Meet Paul Copses, the first U.S. vice president of Customer Experience for . Starting October 1 2011, Copses will take responsibility for charming and keeping customers for the General Motors suite of automotive brands. Mark Reuss, GM North America President, will get direct reports from Copses, and regular updates will also be provided to Chairman and CEO Dan Akerson.
General Motors talks a good game about how important it is to not only build competitive products, but also treat customers like the lifeblood of the company that they are. Upset a whole bunch of car buyers, and it won’t matter how good the next Malibu is. To that end, Copses previous experience as executive director of Customer Care and Aftersales will be handy. That role, working with service and ACDelco parts, has at least exposed Copses to the ongoing relationship customers have with their automobiles and dealerships, so now let’s see if he can put that experience to practical use. If Paul Copses is successful, General Motors customers are going to be happier and more loyal, and perhaps even new to the fold. Read the press release .
It’s no secret that we’re big fans of the pickup. After all, there aren’t many vehicles you can drive straight off the showroom floor, over and through harsh desert terrain at high speed and then back again. But decided its off-road-ready truck needed a few updates for the 2012 model year.
While the 2011 Raptor was quite adept at handling varied terrain, from rutted washboard surfaces to the occasional jump (…), it’s four-wheel-drive system wasn’t really designed with hardcore rock climbing in mind. For the new model year, though, Ford’s extreme pickup gets a new Torsen front differential that features a helical gearset that promises to send torque to whichever front wheel has the most traction.
Another intriguing update for ‘12 is a front-mounted camera that can be ordered alongside the navigation system. This feature ought to help the driver figure out where best to steer the truck’s front wheels so as to avoid otherwise unseen obstacles. The eight-inch screen in the center of the dash will be used to display what the camera sees at speeds of 15 miles per hour or less. Oh, and there’s a dedicated washer for the camera to help keep it clean.
Besides those functional upgrades, the 2012 Raptor also gets a new optional side graphic that sports two diagonal stripes and is accented in matte, gloss and textured black. On the inside, a matte anodized blue treatment is now available on every color but Race Red (also new for ‘12). Rounding out the notable changes are optional cooled seats and new Euroflange wheels that keep their weights on the inside for better protection from off-road hazards.
Check out our high-res image gallery to see it all for yourself, and feel free to read the complete press release .
gets new Torsen diff and interior package among 2012 changes
It’s been reported today that a member of the Autoblog team has engaged in unethical behavior. The report indicated that Jeff Glucker, a contracted writer for Autoblog, published an article on the site today about a contest being run by Nissan while simultaneously under contract for the third-party agency running the contest.
Autoblog’s editors were completely unaware of this improper relationship. Upon hearing these allegations, we conducted our own internal investigation into the matter and found the report to be true. Upon this discovery, we immediately terminated our relationship with Mr. Glucker and removed the article in question. We will also be reviewing Mr. Glucker’s other articles to determine if conflicts are evident.
As a result of this episode, Autoblog is also reviewing our policies that pertain to potential conflicts of interest that may arise for our writers. Autoblog is part of AOL and the HuffingtonPost Media Group, which has a clearly defined policy on conflicts of interest that you can read , and this writer violated them. We sincerely apologize for this breach of trust with you, the reader, and will do our utmost to make sure it’s never repeated.
has rolled out a new video to drum up anticipation for the company’s new SUV concept, the Kubang. The flick begins with images of the Italian automaker’s illustrious racing past, complete with open-wheel fire-breathers sliding across cobblestone courses and a fleet of MC-12 racers blowing past exuberant fans. That’s all well before the portly, computer-generated Kubang saunters onto the screen. We’ll be clear here; we understand that occasionally, automakers need to bow to the tides of popular demand so that they can keep cranking out the vehicles we love the most. It works for . We get it, but this seems to be a bridge too far.
Maybe it’s the fact that the Kubang has a name that sounds like it was lifted from the classic cartoon series. Maybe it’s the sight of the reaching Maserati grille supersized and splayed over the front of an SUV. Whatever it is, we’re having a hard time getting behind the machine, but we sincerely hope that a drive of it changes our mind – it did with . to see the video for yourself.
According to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, today’s pickup trucks and SUVs pose less of a threat to drivers in cars and minivans than they did in the past. For the first time in recent memory, trucks and SUVs aren’t more likely to be involved in crashes that involve fatalities than cars and minivans of the same weight. Between 2000 and 2001, trucks and SUVs weighing between 3,000 and 3,499 pounds were involved in accidents with cars and minivans that resulted in a traffic fatality at a rate of 44 deaths per million registered vehicles.
