Lawmakers in Indiana, swayed by the potential budget enhancement that recently convinced California’s governor, have introduced legislation that would authorize photo ticketing in the state. House Minority Floor Leader Bill Friend (R-Macy) and state Representative Shelli VanDenburgh (D-Crown Point) last week filed House Bill 1289 to create a so-called work zone freeway speed camera program.
“Revenues for the new fiscal year are way down,” Friend wrote on the day he introduced HB 1289. “Since July 1, 2009, the state is $500 million short of projections.”
Last night, our U.K. correspondent Cammy Corrigan reported that Toyota is seriously in trouble in Europe. The findings were based on a report in just-auto.com that carried the news that in Europe, sales of Toyota branded vehicles had dropped 20 percent in 2009, while Lexus branded vehicles dropped 40 percent.
Alarming news.
Just a few days ago, Bloomberg reported: “Bayerische Motoren Werke AG and Daimler AG, the world’s top luxury-car makers, fell behind Toyota Motor Corp. in European deliveries in 2009 as government incentives failed to boost demand for their vehicles. BMW and Daimler, the maker of Mercedes-Benz, dropped to eighth and ninth place in Europe, while Toyota, including the Lexus brand, rose to seventh, according to figures released today by the Brussels-based European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association.” Eh? Or more polite: Mou ichido ossyatte kudasai. Excuse me? Say what? (Read More…)
The Standard Of The World meets cold reality, as the prominent Detroit-area Cadillac dealer, Dalgleish Cadillac, calls it a night. The Detroit News, which eulogizes the dealership “with bitterness, hope and history bound together,” reports that the Dalgleish Cadillac building will become a high-tech business incubator run by Wayne State University’s Tech Town.
Grand news for owners of 1999 model year and later Pontiacs! Buick-GMC GM Brian Sweeney tells Automotive News [sub] that “one of our most important tasks is keeping [Pontiac owners] in the database and keeping them as service customers until such a time that the Buick portfolio has developed fully.” The plan: send owners of 1999 model-year and later Pontiacs coupons for free tire rotations and oil changes. GM sales boss Susan Docherty has spoken about the importance of these “free agents,” or GM buyers orphaned by the cutting of their brands. As well she should: it’s more cost effective for any business to keep existing buyers than win over new ones. But is it free oil change easy? If GM thinks it can make Buick believers out of the jilted Pontiac faithful, what does it say about the cynicism with which it approaches branding? Once again, GM’s need to build lost Pontiac volume for the Buick-GMC dealer net leads to the willful suspension of common sense.
Well, its been raining a lot, so its time to move inside. Anyway, you guys keep nailing the outdoor clues so maybe this will slow you down a bit. Probably not. You certainly didn’t waste any time fixing the make and model of the Chevy pickup, and Jimal led the parade. Congratulations and good luck.
[Editor’s Note: The following was originally printed 13 years ago in the Corvallis Gazette-Times. It was written by Alexander “Sasha” Volokh of the highly excellent Volokh Conspiracy blog. We hope you enjoy it as much as we did.]
The private car is unpopular these days. When it isn’t blamed for congestion, it’s blamed for pollution. And, invariably, the proposed solutions are restrictions on driving, increased taxes for public transit and other punitive programs or regulations.
But the trouble with seeing driving as the enemy is that it’s too easy to lose sight of its benefits.
If the stereotypical driver of a red Grand Am is a blond beautician who lives in a trailer with an unemployed boyfriend sporting a mullet, what is the stereotypical profession of the drivers of Sunfire and Cavalier coupes? Hint: what’s that behind the fence? (Read More…)
Despite what you think of Toyota, it’s a company you should respect. They brought reliability to cars when others couldn’t. They popularised lean manufacturing techniques that others are still trying to copy. And they introduced green technologies at a time when petrol was cheap and still made a success of it. In short, when Toyota put their mind to it, they can make a good success of just about anything… except for the European market. For some reason, Toyota cannot make in-roads in the European sales no matter how hard they try, and the latest set of data suggests that that trend is continuing. (Read More…)
Smart’s new President, former Saturn overseer/undertaker Jill Lajdziak, knows how the dying brand thing works. With Smart sales down a (barely) Chrysler-beating 41 percent on the year, the Penske-owned Smart USA is teaming up with Daimler Financial Services (Smart vehicles are produced by Daimler in Europe) for a good-old captive lease deal right out the old GM playbook. According to Automotive News [sub], Smart is offering
a 36-month lease for $169 a month, $999 down, a $595 acquisition fee and the first month’s payment due at the time of the lease.
That’s a lot more realistic than the the old deal they were offering ($3k down, $200/month) but we’re still talking about a 10k miles-per-year lease. On a car makes a Yaris seem luxurious, overpowered and confidence-inspiring. Incidentally, were you aware that the Smart ForTwo was first introduced way back in 1998? The more you know!
With the economy desperately looking for signs that a bottom has been reached, news that Fisker has raised $115m in new funding might indicate that (if nothing else) the money markets are back to their good old speculative selves. At least it might if there weren’t so many darn extenuating circumstances. On the one hand, Fisker seems like the kind of business that has little business attracting much, well, business. Its $90k+ Karma brings little more to the table than some competition for Tesla in the EV-glamor-bauble segment, and like Tesla it’s trying to leverage its first model into ever cheaper, higher-volume vehicles. So why are VC firms giving Fisker the time of day?
The eighties were the decade when GM destroyed itself. There were some memorable screw-ups in the seventies, but merely warm-ups to GM’s main act of self-mutilation, when it managed its biggest market share drop ever. There’s enough fodder in that horrible decade to keep our GMDS series going for way too long. But perhaps the saddest story is the new-for ’82 Camaro, because it promised so much, and yet couldn’t escape the death rattle that permeated GM. And I mean rattle in the most literal sense. (Read More…)
They’re still going to be saying they drive a Dodge Ram. We’re just going to be marketing it as a Ram without ‘Dodge’ in front. Once you explain to the consumer what you’re doing and why, they get it
Or not. Whatever. Ram trucks will continue to have Dodge VINs and will carry references to Dodge “somewhere” Diaz tells Automotive News [sub]. But don’t worry. According to Diaz, the Chrysler Group is “devising a plan that will give compelling missions for each brand.” You know, just in case things are still a little confusing.
The dominant Japanese car companies remain uncomfortable with their nationality, doing their best to seem somehow American lest they provoke a political backlash. Even as unabashedly Japanese products have become prevalent in the intertwined worlds of TV, gaming, and toys, I cannot recall a car with so much as a Japanese name prior to Suzuki’s […]
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