Like so many other things– good and otherwise– occurring anew in modern-day America, it’s happening first in the Golden State. Four-buck-a-gallon gasoline, that’s what.
Now, hold on, I know the rocketing cost of fuel is having a far bigger impact on truckers.
No matter how many times good scouts in the “mainstream” media, not to mention trucking advocates, point out the suffering of truckers and how the ridiculously high cost of diesel is boosting the prices all Americans pay for consumer goods, nothing will grab the attention of the Average Joe and Jane like forking over a C-Note every time they’ve gotta gas up their own four wheels. If that happens enough, may be more voters will vote this Fall and may be more voters will think long and hard about who they will vote for– this Fall and for a long, long time to come. One can hope, anyway.
This and a buck-eighty-five will get a four-wheeler filled up… and buy a cup of coffee.
I don’t catch him every night but it seems every time lately that he has started off a broadcast on the high cost of fuel he has done so by referencing right off the bat how hard-hit truckers are and then reiterates how what they are paying for diesel impacts all of us at the grocery and every other store.
I have heard Mr. Williams described pretty much as a self-made and self-effacing regular guy out of New Jersey. The Garden State is a trucking state for sure, so may be that explains it. Or may be he drove a truck once upon a time or has some truckers in his family tree.
Whatever the provenance of his informed view of trucking, it pleases me no end that at least one member of the much maligned Fourth Estate– outside the Trucking Press Corps, that is– cannot be accused of exercising an automatic bias against trucking.
NBC’s Brian Williams: He’s not all wet about trucking.
In the very early ’80s, yours truly was dispatched to Vegas (back when the town still seemed to have a Rat Packer or two floating around) for a very razz-ma-tazz roll-out of Isuzu commercial trucks in the U.S.
Now the thing is I can’t recall whether the work trucks or the cars, pickups and SUVs (sold by a separate division) got here first but what I remember the best about the truck intro was a very slick video Isuzu ran. It emphasized the firm’s long and fabled automotive history and that the company name was correctly pronounced “Eee-zoo-sue,” NOT “Eye-zoo-sue,” which seems to be what many truckers prefer.
Well, you say “Isuzu” and I say “Isuzu,” but it doesn’t change the news the Japanese automaker has announced it is pulling out of the U.S. consumer market, as revealed on autoblog.com.
However, the OEM did state it is not– I repeat, not– leaving the commercial end of the market.
“Isuzu Motors Limited has decided to end its North American SUV (Sport Utility Vehicle) new vehicle sales business as of January 31. 2009,” according to the press release posted on autoblog.com. “With this decision to end SUV operations, Isuzu’s North American business will focus on the CV [commercial vehicle] and PT [diesel engines and components] businesses.”
Of course, Isuzu has built an enviable reputation as a truck supplier here in the states and benefited from a long-term relationship with General Motors that was reconfigured last year.
As a result, Isuzu Commercial Truck of America Inc. (ICTA) is now distributing its low-cab-forward vehicles directly to both the Isuzu dealer network and GM’s network of Chevrolet and GMC medium-duty dealers.
Clearly, trucks are where the bucks are. But anyone who remembers any of the rather nifty cars Isuzu peddled here back in the day– the Giorgetto Giugiaro-designed Impulse leaps to mind– not to mention the no-nonsense Trooper SUV– may again enjoy hearing a message from their very twisted U.S. pitchman, good old Joe Isuzu:
Though much slimmer than he once was, Bibendum– a.ka. The Michelin Man– is big enough to conceal secrets when he chooses.
Then again good old Bib (he is 110 years old!) is such a creature of public relations it should shock no one that he has graciously stepped aside long enough to let FleetOwner give you a sneak peak at the new tire his bosses at Michelin will fully reveal next week at the Technology & Maintenance Council (TMC) meeting in Orlando.
The new tire is the XZE2, the next generation of the XZE, which Michelin calls its best-selling truck tire.
Michelin tells us the new XE2 is a case of “the best just got better.”
According to Michelin, the XZE2 tire outperforms its XZE predecessor in a number of ways:
1) Significantly longer wear for additional miles with no performance compromise
2) Casing and siping designs that decrease irregular wear
3) Wider tread footprint for more stability
4) Tread rubber compound that was previously only available in LRH tires
5) Decrease in rolling resistance for better fuel economy.
The XZE2 will be offered starting March 1st in sizes 11R22.5, 275/80R22.5 and 11R24.5.
A 275/80R24.5 size will become available in April.
You can see the XZE2 in Orlando at Michelin’s booth (#1026) during TMC, which runs from Feb. 4-6, or just keep checking the FleetOwner website– updated daily!– to read a report on the tire as well as all the product and industry news reported from the show by FleetOwner editors on site.
