In fact, Chrysler is retaining and expanding its Jeep production in North America, including in Ohio. Its profits have enabled it to separately consider expanding into China, the world’s largest auto market.

Responding to the ad, Chrysler emphasized in a blog post that it has “no intention of shifting production of its Jeep models out of North America to China.”

“They are inviting a false inference,” says Kathleen Hall Jamieson, director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania and an expert on political advertising.

This is only the most recent in a stream of lies from Romney. Remember his contention that the president planned to “rob” Medicare of $716 billion when in fact the money would come from reduced payments to providers who were overcharging — thereby extending the life of Medicare? (Ryan’s plan includes the same $716 billion of savings but gets it from turning Medicare into a voucher and shifting rising health-care costs on to seniors.)

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The mayor of Lansing, Mich., where General Motors opened two new auto plants during the 2000s, Bernero startled Lego-haired Fox anchorman Gregg Jarrett with a rant questioning why the United Auto Workers -- including Bernero’s father, an octogenarian GM retiree -- were asked to sacrifice wages and benefits while Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers received billions in TARP money.

“I gotta say, in all honesty, I was a little offended by your question, ‘Have the unions given up enough? Has the working man given up enough?’” Bernero shouted, before Jarrett even asked him a question. “My question is, ‘Has Wall Street given up enough, for the billions they have taken?’ I gotta tell ya, I am sick and tired of the double standard: one standard for Washington and Wall Street, another standard for the working people in this country. It always comes down to, in order to be more competitive, we gotta take it out of the hide of the working person.”

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First the common ground: Both Obama and Romney agree that the car companies needed to make deep cuts, shed costs, write down debts and fundamentally restructure themselves in the way that can be achieved only through bankruptcy. When Mitt Romney wrote his infamous November 2008 New York Times Op-Ed “Let Detroit Go Bankrupt,” this is what he meant -- he did not mean let the companies go belly up, as Obama falsely suggested last night. And indeed, that’s what happened. Chrysler filed for Chapter 11 in April 2009, and GM followed in June.

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The recall will include 2.47 million vehicles in the United States, 1.4 million in China and 1.39 million in Europe, the company said. No accidents, injuries or deaths have been reported as a result of the problem, though there is a possibility the malfunctioning switches could emit smoke.

All recalled cars can be fixed with a swift 40-minute repair job, but the dent to Japan's biggest car maker may last far longer. The company has been plagued by a series of incidents in recent years including past recalls involving over 10 million vehicles and "crippled supply chains from last year's earthquake and tsunami in Japan and floods in Thailand."

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Are you better off today than four years ago? Tonight's presidential debate, with its focus on domestic policy, is Mitt Romney’s chance to put President Obama on the defensive, to make him answer for his abysmal economy policies.

The problem for Republicans, however, is the increasing amount of evidence indicating that Americans do not think the economy is abysmal. Tuesday delivered the most unimpeachable proof so far of blithe confidence: In September Americans bought new cars at a rate not witnessed since February 2008. Chrysler recorded its best September sales since 2007. Honda and Toyota completed their comeback from the earthquake-related disruptions of 2011. Americans are voting with their wallets.

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According to CNN, one Republican strategist in Ohio summed up what these numbers mean for the Romney campaign: "A kick in the balls."

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The two headlines are intimately connected. Obama's bailout of the U.S. car industry is one of his administration's signature achievements, and is undoubtedly responsible for his strong showing in Michigan. The sales numbers -- which project one of the best monthly performances of the U.S. auto industry over the past four years -- come at a particularly welcome moment. Europe's woes and a slowdown in China seem to be finally taking a bite out of U.S. manufacturing growth. Without a robust auto industry, unemployment would be higher and the Rust Belt a disaster zone.

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Look, share prices go up and down with lots of things, not least of which is the weak economy both here and especially in Europe where GM’s market share is 8% (it’s about 17% in North America).  The bailouts have nothing to do with that, and if you don’t believe me, look at the chart below showing the percent decline in GM’s stock price compared to that of Ford, who didn’t take government help (GMs in red, Ford’s in blue).

As I stress here, absent the bailouts and given credit market conditions at the time, bankruptcy at GM and Chrysler were virtually certain, as no private investors would have stepped up to rescue the companies from liquidating their assets.

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More about the film

Detroit’s story has encapsulated the iconic narrative of America over the last century — the Great Migration of African-Americans escaping Jim Crow, the rise of manufacturing and the middle class, the love affair with automobiles, the flowering of the American dream, and now the collapse of the economy and the fading American mythos.

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The numbers are hard to argue with: After the major automakers released their January sales figures, Autodata Corp. estimated cars raced out of lots at an annualized sales rate of 14.18 million vehicles for 2012. That's the best month of sales -- excluding August 2009's Cash-for-Clunkers -- since April 2008. GDP forecasters are likely rejiggering their first-quarter estimates even now.

Among domestic auto manufacturers Chrysler led the way, with sales surging 44 percent from a year ago. GM dipped 6 percent -- but that was actually less than analysts expected, since GM's numbers a year ago were boosted by big discounts and other incentives. Ford's sales rose 7 percent.

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[caption id="attachment_230031" align="aligncenter" width="460" caption="From Business Week November 28, 1959"][/caption]

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Even in writing about Paine's first film for Salon five years ago, I got several angry letters from impassioned defenders of the internal combustion engine, who assured me that electric motors were for golf carts, and that the automotive future, like the past, belonged to petroleum. As we now know, the death of the EV1 was hardly the end of the story. Within a few months of releasing "Who Killed the Electric Car?," Paine found himself watching legendary auto executive Bob Lutz, then G.M.'s vice chairman, drive a prototype of the Chevrolet Volt onto the floor of Detroit's annual auto show. The widespread electrification of the passenger car, Lutz told him, was "a foregone conclusion."

