Saturn owners hope GM doesn't abandon them

By Jim Kavanagh

SODDY-DAISY, Tennessee (CNN) -- Kat Koonce loves her Saturns. She owns three, and has pictures of them on Saturnfans.com, where she is one of almost 2,500 Saturn devotees who've posted photo albums of their vehicles.

Saturn owners show off their Sky roadsters after a Christmas parade in Soddy-Daisy, Tennessee, on Sunday.

Judy Pearson shows off a photo album of her Saturn Sky roadster the way a grandmother might show off one of her grandchildren -- pictures of vacations and happy times together.

The women are exactly the kind of customers General Motors was looking for when it introduced the Saturn brand two decades ago as "a different kind of car company." The brand's slogan is now one word -- "rethink" -- but its fate may soon be summed up in another -- "done."

General Motors has raised the prospect of eliminating the nameplate as it tries to restructure to regain profitability.

"I just can't stand the thought of them doing away with Saturn," said Dianne Pollard of Hixson, Tennessee. She created the Sky Club of Chattanooga, dedicated to the sporty two-seater.

General Motors hasn't officially announced the end of Saturn, but in a restructuring plan submitted to Congress, the automaker said it would concentrate resources on four core brands -- Chevrolet, Cadillac, Buick and GMC.

That leaves Saturn, along with GM's Pontiac, Saab and Hummer brands, with a dim future.

Pollard drove her black 2008 RedLine (that's Saturn's name for a turbo) Sky in Sunday's Christmas parade in Soddy-Daisy, Tennessee, northeast of Chattanooga. Fellow Hixson residents and Sky devotees Connie Terrell (red 2007 RedLine) and Pearson (dark blue 2007 standard edition) were there, too.

All three have owned other, more sedate Saturns than the Sky, which Edmunds.com praises for "sharp styling, low price and everyday comfort" and Car and Driver.com calls a "mini-Corvette" at around half the price.

They were joined by George and Brenda Holloway, who drove their 2007 Sky almost 100 miles from their farm in Centre, Alabama, to join in the parade.

"We thoroughly enjoy the Saturn. Our next vehicle, when we buy one, will be a Saturn," Brenda Holloway said.

"This is the only car I've ever owned that you can be driving down the interstate and people pull up beside you and take a picture of it," her husband, a retired 20-year Army veteran, said with amusement-tinged pride.

But it's not just the cars -- including the original S series sedans and coupes -- that turn people into "Saturnistas"; it's also the pleasant buying experience and over-the-top customer service.

"It's a family. It's the Saturn family. And you become part of that family," Pearson said.

All three Sky owners from Hixson had stories to tell about a sales consultant who went the extra mile or a service call that exceeded their expectations. Pearson said she has owned many makes of cars, including foreign nameplates, and Saturn's treatment of customers beats them all.

"The best experience I've ever had was with Saturn, bar none," she said.

Koonce, of Dayton, Ohio, used to feel that way, too.

But Koonce now says GM might as well kill off the brand, because that would be preferable to the slow death she sees as inevitable.

Saturn sold slightly more than 8,000 cars in November and has delivered about 175,000 this year. That's a far cry from the half a million GM had hoped to sell each year when it introduced Saturn.

Koonce said she fell in love with Saturn before she was old enough to drive. She became such a familiar figure at her local Saturn dealer and so knowledgeable about its lineup that she was hired as a sales consultant.

She and her husband, Nick, met at a Saturn owners' event, their wedding was a Saturn owners' event, and they have owned six Saturns between them. They have brought numerous relatives and friends "into the Saturn cult," said Nick, whose dream is to own a Saturn dealership.

Saturn sales

November 2008 deliveries: 8,130
November 2007 deliveries: 15,105
Change: down 46.2%
2008 Jan.-Nov. deliveries: 175,434
2007 Jan.-Nov. deliveries: 221,895
Change: down 20.9%

Source: Saturn Corp.

Saturn was conceived in the early 1980s as a separate-standing division of GM, with then-unheard-of features:

• an innovative new plant in Spring Hill, Tennessee;

• a separate agreement with the United Auto Workers that embraced more teamwork between union and management;

• the use of plastics instead of metal for many body parts;

• and a highly personalized consumer experience, including no-haggle buying and "Homecomings," a sort of family reunion for Saturn owners at the Spring Hill campus.

The first Saturn came off the Spring Hill assembly line on July 30, 1990.

