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File photo by Boris Yaro / Los Angeles Times
I attempted to do so recently at Laguna Seca, where I was invited with a bunch of other moto journos to test what KTM is hoping will be its Yama-Suzu-Honda buster when it enters world superbike racing, most likely in 2012. But this bike flogged me instead. With 170 horsepower, 90.7 foot-pounds of torque and a whopping 1,195 cc, it's a bike best left to the pros who'll be able to wring every last drop of power from its 75-degree twin cylinders and take advantage of the extreme adjustability that's been built into the bike to do so.
Like any sport bike that's been subjected to Darwinian evolution at the hands of mad engineering geniuses, the bored-out RC8 R ramps up the power, scales down the pounds and fine tunes the handling. But the big news about the RC8 R is its emphasis on easy adjustment for guys who spend their weekends -- and their paychecks -- at the track. Its camshaft sprockets and valve timing are both adjustable, so the fast can go even faster.
For the fools who insist on riding the RC8 R in the street, the license plate, turn signals, mirrors, passenger seat and foot pegs have all been designed for quick track-to-street conversion. The handlebars also have two settings, the rear subframe is adjustable and the seat offers almost an inch of height movement, from 31.69 inches to 32.48.
The seat on the RC8 R is plank-like. And spacious, which I realize is a fairly strange thing to say about a sportbike saddle, but it definitely feels roomy, in that it's easier to do the contortionist moves required on the track in corners. The concept: If you're comfortable, you have more freedom of movement, and more freedom of movement makes you faster.
Fast is, of course, the biggest compliment in sport biking. It's also a relative term. I probably got the RC8 R up to 140 mph, which is a fool's move on the street but tortoise-like at Laguna Seca. The RC8 R is a handful for mortals such as a myself. Of the bike's six gears, I only got it into fourth on the straightaway and that was just barely.
Acceleration and gear-changing was smooth, thanks to a new, quicker-shifting transmission. The suspension was also quite plush, its pieces having been dipped in titanium. At 1195 cc and 401 pounds, this bike is big for the track, especially for a woman with flabby upper arms whose only regular exercise consists of lifting bikes off their kickstands. So it was really a pleasant surprise that the RC8 R was so easy to corner; it didn't require nearly as much muscle as I feared to yank the brakes and lean it over.
Like all excellent sport bikes, the RC8 R is a slave to its master. It understands what you want it to do and does it with only the slightest direction. The barest flick of the wrist on this torque-y twin jettisons you forward. A two-finger squeeze on the monobloc caliper brakes easily reduces warp speeds. The lightweight chromoly tubular chassis taunts you to drag a knee. And the bubble windshield lets you play peek-a-boo with the gale forces that threaten destabilization at high speeds.
I suppose this shouldn't have been a surprise. KTM is known for high-performance, off-road machines. In the few years it’s been making street bikes, the Austrian manufacturer is showing the same dedication to running the competition off the road. The RC8 R is simply the latest proof.
* $285 destination charge and $200+ pre-delivery setup fees not included
-- Susan Carpenter
Video: Don Kelsen / Los Angeles Times
In an effort to bring electric vehicles to the masses, Brammo Chief Executive Craig Bramscher announced this week that the Oregon-based manufacturer will drop the price of its Enertia electric motorcycle to $7,995. The suggested retail price had been $11,995.
"We set the retail price two years ago, and now that we've built dozens of prototype bikes and built 100 for customers, we now have the real data to determine what it's going to cost us to build these and get them out in larger volumes, so we're able to price that in accordance now," Bramscher said.
The price reduction is possible because of "pricing in the supply chain and reducing labor and making systems more efficient," Bramscher said, adding that it takes about two hours to assemble an Enertia at its Ashland production facility.
Additional price breaks on the bike are available through federal incentives, which allow buyers to write off 10% of the purchase price on their tax returns and, until the end of 2009, reimburse them for their state sales tax. Many states, including California and Oregon, provide additional incentives.
