Autoblog

Employees and management at Renault were shocked and saddened to discover the body of William Millar dead last week at the company's racing headquarters in Enstone with a mortal bullet wound to the head. The 53-year-old R&D engineer had been with the team for 27 years, remaining at his post as the team changed ownership and name from Toleman to Bennetton and then Renault. Sources suggest that Millar had shot himself in the head with a firearm, and police are not treating the incident with suspicion. Our condolences to the colleagues, friends and family of the departed.

[Source: F1-Live]

With six employee suicides in the past 18 months, PSA/Peugeot-Citroen thinks it may have a stress problem. While experts have found no direct link between the suicides and work stress, one in five PSA employees has reported feeling extreme pressure at work, and many feel that there isn't enough time in the day to get their work done.

To ease some of the stress on its 114,000 employees, PSA has implemented several initiatives to help workers get relief from tension. It's is trying everything from reducing the size of manufacturing teams and keeping managers on a particular job longer to establishing a 24-hour hotline for employee counseling. PSA has taken the issue so seriously that the French automaker is going to the extraordinary step of hiring an additional 500 workers to help ease the heavy workload. With 26 new models launching in the next year, PSA workers will need all the stress management they can get. Hopefully that Citroen grille goes away with the new models, that thing stresses us out and we don't even work there.

[Source: Automotive News - subs. req'd]

Tragedy struck the Ford Motor Company on Saturday when a man jumped to his death from the 10th floor of the automaker's Regent Court Building in Dearborn. In an interview with the Detroit Free Press, company spokeswoman Sara Tatchio confirmed that an employee committed suicide and stated, "It was not work-related and he was not an executive of any kind." Police didn't release any information regarding to the identity of the individual, nor did they specify whether a suicide note was found.

Over at Renault there have been three suicides since last October due in part to high stress at work. Hopefully we're not seeing a new trend in the highly competitive automotive landscape.

[Source: Freep]

Being the pundits we are, we have plenty to say in Autoblog Podcast #58. We start right off addressing the rumors of a GM/Chrysler deal, and offer myraid reasons why it's not a good idea yet may be justifiable to some folks. We move on to flogging the VW/GM suicide commercial debate for a little while, which sets the stage for us discussing the Daytona 500, naturally. It's also revealed that John's on board to give NASCAR as much of a chance as he can stomach this season. So far, that amounts to about an hour and a half before the siren song of video games becomes too loud to ignore. Wrapping up, we trade opinions on the Maserati Coupe and the Audi A5 before touching briefly on the impending XM/Sirius merger. It's chock-full of good stuff this time around, so enjoy the 'cast! We'll try and have an enhanced version with video up for you as soon as possible.

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Though Dan Roth has traditionally written our posts covering the controversy over these suicide-laden commercials, I'm taking this one. Right now Mr. Roth is pulling his hair out and beseeching his infant child never to buy a Volkwagen from those wussy Germans. Yes, no sooner had we published Dan's post in which he praises VW for refusing to pull its "Jumper" commercial, the German giant went ahead and backed down, announcing it would pull the spot at the request of advocacy groups.

Though GM and now Volkswagen have lost Dan's respect, they are getting mad attention on the internet where these banned commercials have attracted a cult following. The GM robot suicide commercial is now widely circulated in its original form on YouTube. The VW spot, however, was quickly yanked from the video sharing site (it used to reside here). No doubt it will show up again within the next ten minutes.

[Source: The Detroit News]

Volkswagen has the spine that GM hasn't shown recently to overly touchy advocacy groups. No stranger to commercials that spark conversation, the company has no plans to pull a new commercial that shows a suicidal jumper change his mind on a ledge after learning there are now three V-dubs available under $17,000. This time it's Suicide Prevention Network USA that has lobbied Volkswagen directly to reconsider airing the commercial titled "Jumper." GM's new buddies, the American Federation for Suicide Prevention, along with the American Psychiatric Association, Mental Health America, and the National Alliance on Mental Illness have also piled on in the effort to remove any vestige of humor, personality or edge from advertising. VW should have run a spot with someone getting their teeth kicked in if they wanted to avoid controversy.

Thanks for the tip, Jay!

[Source: USA Today]

Among those sounding the gong against GM cowing to an anti-suicide group's offense at its Superbowl spot is the star of the commercial himself. The robot, who shall henceforth be referred to as Ricky, reveals a few things about the production, and how the spot plays to the robot population. It was interesting to learn that the bridge jumper was a stunt double who'd had his entrails removed prior to the leap. Certainly makes the spot seem more like a snuff film now, doesn't it? We hope the Anti Snuff Film Congress or some other group of Dudley Do-Rights will keep their traps shut and just deal with being offended for five minutes.

Basically, Ricky takes his own offense to the AFSP's offense at the spot, and expresses what we all would like to say. Lighten up for five damn minutes and let us enjoy our football game. He also points out that there's been no crying over the other spots, which could be seen as offensive to some other cabal of crusaders bent on being whiny for their cause. At least Ricky has his SAG card, so he can supplement his income during plant shutdowns. We'll keep an eye on movies that feature robots, hoping to catch a glimpse of the little yellow devil. In the meantime, we couldn't agree more when Ricky says - "this touchy-feely s*** is totally outta control in this country."

Thanks for the tip, Ed!

[Source: autoextremist]

We're not going to spend any considerable amount of time on this, since we are pretty exasperated by this whole ordeal (judging by the comments, apparently you are too).

GM has decided to "modify" their Robot ad after a complaint from the Foundation for Suicide Prevention deemed the spot unsympathetic to those who are plagued with depression. Any reference to suicide will be removed, along with the end sequence where our robotic protagonist leaps off a bridge.

The foundation has said that GM has been cooperative in the matter, which is a strong about face, considering Mark LaNeve was adamant that no changes would be made.

Sadly, the removal of "All By Myself" will not be forthcoming.

Thanks for the tip, TGM3.

[Source: Fox Sports]