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Peter Brown

Automotive News associate publisher and editorial director

>> Send us a Letter to the Editor

PETER BROWN
It's a panic — but don't panic
Face it, we're in a panic. Guys who three months ago were bragging about their Hummer are trying to trade the unsellable bad boy for a Prius or Malibu.
Every auto company is trying to squeeze another mile per gallon out of its cars and trucks. Automakers are tearing up their future-product plans and reassigning engineers to design new, fuel-efficient vehicles. And they're trying to conserve cash.
June's sales were a catastrophe almost across the board — except for Honda. Buyers are panicking. Car companies are panicking. Dealers are panicking.
I've received some e-mails from dealers complaining that Automotive News has been horribly negative lately. I called one of them, a small domestic multibrand dealer, and asked him how his business was. "We're

12:01 am U.S. ET | July8
• CAUGHT FLAT-FOOTED
• CAUGHT FLAT-FOOTED
• June caps a dismal first half

PETER BROWN
It's a panic — but don't panic
Face it, we're in a panic. Guys who three months ago were bragging about their Hummer are trying to trade the unsellable bad boy for a Prius or Malibu.
Every auto company is trying to squeeze another mile per gallon out of its cars and trucks. Automakers are tearing up their future-product plans and reassigning engineers to design new, fuel-efficient vehicles. And they're trying to conserve cash.
June's sales were a catastrophe almost across the board — except for Honda. Buyers are panicking. Car companies are panicking. Dealers are panicking.
I've received some e-mails from dealers complaining that Automotive News has been horribly negative lately. I called one of them, a small domestic multibrand dealer, and asked him how his business was. "We're

12:01 am U.S. ET | July7 [SUB]
• CAUGHT FLAT-FOOTED
• CAUGHT FLAT-FOOTED
• June caps a dismal first half

PETER BROWN
When Lutz dumps on global warming ...
The last temptation is the greatest treason:
To do the right deed for the wrong reason.
— T.S. Eliot
Murder in the Cathedral
Bob Lutz's team is turning out one terrific vehicle after another, and General Motors is also earning some credibility in fuel economy.
Lutz's team is developing a plug-in hybrid that will play a central role in GM's brand values. GM wants to be known as part of the solution, not the problem.
And then Bob Lutz tells a bunch of reporters, supposedly off the record, that human-caused global warming is "a total crock of shit."
Imagine the cringing over in Steve Harris' public relations department.
Lutz's defense? Hey, I'm allowed to have my own well-researched views. And the fact that global warming is a hoax

12:01 am U.S. ET | March3 [SUB]

PETER BROWN
Ooooh, Malibu: At last, a competitor to ... you know
I drive a lot of cars. Only a few of them are head-turners, cars that inspire people to flash a smile, give you a thumbs-up, ask how you like it.
The Bentley Continental GT? You couldn't stop at a light without answering questions.
The first Lincoln Navigator, the father of huge Detroit SUV bling? People noticed it.
Any mid-sized family sedan? My well-deserved anonymity follows me wherever I drive one.
Until now.
I'm gassing up the new Chevrolet Malibu. A guy in a Honda Prelude pulls into the filling station and walks over to me.
"Well, what do you think?" he asks. "It's a great-looking car. I'm thinking of getting one."
Fortunately, I didn't have to burst his bubble.
The new Malibu is really good. The cockpit is beautiful and

12:01 am U.S. ET | Nov.19 [SUB]

PETER BROWN
What keeps Toyota 1 step ahead? Relentless dissatisfaction
Getting better is an all-day, every-day project
Maybe the Toyota secret was out. Maybe other carmakers could adopt Toyota's methods and match the leader in quality and productivity.
Might that happen?
That's what I asked Eiji Toyoda in 1995, a few years after publication of The Machine That Changed the World. The book by the MIT team brilliantly identified and codified the principles of the Toyota Production System. Everybody was reading the book. Was the cat out of the bag? Could everybody catch up?
High above a pretty little park in Tokyo, in one of those typical Japanese meeting rooms with couches and chairs around a low table, Mr. Toyoda, the elderly honorary chairman, smiled.
Well, no, he said. We've moved beyond that.
"That" was what the MIT folks termed "lean manufacturing." (An aside: The authors didn't

12:01 am U.S. ET | Oct.29 [SUB]

PETER BROWN
Even with hydrogen, we're going to need nukes
MILFORD, Mich. -- In the future, we'll all be driving nukes.
Americans just aren't going to give up enough space and power in their vehicles to make a huge difference in our breakneck consumption of fossil fuel. So we'll all be driving nukes.
We won't have mini nuclear reactors in our Silverados and Camrys. We'll be driving electric cars, powered by juice from giant nuclear power plants - the kind last built a quarter-century ago when the risks of nuclear power grew too great for American electric companies.
The inevitability of nukes became clear when I drove around the hilly General Motors Proving Ground here in the Chevrolet Sequel. It's a real car, with good get-up-and-go, comfortable seats and plenty of cargo capacity.
Except for the low whirring that

12:01 am U.S. ET | June11 [SUB]

PETER BROWN
When a dealer doesn't need a customer
There is at least a pinpoint of light at the end of the tunnel for suffering car dealers who have Ford and the other struggling franchises of the Detroit 3.
That glimmer is arrogance on the part of their competitors. Toyota executives speak openly of their fear of arrogance even as they keep winning huge hunks of the American car market.
The following is a story about a dealer of one of the triumphant brands, Honda. While many Ford dealers scrap for every last sale just so they can stay afloat, this dealer appears to be so flooded with customers that � well, let's go to the story. (The story is unedited except that I have cleaned up a couple of typos from each writer.)
Paul Guthrie used to work at Reynolds and Reynolds, the big dealer software company. Last December, he was