Anyone who's already purchased an Enertia is eligible for the lower price. According to Bramscher, they simply need to call the company at (541) 482-9555 or e-mail the firm at www.brammo.com to request a refund.
-- Susan Carpenter
Photo credit: Brammo
Fledgling electric car maker Aptera Motors hopes a law recently signed by President Obama will give it another shot at winning financial support from the federal government.
The Vista-based automaker has been working for several years to bring its quirky, three-wheel, two-passenger electric car to market. Aptera suffered a setback in December when the U.S. Department of Energy rejected its application for a loan under a $25-billion program designed to speed development of fuel-efficient vehicles.
The reason, according to Aptera, was that the loans were available only for passenger vehicles which, by the government’s definition, must have at least four wheels.
However, Aptera is dusting off its old loan application. A provision in a new energy appropriations bill expands the program to cover two- and three-wheel vehicles that carry at least two passengers and get at least 75 miles per gallon.
Aptera hopes to borrow anywhere from $70 million to $100 million or more, depending on how officials at the DOE, which is overseeing the program, evaluate the company’s application.
Aptera could use the money. Private funding has been harder to come by since last winter’s credit crisis, and cash-flow concerns convinced the company to re-evaluate its production plans. The company had hoped to deliver its first vehicles by year’s end and to be at full production by mid-2010, but those dates may be pushed back, said Marques McCammon, Aptera’s chief marketing officer.
“We thought it was prudent to slow down a little bit. Our fundraising efforts were taking longer than we had anticipated,” he said.
“Our strategy has always been to fund our company with private money,” he added. But “we see the federal loan as a chance to accelerate production and expand outside California more quickly.”
Nearly 4,000 people have paid the $500 deposit to reserve a 2e, which will come in electric-only and plug-in hybrid versions. The price will be between $25,000 and $40,000.
McCammon says the company has lined up a distribution partner but can’t say yet who it is. To date, five companies have gotten loans under the DOE advanced technology program: Ford Motor Co., Nissan Motor Co., Fisker Automotive Inc., Tesla Motors Inc. and, most recently, parts supplier Tenneco Inc., which will use the money to develop fuel-efficient emission control components for advanced technology vehicles.
-- Martin Zimmerman
Photo: The Aptera 2e. Credit: Aptera Motors
Ford is introducing an inflatable seat belt for back seat passengers that it hopes will reduce injuries in front and side crashes.
The device will initially be available only as an option on the next-generation Ford Explorer sport utility vehicle, which goes into production next year. But safety experts say it has the potential to become widespread in the auto industry as car companies look for a marketing edge.
“The advancements in crash protection have focused a lot on front seat occupants, and this is a way to better protect rear seat occupants as well,” said Russ Rader, a spokesman for the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, an insurer-funded group that advocates higher auto safety standards.
“Safety is now a huge part of the competitive marketplace, and automakers are using safety as a way to sell their vehicles and as a way to show that they are ahead of their competitors.”
According to Ford, the inflatable seat belts are more effective than conventional safety restraints at holding a rear passenger in place during a front or side collision.
Much like front-seat air bag, safety sensors measure the severity of a crash and quickly inflate the seat belts if needed. Each belt’s tubular air bag inflates with cold compressed gas, which flows through a specially designed buckle from a cylinder housed below the seat. (Watch a video of the system in action.)
Ford said that 90% of the research participants thought the new devices were more comfortable than traditional seat belts. The increased comfort level could help narrow the discrepancy between front and rear seat belt use. Only 61% of rear seat passengers routinely buckle up, compared with 82% of front seat occupants, according to federal safety data.
The latest entrant in California’s fledgling electric-vehicle industry officially opened its doors today.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and other politicos were on hand as Electric Vehicles International unveiled its new U.S. production facility in Stockton — the town EVI now calls home after moving from Austin, Texas.
In partnership with Freightliner Custom Chassis Corp., a truck manufacturer owned by German auto giant Daimler, EVI plans to convert medium-duty delivery trucks to all-electric operation.
Although it has no orders in hand yet, the company said it expects to deliver 1,000 converted trucks by the end of next year.
