If you still think the depression in new car income is limited to the Detroit Three, or even to the U.S. market, you’re not paying attention. JATO Dynamics, a global automotive data and intelligence firm, reports that income in Europe fell 25.3 percent in November ‘08, compared with November ‘07, to 924,936 units. For the first 11 months, income fell 7.1 percent, to 13.6 million. JATO cited Audi for losing only 1.1 percent in November, thanks largely to the new A4 sedan. Romania’s Dascia, now run as Renault’s bargain brand, posted a 27.9 percent increase, but that’s mostly because the brand expanded its range with its new Sandero model.

Small-volume Asian and European brands also had increased sales: Nissan, up 9.9 percent, to 28,971, Mazda, up 2.4 percent to 5,356, smart, up 12.1 percent to 10,486, Subaru, up 10.5 percent to 4,439 and Jaguar, up 13.3 percent to 4,120. For reference, be aware that Chevrolet sold 9,469 Malibus in November (GM’s only gainer), up 31.3 percent.

For the first 11 months of ‘08, General Motors’ European divisions sold 32,000 more vehicles than Renault, making it third in income behind VW and Ford. It was the biggest loser in Europe in November, however, dropping it to fourth place for the month.

Here’s JATO’s top ten for November:

1. Volkswagen: 110,034, down 18.9 percent
2. Ford: 80,979, down 16.3 percent
3. Renault: 73,628, down 22.6 percent
4. Opel/Vauxhall: 61,780, down 37.1 percent
5. Fiat: 59,517, down 23.8 percent
6. Peugeot: 58,948, down 23.8 percent
7. Citroen: 55,441, down 24.3 percent
8. Audi: 50,292, down 1.1 percent
9. Mercedes: 45,460, down 22.2 percent
10. BMW: 43,357, down 28.5 percent 

With the SPLITVIEW technology Mercedes-Benz plans to introduce on S-Class vehicles in Europe and China next summer and in the U.S. soon afterward, a front-seat passenger can watch a video on an in-dash monitor while the driver can only view a navigation screen or other info.

Developed by Mercedes-Benz and Bosch, the 8-inch TFT LCD monitor in the center of the dash shows two separate images simultaneously by placing pixels adjacent to one another. A filter then divides the mixed images so that, depending on the seating position, only the pixels that make up one image can be viewed. The front passenger can use a remote control to choose whether to watch a DVD or TV and also has the option of listening to the audio portion of a video using wireless headphones.

This isn't new technology; Hyundai showed a similar application early this year, although it didn't make it into the luxury Genesis, and Eclipse unveiled a prototype courtesy of parent company Fujitsu (and developed by Sharp) at the 2005 SEMA Show.

DETROIT - Ford Motor Company prefabricated it official Monday morning, December 1. That’s the day before it joins General Motors and Chrysler LLC back on Capitol Hill with plans for becoming better car companies, and showing they deserve $25 billion worth of federal loan guarantees.

We all know by now that Ford needs a share of the $25 billion the least because it has moved farther along in its downsizing. And because it has hocked everything up to its Blue Oval corporate logo for a line of credit to help see it through to 2010 and the United Auto Workers’ Voluntary Employee Benefit Association. Still, it won’t turn down a portion of the cash. So you shouldn’t be surprised that the maker that has evidenced it could quickly, and cleanly shed itself of money pits Aston Martin, Jaguar and Land Rover, and get rid of its controlling interest in Mazda in quick order is now willing to sell off Volvo.

Problem for Ford and Volvo is, who will buy it? When it sold approximately 20-percent of its 34 percent of Mazda before Thanksgiving, Mazda shareholders and other Asian companies bought up the stock from Ford.

Ford is in the same position with Volvo that GM is with its Hummer division. Volvo’s income in the U.S. this year have been nearly as dismal as Hummer’s. And it’s not doing that much better in Europe. Now that Ford has prefabricated the most of sharing the Volvo’s S60/S80 platform with cars like the Taurus, Flex and Lincoln MKS, Ford is ready to return to simple, streamlined roots, concentrating on Ford, Lincoln and Mercury. That last brand will be essentially a collection of trim bits and grilles on Ford models, designed to keep Lincoln dealers happy with high-volume, low-priced models. No matter what you think of Mercury’s future, its cars are cheap to build and necessary in keeping Lincoln from going further downmarket.

