Motown answers its wake-up call

DETROIT–Okay, sometimes we get fooled.

We thought this year's North American International Auto Show would be all doom and gloom, what with the challenges besetting the car industry these days.

And it isn't just the domestics that are in trouble – even mighty Toyota is offering incentives, cutting back production and cancelling new plants.

It is also true that a few manufacturers, ranging from full-range Nissan to high-end Porsche and Ferrari, chose not to attend Detroit at all.

But those that did show up put on the bravest face possible, and tried to do what they all know they must do to survive over the long haul, and that's to soldier on.

In the end more than 50 autom`otive brands from every corner of the car-building globe were on hand. Nobody seems to have counted the total number of vehicles on display. But according to show organizers, there were 44 world premieres here, and 14 more made their North American debuts.

The three secrets to success in the car business are product, product and product. And most of the manufacturers had just that.

There was a wall of ice blocks that the new Mini Convertible drove through and a fashion show chez Lamborghini. But that was about it for the glitz.

No waterfalls. No minivans leap-frogging over other minivans. No Cirque du Soleil stage shows. Almost no dancing girls. Fewer 40-decibel rock-soundtrack video presentations during the press preview days.

It was mostly sober-sided executives focusing on the things that have gone right – there have been a few – and showing off the cars and trucks that we will be driving in the coming months and years.

And which, we all hope, will help the industry turn around.

As always, Wheels had the largest contingent of correspondents at the show. Their individual reports in today's section and next week will give you the most in-depth analysis of the trends and the details you will find anywhere, guaranteed.

If we can save you the hassle of driving to Detroit to see it for yourself – well, you'll thank us some sweet day.

The key word at this year's show was "electrification." Just about every carmaker had some sort of electric car.

If I hear the phrase "lithium-ion" one more time I think I'll scream. Especially since the lithium-ion battery on my new laptop computer couldn't seem to hold a charge greater than 19 per cent.

Makes me wonder if I could ever really trust a battery-powered car to get me where I wanted to go.

There were pure battery-powered electrics. Hybrids of all shapes and sizes. Plug-in cars, ranging from little puddle-jumpers to luxury grand touring cars like the new Fisker.

The question few people even wanted to talk about was: Who's going to buy these things? The incoming U.S. administration has said it wants the car industry to build millions of electric cars within a few years.

But "build them and they will come" only works in the movies. Absent some sort of energy policy that ensures a fuel price high enough to trigger demand, these vehicles will end up parked doorhandle to doorhandle in wheat fields across the country.

Despite the fuel price shocks of 2008, current hybrids still only command about 2 per cent of the market down here.

Two per cent. Round that off, and it's zero.

The most optimistic projections suggest it won't be higher than 15 per cent into the next decade.

Barb Samardzich, vice-president of powertrain engineering for Ford, says the tipping-point for fuel pricing in the U.S. is $3.50 a gallon. Above that, consumers change buying habits, despite the fact that the economics usually don't compute.

Below that, and fuel-efficient cars will have thousands of dollars on their hoods in the form of incentives, and nobody can make a profit doing that for long.

Everyone says it is political suicide to raise gasoline taxes. But now that we taxpayers have a stake in these companies in the form of the loan guarantees that the U.S., Canadian and Ontario governments have offered, surely it is about time we accepted the fact that this is the only way to ensure that our investment is protected.

We've been living in a dream world for more than 100 years. Time to awake to the new realities.

That said, auto shows have always been all about dreams.

Maybe they still are. It's the script of the dream that has changed.

Let's ensure it does not turn into a nightmare.

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