WTLV reports that Georgia state inspectors discovered that all three gas stations at the Camden County Cisco Travel Plazas (off of I-95) have been shortchanging their customers for the last eight years. A superior court judge ordered an attorney (yes, a lawyer) to take over the stations' management and seize any profits. District Attorney Stephen Kelley says the dramatic steps were taken "without warning- so no one could spend it away or hide it." While Kelley admits that "juries might have to decide who's innocent and who's not," he points out that one of the former station owners has a history of rolling back odometers. Another former owner, yet to be located, "missed a court appearance in Missouri this week." If the state finds that the stations cheated customers, Kelley hopes the seized assets can be converted into "massive" refunds. And if not?

I forgot to upload the podcast. Sorry Justin. In my own defense, I never thought TTAC's blog would take off like this. When we started, it was just Frank and me and sometimes Glenn. We struggled to make ten posts a day. Now we're nearasdammit outblogging the other guys, via regular snarks from Jonny, eco-actualities from Donal, new car buzz from Justin and occasional shots from Samir, William C and Sajeev. Oh, and Edward Niedermeyer, who's a friggin' blogging machine (and the only writer I know who has more snidely whiplash than me). And like the good brand that we are, TTAC has grown organically in this, dare I say it, comms post. For the first time in this history of the world (ever) we crested 600k unique visitors (that's you) per month, ascending to 1.8m page views. Equally heartening, we're e-fly paper; visitors hang around the site for an average for 4:16. The ad guys are talking about a demographic survey, and that's great– given that we haven't heard hide nor hair of them in the last six months. Anyway and meanwhile, I promise you more of the same. Fair enough?

When Plastech hit the skids and began its tussle with Chrysler for the tools that make the plastic parts for the cars ChryCo can't sell to the general public, Ford and GM made all kinds of soothing noises about their Plastech parts supply. Reuters reports that The General filed papers in U.S. Bankruptcy Court yesterday (Tuesday) to recover its tools from the embattled supplier. Ignoring/cognizant of the fact that 29 of its plants have been idled by a strike at American Axle, GM claimed "Any other course would constitute reckless endangerment of GM's production lines and those that rely on them." Given that the judge has denied Chrysler access to its tools, GM's petition doesn't stand a hope in Hell of satisfaction. No comment so far from either the Court or Plastech, which is busy trying to raise $14m to maintain operations through April Fool's Day (I kid you not). Under a court-approved bankruptcy agreement that expires tomorrow (Thursday), Plastech may borrow up to $35.1m. Yes, well, Plastech been "unable to complete long-term debtor-in-possession financing." Meanwhile, back in February, Ford told Reuters their supply of Plastech parts was cool. We shall see…

Just-auto [JA, sub] had a little chin-wag with Larry Burns, The General's Vice President of R&D and Planning. The man in charge of bringing Chevrolet's gas – electric hybrid Volt to market told JA that GM's plug-in Hail Mary will be in short supply when it hits the (a?) showroom. "We're not going to sell it in every city and we're not going to sell it though every Chevrolet dealership," Burns said. "It just doesn't make sense to do that yet. You'd have to set up the service parts in all of those dealerships and train all of those dealers to service the vehicles. We might concentrate it in five or ten cities and say that is where we want to start." Or they may not, for the simple reason that the Volt might not be ready by 2010. "When asked by just-auto if GM's timelines for any kind of launch in 2010, even a restricted one, are still realistic given that the company has only recently taken delivery of the first batteries for testing, Burns admitted: 'It's a challenge. I'm not going to mislead anybody about that but I'm proud that we've signed up to that challenge.'" So I guess GM Car Czar Bob Lutz is still in charge of the misleading part of the program. Hey Bob, here comes the Easter Bunny! 

Reuters reports that United Auto Workers Veep General (no relation) Holifield predicts that Chrysler's employee buyout program will fall short of its 10k goal. That said, Holifield reckons the union will have a better picture of how many employees will take the offer "in a few weeks." Meanwhile, surprise! He suggested management should improve the buyout terms if it wants to make the 10k buyout goal laid out in its turnaround plan. Holifield did not indicate just how stupid employees would feel if they took a buyout now, only to have the offer improve later. The union boss did reveal that the union is in talks with Chrysler in an attempt to keep the company's Durango/Aspen SUV plant in Newark, DE open. "As long as that plant's running, there is hope. We never say die." Hey, isn't that the New Chrysler motto?

