Continuing with our pledge to not leave the Mitsubishi out of our reindeer games coverage of the EV and hybrid scene, consumers in Japan who have bought or expect to buy an i-MiEV will be pleased to know that soon they’ll be able to buy a box that lets them run their house’s electrical appliances from the electricity supplied by their i-MiEV.
In Bertel’s post about Toyota Prius C sales outstripping those of the Chevy Volt and Nissan Leaf, longtime reader geozinger said, concerning TTAC, “I can’t remember the last time I saw anything about the iMiev.” Let nobody say that TTAC is unresponsive to our readers. So I checked and geozinger has a point, the i-MiEV has been getting short shrift compared to the Volt and Leaf.
In Jim Boswell‘s great revisionist automotive history The CAFE Continuum, a Cadillac salesman shows off the “wonders of fin-mounted 3-D backup camera imaging”. Stereo backup cameras are still waiting for automakers to adopt autostereo (glasses free) display panels but forward-looking stereo cameras in cars are no longer the stuff of science fiction. Subaru has announced that the North American debut of their EyeSight™ driver assistance system will take place at the New York International Auto Show next month. Unlike the more common radar based ADAS (Advanced Driver Assistance System) devices, EyeSight uses algorithmic analysis of the video stream from a camera. Well, actually cameras, since the system uses parallax information from two CCD cameras mounted near the top of the windshield.
Last week in a speech at Daimler owned Freightliner truck plant, President Obama said that the new 55mpg CAFE standards will save a typical American family $8,000 a year on gasoline. That would be great news to most American drivers if it were true but the president took political science and law courses in college, not math. Or maybe his math isn’t off. (Read More…)
Lost in all the bad news from Fisker this week was the announcement that on Monday morning, the first electric sedan from CODA was driven off the company’s assembly line in Benicia, California and that the CODA car is now for sale, after considerable delay.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating the principals of a private equity firm that has raised a significant amount of the private financing for Fisker Automotive, says Crain’s Chicago Business. Though nothing on the public record has tied the investigation with Fisker, the National Legal and Policy Center, a politically right of center think tank, points out that the commission has recommended administrative proceedings “in connection with a private offering in 2009”. Advanced Equities has been raising private investment funds for Fisker since at least 2009. They established Clean Tech LLC in 2010, which is 40% invested in Fisker, and in Feb. 2011, they invested an additional $150 million in the automaker. (Read More…)
Michigan’s upcoming Republican primary has made the Bush and Obama administrations’ bailouts of General Motors and Chrysler a political football that both the Republican candidates and Pres. Obama are kicking around. The Seattle Times published an Associated Press fact-checking piece that was fairly balanced in that it pointed out that both the Republicans and Pres. Obama might be stretching the truth in their respective claims about the bailout. (Read More…)
While Department of Transportation Sec. Ray LaHood and the National Transportation Safety Board aren’t on exactly the same page when it comes to regulating drivers’ use of cellphones and other personal electronic devices it’s clear that official bureaucratic Washington has decided to control the way Americans act behind the wheel. In December, the NTSB proposed using the power of the federal purse to impel the 50 states to outlaw all cellphone and PED use, including hands-free devices, while driving. At the time Sec. LaHood said he thought that went too far, saying that he didn’t think that hands-free and other devices were necessarily a problem. LaHood did, though, recommend more study. Apparently, in the two months since LaHood made his statement enough study has been done for the DOT, through NHTSA, to release the first phase of voluntary guidelines (PDF) to auto manufacturers concerning devices that cause drivers’ distraction. The guidelines address “visual-manual” distraction, “meaning the driver looking at a device, manipulating a device-related control with the driver’s hand, and watching for visual feedback”, and they call for manufacturers to disable built-in access to social media, the Web, and text messaging while driving, as well as prohibiting any built-in devices that require drivers to use both hands or take their eyes off the road for more than two seconds.
This seems to have gone under the radar of the autoblogosphere but according to the conservative Daily Caller, (and confirmed by White House economic chief Gene Sperling) President Obama’s proposed 2013 (2012 fiscal year) federal budget will include a provision to increase the tax credit on Chevy Volts, Nissan Leafs and any other new-technology vehicles including those powered by natural gas to $10,000.The current subsidy is $7,500 per car.