IIHS says that number has fallen to 16 deaths per million registered vehicles between 2008 and 2009. The research institute says that the decline is largely attributable to better crash protection in cars and minivans thanks to the addition of side-curtain airbags and more advanced crash structure, but the fact that modern SUVs and trucks now use front ends designed to better align with those crash structures plays a large role as well. to view the full press release.
“Back in the All or Nothing days, the Vanishing Point days, the Dirty Larry Crazy Mary days, the White Line Fever days, real cars smashed into real cars with real dumb people driving them.”
- Stunt Man Mike, Death Proof
Or in this case, real planes smashing into real cars. Call us old fashioned, but Computer-Generated Imagery has all but ruined film and advertising. In the old days, you’d have to actually find a way to breed human-sized hamsters and teach them to drive a if you wanted a set of . Now we just turn to our computer graphics department and ask them to make it happen. Why is that such a bad thing, you ask? Look no further than this classic ad for the Peugeot 205 GTI.
Not only does this old clip feature the French hatch bouncing down the side of a snowy mountain and dashing across a frozen lake, there are explosions, a full-size cargo plane skimming mere feet from the Pug’s roof and plenty of sliding around in the powder. James Bond would be proud. What does all of this tell us about the 205 GTI? Not a damn thing, and that’s fine by us. for a look at the clip.
The rumormill is at the thought of a resurrected Toyota Supra, and while we don’t have any more reliable information on whether or not will reintroduce the high-horsepower sports car, we have been treated to a rendering of what the vehicle might look like.
Artist Andreas Fougner took the time to stretch his skills over the notion of a Supra successor, and the result is the machine you see above. Fougner says that he drew his inspiration from both current and vintage Toyota models, as well as other vehicles that have made the jump from past to present while skipping a generation or two.
What’s under the hood? Fougner hasn’t bothered with specifics, though he did say that the modern Supra would need to be light and nimble, despite the vehicle’s portly past, and that it should come with a high-revving, naturally aspirated beating heart. Forced induction would also be acceptable.
As for us, we wouldn’t mind seeing a torque-happy straight six under that long hood, so long as it puts power to the rear wheels via an honest-to-God manual gearbox.
Owners of models are Old General Motors for defects in their vehicles’ suspensions. The Detroit News reports that three Impala owners have filed suit in U.S. bankruptcy court claiming that the sale of the company’s assets was in bad faith and fraudulent on the grounds that the company didn’t disclose its obligations to Impala owners. As you may recall, these owners attempted to sue GM on the grounds that the company acknowledged and repaired defects in the suspension of Impala police vehicles, but failed to do the same for general-market models.
GM, meanwhile, for vehicles created before the new GM was minted after bankruptcy proceedings, and that the lawsuit is attempting to hold the new GM responsible for Old GM design decisions. Impala owners now argue that Old GM instated a secret warranty or silent recall by agreeing to fix the police vehicles.
The suit wants GM to replace faulty rear suspension rods that cause the vehicles’ rear tires to wear rapidly. If successful, the suit could cost the automaker millions of dollars in parts and repairs.
A Glut Of EVs Could Make America’s Shoddy Power Grid Even Worse
The increasingly rickety American power grid seems to short out for all sorts of reasons.
It took just one worker in Yuma, Arizona to plunge millions of people into the dark in the Southwest U.S. and Mexico, a few weeks back. A fluke, perhaps, but not a rarity.
If anything, major power outages are becoming an increasingly serious problem and at precisely the worst time possible – at least if you’re an advocate of electric propulsion. Utility officials concede that it will be increasingly difficult to win over potential battery-car customers if they can’t be certain of a steady supply of electric power.
Yet, that’s precisely what American consumers are facing. In the Detroit suburbs, two months back, a heat wave popped the circuits at a number of sub-stations around the city. It plunged much of my own little community of Pleasant Ridge into the dark for as much as three days. We were lucky. The hurricane and tropical storms that struck the East Coast, from the Carolinas to Maine, just days later, cut power to millions more utility customers, some for weeks.
Paul A. Eisenstein is Publisher of , and a 30-year veteran of the automotive beat. His editorials bring his unique perspective and deep understanding of the auto world to Autoblog readers on a regular basis.
