Open Line Show has had its first guest who is an auto industry big-wig and isn’t just a crazy car enthusiast who wants to stay on the phone all night talking cars – but let me tell you! Chris Preuss of OnStar is a car guy to the core, born and bred, and I bet that if he weren’t engaged to talk about OnStar and the current government/industry tussle over whether cell phones should be allowed in cars, he could be a candidate as a regular one-of-our-guys!

Preuss graciously accepted my invitation to appear to discuss in-car communications technologies and answer caller questions. Everyone got a chance to ask their questions and he answered them all! He even pitched in a few extra minutes at the end of his appearance to discuss the Chevy Volt, as he worked on first generation Volt development.

If you missed hearing it live or want to hear it again, have a listen below!

The seventh-generation Chevy Malibu is a popular little mid-sized sedan and is sent from this spot to the far reaches of where buyers will settle for buying them. This is what happens when an undelivered Malibu confronts a train.

The details of the accident on the police report state that the employee dropped the manifest and was in an area near the tracks that is unlit and that the flat bed train car was difficult to see late in the fading sun.

Malibu Meets Train

Rumors present a different story. The employee went to run an errand (allegedly to the Qwik-Trip Mart and had asked fellow workers if they needed anything) in the fresh-off-the-line Malibu and was driving without a seatbelt at about 35mph towards a railway crossing where the train was paused, red signals flashing, and was distracted by text messaging. The train began backing up just after the hit and spun the car and driver out from underneath.

“How was your day at work, Honey?”

Crunch

It is interesting to note that the airbags deployed, the worker was not injured, the windshield did not crack and the back doors are fine. Not bad for a 35mph head-on crash. There is still a lot of good car left there but it is being totalled and all of it will be scrapped.

All in a day’s work.

Things are not always what they seem. For instance, you might think this episode is nearly a week late. Wrong as usual, idiot. We were planning to do this episode a year from now, so technically it’s early. Why are you so offended? Clearly you are unfamiliar with the word “idiot’s” Greek roots. I was simply suggesting you were a private person unfamiliar with the vagaries of podcasting. Again, not what it seems.

So there you go. Houston, we have a theme. This week we’ve got the coolest 4×4 you never expected, a bevy of protests as the Detroit Auto Show gets going and a wrecked Yaris that is more functional than you’d think. Plus we’ve got some new fun and games this week including our Mystery Words of the Week, a new segment where we get to stereotype drivers and a couple of burnouts gone terribly wrong.

Download MP3 | | |

I have started so many blogs about GM that my drafts folder in WordPress is a virtual diary of issues that screamed to me that I needed to say something to you but then I would worry about your health. It is personal to me. It’s like telling a close elder relative that they offend everyone at Thanksgiving dinner with their un-Big Fish-Like stories and are clueless to this and something should be done but then Thanksgiving passes and so I kind of hope/think that your spouse must be telling you why people pick on you.

But here are some observations.

Whether or not you actually pay eBay for the recent trial endeavor of listing your new inventory on eBay Motors that is now coming to an end, I know this:

• - eBay Motors doesn’t care if you pay them. The free marketing you did for the most cheap and marketing incompetent major company in the world realizes that it was your money who brought them all of those wonderful hits. They base stock price on hits. No sales for you but hits for them.
• - While we are on your money? It was nice of you to pull eBay Motors along with you while you paid back part of your loan … that wasn’t your money at the time nor was the contract with eBay even signed when the program was announced. I like team spirit among people. Sharing is nice.
• - You did a nice thing for your franchisees by putting their inventory on eBay Motors on their behalf so they didn’t have to pay a marketplace they had all abandoned long ago because it was useless to them and didn’t increase sales. I bet after they had so many peers lose their franchises it made them feel warm and part of the GM family to know you could offer them a snowcone treat on a freezing day.
• - Fritz Henderson had a genius idea with this eBay Motors thing and announced it as if it was All New! although it had already been 2 years in the works and, in the panic of securing government funds, grasped it as an example of how GM was changing and showing appreciation of being allowed to continue breathing.
• - Playing with eBay Motors and pretending like cars were really going to sell was optimistic. Audi only sold 2 cars in their entire history of listing their Certified Pre-Owned cars on eBay on behalf of their dealers but you decided that GM would be different. Despite public opinion and franchisees well known for their lack of follow through on internet leads, you were going to sell cars, dang it!
• - Everyone knew that this eBay program was about generating leads and you say that you got 15,000 leads on 16,000 cars in 225 California dealerships which is great but you claim you don’t have visibility on how many of those ended in successful sales. You could (dealerships and eBay are run by this thing called software) but then the cars that were listed as current inventory on eBay were very often no longer available. So maybe you got some buyers in other cars. Who knows? You could tell us but you don’t, you silly little tease!
• - Speaking of releasing actual numbers: it is cool that most of the cars you listed on eBay were higher than the prices of the actual cars on the actual lots (which is higher than people actually negotiate) because that helps the perception that we all crave in this economy (e.g., cars are worth more than they are if you see it on the internet).

