Green machines take center stage
Hybrids and more hybrids grab the spotlight at the Tampa auto show today through Sunday.
By TOM ZUCCO, Times Staff Writer
Published November 8, 2007
TAMPA - One of the best ways to gauge which vehicles automakers are pushing for the coming year is go to an auto show and look up. The cars and trucks parked on platforms, several feet above the crowded showroom, are usually the stars of the show.
This year, it looks like American automakers are high on hybrids.
Wednesday afternoon, hours before the 2008 Tampa Bay International Auto Show opens today, workers for General Motors and Ford were busy getting their hybrids - the Ford Escape and Mariner SUVs, and GM's Malibu sedan and Tahoe SUV - ready for inspection.
Toyota, meanwhile, placed its Prius sedan, the world's best-selling hybrid, on the floor amid a half-dozen other models. The Japanese automaker, which has had the Prius on the market since 1997, chose instead to put a Tundra pickup truck on a stand.
Analysts say that since Toyota already has a firm grip on the hybrid market, it is now turning toward America's largest-selling vehicles: the Ford F-Series and Chevy Silverado pickup trucks.
There is plenty to drool over here: a 1929 duPont Speedster, a flock of Ferraris, assorted muscle cars and a customized Hummer H1 that was used in Iraq by CNN and is now restored, tricked out and worth more than $1-million.
But back to the real world and the greening of the auto industry.
These are anxious times for American automakers.
GM posted a third-quarter loss of $39-billion Wednesday, the second-largest quarterly loss in U.S. history. Ford, which showed a profit in the second quarter for the first time in two years even though it lost its No. 2 spot to Toyota, will report its third-quarter earnings today. Some analysts predict Ford will again slip into the red.
And while Chrysler announced that third-quarter sales outside North America grew 20 percent, sales in the United States, the company's largest market, dropped 5.4 percent.
Toyota announced Wednesday its profits rose 11 percent.
Add to that labor costs. Toyota can sell cars for slightly less than American automakers partly because of what's called legacy costs: the spiraling health care costs due American auto company employees and retired workers.
GM's retirees outnumber its work force by about 3 to 1.
Compounding the problem is that new models typically take about four years to go from the drawing board to the showroom. And with gas prices climbing past $3 a gallon and concerns about global warming, automakers have to had to be excellent prognosticators.
"I think we did pretty well," said GM spokesman Michael Howell. "We have 24 models that get 30 miles per gallon or better."
Howell pointed to the redesigned Chevy Malibu. One model runs on regular gasoline and costs $21,470. The hybrid version, which is powered by a combination of gas and electricity, costs about $1,300 more.
But depending on how much driving the owner does, the savings at the pump could wipe out the added sticker price.
"Put us side by side with Toyota," Howell said. "We're not afraid to go head to head with them or anyone else."
That's good, because GM has to do that now, and could be doing it much more in the future.
"I think we're going to have a European-style market where nobody has more than an 18 percent share," Motor Trend magazine's Detroit-based editor Todd Lassa said Wednesday. Lassa thinks American automakers knew years ago that hybrids and alternative-fuel vehicles would take center stage. It was just a question of when.
"When you're making money hand over fist with SUVs and trucks," he said, "you just hope it happens later. Then when it did happen, a few years sooner than expected, they couldn't move quickly enough.
"The point now is not so much whether GM or Ford can hold on to their market share.
"It's their return to profitability."
Tampa Bay International Auto Show
When: Noon to 10 p.m. today and Friday, 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. Saturday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Sunday
Where: Tampa Convention Center, 333 S Franklin St.
Admission: Adults 13 and older, $9; senior citizens, children and military, $4
Web site: www.autoshowtampa.com
Phone: Toll-free 1-800-426-5630