In an interview with Auto Motor und Sport, GM Car Czar Bob Lutz said proposed California tailpipe regulations are "an absolute mistake" that would be "impossible to meet." And yet, Maximum Bob predicted that The Golden State is likely to win the court battle over the stricter standards. "The judges aren't scientists," Lutz said. Maximum Bob warned that diesels would not be an easy route to clean air compliance. "We can currently meet 50-state Bin 5 standards, which is six times stricter than the Euro 5 norms, with our existing particulate-catalyzing systems. But these new California standards are not achievable in my opinion." GM's Veep of Global Product Development said that high diesel fuel prices and the $2k premium for oil burning engines made diesel-powered passenger cars unpalatable to American consumers. In other words, diesels and California regulations are a crock of shit. 

According to the National Post. the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 restricts Americans from importing alternative fuels if making them generates more greenhouse gases than conventional refining. That would certainly seem to apply to fuel from Alberta's tar sands (a.k.a. "oil sands"). To make the change to petroleum, the Canadian bitumen must be mechanically mined, then intensely heated. Yes, well, Canadian Ambassador Michael Wilson (currently blamed for the NAFTA leaks in the Obama-Clinton race) argues that the Act shouldn't include Alberta's million barrels a day output. In a letter to US officials, Mr. Wilson warned that compromising the tar sands– a key supply of oil to U.S. naval fleets– might have "unintended consequences" for both countries. Meanwhile, after five days of record oil prices, gas prices have risen to $5.20 a gallon in California and even £5 a gallon (110.9p per litre) on UK motorways.

Iconoclasts that we are, we love it when people experiment with automotive irony. Case in point: LHT Performance's K20a Insight. The Floridian tuners (tunas?) stripped a red Honda Insight of its earth-friendly gas – electric innards and dropped in a Civic Type-R K20A engine. We're talking over 200 horses mated to a six-speed tranny. (How kinky does that sound?) The resulting car "goes like a rocket" and still gets 48mpg. The K20a is no stripped-out street racer. You got your power steering, AC, ABS, and an uprated suspension and frame. While building what could be the ultimate sleeper, LHT has raised (however unwittingly) an important eco-point. While automakers spend billions in a technological arms race to develop ever more complex drivetrains, these guys have proven that simple, small, aerodynamically efficient cars can be fun, fast and frugal. Who knew?

Welcome to a new TTAC feature: Ask the Best and Brightest (ATBB). On an irregular, yet-to-be-determined basis, we'll post an auto-related question from a reader. You answer it. Yes (Jonny), it's a bit like Question of the Day– only a lot less philosophical. Yes (Frank), it starts with an email to frank.williams@thetruthaboutcars.com with the letters ATBB in the subject bar. Yes (y'all), we're asking you to share your hard-won automotive expertise for our financial gain. (As I told our writers back when I paid them $10 a pop, the pay sucks but the glory is infinite.) And yes, this is a stopgap measure while we wait– Camaro buyer-like– for the TTAC forums to magically appear. So… this whole deal with slowrideR's idea. And he wants your opinion. What's the best car for commuting: a 2004 Audi A4, a 2004 Infiniti G35 or a 2005 Cadillac CTS? 

Thanks to slightly rising sales in the U.S. (3.8 percent in 2007), a big gain in China (24.8 percent) and ongoing European success, the boys from Ingolstadt are rolling in the dough. Lamborghini– which the Volkswagen Group counts as an Audi brand (worryingly enough)– enjoyed a 15 percent rise in sales of hugely expensive sports cars. The bottom line: Audi banked a whopping $2.6b in profit in '07. That's a 26 percent jump over 2006. Audi is shooting for over a million car sales worldwide in 2008. Considering the fact that Audi sold about 954k units in 2007, it's doable. In fact, just think where they'd be if they built reliable products…

Jack Gillis reckons the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's (NHTSA) crash test ratings are misleading. "It's impossible for car buyers to separate the truly good performers from those at the bottom of the list," asserts the Director of Public Affairs for the Consumer Federation of America (CFA). Gillis points out that nearly every new vehicle sold in the U.S.– some 96 percent of them– are blessed with a four or five star NHTSA front crash rating. His Car Book provides a guide to the non-invidious distinctions between models, and our podcast clarifies Gillis' call for new testing standards. Meanwhile, here's the best/worst from the CFA's safety list, which combines front and side NHTSA ratings for an overall ranking. 

