Is the US EPA fudging the way it calculates miles per gallon equivalent ratings for electric and hybrid cars, making EVs appear to be more energy efficient than they really are, increasing their consumer appeal? That’s what Lindsay Leveen, author of Hydrogen – Hope or Hype? A Primer on Energy and Sustainability, says.
I have nothing against U.S. Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood personally but the fact that a chucklehead like LaHood has a job with any kind of legal authority makes me despair for the republic.
When GM’s marketing director Joel Ewanick recently announced that the largest American automaker would not be producing or buying Super Bowl ads next year, it got some attention. The Super Bowl commercials are, well, the Super Bowl of commercials, so that attention is understandable. GM’s pullback from Facebook ads also got considerable publicity in the run up to Facebook’s IPO. Lost in all that advertising news was another announcement by Ewanick, one that may be the most important marketing news out of the RenCen lately because it demonstrates GM’s move to make Chevrolet its global brand. Last week in Shanghai, GM and the UK’s Premier League Manchester United soccer team announced a five year sponsorship deal making Chevy the team’s official automotive partner.
What motorsports we cover around here at TTAC are usually the participatory variety, the kind without corporate sponsorship (not that there’s anything wrong with that) or deep pocketed and not quite top level talent rent a riders (Baruth will tell you what’s wrong with that). Still, the Detroit Grand Prix has returned after a hiatus caused by the carpocalypse and subsequent bankruptcies and bailouts. Chevrolet has anted up for title sponsorship, and with all three domestic automakers turning a profit plus reduced unemployment in the Detroit area, there was increased demand for sponsorships and vendor space than the last time the race ran, in 2008.
What would you do? You’re taking your five year old son to feed ducks by the river and as you stop to choose a parking space, he hops out of the car and before you can do anything, your child runs towards the embankment, a 35 foot drop to the river. You’d do exactly what Frank Roder, of Winfield Park, NJ did. He jumped out of his 2006 Jeep Commander, ran to his boy and snatched him up, just a few feet from the ledge. As he was hugging his son, Aidan, the boy brought his father’s attention to the Jeep as it rolled into the Rahway River below.
Great story, no? Heroic father saves child. Here’s where it takes a turn into Alice’s looking glass. (Read More…)
It’s not that uncommon for a writer to make a mistake. You’re in the flow of the moment, tapping out stylish bon mots with just the right balance of serious and snark and it sounds right so you don’t bother to research the point and you later find out in the comments section that you made a factual error. It’s usually much more than that, but an 800 word post on a car blog is not a treatise written with graduate school levels of footnotes and citations, so mistakes get made and I’m hardly blameless in that regard. Still, sometimes you gotta call a mistake a mistake, and Jalopnik made a whopper.
It’s almost a cliche. Someone mentions the $23.5 loan package that Ford Motor Company presciently took out in 2006, a loan that allowed Ford to develop new products and survive the economic meltdown and credit crunch of 2008 while its crosstown rivals were reduced to begging Washington for a bailout, and almost invariably they will bring up the fact that Ford pawned everything including their “blue oval”. Well, Ford once again owns the famous cerulean logo free and clear. Now that Moody’s has joined Fitch Ratings in restoring the rating on Ford’s debt to investment grade from junk status, the collateral that Ford put up for the loan, which included the logo, Ford’s “glass house” headquarters, several factories, and intellectual property including the Mustang and F-150 trademarks, is no longer security on that debt, per the terms of the loan.
This morning I had the honor of naming my new *grandson at his bris. That means that I’m old enough to remember when 15 inch wheels were considered large.
The investigation into a Texas house fire that apparently started in a 2 month old Fisker Karma continues, with an EV expert weighing in with his opinion that the packaging of the combustion engine that drives the Fisker’s generator was likely the cause of the fire, the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration saying it is looking into the incident, and the car’s owner and his attorneys firing back after Fisker initially implied there might be fraud or foul play.
Car companies can go on about their “heritage”. Though we know it’s at least partly hype, some of that heritage is verifiable history and as car enthusiasts it can tug at our automotive heartstrings. Still, it’s very easy to get cynical when you see how casually companies can be with history when it comes to promoting their products.
Cyclone Power's 5th Generation Prototype Steam Engine
In my post about mercury arc rectifiers used to charge early electric vehicles, I alluded to the competition between gasoline, electricity and steam in the early days of the automobile. Reader Ryoku75 asked “What happened to steam-driven cars?” It’s my task to cover the oddball engine desk here at TTAC and we will be having a report on new engine technologies on display at the SAE World Congress soon enough once I clear some work from my day job off the to-do list, but to answer Ryoku75’s question, it just so happens that there is timely news about steam power. They weren’t at the SAE congress this year, but in recent years a startup called Cyclone Power has displayed their “Rankine Cycle heat regenerative external combustion” engine at the engineers’ convention. If Rankine Cycle heat regenerative external combustion engine is a bit of a mouthful, try “steam engine”.
You’re not likely to be able to buy John Lennon’s Rolls-Royce Phantom V limousine or Janis Joplin’s Porsche 356C cabriolet. Janis’ family isn’t selling and neither is the museum in British Columbia that owns Lennon’s Rolls. I doubt that the Kesey family would part with Further/Furthur, whether it’s restored or continues to return to the elements. Don’t despair, though, of losing your dream of owning a psychedelic artifact of rock ‘n roll history.
General Electric EV Charger Then
The annual World Congress of the Society of Automotive Engineers is often a showcase for the most trendy technologies that have buzz in the auto industry. Judging by the number of new engine designs shown in the display area, it’s clear that internal combustion is far from dead.
The Society of Automotive Engineers World Congress held in Detroit every April serves a number of functions for the automotive engineers’ professional association.
It’s impossible for a government to do anything with a market, for example, regulate, tax or subsidize, without distorting that market. Whether or not those distortions are necessary is a matter of public policy debate, but they’re a fact of life. Another fact of life is that if you make your business plan dependent on governmental policies, subject to the ebb and flow of politics in democracies, you may find your enterprise becoming a controversial topic of political debate. That can hardly be good for business. That may explain why Coda has withdrawn their request for $334 million in Department of Energy loans. It also pretty much describes Fisker’s current situation as a political football.
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