Yesterday, Volkswagen finally inaugurated its new plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee and ended the 23 year hiatus since its New Stanton, Pennsylvania factory was closed in 1988. At the Chattanooga plant, more than 2,000 employees will be able to produce up to 150,000 vehicles per year. Read More >
Justices of the Washington State Supreme Court on Tuesday openly questioned whether it was proper for a city and a photo enforcement contractor to thwart the initiative process on the issue of traffic cameras. The question has become increasingly relevant as activists in the cities of Longview and Monroe on Monday turned in signatures they believe will be sufficient to call for a vote on banning red light cameras and speed cameras. Less than a week ago, a Chelan County Superior Court judge ruled that activists in the city of Wenatchee were forbidden from attempting to bring the question of cameras to the voters (view ruling).
Today, Volkswagen officially showed its new, well, “perfected” Tiguan to the press. VeeDub unabashedly calls it an “SUV with design parallels to the larger Touareg.” Unlike its larger sibling, the Tiguan can be driven guilt-free: With a 2.0 TDI engine, the SUV needs only 5.3 liters per 100 km. Which converts to a non-EPA mileage of 44.4 mpg. Not bad for a trucklet. Volkswagen humbly calls it “one of the most fuel-efficient SUVs in the world.” Gallery after the jump … Read More >
Over the course of TTAC’s coverage of US ethanol subsidies, I’ve often wondered why nobody made a political issue out of slaying an ever-growing waste of tax dollars ($6b this year on the “blender’s credit” alone). And with the political rhetoric about America’s debt prices rising, I’ve been wondering with more and more regularity when someone will finally take the ethanol fight to the American people, who are already voting against ethanol with their pocketbooks. But just last December, Al Gore explained why not even he, an environmentalist standard-bearer, could oppose the corn juice he knew was bad policy, saying
It is not a good policy to have these massive subsidies for first generation ethanol. First generation ethanol I think was a mistake. The energy conversion ratios are at best very small… One of the reasons I made that mistake is that I paid particular attention to the farmers in my home state of Tennessee, and I had a certain fondness for the farmers in the state of Iowa because I was about to run for president.
The Iowa primary is a key early contest in the Presidential election, and because Iowans grow and refine a huge amount of corn ethanol, campaigning against ethanol subsidies in Iowa is a non-starter. At least that’s what the conventional wisdom was before today, when, with nearly nine months to go before the primary, the impossible just happened.
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Last year it was Quaker State. ‘Extreme Durability’ synthetic oil had flopped in the markeplace. A lowering of it’s price to $1.99 a quart plus a $10 mail-in rebate solved that issue for Quaker State. Not any profit there obviously. But oil is dirt cheap to produce and the new marketing campaign promised better returns for all that paid shelf space. Now Valvoline is performing a similar stunt for their ‘VR1 Racing Oil’. Six quarts of synthetic for free after the $50 mail–in rebate. Just make sure you keep track of the rebate. Then you can…
On the very day that the federal government announced it would buy 101 Chevrolet Volts, President Obama released a new Presidential Memorandum requiring fleet purchases “achieve maximum fuel efficiency.” Regardless of cost, apparently, as the Volt costs over $40,000 and is the size of a $17,000 Chevrolet Cruze. Moreover, the new policy does not appear to reflect the Government Accountability Office’s recent lambasting of government’s use of E85 “flex fuel” vehicles to fulfill previous alt-fuel mandates. Hit the jump for Obama’s full memo
Chrysler’s bailout “thank you” event today was long on praise for the redemptive power of its government bailout and short on talk of remaining challenges, but at least one important fact was acknowledged: this highly-touted “payback” was only for 85% of the money loaned to Chrysler during the bailout period. Although, to be perfectly accurate, it wasn’t exactly Chrysler who acknowledged the outstanding obligation [the firm avoids any such nuance in its release], as CEO Sergio Marchionne simply stated that
We received confirmation this morning at 10.13 am from Citigroup that Chrysler Group repaid, with interest, by wire transfer to the United States Treasury and by bank transfer to the Canadian government, every penny that had been loaned less than two years ago. [Emphasis added]
That last bit was the important part… as in, the part that was most often repeated in Chrysler’s presentation and in subsequent media reports. But it’s not the whole story…
The NY Times reports:
Manal al-Sharif, one of the organizers of an online campaign encouraging Saudi women to drive en masse on June 17, was arrested on Sunday, days after she posted video of herself flouting the kingdom’s ban on female drivers on YouTube. Traces of Ms. Sharif’s campaign also started to disappear from the Web.
