Is the World Really Flat? YES, it is: MOC Distributors of Canada Inc. As lst week's Dertoit drama devolved in the most unimaginable cliffhanger, it's creal that the fortune is out of the next year's auto sales cookies...    

 


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 Surviving Skills for a Recession - Part III: MARITZ CANADA INC.  It is widely accepted that these are the most difficult times for the automotive industry in the past 100 years.  Manufacturers are contending with extraordinary challenges that includes...
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SURVIVING SKILLS FOR A RECESSION: WHAT GOOGLE CAN DO FOR YOU? There is common knowledge that small, subtle adjustments or initiatives usually are far more effective than big and dramatic gestures. Call it evolution... Recently we were made aware of Google's new offering - Insights for Search, and seeing it's huge potential of influencing and altering Canada's automotive landscape, we went further to investigate...
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DETROIT'S DRAMA: NOW WHAT? A recent piece authored by Dr. Sherry Cooper, BMO’s Capital Markets chief economist, ‘Should the U.S. Government Bail Out GM?’ raises some excellent, yet vexing questions for the North American automotive sector and for Canadians in particular...
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SURVIVING SKILLS FOR A RECESSION - MEDIA. Finally, October is over. Good riddance… After one of the most volatile months that we can remember, November starts with a bang – the US presidential elections. By now, the world markets...
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Emperor’s New Clothes and Chicken Little: “Chicken Little was in the forest one day when an acorn fell right on her head. Scared senseless, she started to cry: Help! Help! The sky is falling, I have to tell the king…” As the credit and financial crisis continues unabated...
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 Like a Hurricane – The week that was  Well, well… What a week! Again.It all started on Monday, when Dow Jones Industrial Average broke all records and rose no less than 937 points, approximating - in one single day - the entire gains for the first 70 years of its history...
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Darwinian Economics - An interview with Minister Sandra Pupatello - There is little doubt that September 2008 will be remembered for a long time to come, primarily for the historic highs and lows of a credit crisis that is reshaping entire industries...
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Chrysler goes EV! Is the Future Electric – Or Another Case of Irrational Exuberance? By the corporate book, a crisis always brings about two very important dynamics: voluntary and involuntary business innovation. As this financial crisis current narrative goes on unabated...
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Happy Birthday GM!
Fascinating week – don’t you think?  The third week of September 2008, will be remembered for a long time, no doubt, and it won’t be much related to September 16 General Motors’s 100 anniversary...
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Creative Destruction - And an update on alternative fuels
While the business world is gripped by venerable banks deathwatch, hair-raising Wall Street’ cliffhangers, Detroit Three’s bailout schemes and oil’s sudden abandonment by your pension plan or investment bank...
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A Fall's Preamble: August's Vehicle Sales
Finally the shoe dropped, and for the month of August the Canadian auto sales went in reverse, a good -7.2% that is. Sorry... I usually don’t get into commenting about the sales numbers, as certainly...
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August 29, 2008: Summer's End - Now What? Part II
I for one, am not too pessimistic about the future, but we should remember that our industry is both highly leveraged and a cyclical one - a classic ‘long' business like banking, brokerage, housing, insurance and retail.And we all know where all that seems to be going...
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August 22, 2008: Summer's End - Now What?
As September is just a short week away, we thought that a quick look ahead at the fall season and what it may bring to us would be in order.
Brutal media headlines aside, the Canadian automotive sector seems to be in relatively good shape, except perhaps the auto parts manufacturers tied too close for comfort to the restructuring of Detroit's Three...

