Manufacturers are constantly working at environmental sustainability and on manufacturing efficient products. Today Ford announced that the 2012 Ford Focus Electric will be the first five-passenger electric vehicle to operate on what is the equivalent of 100 miles per gallon.

Ford made this announcement today at an event to celebrate the start of production of the Focus at the Michigan Assembly Plant.

The new Focus Electric joins the field of other energy efficient vehicles produced today including the Chevy Volt and Toyota Prius.

 News coverage from the announcement:

Detroit News – Ford: 5-passenger Focus Electric to get 100 mpg
Fox News – Ford’s 100 MPGe Car
CNET – Ford Focus Electric to hit over 100 MPG equivalent

Prior to President Obama’s announcement of his new economic team members on Friday, Jan. 7, several media outlets reported the anticipated appointment of Ron Bloom to a new, elevated White House position on manufacturing, with the inevitable shorthand of “manufacturing czar” being mentioned. Since then, the speculation has subsided.

Which is all for the good. Sometimes, personnel ISN’T policy, policy is policy.

In his current capacity as Senior Advisor to the Secretary for Auto Issues and Auto Task Force senior member — “czar” would be a shorter title, wouldn’t it? — Bloom spent part of last week at the Detroit Auto Show. He submitted a post at the Treasury Department’s blog, “Reflections from the Detroit Auto Show.”

Looking at the innovations premiered at this year’s show only confirmed my belief that in the next dozen years, the automobile industry will see more change than it has in the last 50 and that that change will encompass almost every aspect of what we think of today as the car business.

We don’t immediately find the full text of Bloom’s remarks. Here’s coverage:

• Detroit Free Press, “U.S. Treasury advisor: Detroit Three recovery can happen to all U.S. manufacturing“
• Detroit News, “Bloom reflects on $85 billion bailout“
• Detroit News, “Auto czar buys a Dodge, says Steve Rattner no Clooney“
• Associated Press, “Obama official encouraged by auto recovery“

Marking the 25th anniversary week of Patterson Hood and Mike Cooley’s musical partnership, it’s a Friday Factory Tune with the word “factory” actually in it. The Drive-By Truckers once again report on them Southern boys, in this case the members of Lynyrd Skynryd, just trying to get out of town. They rejected life in the factory, specifically a Ford factory. Auto manufacturing has changed since then, as President Obama attested at a Ford factory yesterday.

DBT took a break from warming up for Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers to play the 9:30 Club in D.C. last month. It was a pretty good show, and you could definitely see how they have developed a loyal following of Southern boys (and girls) who romanticize about being alienated in small-town Alabama back in the ’70s. Best of the genre, “Zip City,” which not only mentions Reynolds Aluminum in Sheffield, Ala., but ends with Cooley’s description of a driving life considered:

Zip City it’s a good thing that they built a wall around you
Zip up to Tennessee then zip back down to Alabama
I got 350 heads on a 305 engine
I get ten miles to the gallon
I ain’t got no good intentions

Thank goodness for auto factories.

DBT allows people to record their shows, and you can hear the 9:30 Club performance at archive.org here.

On CNBC last night: Debating whether the US actually needs to have its own auto industry, with former Gov. John Engler (R-MI) CNBC’s Dennis Kneale & Phil Lebeau. About 10 minutes worth.

You can read it here, at the site of the Senate Conservative Fund.

UPDATE (1:35 p.m.): White House Press Secretary Dana Perino and Deputy Chief of Staff Joel Kaplan just briefed the press on the latest developments. In extended entry…

(continue reading…)

Where have we seen that headline before?

Detroit News:

Inaction on automakers would cost taxpayers billions

WASHINGTON — The U.S. auto industry’s problems will cost taxpayers plenty whether or not the government helps Detroit. – 10:22 am

Dems, White House agree to $15B auto bailout
GMAC extends deadline for tender offers
Stocks rise on optimism about Detroit bailout
Ford execs say company differs from U.S. competition
Car czar more likely a banker than gearhead
GM to offer lower loan rates
Lopez: Haircut politics bad for Big Three
Iacocca shows support for Big 3 leaders

PDF: Draft of auto bill
PDF: Summary of the auto rescue bill

Had no time to pay attention to today’s hearing by the House Financial Services Committee on federal financial aid for the domestic auto industry. Heck, it may still be going on. (Check CSPAN. Nope.)

