We’ve known that the Cadillac Escalade was America’s most-stolen vehicle, but we never asked why. The answer: GM didn’t put steering locks on a number of Escalade and other GMT9000 Ute model years, and shifters on these models are easily pushed out of “Park.” These weaknesses (and their ineffective fixes) allow thieves to push Tahoes, Denalis and Escalades to a safe spot where parts stripping can be done in a matter of minutes. And as the report details, Onstar is rarely effective at stopping quick snatch-and-strip-style thefts, because the damage is typically already done by the time vehicles are reported stolen. Hats off to WXYZ TV for looking past the statistics and finding the truth behind the Escaladae’s stealability. GM is reportedly working on a new steering column replacement for these vehicles.

Since we’ve already irritated Saabistas by posting a comparison of the Nissan Juke to the 96, we might as well just come out and say it: Saab is one sick puppy. Third quarter results are out for the Dutch-Swedish automaker, and they’re not good: the firm has lost $70m on an operating basis last quarter, and has burnt through $160m in the the first nine months of 2010 [full results in PDF here]. Wholesale and retail sales in the first three quarters were down by 10 percent and 45 percent respectively compared to the first nine months of 2009, and Saab has cut its 2010 sales projections from 45,000 units to 30,000 units, or half of the 60k projection Saab started 2010 with. Improbably, the company still believes it will sell 80,000 Saabs next year, and 120,000 in 2012. And though Saab-Spyker has a negative equity of about $234m, the company says it does not need to recapitalize. In other words, comparisons to the Nissan Juke are the very least of Saab’s worries.

TTAC commenter esager writes in:

I have a dilemma that may interest our readership (yes, I feel a sense of ownership after being a daily reader for 3-4 years now).

A few years back, my wife and I bought a nice 2007 CPO 328i that was formerly used as a customer service loaner car for the one of our Seattle area BMW dealerships. We really enjoy its performance and sophistication and are happy with the car for the most part, save for the various and sundry trips to the dealership to fix a few warranty items – more trips than I think should be necessary, though not truly excessive. She drove it to work every day and was glad to have it. It’s under CPO warranty coverage for 2 more years.

Earlier this year, a note I left on the windshield of a 1991 318is (the one year E30 model with the M42 engine) allowed me to purchase said car from a co-worker as a daily driver and fixer. I got it for very cheap and have been dutifully cleaning, updating (oil pan gaskets, rear shock mounts, hydraulic timing chain tensioner, differential output shaft seal replacement, etc, etc), and generally enjoying the heck out of it. Lower control arms, ball joints etc. are in the future for this car.

(Read More…)

GE plans on having half of its 45,000 employees driving electric vehicles as part of a $10b investment in clean technology over the next five years, and it’s kicking off the effort with an order of “tens of thousands” of EVs according to Bloomberg. Making the announcement at an event sponsored by the University of Cambridge’s Programme for Sustainability Leadership, GE CEO Jeffery Immelt told attendees

Now is exactly the time, because it’s less popular, where we have to invest more. We have to do it more courageously. And we’re going to have to go forward for a while without government at our backs

Experts call the buy the largest EV purchase in history, and say they expect the order to be filled by several companies. But, as a partner of Nissan-Renault ally Project Better Place, we expect the majority of GE’s order to be filled with the first mass-market pure EV, the Nissan Leaf. Much ink has been spilled over the long-term viability of electric vehicles on the consumer market, but little attention has been paid to corporations as a driver of EV sales. It’s possible that GE could be the first of a PR-driven corporate push to bring EVs into wider acceptance.

Bloomberg reports that a lawsuit accuses Toyota of a widespread coverup of unintended acceleration in its vehicles. The suit alleges that

“Toyota technicians” confirmed that vehicles were unexpectedly accelerating and the company bought back the vehicles, had customers sign confidentiality agreements and didn’t disclose the problems to regulators… In testimony about acceleration defects before Congress, Toyota Motor Corp. didn’t disclose that the technicians had replicated instances of sudden unintended acceleration not caused by pedals or mats… The company also didn’t report the customer agreements to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration… Toyota ordered employees to remove names of executives from acceleration related e-mails and to stop using specific acceleration terms in e-mails to prevent damage to the company in litigation

Toyota’s response:

Steven Curtis, a spokesman for Toyota’s U.S. sales arm in Torrance, California, said today in an e-mail that no technicians for the company or field specialists confirmed unintended acceleration in vehicles. He said the plaintiffs’ lawyers are referring to service technicians employed by dealerships, which are independent businesses… the claims are based on anecdotes and fail to identify any specific defects in the vehicles.

Plaintiffs claim that dealer techs are “agents of the company” and that vehicle repurchases and confidentiality agreements are proof positive of a coverup. Toyota admits that it investigated and repurchased two vehicles after dealer techs found “acceleration events,” but says its factory technicians were unable to replicate any problems. If this sounds like a complicated mess of he-said-she-said, consider that this suit is just one of 300 currently pending against the world’s largest automaker. The lawyers will probably be busy with this one for decades.

We’ve hosted our fair share of diesel skepticism over the years here at TTAC, but the latest data on diesel take rates indicate that oil-burners are more popular than you might think. Dieseldriver.com broke down sales of every passenger vehicle with a diesel option, and found an overall take rate of 32 percent over the first three quarters of 2010, and trending upwards. In the third quarter, over half of the two Audis with diesel drivetrains optional were ordered as oil burners, and the vast majority of Jetta Sportwagons sold are diesel-powered. And no wonder. Modern diesel engines can be glorious things, offering gobs of torque, shocking levels of refinement and great fuel economy. Diesel prices may have climbed somewhat in the last year or so (it’s no longer cheaper than gas), but they’re close enough to make diesel a real option. Well, at least for buyers of German cars.