Writing in The New York Times this week, columnist David Leonhardt defined what is happening to the U.S. economy as “the new moderation.”
And while I think he is 100% correct (read what he said here), what is happening now I think can much more directly be described as “Welcome back to the 1970s!”
Who out there remembers the “Me Decade”? Actually, in my mind the go-go ’80s were much more of a “me-first” period but I digress. How I recall the ’70s– beyond the generally horrible taste exhibited in almost everything from clothing to furniture save for cars and popular (not disco!) music and television– is that it was for better or worse a truly middle-class era.
Yes, 35 to 40 years ago there were plenty of persons living below the poverty line and as well as legions of the working poor– although I dare say there are more today. But there sure were fewer truly well-off people tooling around in luxomobile SUVs buying every new piece of electronica or kitchen countertop option for that matter that comes their way. And there were far fewer wannabes willing to embark on whatever risky financial gynmnastics they calculate could vault them into appearing or at least feeling “rich” or “upper class.”
Such cotton-candy whispy dreams had to end. But that doesn’t mean we are heading into a nightmare.
If everyone from Wall Street to Main Street does their part to intelligently downsize– especially the ridiculous and much too widely held belief that “consumers” can keep consuming at a dizzying pace forever and ever and ever– maybe just maybe everyone in this country who already has far more than their basic needs being met can slow down and consider there is more to life than square footage, wide screens and third-row seating.
If that happens, well, then maybe we can start to re-direct our formidable national energy from selling each other stuff and “’services” we don’t really need to being not only the world’s economic powerhouse but also the home of the kind of genius that propelled mankind ahead with such inventions as universal electricifcation, affordable automobiles, the telegraph and telephone, radio, motion pictures and television not to mention the personal computer, the Internet and the cell phone.
This nation was challenged to greatness by John F. Kennedy a few years after we’d been humiliated by the appearance of a dinky satellite dubbed Sputnik. JFK’s call to action was answered resoundingly. In much less than 10 years our nation went from a space-race has-been to putting, as Kennedy envisioned, a man on the moon.
“…in a very real sense, it will not be one man going to the moon–if we make this judgment affirmatively, it will be an entire nation. For all of us must work to put him there.”
–John F. Kennedy, May 25, 1961
If we could do that back then with the crude technology of the day why can’t we do more to excel and advance as a nation now?
I’ve no doubt that Fed rate cuts and tax refunds or stipends or whatever they’re calling them this time around will stimulate the economy to some degree. You put money on the street, it gets spent. Doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure that out.
But what will stimulate our economy to where we really want it to be–way out front of every other economic power on earth– will be if Americans can individually and collectively start working toward more than their comfort.
Nostalgia is a dangerous thing, tis true. It can cover up all sorts of unpleasant truths. But what I remember most fondly about the ’70s was the sense of shared experience that existed in this country.
No, I don’t want to give up any of the progress made on any front since those days. But I do yearn for that feeling of “we are all in this together and let’s try to do something about it” that seems to have largely fled the good old U.S.A. in the last 30-odd years.
Maybe the next POTUS will be the kind of leader who will stir our nation once again to action if not greatness.
But the reality is it is up to all of us to make this a time worth recalling one day as the good old days.
According to The Wall Street Journal this morning, the Fed chairman has “endorsed a ‘quickly’ implemented fiscal stimulus package, saying it would complement the Fed’s efforts to provide monetary-policy insurance against an economic downturn.” The Journal also reported that in prepared testimony, Bernanke “repeated the pledge he made last week to enact ’substantive’ rate cuts if needed to counter the threat to the economy posed by fragile financial markets and weakening employment. ”
Way to go, Ben! What’s more, according to CNNMoney.com, our Lame Duck in Chief has indicated that he will support an economic stimulus package– even though it will mean making nice with the Frustrated Majority up on Capitol Hill.
On the other hand, we keep hearing that the $14-trillion– or some such unfathomable figure– U.S. economy is akin to the battleship that, no matter what harm’s way it is steaming into, cannot be turned on a dime.
Even so, there is such a thing as psyching people up. Americans both indiviudally and collectively as businesspersons are more apt to do what they can to help our economy if they feel the government is in there with them, shoulder to shoulder, trying to keep things moving at least forward.
By the way, The New York Times is running an extensive profile on Mr. Bernanke. It may be worth a look-see, if like me, you ever wonder much about how the hell things actually happen in this great, grand country of ours.
Where the money is…
SPECIAL BONUS !