Unfortunately, Kat Koonce said, GM has abandoned what made Saturn different. The cars are now made of metal, and the models all have twins in other GM divisions. Even the original Spring Hill factory has been converted to build Chevrolets instead of Saturns; the Saturn VUE is built in Mexico.

So disillusioned was Koonce that she quit her job at the Saturn dealership and went back to college.

"It was a success that became a failure," she said.

Walter S. McManus, the head of the Automotive Analysis Division of the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute, says he could see it coming.

"Brand loyalty is overrated," McManus stated flatly. "It is costly to do all the fuzzies, and Saturn's example is clear that it doesn't pay off for what is essentially an economy-car company. Women especially appreciated the Saturn way, but Honda sells more cars to women, despite having a less female-friendly approach."

Don't tell that to Charlie Eickmeyer, who runs the Saturnfans Web site and has posted a "Save Saturn" petition for the site's 35,000 members to sign. And don't tell the Sky Club of Chattanooga.

"I think Saturn really is a different kind of car company, and that is what has brought me back to them," Pearson said.

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Next-Gen Dashboards Teach Leadfoots How to Hypermile

By Chuck Squatriglia

When new hybrids from Ford and Honda roll into showrooms this spring, drivers will find flashy dashboards that turn hypermiling into a videogame.

Ford and Honda's next-gen instrument clusters feature trees (a vine in Ford's case) that grow more lush as drivers learn to hypermile — the fine art of maximizing fuel economy. Leaves grow like crabgrass in springtime if you use a light touch on the accelerator and go easy on the brakes. Drive like Jimmie Johnson and they'll wither faster than General Motors stock.

The idea, says Honda VP Dan Bonawitz, is "to help drivers improve their efficient driving skills by making the hybrid experience more fun and rewarding."

It's easy to dismiss the LCD displays as gimmicks — and some have — but we're going see more of them. Auto designers, academics and industry watchers say it won't be long before everyone's offering green gauges in an effort to make us all greener drivers. Some automakers are even thinking about using emerging technology in in-car internet development to let people compare stats and compile "top score" leader boards to make green driving a social activity.

"That kind of eye candy has huge appeal to consumers," says Eric Noble, president of The Car Lab, an auto industry consulting firm. "They'll provide huge amounts of information regarding fuel economy. There already are prototypes that are 3-D."

With demand for fuel-sipping cars rising and consumers more aware of the impact they have on the environment, automakers see a chance to help drivers use less fuel. Small changes in driving style — eliminating sudden acceleration, say, or minimizing the time spent idling — can have a huge impact on fuel efficiency. And nothing will make you ease up on the gas like seeing exactly how much gas you're sucking down, so automakers are creating easy-to-use interfaces to teach leadfoots good hypermiling habits.

With a glance, green gauges will offer everything from real-time driving economy to instant feedback on your driving style. They're a big step forward from the rudimentary fuel-efficiency gauges that Toyota's "eco-drive" updated a few years ago, and they're more engaging than the basic display found in the Prius.

Ford and Honda are leading the green gadget charge in America, and Nissan offers a similar system only in Japan.

Honda's display is part of the Ecological Drive Assist System featured in the Insight Hybrid that goes on sale in April. Eco Assist includes a driver-activated "econ mode" that adjusts the transmission and engine to deliver maximum fuel economy, and the background lighting of the speedometer changes from blue to green as driving efficiency increases.

Ford's version is called SmartGauge with EcoGuide. It debuts in the Ford Fusion and Mercury Milan hybrids available this spring. SmartGauge tells you everything from the amount of gas in the tank to the temperature of the coolant in the radiator, while EcoGuide tracks real-time fuel economy and keeps a running tally on your efficiency.

Neither system offers constructive criticism — you won't hear your car tell you, "Back off on the throttle, pal." But the two automakers say providing drivers with data and rewards will make them more efficient.

"We wanted to emulate the world's best coach," says Jeff Greenberg, senior technical leader for Ford. "That was the basic metaphor underlying the whole idea."

Honda isn't saying much about Eco Assist before unveiling the Insight in January at the Detroit Auto Show. But Ford says it spent two years developing its system. Designers and engineers quizzed drivers in San Francisco, Chicago and Dearborn, Michigan, to learn what kind of information they want to see and how they'd like it displayed, then spent months working with focus groups to fine-tune the displays in a driving simulator.

So what's with the leaves?

"We wanted the SmartGauge to have an emotional component," Greenberg says. "We wanted something that would appeal to the data geeks, but we also wanted something that would create an emotional response."