Former Audi stylist and Kia chief designer Peter Schreyer may be on a tear right now, giving Kia some of the sharpest shapes in the mainstream market, but when it came to the old Sedona, Schreyer clearly didn’t put in a ton of effort. As Examiner.com‘s Brady Holt points out, the 2011 Sedona minivan’s “restyle” was so simple, Kia didn’t even need to take new press shots.  Instead they just photoshopped the new corporate grille and some side-mirror turn indicators onto the previous year’s press photos, and called it good. Weak sauce, guys.

Albemarle County, Virginia plans this week to install its first red light camera system, ostensibly to reduce accidents caused by red light running. County documents show that at one of the two intersection approaches selected, there has not been a single accident caused by red light running in the past three years.

The county applied to the Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) earlier this year for permission to allow Redflex Traffic Systems of Australia to install and operate a pair of cameras at the intersection of US 29 and Rio Road. The east bound approach at Rio Road had no reported angle collisions caused by red light running violations between 2006 and 2009, according to county records. The other monitored approach, US 29 southbound, did have related crashes. The annual crash total for the type of accidents that the photo enforcement system might address is 1.8 per year. (Read More…)

Whether you are as “infatuated” with the Nissan Juke as Diego Rodriguez of Metacool or not, you have to admit the guy has found an unlikely yet apt comparison for the saucy Nissan. The Saab faithful might be a bit taken aback by the comparison, but the Juke’s wacky look is probably closer to the spirit of the 96 than Saab’s latest design “effort.” Still, put an updated 96 body on the Juke’s platform, and you’d quickly have this Saab skeptic’s attention. Surf on over for the full comparison. [Hat Tip: Michael Banovsky]

Everyone knows that buying a Bugatti Veyron has a lot more to do with projecting “because I can” status than with the car’s actual abilities. After all, there is no shortage of supercars available for a fraction of the Veyron’s $1m+ pricetag that offer more capability than anyone would ever be able to actually use on the road. Rather, the point of a car like the Veyron is purely symbolic: as the fastest, most technologically complex production car on the market, it speaks to the superlative nature of its owner. And as rolling proof that you can drop a cool mil anytime you want, and still be able to afford the Veyron’s private jet-level maintenance costs, nothing beats a Bugatti. Unless, of course, you buy your Veyron in India. Automotive News [sub] reports that, thanks to India’s 110 percent import tax, a newly-available Bugatti Gran Sport will cost plutocrats of the subcontinent a hefty $3.6m. And, the problem of driving one on Indian roads aside,  it’s not as ridiculous a proposition as you might think. According to the report

In a former life, I had worked a bit with J.D. Power. I knew them intimately. We had our issues. This is one of the few times I wholeheartedly agree with them. “Future global market demand for hybrid and battery electric vehicles may be over-hyped” is the conclusion of a new J.D.Power study, titled “Drive Green 2020: More Hope than Reality.” (Read More…)

Mention the word Tempo to a German car nut, and something very different than the Ford Tempo will likely come to mind. It’s easy to forget that in the fifties, much of Germany was in a very different state of development. And the Tempo played a role of motorizing the lowest level of transport still used by small farmers, tradesmen and business owners: the horse and wagon. With between 10 and 15 hp on tap, it was faster than the one horsepower wagon. But why would Tempo take one to the Avus high speed track to set a world endurance speed record? I guess it’s all in the name. (Read More…)

China’s going nutty over the next-generation of Buick GL8 minivans, which recently strutted its Buick Business Concept-derived styling in downtown Shanghai. We’ve heard rumors of a Buick MPV coming stateside for some time, with each successive rumor placing the “Baby Enclave” on a different platform, first Delta then Gamma. Though the latest intel seems to indicate that the US will get a Buick-badged version of the suicide-doored Opel Meriva, wouldn’t an Epsilon-based full minivan be a more natural fit for the US market? Sure, it might cannibalize the Enclave some, but that hasn’t stopped Buick from offering no fewer than three mid-sized sedans. Could Buick be the next brand to re-hip the minivan? Should it be?

News that the government will sell only $6b-$8b worth of its GM equity has been joined by an even more surprising GM IPO announcement: GM will buy the Treasury’s entire $2.1b holding of preferred stock in the initial offering. GM has not announced how much it will pay for the stake, and the Detroit News reports that it’s not yet clear if GM will also buy some $400m in preferred stock held by the Canadian and Ontario governments. We’re also getting word via Twitter that GM will put $4b in cash and $2b worth of its stock into its overdrawn UAW pension fund, as well as making a $2.8b payment to the UAW VEBA account. With a $5b line of credit secured, GM says these and other steps will reduce its debt by $11b over an unspecified timeline. And speaking to Reuters, GM CEO Dan Akerson made it clear what the point of these moves are:

It’s up to people like you and me, the burden we share, that we deliver on the promise and return the investment to the American taxpayers. We are going to do our level best to make that happen, and we will only do that by expanding our industrial base and entering new markets and being a better competitor.

Of course, we’ll have to see what value The General places on the preferred stock to know how seriously Akerson should be taken. After all, talk is cheap and money isn’t. [UPDATE: It appears that GM will buy the preferred stock for $25.50 each, essentially giving the Government its book value of $2.14b]