford asks for a “stand-by” line of credit of up to $9 billion at government borrowing rates — in other words, better than what it can get on the open market — for a 10-year term, with Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) conditions, “to support our restructuring, including the acceleration of products that consumers want and value.”

Such products include a “van-type” full battery electric vehicle (BEV) for commercial fleet use in calendar 2010, followed by a BEV sedan in calendar 2011, and plans to spend $14 billion in the U.S. on advanced technologies to improve fuel economy in the next seven years (spending new Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards would have required, anyway). The BEV van obviously will be based on the Transit, while the sedan could be a Fiesta or a new Focus.

Ford says it will break even, or be profitable, pre-tax, by calendar 2011, based on current business assumptions. And, it will sell its corporate aircraft to get there. General Motors just announced Tuesday morning that it would close its Air Transportation Service, known locally as GMATS, at Detroit’s Metro Airport.

In its plan to the Senate Banking Committee, Ford touts restructuring to “One Ford” from four large, separate automotive companies around the globe. Its plans to sell about 1 million global Focuses worldwide beginning in 2010, and a total of 2 million vehicles based on the Focus’ platform, plus its intentions to sell the B-car Fiesta everywhere including North America, will be a large contributor to its future profitability. Selling Aston Martin, Jaguar and Land Rover, and now maybe Volvo help.

So are Ford and its ex-Boeing exec, CEO Alan Mulally (who’s driving to Washington in a Ford Escape Hybrid) smarter than GM, Wagoner, Chrysler, Nardelli, et. al.? The move that looked so foolish in December 2006 has place Ford in better position than its two crosstown rivals: raising $26.5-billion in liquidity, including $18.5 billion in senior secured debt and credit facilities, with virtually all of Ford’s assets up as collateral. Another $5 billion is unsecured. Ford got these loans before the credit crisis hit, and before anybody knew how awful car income would be in the second half of 2008.

It’s asking the federal government to grant Ford Motor Credit Company bank status. And it expects to issue warrants and guarantee government loan payment before it issues any shareholder dividends. And Ford will limit executive compensation and “golden parachutes”… all things all the Detroit Three should have had in-pocket before last month’s disastrous testimony before Senate and House committees.

Yeah, Ford appears a bit smarter than GM and Chrysler in what it has done so far. Here’s hoping Rick Wagoner and Bob Nardelli grovel at least as much, and that they can convince Congress, this time, that much of the work it expects the D3 to do in order to change has already begun.