Therein lies the challenge, says Cliff Nass, whose work with the Stanford University CarLab focuses on the psychology of making cars safer and more enjoyable. People may realize on a rational level that driving like a maniac consumes more gas and therefore creates more CO2, he says, but it rarely crosses their mind behind the wheel.

"There's just too much abstraction between pressing the gas and impacting the environment," he says. "That's a very difficult link to make."

Still, he says, Ford and Honda have done a pretty good job. The displays are pleasing to the eye and they convey information quickly, and people like trees because they're calming. But the systems make a mistake of using reward and punishment to change behavior.

"That's actually quite dicey," he says. No one likes to be criticized, especially when they think it's coming from something that should be subservient to them — like their car. So although people will enjoy adding leaves to their trees, they're going to be ticked off if those leaves disappear.

"It would be better to just have the tree turn off," Nass says. "If the tree turns off, people will say, "Uh-oh" and change their behavior. If the leaves fall off or the tree dies, they're going to say, 'Who the hell are you to criticize me?'"

That said, Nass believes the gauges can make drivers more efficient because people respond to calming influences. But Darin Cosgrove, founder of the hypermiling site ecomodder.com, says the displays might teach people not to stomp on the gas, but there's a risk drivers will tune out once the novelty wears off.

"I don't want to dismiss it because it's a really great idea," he says. "Putting numbers on the dashboard is helpful, but the growing leaves bit is a little gimmicky."

If the automakers want to make the gauges more than a gimmick, Cosgrove says, they should offer them in all of their cars, not just the hybrids. So far Ford and Honda plan to offer the eco-gauges only in the Fusion, Milan and Insight hybrids, although both automakers say we might see them in other cars.

Still, they're already looking ahead to the next-generation technology. Ford, for example is considering using Sync and in-car internet connectivity to allow drivers to "compete" to be the greenest driver. "We're really interested in that," Greenberg says. "We think there could be a big social component to it."

Nissan has offered something along those lines in Japan, where in addition to providing tips for improving fuel efficiency, the Carwings Eco-Driving service lets you know how you stack up against people with the same car. Nass says bringing that kind of social networking to hypermiling could make make eco-driving more popular, but he offers one warning.

"If you make it too much like a game, you'll have people concentrating on the game and not on the road," he says. "If you're driving and thinking only about the environment, you're going to smack into a tree."

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Exile youth lead 'double lives'

Mohammed Halif volunteers with Somali youth in Birmingham

By Samanthi Dissanayake BBC News

On a street corner in Stratford, Birmingham, is a place where stylish Somali youth can be found. It is an internet cafe that doubles up as a barber-shop.

From here 24-year-old Mohammed Halif hatches plans to transform the life of Somali youth in this city.

"I looked at the youth, and they were suffering from lack of a social life. Parents don't understand. Most youth have never even seen Somalia."

At the age of 16, Mohammed left Mogadishu and travelled alone to Birmingham. He started volunteering with young Somalis and says he realised that their parents prepared them not for life in Britain but for life in Somalia.

"Somalis are like wolves," he says. "Never settled."

Parental pressure

The children of the first wave of refugees fleeing conflict in Sri Lanka, Somalia, Turkey and Iraq are coming of age now and are confronted with the expectations of their parents and their peers.

The only thing I don't like about British Kurdish youth is how far they are from Kurdish culture Serhado, Kurdish rapper

The first imperative is to preserve their cultural and ethnic identity, to engage with their homeland. Then there are the expectations of the society they were born into.

The evidence so far is that many are expected to lead parallel lives.

Mohammed does not have to worry about such parental pressure. Earlier this year his father was killed in Mogadishu by a small missile.

"I am the oldest. My dad was helping my little brothers and sisters."

He says he wishes to stay in Britain but his claim for asylum has been rejected. He shares with the first generation of Somali refugees a profound sense of responsibility towards people back home and a deep involvement with their daily travails.

But community workers say that a preoccupation with life in Somalia, rather than in Britain, has led to a neglect of young people here and is one possible reason for some of the problems they face, such as gang violence and educational under-achievement.

"They don't want their kids to change," says youth worker Ayadrus. "They want their children to know that one day they will go back. They are in transit."

Threatened identity

Young Tamils in Harrow discussed politics and identity

For the settled Tamil and Kurdish communities in the UK, there is the added pressure of feeling their ethnic identity is under threat not only in the countries they fled but in the diaspora as well. It is for that reason that Tamil and Kurdish schools can be found across London teaching language, history, dance and music.

