Legendary talk show host Jay Leno views speed cameras as one of the reasons the UK no longer feels like a free country. Appearing Sunday on the top-rated BBC show Top Gear, Leno suggested that as a visitor, the number of cameras in England is overwhelming. He also suggested that US drivers have a much less tolerant attitude toward photo enforcement. “See in L.A., people would say, ‘why not just shoot them out?'” Leno said. “In L.A., a day doesn’t go by you don’t see a styrofoam cup stuck over the lens of the speed camera.” The line about shooting speed cameras drew both laughter and great applause from the crowd. Top Gear host Jeremy Clarkson even appeared momentarily surprised at his counterpart’s suggestion of vigilantism.
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Joe writes:
Last Christmas, my wife bought me a 2006 Saleen Mustang Convertible s281. As it was winter in Idaho and the last week of the year, what with Saleen Corp announcing that it would be filing for bankruptcy, the dealership was very eager to remove this very beautiful car from their showroom.
I would like to think that the Saleen could be a decent long-term investment. That being said, it is just an S281 model, no supercharger. So do I hope I made a good investment and keep the car as built? (Really sucks that a kid in a 300zx can keep up with me.)
To protect the car’s collectibility, should I upgrade the power with very expensive Saleen parts, or forget about long term resale and go with other superchargers that provide more bang for the buck?
GM and the German government could decide by the end of the week who will take over Opel, Germany’s deputy economics minister Jochen Homann said to Reuters. That’s no improvement.
Wall Street Journal had a little post-BOD meeting chinwag with New GM’s federally-appointed Chairman of the Board. Clearly, Edward E. Whitacre Jr.’s busy not kicking ass and not taking names. Whitacre told the WSJ that “GM’s business plan needs to be ‘tweaked.’ Among areas he cited as needing rapid improvement are advertising, revenue and net income.” Do you have any idea how hard it was not to substitute the word “nipples” for “business plan”? Anyway, “Gaining market share is ‘right there at the top’ of his agenda for Chief Executive Frederick ‘Fritz’ Henderson, Mr. Whitacre said. ‘You clearly don’t want to be in a position of losing market share.'” Thanks for the [unintentional] hat tip to the U.S. taxpayer, but didn’t Eddy get the memo about GM bankrupting itself in the single-minded pursuit of market share? No, he didn’t. Make the jump for the most worrying corporate jingoism since, well, all the other GM BS.
I admit it. Freebies are awesome. Whether it’s a free portion of dim-sum in exchange for car advice, or a mowed lawn in exchange for storing industrial machinery at my auction holding yard. I relish the word free. To paraphrase Gordon Gecko, “Free is good!” and I’ll gladly Sawyer my way through the daily grind in pursuit of it. But there’s always a catch.
Not selling power, mind you. In fact demand is so high for the new Prius that Toyota would like to increase production past its 500k/year projections. Too bad its battery supplier, Panasonic, can’t keep up. “Battery bottleneck,” howls Automotive News [sub], before admitting that Toyota has been building towards a million battery per year capacity. A year ago Toyota said they would reach that mark by 2011, now they are saying Summer 2010. Besides, what’s the hurry? “In terms of the Toyota lineup, I’d say [the Prius] is probably in the midlevel of profit,” reminds Toyota senior managing director Takahiko Ijichi. And all those batteries require more harmony between man, machine and nature. I mean nickel mines.
The Government should urgently re-evaluate the planned discontinuation of the Scrappage Scheme in order to avoid a sudden, pronounced and damaging fall in business.
So says Adrian Rushmore of Glass’s Automotive Business Intelligence in a company press release (via theautochannel.com). But . . .
Which means importing this 415 hp, 415 lb-ft, AWD Ford FPV F6 E from Australia is a bad idea, too. Right?
The Ssangyong Riot is not a new South Korean compact car. 500 fired workers and 33,000 liters of flammable fluids are creating an explosive mix in a Ssangyong factory in Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi Province, South Korea. The factory was raided by police commandos today, although the paint shop (a.k.a. structure fire waiting to happen) has not yet been stormed. “Creditors agreed that it is better to liquidate assets of Ssangyong before the company’s asset value falls further,” head of SSsangyong’s creditor suppliers Choi Byeong-whoon tells the WSJ. Union spokesfolk acknowledge that a raid on the paint shop is coming, saying “we will respond to it, bracing ourselves for death.” Death before Rodius production. How fitting.
Wall Street Journal reports that GM will be allowed to carry-forward $16 billion in net losses from “Old GM,” creating a massive tax shelter. Normally this isn’t allowed to happen as the tax code has specific provisions to prevent firms from buying other firms strictly for their tax losses. Under normal conditions, tax losses die with the old firm when it completes its bankruptcy proceedings. Not so with GM, which sought preservation of tax losses as part and parcel of its 363 sale. “The result seems to retain the cake while eating it,” says Duke law professor Jeffrey Coyne. “They get to sell quickly and without the many procedural protections because this is not a plan. They get to keep the [net operating losses] using a provision that requires the transfer to happen as part of a plan.” And yet another hidden bailout sneaks through, unlikely to ever appear in a final accounting of the cost of rescuing GM.
1: Ford Focus
2: Toyota Corolla
3: Honda Civic
4: Toyota Prius
5: Toyota Camry
6: Ford Escape
7: Hyundai Elantra
8: Dodge Caliber
9: Honda Fit
10: Chevrolet Cobalt
[via CNN Money]
One takeaway: CARS is good because it gets people into more fuel efficient cars, but the highway fund is running out because people are driving more fuel efficient cars. Also, apparently bolstering Ford sales is a major rationale for extending C4C. Y’know, after the whole “taking CO2 out of the air” thing. Speaking of which, former clunker detractor Sen Dianne Feinstein is on board for an extension, telling Automotive News [sub] “the original intent of the clunkers program was to encourage people to buy more fuel-efficient vehicles, and the data so far tells us that’s exactly what’s happening,
The WSJ [sub] reports that $3.5 billion of GMAC’s nearly $4 billion in second quarter losses are the result of one-time reincorporation costs, however a significant government investment also helped hide the losses. And is leading GMAC towards full-on nationalization. Per the WSJ‘s report:
The Treasury Department said in May it would swap $884 million of its existing $5 billion preferred-stock investment for common stock, giving the U.S. government a 35.4% equity stake in the lender. This stake could increase to more than 50% if GMAC, amid potential mounting losses and meager capital levels, converted the government’s investments into common equity.
The loss also comes despite GMAC’s floating of $3.5 billion in bonds backed by the FDIC’s Temporary Liquidity Guarantee Program. “As long as they can keep the federal government’s support in place, they’ll be in fine shape,” one bond-rater tells Bloomberg. “They’re a ward of the state.”
Germany hasn’t lost its newfound appetite for new cars. July registrations weren’t quite up by 40 percent as they were in June and in May. But a plus of 29.5 percent compared to the same month in the prior period is nothing to sneeze at. Still powered by Abrwackprämie, the trend to smaller cars continues its trajectory. Sales of Mini-sized cars rose 144.1 percent, subcompacts grew 67.5 percent. Anything larger: Vergiss es. Who’s the big winner?
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