As the first child of the 2009 marriage between Fiat S.p.A. and Chrysler Group, the 2013 Dodge Dart contains the DNA of both of its parent automakers.

The Dart’s look — its distinctive nose and Dodge Charger-inspired tail, its rakish hood, sophisticated electronics and even its bland doors — is all Chrysler.

But peek under its skin at what drives the Dart and holds it together and Fiat’s contributions to Chrysler’s coming line of compact and mid-sized vehicles steal the show.

After decades of questionable corporate and product-specific tie-ups between Chrysler and other automakers — Mitsubishi, American Motors and especially the prickly relationship with Daimler — engineers at the Pentastar say they’re finally in a marriage built to last.

“I’ve been here since 1983, and I’ve lived through quite a number” of partnerships, says Mark Chernoby, Chrysler’s head of engineering. “Right out of the chute, this was probably the first team we’ve worked with where we started right away listening to each other and learning from each other.”

That collaboration begins paying dividends this month as dealers begin to order Dodge Darts. With a base price of $16,790 and a top trim-level price of $23,290, both including shipping, the Dart uses savings from its shared Fiat platform and co-developed technology to give Chrysler a larger, more powerful and technologically advanced compact sedan at a lower price than its competitors. The base Chevy Cruze, for example, is $17,595, and the base Toyota Corolla is $16,890.

Joint platform

The Dodge Dart’s skeletal structure comes from the Alfa Romeo Giulietta.

The Dart, Chernoby says, grew from collaboration among Fiat and Chrysler engineers.

Some of Fiat’s contributions are big and easy to spot.

– The Dart’s platform, known as CUSW, is a slightly larger version of the platform that underlies the current Alfa Romeo Giulietta. Before that, the Giulietta platform had been used on the Fiat Bravo and later on the Lancia Delta.

– The fuel-efficient 1.4-liter four-cylinder engine — optional on all but the R/T trim levels and producing 160 hp and 184 pounds-feet of torque — is the same engine that powers the North American version of the Fiat 500 Abarth.

– Chrysler is using a Fiat-sourced six-speed manual transmission as the Dart’s standard gearbox, and an optional six-speed dual dry clutch transmission from Fiat will be available on some models this year.

Others are less visible yet just as important.

– The Dart has a weight-saving aluminum front suspension crossmember that was made using a high-pressure casting method common in Europe but not used before in North America. Fiat brought this process to Chrysler’s Etobicoke Casting Plant outside Toronto.

– Chrysler and Fiat engineers together designed the Dart’s front-end module — engineers said it was the component that took the longest to design and perfect — to increase safety during a frontal impact.

– The Dart has Chrysler’s first use of electric power steering in a rack-mounted design. It’s a component sourced from ZF Friedrichshafen AG, but its weight-saving inclusion in the Dart came through Fiat and the Alfa Romeo Giulietta.

2-piece puzzle

The Dart’s 1.4-liter turbocharged four-cylinder engine was designed by Fiat but is assembled by Chrysler. The Dart’s safety protection (blue) came from Alfa Romeo.

In 2009, when Fiat agreed to take control of Chrysler after the latter’s bankruptcy, it did so in part because the two car companies had little product or market overlap. Fiat was a European specialist in small, fuel-efficient cars and engine technologies, but it had almost no large noncommercial vehicles or presence in North America. Chrysler had a portfolio filled with large cars, pickups and SUVs, but no fuel-efficient small cars and almost no presence outside its home continent.

Alone, neither was likely to survive for long, Chrysler-Fiat CEO Sergio Marchionne reasoned. But together, the two automakers looked like a two-piece jigsaw puzzle with one piece in each of Marchionne’s hands.

Fiat came to the party with advanced technology and market-tested, flexible platforms that would allow Chrysler to make money on small and mid-sized vehicles that could be brought to market in less than three years. Chrysler, in turn, brought a global powerhouse in its Jeep brand and the market experience to show Fiat how to attract consumers in North America and similar markets.

Including the Dart and beyond, Fiat has brought other advances as well, such as its MultiAir variable valve timing technology to boost engine performance and lower emissions.

Fiat also brought its World Class Manufacturing system to Chrysler’s plants. The system seeks to eliminate waste from the manufacturing process, including worker injuries, and uses regular audits to express a plant’s efficiency. The audits cover plant output, worker and plant safety, product quality, plant waste and job interactions.

The collaboration between Chrysler and Fiat is also responsible for the rebadged Chrysler brand vehicles that are sold in Europe under the Lancia brand with few changes and the rebadged Dodge Journey being sold overseas as the Fiat Freemont.

