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How many other car manufacturers can you think of that produce an entire range of cars, from their wheel nuts to their crank-shafts, under just one roof, at one factory? Not many.

Aston Martin sources engine, body and electrical parts from outside the main plant at Gaydon, as does Jaguar. Even Morgan, that most bespoke of car companies, sources one or two components externally, including quite a few trees.

Ferrari 599XX video, pictures and first drive review

At Ferrari, though, everything except the cows that provide the leather is now made at Maranello. Since November, in fact, they’ve even been generating their own electricity in order to power the Scuderia’s various tooling facilities – to the extent that in January Ferrari sold power back to Italy’s National Grid.

As a result, Ferrari now claims that its plant at Maranello produces between 25-30 per cent less CO2 than it did before its new “Trigeneration” system fired up in November – in which mechanical power, heat and cooling are produced by just one source. And that’s real world emissions, by the way, not ones that appear in EU approved documents, and which mean not a great deal in the overall scheme.

Imagine how much less angst would be displayed towards the car industry in general if all cars were created in the same way, with the same efficiency? The green meanies would hardly have a leg to stand on, and us car enthusiasts could carry on enjoying our cars (virtually) guilt free. Even ones like the utterly barking 599XX, on whose launch I discovered all of the above.

I’ve been reading some of the web threads and letters on Infiniti of late and think it might be time to put the record straight a bit on Nissan’s luxury brand.

Even though the cars are good, Infiniti already seems to have copped all manner of flak. Observations like, it’ll never take off; BMW won’t notice or care; they’re just Datsuns in disguise and it’s going to be like Lexus all over again.

Why all the hostility?

OK, let’s take the last one first. Lest we forget, Lexus was created originally for North America where over the years it’s been hugely successful and influential (yes, even Mercedes and BMW had to sit up and take notice). Europe has been a much harder slog and 20 years on, Lexus is still mostly about refinement, comfort, quality and luxury, and now eco-friendly hybrids, of course.

Driver appeal and sportiness have never been high on the agenda – until the IS-F came along, that is. And it’s here that the two Japanese brands part company.

Infiniti most definitely is about driver appeal and sportiness, just the kind of things readers of this site and mag are wired in to. Nissan has some demon engineers who turn out good stuff like the 370Z, Skyline and GT-R and when you drive the latest Infinitis, you can feel this DNA coming through.

Yes, I know, all that on its own is not enough. Until Infiniti comes up with some new clean diesels and gets C02 down to a certain level, it’ll be a blip on the radar screens. Guess what, Nissan knows that already which is why diesel power and a new rear-drive hybrid are working their way through the system as we speak. The party starts on that next year, but – yes – really should have been there from the start…

Nissan is also clued into the badge snobbery bit, which is why it’s not making any rash promises about world domination and blowing BMW away tomorrow. It look Audi, after all, the best part of 20 years to make it into the same premium car park as BMW and Mercedes.

Nissan is sensibly starting out slow and steady and, yes, much ultimately depends on how much Carlos Ghosn invests, when the diesels and hybrids come and what the dealer experience is like.

Anyway, Infiniti is not going to be like Lexus. The cars and culture are different, with Infiniti appealing far more to the (free-thinking) petrolheads among us. An attitude like that is eminently worthy of support, I’d say.

A Prius before plug-in conversion

Just build plug-in hybrids and they will come?

Not so according to another poll. Survey data by Pike Research finds that only 48 percent of Americans are willing to consider a plug-in hybrid vehicle that can achieve 40 miles of pure electric range.

However, 83 percent of those interested in buying such a plug-n hybrid would only be willing to buy a plug-in hybrid if it cost no more than 10 percent, or less, of the cost of a conventional gas powered vehicle. Unfortunately, many hybrid cars can’t even come close to those economics, let alone far more expensive plug-in vehicles.

I guess Bob Lutz knows exactly what he’s talking about when he claims that only 5 percent of US auto consumers are willing to buy plug-in hybrids such as the Chevy Volt.

[McKinsey & Co] Over the past three years, McKinsey has tracked the rising adoption of Web 2.0 technologies, as well as the ways organizations are using them. This year, we sought to get a clear idea of whether companies are deriving measurable business benefits from their investments in the Web. Our findings indicate that they are.

