Allow me to be the first (unless someone in Australia beats me to it) to wish any and all a happy and prosperous 2011. May all your whishes (except the devious ones) come true.
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Category: News Blog
Former Obama administration “car czar” and leader of the Presidential Task Force on Autos, Steven Rattner, wrote a $10 million check yesterday to NYS Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, and Cuomo dropped his charges. Rattner will remain a free man. The only thing he’s not allowed is to appear before any state-pension funds for the next five years. Cuomo can close out his desk and go on to become New York’s governor. Read More >
It looks like Gawker can find solace in the reassuring fact that they are not the only ones who ended up with a purloined database, containing the privates private details of all their customers. Intimate customer data of Honda has also been robbed and plundered. See, it happens to the best of them. Read More >
According to Wards Auto, the Ford Fusion is sitting at over 196,000 sales as November 30. A 200,000-unit year seems imminent. Why is this a big deal, and what does it say about Ford’s position in the marketplace when a facelift car has its best-ever year in a collapsing economy?
[This piece, by John Carr, was originally published by the National Motorists Association]
When complaints grow too loud, reporters ask public safety agencies for reassurance that traffic law enforcement really is all for the best.
Accused of running a speed trap, the sheriff explained his speed enforcement cut fatal accidents from three or four per year to zero. Police said right-angle collisions were down by half at intersections with red light cameras. The Department for Transport proudly reported that road injuries were down 30% since the introduction of speed cameras.
This is all compelling evidence.
This is all lies.
The government has unique access to safety data. We have to go digging for it if we’re allowed to see it at all. Out of the countless lies told by government to justify regulations or enforcement, these three are among the very few that were independently fact checked.
John writes:
Dear Sajeev and Steve: Currently, I’m searching for a car based off of the car’s perceived personality. This might turn out a bit vague, so I’m going to have to force you to bear with me, here. I currently do all of my balling in a ’00 Avalon. In gangsta’ white. It’s a bit septuagenarian, yes, but it can be loved. I compare it to an old Akita Inu – loyal, honest, obedient, but also a bit too lazy.
With the second collapse of a Mahindra US-market initiative this year, some might believe that the Indian automaker has abandoned all efforts to make a good name for itself in the USA. And certainly, the implosion of its Pickup truck distribution deal with Global Vehicles looks difficult to salvage, given that both sides are locked in a legal dispute. Needless to say, when GV dropped us an email hyping a Spring 2011 launch for US-Market Mahindra products, we were more than a little skeptical. Now, however, the delay might have a legitimate explanation. According to Mahindra’s Arun Malhotra, senior vice-president for sales and customer care, speaking at the launch of the Mahindra Thar (see video above)
We are working on a lot of models. There will be a pick up on a completely new platform. We plan to bring it in the second [quarter] of 2011. It will be positioned near the top-end of our commercial vehicle pickup range, with a payload capability of above 1 tonne.
This seems to indicate that Mahindra is replacing its 1.2-ton Scorpio-based trucks (known in Australia as the “Pik Up”) with an all-new model before launching in the US. In other words, this is the first actual, legitimate reason for the endless delays to Mahindra’s US launch. Still, as the video of the Thar launch proves, Mahindra could probably make use of this (hopefully) final delay to work on their launch skills.
Does this new BAIC BC301Z remind you of anything? How about the Mercedes-Benz B-Class (with perhaps a touch of Opel Meriva in the headlights)? Sure, it’s about a foot shorter than the B-Class, and it uses old Mitsu motors, but the resemblance is tough to deny. Still, whether you see the connection or not, Daimler probably does. After all, BAIC is supposed to be Daimler’s Chinese-market partner. But with partners like BAIC, who needs competitors? [via AutoBild]
London Mayor Boris Johnson finally fulfilled his campaign promise to cut 230,000 residents out of the area where the UK capital’s congestion tax is imposed. The last £8 (US $12.40) toll imposed on motorists driving through the boroughs of Kensington, Chelsea and Westminster during business hours was collected Friday at 6pm. These areas were part of the so-called Western Extension Zone added by former Mayor Ken Livingstone, just before voters threw him out of office in 2008.
