Cue dark hall, fluorescent lights, smoke machine and dance music. It must be the Scion press conference.

Scion, Toyota’s youth division, has traditionally introduced most of its concepts and products at the New York auto show. The buzz leading up to the press conference on Wednesday was that Scion would be unveiling a version of the Toyota iQ for the American market. The iQ is a small three-seat subcompact roughly the size of the Smart Fortwo, and meant to appeal to young urbanites.

Last week, spy photos of the car on a transporter in Southern California showed up on the Internet and seemed to verify the speculation. So when Jack Hollis, the vice president of Scion, introduced the concept car with the words “the future of personalized transportation,” there was little surprise.

But it wasn’t just a Toyota iQ rebadged as a Scion that appeared on the stage; it was a bright yellow-green custom concept car, with four flared fenders and 18-inch custom wheels. And it didn’t just appear on stage — the small car descended on a platform from the rafters, softly landing on the stage to enthusiastic applause. “How’s that for a quick download?” Mr. Hollis asked in classic Scion youth-speak.

“It’s small, but fierce,” he said. “If it should join our future line-up, I think it could reach iconic status like our xB because of its polarizing style and accessibility for personal expression.”

Indeed, the iQ is very likely to join Scion’s future lineup.

In regular practice, concept cars are used by automakers to predict future design. In the case of the iQ, Scion started with a stock iQ and built a concept car around it.

“Our job was to take an existing iQ and make a custom car,” said Troy Sumitomo, designer of the car and owner of Five Axis, based in Huntington Beach, Calif.

Mr. Sumitomo stood upstage from the iQ Concept and the scrum of photographers around it. He said that the centerpiece of the interior was the 10-inch pop-up monitor on top of the center console. When the monitor is closed, the image on its screen still projects out of its acrylic casing and casts its image in a spasm of moving colors throughout the cabin — theoretically, at least. With massive spotlights hitting the car, the monitor’s effect was severely diminished.

“Everything is based on the center console,” said Mr. Sumitomo, whose Five Axis is responsible for several past Scion concepts, including the Hako and the t2B concepts. “Because that’s where the driver interface is.”

Mr. Sumitomo said his goal with the interior was to capture a concept car flair. The headliner and seats are made of a wet-suit style material, called Scuba. The color scheme of the dials is new. The normal climate control and stereo controls have been replaced by three aluminum bezels. They don’t function. After all, it’s supposed to be a concept car. But Scion is expected to introduce the car to market — in a much more sedate form — in the not too distant future.

Source (article): NEWYORKTIMES

Sources (picture): NEWYORKTIMES, ICONOCAST

Nissan Motor Co., paring production as sales slump, will keep its U.S. auto-assembly plants on a four-day workweek for the foreseeable future in a step that means less pay for factory employees.

A reduced schedule that began in late 2008 will continue “indefinitely,” spokesman Steve Parrett said today. Hourly workers in Smyrna, Tennessee, and Canton, Mississippi, are being paid only when on duty, not their usual five-day week, he said.

The lack of a timetable to resume normal production shows the strain on Tokyo-based Nissan after posting an 11 percent drop in U.S. sales last year. Japan’s third-largest automaker joined Toyota Motor Corp. and Honda Motor Co., the two biggest, in trimming 2008 North American production.

“This is the kind of business scenario companies need to operate under,” said Dennis Virag, president of Automotive Consulting Group in Ann Arbor, Michigan. “Sales stink, and all manufacturers are being impacted.”

While Japan’s biggest automakers haven’t followed U.S.- based competitors in shutting factories or cutting jobs, they’re under pressure to adjust to the prospect that deliveries in the world’s biggest auto market will fall again in 2009.

Japan’s Yomiuri newspaper, citing unidentified sources, reported in its Jan. 15 edition that Nissan expects an operating loss for the fiscal year that ends in March. Toyota also is forecasting an operating loss, its first in 71 years.

Altima, Titan

Nissan builds models including the Altima sedan in Smyrna and the Titan pickup in Canton. Parrett didn’t give specifics on how U.S. production volumes would be affected by the shortened workweek.

“We don’t know when it might change or if it might change,” Parrett said.

The Smyrna plant has more than 5,000 assembly workers, and Canton has more than 3,700, according to Nissan’s Web site. They aren’t represented by the United Auto Workers.

Nissan offered early-retirement incentives last year to employees in Tennessee to shrink the workforce and pare output, the company’s second such program in as many years. Virag said Toyota and Honda may have to follow Nissan in further slowing North American production.

Honda has no plans at present to go to a four-day workweek, spokesman Ron Lietzke said today.

“We’ve announced a reduced production schedule through the first quarter,” said Lietzke, who is based in Marysville, Ohio. “We’ll continue to make adjustments based on what’s going on in the marketplace.”

‘Long Way to Go’

Toyota “is doing all it can to reduce costs,” and has “a long way to go” before a move such as laying off workers would be considered, Jim Wiseman, vice president of external affairs for the automaker’s North American production unit, said in a Jan. 12 interview at the Detroit auto show.

Wiseman declined to say whether Toyota was considering an early-retirement program similar to Nissan’s. Toyota suspended production at its San Antonio truck plant and a line in Indiana for three months last year. Employees continued to receive full pay during that time.

Nissan’s U.S. operations are based in Franklin, Tennessee. The company’s American depositary receipts fell 7 cents, or 1 percent, to $6.90 at 5:20 p.m. New York time in Nasdaq Stock Market composite trading.

An engine plant in Decherd, Tennessee, also will reduce production, using a different approach, Parrett said. He was checking on whether Nissan’s two Mexico auto factories would be affected.

SOURCE: BLOOMBERG.COM

Consumer Reports just did a study about car brand perceptions, so we thought we’d compare the top 10 most highly perceived brands to their list of the most reliable car brands.

The reliability information is based on data CR collected about 1.4 million vehicles. Their owners reported any serious problems with their cars and CR used the data to predict the model’s reliability.

The perceptions are based on a survey that asked people to rate car brands based on safety, quality, value, performance, environmental friendliness, design, and technological innovation. It’s perception vs repair bills. Here we go!

Brand Perception — Top 10

1. Toyota
2. Honda
3. Ford
4. Cadillac
5. Mercedes-Benz
6. GMC
7. Lexus
8. BMW
9. Chevrolet
10. Volvo

Brand Reliability — Top 10

1. Scion
2. Acura
3. Honda
4. Toyota
5. Lexus
6. Infiniti
7. Subaru
8. Hyundai
9. Mitsubishi
10. Kia

No list is perfect, of course, but it seems like Kia and Hyundai’s marketing department have some work to do in order to help consumer perception. Cadillac seems to be doing fine — it ranked 31st out of 34 brands when it came to reliability, but is still perceived quite well.

SOURCE: THE CONSUMERIST