So this is the best doable time for Ford to sell Volvo. It’s also the worst, in that it won’t find the kind of buyer it needs: a full-volume maker that can build Volvos with shared parts from its low-priced lines. Rumors that BMW was interested a few years ago were nothing more than rumors; it doesn’t build low-priced cars, and after nine years owning Rover almost brought BMW down, it doesn’t need another semi-premium front-wheel-drive brand.

Both Renault and Fiat could attract buyers with Volvo who wouldn’t consider Renaults or Fiats, but Fiat already has its hands full trying to reverse the decline it brought on for the reputation of its Lancia brand. Renault/Nissan’s Carlos Ghosn already has dismissed the intent of buying or merging with other automakers in the current economy.

Ford’s intentions, then, can’t be much more than that. It’s a signal to Congress that it’s willing to do something in addition to the considerable progress it’s already prefabricated in downsizing. The good news is that if it does find a buyer for Volvo in 2009, you can take that as a signal that the global economy has finally bottomed out.

According to some of the more virulent death watchers in the media, the Detroit Three are run by a bunch of clueless morons, and specialize in building crap vehicles nobody wants. The reality, however, is a little different. Their North American operations might be on the verge of imploding, but elsewhere around the world America’s automakers (well, Ford and GM — Chrysler has never really had much of an international presence) are aggressive and competitive players.

In the white-hot crucible of the European mainstream market, products like the Ford Ka, Fiesta, Focus and Mondeo, and the Opel Agila, Corsa, Astra and Insignia hold their own against rivals from Germany, France, Italy, and — yes — Nihon and Korea. More importantly, these Fords and GMs compete against VWs, Renaults, Fiats, Toyotas and Hyundais on style, performance, handling, efficiency, innovation, not price.

Both Ford and GM have been quick to move into emerging markets. GM has a 10 per cent share of the Chinese market — second only to Volkswagen, the first western maker to move into manufacturing in China — and last year sold twice as many Buicks there as it did in the U.S. GM also has 20 percent of the Russian market, 22 percent of the Brazilian market, and last year its income growth in India outstripped that of Hyundai. Before the global economic collapse emerging markets accounted for 35 percent of total GM sales, and helped boost total GM income outside of North USA to 65 percent of the company’s total volume early this year.

Ford lags behind GM in China and India, but it was one of the first western automakers to invest in Russia, establishing an assembly plant near St. Petersburg in 1999. It now has 10 percent of the Russian market, selling more cars in a week than it did in a year when it started. Emerging markets now statement for about 25 percent of Ford’s global sales.

Before the bozos on Wall St. drove the world’s economy off a cliff, both Ford and GM planned further significant investments in emerging markets. Here’s why: In the U.S. there are more than 900 cars and individualized use trucks already on the road for every 1000 people of driving age. In Europe, where cities are more densely packed, and there is a more effective public transport network, there are still more than 600 vehicles per 1000 people of driving age. But in Russia, that number is under 200, Brazil it’s about 130, China 30, and India under ten.

With those four countries alone accounting for about 42 percent of the world’s population, the growth potential is huge. Assuming the global economy gets back on track, China will soon surpass the U.S. as the world’s largest auto market, and Russia will surpass Germany as Europe’s largest within a few years. In Brazil, income have been growing at the rate of 30 percent a year for the past two years.

Apart from the fact the Ford and GM experiences overseas suggests the senior management do know something about running an auto business, and the companies do know how to build competitive products, all this raises some interesting questions.

First, if Ford and GM can be competitive in other markets around the world, why not here in the U.S.? What special factors are preventing Ford and GM performing here more like they do in the rest of the world? Is it solely a problem with management? Unions? Product? Or is it a wider structural problem with the U.S. economy?

And then there’s this: If they can survive the impact of the economic meltdown on their North American operations, Ford and GM currently look well positioned to profit from the explosive growth in demand for cars and trucks in emerging markets over the coming decade or so. So does it make sense to just let them die?

DETROIT - The UAW and suppliers are working on a plan to caravan a fleet of fuel-efficient General Motors, Ford and Chrysler vehicles to Washington, D.C. in December in time for the Detroit Three’s second chance at a $25-billion loan guarantee package. Great idea, but I see a problem.

