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Larry Guillot:

QuakeTip of the Week: Real estate advice on living in Bay Area earthquake country

Kenneth R. Harney:

The Nation s Housing: Real estate news from Washington

Death to man who sold land to Jews in Palestine

To all the United States real estate agents, when things are bad, you still do not have it bad. Look at the horror that is going on in Palestine.
Anwar Brigith, 59, has been sentenced to death for selling a home to an enemy of the state. The man is to be hanged because he sold [...]

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Death to man who sold land to Jews in Palestine

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But hybrids aren’t profitable……

How much money does Honda lose on each hybrid?

$0.00.

That’s how much Honda loses on each hybrid it sells. In fact, the other day I read that both Honda and Toyota make about a $3,000 profit on each hybrid sold.

Of course, that doesn’t include all R&D costs, especially on Honda’s hybrids since Honda hasn’t sold nearly as many hybrid cars as Toyota. Now that Toyota has sold well over a million hybrids, however, development costs have probably been recovered.

Yet, not one US automaker has a solid Insight or Prius contender. When will they? Ever?

Within the next five years I’d bet gas prices will be about $3.00 – $4.00 per gallon, a price that could make hybrid cars like the Insight and Prius two of the top selling vehicles in America.

What will the Big 3 have?

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Michigan is Still MoTown For Asian Carmakers As Well As GM-Ford-Chrysler

The Motor City, even after this great downsizing and flogging of General Motors and Chrysler, is far from dead in the car business as some would have you believe.

I was struck by this quote today in The Wall Street Journal: “It’s a pretty safe bet that Detroit is not going to be Motown in the very near future,” said John Heitmann, a professor at the University of Dayton who studies the auto industry.

The story goes on to talk about the growth of the auto sector in China and India relative to the U.S.

Couple of things to remember:

Automakers may not be building any new assembly plants in Michigan, but there is a reason why Toyota, Honda, Hyundai-Kia and Nissan all have major tech centers in the Ann Arbor-Farmington Hills area. There is more automotive intellectual capital here than most places on earth. Michigan, I would predict, will remain a major intellectual hub, and vehicle testing hub, for the auto industry.

You know where the technical development for the Toyota Tundra, Avalon, Camry, Lexus RX, Nissan Altima and Titan, Hyundai Sonata, Santa Fe and Veracruz were largely carried out? Michigan.

You know where the Chinese and Indian carmakers testing the waters for the U.S. market do most of their vehicle certifications? Michigan. You know where the nation’s police car standards are set and re-set? Michigan.

There had been some wacky estimates of the U.S. auto industry going to 20 million units a few years ago. But let’s not get carried away. Without the recession, the real demand is probably at about 13 million right now, up from the 10 million we will likely see this year. But consider that you have two generations of consumers/drivers coming up, Gen Y and the Gen Z(born after 1996) that are bigger than the baby boom. And with baby boomers having a lot of living and car buying to do yet, that sounds like a lot of vehicles to buy. A lot more than we are selling today, and well North of 13 million by 2015-2020 when the financial and demographic cycles should again favor car buying.

True, no-one is looking to reclaim an old assembly plant in Michigan. Brownfield auto plants are not popular with automakers. And none of them want to take over a plant that has a UAW Local nearby. That’s just the truth.

It’s tough to think of a city with an average house price of $18,000 as the hub of anything. But Detroit isn’t just about the city of Detroit. You have to consider all of Southeast Michigan as the hub.

Ford is still in Dearborn, and doing quite well. Thirty miles to the West is the Ann Arbor hub. The tri-angle stretching from Auburn Hills, down to Detroit, West to Ann Arbor with Farmington Hills in the middle, is really MoTown.

Say what you want about China and India as growth markets. But the volume of vehicles that earn auto companies their biggest profits get sold in far greater numbers in the U.S. than elsewhere. If the U.S. wasn’t so important, than why are Fiat, Renault, Mahindra and Mahindra, Geely, Chery, BYD and Great Wall all trying to hatch an entry, or re-entry, into the U.S. market at the same time Saturn, Saab, Pontiac and Hummer are exiting?

Just questions to ponder for those ready to toe-tag Detroit.

Time to pull the plug on the Chevy Volt?

It just can’t help GM?

If you hate GM, then you probably don’t think much of the Chevy Volt. In fact, you might even call it an unrealistic hype machine into which GM has sunk far too much money.

That’s the argument the Washington Post makes today, and I have to admit, it’s a pretty persuasive argument. For instance, the article points to numerous analyses, including some done by President Obama’s auto task force, that indicate the economics simply don’t make sense for a vehicle like the Volt. Thus, how can the Volt help GM’s bottom line?

For example, even with $4.00 gas, it would still take, minimally, six years for the the Volt to recover its costs compared to today’s Toyota Prius. And, that’s assuming the Volt will only cost $30,000 after huge government tax credits and subsidies. Even at such a cost, it would still take far longer for many other Volt owners to recover their costs compared to a Prius.

Thus, this Post editorial suggests pulling the plug on the Volt, and I couldn’t disagree more.

I have long argued that the Volt should never have been an excuse not to develop a Prius-contender. Perhaps GM’s lithium-powered BAS hybrid system can fill this void, but cheap quality hybrids will be a necessity for any automaker in the very near future.

Fortunately, GM’s billion dollar investment into the Volt could help produce such cheap hybrid vehicles, aside from the Volt. Because much of GM’s Volt investment has been centered around one core technology, lithium-ion batteries, GM could conceivably parlay this knowledge into many different types of hybrid and electric vehicles.

Hence, to call GM’s Volt venture a waste that helped lead to bankruptcy and a loss of corporate reputation is pure nonsense.

I’ve seen GM’s battery labs. I’ve seen GM’s virtual design center. These two elements alone could make GM’s Volt investment worth the cost, even if the Volt itself is another decade away from any sort of real world, cost-effective impact.

Nonetheless, the Volt cannot save GM in the next decade. However, that does not mean the plug should be pulled on the Volt. Instead, it means GM needs to utilize the massive amount of intelligence gleaned from the Volt and convert it into a more well-rounded and balanced hybrid and electric vehicle portfolio, including the Volt.

If GM can do that, the Volt might just be GM’s smartest investment ever. If not, maybe we shouldn’t just pull the plug on the Volt, but GM.

Sneak Peek- 2010 Ford Fusion Hybrid

Ford is not letting the gloom and doom in Detroit prevent it from showing it has products that can compete with those from the import manufacturers. In fact, it’s challenging one of the benchmark Japanese brands in what could turn into a real brawl over bragging rights in the mid-sized hybrid sedan segment.

Ford is offering a gasoline/ electric powertrain in its 2010 Fusion sedan, taking dead aim at the Toyota Camry, the current leader in that category. The technology being tucked into the new Fusion is the same second-generation system being used in the Escape Hybrid, which has made that vehicle the most fuel-efficient compact SUV on the planet.

True, Ford borrowed its initial hybrid technology from Toyota when it launched its first eco-friendly SUV five years ago. However, in the interim, it has developed two generations featuring its own technology. Now, that powertrain is being adapted for the Fusion.