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In Charge of Change - MOC Distributors of Canada
As the current summer lull provides for an eerie calmness, palpably, you can feel the pressure building up in this cooker, a.k.a. the Canadian automotive sector. The recent leasing blood-letting still has to find its way into the market place, the manufacturing and administrative cuts...
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EVs Are Coming - Are You Ready?
Electric cars?? C'mon, what do we really know about electric cars? The electric car business I mean...
While researching for this article, it became clear to me that with Quebec's exception, the ignorance level related to the electric car business is beyond unacceptable in the rest of Canada. When I say ignorance, I refer to the willful act of choosing to ignore the possibilities...
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THE GREATER FOOL THEORY - Part II: From the Credit Crunch to the Lease Debacle
To say that the Nihilists are having an open season with the present state of the North American automotive sector is an understatement, to say the least. Not that the doom and gloom peddlers are busy selling you impossible scenarios...
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Putting Rev into Revolution - DMT Development Systems Group
In an ideal world, the upside of an economic downturn is that normally people are opening up to new ideas - hence the current consumer's sudden embrace of the small car. If recent news is of any indication, major changes are afoot...
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THE RISE OF .mobi
It's human nature to look for multiple reasons to turn away an opportunity. In fact, it's proven statistics that for each one of these business novelties, a negative type will find at least three reasons not to even give it a try... 
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NATURAL GAS - CANADA'S NEXT OPPORTUNITY
It seems that we're living in a world ruled by the ones who like to maintain a big scary vision of a world gone horribly wrong. Yet, in reality, there's not a lot we should fear. Perhaps, all the shock and awe that high oil prices are provoking...
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Breaking Inertia - Automechanika Canada
A few weeks ago, I attended the second Automechanika Canada Show and in some respects, I was surprised. I noted that the audience numbers were a bit on the ‘lighter' side, which considering where we're going - economically speaking - it comes as a surprise...


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comScore - Measuring Digital Universe
Once, there were only a few TV channels, newspapers and magazines. Then, came video, cable and satellite. Now, the Internet is the ‘thing'.
Interestingly, since these innovations came along, it becomes increasingly difficult to dispel...

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Where to spend your advertising money?
Reassuring statement: "All segments of the Canadian media marketplace will remain vibrant with steady revenues over the next five years" - from the latest PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) Global Entertainment Media Outlook: 2008 - 2012...
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Jim Pattison's Glad Game - A Chrysler Leap of Faith
These are turbulent times in the auto industry and hedging one's bets is a tricky business, to say the least. You don't have to be a hardcore business watcher anymore to figure out what or who is going to hit the pavement in the next little while - or do you?...
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PUBLIC RELATIONS - What it really matters, Now!
When talking automotive Public Relations today, what really matters now may surprise many industry players unfamiliar with recent developments. Despite the obvious definition - managing the public's perception of a company, PR professionals...
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Honda Accord - The Power of FOUR
You probably know it by now: "Take a hundred musicians in a depressed port city in Northern England, choose John, Paul, George, and Ringo and you have "Hey Jude". Take a hundred computer geeks in Redmond, Washington, send 96 of them home and the remainder is called Microsoft..."
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Of Moore's Law, Long Tail and ‘Free' Cars
Nowadays, it doesn't take much to rattle an automotive industry that's facing profound challenges. Oil at $135/barrel, fuel efficiency mandates, environmental issues and a consumer mired in debt are just ...
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Of Age and Cars - The Forgotten Opportunities
In the ever-increasing mad rush to hit vehicle sales targets, most OEMs and especially their advertising and marketing arms, are leaving behind one of the most affluent segment of the market - the 50 plus seniors.
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The Greater Fool Theory and why UW really matters
For the ones in the know, the current credit upheavel is not a surprise - it parallels what it's known by the money people as the Greater Fool Theory...

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The Age of Scarcity: "Canadian motorists should brace for $1.40 litre gas this summer and over $2.25 in 2012: CIBC World Markets." When it comes to getting businesses' attention, there is nothing like a great headline - and Jeff Rubin, the Chief Strategist and Chief Economist at CIBC World Markets knows that too well...

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2008 SAE World Congress - Scuderi Engine
Worried-sick about the ever-expanding oil price bubble? How about the greenhouse gas emissions upcoming caps and taxes? If considering change, which alternative fuel should you choose? And most importantly, how are we going to pay for all of this?

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All good things used to come in threes. That was then. It still does, sometimes, but nowadays it seems to be a rare event, and when that happens it certainly deserves our undivided attention. Three recent pieces of news landed on our desk, all at once, and although independently they could hardly qualify as ‘good' news...
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2006 CANADIAN CENSUS - BABYLON'S CARS
There is not any other country in the world like Canada, and the latest released census results, does nothing but to prove the peculiarities and challenges facing automotive product marketers in this country. The relatively rapid changes within the very fabric of our society...