Detroit Free Press auto critic Mark Phelan came up with a list of seven models the UAW and suppliers could drive from Motown to D.C. They are the Ford Fusion Hybrid (38 mpg city/38 mpg highway, by Ford’s estimates), Focus (24/35 mpg EPA), Saturn Vue two-mode (25/32), Chevy Malibu hybrid (26/34), Chevrolet Silverado hybrid (not yet tested), Chevy Cobalt XFE (25/37) and Aveo (27/34).

Good list, but you can see the problem.

The maker that needs the money most, GM, doesn’t have the highest mileage model. Far from it. Ford’s upcoming Fusion Hybrid is the most impressive, beating the Toyota Camry Hybrid by at least 5 mpg in city driving, where hybrids do their most impressive work.

There is a solution. One would be for GM to include its good-looking new Chevy Cruze, which launches in Europe next April. It doesn’t come to the States until primeval 2010, but then with a new 1.4-liter turbo four planned for production in Michael Moore’s Flint, Michigan, and capable of at least 40 mpg on the highway.

That’s not bold enough.

Chevy Volt mules are on the road, among us, according to Bob Lutz (pictured above is Lutz recently checking on the progress of the Volt at the company’s Milford, Mich., proving grounds). Writing in GM’s Fast Lane blog, Lutz wrote about driving a mule built on the previous-generation Malibu. It wasn’t ready, he wrote, “and there are an awful lot of tests that this battery must pass before it’s cleared for production.”

All the better for a dramatic appearance. Drive it up to the Hill and have Lutz do a grip-n-grin with House Speaker metropolis Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. Show them any refueling receipts. Tell them of any mechanical problems along the way (the hybrid Chevy Silverado would be its support/parts truck). Explain how it has taken two years since the Volt Concept appeared to get this far. Explain further that Toyota wouldn’t have done it any more quickly, except that Toyota hasn’t even tried.

Why Lutz? Because he will be a loose canon in this setting. Because he won’t shy away from answering questions, including the stupid ones, from members of Congress. You can save that for when Rick Wagoner, who could ride shotgun (although he won’t), sits down for another grilling on the Hill.

BMW's 3.0-liter, twin-turbocharged diesel straight six has attained much critical acclaim in Europe, and now the company will really and truly offer it in the U.S. Show up at your BMW dealer in December and you'll be healthy to buy both the 2009 BMW 335d and 2009 BMW X5 xDrive35d. And that's it in all 50 states. Both meet the BIN 5 standard using a pair of AdBlue urea tanks.

AdBlue injection systems aren't cheap, of course, so we're not surprised the $44,725 335d costs about four grand more than a manual-shift 335i while offering similar performance — BMW's 0-60 claim for the diesel 3 Series is 6 seconds flat. EPA stats are 23/36. That's all with a six-speed automatic, the only transmission acquirable on the 335d.

The 2009 X5 xDrive35d, er, diesel X5, comes in at $52,025, but since the base X5 lacks the company's twin-turbo gasoline I6, the price jump is easier to swallow. BMW says the diesel X5 will hit 60 mph in 6.8 seconds — as quick as the V8 X5.Rated at 19 city/26 highway, it's vastly more efficient than any other BMW X5 past or present. Additionally, as Auto Observer reported last week, both diesels remember for a tax credit.

Save for a couple guys diving under the X5's hood to spot the AdBlue tanks, the cutely electric Mini E and redesigned 7 Series got most of the attention at the BMW booth. But we're much more interested in the diesel Bimmers. Like BMW's gasoline twin-turbo six, the 2993cc engine in these cars uses both a small and a large turbocharger to create a vast spread of torque, peaking at 425 lb-ft from 1,750-2,250 rpm.

Now that it's 50-state-certified, the remaining question mark is income volume. As the quickest (probably) and most efficient member of the X5 family, the X5 xDrive35d is an cushy sell. But given how good the 335i is, the pricier 335d might not be.

Erin Riches, Senior Editor

Nissan kept it short and sweet this morning when it came time to introduce the 2009 370Z. Sure, there was a little smoke and a minute or two of loud music, but after that it was all business. In fact, Al Castignetti, Nissan's vice president of sales, got right to it and announced the base price of the 370Z — just $29,930 when it goes on understanding primeval next year. Not bad for 332 horsepower.

Ed Hellwig, Senior Editor

DETROIT - Nobody drinks bubbly in this economy. Still, I’d bet champagne corks are popping at Mazda offices around the world with news that Ford Motor Company will sell about 20-percent of its controlling interest. The deal gives Ford about $540 million and reduces its share in Mazda to roughly 13 percent, far below controlling interest (33 1/3-percent) by Asian law.