EVI expects to employ about 150 people at its Stockton operation, and create 300 more jobs in California at suppliers and other businesses.
An EVI spokesman said the converted trucks cost between $120,000 and $180,000, depending in part on the size of the lithium-ion battery pack the customer orders. The trucks come with ranges of 60, 80 and 115 miles, depending on battery size.
Other companies are already pursuing plans to make electric vehicles in California. Tesla Motors, based in the Bay Area, is looking for a location in Southern California to build its Model S electric sedan, and Aptera Motors plans to build its three-wheeled 2e two-seater at a facility in Vista.
There are also several companies that specialize in converting hybrid cars into plug-in hybrids, which can travel a short distance under electric power.
EVI plans to jump into the plug-in hybrid business too, and is also looking at doing electric conversions of school buses and port equipment.
“California is the perfect location for electric-vehicle manufacturing,” said Ricky Hanna, chief executive of EVI-USA. “As the world’s leading location for adopting green technology and promoting sustainable transportation, California is where our customers are and where we need to be.”
-- Martin Zimmerman
Photo credit: Electric Vehicles International
Between GPS, cruise control, voice-activated communication and entertainment systems and automated parking assist, we’re getting pretty accustomed to having our cars tell us what to do.
MIT and Volkswagen want to take that concept a few steps further with AIDA, a dashboard-mounted robotic device that use myriad sources of information to help you plan travel routes, dodge traffic jams, find heretofore unrealized entertainment opportunities and avoid running out of gas.
AIDA (which stands for Affective Intelligent Driving Agent) doesn’t actually control your car. Instead, it monitors features and systems such as the gas and brake pedals, the windshield wipers, seat position and fuel gauge and tire pressure to “learn” how you drive.
“When it merges knowledge about the city with an understanding of the driver’s priorities and needs, AIDA can make important inferences,” explains Assaf Biderman, associate director of MIT’s SENSEable City Lab. “Within a week AIDA will have figured out your home and work location.
“Soon afterward, the system will be able to direct you to your preferred grocery store, suggesting a route that avoids a street fair-induced traffic jam. On the way AIDA might recommend a stop to fill up your tank, upon noticing that you are getting low on gas AIDA can also give you feedback on your driving, helping you achieve more energy efficiency and safer behavior.”
According to the MIT press release, “the project envisions that a kind of symbiotic relationship develops between the driver and AIDA, whereby both parties learn from each other and establish an affective bond.
“To identify the set of goals the driver would like to achieve, AIDA analyses the driver’s mobility patterns, keeping track of common routes and destinations. AIDA draws on an understanding of the city beyond what can be seen through the windshield, incorporating real-time event information and knowledge of environmental conditions, as well as commercial activity, tourist attractions, and residential areas.”
Sounds a bit intrusive, but watching the video of how the system would conceivably work, it seems pretty cool.
AIDA is reminiscent of the dash-mounted “robotic agent” that Nissan displayed in its PIVO2 concept car at the Tokyo Motor Show in 2007. According to Nissan’s promotional brochure, the device “infers the driver’s condition. It not only gives necessary information for the operation, but also speaks to you to cheer you up or to soothe you accordingly.”
The MIT project is a collaboration between the Personal Robots Group at the MIT Media Lab, the SENSEable City Lab and the Volkswagen Group of America’s Electronics Research Lab.
No word on when it might actually reach the production stage or what it will cost when (or if) it does.
-- Martin Zimmerman
Photo: MIT
It’s been quite a week for Brammo Inc., the Oregon-based manufacturer of the Enertia electric motorcycle. Last Saturday, the company celebrated the opening of its first California sales outlet at the Best Buy store in El Segundo, where it held an event to unveil the for-sale version of its long-awaited product "and show people that it really existed," said Chief Executive Craig Bramscher, who days later flew to Washington after accepting an invitation to the White House.
