“(Reuters) – The message from automotive CEOs at the opening of this year’s Detroit auto show is deceptively simple: Sportscars are hot, electrics are not.
As General Motors Corp CEO Dan Akerson unveiled a new 450-horsepower Chevrolet Corvette and Fiat SpA CEO Sergio Marchionne extolled the Italian automaker’s $130,000 Maserati Quattroporte luxury sedan, their counterpart, Carlos Ghosn, chief executive of Japan’s Nissan Motor Co, announced a stunning $6,000-plus price cut on the slow-selling Nissan Leaf electric vehicle.
Despite that hiccup, executives generally seemed upbeat about the mood of the U.S. auto industry as it enters a fourth year of recovery from the 2009 meltdown and bankruptcies of GM and Chrysler.
“Without trying to read tarot cards and tea leaves, 2013 is structurally going in the right direction. It will be the best year on record since I’ve been here,” said Fiat’s Marchionne, whose company was handed control of Chrysler four years ago.
If U.S. consumers’ views of green cars remains skeptical, their unabated appetite for performance and luxury models is widely evident on the show floor at Detroit’s Cobo Center, even to industry officials from overseas.
“The U.S. auto market has revitalized itself with amazing speed and dynamism,” said Matthias Wissmann, head of Germany’s carmaker association (VDA). “The fascination of the car is again alive and well in the U.S.”
Part of that fascination is being driven by foreign brands such as Maserati, like Chrysler part of the Fiat group. But not every out-of-town executive is sanguine about prospects in the U.S. market….”
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