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The second type of commercial will be full of hip, attractive people extoling the sleek virtues of the fast, sexy automobile. Since young people aren't really the demographic for purchasing automobiles, these ads market to those suffering from too much money and Peter Pan syndrome.

The fact that these narratives are the two standards for car marketing is what makes the new Toyota Venza ads so appealing. Conceived by creative agency Saatchi & Saatchi LA, the spots feature aimless twenty-somethings snarking on their parents' lame, boring lives. These monologues are juxtoposed with shots of older people (presumably the parents) driving around, mountain-biking, and generally partying it up while their progeny stay inside, checking their Facebook stats and rolling their eyes.

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It was November 2008, the month that General Motors begged the government for a bailout. I was in a sterile testing room at the GM Tech Center, in Warren, Mich. Andrew Farah, the Volt's chief engineer, handed me a lithium-ion battery, in a plastic sleeve. We both had the same hopes for that flat, rectangular fuel cell. That it was, at last, the technology that would end General Motors' decades of decline.

An hour's drive north of Warren, in Flint, is an abandoned GM auto plant called Buick City. In the 1970s, Buick City employed 28,000 autoworkers. Today, it's America's biggest brownfield, anchoring a neighborhood that also features a boarded-up tavern, a defunct United Auto Workers hall and an out-of-business party store. The land around Buick City is so worthless that a patriotic couple bought several corner lots, for $200 apiece, and built a memorial to American soldiers killed on 9/11.

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The Transportation Department, assisted by engineers with NASA, said its 10-month study of Toyota vehicles concluded there was no electronic cause of unintended high-speed acceleration in Toyotas. The study, which was launched at the request of Congress, responded to consumer complaints that flawed electronics could be the culprit behind Toyota's spate of recalls.

"We enlisted the best and brightest engineers to study Toyota's electronics systems and the verdict is in. There is no electronic-based cause for unintended acceleration in Toyotas," Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said in a statement.

Toyota has recalled more than 12 million vehicles globally since fall 2009 to address sticking accelerator pedals, gas pedals that became trapped in floor mats, and other safety issues. The recalls have posed a major challenge for the world's No. 1 automaker, which has scrambled to protect its reputation for safety and reliability.

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When Marty died, 10 years ago, the city of Detroit was already in bad shape -- factories closing, people leaving, abandoned buildings going up in flames each Halloween in a grim festival of urban self-destruction. As it happens, Paul Clemens has given his new book "Punching Out" -- which follows the dismantling of a Detroit auto factory -- the same title as Marty's essay from six decades ago. Evidently this is a coincidence; there are no references in the text to suggest otherwise. But either way, the echo is meaningful, for Clemens is writing about the destruction of both a workplace and a social world.

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U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood and the head of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration were in Waltham on Friday to see the devices, designed to detect instantly if a driver is drunk and prevent a vehicle from starting.

A woman demonstrating the prototype drank two cocktails over 30 minutes, then showed how breath and touch sensors detected her blood-alcohol level.

Developers say the technology would be less intrusive than current alcohol ignition interlock systems that force drivers to blow into a breath-testing device.

Officials say the prototype is at least eight years from commercial use.

Critics question the cost and reliability.

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GM, which has posted three straight profitable financial quarters since its 2009 bankruptcy, said it no longer needed the loans because the company's cash position has improved. GM applied for the loans in 2009 to modernize plants to build fuel-efficient vehicles.

"This decision is based on our confidence in GM's overall progress and strong, global business performance," said Chris Liddell, GM vice chairman and chief financial officer. Liddell said withdrawing the application was "consistent with our goal to carry minimal debt on our balance sheet."

The $25 billion low-interest loan program is administered by the Energy Department. It was created by a 2007 law to help car companies retool older factories to build green cars.

Separately, GM said it would explore ways to increase production of the Chevrolet Volt rechargeable electric car. GM's vice president of global design Ed Welburn said at the Washington Auto Show that GM would also accelerate its distribution of the Volt, making it available to dealers in 50 states by the end of the year.

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For the year, car and truck sales came in at 11.6 million, up 11 percent from last year, automakers reported Tuesday. For December alone, sales were 1.14 million, also up 11 percent from a year earlier.

While the figures have some in the industry talking about a return to the glory days, it's a fragile idea. Rising gas prices or more economic trouble could still shake the confidence of American car-buyers.

But for now, executives are optimistic about this year. General Motors, Ford and Toyota all predict sale will come in at 12.5 million to 13 million for 2011. It will take years, analysts expect, to get back to the peak sales of the middle of last decade -- more like 17 million.

"The economic downturn has lasted quite a while," says Jessica Caldwell, director of pricing and analysis for consumer website Edmunds.com. "It's going to be slow and gradual rather than a fast bounceback."

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Obama and Vice President Joe Biden toured a rebounding Chrysler transmission plant in this hard-hit industrial city, holding it up as a symbol of the "hope and confidence" of a better economy even while millions are still unemployed and hurting.

The economic message, however, was overshadowed by North Korea's surprise shelling Tuesday of a South Korean island, a provocation that added another complication to Obama's recent foreign policy challenges.

The trip to Kokomo, a city Obama visited during his 2008 presidential campaign, came on the same day the Commerce Department reported that the economy grew slightly faster this summer than expected. It also followed GM's initial public stock offering last week, a turnabout sign for the bailed out automaker.

But in a more sobering development that underscored the president's difficulties, the Federal Reserve lowered its outlook for the economy through 2011, citing worse-than-expected growth.

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