As many of you know by now, the Valukas report on GM’s handling of the ignition switch depicts a fat, complex organization that is deeply broken. A company with so many incompetent cogs, it is incapable of coordinating a surprise birthday party let alone a conspiracy. And that’s the most alarming part of the report – that none of the employees appear to have acted in malice or colluded to save money or protect the brand. Instead the report paints a picture of apathetic, lazy employees and an even more careless litany of incoherent processes in the mission to detect and address vehicle safety defects.

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Earlier this week Representative Dave Camp (R-MI), Chairman of the House Committee on Ways and Means, released the Tax Reform Act of 2014. This proposal would make sweeping changes to a very long and complex U.S. tax code. Included in the proposal was a provision to repeal the tax credit for new qualified plug-in electric drive motor vehicles, known as Internal Revenue Code Section 30D or IRC 30D. Or as most of us know it “the $7,500 EV credit.”

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Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL) took to the House floor last night to speak on behalf of her recently-introduced resolution, House Resolution 488, a resolution “supporting the people of Venezuela as they protest peacefully for democratic change and calling to end the violence”.

Following her was Representative Steve King, a Republican from Iowa. In his monologue to democracy the congressman brought up a (legal) trip he took to Cuba where he got to ride in one of Cuba’s finest taxis – a 1954 Chevrolet powered by “a Russian diesel engine”, the driver of which who also happend to be a doctor. Such communism. Very Russian. Much oppressed. Below is a clip from his speech compliments of CSPAN’s awesome Create Clip Option.
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BMW has announced and Audi hinted at (via trademark filings) brand-owned car sharing services. But if luxury automakers get serious about the game of car sharing Daimler is poised to win and here’s how.
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As I bent down to get a better look at the FT-1’s rear three-quarter, I could see the Scion display in the background, far away and slightly out of focus-an ironic metaphor for a brand that had nothing new on display at the show. Their product line, aside from the FR-S, was aging and seemed to lack any of the real quirkiness the brand had when it was launched.

This got me thinking – what exactly was the point of Scion today? (Read More…)

While the rest of the 5,200+ media-pass holders bounced from one laser light show to another, I and Raphael Orlove ( of Jalopnik) ventured north to cover a very different automotive event. There would be no makeup counter girls, no automaker swag and the coffee came from a vending machines not Italian espresso machine. We were headed to an automotive regulatory meeting that was scheduled to take place at the same time as the Acura reveal.

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Please welcome Juan Barnett to TTAC.

While sitting in a Mossy Oak Ram, a very-real and very-camouflaged version of Ram’s 1500, I watched the all-new Chrysler 200 roll on to the stage in Detroit. After crowning the 200 as Chrysler’s flagship sedan (Sorry 300!) in his speech, the Chrysler executive went on to tell the crowd that they were likely familiar with the 200’s platform, because of cars like the Alfa Romeo Giulietta.

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