Many offspring of Sri Lankan Tamils who came to Britain in the 1970s and 1980s appear to have taken on their parents' political ambitions. Analysts describe the Tamil community as close-knit and deeply conservative. But many Tamil youth are becoming more outspoken and confident. One small group in Harrow discussed politics, love and youth identity quite openly.

Gorby, 22, was born and brought up in Britain and has been to Sri Lanka only once. But he has inherited a sense of responsibility towards Tamils in Sri Lanka and a belief that they must have a separate state.

"I don't like to do things excessively. There is a background guilt. I feel I shouldn't spend money because of what is happening," he says.

Student Caroline Francis says: "We are very close to our families compared with other groups. With expectations, you have to fulfil them or you feel you have let them down."

There are expectations on every front. Kirthiga says most of her friends are Tamil and she knows when it comes to questions of marriage, pressures over issues like caste still exist. But, she says, that is changing - the older generation are loosening their grip.

Different generations meet at the Western Kurdistan Association

Those gathered in Harrow were also members of the Tamil Youth Organisation (TYO), which, they say, is primarily a social club and charitable group. But the TYO has also been politically active, taking part in protests against the Sri Lankan government.

Jeyanathan, 28, is a member of the TYO and also a full-time worker for a campaigning group, the British Tamils Forum. He hopes one day to see a separate homeland for Tamils.

"If it was just the Tigers [Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam], I wouldn't support it. Tamils must have the right to self-determination," he says.

Shanthini Cowley-Sathiakumar has conducted research on Tamil youth identity among professional middle-class Tamils, many of whom voluntarily migrated to Britain in the 1960s.

"Children of professionals don't have much of a clue as to what is going on [in Sri Lanka]. Children of refugees tend to be much more politically involved and aware," she says.

She added that those middle-class professionals also tended to be quite disapproving of the LTTE and dissociated themselves from the refugees who came in the 1980s. In a polarised and politicised climate, this has presented quandaries for young middle-class Tamils.

Jana, a second-generation Tamil from North London recently took part in a peace protest but is wary of being labelled as an LTTE sympathiser.

"The terrorist brush is like a broad brush which is being moved from the Tigers over the whole Tamil people. There's a huge underpinning of extremists out there.

"I think of myself as Asian British. Even saying the word Tamil, people just think Tamil Tigers, you see it on their faces. I wouldn't say it very often and I blame both the [Sri Lankan] government and the Tigers."

Kurdish challenges

Where young Tamils tend to do very well academically, Turkish-Kurdish students can struggle. This is of great concern to organisations such as Day-Mer, a community centre that has invested large resources in educational support.

I'm starting to get the passion. I feel British here, but I say I am from Kurdistan Shom Shaswar

It says students from the Turkish-Kurdish community in north London secondary schools are among the lowest achievers - fewer than 10% of Turkish Kurds go to university. One pro-Kurdish activist also said it was notable that the first Kurdish student group was founded only in the past few years.

But at the Kurdish Community Centre a few miles away, a youth reading group regularly discusses political texts as a way of raising political awareness among Kurdish youth.

Earlier this year, Serhado, a celebrated Kurdish rapper from Sweden came to north London for a gig. He says he loves performing for London's Kurds but adds: "The only thing I don't like about British Kurdish youth is how far they are from Kurdish culture. While performing I asked how many understood what I had said - not many raised their hands."

Contact between the generations in other Kurdish communities has been critical for keeping alive the Kurdish issue. At the Western Kurdistan association in Hammersmith, west London, young Iraqi Kurds can meet older refugees from Syria and Iran.

Shom Shaswar feels very British having lived here for 15 years. But she says: "I'm starting to get the passion. I feel British here, but I say I am from Kurdistan."

Medical student Pava Amin says that she took the Kurdish flag to university with her.

There is a background guilt. I feel I shouldn't spend money because of what is happening Gorby, 22-year-old Tamil

Most young people said they saw themselves as both British and Somali, Kurdish or Tamil. Politics played a part, but only in certain contexts. They gave expression to their ethnic, British and youth identity.

In Birmingham Mohammed Halif might have fled extreme violence, he might be jobless and facing deportation, he might now be responsible for his family back home and a family here. But he has been in Britain since he was 16 and is firmly entrenched in British youth culture.

"Let me put on my fancy jacket, man," he says, before he is photographed.

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