Mike Merlo, the Dart’s chief engineer, said the relationship between Fiat and Chrysler engineers on their first joint project allowed them both to learn.

“It was a very collaborative effort, starting with this platform and working its way into the rest of the product,” Merlo said.

There was a point, in the development process, he said, “where there was a handoff, and the Dodge team then took it from there, about a year ago, to the final form.”

As the first of what promises to be at least eight vehicles that will share the CUSW platform, the Dart embodies the heart of Marchionne’s plan to build vehicles in North America cheaply and profitably.

Merlo said the CUSW platform “is designed to be both longer and shorter than the Dart, so it will be able to carry all of our C- and D-segment vehicles in the future.” That spreads the platform development costs across a huge number of vehicles and generates additional savings from being able to share many components among vehicles.

Some of those next vehicles are already out in testing, including the successor to the Jeep Liberty that will be built at Chrysler’s Toledo (Ohio) North Assembly plant and a Chrysler 100 hatchback that will join the Dart on the line in Belvidere, Ill. Both of those vehicles are expected in 2013.

From the start, Chrysler’s experience with Fiat was strikingly different from its previous tie-ups, especially the failed “merger of equals” with Daimler AG.

Under Daimler, Chrysler’s use of its parent company’s technology was limited in part to protect the luster of the Mercedes-Benz brand.

“You had such brand separation at the start of the merger that we couldn’t share a lug nut with Mercedes for the first two years, so what’s the point of merging?” recalled Gary Dilts, who retired as Chrysler’s head of U.S. sales in 2006. “It was basically a merger of balance sheets and nothing else.”

Dilts said Daimler’s attitude toward sharing components began to change with the arrival at Chrysler of Daimler executives Dieter Zetsche and Wolfgang Bernhard. He pointed to the hot-selling Jeep Grand Cherokee, which shares components with the Mercedes M class, as evidence of what could have been.

“The speed of motion at Daimler is very controlled and very rigid compared to what it was at Chrysler,” Dilts said. “The wonder of the Jeep Grand Cherokee largely came from Mercedes. It just took too long to get there.”

The failed merger with Daimler left its mark on those at Chrysler who lived through it.

At a February 2010 speech to the Economic Club in Chicago, Chrysler design chief Ralph Gilles said that his counterparts at Fiat were “very sympathetic” toward Chrysler. Fiat was then just a few years removed from its own financial near-death experience. During the same speech, Gilles told the audience that, to really discuss what had happened to Chrysler under Daimler “would take hours of time, a couch, and a psychiatrist.”

Working together

Fiat introduced to Chrysler a high-pressure aluminum casting process that allowed engineers to cut several pounds from the Dart’s front suspension.

Unlike the experience with Daimler, Chernoby said that after Chrysler came out of bankruptcy in June 2009, Chrysler and Fiat immediately began melding the way the two develop automobiles.

“We knew one of the things we had to do was to maximize speed of cooperation. We compared and contrasted the ways we did business on each side of the water,” Chernoby said. Both sides shed some of their own practices and adopted others from across the Atlantic.

Chrysler picked up a practice from Fiat of having a chief engineer for each model, instead of having an individual who would oversee development of several products simultaneously. Fiat emulated Chrysler’s practice of including manufacturing and purchasing early on in the product development process and hiring program managers who assist in getting key goals accomplished on time.

Rebecca Lindland, an IHS Automotive analyst, said Chrysler’s speed to market with the Dart, which will appear in showrooms before the third anniversary of Chrysler’s emergence from bankruptcy, shows what Chrysler and Fiat can do together.

“The fact that they were able to bring [the Dart] to market in the short amount of time that they did — and I thought that it was pretty good — shows the capability and advantages that this alliance is able to create,” Lindland said.

She agreed with Chernoby that Chrysler’s alliance with Fiat is proving to be a much more natural fit than its previous tie-up with Daimler.

Lindland said: “Daimler and Chrysler was like caviar and peanut butter, and Fiat and Chrysler are like peanut butter and jelly.”

Rate of exchange

What Chrysler got from Fiat
– Small-displacement engine technology
– Common platforms such as the CUSW
– Model-specific chief engineers
– Ready access to global markets

What Fiat got from Chrysler
– Rebadged Chryslers for Lancia
– Jeep
– Program managers
– Access to North America

You can reach Larry P. Vellequette at lvellequette@crain.com.

