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The latest report in a long string of stumbles out of the starting blocks, Chevy moved exactly 125 of their new Volts last month, far below expectations.

With most technological vanguards, an initially slow rate of adoption is somewhat to be expected, but given that the Volt was barely visible through the cloud of hype surrounding it for the past year and a half, the recent sales figures are stunningly low—if not entirely unsurprising.

Legions of automotive journalists have addressed the myriad of possible angles to the Volt narrative, so I won’t attempt to cover it in any sort of comprehensive sense. That said, I do want to emphasize one aspect of the story in particular: The connection between the overambitious yet half-baked nature of the car’s technology and the subsidies that underpinned its development.

The problem here, as with most government-funded endeavors, is that the absence of “skin in the game” in the form of the company’s own capital means risk assessment and market analysis is much less rigorous than it would be otherwise. When a company isn’t constrained by a sober appraisal of the position of the their product vis-a-vis market demand weighed against the capital they’re investing, they’ll almost always want to push the specifications of their product beyond what the market is prepared to accept. If it’s not your money, why not go nuts and make the most sophisticated car you can? Gotta give the taxpayers their money’s worth, right?

So, in contrast to other companies (Toyota, Honda, Ford, etc) who have been doing their due diligence, easing alternative propulsion technology into the marketplace progressively and deliberately—their own investments at stake—and achieving a fair amount of success (see: Prius, Civic and Escape Hybrids), GM, flush with capital they’re less accountable for, made the financially-dubious attempt with the Volt to pass their rivals in one fell swoop. It’s evident that a more conservative rolling-out of hybrid technology into their model line probably wouldn’t captivate the automotive press, but it might lay a foundation for more long-lasting success.

Government subsidies almost invariably produce solutions miscalibrated to market demands, whether below or above the parameters requested by would-be buyers. The Chevy Volt carries the unfortunate distinction of having its feet in both camps: Too “advanced” compared to other hybrids, which mesh better with existing infrastructure, and less car for the money than most consumers are looking for (seating capacity for only 4, range restrictions, very expensive even with “incentives,” etc). Those obvious reasons for its lack of popularity seem to escape GM, at least publicly, who prefer to harp on about “supply problems” and so forth. I don’t relish the premonition, but as with the EV1, I fully expect the Volt story to end in ignominy.

Porsche’s 918 Spyder has been wowing audiences on the auto show circuit for a little over a year now. By all accounts, it’s a technological showcase, and represents Porsche’s vision of their future, much the same way the 959 did in the mid-’80s.

And as befits such a forward-looking car, crammed chock full of innovations, its vital statistics peg several different scales. It’s equipped with a 3.4l V8 engine supplemented by three electric motors which, when working together, deliver a whopping 718 hp to all four wheels. Sixty mph is dispatched in 3.2 seconds, and fuel economy is an incredibly miserly 78 mpg. Amazingly, Porsche managed to stuff all this kit, including batteries and supporting hardware, into a car weighing only around 3,300 lb. But even more amazing is the price: The automaker has committed to build a limited run for $845,000 a pop. That’s an order of magnitude more expensive than anything else in the manufacturer’s lineup, doubling even the price of the vaunted, range-topping Carrera GT from a few years ago.

I’ll let that stand. The car is primarily a declaration of Porsche’s capabilities, and as such, it’s irrelevant what the price is, as long as they produce more than a single example to be trundled from show to show. They only need to prove that it works, and that they can make more than just one.

From an aesthetic standpoint, it’s a knockout. I’d venture to say its lines surpass even the aforementioned Carrera GT’s, widely considered to be among the best-looking cars ever to exit the factory at Stuttgart. The fender flares and overall proportions update the classic James Dean 550 Spyder look, and the tension and visual interest provided by the interaction of the surfaces on the car’s flanks perfectly relieve what would otherwise be a boring swath of sheetmetal. It’s a beautiful car.

