Geneva 2010: Lutz Talks Unintended Acceleration and a Disaster in the Making

Unintended acceleration first. We bumped into GM vice chairman Bob Lutz right by the Toyota stand. Inevitably, the conversation strayed onto the subject of the Japanese company’s safety recalls in the U.S. Lutz, who’s never shy in coming forward, pointed out that while Toyota has one instance of unintended acceleration reported in 50,000 vehicles and Ford has one in 73,000, GM suffers one in 500,000. “I used to get so pissed off with all the safety engineering procedures,” he said, “but I’m now quite glad those guys are such a pain.” The disaster in the making was, ironically, right next to the Toyota/Lexus display. Chrysler and Lancia were lumped together on a stand that had a jigsaw motif—a jigsaw that the bosses at Fiat have obviously yet to figure out. A 300C with a two-tone interior treatment from the Lancia design studio also adorned the stand, which was a bit odd: it’s hardly as if the 300C’s interior is bad. At the press conference, we

were treated to a lot of brand-positioning advertising for the two nameplates, a bravado display of linguistic ability by Olivier Francois, Chrysler brand CEO, as he switched between Italian and English, and a bizarre video that seemed to suggest a merger of the two brands. Francois portrayed Walter Chrysler and Vicenzo Lancia as two visionary automakers, which is true; however, Chrysler actually made a ton of money and Lancia stumbled from crisis to crisis while making absolutely superb, innovative cars. There was much stretching of parallels between the two companies, although we have a better analogy: Lancia and Chrysler are both in trouble, with few outstanding products. They need more than platitudes, fancy videos, and tarted-up interiors to survive. Related posts: Dealing with Unintended Acceleration – Tech Dept. Fiat’s PR Chief Talks About the Future of Global Carbuilding GM’s Lutz May Not Retire Just Yet

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Geneva 2010: Lutz Talks Unintended Acceleration and a Disaster in the Making