Volkswagen’s chief in China says they’re probably not retaking the crown from General Motors there anytime soon.
That, Apple’s lead car guy is gone, Takata’s in trouble and more … after the break!
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General Motors quietly redirected its Fastlane Blog back to the mothership in December, signaling an end to the direct-to-C-suite “conversations” you could have with automotive executives.
The blog, which once hosted Maximum Bob’s musings on life, design and resign, was held up as a paragon for corporate communication in its day (it won a Webby) and provided fodder for this site.
I realize for many of you the lunch hour is probably over by now, but there’s enough time before the end of the afternoon to read, digest and regurgitate repeatedly over Atlanta magazine’s epic telling of one family’s lawsuit against General Motors for their faulty ignition switches.
Seriously, it’s great. Go read it. Take a sandwich or something.
I’ll cover for you at work, no prob. Read More >
Investors aren’t necessarily drinking automakers’ Kool-Aid that 2016 will be full of beer and Skittles.
That, the China-made Cadillac CT6 that’ll eventually get here, El Chapo’s cheapo getaway car and General Motors’ questions get down and dirty … after the break!
Officials from Volkswagen and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency met Wednesday for the first time to discuss the growing rift between the automaker and regulators on how to fix the automaker’s illegally polluting cars. An EPA spokeswoman issued the following statement:
“We appreciated the conversation with Volkswagen. We will continue to work toward a solution.”
Which, I know: It’s technically longer than a haiku, but 14 words still doesn’t say a lot — and yet it says so much. Read More >
Started in New York City in 1967 as an offshoot of the Chicago Music Show, the Consumer Electronics Show has grown to capture the interest and intrigue of automakers. Las Vegas now has two auto shows.
That, Volkswagen’s unending stream of German-accented apologies, why Ford might not be hitching itself to Google and how you can become an automotive journalist* … after the break!
Man, people are really pumped about the cool, expensive cars they just bought.
That nugget of wisdom, Russia’s perpetual Cash for Clunkers program, VW’s appeal to Colorado and Washington buyers and GM’s knows what way the wind is blowing now … after the break! Read More >
The New York Times reported that federal regulators have received about 150 complaints over four years about power steering failures in the 2012 model year Ford Focus, including 124 crashes with injuries, with no recourse. One crash reportedly killed an 89-year-old New Jersey woman, although federal investigators concluded, “a steering failure is most likely not implicated,” according to the New York Times.
Despite the widespread reports by owners and the manufacturer, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration hasn’t asked Ford to recall the car. Ford has issued two service bulletins to dealers to inform consumers that the electric-assisted steering could lose power on startup and “wander” at highway speeds.
Safety authorities told the New York Times that its investigations revealed that in most of the crashes the fault was with the steering wheel and not necessarily the power steering.
Three hybrid powertrains and three performance powertrains bookended Wards Auto’s top 10 engines, which was released last week.
The list included repeat winners such as the Ram 1500 Ecodiesel 3-liter six, Subaru’s turbo flat-four and Nissan’s veteran VQ 3.5-liter V-6. Appearing for the first time was BMW’s replacement for its N55 turbocharged, 3-liter straight six as well as General Motor’s LGX V-6 — which appears in several Cadillac models and in the new Chevrolet Camaro — with cylinder deactivation.
Volvo’s twin-charged 2-liter four and Ford’s famous flat-plane crank V-8 from the Shelby GT350 made the list for the first time in 2016. Volkswagen’s engines were excluded from consideration this year because of the company’s admission that its diesel engine cheated through emissions tests.
My German begins and ends with “nein” but I don’t need to know much to see what’s going on in this video.
According to the New York Times, sentiment in Germany is starting to build that American regulators are being unfairly harsh with Volkswagen in an effort to bolster domestic manufacturers such as Ford, General Motors and Ram.
The Environmental Protection Agency notified Volkswagen in September that its cars used an illegal “defeat device” to skirt emissions laws. Since then, the automaker has been caught up in an international scandal that has cost the automaker billions and damaged the reputation for Germany’s largest exporter.
If you ever wondered whether you could transport a donkey in the back of a Ford Crown Victoria, the Norman Police Department have your answer.
Norman, Oklahoma police Officer Kyle Canaan happened upon a miniature donkey wandering around the 8100 block of of 120th Avenue NE on the morning of December 1, following up on a report from a woman who called in the sighting, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution says.
Wanting to keep the donkey from being hit by traffic, Canaan used feed to lure the animal off the road, then pushed and pulled the little donkey into the back seat of his P71. As the photo from Norman PD can tell you, animals of the donkey’s size can fit comfortably in the back. Read More >
While the rest of the world warms up to our Thanksgiving tradition of football and mountains of potatoes and gravy, we must admit that the world goes on without us some days.
Thankfully, the Internet never forgets. So here’s a roundup of the stories we missed in our Tryptophan-induced naps.
A court ruled Nov. 12 that a lawsuit may continue against Ford for misstating its mileage estimates of its C-MAX and Fusion hyrbid cars.
Ford attempted to dismiss the lawsuit based on its claim that the mileage estimates provided by the Environmental Protection Agency, were in part, an estimate and that “actual results may vary.” Car owners suing the automaker pointed to Ford’s media blitz that included Ryan Seacrest in Times Square with a bunch of billboards and T-shirts with the number 47 on them and “47 Challenges, 47 Days” marketing push and Facebook posts that the cars would achieve a “EPA-certified 47 mpg city and 47 mpg highway ratings for a 47-mpg combined rating” — among many other 47-branded things — when the cars didn’t come anywhere close.*
*Actual mileage did vary.
“Ford implicitly recognized that its advertising campaign was misleading,” U.S. District Judge Kenneth M. Karas wrote in the ruling. Read More >
An investor and analyst argued in column that appears in the New Yorker that Volkswagen engineers may have rationalized illegal behavior by incrementally cheating up to the infamous levels uncovered by researchers last year.
Using the catastrophic failure of the space shuttle Challenger as an example, Paul Kedrosky wrote that “normalization of deviance” could have led Volkswagen engineers to systemically cheat on emissions in the same way engineers rationalized colder and colder launches for the space shuttle until it finally disintegrated in 1986 because of failed, cold o-rings.
It’s more likely that the scandal is the product of an engineering organization that evolved its technologies in a way that subtly and stealthily, even organically, subverted the rules.
When you bring your halo-of-halo sports cars to a competition to sort out the “Best Driver’s Car”, you definitely want to give it a new set of brake pads, make sure all the electrical connections are seated properly, and maybe — just maybe — not send a car that was offed in a previous comparison test.
But that’s just what Chevrolet did for this year’s edition of Motor Trend’s “Best Driver’s Car”, and it came back to bite the General — hard.
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