12:01 am U.S. ET | April23 [SUB]

PETER BROWN
A lesson in how to mistreat an icon
The death of the once-iconic Ford Taurus confirms, by negative example, the automotive adage, "It's the product, stupid."
Ford's current financial crisis and the failure of the Taurus are not coincidental.
When the Taurus was fresh and dynamic, it made money by the boatload. When Ford neglected it in the 1990s, it morphed into a money-losing fleet car and an object of contempt.
How powerful was the fresh, radical Taurus of the late 1980s? Plenty.
Some months ago, a copy of a now-defunct trade magazine came upon my desk. It was the January 1977 issue, timed for the Detroit auto show.
The magazine featured essays written by the heads of the companies selling cars in America. The Ford essay carried the bylines of two legends: Henry Ford II and Lee Iacocca.
These two

12:01 am U.S. ET | Oct.23 [SUB]

PETER BROWN
No alliance? GM already knows everything
Here's all you need to know about why General Motors will not be hooking up with the successful Renault-Nissan alliance.
A few days ago in Paris, GM CEO Rick Wagoner said this: "GM sells more than 9 million vehicles a year globally. It's not logical or responsible to say we must have a partner to recover."
In other words: We're GM.
If GM had a different culture, Wagoner could, with equal truth, have said this: "GM lost $10.6 billion last year, more than $1,100 for each of the nearly 9 million vehicles we sold. Of course we need some help. We need to do things in different ways."
But you didn't hear that from Rick Wagoner. For all of the company's failures, GM people remain arrogant. Nobody can tell anything to anybody at GM. They already know it all.
When he talked about

12:01 am U.S. ET | Oct.9 [SUB]
• Top Wagoner challenge: Kerkorian

COMMENT
No alliance? GM already knows everything
Here's all you need to know about why General Motors will not be hooking up with the successful Renault-Nissan alliance.
Last week in Paris, GM CEO Rick Wagoner said this: "GM sells more than 9 million vehicles a year globally. It's not logical or responsible to say we must have a partner to recover."
In other words: We're GM.
If GM had a different culture, Wagoner could, with equal truth, have said this: "GM lost $10.5 billion last year, more than $1,100 for each of the nearly 9 million vehicles we sold. Of course we need some help. We need to do things in different ways."
But you didn't hear that from Rick Wagoner. For all of the company's failures, GM people remain arrogant. Nobody can tell anything to anybody at GM. They already know it all.
To my knowledge, no

10:58 am U.S. ET | Oct.5 [SUB]
• GM, Nissan-Renault halt work on alliance
• Wagoner: GM does not need a partner

THE FRANCHISE SYSTEM: COMMENTARY
How Jack Smith saved the franchise system
Way back in the late 20th century, General Motors lobbed a great big grenade onto the franchise system. Panicked by the rise of big public dealership groups such as AutoNation and by the newfangled Internet, GM sales executives decided to take over much of GM's retailing.
In the end, I happened upon the collapse of their aspirations. And I saw GM Chairman Jack Smith at his laid-back best.
Here's the background: On Sept. 27, 1999, Group Vice President Roy Roberts told dealers that GM would buy up to 10 percent of GM's 7,700 U.S. stores. Megadealers, Roberts told dealers, could "diminish brand equity."
Darwin Clark, a nice man and loyal GM lifer, was assigned to run GM Retail Holdings, which would buy the stores.
If GM was freaked out by mega-dealers, the National Automobile

12:01 am U.S. ET | Sept.25 [SUB]
• GM blazes a trail for dealer-factory relations

COMMENT
A perfect match for Ford, unless ...
The new chief executive of Ford Motor Co. was introduced to Detroit in a blue blazer, brown slacks and slightly scuffed black loafers. At 61, former Boeing executive Alan Mulally looked like a congenial college kid.
While he is known for doing the tough tasks needed to turn around a company, he also has a reputation that fits the cordial persona he showed the press.
But you have to worry.
Consider the history of outsiders coming into major positions at automakers. Think Ron Zarrella at General Motors. Consider the fate of most outside executives, even those with automotive experience, who have joined Ford Motor Co. Think Bunkie Knudsen. Think a slew of executives hired from outside by Jacques Nasser.
So one is tempted to wish Alan Mulally good luck because he'll need it.

10:45 am U.S. ET | Sept.7 [SUB]

COMMENT
Was it good for you? Features that hit -- or miss
Using the remote-unlocking key fob is like sex. The first time you do it, you don't entirely understand it, but you know you're going to do it again.
Back when it was new, the key fob offered such an obvious advantage to any driver that even at hundreds of dollars, it quickly became a must-have.
All kinds of new features grace our automobiles. Which will be must-haves?
Here are some hits and misses on new automotive features and technology, as judged by a guy who drives a lot of cars. Costs are approximations of the automakers' cost per unit.
Adaptive cruise control: The first few times you use it, it's maddening because you end up following a car at 60 mph when you meant to be passing at 75. But once you get accustomed to it, it's convenient, relaxing and an

12:01 am U.S. ET | Sept.6 [SUB]

COMMENT
Was it good for you? Features that hit -- or miss
Using the remote-unlocking key fob is like sex. The first time you do it, you don't entirely understand it, but you know you're going to do it again.
Back when it was new, the key fob offered such an obvious advantage to any driver that even at hundreds of dollars, it quickly became a must-have.
All kinds of new features grace our automobiles. Which will be must-haves?
Here are some hits and misses on new automotive features and technology, as judged by a guy who drives a lot of cars. Costs are approximations of the automakers' cost per unit.
Adaptive cruise control: The first few times you use it, it's maddening because you end up following a car at 60 mph when you meant to be passing at 75. But once you get accustomed to it, it's convenient, relaxing and an

12:01 am U.S. ET | Sept.4 [SUB]