According to a report by the Financial Times, Spyker Cars has been offloaded to a Connecticut-based private equity firm after a deal to sell the supercar manufacturer to another set of investors failed a few months back.
North Street Capital, LP is the supposed new owner of Spyker, which had been attempting to sell earlier this year. Negotiations were originally being hashed out between Saab and a partnership between a British and Russian consortium and Vladimir Antonov, which just recently announced plans .
As of today (9/28/2011), the terms of the deal haven’t been released by either Saab or North Street Capital. Clearly though, considering how cash-strapped the company is, Saab is in desperate need of a funding infusion. We’ll update this post with more details as they become available.
We often express our love for good road trips here at Autoblog.com. Apparently, is also a fan of such extended endeavors, and the automaker has brewed up a new contest that centers around hitting the road. It’s called My Versa Road Trip, and it will end up putting a in someones garage.
Nissan has teamed up with Google Maps to create a web app that lets you plot the trip you want to take. You can then , and you are entered into the contest. You get to pick a few friends along with the soundtrack for your trip and then describe the adventure in 104 characters or less. The best trips will win prizes, and the grand prize is an actual road trip with friends and a brand new Versa.
A bit too lazy to plan a road trip? . The pop princess has decided to step in and give out a new Versa as well. This time, . No, we don’t get it either.
to watch video about the contest, then head over to to plot your own course.
Nissan Versa, or win one from Britney Spears [w/video]
Indiana governor Mitch Daniels was forced to close the Sherman Minton Bridge over the Ohio River last week. The 50-year-old structure connects Indiana with Kentucky via Interstate 64, and after years of overuse, the bridge has deteriorated significantly.
Inspectors recently discovered a large crack in the main load-bearing element of the bridge, and structural engineers quickly recommended closing the structure to traffic. Before the closure, 75,000 vehicles flowed between Albany, Indiana and Louisville, Kentucky every day. Now those vehicles are being forced onto already over-crowded alternate routes.
The Sherman Minton Bridge has become a symbol of (see also: ), and President Barack Obama has used it as an example of exactly how America needs to focus on shoring up its innards. As a result, the president has unveiled the American Jobs Act – legislation designed to put people back to work while giving infrastructure the attention it’s been lacking over the past four decades. Here’s hoping it works.
is going to keep things classy with its upcoming ATS. The top will stay on, which means the lineup will lose .
What’s the motivation for the drop-top rejection? Volume projections. Cadillac doesn’t see enough convertible fans stepping up with cash to support the production of an ATS convertible.
The sedan is still on track to arrive in dealerships during the summer of 2012. Rumor has it that the coupe is slated to arrive a few years later as a 2015 model. Regardless, we’re eagerly awaiting word on what the V versions will pack under their hoods.
Mike Ryan is our kind of insane. Not only did the man fling his Freightliner race truck up the winding side of earlier this year, but the professional stunt and race driver has also joined forces with drifting legend Sam Hubinette for a little exhibition show during round six of the Formula Drift Championship.
In preparation of wowing the masses at the FD gathering, Ryan came out for a little shakedown session with the big Freightliner. Things didn’t exactly go smoothly at first, with Ryan fighting the truck all over the impromptu course, but it didn’t take long to get the kinks ironed out.
Within a matter of hours, Hubinette had Ryan pirouetting around the asphalt and oval track like an drift hero. Fortunately for all involved, the whole experience was recorded for posterity. to check out the video for yourself.
Chances are, if you do enough digging around in your family’s past, you’re going to come up with something unpleasant somewhere down the line. That’s exactly what Germany’s Quandt family, heirs to the kingdom, found after an independent study discovered that Geunther Quandt (pictured at right), the grandfather of Gabriele, used an estimated 50,000 forced laborers in his arms factory.
The workers were part of the Nazi “Aryanization” program. Gabriel Quandt said that it was wrong for her family to ignore this chapter of its past. The study, commissioned by the family, found that both Geunther and his son, Herbert, were responsible for Nazi injustices.
Despite Gabriel Quandt’s acknowledgement of the transgressions of her forbears, the family still plans to award the Herbert Quandt Media Prize. Stefan Quandt says that the prize should stand because of the values that Herbert conveyed on the company later in life.
The Obama Administration will reportedly delay the release of the U.S.’ most ambitious fuel economy proposal ever.