Even though, as mentioned above, the 918 Spyder is a statement, it doesn’t just speak to Porsche’s ability to crank out a world-beater at a singular point in time. It’s also their take on the future of performance cars in general, and as the automaker is something of an authority on the subject, their statements really deserve the consideration of every performance buff.

That said, my feelings about the mechanicals of the car are somewhat ambivalent. The larger part of me knows that alternative propulsion technologies have a long way to go before they can match the character and tactile feedback of a traditional internal combustion engine. That part of me also craves the simplicity of one engine, one transmission and one set of throttle bodies controlled by my right foot. I can get my mind around that arrangement; it’s a known quantity. On the other hand, I’m well aware that there were times people craved the simplicity of an L-head, or pushrods (and still do), or carburetors, or non-variable valve timing, and yet all their replacements have been integrated, over time, into the performance scene. And also, it does seem inevitable that our cars’ means of locomotion will diversify, and it takes time for the sound and feel of whatever’s new to work itself into the preferences of those of us who relish the subjectives of a car. Looking at the situation from that angle, the present really is a compelling period of automotive evolution to be living through, analogous to the early part of last century, when it seemed like every company had its own ideas about the best way to propel a vehicle. It’ll be interesting to see if Porsche’s vision sticks.

After all my tirades and philippics this week, this Saturday being sort of gray, drippy and reflective like it is, I thought it might be worthwhile, for a change, to survey the automotive landscape and dwell on some unequivocally good developments.

The Ford Mustang. Good golly, they got this one right. As has been observed, it’s the best looking car Ford has made in years. They’ve upgraded the interior materials, given it a wonderful pair of engines in the V6 and V8, tamed the live rear axle to the point where the car is a bona fide racetrack hero, and really honed the car’s details, like the particularly-tasty sequential rear turn signals. Even if the car isn’t single-handedly saving Ford’s bacon the way the minivan did for Chrysler in the ’80s, I’m convinced Ford is hugely benefiting, tangibly in terms of sales, and intangibly in terms of the halo effect, from the Mustang. No one can deny that the essential goodness of the car has given the automaker a massive boost in these economic doldrums.

Audi’s new design direction. Oh yes. Ever since their B7 A4 led the automaker’s model range, somewhat awkwardly, to adopt a deep-grille fascia, I’d hoped it was a “transitional model” and that the company’s stylists would eventually smooth out and integrate that feature a little better. The B8 A4/S4 showed the first glimpse of that hope fulfilled, and with the upcoming arrival of the revised A5 and S5, the deep grille has fully matured, blending effortlessly into the cars lines, owing primarily to the addition of a small angle in its upper corners. Audi has come from behind in the ’90s to become the German Jaguar, leaping from one aesthetic peak to the next with their trend-setting, perfectly-penned interior and exterior design.

The Cadillac CTS-V Wagon. After a too-long series of Euro-style luxury car flops, as much as I have a bone to pick with The General’s overall operations, it’s still somewhat gratifying to see one of their divisions get a car so absolutely right. All the goodies they shunned for years are there at last: 6-speed manual, RWD, excellent handling and a wagon body, topped with a generous helping of good ol’ American pushrod V8 power. It’s been a long, circuitous route, and we enthusiasts have been mystified for years by Cadillac’s dogged refusal to adopt the formula (manual, RWD, handling) that would have finally put them in the game vis-a-vis their foreign competition, but it’s nice to see them finally coming around, and how. Now watch GM ax their most promising car in years, just like they have so many times before. CTS-V wagon, mark my words: Your days are numbered.

“Let us redefine progress to mean that just because we can do a thing, it does not necessarily follow that we must do that thing.”

—The President of the United Federation of Planets, Star Trek VI

Star Trek geekery meets car geekery. Worlds collide. And implode.