The smart money is betting on a civilian version of the V-8-powered, rwd Chevrolet Caprice PPV (pictured), which GM now imports for police fleets from its Holden unit in Australia.
DETROIT — Connecting the dots that lead to Chevrolet’s as-yet-unnamed new model seems to lead back to one storied name: SS.
The latest clue that a rear-wheel-drive performance sedan named simply SS could soon join nameplates such as Malibu and Suburban in Chevy’s lineup came from an unlikely source: GM itself.
A page on the OnStar Web site had listed the GM models that are compatible with a mobile app that gives owners remote vehicle access through their smartphones. Curiously, there was a tab for the 2014 model year (even though it’ll be another year before any of those hit showrooms).

Two out of three hybrid owners don’t buy another, according to a new report from automotive industry research firm Polk.

Despite persistently high gasoline prices, only 35 percent of hybrid owners who purchased a new car in 2011 stuck with the segment, a figure that drops below 25 percent when owners of the market leading Toyota Prius are factored out of the equation. Even in traditionally “green” cities like Los Angeles and Seattle, the loyalty rate remained the same.

Although sales of hybrids have spiked in early 2012, the gas-electric vehicles made up only 2.4 percent of the new car market last year, down from a record high of 2.9 percent in 2008.

According to the Polk study, customers interested in hybrids diligently cross-shop them against conventionally-powered vehicles, which have seen great improvements in fuel economy in recent years. A survey from TrueCar.com released last week points out that, even a more than a decade after the first hybrid cars went on sale in the United States, it can take many years to recoup the high upfront costs in fuel savings.

However, automakers can take some solace in the fact that shoppers surveyed by Polk by and large stayed loyal to the brand of their hybrid, even if they switched to a different type of vehicle. Toyota, for instance, retained 60 percent of its hybrid customer base, while more than half of Honda hybrid owners purchased another Honda.

Larry P. Vellequette
Automotive News — April 11, 2012 – 9:43 am ET
UPDATED: 4/11/12 4:32 pm ET – details added

DETROIT — A battery explosion this morning in a General Motors research lab injured five people and caused a small fire along with other damage.

Fire crews were called to the battery systems lab at GM’s Warren Technical Center in Warren, Mich., at about 8:45 a.m. after a report of an explosion in the plant. Warren Deputy Fire Chief Gary Wilkinson said that when crews arrived they found a small fire and smoke in one of the labs.

One of the employees sustained injuries and was transported to a Detroit hospital. Wilkinson said the injuries were not life threatening but had no further details.

Four other employees were treated at the scene for minor injuries, Reuters reported.

Wilkinson said a battery under extreme testing had exploded, causing the fire.

The explosion caused a fire that was extinguished, Kevin Kelly, a GM spokesman, told Bloomberg.

Warren Mayor Jim Fouts said he was told by Warren Fire Department officials that fumes from hydrogen sulfide caused an explosion inside a battery laboratory. A man who suffered a concussion and chemical damage to his skin was apparently outside a containment area where tests were being conducted on a prototype battery, Fouts said.

“It was a major explosion,” Fouts told Reuters. “At least one eight-inch (thick) door was blown out. What could have been a major catastrophic event was not so because of the quick work of the Warren Fire Department and GM officials.”

The explosion also blew out at least three windows and, according to Fouts, about 80 people in the building had to be evacuated.

GM officials declined to comment on Fouts’ statements.

Report: Battery made by A123

The Wall Street Journal, quoting an unnamed GM source, said the lithium ion battery being tested was being developed for a new line of all-electric cars and was made by A123 Systems Inc. An official from A123 was not immediately available for comment, the Journal reported.

A123 Systems last month said it would replace battery packs made at its plant in Livonia, Mich. The company blamed a flaw in the manufacturing process that could cause its lithium ion batteries to fail. The Fisker Karma, which failed during a Consumer Reports driving test because of a battery problem, was among the vehicles supplied by A123.

South Korea’s LG Chem makes the lithium ion batteries used in the plug-in hybrid Chevy Volt.

There were reports of battery fires following two tests of the Volt last year. An investigation of those fires was initiated and later closed by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

GM expanded its current 33,000-square-foot global battery systems lab in 2009. The lab leads the automaker’s research and testing of energy storage systems, including lithium ion batteries and ultracapacitors for extended-range electric, plug-in, hybrid and fuel cell vehicles, according to a GM statement from that time.

The research lab is equipped with 160 test channels and 42 thermal chambers to duplicate extreme real-world driving patterns, hot and cold temperatures and calendar life.