Saturday also marked the conclusion of the Shocking Barack tour, a publicity stunt the company had choreographed to draw attention to its supermoto-style EV. For 12 days, two Enertia riders traced the 700-mile route of the Detroit CEOs who last year drove their hybrid vehicles to Washington to plead for bailout money, having been scolded for taking their private jets a couple of weeks earlier. The electricity cost for the Brammo trip was $4 per bike.
While Shocking Barack was intended to show "the current administration and hopefully the president himself ... that there is an electric vehicle you can buy right now," the tour wound up shocking Bramscher, whose company attracted so much attention with the tour that the CEO was invited to join more than 100 other leaders of the clean-energy economy at a White House forum Wednesday hosted by Energy Secretary Steven Chu.
"Our whole goal is to get equal treatment from state and federal incentives because motorcycles are treated differently from cars," Bramscher said, a message he said he passed on to Chu. Right now, on-road electric motorcycles are eligible for two tax incentives -- a 10% tax credit on the purchase price up to a maximum of $2,500, and a rebate of the state sales tax for buying a new vehicle in 2009. In California, the tax rebates would reduce the Enertia’s $11,995 suggested retail price to about $9,700.
"We think incentives should be based on the size of the battery pack because that’s the commodity that needs to get the cost down so more people go electric," Bramscher said. "If there’s a program manufacturers are eligible for, whether it’s a Department of Energy loan program to help support manufacturing facilities or grants for research and development, we’d love for some of that money to make it to Oregon or the West Coast, not just Michigan."
To help make his case, Bramscher was able to not only meet with his state's two U.S. senators -- Democrats Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley -- but also to actually let them swing a leg over. Bramscher said he met with 15 other legislators as well.
-- Susan Carpenter
Photo: Brammo CEO Craig Bramscher points out features of an Enertia electric motorcycle as Sen. Ron Wyden gets comfortable behind the handlebars. Credit: Brammo
Popular Mechanics announced the winners of its fourth annual Automotive Excellence Awards, which the magazine says recognize the best in automotive design, execution and technology for 2010 model year vehicles in 10 categories.
Here they are:
Performance: Ford Mustang Shelby GT500
Design: Chevrolet Camaro
Value: Kia Soul
Fuel efficiency: Toyota Prius
Versatility: Subaru Outback
Fun to drive: Hyundai Genesis Coupe
Off-road ability: Ford F-150 Raptor
Technical innovation: Lexus Remote Touch
Luxury: BMW 335d
Workhorse: Ford Transit Connect
“Despite a tumultuous year in the automotive industry, engineers have rolled out some of the best cars we’ve ever seen,” said James Meigs, editor in chief of Popular Mechanics. The magazine’s editors evaluated more than 100 vehicles before making their selections.
Full coverage of the awards will be published in the December issue of Popular Mechanics, which hits newsstands Nov. 10. You can also read about the winners on the magazine’s website.
-- Martin Zimmerman
Photo: Hyundai Genesis Coupe. Credit: Popular Mechanics
Ford Motor Co. said a consortium led by Chinese automaker Zhejiang Geely Holding Group Co. is the “preferred bidder” for Ford’s Volvo unit.
Ford said that no final decision had been made on a sale, but that it would be “engaging in more detailed and focused negotiations with Geely,” one of the 10 biggest automakers in China.
“Ford’s objective in our discussions with Geely is to secure an agreement that is in the best interests of all the parties,” said Lewis Booth, Ford’s chief financial officer.
“Any prospective sale would have to ensure that Volvo has the resources, including the capital investment, necessary to further strengthen the business and build its global franchise.”
Booth added that “there is much work that needs to be completed in the more substantive discussions that are agreed to take place. We have no specific timeline to conclude the discussions.”
A deal between Ford and Geely would be the latest in a series of moves by Chinese companies to invest in high-profile car brands.
Earlier this month, General Motors Co. reached an agreement to sell its Hummer SUV unit to Sichuan Tengzhong Heavy Industrial Machinery Group. That deal is awaiting regulatory approval by the U.S. and Chinese governments.
