2009 Volkswagen Beetle Convertible Video

When handing out reviewing assignments, it’s always best to put the 25-year-old guy into a car that will give his friends plenty of opportunity to lambast him. Thus, Cars.com reviewer Joe Bruzek had the opportunity to review the 2009 Volkswagen Beetle convertible. OK, so maybe it’s not his cup of tea, but is the Beetle convertible a car worth checking out anyway? Find out in Bruzek’s video review.

Date Cars: The Guys

Do men care what kind of car a woman drives? If she pulls up for your date in a Chevy Camaro, would that significantly impress you? Would a minivan be a deal-breaker? These are the kinds of burning questions we had, so we sent Cars.com interns Emily Maters and Lauren Makholm to the 2009 Taste of Chicago festival to find out what men really think about their dates’ cars.

Domestic-Parts Content: Where the Automakers Stand

American-Made Index rates cars built and bought in the U.S. The percentage of domestic content used in each car plays a major role in the index; we use the domestic-parts content rating that’s been required on new-car labels since the mid-1990s. The top-placing Toyota Camry, for example, has an 80% domestic-parts content rating for the 2010 model. But where do automakers’ entire lineups rank against each other in terms of their vehicles’ domestic-parts content, particularly when you weight the cars by how many they sell?

It’s no simple task to determine — you’ll see some wrinkles below — but we took our best shot. Weighted for sales, here’s how the big players measure up in domestic-parts content:

GM: 69%
Ford Motor Co.: 64%
Chrysler Corp.: 60%
Honda/Acura: 58%
Toyota/Lexus/Scion: 44%
Nissan/Infiniti: 31%
Mitsubishi: 25%
Subaru: 20%
Mercedes-Benz: 16%
Suzuki: 12%
Mazda: 11%
Volkswagen/Audi: 9%
BMW/Mini: 5%
Jaguar/Land Rover: 3%
Porsche: 3%

General Motors, which fielded three models in this year’s AMI, leads the pack at 69%. Credit strong sellers like the Chevy Malibu and Pontiac G6 (both 80%). While we disqualified the G6 in the AMI — as it’s being discontinued along with the rest of Pontiac — we didn’t for this list because this one is only concerned with the overall level of domestic parts that automakers’ cars and trucks use. Ford comes in second, even though Volvo (which it owns) has a lineup with minimal domestic-parts content. That drags its parent down roughly 2 percentage points. Chrysler rounds out the top three at 60%. Interestingly, Honda ranks the highest among Japanese automakers, thanks in part to heavy-hitters like the Odyssey (80%), Accord (65%) and Pilot (70%). Toyota landed a record four cars on the AMI, but its aggregate parts content remains a less-impressive 44%. Why? Despite popular cars like the Camry (75% for 2009 model, 80% for 2010), Tundra (80%) and Sienna (85%), the automaker has more than a dozen models with domestic-parts content ratings south of 30%.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration publishes a list each model year for domestic-parts content. To see where car companies stand, we weighted NHTSA’s 2009 domestic-parts content ratings against each model’s year-to-date sales through June. You’ll note that NHTSA doesn’t report every brand out there: A handful of brands, from Hyundai/Kia to Smart, haven’t yet been reported. We asked NHTSA why, and we’ll let you know when we get a response.

We aren’t the first group to compile this sort of ranking. The Automotive Trade Policy Council, a Washington, D.C.-based organization that represents the Detroit Three automakers, compiled aggregate domestic-parts content ratings in 2006. Back then, ATPC found Detroit automakers had sales-weighted parts content of 76%, while Japanese companies came to 48%.

Keep these figures in mind as you read the American-Made Index. The Camry may be the most American car this year, but when you’re looking at the domestic-parts content of an entire automaker, Detroit still comes out on top.

Yes, Electric Cars Will Reduce Carbon Emissions

There are a lot of benefits to electrifying automobile transportation, but one of the best to keep in mind when you’re getting into debates with your naysaying friends is that electric cars will greatly reduce carbon-dioxide emissions. And yes, they will do so even if the electricity they’re powered on comes from coal.