Reuters and Bloomberg contributed to this report.

It feels counterintuitive. Expensive gasoline not only helped propel new-vehicle sales in the first quarter. It was a key factor in the surge.

But customers aren’t flocking from big trucks to small cars as happened four years ago when fuel prices spiked. Instead they are shopping within the same segments and snapping up newer models that get better fuel economy.

So despite $4 gasoline, consumers bought 1.4 million light vehicles in March, up 13 percent over March 2011 and the highest volume for any month since August 2007. What’s the attraction? New vehicles with better fuel efficiency than slightly older models of the same size.

“Fuel economy was the name of the game in March [and] the first quarter,” said Ken Czubay, Ford Motor Co.’s U.S. sales boss. “Dealers across the country told us that higher fuel prices played a larger role in customers’ choices.”

Czubay also cited the improving economy but said the availability of fuel-efficient vehicles has done the most to boost sales this year.

The March surge wasn’t a wholesale rush to small fuel-sippers as it was in 2008. Truck sales rose at about the same rate as car sales. In March, cars were up 14 percent, and truck sales rose 11 percent.

In May 2008, when fuel prices skyrocketed, cars were up 2 percent, and trucks plummeted 25 percent.

The big winners in March were models that combine much-improved fuel economy with utility, such as the Ford F series and Focus, Nissan Altima and Toyota Camry and Prius.

Compare the redesigned Camry, on sale since September, with the archrival Honda Accord, which is in its final year.

The four-cylinder Camry with a six-speed automatic transmission is rated at 25 mpg in the city and 35 mpg on the highway, compared with the five-speed automatic Accord’s 22/33 mpg.

Both have a 3.5-liter V-6 available, though the Accord has a five-speed and the Toyota, a six-speed transmission. The ratings: Camry, 21/30 mpg; Accord, 19/29.

And first-quarter sales? The Camry was up 37 percent to 105,405 units. The Accord was down 8 percent to 61,132.

‘Tipping point’

Ford sales boss Jim Farley said the industry’s fuel-efficiency drive has hit a “tipping point” in transforming product lineups. And customers are realizing how much savings come with a fuel-efficiency increase of perhaps 10 mpg, he said.

“If you do the math, it’s thousands and thousands of dollars,” he said.

Customers still buy big vehicles but insist on fuel efficiency, said Mike Good, general manager of Street Toyota in Amarillo, Texas. March was the dealership’s best month ever.

“It’s not changing their buying habits,” he said. “But they want fuel efficiency. Everybody knows the mpg when they walk in.”

The market gained 13 percent in both March and the first quarter, the first time since early 2008 the annualized selling rate has exceeded 14 million for three straight months. Chrysler Group was the big winner for both, up 34 percent in March and 39 percent in the first three months.

But American Honda Motor Co. and General Motors missed the industry’s wave. Honda sales fell 5 percent in March and are up just 4 percent so far this year. GM needed its 12 percent March increase to swing its first quarter from a loss to a 3 percent gain.

Many of the most popular models in the first quarter were redesigned vehicles with much-improved fuel economy or vehicles with new fuel-saving engine options.

Some examples:

– The Toyota Prius sizzled, up 42 percent for the first quarter. With a third variation, the Prius C that was added in March, the car’s monthly sales jumped 54 percent. That made it the sixth-best-selling U.S. vehicle, up from No. 14 in March 2011.

– Sales of the Ford F-series pickup rose 9 percent in March despite the high fuel prices.

The big truck captured 4.1 percent of total U.S. sales in the first quarter, higher than in 2008 and 2009 when most F-series pickups were sold with big V-8 engines

About 60 percent of F-series trucks now are sold with V-6s, Farley said — most of them with the 3.7-liter EcoBoost V-6, introduced a year ago, that offers V-8 grunt with six-cylinder fuel economy. Since 2007, the F series has moved from all four-speed to five- or six-speed transmissions.

– The Ford Focus’ 2011 redesign added a six-speed automatic transmission that helped boost its fuel economy rating to 28 mpg city and 38 mpg highway. First-quarter sales jumped 78 percent for a 1.9 percent market share, compared with 1.1 to 1.5 percent shares the past five years.

Big payoff

Michael Sivak, a researcher at the University of Michigan’s Transportation Research Institute, said that with incremental product improvements and consumers looking for fuel savings, new vehicles purchased in March had a combined average fuel economy of 24.1 mpg, up from 20.1 mpg in October 2007.

