Obama car trouble with Fiat stems from his view of the US as a small country connected by ski chalets

Notice to GOP candidates: Obama wants us to be like Europe. Dissecting the term 'socialist' is a waste of time. Just describe Europe.

11/22/11, "Obama’s Car Trouble," Planet Gore, H. Payne

"In his massive plan to graft the European model onto the United States, Barack Obama’s Fiat 500 is the latest failure.

Behind today’s automotive trades headlines that Fiat’s brand chief has been fired from Chrysler North America is the fact that the Obamacar has limped out of the starting gates in the United States. The tiny, 40 mpg Fiat 500 was Green Church elder Obama’s central requirement in handing Chrysler over to the Italian maker for free in 2009. Fiat is “committed to building new fuel-efficient cars and engines right here in the United States,” Obama said in 2009 in hailing Fiat as the European tutor come to school Chrysler dunces on how to make green cars.

• “Fiat is prepared to transfer its cutting-edge technology to Chrysler.”

Since lecturing Detroit automakers as a candidate in 2007, Obama has fashioned himself an expert on what Americans want in an automobile. His choice of Fiat was inspired by the chance to bring the company’s tiny, 40 mpg 500 to the States. Never mind that gas prices in Europe are $8 a gallon.

• Or that Americans drive longer distances.
  

• Or that Europeans demand smaller cars for narrower streets....

In March of 2009, Obama initially denied Chrysler bailout funds unless its business plan included more small cars. The president’s auto task force urged the Chrysler-Fiat alliance saying it “has the potential to address some of these problems and provide Chrysler with a path to viability. A Chrysler/Fiat alliance could lead to Chrysler manufacturing fuel-efficient vehicles using Fiat’s technology.”

Fast forward two years and 500 sales have a flat. Meanwhile, Americans are gobbling up Chrysler SUVs — in defiance of Obama’s Euro-path for the company — and fueling the automaker’s resurgence.

In October, Chrysler Jeep truck brand sold 35,000 vehicles (with fat $5,000 profit margins) as the company posted a $200 million third-quarter profit.

• The Fiat 500 sold just 2,000 copies.

Despite a splashy U.S. debut including an ad campaign featuring pop star Jennifer Lopez and expensive, wrap-around, front page ads in USA Today, 500 “sales are far below projections,” reports the Detroit News.” About 15,800 Fiat 500s have been sold in the U.S. through October. That makes it nearly

• impossible to meet the target of 50,000 a year in North America annually.”

Indeed, the Obamacar is hurting on its home continent as well. The brand had been losing market share and is unprofitable.

The Fiat 500 is more evidence that — like Solyndra and windmills — Obama’s fascination with Europe has little to do with facts

• and everything to do with ideology.
  

• Obama is determined to convert Americans to the Green Church, but they aren’t buying."

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11/21/11, "Fiat's U.S. chief ousted after poor Fiat 500 sales start," USA Today, Healey

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"GM, which hasn’t turned an annual profit in Europe in more than a decade."

11/17/11, "GM: Europe ‘More Serious’ Than 2008 Bubble," Bloomberg, C. Trudell

"Europe’s debt crisis is a “more serious” situation than the housing bubble three years ago that preceded a global recession, General Motors Co. (GM) Chief Executive Officer Dan Akerson said today.

“The ’08 recession, which was a credit bubble that manifested itself through primarily the real estate market, that was a serious stress,” Akerson told the Detroit Economic Club today. “The government took some insightful actions.

• This is much more serious.”

GM, which hasn’t turned an annual profit in Europe in more than a decade, has declined in New York trading since rescinding its target for break-even results in the region. European operations lost $292 million before interest and taxes in the quarter ending Sept. 30, GM said last week as it reported a 2.5 percent drop in third-quarter net income.

Analysts have slashed their estimates for GM’s adjusted earnings in the fourth quarter by 49 percent after the company said last week that results for the period would be similar to a year earlier, citing weakness in Europe as a factor. All 14 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg cut their estimates in the last two weeks, reducing the average to 44 cents a share, from 86 cents.

“We’re dealt a hand and we have to play it as best we can,” Akerson, 63, said today of Europe. “It may get a little ugly at times, a little bumpy.”"...

via Tom Nelson