The Porsche Panamera has been received with open arms here in the U.S. Just last month, Porsche announced record North American sales of 1,786 vehicles -- almost a third of which were the new 4-door -- and it doesn’t look like things will be slowing up any time soon. Stuttgart has let loose a few details of what we can expect to see at the Geneva Motor Show, including a new V6 version of the company’s sedan as well as an all-wheel-drive version. The additions can’t help but make the Panamera even more appealing to American buyers, but at what expense? Do these changes really hold up to the Porsche sports-car creed? 

Trying to capitalize on the more than 1 million online views garnered by its Super Bowl ad, in which regular folk and celebrities (namely Stevie Wonder and Tracy Morgan) take part in an extended version of the "punch buggy" arm-hitting game of many people's childhood, Volkswagen has been working to extend the concept into both the online world and real-world dealerships.

Point-of-purchase foam knuckles will be available in VW showrooms and, no doubt hoping to strike up a quick viral campaign, the manufacturer has created an online "Punch Dub" game in which players are encouraged to virtually "punch" one another for a weekly prizes of a six-month lease on selected vehicles -- not to mention the grand prize of a CC sedan.

You can check out the game at either www.facebook.com/vw or at vw.com. Check out the original commercial after the jump. 

They say all press is good press, but I'm pretty sure Aiko Toyoda and the rest of the Toyota corporate structure would beg to differ. The company continues to make news, and not the good kind. Here's a roundup of some of the stories being reported today.

According to the Detroit Free Press, documents showing the how, when, where and why -- but especially the "when" -- of all the recent recall activities are being sought by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Under federal law, manufacturers must notify NHTSA within five days of recognizing an automotive defect, and enact a recall accordingly. If company records show Toyota was slow on the uptake in issuing any of the recent recalls, it could face a fine of up to $16.4 million. 

Three employees of electric car maker Tesla died Wednesday when the small plane they were in crashed shortly after takeoff from an airport in Palo Alto, Calif.

Tesla chairman and CEO Elon Musk was not on the plane, according a report at www.foxnews.com. The Web site quoted Musk saying, "This is the worst day in Tesla's history."

The airplane, a twin-engine Cessna 310, apparently hit some power transmission lines near the airport. It crashed in a residential area, sparking several small fires. News reports say the area was shrouded in fog at the time the plane left the airport.

 

We've heard a bunch about the planned changes for Chrysler under the new CEO, Fiat's Sergio Marchionne (much from the outspoken executive himself), but the question the media -- and, with a louder sense of urgency, the dealers still associated with the beleaguered brand -- want to know is: When?

According to statements Marchionne has made on several occasions, the answer may be: Sooner than anyone expected.

In Italy last month, Marchionne said that the oft-speculated move of combining the Europe-only Lancia brand with Chrysler may happen by the end of the year. 

Conceding that breakneck expansion led to Toyota Motor Corp.'s current recall crisis, president Akio Toyoda outlined reforms meant to get quality back on track, including more active use of the car's so-called black box crash data recorder.

Toyoda, grandson of the carmaker's founder, also indicated he won't sit before Congressional hearings into the quality lapses that have triggered recalls of more than 8.5 million vehicles since last fall.

Yoshimi Inaba, the head of Toyota's U.S. operations, is best suited to testify before the lawmakers because he is most familiar with the local U.S. market, Toyoda said.

“Mr. Inaba and our executives in North America have my highest level of trust, and I am sure they are well equipped to respond,” Toyoda, 53, said a news conference today. “I will focus on internal reform to improve quality and support Inaba from our headquarters.”

 

Sales of the Smart car -- the dinky 2-seater so ballyhooed as a “solution” to America’s transportation problems -- are tanking. And while I hate to say, “I told you so,” in this case I can’t resist: Back in May 2008, after initially strong sales driven largely by media hype, I wrote an article in The New York Times in which I opined that “the Smart ForTwo will begin gathering tiny pieces of dust in showrooms.”

Now, as Eric Taub recently wrote in The Times’ Wheels blog, sales of the Mercedes-engineered Smart "have plunged off a cliff." The cutesy 2-seater had already suffered a 40 percent sales drop in 2009. Worse, Taub writes, in January “the company sold just 278 Smart cars, down from 864 in December, and an extraordinary 84.3 percent drop from the same month one year earlier, when 1,776 Smarts were sold.”

Now, back to that May 2008 article I refer to earlier. In fact, during that time, Taub and I performed a bicoastal takedown of the Smart in The Times, with me driving the car in New York and Taub doing the same in Los Angeles. Those are two urban markets that you’d expect to be especially friendly to the micro-sized Smart. While the Smart’s cute looks and park-anywhere ability were (and are) selling points, the car’s disappointing mileage -- less than 35 mpg during our testing -- awful transmission, clunky ride, sluggish acceleration and shortage of passenger and storage space made us wonder who, exactly, would buy the thing once the initial media honeymoon was over. 

Ford has had several hits in terms of critical success or sales (or both) on its hands of late -- the redesigned Taurus, the multiple-award-winning Fusion Hybrid and the Fiesta have all brought accolades. Which is why the curiosity surrounding the redesign of one of its flagship rides is so intense.

Ford has kept the look of its next-generation Explorer closely guarded. It's set to launch in January alongside the new Focus compact; the difference is, the Focus was revealed last month, while nothing has been seen of the upcoming Explorer save the Explorer America concept unveiled two years ago -- and Ford said the model has been redesigned since then.

So what do we know? Well, it's been no secret that the upcoming Explorer will be based on a car platform rather than a stiffer truck design.