Courtesy of Reuters, here is the Head Fed in Talking Head mode:
Sometimes you got to wonder what people, including high-powered eggheads in Washington, are thinking.
News item: This afternoon The Wall Sreet Journal reported that Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke had “opened the door to aggressive interest-rate reductions, saying downside risks to the economy ‘have become more pronounced.’”
According to the Journal, his remarks “support Wall Street’s expectation that officials could lower the fed funds rate by as much as one-half percentage point when they meet at the end of this month.”
I for one am glad Mr. Bernanke has at last perhaps fully realized that so-called “downside risks” to the economy are quite real and deserve a hell of a lot of his attention.
But, really, what took him so long to figure that out?
I am no economist– geez, I managed to get through college without taking an economics course– but it does not even take a real estate license to know our economy has been heading for trouble ever since the first “creative” home loans (much better, I think, if these financial insstruments were referred to only as “mortgages,” the meaning of which can be traced back literally to the phrase “death pledge”) were floated four or five years ago before Americans bent on being homeowners or speculators– despite what their actual finances may have suggested was prudent.
Of course, all those folks eager to get their piece of the American dream (or to “flip it”) were aided and abetted if not seduced by the massive forces of the great real estate-mortgage banking-home improvement alliance that seemed to be formed overnight ready to flog along and cash in on this nationwide bacchanalia.
The party was long and hearty and now the hangover is stacking up to be nothing if not world class.
But abstinence alone will not cure this beast. Rather, it is high time the Fed and other economic players in the U.S. government stop talking and swing into action to at least mitigate if not turn around this crisis before it gets any worse.
The Journal also reported this afternoon that its latest survey of economic forecasters “sees 42% odds of a U.S. recession this year along with mounting inflationary pressures, an uncomfortable mix that could influence the focus of the presidential campaign and complicate life for the Federal Reserve.”
Based on the cold hard economic news that is peppering us like ice pellets of late, Santa Claus must be planning on delivering nothing but coal this Christmas Eve. That’s not all bad. Even though you can’t play with coal much and you sure can’t eat it, you at least can burn it to help hold down the heating bill that will soar as high as Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer this winter. Too bad you can’t fire up a truck with it.
Just the other night, Brian Williams ended the NBC Nightly News on a decidely sour note: with a report dubbed “Slow Going” that posited that when sales start to slide in the the RV –or “Motor Home” to the aficionados– industry it’s an indication the general economy is heading for a ditch, too. Apparently this year RV sales were down 10% and they’re expected to drop another 5% next year. The silver lining in the land yacht, though, is that if you’ve ever hankered for one and can actually afford one, now is probably the best time ever to get a deal on one!
But were the hand-wringing over RVs not enough to chase away dreams of sugarplums and whatnot so early this holiday season, yesterday came word via The Wall Street Journal that both GM and Ford plan to drastically cut back production early next year “reflecting toughening U.S. economic conditions and mounting challenges keeping their turnaround efforts on track.” Specifically, GM said it will slash production 11% in the first three months of ‘08 compared to the year-earlier period and Ford said it would reduce its first-quarter production forecast by 7.4%. The newspaper noted that those two were not alone: “Chrysler previously announced it will eliminate production shifts at several plants in the first quarter.”
OK, so we all (or me anyway) can live without an RV. Even the RV head honchos NBC interviewed admitted as much. But when the Big 3 automakers are rolling back production in the face of economic hardship, well, that gets my attention.
So much so I think it’s time to write a letter to Santa. For starters, I will ask him for a dose or twenty of intestinal fortitude. That will come in handy as I wait for my second request to be fulfilled next November– a new POTUS whom we can hope and pray will get this country to pull together and start moving again on all fronts.
It seems only yesterday the only hybrid on any highway was a Toyota Prius or two. Now around where I live, you can see phalanxes of Priuses on any given day. On top of that, it seems everyone who makes anything that helps drive a commercial vehicle has got a hybrid offering of somes sort on the road or at least in the works.
This was driven home to me (no pun intended, honestly) recently when I got to witness an Allison Transmission “ride and drive” outside their headquarters in Indianapolis. It was not an elaborate event, at least not compared to some others held a few years back by this maker of automatic transmissions for commercial vehicles, but it was certainly geared to impressing potential customers.
There was an on-road and an off-road course so customers could experience how the automatics are designed to deliver “smooth power” no matter what the truck is doing– whether that be rolling in traffic or tackling a slope at a construction site.
Getting back to hybrids, in a chat with Steve Spurlin, recently named executive director of 3000/4000 Series & application engineering for the manufacturer, I learned that Allison is well along in fielding a full-blown hybrid electric drive system for transit buses, dubbed Ev Drive.