Following her arrest, the YouTube video of Ms. Sharif driving became inaccessible, as did a second clip, in which she outlined how women could take part in the June 17 protest. A Facebook page she set up called “Teach Me How to Drive So I Can Protect Myself,” which had more than 12,000 fans, was deleted. The Twitter account she used to spread news of the protest movement was copied and altered to make it seem as if she had called off the campaign.
As much as we tend to value cars as the ultimate tool of personal freedom, TTAC could definitely do more to cover the plight of those banned from the roads for nothing more than their gender. Though a hugely loaded and controversial issue, it is perhaps one of the most truly principled causes at the confluence of cars and culture. We wish Ms al-Sharif the very best in her struggle to attain a right we too often take for granted.
Bonus challenge for TTAC’s Best and Brightest: can you identify the car Ms al-Sharif is driving in this clip? I’ve wasted enough time today trying to figure it out…
Oh, BMW. You so crazy.
What’s a BMW 5-Series “GT” anyway? Apparently, it’s a stretched Five body, plus hatchback, on the basic platform of the 7 Series. It’s cheaper than a “Siebener” while being bigger and uglier than the Five. It also fails to provide much of a wagon’s utility. Nevertheless, the GT was supposed to be a hot-selling “segment buster” for BMW, along with the similarly offensive-looking X6.
Turns out that the GT isn’t selling, and the people who do buy it are Bimmer diehards choosing it over a purchase of the more expensive Seven. Meanwhile, there’s a real 5-Series wagon coming for the rest of the world. What should BMW do?
Check out this video feed any time now, to witness an event that Chrysler Communications describes on Facebook as a “Loan Appreciation Event.” Chrysler’s communication describes the shindig thus:
Chrysler Group LLC CEO Sergio Marchionne, Assistant to President Obama for Manufacturing Policy Ron A. Bloom, and Deputy Director of the National Economic Council Brian Deese will join government officials, UAW representatives and employees at the Sterling Heights Assembly Plant to formally acknowledge and express gratitude for the financial support from the U.S. and Canadian governments.
Novelty-sized check, anyone?
Isn’t the idea of President Barack Obama’s truck-turned-limo that it can get out of a situation real fast? Instead, it caused howls of laughter all over Europe by getting stuck as it emerged from the gates of the US embassy in Dublin. Read More >
If you are a large company in Germany, there is no government agency that you fear more than the Bundeskartellamt. It’s the anti-monopoly police. Being audited by the Finanzamt, the German equivalent of the IRS, is considered paradise compared to being in the cross-hairs of the Monopol-Polizei. Europe’s large oil companies are in the cross hairs and are just about to be shot. Read More >
Taobao is China’s Ebay. After Geely had kicked-off the craze, other brands, such as BMW, Audi, and Volvo followed. Yesterday, Lamborghini created quite a stir in China by mentioning to Beijing Times that they would also create a webstore for their 3 to 6 million yuan ($ 460,000 to about a million U.S.) supercars. Yesterday, the site went up. Depending on who’s writing, the site created between 5,000 and 8,000 orders in a single day. Not bad for a brand that moved 260 Lambos in all of 2010. New and old media (see new item from Hong Kong above) praised the site where you can “peruse the 17 models on offer, which go from 3.5 million RMB right up to 6.5 million RMB for the fantastically sinister and shouty Aventador LP700-4.” However … Read More >
A circuit court judge in St. Louis, Missouri on Friday ruled the city’s use of automated ticketing machines violated state law. Since 2007, St. Louis gave the private company American Traffic Solutions (ATS) the right to issue tickets worth more than $30 million to the registered owners of vehicles that are photographed at local intersections. A class action suit by several motorists challenged the program on various legal and constitutional grounds.
According to one car guy, global warming is a crock of excrement. Toyota wants to get to the bottom of it. Toyota Motor Corporation and Toyota Central R&D Labs have developed a simulator able to predict tropospheric ozone concentrations across the whole of South and East Asia. Read More >
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