The big fuel-efficiency gains arriving this year are a payoff for the big effort manufacturers have made since the 2008 fuel spike. Quick fixes were installed piecemeal, but products designed from scratch since 2008 with a focus on fuel efficiency are just starting to hit the market.

Last week’s unveiling of the 2013 Ram pickup suggests the next stage for fuel efficiency. The redesigned Ram drops the 3.7-liter V-6 and six-speed transmission for a 3.6-liter Pentastar V-6 and eight-speed transmission, boosting horsepower by 42 percent.

The Ram gets other fuel-saving features: a stop-start system, air suspension, front grille air shutters that close at higher speeds to reduce drag, and thermal management to raise oil and coolant temperatures quickly on startup.

As post-2008 vehicle redesigns reach the market, they’ll need that fuel-efficiency technology because gasoline prices are likely to stay high and consumers are increasingly aware of operating costs, Ford’s Farley said.

“If someone buys an F-150 and pays $4 a gallon for gas and drives it 150,000 miles, guess how much they pay for fuel,” he said. “It’s $36,000. It’s more expensive than the truck.”

That’s why Ford pickup customers are buying almost half their F-series pickups with EcoBoost V-6s. And it’s why Ford will triple production of the year-old engine this year, Farley said.

“Do the math!”

Bradford Wernle contributed to this report

WASHINGTON (Bloomberg) — The top U.S. transportation safety investigator criticized companies such as Intel Corp. that are investing in in-car information technology, saying they’re slowing efforts to reduce hazards from distracted driving.

“If the technology producers focused more on what is safe, than what sells, we’d see highway fatalities go down,” National Transportation Safety Board Chairman Deborah Hersman said today as she convened a distracted-driving forum in Washington.

Distracted driving caused by handheld and other electronics in cars has been the top safety priority of Ray LaHood since he became U.S. transportation secretary in 2009.

Hersman, whose board operates independently, in December went further than LaHood, calling for a ban on all phone use while driving, even with hands-free devices.

“We have got to dispel the myth of multitasking,” Hersman said at the forum. “We are still learning what the human brain can handle. What is the price of our desire to be mobile and connected at the same time?”

Intel, the world’s largest maker of semiconductors and computer chips, said last month it is expanding development of in-vehicle infotainment using its technology and its capital unit is creating a $100 million “connected car fund.”

John Lee, a University of Wisconsin professor who has studied distracted driving, cited the Intel announcement at the forum as an example of companies focusing on adding technology to cars.

“The pace of change is daunting,” he said in testimony to the safety board, citing himself as an example of a distracted driver who has scrolled through a music playlist and taken his eyes off the road. “The pace of change far outstrips the pace of regulatory response.”

Intel’s work on automotive technologies will include finding ways to make such systems safer, said Laura Anderson, a spokeswoman for the Santa Clara, Calif.-based company.

“Intel is working closely with automakers and in-vehicle infotainment suppliers to help integrate advanced technologies into cars to enhance the in-vehicle experience as well as advanced driver assistance systems,” she said. “A significant area of focus for the $100 million Intel Capital connected car fund is to accelerate innovation for driver and passenger safety. For example, the fund will invest in startups developing technologies for advanced driver assistance, gesture recognition and sensors.”

Data driven

The Transportation Department last month issued voluntary guidelines for automakers for built-in systems used for infotainment and navigation.

The guidelines recommend that no task for drivers take longer than two seconds and that cars be stopped and in park before drivers can enter navigation commands or use social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter.

The safety board, which determines causes of crashes in all modes of transportation, hasn’t investigated any accidents where navigation systems were found to be a cause, Hersman said at the press conference.

The Association of Global Automakers, a Washington-based group whose members include Toyota Motor Corp. and Honda Motor Co., will tell the safety board later today that anti-distracted-driving initiatives should be based on data.

“When integrating the convenience features demanded by today’s consumers, factors such as safety, usability and comprehension are all considered,” Michael Cammisa, Global Automakers’ safety director, said in a statement. “Our members take a measured approach when designing a vehicle and deciding what features to include.”

In 2010, 3,092 people, or 9.4 percent of road fatalities, were killed in crashes related to driver distraction, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

Republican Lutz criticizes GOP for telling ‘lies’ about the car, costing U.S. jobs

Tim Higgins
March 10, 2012 – 12:01 am ET

DETROIT (Bloomberg) — Pity the Chevy Volt.