Category/Best/Worst

Subcompact/Hyundai Accent/Toyota Yaris
Compact/Chevrolet HHR/Chrysler PT Cruiser
Intermediate/Toyota Avalon/Pontiac Grand Prix
Large/Acura RL/Cadillac DTS
Minivan/Kia Sedona/Kia Rondo
Small SUV/Jeep Liberyty/Jeep Compass
Midsize SUV/Volvo XC90/Cadillac SRX
Large SUV/Chevrolet Tahoe/Chevrolet Trailblazer

If you're here, we'll just go and assume you love cars. Of course, there's that 0.5% of TTAC readers that hates cars. We know you hate Howard Stern, too. And your Sirius bill is late. But seriously, why? Why do over 20k of you come here every day to read the rantings and ravings of a bunch of OCD cases (sorry Robert) borderline personalities (sorry Justin) ripping the guts out of a handful of global corporations? Oh wait, that does sound like fun. But, you loved cars before TTAC, so why? Yesterday we learned that not only is the Vatican (essentially) calling driving a sin, but that scientists are telling us we have to reduce carbon output to zero. That's getting it from both ends as my old man used to say. And another thing: bio-deisel kills fish. Tadpoles, too. And why do we care about the middle east again? Oh yeah, oil. My point? There's a lot of negatives to this car thing. How do you justify your love? Or do you?

Remember long ago (yesterday) when we talked about how the Chevy was doing the Camaro a disservice by cataloging every step of the development process? Well, one day after we see pictures of what looks like a finished car, they've just extended that process. WardsDealer.com reports that the Camaro will be released in the Spring of 2009 as a 2010 model. At that point, gas will probably be seven bucks a gallon. Again, it's not that the development cycle is taking forever; it's that GM is making it seem that way. Especially with the mechanically-related Pontiac G8 going on sale imminently. What's the explanation? "The auto maker ruled out an earlier arrival in calendar 2009, because it would have meant a short model run before changeover to '10 production." Delay sales of a hot car because you're worried about changing the number on the brochures? But don't worry. When gas is $9/gallon in the Spring of 2009, and Dodge has been selling Challengers for a year already, Chevy expects to sell 100k Camaros per annum.

Current federal regulations require that car and truck roofs support 1.5 times their vehicle's weight. According to The Detroit Free Press, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) is recommending that this standard be upgraded to 2.5 times the vehicle's weight on the driver's side. The industry-sponsored safety campaigners released a study concluding that the strongest existing SUV roofs reduce the risk of injury by 39 to 57 percent. The Chevy Blazer fared the worst in their roof crush test, while Nissan's X-Terra, Jeep's Liberty and third-gen Ford Explorers scored the highest. (Both the Explorer and the Grand Cherokee showed significant improvement in newer models vs. previous generations.) The new study does not deal with the impact of seat belt use (or lack thereof)– judged by "real world" analysis to have greater impact on rollover deaths than roof strength. Also, as TTAC's Bob Elton pointed out back in '06, reinforcing SUV roofs would raise the vehicle's center of gravity, potentially increasing the likelihood of a rollover. Although the IIHS called for active handling for all SUVs, the laws of physics cannot be ignored– or revoked.

Thomson Financial [via Forbes] reports that BMW CEO Norbert Reithofer has raised the specter of an all-electric Bimmer (Beemer?) for the U.S. market by 2012. Reithofer may be yanking our schnitzels; he says production of the theoretical EV could be outsourced to a "major US automaker." Raising the weirdness stakes even further, Reithofer asserts that "BMW will be considered a so-called large vehicle manufacturer in the US from 2012, [obliging them] to offer an ecologically compatible car." The prospect of an eco-friendly BMW with outsourced production reminds us more than a bit of the Isetta. Does this mean that the Bavarian bubblecar will make a revamped comeback a la MINI? We're not sure, but an Avarvarii photochop would certainly be a giggle.