General Motors subsidiary Opel has come to terms on a severance package for workers at its Bochum factory, set to close this year as part of the company’s restructuring plan.
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A whisper in your ear
There’s a particularly notorious car doing the press rounds lately…well, was doing the rounds. If you’re feeling generous about my job title, you could say I was the last automotive journalist to have a go at the Dinan S3-R BMW 1M before the keys were handed to its permanent owner.
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Just prior to Ford’s fuel economy ratings adjustment, I returned a brand new Fusion with a 1.5L Ecoboost engine. The last car I’ve driven with 1500 cc’s worth of displacement was my grandmother’s 2000 Civic, with its D-Series, single cam engine and 4-speed automatic. You would think that such a tiny engine would help Ford’s mid-sizer deliver solid fuel economy, but the best I could do was a mere 21 mpg in mixed driving.
Google’s entry into the world of connected vehicles is in the final phases of development, but those who can’t wait to see its interface will have their chance when the system debuts at the tech company’s annual Google I/O Conference next week.
In today’s digest: General Motors issues another ignition-related recall; has fixed a handful of those affected by the original ignition recall; and unveils plans for three new compacts to be sold in emerging markets.
The New York Times is reporting that the Obama administration’s proposed transportation bill would give the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration explicit authority to regulate in-vehicle navigation aids of all types. The regulations would not just apply to built in navigation systems as the legislation would also give NHTSA authority to regulate smartphone apps when used in a vehicle. While drivers and technology companies might object, the proposals have the endorsement of the major car companies who already comply with the agency’s voluntary guidelines for factory installed nav systems that restrict driver contact with those systems.
Representatives for the tech industry say that the legislation is not workable nor enforceable. “[Regulators] don’t have enough software engineers,” said Catherine McCullough, executive director of the Intelligent Car Coalition, a technology industry trade group. “They don’t have the budget or the structure to oversee both Silicon Valley and the auto industry.” (Read More…)
…on the side of the road?
Way back in the day, I used to work as an auctioneer at Logandale Auto Auction. I used to call it, “the red light district” because every vehicle there sold under the red light, which meant AS/IS.
NEVS, the Swedish outfit that currently produces the Saab 9-3 (or is trying to, at least), is facing a major cash crunch and may not be able to make payroll or settle accounts with suppliers. But they may have a savior in Mahindra.
GM is killing off their 1500-series Savanna and Express vans, due to slow sales and regulatory concerns.
One of the many Hummers I saw in Ulaanbaatar
This is the next step in our Trans-Siberian adventure. We stay in Mongolia, and after one week in the Gobi desert, saying that getting back to the Mongolian capital Ulaanbaatar (nicknamed UB here) is a total shock is an understatement. You would assume that civilisation progressively creeps back to culminate in UB, but it’s not so. Anything outside of UB is desert steppe, and when you arrive in the city it’s like turning a huge switch on: you instantly are in traffic jams going for kilometres! I saw in 10 seconds the amount of cars it took one week to spot outside the capital…
I couldn’t go on without pausing on one of the most surprising particularities of the UB car landscape: the astounding frequency of Hummers…
If you can’t wait for the next report, you can follow my trip in real time here, or check out 174 other car markets on my blog.
Global oil prices are on the rise as the crisis in Iraq contributes to market instability. Large chunks of Iraq’s oil production infrastructure have fallen under militant control, leading to a sharp drop in output. Meanwhile, Canadian officials are upset with the Obama administration’s handling of the Keystone pipeline. They contend that the inaction on Keystone is keeping millions of barrels of Alberta crude from reaching more profitable markets.
In its criminal investigation into General Motors, U.S. Attorney Preet Bharra’s office are summoning current and former employees to come to New York for interviews regarding the automaker’s actions over the ignition switch behind the February 2014 product recall of 2.6 million vehicles.
The Subaru XT is a car you won’t see often in most parts of the country, but Denver junkyards have tremendous quantities of old Subarus and so I see them on a regular basis here. So far, this series has had this ’85 XT Turbo, this ’91 XT, this ’91 XT6, and now today’s ’87 XT. (Read More…)
This has never happened to me before. Four different women complimented me on this vehicle. I’m guessing they were somewhere between 25 and 45 years old – it’s really difficult to tell these days. They were all fit, attractive (-ish), wore fancy sunglasses, and carried equally fancy bags which complemented their outfits. They all loved this […]
Bruce writes:
Sajeev,
A couple of years ago my son bought a 2004 Saturn Ion sedan from a friend of ours. It has about 90,000 miles on the clock and ran fine…until I insisted that he bring it in and get the ignition recall done. A few weeks after the recall work was completed, he was driving on 2 lane road at about 40 miles per hour and the car competely shut down…no power steering, weak power brakes. He was glad he wasn’t going faster & he wrestled the car into a parking lot, let it sit for a while, restarted it and drove home. He called the local GM dealership and they downplayed the incident and told him to bring it in at his convenience.
Now I’m really scared for him. Any advice? (Read More…)
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