Ever since it became known that the plug-in hybrid car’s batteries had burst into flames after government crash tests, the Volt has become the whipping boy of Republican politicians. Conservatives have equated General Motors Co.’s Volt with everything from government bailouts to radical left-wing environmentalism.

“Although we loaded the Volt with state-of-the-art safety features, we did not engineer the Volt to be a political punching bag,” GM CEO Dan Akerson said during a Congressional hearing on the Volt in January. “And that, sadly, is what the Volt has become.”

Republican presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich faulted the Volt for its lack of space for a gun rack. Front-runner Mitt Romney called it “an idea whose time has not come.” American Tradition Partnership Inc., a conservative group, referred to Volts as “exploding Obamamobiles.”

Akerson said all the trash talk about the Volt has been pinching sales. Obama’s challengers, though, see it as an effective way to resonate with their voters.

Republicans buy Silverado pickups and other Chevrolets in greater numbers than Democrats do, said Art Spinella, who studies new-vehicle buyers as president of CNW Marketing Research in Bandon, Ore.

While Chevy customers tend to lean conservative, less than 14 percent of Volt buyers so far this year identify themselves as Republicans while about 53 percent call themselves Democrats, according to CNW survey of 1,416 people. Buyers of the Chevrolet brand as a whole were 37 percent Republican, 22 percent Democrat and 41 percent independent.

Disappointing sales

Politics aside, Volt sales have been a source of disappointment for GM. The Environmental Protection Agency gave it a 95 mpg rating for city driving, less than half the 230 mpg rating GM had anticipated in 2009.

After the battery fires became public in November, 2011 sales fell short of Akerson’s goal and following slow sales in January and February, GM decided to stop making the cars for five weeks. While the government’s investigation found the Volt to be as safe as other vehicles, they are complicated and expensive for a small car at nearly $40,000 before a federal tax credit.

Nissan Motor Co.’s Leaf electric car missed its sales targets last year, too, raising questions about the size of the market for technology-laden fuel-efficient vehicle.

Republican bashing

It’s impossible to know to what degree political rhetoric is hurting Volt sales, but Akerson isn’t alone in believing the numbers would look better without the Republican bashing. Chevrolet dealers in the U.S. sold 7,671 Volts last year, missing GM’s target of 10,000.

About 1,600 Volts were sold in the first two months of the year, a pace that doesn’t match Akerson’s plans to deliver 45,000 in the U.S. this year. At least part of that gap is a result of attacks on the campaign trail, Spinella said. Buyers from the political center to the right, “will not buy a car that has anything at all that they perceive being associated with the administration,” Spinella said.

While the Volt accounted for less than 0.1 percent of the world’s largest automaker’s sales last year, it is getting heightened attention because “it’s a hallmark car,” Akerson told reporters in San Francisco this week. After the announcement last week that work would stop for five weeks at the Detroit-Hamtramck plant where the Volt is made, Reince Priebus, chairman of the Republican National Committee, posted on Twitter about it with the hashtag “#ObamaonEmpty.”

The Volt, introduced a month before Obama said he would run for president, can go more than 30 miles on electricity before its gasoline engine kicks in and powers a generator to recharge the battery. The car has a range of 379 miles with both electric and gasoline power combined.

Lutz outraged

Bob Lutz, the former vice chairman at General Motors who helped develop the Volt, said he’s angered that the car has become politicized.

“I don’t mind criticizing Obama, I don’t mind criticizing the Democrats and, you know me, I think global warming is a huge hoax perpetrated by the global political left,” Lutz said. “But when it comes to starting to tell outright lies to advance your political purposes and damage an American company that is greatly on its way back, hurt American employment in Hamtramck, Michigan, I just think it’s totally outrageous.”

Lutz, a Republican, said he voted for former U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum in the Michigan Republican primary in part because former Massachusetts Gov. Romney wrote an opinion piece in The New York Times in 2008 headlined “Let Detroit Go Bankrupt” about his opposition to a GM bailout.

Obama’s role

After President George W. Bush extended emergency loans to GM’s predecessor, Obama’s administration managed its $50 billion bailout. The U.S. still holds 32 percent of the GM shares, which have gained 26 percent this year after falling 45 percent in 2011.

Obama has embraced the Volt’s fuel-saving technology and said it’s his choice for a new car once he’s no longer president.

“It was nice,” he told a UAW audience on Feb. 28 about sitting in one. “I’ll bet it drives real good. And five years from now when I’m not president anymore, I’ll buy one and drive it myself.”