In addition, Swedish automaker Koenigsegg Automotive is buying GM’s Sweden-based Saab unit with the help of a Chinese partner.
Ford, based in Dearborn, Mich., said it would continue to cooperate with Volvo “in several areas” after a sale, but has no intention of retaining an ownership stake in the company.
Ford's stock was down 43 cents to $6.90 in late trading on the New York Stock Exchange.
Asian automakers once again dominate the upper ranks of Consumer Reports’ annual vehicle-reliability survey, although Ford Motor Co. is making strides in improving the dependability of its cars and light trucks.
Ford’s sustained production of vehicles that are as dependable as — or better than — some of the industry’s best models dispels the notion that only Japanese manufacturers make reliable cars, the consumer magazine reported today.
The four-cylinder Ford Fusion and its cousin, the Mercury Milan, ranked higher in predicted reliability than any family sedan in the CR survey save the Toyota Prius. The cars beat out the Honda Accord and Toyota Camry, while the Lincoln MKZ, a product of Ford’s luxury division, topped the rival Acura TL and Lexus ES, products of Honda Motor Co. and Toyota Motor Corp., respectively.
“It's rare for Consumer Reports to see family sedans from domestic carmakers continue to beat the reliability scores of such highly regarded Japanese models as the Camry and Accord,” said David Champion, senior director of the magazine’s automotive test center. The last domestic sedan that had better reliability than the Camry and Accord was the Buick Regal in 2004, he noted.
Overall, 46 of 51 Ford, Lincoln and Mercury products were found to have average or better predicted reliability.
That said, Asian nameplates were the clear overall winners in the annual survey, which collected responses on vehicle reliability from 1.4 million subscribers to Consumer Reports magazine and its companion website, ConsumerReports.org. The responses, which covered ownership experiences with vehicles from model years 2000 to 2009, are used by the magazine’s researchers to predict the reliability of 2010 model-year vehicles.
Toyota’s Scion brand finished first, followed by Honda, Toyota, Nissan’s Infiniti brand, Acura, Mitsubishi, Lexus and Hyundai of Korea. All Honda and Acura vehicles are rated as having average or above-average reliability.
German automaker Porsche, at No. 8, is the highest-ranked non-Asian company.
Deutsch LA, the West Coast office of ad agency Deutsch Inc., has won Volkswagen’s coveted U.S. advertising account.
Deutsch LA replaces Crispin Porter + Bogusky of Miami, which had handled VW’s U.S. advertising since 2005.
The size of the account wasn't disclosed. TNS Media Intelligence reported that VW spent $204 million on U.S. advertising last year.
That spending is almost sure to increase as the German automaker tries to make inroads into the U.S. market, where it currently holds a meager 2% market share (General Motors sold more cars in the U.S. in September alone than VW sold here in the first nine months of the year.)
“The clear intention of the company is to be No. 1 globally,” said Tim Ellis, VW’s head of U.S. marketing, “and the United States plays into that strategy in a big way.”
That strategy will include an aggressive advertising campaign that cuts across all manner of media platforms, from TV to social networking sites to mobile phones.
Volkswagen immediately becomes Deutsch LA’s biggest account, joining the likes of Sony PlayStation, DirecTV and Dr Pepper in the agency’s stable.
“This is beyond big,” agency co-CEO Mike Sheldon said. “Opportunities like this come around once in a career.”
Sheldon said the VW account will likely result in the addition of 100 new people at the agency’s 300-person Marina del Rey offices.
Sheldon said his agency plans to broaden VW’s appeal beyond its current base of hip twenty-somethings while still maintaining an aura of cool around the brand. The agency’s first work on behalf of its new client should begin appearing sometime in the first quarter of 2010, he added.
Deutsch, it should be noted, is German for “German.” Whether the agency’s VW campaign features the Teutonic accents and lingo that have plagued the automaker’s ads for years remains to be seen. Here's betting they lose the lederhosen.
-- Martin Zimmerman
The feds are setting up a Spanish-language version of their popular fuelconomy.gov website, which provides official government data on fuel economy and tailpipe emissions for thousands of vehicles.
