Shanshan Du and Yu Qin of Troy, MI have been indicted on charges including conspiracy for allegedly stealing GM hybrid technology between 2003 and 2005. According to the Detroit News,

Du, who was hired at GM in 2000 and worked in the company’s Advance Technology Vehicle Group, copied thousands of pages of GM trade secrets onto a portable computer hard drive five days after accepting a buyout offer in 2005. The indictment alleges the theft of secrets dates back to 2003.

GM estimates the value of the stolen documents at $40 million, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

The indictment charges that Du and Qin set up their own company in hopes of transferring technology to the Chinese automaker Chery, but that no technology ever made it to the Wuhu-based automaker. And though this is an obvious opportunity for a laugh at the expense of “Chinese R&D,” the real story here is just how stupid Du and Qin were for targeting The General’s hybrid technology between 2003 and 2005.
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Ron writes:

1991 Honda civic, built 7/90 in Japan: Been a great car. Occasionally, won’t start. You crank it, it almost seems to want to start, then you get the check engine light and you can crank it forever and no good. Wait 2 minutes, or longer, and it starts right up. Sometimes you have to wait an hour though. Then it will just start fine, like it never had a problem.

Does not seem to be:

– computer (but did replace it, shop diag said it was bad, problem went away for over a year … and came back)

– injectors (at least according to shop manual diag procedure)

– filter (replaced)

– fuel pump

– phase of moon (kidding)

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Via Twitter comes this, the first shot yet of the Dodge version of the new Jeep Grand Cherokee. Dodge won’t confirm whether the badly battered Durango name will grace its version of the JGC, but at least it’s clear that the brand is getting away from its truck-alike styling dependence. But with the new Grand Cherokee earning strong reviews, will Dodge’s (likely) decontented version be a letdown? It had better not be, because another big name from the SUV era is going to stake a claim in the mid-full CUV segment starting on Monday: Ford’s 2011 Explorer.

The automotive world largely yawned when Ford announced the 2011 Lincoln MKZ hybrid. After all, Ford already offered the Fusion and Mercury Milan in hybrid flavor, and the standard MKZ is hardly setting the world on fire with only 11,214 models sold in the first half of 2010. In search of a bigger publicity bump for its luxury hybrid, Ford has pulled a fun little gimmick out of its bag of tricks: the 2011 MKZ will offer a hybrid drivetrain for no price premium over the standard V6 version [press release here]. According to the AP [via Yahoo], this is the first time a manufacturer has offered hybrid and non-hybrid versions of the same car for the same price. And really, the move comes as no huge surprise. With Mercury on its way out, Ford doesn’t have to worry about the$35,180 MKZ Hybrid encroaching on the $32k Milan Hybrid, and if it had charged a hybrid premium, the MKZ hybrid could have cost closer to $40k where it would have faced tougher competition from better-established luxury brands. Besides, Lincoln needs to build some momentum somehow… but is value a good place to start rebuilding a worn-down luxury brand?

With Ford and Honda running away with the compact crossover segment, a tight pack of competitors is gathering around the 100k annual unit mark (graph after the jump). Hyundai has already thrown its redesigned Sorento into this fearsome battle with promising results so far (20k units YTD), but Kia’s Sportage has been battling in this segment since before it was cool. Literally. As far as we can tell, it’s the oldest continuously-sold compact CUV nameplate in the US market… which makes you wonder what a continuously-evolved Chevy Tracker might have become. Anyway, after years of Tracker-like neglect, Sportage is coming back with a fresh set of Peter Schreyer-tailored duds. Not to mention a direct-injection, turbocharged engine option (“270-plus horsepower” according to the press release), Bluetooth, and the UVO hands-free system (think SYNC). As you can imagine, the price has gone up some…

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After months of speculation about GM’s re-entry into the subprime lending market, The General has announced a deal in which it will purchase the lender AmeriCredit for $3.5b. Founded in 1992, and managing assets worth $10b, AmeriCredit has been pursued by GM for the last month, according to GM CFO Chris Liddell in the WSJ [sub]. GM paid AmeriCredit stockholders $24.50 per share for a controlling interest in the firm, a 24 percent premium over its $19.70 closing price yesterday. Still, GM insists that acquiring AmeriCredit will have “a minimal impact” on its balance sheet, although no explanation is given as to how. $3.5b is at least ten percent of GM’s cash pile at this point, and it’s not clear if that qualifies it as a “minimal impact” or if GM is using some kind of financial instrument to purchase the firm. AmeriCredit says it will “expand its offerings” to support GM, likely in the area of lease deals, but it will also continue to offer loans to non-GM-brand car deals.

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In most parts of the world, electric vehicles are treated as the second coming of Jesus. Meanwhile in Omaha, Warren Buffett is having doubts whether it was such a good idea to pay $230m for 10 percent of China’s  cellphonebattery/car/EV/appliance/house builder BYD.