In all seriousness, this will be a rare instance of an admitted car junkie arguing for less power. You see, the so-called horsepower wars are really getting out of hand. The examples are too numerous to mention, but suffice it to say that the average high-end sports sedan nowadays needs at least at much power as the average supercar from 25 years ago just to be taken seriously. Case in point: The Ferrari F40 and Porsche 959 wowed the automotive world in the ’80s with mid 4-second 0-60 times and horsepower in the mid-400s. Now, a typical top-of-the-line sports sedan supposedly needs to post those numbers just to compete with its peers.

Great, you say. Technology is making it easier and easier to extract greater amounts of power from essentially the same weight and volume of material. What’s the downside?

Well, there are a few. First in my mind is the increasing isolation of the driver from any semblance of his car’s limits. What I mean is that with the growth in performance, be it in the areas of cornering, braking or acceleration, the car’s limits are pushed farther and farther from the realm of normal, everyday driving. So what’s the problem? Doesn’t it make a car safer in that it will finally lose control far beyond a point where most drivers will push it? Yes and no. While that might be true, when the limits do finally come, and they will, the car will be traveling at a far greater clip than it would otherwise, with a greater potential for damage and injury. Let’s not forget that part of what makes many cars fun to drive is the sense that we could stab the throttle and step the tail out just a little on a winding back-country road, coupled with the knowledge that the car is moving slow enough that we could reel it back in if we had to. The margin of safety that makes such an event fun as opposed to dangerous is thinner and thinner with each increase in tire width and power under the hood.

Next, in spite of the fact that we’ve seen a massive increase in horsepower, average gas mileage hasn’t risen nearly as dramatically. I’ll be the last person to argue for mileage standards imposed from the top down, but when the engineering and materials improvements are directed at increasing power as opposed to efficiency, it’s illustrative of where the automakers’ priorities are, namely raw numbers over efficiency and driver involvement.

That brings me to the last, greatest downside to the horsepower wars: The prioritization of the spec sheet over more intangible factors like engaging the driver. If I had grown up in the past 10 years or so, and only known and appreciated enthusiast cars from the era of big horsepower, I would wonder how on earth anyone in their right mind could have had fun driving, say, an ’85 Mazda RX-7 GSL-SE, whose engine cranked out barely 134 hp. And yet, Car and Driver wrote about it:

Light of weight. Beautifully balanced. Absolutely pure in its purpose of rewarding the driver with unfiltered feedback. With modern tires and a little tweaking to engine and suspension, this is the ultimate ‘I’m going to blast some canyons and don’t try to stop me’ road carver. It won’t become a breathless collectible, but on a cool night when the world oppresses the spirit, this RX-7 revives the soul.

The reason they could write such plaudits is that Mazda, and many automakers before the horsepower wars, recognized, perhaps out of necessity, that there was more to a car than the amount of tire smoke it could generate on command. The limits of the cars were lower; there was less brute power to entice the driver away from becoming attuned to the way the steering felt, or the brakes responded. When the music is turned up to the point where it becomes a drone of white noise, subtleties and textures that give the music its character are much harder to discern. Same with cars.

I believe a “de-militarization” of the sports car arena is needed. Automakers need to take a deep breath and announce that the next iteration of a particular model will have *gulp* less power than the outgoing model. But in that same breath, they can hopefully also announce that its weight is lighter, it’s more efficient, and most significantly, that it’s more fun to drive. That lowering of the bandwidth would improve the cars we drive by bringing them back into focus for the average driver, and bring the driver up by encouraging and rewarding his involvement of in the act of driving. Win-win.

Editor’s note: H/t to Evan from NCEuro.org for the inspiration for this article.

In all fairness, I don’t know if I can blame this entirely on BMW.

It’s been rumored for years now, but it would appear that BMW is finally going to make the switch to front wheel drive. Mind you, they own Mini, and developed their cars, all of which are FWD, so some have argued that there already are FWD “BMWs” out there. To most enthusiasts, though, it’s more a matter of brand perception than cold, objective vehicle dynamics, so to us, it’s not actually a FWD BMW until the roundel is on the hood.