Henry Payne of The Detroit News, a critic of government aid, reports at National Review Online what he’s hearing:

Detroit, Mich. — They can’t get it done.

That is the backroom word on Capitol Hill as auto executives from the Detroit Three wrapped up a second, and final, day of hearings before the House in attempt to get a $35 billion loan to keep them solvent.

Instead, speculation is that the Bush administration — loath to watch a U.S. automaker drown in its last month in office — will offer $8-14 billion band-aid to GM and Chrysler (both of which will run out of cash this month) possibly from the TARP.

“Detroit’s automakers will be lucky to get less than half of the $34 billion they’re seeking for survival, as several House members said today there was simply not enough time to examine the industry’s pitch and hammer out a consensus by next week,” reads one report from the Detroit Free Press. “Only stopgap funding of up to $14 billion appeared possible next week.”

This will act as a tourniquet for the two most-crippled automakers so they can limp along until the Obama administration can convene with a new Congress and tackle long-term surgery in the new year.

 Meanwhile, the latest from The Detroit News’ webpage:

• GM Board member says prepackaged bankruptcy ‘a fantasy’
  A member of General Motors Corp.’s Board of Directors today reiterated that the automaker would consider all options, including Chapter 11 bankruptcy, if Congress refuses to loan the company as much as $18 billion in emergency aid. - 5:48 pm
• Chrysler hires bankruptcy advisers
  Chrysler LLC’s hiring of a firm that specializes in bankruptcy proceedings was its adherence to the request by Congress to study the drastic step as an option, the automaker said in a statement today. - 5:02 pm
• GM to lay off 2,000 more workers
  With Congress debating whether to give General Motors Corp. up to $18 billion in financing, the automaker announced 2,000 more layoffs today at three factories. - 5:02 pm
• Congressional agency: Auto aid bill can’t use $25B from energy retooling program
  WASHINGTON — The Congressional Budget Office said a compromise bill to aid automakers can’t provide $25 billion from an Energy Department retooling program, dealing another blow to efforts to win quick aid before Congress goes home for the year. - 5:02 pm

Just started.

The Union of Concerned Scientists has a witness. If only the environmental activists could design the car, THAT would solve our domestic auto industry’s problems.

Two items, one linked to but now sufficiently highlighted yesterday, the Detroit Free Press editorial, “Hey, America: Detroit’s automakers are asking for a loan“:

Can we get something straight between Detroit and the rest of America?

What the auto industry is seeking in Washington is a loan, L-O-A-N, as in something you borrow and then pay back — with interest.

This is not a gift, a grant or a handout. It’s a loan, the kind of thing financial institutions used to do before they all had to scurry to Washington for their own bailouts, which have been far bigger and subjected to considerably less scrutiny than this loan that the auto industry desperately needs to keep operating — and keep millions of people employed.

And an interesting suggestion from Hugh Hewitt, law professor, radio host, Republican, blogger, “Should the GOP Bargain On The Bailout?”

If the GOP’s leadership in the Senate calculates that it must go along with the bailout of the Big Three because of the overall weakness in the economy, I hope they at least bargain for some concession such as a giant tax restructuring for Michigan and Ohio, a demonstration project on the economic effects of tax reform.  If the UAW and industry supporters are going to succeed in opening a fiscal lifeline to Detroit, couldn’t the GOP at least demand that all of Michigan and Ohio provide a demonstration of what a lower corporate tax rate can mean for an economy.  Call them Irish Zones, after the tax policy of the Republic of Ireland, and declare that companies headquartered in Michigan or Ohio will pay 12.5% corporate tax, as all corporations do in Ireland.

Related story: The New York Times runs a post-mortem on the Saturn experiment at GM.

Posted at the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs:

BIG THREE RESTRUCTURAL PLANS PRESENTED TO CONGRESS

December 2, 2008

Click for Ford Motor Company’s Report and Restructural Plan Presented to Congress Click for Ford Motor Company’s Restructural Plan Appendix Powerpoint Click for General Motors Corporation’s Letter about Restructural Plan  Click for General Motors Corporation’s Report and Restructural Plan Presented to Congress Click for Chrysler Corporation’s Letter about Restructural Plan Click for Chrysler Corporation’s Report and Restructural Plan Presented to Congress Click for Chrysler Corporation’s Appendix: Areas of inquiry