U.S. Rep. Mike Kelly, R-Pa., who owns a Chevrolet dealership in Butler, said he doesn’t sell the Volt at his store because it’s too expensive for his customers, who would be better served with a cheaper Cruze. While it may be an engineering marvel, it’s too far out for his customers, he said.

“It’s still just not a viable alternative to the market that I serve in western Pennsylvania,” he said. “I just don’t have people coming in to buy that car.”

Social issues

The Volt not only personifies the bailout for Republican candidates, it also plays to other controversial issues such as class and environment. On the campaign trail, for example, Gingrich, the former U.S. House speaker, has peppered his stump speech with comments about the Volt, including during a stop Feb. 17 caught by C-Span.

“The average family that buys it earns $170,000 a year and this is Obama’s idea of populism and in his new budget he wants to increase the amount given to every Volt buyer to $10,000, which is an amount which would allow a lot of people to buy a decent secondhand car but it wouldn’t be an Obama car,” Gingrich said to cheers in Peachtree City, Ga.

“But here’s my point to folks: You can’t put a gun rack in a Volt. So let’s be clear what this election is all about,” Gingrich continued. “We believe in the right to bear arms and we like to bear the arms in our trucks.”

The Volt “can do a lot of things,” including tote a gun rack, responded Selim Bingol, vice president of GM’s global communications, on a company blog. “But if you are looking for a vehicle for your next hunting trip, it may not be your first choice.”

Hybrids prove a hard sell, even in the green Northwest.

A recent poll by Seattle-based PEMCO Insurance found less than 2 percent of Northwest drivers say they own a hybrid vehicle.

However, the poll shows that hybrids do remain a consideration for more than half of all drivers. As many as 59 percent of drivers in Oregon and 56 percent of Washington drivers say they would consider buying a hybrid the next time they shop for a new car.

About two-thirds of Washington hybrid drivers and just half of Oregon hybrid drivers say they’re motivated by the money that hybrids help them save on gas, rather than a desire to reduce pollutants emitted by gas-powered vehicles.

Washington drivers also are three times more likely than Oregon drivers to say that rising gas prices would motivate them to buy a hybrid, according to the poll.

Of those who say they aren’t likely to purchase a hybrid for their next vehicle, at least one-third from either state could be swayed if hybrid vehicles cost less. Thirty-four percent of Oregon drivers and 42 percent of Washington drivers said they would be more inclined to purchase a hybrid if the cost dropped by 5 percent.

Similarly, about a quarter of drivers from both states agree that more-lucrative tax incentives from the government would help persuade them.

DETROIT – Many automakers reported strong sales for February as Americans snapped up smaller cars to offset high gas prices.

Companies from Ford to Volkswagen reported double-digit increases in U.S. sales last month. Even General Motors, which pulled back on big discounts, eked out a slight gain.

The results show that industry is on pace for a third straight year of improving sales after bottoming in 2009 during the financial crisis. Carmakers see several encouraging trends. The average car on U.S. roads is now a record 10.8 years, so there is an increasing need to replace older vehicles. Credit availability is improving, bringing more people back into the market. Japanese automakers have largely recovered from last year’s earthquake and now have more cars to sell. And consumer confidence rose dramatically in February, making people more likely to consider a big-ticket purchase.

Sales were strong in January, and February is looking equally good. After all major car companies report their results Thursday, analysts expect sales of 1.1 million cars and trucks for the month.

Based on those strong results, the consulting firm LMC Automotive predicts sales of 14 million this year, up from an earlier forecast of 13.8 million. Last year’s sales reached 12.8 million.

Chrysler’s February sales rose 40 percent from a year earlier as it sold nearly 134,000 new cars and trucks. All of its brands showed at least double-digit increases. Chrysler was helped by an easy comparison with last February, when sales were relatively low because many of its revamped models were just arriving in showrooms.

Chrysler’s tiny Fiat 500 had its best sales month ever, thanks in part to rising demand for more fuel-efficient cars. But the Ram pickup also saw sales climb 21 percent. Sales of the Chrysler 200 midsize sedan more than quadrupled from a year earlier, while sales of its 300 full-size sedans rose more than five times.

Ford sales rose 14 percent, mostly on demand for the Focus compact car. Focus sales more than doubled to 23,350, making it the best February for the Focus in 12 years.

Most of Ford’s other cars saw sales declines, in part because the newer Focus pulled sales from them. Ford also saw a 26-percent increase in sales of the F-Series pickup, helped by cash-back deals and other incentives.

Volkswagen sales rose 42 percent, led by the redesigned Passat midsize sedan. And Nissan sales were up 15.5 percent.

