During Nissan CEO Carlos Gohsn’s keynote address the opening morning, it was possible to imagine a post-Detroit future. While the CEOs of Detroit’s Big 3 were in Washington, taking their lashes before an unsympathetic congress, Gohsn was speaking soberly and authoritatively about the challenges at hand and convincingly about Nissan’s plans to deliver mass-market electric cars within the next two or three years. In a post-Detroit future, Asian automakers would probably rule the mass market with their small, sporty, fuel-efficient cars, while German brands like Mercedes, BMW, and Audi will continue to dominate the luxury market. And then there are the wild cards: What about Tata? What about China? What about small automakers that don’t yet exist? Neither GM nor Chrysler gave a press conference. Ford unveiled a new Mustang and an impressively practical Ford Fusion; Mazda, which is owned by Ford, revealed the new Mazda 3, one of the nicest looking small cars at the show. These are good cars that should sell, as soon as people are in the mood to buy cars again. Yet the crowd at the show seemed most excited about clean diesels from Germany (like the Volkswagen Jetta TDI, which won Green Car of the Year), and the electric cars available for test drive—the Mini E, the Mitsubishi iMiev. This was the backdrop on the second day of the auto show’s press preview: Detroit’s Big 3 CEOs left Washington with nothing more than an order to present business plans to Congress in early December. California Rep. Henry Waxman, an ardent environmentalist from Los Angeles, replaced pro-Detroit congressman John Dingell in his post as chairman of the house energy and commerce committee, making it all the more likely that automaker will soon face much more stringent environmental and fuel-economy regulations. The Dow dropped to nearly 7,500. And by mid-afternoon most journalists had left the showroom floor, wondering what on earth the automotive industry is going to look like this time next year.