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In the last week or so, two different pieces of news reminded us of the rapidly changing automotive world we're living in: Tata's much publicized purchase of Jaguar and Land Rover, and Scotia Economics' latest Global Auto Report that alerts us...
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From John Keynes to Milton Friedman: The 2008 Ontario Budget
The much-anticipated Ontario budget tabled this week, delivered a mixed bag of goodies to the province's automotive sector, besieged by Darwinian economics and the high Canadian dollar. As automotive goes, several notable initiatives deserve our attention: the immediate elimination of the capital tax for manufacturing companies...
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Marketing: The 'negative equity' of Greenwashing
Catching a falling knife is a tricky business indeed - you need gloves, or experience. Handling what is known now as ‘green marketing' also requires gloves - or experience. In a marketing segment so much populated by omnibus statements, maxims, policies and protocols and by so little credible data, the end user...

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Automotive Canada: Gearing Up or Gearing Down?
There is little doubt that as the Canadian automotive market is dealing with complex political and economic issues such as a ballistic Canadian dollar, a weakening US economy or manufacturing contraction and skyrocketing oil prices, accurate foresting is fast becoming a tall order for most players within this industry. As the usual keyhole view...
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The view from the Top: 08 Federal Budget
As the dust settles, speech notes gets tossed away and tempers cool down, it's perhaps time to have a look at the latest Canadian Budget and what it really means for our automotive sector. Not surprising...
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India Rising - Stephane Dion and C-IBC
As tempting as it is to think this entire North American automotive mess may soon run its course, we're constantly being reminded that we have still a long way to go...
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Toronto AutoShow: 2008 Perspectives
During the Canadian International Auto Show, we had the chance to talk to two of the most respected Canadian auto analysts - Mr. Dennis DesRosiers of Richmond Hill-based DesRosiers Automotive Consultants and...
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Beyond the Russian Roulette: Investing in Russia today
As the high loonie keeps acting like a neutron bomb - quietly and relentlessly depleting Canada's manufacturing work force - the question for the shell-shocked companies - and their investors alike, is what's next?...
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Really Fast Marketing: ING goes Formula One. Again
It's not often that an advertising deal for a big insurance company or bank gets the world of pure sports cars seriously talking. In an era when too many automotive companies have chosen fashion shows...
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Israel's Electric Car
On January 21, 2008, the Israeli government announced that "For the first time in history, all the conditions necessary for electric vehicles to be successfully mass-marketed will be brought together in a partnership between...
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The Rise of Big Ethanol
Although it came as a surprise to many, the recent GM-Coskata partnership announcement during the 2008 NAIAS in Detroit, when viewed in the larger corporate context, it's actually not a surprise at all. The profound and rapid change of political and economical landscape...
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2008 Detroit: Undercurrents
When the Ferraris of the world start running on biofuels, no one has to be a brilliant automotive writer or a clever industry insider to figure out that things have changed radically in the automotive sector. If Detroit's 2008 NAIAS has to be labeled in some way...
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Up or Down? The $100 Dollars Oil Question
Perhaps when Richie Arnes decided that spending his $600 on being the first man ever to buy oil at $100 a barrel, he didn't fully realize that his name would be forever part of the tumultuous history of oil. Now, it is. His now famous January 2 trade consisted of purchasing...
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NEW CAFE regulations
As the historic new CAFE standards will be phased in beginning in 2011, many wonder what it will mean for the automotive business community in North America and especially here in Canada. As part of a larger U.S. Congress-approved Energy Independence and Security Act...
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A Work In Progress
It was less than a year ago, on March 20th, 2007, that the Canadian government announced its New Federal Auto Feebate, and few predicted that government's set of financial instruments designed to influence the vehicle purchasing habits of Canadians would actually work.


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I win - You lose. I win - You win: Can we change the paradigm?
There was plenty of news last week for the Canadian automotive sector: The federal government released its new list of vehicles eligible for government credits. Magna's president, Mark Hogan's announced his imminent departure-to ‘pursue other opportunities'. The Automobile Journalists Association of Canada (AJAC) announced its coveted...  
 
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