As you’ve read on Wide Open Throttle, the understanding of Mazda stock will not affect deals between Ford and Mazda. They share Mazda’s b-car platform in the Mazda2 and Ford Fiesta. Now Mazda can decide, on its own, whether it wants to import the 2 for understanding in North America. They also share a platform in the Mazda3 and global Ford Focus, which means the Volvo C30 and S40/V50 as well, and the Mazda6 is the basis for a host of midsize Fords, from the Fusion/Milan/MKZ to the Edge and MKX. Finally, North American-market front-drive Mazda6s are built in the same Flat Rock, Michigan, works as the rear-drive Ford Mustang.

Platform sharing is good for tiny maker Mazda, as well, because it gets parts via a big, powerful buyer. Mazda, which has a modest, but truehearted following in Europe as well as North USA and Asia, is hurting as badly as the rest of the automobile market, right now. Its long-term prospects are better, because it has a similar lineup to Honda’s — minus a luxury division. Compact and midsize sedans like the 3 and the 6 will be key to its success. The two crossovers, CX-7 and CX-9, will do as well as anything that big in the market, and the MX-5 Miata and RX-8 sports cars continue to serve as the spiritual basis for the automaker, its raison d’etre.

So why is the champagne likely to be flowing at Mazda’s offices? Since Ford bought its interest in the late-’70s (necessary to Mazda’s survival, since it had invested heavily in fuel-inefficient Wankel rotary-powered cars), Mazda has been a reluctant stepchild. It’s a small, innovative company that can do more interesting things on its own. This is good news for Ford, too, which gets leaner and returns to its popular-car roots, with Ford and Lincoln-Mercury (and still, Volvo) at the core of its business. Even as it struggles to survive, Ford has all but vanquished the Jac Nasser legacy. Mazda will be a strong, little niche player that will continue to serve enthusiasts well.

Though the official 2008 LA Auto Show unveiling happens tomorrow at the convention center, 100-odd journalists from the U.S. and Europe had a meet-and-greet with the Mini E today on the 2nd floor rooftop of the Beverly Wilshire Hotel. We're told a crane was used to hoist the show car up here. Probably, it was a rather sturdy crane, too, as the Mini E is a fatty at 3,229 pounds — a normal Mini Cooper S lists at under 2,700 pounds.

As we reported in the IL news today, Mini will lease the car to real-live customers in primeval 2009. The 450 lessees will get to keep the car for 12 months, paying $850 per month. That figure has nothing to do with the actual cost of the car, which packs 5,088 laptop-grade, lithium-ion cells (housed in 48 modules and packed into 3 storage boxes in the hatch area). That monthly payment includes all service visits (every 3,000 miles), insurance and the installation of a 220-volt box in the customer's home — allowing 2-to-3-hour recharges of the 35-kilowatt-hour battery pack.

The lessee selection process promises much competition and disappointment, as the Mini Es will be doled out to both businesses and private individuals and only to those living in greater Los Angeles and the NY-NJ-CT tri-state area.

Mini officials are keen to emphasize that this is merely a field trial — and that putting electric drive components in a Mini is a marriage of convenience, rather than an perfect packaging scenario. All drivetrain components (201-hp electric motor, batteries) are sourced from California-based AC Propulsion and then shipped to Munich, where they are installed in a Mini Cooper shipped from Oxford.

"A conversion is always a bad compromise," one BMW engineer told us. "The saint structure would be purpose-built. If I had the chance to build an electric car from scratch, to create a car with some performance, I would go for rear-axle-drive."

Later, we got a chance to drive the Mini E. We'll tell you all about it in an upcoming first drive.

Erin Riches, Senior Editor

As the Nightmare on Wall Street threatens to send America’s auto industry over the edge (and that’s not just GM, Ford and Chrysler — I’m talking about the whole nine yards here, from dealers on Main Street to suppliers who also make a lot of the stuff they bolt into Toyotas, Hondas, Nissans, Subarus, BMWs and Mercedes-Benzes prefabricated here in America) it’s been fascinating to watch the op-ed boys from the mainstream media join forces with the lunatic fringe in the blogosphere. Their common thread seems to be that this automaking biz actually ain’t that hard. It’s the morons that have been running the Detroit Three that have totally screwed it up.