Gas prices — which are up 45 cents since Jan. 1 and now average $3.73 per gallon — are causing a pronounced shift to smaller cars.

At GM, sales of the Chevrolet Cruze compact rose 10 percent to top 20,000 for the month, while the new Chevy Sonic subcompact saw its best sales month ever at almost 8,000. The strength of those sales helped General Motors, which was expected to see sales drop, report a 1 percent increase.

Erich Merkle, Ford’s top U.S. sales analyst, says small cars made up around 19 percent of industry sales in December. That rose to 21 percent in January and could go as high as 24 percent in February, he said.

Consumers continued to pay higher prices for cars in February, mainly because they’re buying well-equipped small cars, according to the TrueCar.com automotive website.

Vehicles sold for an average of $30,605 last month, up almost 7 percent from a year earlier, TrueCar said.

Stephen Williams Automotive News

NEW YORK — First there was the Super Bowl slam, where drivers of Chevy Silverado trucks lament the loss of their buddy Dave, who doesn’t survive an apocalypse because he drove a Ford.

Now Chrysler runs a national spot from Doner that poses the question: What if you were to take away horsepower, torque and warranty coverage from a Ram? “Well,” says the grizzled voice-over, “you’d end up with a Ford F-150.”

A dogfight has raged for decades in the truck category, where sniping at the competition has been a puerile pastime. But the jabs seem to be coming faster and harder of late, as rivals beat up on Ford.

How long, though, before it hits back?

Ford isn’t saying — “We haven’t seen the ad yet, so we’ll reserve comment until we do,” said a Ford spokesman — but the automaker has not always been satisfied to take the high road.

Bailout references

In September, Ford got some heat when it ran a provocative spot as part of its “Drive One” campaign, spotlighting Chris, an F-150 driver. Facing a barrage of questions from reporters, Chris says, “I wasn’t going to buy another car that was bailed out by our government. I was going to buy from a manufacturer that’s standing on its own: win, lose or draw. That’s what America is about.”

The subtle-as-a-hammer reference was to General Motors and Chrysler taking government bailouts in 2008-2009. The ad prompted immediate reaction, and at one point Ford pulled it from YouTube, claiming that was part of a “planned rotation,” and then reposted it. Some speculated that the takedown came after Ford allegedly received a request from the White House. Ford’s agency is Team Detroit.

Ironically, Ford CEO Alan Mulally publicly supported the bailouts because of concerns about mutual suppliers failing. He appeared with GM and Chrysler executives on Capitol Hill during bailout hearings.

The incident proves that while horsepower, reliability and “guts and glory” often enter the commercial conversations about trucks, politics are hardly out of bounds.

And it has always been that way, said GM Global CMO Joel Ewanick.

Hatfields vs. McCoys

“There have been good-natured, competitive truck ads as long as we can remember,” he said. “We don’t know this for a fact, but we would guess that the Hatfields drove Chevy trucks and the McCoys drove Ford trucks.”

Good-natured? That might be a stretch.

Consider a Dodge Ram ad from 2002 that animated the infamous little- boy-peeing decal popular among truck owners — only to have him butted by the Ram logo. The voice-over: “Don’t mess with the most powerful, longest-lasting line of trucks.”

In the past few months, Chrysler has been active in the one-upmanship ranks, taking aim at Ford Explorer and F-150 trucks in its ads for Dodge Ram and Durango trucks, citing issues such as warranty coverage and towing capabilities.

A spokesman chalked it up to customer service. “Truck customers are well informed and make educated decisions. As such, Ram wanted to point out the clear advantages in our product compared to the competition in a fact-based, straightforward manner so that the consumer could make an informed decision.”

“Truck guys have always been willing to name names, and this sort of thing has been going on for years,” said Michael Jordan, executive editor of Edmunds.com. “Does anyone compare themselves to ‘the leading brand’ these days except soap manufacturers? Trucks are about utility — the things they do. Things get tough when there’s more than brand imagery involved.”

How much tougher on the ad front it will get? While Ford has zipped its corporate lip so far, there’s no love lost with the Hatfields. In the recently published “Once Upon a Car,” written by New York Times automotive reporter Bill Vlasic, he quotes Ford’s global marketing boss Jim Farley: “F–k GM. I hate them and their company and what they stand for. And I hate the way they’re succeeding.”

In August 2011 Farley apologized to Ewanick — six months before the Silverado salvo aired on the Super Bowl.

Philip Nussel of Automotive News contributed to this report.