As noted by Ed Niedermeyer, “it’s that time of year: the media dead zone between Christmas and the New Year, when traditional “news” and “content” gets laid aside in favor of lists of things that happened last year and might happen next year.”
So instead of making more predictions, let’s look for the absolutely worst, most awful, epic fail prediction of the year (please with source). Here is my current favorite: Read More >
“You have about 5 percent of the market that is green and committed to fuel efficiency,” said Mike Jackson, the chief executive of AutoNation, the largest auto retailer in the country. “But the other 95 percent will give up an extra 5 mpg in fuel economy for a better cup holder.”
Quote brought to you by the Washington Post
From RenCen to Wolfsburg, all eyes are on China. Ok, so this year China will build and buy 18 million cars or thereabouts. But what about next year? Carmakers in Europe, Japan, and the U.S. are dependent on the Chinese growth machine. So what will it be? Boom or bust? Read More >
It’s that time of year: the media dead zone between Christmas and the New Year, when traditional “news” and “content” gets laid aside in favor of lists of things that happened last year and might happen next year. We’re not great list-makers here at TTAC, and we’re still waiting on December sales data to sum up last year’s industry performances, so rather than offer our “top ten moments” and “trends to watch,” we’ll simply ask you, our Best And Brightest, to whip out your crystal balls (in a safe-for-work manner, please) and make a wild prediction about next year. Will gas prices spike or recede? Will trucks outsell cars again? Will GM’s stock hit the $53/share price needed to pay back taxpayers, or will more tax money be funneled to the automakers? Will the Chinese market collapse or carry on? Will Chrysler’s rushed updates like the 200 sell significantly better than last year’s equivalent models? Will the return of Fiat to the US market be cheered or ignored? Can we expect another big recall scandal next year, and if so, from whom? Will the Motor Vehicle Safety Act be exhumed and passed, or will it rest in peace? So many questions… time to start predicting!
Forget how many angels can fit on the head of a pin, the original automotive spiritual exercise has always been “how many people can fit into a Volkswagen Beetle.” And now there’s apparently a new answer: 20. Kentucky.com reports that the Asbury University’s Emancipation Project, a human trafficking awareness group, is awaiting final confirmation from the Guinness Book Of World Records for its attempt at the old record of 17 people in a Bug. According to the report, the key question is whether the students fit Guinness’s size guidelines, as
Published guidelines called for the students to be at least 5 feet tall and at least 18 years of age.
Which hopefully explains the female-heavy makeup of the AUEP (otherwise, when did dudes stop caring about slavery/squeezing into Bugs with girls?). Meanwhile, doesn’t the Beetle in question matter? Wouldn’t a Super Beetle’s curved windshield create the room for an extra passenger to recline on the dash compared to, say, an early (but not slave-built early, for obvious reasons) split-window design? As in so many matters, I have to defer to the wisdom of TTAC’s Best and Brightest on this one…
With some 60k Italian jobs and a $20b investment at stake, Fiat’s “Fabbrica Italia” renovation of its home-country production plans are crucial to the integration of Fiat and Chrysler. And rather than negotiating a national labor agreement with Italy’s fractious unions, Fiat has been revamping its Italian plants on a case-by-case basis. This strategy has already backfired at the firm’s Naples-based Pomigliano plant, where the Italian metalworker’s union Fiom decried Fiat’s plans as “discriminatory.” Since then, Fiat has moved onto its Mirafiori plant in Turin, where Fiat wants to build the next-generation Compass/Patriot models for Chrysler and a derivative SUV for Alfa-Romeo on the firm’s new “Compact Wide” platform. And once again, Fiom is up to its old tricks. The WSJ reports that every other union has approved the new Mirafiori deal with Fiat, except Fiom, which has been banned from representing workers at the plant, pending a January vote by workers. However, Fiom represents some 22 percent of Mirafiori workers, and the union has announced an eight-hour strike for January 28.
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