Word is the and won’t be able to string together a draft for Model Year 2017-25 for public comment by the end of this week, as was initially intended. Instead, sources close to the matter claim the proposal won’t be rolled out until November, or possibly even later. But even with the expected delay, the administration should remain on track to meet its deadline of issuing final guidelines by July of 2012.
The and EPA are jointly writing the regulations based on the July agreement, which tentatively calls for automakers to hit a .
Sources claim regulators are moving slower than anticipated on details of the official proposal to ensure it covers issues likely to be voiced during the public comment period.
Word has it that General Motors may be out to finally counter the Ford Mustang Cobra Jet and . Until now, and enjoyed nearly unhindered dominance of the turn-key dragster market, but LSXTV is reporting that GM is planning to unveil its answer at this year’s SEMA show in November in the form of a Stock Eliminator . Details are markedly scarce at the moment, but that didn’t stop LSXTV from hypothesizing about exactly what the quarter-mile Bowtie could bring to the table.
Chances are the Camaro will come with a serialized nameplate but won’t be street-legal, and it will boast a track-specific suspension, brake and chassis package. Even so, as LSXTV points out, the Cobra Jet is feathery light compared to the big-bodied Camaro, so odds are the machine will need more horsepower to get it down the straight ahead of the Ford. That may mean a factory LS7 will be behind the headlights. Either way, we can’t wait to see the machine in the flesh.
We’ve seen some pretty entertaining urban marketing campaigns here in the States, but we have to hand it to the China team for the creative way that the company is choosing to drum up buzz about its new Azera. A team of skilled artists whipped up a full-scale, pedal-powered interpretation of the four-door sedan constructed from a tube-steel frame, sheets of plastic, Styrofoam and a vinyl wrap, then spent some time whirring around town to show the contraption to the public at large. Hilarity ensues at valet drop-offs and the like.
We’re having a hard time coming up with any official word on exactly who was involved in the vehicle’s build or what Hyundai China is doing with their pedal-powered Azera now. We’re thinking that with a little modification, this thing would have made an awesome soap box derby racer, but it’d be a shame to see all that hard work risk getting crunched. to check out a few videos off the contraption in action.
They do things a little differently in Japan. Now that we’ve qualified for the Understatement Of The Year award, allow us to elaborate. Here in the United States, banks rely on privately-contracted security services to move large quantities of money from one secure location to another. These armed guards roll around our cities in the urban equivalent of wheeled tanks, complete with heavy armor, tires that can’t be flattened and enough bulletproof glass to make the president seriously consider trading in The Beast for something with a little more flair.
That’s not the case in Japan. In that neck of the woods, banks ferry their cash about in what look like unarmored, clearly marked vans. Crewing these decidedly less tactical vehicles is apparently a pair of guards, each armed with nothing more than a helmet, a whistle and a baton. But what these guys lack in gear they make up for in preparation. Before both men can enter the vehicle, one must make a full walk-around to ensure no one is waiting to pounce on the van. In addition, before any money is brought out into the light of day, it’s not uncommon for one or both guards to make a thorough sweep of the surrounding area. Sound bizarre? Take a look at the video and see for yourself.
Here’s a game that the first people who buy the 2012 Toyota Prius Plug-inHybrid should play with their other Prius-driving friends: Let them slide behind the wheel and see if they can even tell that it isn’t a standard, third-generation . Very few will be able to tell. That’s how subtle the changes are between the two vehicles, at least, to someone who isn’t looking too closely. After driving the corded Prius in California recently, we can confidently say that from both the outside and behind the wheel, the Prius Plug-in Hybrid looks, drives and feels pretty much like any other example of the world’s most popular hybrid. Of course, this Prius does receive some important advances – ones that hardcore fans will notice them right away – but it’s more than obvious that Toyota’s strategy with its new model is evolution, not revolution.
The changes start with the plug-in’s new lithium-ion battery pack. Much smaller than the packs used in the two most popular plug-in vehicles on the market, the Prius Plug-in’s 176-pound, 4.4-kWh battery pack offers just enough juice, says, for an “electric-only driving range of up to 15 miles at a maximum speed of 62 mile-per-hour” (More on how this isn’t exactly true after the jump).
Paul A. Eisenstein is Publisher of , and a 30-year veteran of the automotive beat. His editorials bring his unique perspective and deep understanding of the auto world to Autoblog readers on a regular basis.