Nearly 1,700 executives from around the world, across a range of industries and functional areas, responded to this year’s survey.1 We asked them about the value they have realized from their Web 2.0 deployments in three main areas: within their organizations; externally, in their relations with customers; and in their dealings with suppliers, partners, and outside experts.

Web 2.0 technologies improve interactions with employees, customers, and suppliers at some companies more than at others. An outside study titled “Power Law of Enterprise 2.0” analyzed data from earlier McKinsey Web 2.0 surveys to gain a better understanding of the factors that contribute most significantly to the successful use of these technologies.

The findings demonstrate that success follows a “power curve distribution”—in other words, a small group of users accounts for the largest portion of the gains. According to our research, the 20 percent of users reporting the greatest satisfaction received 80 percent of the benefits. Drilling a bit deeper, we found that this 20 percent included 68 percent of the companies reporting the highest adoption rates for a range of Web 2.0 tools, 58 percent of the companies where use by employees was most widespread, and 82 percent of the respondents who claimed the highest levels of satisfaction from Web 2.0 use at their companies.

To improve our understanding of some underlying factors leading to these companies’ success, we first created an index of Web 2.0 performance, combining the previously mentioned variables: adoption, breadth of employee use, and satisfaction. A score of 100 percent represents the highest performance level possible across the three components. We then analyzed how these scores correlated with three company characteristics: the competitive environment (using industry type as a proxy), company features (the size and location of operations), and the extent to which the company actively managed Web 2.0. These three factors explained two-thirds of the companies’ scores.

Furthermore, while all of the factors are slightly correlated with one another—for example, there are more high-tech companies in the United States than in South America—each factor by itself explains much of why companies achieved their performance scores. Management capabilities ranked highest at 54 percent, meaning that good management is more than half of the battle in ensuring satisfaction with Web 2.0, a high rate of adoption, and widespread use of the tools. The competitive environment explained 28 percent, size and location 17 percent. Parsing these results even further, we found that three aspects of management were particularly critical to superior performance: a lack of internal barriers to Web 2.0, a culture favoring open collaboration (a factor confirmed in the 2009 survey), and early adoption of Web 2.0 technologies. The high-tech and telecom industries had higher scores than manufacturing, while companies with sales of less than $1 billion or those located in the United States were more likely to have relatively high performance scores than larger companies located elsewhere.

While the evidence suggests that focused management improves Web 2.0 performance, there’s still a way to go before users become as satisfied with these technologies as they are with others. The top 20 percent of companies reached a performance score of only 35 percent (the score increased to 44 percent in the 2009 survey). When the same score methodology is applied to technologies that corporations had previously adopted, Web 2.0’s score is below the 57 percent for traditional corporate IT services, such as e-mail, and the 80 percent for mobile-communications services.

Their responses suggest why Web 2.0 remains of high interest: 69 percent of respondents report that their companies have gained measurable business benefits, including more innovative products and services, more effective marketing, better access to knowledge, lower cost of doing business, and higher revenues. Companies that made greater use of the technologies, the results show, report even greater benefits. We also looked closely at the factors driving these improvements—for example, the types of technologies companies are using, management practices that produce benefits, and any organizational and cultural characteristics that may contribute to the gains. We found that successful companies not only tightly integrate Web 2.0 technologies with the work flows of their employees but also create a “networked company,” linking themselves with customers and suppliers through the use of Web 2.0 tools. Despite the current recession, respondents overwhelmingly say that they will continue to invest in Web 2.0.

How companies are benefiting from Web 2.0: McKinsey Global Survey Results

Rare earth metals that is

Toyota is facing a potential shortage of rare metals that could limit production of hybrid cars according many news stories recently. As it turns it out, China is hording natural resources, rare earth metals in this instance, it deems important to long term viability. Likewise, there are hints that exports could be severely limited into the future, even the very near future.

Currently, China accounts for 97 percent of the world’s supply of rare earth metals.

Fortunately, however, there are companies and mines in the US capable of a significant uptick in rare earth metal mining. Unfortunately, there aren’t any rare earth metal refineries or processors in the entire United States according to CNBC reporting. So there is some cause for pause.

Ultimately, REM’s probably won’t kill the hybrid, but if efficiency is the driver of the new US economy, there is a lot of work to be done.