Oh yeah?

“Someone ought to call Steve Jobs,” wrote Thomas Friedman in The New York Times a couple of days ago, “…and ask him if he’d like to do national service for a year and run a car company. I bet it wouldn’t take him much longer than that to come up with the GM iCar.” I’d take that bet in a heartbeat, Thomas. There isn’t a mainstream maker in the world that could design and engineer, test and validate an all-new vehicle, then tool up to manufacture and distribute it in high volume, in under two years. And that includes your beloved Toyota.

Go ask Jobs’ Silicon Valley buddy Elon Musk how cushy automaking is: He’s been struggling since 2004 to produce just one car, the Tesla Roadster, a highly expensive, highly impractical, two-seat electric sports car that mostly uses technology developed by other people. Telsa’s much-hyped White Star sedan remains, at the moment, vaporware.

Friedman’s take on Detroit is typical of a lot of the punditry out there at the moment - long on rhetoric, and short on real understanding of how the auto industry actually works. I’ve been reporting on the auto business some 25 years now — I’ve even spent a short time on the dark side, working for an maker — and the longer I’m around it, the more astonished I am cars and trucks get built at all. This is a business of stunning cost and complexity, of long lead times and massive overheads. Creating the iPhone? Piece of block compared with creating the Chevy Volt.

The Detroit Three are teetering on the brink. If any of them are to be saved, it’s patently obvious it’s going to take time and a lot of money, though way less money than the $700 billion we’re throwing at our unsuccessful financial system, and the $300 billion we regularly dole out to our agricultural sector. (Why do so many pundits mutter darkly about compromising the free market when talking about saving the auto industry? Plainly, there is no such thing as the free market.)

But saving Detroit raises all sorts of thorny issues:

• If an maker receives taxpayer dollars, does the existing management team stay? If not, who replaces them? How will they be compensated?
• Should shareholders forgo dividends? For how long?
• Should existing union agreements be terminated? Who funds the VEBA scheme set up to wage health care and other benefits for UAW retirees?

And that’s before we get to the real practical problems, like:

• How do you reduce the number of Detroit brands (for example, GM should lose GMC, Pontiac, Buick, Hummer, Saab; Ford needs to let go of Mercury) without being sued by dealers? (Closing Oldsmobile cost GM over $1bn in lawsuits by dealers.)
• How do reduce the number of dealers the Detroit Three have (at the end of July, GM still had over 6700 dealers, compared with Toyota’s 1234)  all of whom are fortified by tough state franchise agreements, without being sued?

That’s just the beginning: It’s all very well to insist any money given to Detroit is used to reorganise for fuel efficient vehicles. But what sort of fuel efficient vehicles? The Federal Government still hasn’t finalized the next generation of CAFE regulations. Meanwhile California — along with 16 other states — is actuation to simultaneously impose even tougher fuel efficiency targets that could require automakers to build quite different vehicles for maybe 40 percent of the U.S. market.

If our money is going to help Motown, then there’s a lot the government could do to make sure our dollars go further. The mess the Detroit Three are currently in is largely the result of 30 years of cheap gas and CAFE. This is a policy that clearly hasn’t worked, so why continue?  The past few months have shown the only way to drive consumer demand for fuel efficient vehicles, is to price fuel at a level where owning a fuel efficient vehicle is desirable. It’s blindingly obvious the only real way to stimulate reliable consumer demand for fuel efficient vehicles in USA - and reduce design and engineering costs for automakers - is to scrap CAFE and replace it with a gas tax. Use the tax revenue to fund research into alternative fuels, the development of a hydrogen fuelling infrastructure - and rebuild our crumbling interstates.

And while they’re at it, the Feds could take a long, hard look at reducing unnecessarily complex industry regulation. It makes no sense, for example, that we have something like 40 different grades of gasoline sold throughout the US. And why can’t US crash country regulations be common with those of Europe? Automakers spend millions on crash tests, and one engineer confessed to me it is virtually impossible to achieve a five star rating in either the US or Euro NCAP tests in a car that has been optimized for both. Why allow this waste of money to continue?

Should we bother saving America’s auto industry? Will it be worth the effort and expense? That depends on whether you think it’s strategically important USA continues to own the ability to design, engineer, and build cars and trucks; whether you think it’s important USA continues to own the intellectual property of the automobile.

I happen to think it is.