I’ve heard all the arguments. I’ve been told time and again that BMW buffs whined and moaned and complained when the much-beloved, modern E30 came out in the mid-’80s, saying BMW was going to pot. Then their storied M30 was replaced in the early ’90s with, of all things, a modern, all-aluminum, 32-valve V8 (the M60), and the purists were again up in arms, saying BMW had sold its soul by axing its big six. Then, in the mid-’00s, for the first time, they introduced a turbocharged gasoline engine (the N54) in a worldwide production car, and we all said they were hopelessly compromised as a brand. None of it was true. Even with the added layers of electronics introduced in the ’90s and ’00s, BMWs still remained peerless drivers’ cars.

Guess why? Mechanical balance. You can smooth out the power delivery of a turbo’d engine with proper tuning; the low-down torque of a good V8 is a proper substitute for that of their old M30; you can still maintain a connection between man and machine in spite of electronic gadgetry, but you can’t fake mechanical balance. There is simply no way to make a FWD car feel as balanced as a RWD car. No possible way. Among others, Honda and Lotus have made particularly valiant efforts in the past with their last-generation Prelude and ’90s Elan, respectively, but even they had dynamic limitations that could be felt by any driver.

It’s a fundamentally qualitative difference. I don’t care how good your FWD car is, or if it can run circles around my RWD clunker—it doesn’t feel the same to drive when all the weight is over the front axle, and the two front wheels are doing all the work. Period. And therein lies BMW’s problem, and why this sea change is different from all the previous upheavals.

Finally, in BMW’s defense, I realize it’s their brand. They have final say over its defining characteristics; they can do whatever they want with it. If they want to slap a BMW emblem on the hood of a Smart Fortwo, it will be a BMW (lest we forget, the Isetta was). I won’t say otherwise. And also, as alluded to at the beginning of the post, as with the regulatory-driven styling problems with the nose of their latest 6-series, it could be a situation they’re forced into, and are trying to make the best of. I know the latest EU fuel economy standards are pushing a lot of companies that wouldn’t otherwise contemplate small cars to do so (see: Aston Martin). With that, I wish them good luck. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go cry in my German beer. At least that’s still pure and uncompromised, right?

Is Saab back for good?

After GM decided to divest themselves of the company in late 2009 as part of their restructuring program, the Swedish automaker was rescued in early 2010 by the Dutch firm Spyker in a truly 11th-hour deal. Despite Spyker’s lack of financial muscle compared to GM, I had high hopes Saab would regain more solid footing under their auspices. Especially with the long overdue release of the second-generation 9-5 (by all accounts a very good car, if not the automotive equivalent of a killer app), I started wondering whether a Jaguar-in-the-’90s-style renaissance was in the works.

Unfortunately, Saab’s problems today are different than Jaguar’s were back then. The British company’s main failings were on the manufacturing efficiency and quality control fronts, two areas that their then-new owners, Ford, were amply able to help them address. Jaguar never suffered from a lack of distinctiveness, and their basic design and engineering had always been on par with the standard-bearers in their cars’ categories. But those are precisely the two main issues facing Saab today. Saab needs make a car that can hang with a BMW 3-series, Lexus IS or Infiniti G, and they need to distinguish themselves from their competition (something GM’s platform sharing antics did not help). Accomplishing those two things would help the brand win converts beyond just the diehard loyalists, or those who define themselves first and foremost as nonconformists.

All that said, in spite of the competence of the new 9-5 (pictured above and at top) Spyker couldn’t do much with the Swedish company, and put Saab up for sale. And yet again, on the verge of liquidating their assets and shuttering their factories, a pair of buyers emerged, in this case the Chinese firms Youngman and Pang Da.

Here’s hoping they pull through. If they do eventually go under, the automotive landscape will be a bit less unique for the disappearance of the quirky, and in many ways pioneering, automaker.