The site, www.ahorremosgasolina.org (“Let’s save gas”), currently provides only a condensed rendering of the government’s key fuel economy data, which covers every car and light truck sold in the United States dating back to the 1884 model year. It also has a Spanish translation of the English-language site’s “Gas Mileage Tips” section.
More pages of the site will be translated into Spanish in the near future, according to a spokesman for the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory, which maintains the site in partnership with the Environmental Protection Agency.
As it is currently set up, typing in the Spanish-language URL will take you to fueleconomy.gov. There is a link on the right side of the home page that takes you to the Spanish-language version. Oak Ridge is still trying to decide whether to configure the URL so that it would take a user directly to the Spanish-language site.
Fueleconomy.gov has proved popular with the public. It gets more than 100,000 visitors a day -- not bad for a site that isn’t selling books or music downloads.
-- Martin Zimmerman
Image: A Spanish-language page from Ahorremosgasolina.org with tips on saving gas. Credit: Department of Energy
It's pretty safe to say the iPhone is completely mainstream at this point. Need proof? A million of the new 3GS models were sold within three days of its launch. During a recession. So promoting a product on the iPhone and iPod Touch app store is probably a pretty solid move.
Volkswagen seems to think so. In partnership with developer Firemint, it has released a free game called Real Racing GTI. Essentially a demo of Real Racing that's limited to just the GTI, players who register the game and complete a race will automatically be entered to win one of six limited-edition GTIs.One GTI will be given away each week over the next six weeks, and players can enter daily, so if you're still reading this, now would be a good time to get to downloading the app. I just drove the new GTI and it's worth every penny, but a GTI free of charge would just be that much sweeter.
-- Brian Alexander
Brian Alexander is a staff writer at DriverSide.com
Photo: Real Racing GTI. Credit: Volkswagen
A $375,000 Lexus? Toyota seems to think it's a good idea. The Lexus LFA, which debuted today at the Tokyo Motor Show, isn't, after all, one of their normal wares; it's their new supercar.
The low-slung, angular body design houses a 4.8-liter V-10 engine that distributes a meaty 552 hp and 354 pound-foot of torque to the rear wheels via a six-speed sequential gearbox (don't hold your breath for a third pedal). It also clocks a 3.7-second 0-62 mph time at a top speed of 202 mph. Try racing your RX350 against that.
The price may be prohibitive, but exclusivity generally wins out; Lexus is only producing 500 units for worldwide distribution, and we have little doubt every last one will sell.
-- Alison Lakin
Alison Lakin is a staff writer for DriverSide.com.
Photo: Lexus LFA. Photo Credit: Toyota
-- Lotus Exige Stealth Edition destined for 2009 Tokyo Motor Show. Automobile
-- Joni Gray
Shelling out for a navigation system in a new car can be a seriously painful experience. Often thrown into a tech package -- a sort of automotive catchall for an assortment of expensive gadgets and gizmos -- speccing your car with a nav has typically cost somewhere in the $2,000 to $3,000 range, and when you're looking at a $25,000 to $30,000 car, that's a depressingly significant percentage of the price.
As a result, you may have noticed a lot of cars driving around with glowing screens dangling from the windshield. Top-of-the-line aftermarket navigation units cost roughly $500, and in this morbid economic climate they present a right here, right now savings option to new car buyers. A few carmakers have even caught on, offering aftermarket nav packages in budget sedans.I was given a chance to use the new Bosch-supplied navigation system last week, and it's an excellent addition to Nissan's small car lineup. It features a 5-inch touchscreen flanked by conventional controls for the audio system and is compatible with USB, iPod and Bluetooth. Nissan has always been in the top of the heap when it comes to iPod integration -- let's face it, who's using a Zune anyway -- and the new system features vertical scrolling similar to the iPod's user interface, so if you can run an iPod, there's no real learning curve. The nav system is pretty intuitive as well, and features XM NavTraffic real-time updates so long as you subscribe to satellite radio. It might measure out at only 5-inches, but for an in-dash system at a price of $400, it's also kind of a no-brainer.