BYD’s share price has fallen by more than 40 percent over the past three months, China’s First Financial Daily remarks (via Gasgoo.) Can you guess the main reason for the serious drubbing? Read More >

Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell is struggling in his latest budget with the desire to spend more money while lacking tax revenue due to the economic recession. Nonetheless, the $28 billion budget for 2011 expends $200 million more than the previous year. Rendell yesterday testified before the state Senate Transportation Committee about how he intended to hit up motorists to make up much of that amount.

“If you did the increase in fees for inflation and the four cents at the pump — again, I think my idea is the best idea — but if you did that, you’ve got almost $100 million more,” Rendell testified. “If you did the InsureNet — that’s the plan with the cameras — the state would generate $75 million more.”

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Remember how Toyota was slapped with a $16.4m fine for allegedly withholding information and delaying recalls? Remember how Toyota was served again with a subpoena for information, what many read as the prelude for another $16.4m fine? (If anyone again says that $16,4m is pocket change, please send me the pocket change.) Well, there are some people in Washington who claim that it’s the U.S.  government that might be withholding information. Read More >

The RAC (that’s the Royal version of the AAA, in case you don’t know) reports that BMW has run into trouble with the UK Advertising Standards Agency (ASA, that’s no film speed in the UK) with one of their adverts. In it, BMW claimed that its Z4 roadster had low levels of CO2 (you know CO2? That obnoxious gas which every government in the world is trying to reduce/tax?). The advert reads “Joy makes the most of every drop…So you can step on the accelerator, knowing Joy will minimise the CO2 emissions.” The advert ends with “BMW EfficientDynamics, Less emissions, More driving pleasure.” This riled two people enough to complain to the ASA. Now what could have been so contentious…? Read More >

This is a continuation: part one is here.

After leaving the studio in St. Louis Saturday night, I found myself with the luxury of having absolutely nothing to do until one o’clock the following day. My guitars were locked up, I’d left my laptop at home, and I didn’t have so much as a magazine to read. This was not by accident. Sometimes it’s important to have no plans, to deliberately encounter what I think of as a “null state”.

The Transit Connect and I wandered past Forest Park, where just a few blocks separate gated-off private streets and boarded-up low-income housing. The white panel van is welcome everywhere; it is universally recognized as a vehicle driven by the service class. I waved at a security guard who silently swung a huge wrought-iron barrier out of the way and let me into his deliberately isolated neighborhood. Twenty minutes later, two vicious-looking men in a street full of broken-down cars and idle observers stopped their hand-waving disagreement to let me through. I am nobody in particular. I am here to fix, install, adjust, clean.

The invisibility conferred upon me by this little van made me think of all the times I had felt invisible in my youth, cleaning tables in restaurants, working on construction sites, bagging groceries. I realized that I could stop and sleep anywhere, that this van could come to a halt in an industrial-center parking lot or out in front of the largest home in St. Louis. This was freedom: I am nobody, and I have nothing to do.

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Car & Driver’s endearingly awkward Editor-in-Chief Eddie Alterman took to the interwebs today, with a “viral-style” video imploring enthusiasts to “save the manuals.” And though Alterman can’t help but sell the faux-sincerity, the message is brain-hurtingly mangled by his attempt to be the Old Spice Guy of the car world.
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As a Nissan rep pointed out via email last night, yesterday’s Chart Of The Day hardly tells the whole story of “the other Japanese brand.” Since 1995, Nissan has made up for declining “core model” sales by catching the tail end of the SUV/Truck craze with its Titan/Armada/XTerra/Murano combo. And, as this graph shows, those four models gave the brand a big spike for most of the last decade before diving unceremoniously towards oblivion (with the exception of Murano). Since then, Nissan seems to be targeting the niche left open by Honda: small, value-laden, efficient cars like the Rogue and Versa are Nissan’s new meal ticket (in addition to the still-soaring Altima). With a new Versa-based Juke mini-CUV launching this Summer, Nissan is poised to continue building on that image, but it still has to contend with remnants of its “Japanese Pontiac” and “Mainstream BOF-slinger” identities. Can Nissan be all of these things at the same time? Or will the Leaf EV halo push Nissan towards ever smaller, more efficient offerings and a neo-Honda emphasis on compact value? We’re hearing that changes are underway at the highest levels of Nissan’s leadership… coming up with a coherent brand vision and product plan for Nissan North America will have to be one of the new team’s top priorities.

Everybody is worried about China flooding the world with cheap cars. Just the opposite is true. The world is flooding China with expensive cars. China has become one of the prime export markets for major carmakers the world over, especially in the higher segments. For next year, a unit of the Chinese government predicts imports  to China to exceed the 1 million mark. Exports remain lacklustre. Read More >

Wholesale heaven used to be a crowded place at the dealer auctions. There were Taurae aplenty. Neons, Stratuses, Sables, Sebrings, Optimas, Milans, the names were as endless as the need to keep all the factories humming. Even in the ‘somewhat’ good old days of 2004, the average vehicle that sold for $5,000 at a sale usually had only about 70 to 75k on it. But now it’s a different auction world.

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