As expensive as a Cadillac coupe
In How Fake Luxury Conquered The World, Jack Baruth started a productive conversation on just which cars or group of cars disrupted Alfred Sloan’s “a car for every purse and purpose” hierarchy of brands that was such an important factor in GM’s success in the 20th century. Jack believes that letting each division sell fully equipped full size cars like the Caprice, Regency and Park Avenue trim lines cheapened the Cadillac brand and blurred the lines between all GM brands. In the comment thread to Fake Luxury, some of the Best & Brightest suggested the 1965 Ford LTD’s seminal role in breaking down the lines between middle class and luxury cars. Yet others suggested the blurring of lines began in the 1950s with cars like the Buick Special, a less expensive Buick.
When Jack Baruth wrote a post about Chevy Sonics being recalled for missing brake pads, some readers thought that TTAC might be cherry picking the recall reports, perhaps because of some institutional prejudices around here. Jack pointed out that recalls are a fairly frequent thing whereas cars shipped without functioning brakes are hopefully a much rarer, and thus newsworthy occurrence. In another newsworthy event, the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform called on NHTSA, the federal agency that handles things like car and truck recalls, to explain its actions in regard to how it investigated and reported the events surrounding the reported fire in a Chevy Volt that NHTSA had crash tested and flipped over.
After years of retrenching, financial crisis and bankruptcies, the world’s automakers are now introducing new concept and production vehicles. The 2012 NAIAS in Detroit was one of the more product-rich big auto shows of the past decade. Just about every exhibitor at the show was revealing all-new vehicles or concepts giving us a look at future production plans. Cadillac’s 3 Series fighter, the ATS, Lincoln’s all new and attractive MKZ, Ford’s Aston-Martin looking Fusion and Chrysler’s Alfa Romeo based Dodge Dart were all significant new introductions by the domestics. Toyota showed concepts that will probably end up as the next Camry and Prius (plus Lexus’ stunning LF-LC concept that will most likely not see production). Mercedes introduced the first all-new SL roadster in a decade. Hyundai showed the highly anticipated Veloster Turbo. I could go down the list of exhibitors with other examples but you get the idea: lots of significant new product. However, over at the far end of Cobo Hall, tucked away upstairs in a corner of the Lincoln exhibit, was probably the most significant car of the entire show. I suppose you could call it a concept car, but it represents a concept that is larger than just the design of one individual car. It’s one of the cars that can be said to have been part of the invention of automotive styling. I think that makes it the most significant car, new or old, at the 2012 NAIAS. (Read More…)
He was served a few too many, now his police union wants to protect his job
Most of us who aren’t naive know that law enforcement officers get treated differently when it comes to traffic laws. I’m not talking about the justifiable emergency cases on duty when a cop has to speed, run a red light or otherwise violate traffic laws. In those casse the laws in all 50 of the United States specifically exempt LEOs from traffic ordinances.
It should come as no surprise to anyone that Look At What I Found! was inspired by Murilee Martin’s original Down On The Street series over at Jalopnik. For today’s installment I’ll be performing a trifecta of plagiarizing M&M’s work because we’ll be talking about not just a car I found when out and about, but about an exact model that Murilee covered in a Junkyard Find, with a side dish of Nice Price or Crack Pipe, another car blog staple that sprang, Athena-like, from the fertile mind of our own ‘Ms. Martin’. The main difference between Murilee’s find and mine is the car’s condition. Murilee’s was ready for the crusher, but this one belongs in a museum, showing only 18,000 original miles on the odometer. With a little detailing it could win a prize at a car show, maybe even a concours. That’s not much of an exaggeration. Other than the barest hint of surface rust inside one of the rear wheel wells and the door hinges, the body is flawless. No dents or dings or any sign of damage. The interior looks just about brand new. The carpet by the driver’s seat shows minor wear but the pedals are not worn at all. The kick panels on the doors look like they’ve never been kicked. Other interior panels look similarly pristine. The back seat appears to never have been occupied, certainly not by any enfant terrible scribe pitching woo at an autojourno’s wife.
Photo Credit: United States Department of Transportation
There’s a bit of a brouhaha brewing about Ford bringing about 150 “social media influencers” to Detroit and then Las Vegas for the big North American International Auto Show and the Consumer Electronics Show. While there may be some ethical issues concerning transparency and disclosure, I doubt that anyone begrudges Ford the ability to spend Ford stockholders’ money promoting Ford Motor Company and its products. Ford is acting in the fiduciary interests of those stockholders. Whether or not cabinet members and other Washington officials are acting in the fiduciary interest of taxpayers by flying to car shows is another question. (Read More…)
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