We don’t have to talk about the money back guarantees and how that worked out for other companies before or how playing conkers with the media is proven to be a bad idea. I do want you to start talking though. This Penske deal is a huge heartbreak for a lot of people. I am keeping my fingers crossed for Hummer. This isn’t pretend anymore. People have used you and you show a kind face of being optimistic and take the knocks of being the one at fault. Managing bad news is not a fun job and a lot of very tired but loving employees working on your behalf. Bad news is not a PR opportunity. It is a sign that everyone is tired. It is time to start making some good news.

This week, while traveling on business I found myself behind the wheel of a Chevrolet Uplander minivan. The brain trust at Chevrolet, however, seem somewhat embarrassed to just call it like it is and suggest that this should be called a “crossover sport van.” Forget that the only thing “crossover” about this vehicle compared to their previous effort is an added on ungainly snout and a slightly raised ride height. And the only thing even remotely sporty about it… well I give up.

My thoughts throughout my two-day drive kept coming back to the same thing: that General Motors wasn’t even trying hard when they designed this car. Were the people behind this project just so bummed at being reduced to working on a mere minivan rather than a new Hummer SUX6000 that they just phoned in the details? Was an assignment to the minivan design team the automotive equivalent of graduating from the police academy only to get assigned to traffic control at the local airport?

I always try to look at the positive side of every vehicle and this does have a few decent details. The dashboard materials appear to be high quality and are sufficiently elegant in appearance, the engine and road noise are muffled, and even though it matches nothing else on the car, the upper door panels have real (!) stitching on the faux leather that actually looks nicely finished.

But then you turn to the details that make other minivans so endearing to millions of American families and you just have to wonder what happened:

Fuel Economy… I averaged only about 15 mpg during my brief time with the car… vs. EPA ratings of 16/23 city/hwy which themselves are nearly identical to the ratings for the larger and heavier 2009 Traverse SUV that claims 24 mpg on the highway. What’s the point of driving an “unhip” minivan if you can’t even rationalize that you are saving money on gas?

Comfort… the front seats were fine, if nothing to write home a about, and the standard cloth upholstery was pleasant and looks durable. However, the middle seats were tiny… seemingly undersized for the car. I suppose that this lets them claim more legroom that actually exists. The rearmost seats were larger… a split bench, but again, compared to the multi-adjustable units in vans from competitors weren’t even a decent effort. The middle row seats were crammed all the way over to the sides near the doors which left them feeling cramped but did allow, I suppose, for a larger space in the middle to walk-through to the rearmost seats.

Flexibility… those rearmost seats again, unlike nearly every other van on the market, neither fold flat into the floor when not needed nor do any other neat tricks like turn into a rear facing bench. To utilize the full cargo capacity one needs to remove the heavy seats and find a place to leave them for the duration. The ONLY storage space for storing odds and ends like baby wipes, cell phones, and other detritus that usually fill up the family truckster was a Pep-Boys style bungee net strung between the front seats. There was no convenient enclosed storage areas for anything. The only place I found to rest my cell phone was inside the cupholder that extended from the dashboard. Seriously? You’ve had 25 years to try to copy features from nearly every family hauler on the market and you missed the most basic needs of families with small children? I won’t even go into the fact that nearly every other van out there also has second-row seats that slide, fold, retract, and will probably milk a cow.

I can’t imagine anyone in the market for a minivan test driving models from multiple manufacturers and deciding to buy an Uplander

So I end with the thought that GM’s half-hearted effort, if you can even call it that, at competing in this segment is a symbol of why the company is struggling so much. In the hyper-competitive vehicle business if you don’t even enter the game aiming for best-in-class you might as well just give up and go home.

Fortunately for GM, I believe that much has changed at the company and newer vehicles like the new Traverse, the Malibu, and some others represent more competitive offerings. I just hope that the attitudes that permitted a car like the Uplander from seeing the light of a dealer showroom have been exorcised as well.

-Steve Haas