The website Dvice did a little basic math to demonstrate that even when their power comes from coal, electric cars have a 60% lower CO2 impact than cars that burn gasoline.

There are 250 million cars in this country, so, hypothetically, let’s say that overnight all those cars become EVs with 25 kWh batteries. For some perspective, the Chevy Volt will use a 16 kWh battery and the Tesla Roadster has a 53 kWh battery.

Each kWh takes a car two to three miles, so let’s be conservative and say the average driver would charge their car twice a week, or about 100 charge cycles per year. All told, Americans would use 600 billion kWh per year, which is only 15% of our current total production of 4 trillion kWh per year.

This is a modest increase when considering the enormity of running every single car on the electric grid, but it gets even better in terms of CO2 reduction. Each kWh produced by a coal-fired power plant creates two pounds of CO2, so our car-related CO2 footprint would be 1.2 trillion pounds.

Yes, that’s a lot, but burning just one gallon of gas puts out 20 pounds of CO2 from the tailpipe. In 2008, we burned 3.3 billion barrels of gas, for roughly 3 trillion pounds of CO2. Therefore, a switch to electric vehicles would create a 60% reduction in C02 emissions, even if we only burned coal to generate that power.

Sorry, Critics — Electric Cars Really Are Greener (Dvice)

Recall Alert: 2005-2006 Subaru Baja

Subaru is recalling 15,633 Baja sport-trucks from the 2005 and 2006 model years for faulty fuel systems. A fuel hose may crack leading to a fuel leak. Fuel leaks can lead to fires if near any kind of ignition source.

Dealers will replace all necessary parts free of charge. The recall is expected to begin in September. Owners can contact Subaru at 800-782-2783.

Toyota Offering Five-Year Leases to Comply With Cash for Clunkers

Part of the small print in the Cash for Clunkers legislation is that it can only be applied to leases with terms of at least five years. Most lease deals are for much shorter terms — two to three years — because the allure of a lease is that you get out of a car and into a new one quickly.

Toyota is one of the few automakers we’ve heard of that will offer five-year leases, created just for the program. The 60-month leases are available for the Yaris, Corolla, Camry, RAV4 and Tacoma. One sample offer for a Yaris lease lists a headline-grabbing monthly payment of $79 per month for 60 months. The money you’d have to pay up front is $5,229, but if you deduct the $4,500 Cash for Clunkers credit, you’d end up paying $729 up front.

How much would it cost you to buy a Yaris in the same scenario and own it outright at the end of the term? Financed at 2.9% for 60 months, with that same down payment, it would be $125.03 a month, not including tax or destination.

The lease also allows you to drive only 12,000 miles a year. Offers vary by region.

BMW Puts $4,500 Behind Diesel Models

It’s not likely that many folks would shop at a BMW dealership looking to cash in on the Cash for Clunkers program, which is why the company has launched a new incentive to promote its two fuel-efficient diesel models. A $4,500 “eco-credit” will go toward the purchase of either a new BMW 335d or an X5 xDrive35d, on top of current financing offers, and with no trade-in required.

A 335d starts at $43,900, so according to the government program’s rules, it could qualify for either $3,500 or $4,500 in federal funds when exchanged for a clunker, no matter how many options it was loaded up with. The 335d is also eligible for a $900 tax credit. The 335d gets combined mileage of 27 mpg, versus a gas 335i’s 20 mpg, while still delivering a thrilling driving experience. We found a few modestly equipped 335d models in Cars.com’s inventory for $45,225. Add all the above incentives, and those would end up costing $35,325. Read our full review of the 335d here.

The X5 starts at $51,200 and thus would not be eligible for the government incentive (program rules say any vehicle with an MSRP over $45,000 can’t be bought using Cash for Clunkers), but with BMW’s eco-credit it would cost less than a base X5 xDrive30i. The diesel incentive offer runs through August.