Saab has been at the vanguard of a number of automotive innovations; just to name a few: wastegate-controlled turbocharging, coil-on-plug ignition, and my personal favorite: the variable compression engine. Unfortunately, with that last advance, they lacked the capital to fully develop what could have been a game-changer, a real breakthrough that would have given them technical distinctiveness and leadership, in addition to all the little peripheral idiosyncrasies they maintain.

On another personal note, as much of a nonconformist as I like to think I am, I’ve never been a huge fan of the brand, mainly because their entire model range is front-wheel-drive. There’s just no way to achieve a well-balanced, classically fun-to-drive car with that mechanical configuration. It’s unfortunate, really, since Saabs are generally very handsome, and manual transmissions are offered on most cars in their lineup—two big positives.

If nothing else, this post allows me to coin what I will call Spannerhead’s 1st Law of Automotive Blogging: “You can’t call yourself a true automotive blogger until you’ve written a post about a Swedish automaker.”

So at least I’ve arrived, even if Saab hasn’t quite yet.

Like nobody saw this coming. Throw a whole bunch of money at the problem, make no fundamental changes in the way you structure your company, and expect a different result. By the same token, maybe if I just load my kids up with ice cream every time they misbehave, they’ll grow up to be something more than little entitled barbarians. Yep. Same logic.

Bloomberg is reporting that GM truck inventories have been on the rise, and fears are increasing that the bailed-out company is again sinking into the mire we taxpayers so recently pulled it from:

After GM’s truck inventory swelled to 122 days worth of average sales, the company said 100 to 110 will be normal going forward for such a large and complex line of vehicles, compared with 60 to 70 days for most models. Peter Nesvold, a Jefferies & Co. analyst, isn’t convinced. Ford Motor Co. (F), which makes similar trucks, is running at 79 days, and Nesvold says GM averaged 78 days on hand at year end from 2002 to 2010.

“It’s unbelievable that after this huge taxpayer bailout and the bankruptcy that we’re right back to where we were,” Nesvold, who has a “hold” rating on the stock, said in a telephone interview. “There’s no credibility.” In a research note he asked: “Is GM falling into old, bad habits?”

Answer: They never kicked the “old, bad habits” in the first place. The problem is systemic—the UAW. Any union that entrenched, with that kind of sway over a company’s way of doing business is necessarily going to put them at a competitive disadvantage compared to their rivals at Ford and Chrysler, to say nothing of the foreign competition. It’s a given. Their bloated salaries increase the price of every vehicle, and shield under-performing employees from being let go and replaced by more competent workers, the upshot being that the quality (design and build) of each model suffers. Oh sure, they can create a world-beater when they put their minds to it (e.g. the CTS-V, or the ‘Vette), but the average quality of a GM vehicle still lags far behind those from other companies. For example, VW just seems to care about the quality of their Golf in a way that GM doesn’t about their Cruze, and it shows. There’s attention to detail evident in most of the foreign competition, whereas the GM car seems thrown into the market niche as nothing more than a placeholder.

Compounding the problem, for ages now, GM’s business model could be summed up in one word: Reactionary. That is, instead of looking the big picture, keeping their ear to the ground about world events and trends that affect consumer attitudes and buying habits, they’ve been stuck playing catch-up. This was evident in the ’70s and ’80s when they fell from a position of dominance to being completely marginalized in the luxury market in favor of German and Japanese brands, and has been happening since the beginning of the last decade when Toyota and Honda anticipated the shift to smaller, more fuel-efficient vehicles while GM was still pumping out SUVs by the boatload. The American giant finds itself, time and again, in a sort of deer-in-the-headlights crisis mode where they’re scrambling to slap together the automotive equivalent of a plug in a leaky dike, rather than looking forward, anticipating trends and building a seawall, metaphorically-speaking. But sadly, they’re just done in by their own inertia, not to mention leftover arrogance from the heady days of the ’60s, when the company told Joe Consumer what he wanted in a car. Sorry GM, it doesn’t work like that anymore. We’re not lucky just to have you.