-- Brian Alexander
Brian Alexander is a staff writer at DriverSide.com
Photo: 2010 Nissan Sentra SR. Credit: Nissan
Electric bicycles occupy a strange vehicular netherland. Outfitted with pedals and other low-speed components, they’re more bicycle than motorcycle. But their motors prompt scorn among cycling purists, and their relatively high cost makes them a hard sell for the masses. Powered but not especially powerful, these bicycles-that-aren’t-really-bicycles occupy a niche within a niche, appealing to an already small minority within the country’s huge bicycling population – those who use their two wheels to commute rather than recreate.
The very word "commuting" is as unsexy as sanitation work, which makes something like the new PiCycle that much more intriguing. It’s a commuter-oriented electric bicycle that values style as much as substance. An exceptional art piece that is both practical and affordable, it almost requires its own category.
The PiCycle is the second iteration of an electric bicycle called the Pi, which was introduced two years ago with a price tag as highfalutin as its name. The Pi costs $7,500, which helps explain why just 40 of these arched, Ayn Randian anomalies have been sold. The new PiCycle costs one-third as much.
That’s right. It’s now $2,500.
If stairs played musical notes when you walked on them, would you be more likely to take them?
The video of people skipping the escalator in favor of composing music on the piano stairs of Odenplan subway station in Stockholm, Sweden, has been viewed more than 2.5 million times on YouTube. (Watch it above in the embedded player.)
The video is part of a new viral marketing campaign called “The Fun Theory.” The concept, created by Volkswagen Sweden and ad agency DDB Stockholm, is based on the idea that “fun is the easiest way to change people’s behavior for the better.”
Another campaign video shows people picking up trash off the ground in a park just to hear “The World’s Deepest Bin,” a regular trash can wired with motion-activated depth sound effects.
The goal with these fun, do-good videos is to promote VW’s new environmentally friendly BlueMotionTechnologies brand in an increasingly more competitive eco-car market.
“As traditional advertising is becoming less effective, and the competition in the market for environmentally sound cars is becoming more fierce, we believed we needed a more innovative approach to draw attention to BlueMotion,” DDB Stockholm deputy manager Lars Axelsson said in an e-mail.
OK, maybe we just needed an excuse to run yet another picture of the new Camaro, but it’s still worth reporting scattered signs of rising consumer interest in sports cars.
An indicator of better economic times ahead? Could be, says Craig Beiner, purchasing manager for CarMax, the nation’s largest used car dealer. Online searches for sports cars at carmax.com were up 6% last month compared with August.
“Consumers may now be feeling more comfortable with the idea of getting a ‘fun’ vehicle that has an enduring appeal,” Beiner said. Certainly, with the stock market up more than 50% since early March, car buyers might be thinking more about what they want than simply what they need.
The top shopped sports cars on Beiner’s site were, in order from the top, the Ford Mustang, Chevrolet Corvette, Nissan 350Z, Chevrolet Camaro and BMW M3.
Online auto shopping site Edmunds.com is seeing the same uptick. More than 11% of the site’s visitors researched sports cars in September, up from 7.9% in August. (Granted, August was a big "cash for clunkers" month, and many sports cars didn't qualify for purchase under the program.)
Edmunds.com sales analyst Jessica Caldwell thinks the plethora of attractive new models, such as the Camaro and the new Mustang, may be driving the consumer interest, as well as the lure of sweet deals dangled by dealers anxious to pump up sales after the post-clunker slump.
Indeed, as any retailer will tell you, window shopping — be it online or in the showroom — doesn’t necessarily translate into sales. Sales of luxury sports cars tumbled 18% in September compared with a year earlier. That was worse than the 16% overall decline in car sales -- although better than the 23% drop in light-vehicle sales, which include pickups and SUVs. And individual models such as the Camaro and Mustang showed some strength.
-- Martin Zimmerman
Photo: 2010 Chevrolet Camaro. Credit: General Motors Co.
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