According to Allison, its Ev Drive can significantly enhance the performance of transit buses, suburban
coaches and articulated buses running in a variety of applications – whether stop-and-go city
traffic, operating over the road or in some combination of the two.
If hybrids can be found now in passenger cars, pickup trucks, medium-duty trucks and transit buses, how much longer till they find their way into heavy-duty rigs? Don’t better on it not happening sooner than later.
Back in the year of our nation’s Bicentennial, senior slump in the waning days of high school was relieved a bit by a substitute history teacher who apparently took great joy in teaching us Catholic school boys and girls a few select “swear words” in Chinese. To this day, I have no idea if his claims of Cantonese scholarship were true or, if so, what he taught us meant what he said it did or actually translated to something like “You are a soggy egg roll!”
Thirty-one years later, China– the People’s Republic of, that is– is still a Communist dictatorship but it has emerged as an economic force to be more than reckoned with. Certainly, we can all hope that as the more “green” rolls in the less “red” it will become. But given how the Chinese government crushed the Tiananmen Square protests back in ‘89, the day China becomes a democracy may be yet another century off.
In the meantime, one thing is damn sure: More Chinese goods– and of higher and higher value and complexity– will make their way to our shores. News reports of recalled toys have informed us that something like 90% of the toys now sold here are made in China. And a visit to any chain store or souvenir shop for that matter will clearly show that most stuff of any sort that costs less than 10 bucks is made there too.
But what many Americans don’t realize is China is also making bigger stuff for export too. Major appliances are here already– and, yes, cars are next. Consider this piece from Forbes.com about how the Chinese OEM Chery recently rolled its millionth– yes, millionth– vehicle off the assembly line.
As noted by the Forbes reporter, thanks to deals with Italy’s Fiat and Iran’s Khodro, the Chinese firm has vowed to double the number of its offshore plants in three years. And under the terms of an earlier deal, Forbes reports, Chery-made Chryslers will soon reach the U.S. and be priced “at around half of the current price of Chrysler’s cheapest model.”
It may start with bread-and-butter cars like a Chery hatchback but you can be sure Chinese-made sedans and SUVs will follow– not to mention pickups and on up the GVW scale. There could well be a Chery in your future. No matter how foreign that may sound right now.
Perhaps I was overly indoctrinated as a kid in what the good old American Way amounts to–capitalism AND democracy– but I still think of what so many others seem to now reflexiveley refer to as “China” as Red China.
Then again, in my own defense, let me point out that despite the faux capitalist system now flourishing over there— for good or bad, I am not sure yet–the People’s Republic of China remains a Communist dictatorship. Now, don’t get me wrong. I am all for international engagement. For one thing, I figure that despite what he tried to do to our Consitution, Richard “Tricky Dick” Nixon will end up with some good marks in future history books for having “re-opened” China to the West with his trip there 35 years ago.
Sadly, though, I was reminded lately by both a TV documentary on the savage crushing of the political dissent displayed at Tiananmen Square in 1989 and all the bad ink China is now getting on defective– to the point of deadly– consumer goods it’s shipping over here by the boatload that China as a nation is still not worthy of the full measure of our national trust.
Trucking has been directly affected by defective tires and I was frankly stunned to learn toothpaste was being sold in my home state that was made in China using such lovely ingredients as diethylene glycol, a chemical component of antifreeze.
Maybe it is stating the obvious, but I gotta say, if you can’t trust a trading partner to supply you with something as benign and ubiquitous as toothpaste that won’t potentailly kill you, why on earth would you trust them to supply you with trucks or cars– or their components– that won’t perhaps fail in operation?
Sure, I am painting with a broad brush here but the cases of defective products coming at us from China cover a pretty wide chunk of territory too.
Yes, there are U.S. and other non-Chinese manufacturers operating in China– household names inside and outside trucking for that matter– and no doubt their oversight of their own operations means we have no more to worry about the products they produce there than we do the same ones they produce in the U.S., Canada, Mexico, Europe, Brazil or where have you.
Still, this daunting issue should give fleet owners pause to think about where their components (and maybe vehicles in the future!) are being sourced and, above all, who is ultimately responsible for their effective– and safe– performance.
Online at The New York Times you can read their report today that the Consumer Product Safety Commission is preparing proposals that could mandate broader inspections of imports and bigger penalties for ignoring safety rules.
I’d only add that it would behoove suppliers that source anything from China to keep in mind that the bad publicity Chinese-manufactured goods are receiving could plant a red flag of suspicion on their products– and perhaps they should address this concern with their customers in North America and elsewhere.
