A pissed-off motorist wants the world to know that a service technician working at a dealership that might take rolled-up bills as a downpayment took his car on an alleged powder-fueled joyride. And he has dashcam video of the whole thing.
A revealing video posted to Youtube yesterday by user “Carrera Chris” documents the April 12 point-of-view journey of his vehicle as it leaves a Palo Alto Audi dealership with the technician behind the wheel. Read More >
Volkswagen gets a lot of unflattering press these days, but a faction of the automaker’s fan base seems determined to malign its name even more.
A disturbing subculture exists on the fringes of the Volkswagen fanboy community, and it manifests itself in decals and not-so-subtle window stickers that feature Nazi imagery.
Most normal, reasonable people would want to avoid associating themselves with a man who can claim responsibility for causing the deaths of about 70 million people, but there’s weirdos out there, and some of them are really keen on their Volkswagens. Frankly, it’s as depressing as the atmosphere inside the Fuhrerbunker, circa early May, 1945. Read More >
If you’re looking to get the most money back when you drop your car onto the used market in five years, better get into something large and utilitarian.
Large and midsize trucks and SUVs grab the top five-year resale values in Edmund’s 2016 Retained Value Awards, with conventional and luxury midsize and large cars depreciating the most. Read More >
After partnering with the Russian company Sollers for the past five years and investing more than $1 billion into car and engine factories, Ford Motor Company is betting on a Russian rebound and still sees the beleaguered country as a long-term play.
Amid GM’s retreat from Russia, Ford stuck to its game plan by spending cash on new models and plants in that country, presumably to avoid a catch-up situation similar to the one it faced in China. According to Automotive News, the commitment paid off in the first quarter of 2016, sending sales up by 93 percent in a market that saw a 17 percent decline over the same period. Read More >
Despite their psychopathic barbarity, ISIS fighters fear many things — women, music, culture, bathing, and now a lone tank dubbed “The Beast.”
According to U.S. military official Col. Steve Warren, an American-trained Iraqi tank crew has become a one-vehicle Dirty Dozen in the aptly named Iraqi city of Hit, the Associated Press has reported.
As part of ongoing efforts to retake the city from ISIS militants, the lone crew is “tearing it up” with its distinctively midwestern machine, obliterating every unfriendly target of opportunity with its General Dynamics M1A1 Abrams.
In social situations, general convention holds that, unless you want to incite a riot, certain topics remain off-limits: politics, religion, and — increasingly — one’s choice of technology. Vocal cords have been inflamed and dinners have been ripped asunder with invectives hurled at Android or epithets tossed towards Apple.
Bob Lutz is on record opining that Apple’s efforts in developing a car are “going to be a gigantic money pit” — and he’s probably right.
Here’s the thing though: Apple has a history of figuring out how to make big profits with products traditionally considered to be low margin. Add this to the fact that Apple is rich enough to spend huge bucks on developing a car, only to drop it all and walk away if they’re unhappy with the project.
Think they won’t?
Fiat Chrysler Automobiles chairman John Elkann, like the company’s sweatered CEO, is making come-hither eyes in the hopes of luring a suitor.
FCA needs a partner to turn its lofty debt pile into capital, so Elkann wants other automakers to know just how thrilled he’d be if they helped FCA save $10 billion a year, he told shareholders of the investment company controlling FCA (via Bloomberg).
The problem, he lamented, is that other automakers are all wrapped up in trying to develop autonomous technology, often with outsider help. Like a wallflower with a heart of gold, FCA feels ignored despite having a lot to offer.
Hyperloop Technology’s co-founder and chief technology officer Brogan BamBrogan, who is a real person and not a Bond villain living in a volcano lair, choose yesterday’s SEA International Congress talent meetup to push the Elon Musk-conceived technology, Automotive News has reported.
BamBrogan’s company is dangling job opportunities in front of the Detroit crowd in a bid to lure new henchmen auto industry talent into its fold.
The former Chrysler and SpaceX engineer’s message to the Detroit audience was clear. To paraphrase Seinfeld — this technology is real, and it’s spectacular.
“We’re calling this our Kitty Hawk moment,” BamBrogan told them.
Somewhere between storming the beaches at Normandy and marching into Berlin, General Dwight D. Eisenhower became enamored with the German Autobahn system of superhighways, and so resolved to create a similar system in the United States — or so goes the legend.
After the war, America began to build out from its crowded urban cores, placing new homes and businesses where before there was farmland and wilderness. At first, these new developments were reachable only by hastily expanded surface streets, and longer distance trips used the U.S. Highway system of two-lane roads first designed in the 1920s.
For a forward thinking superpower, this was not enough. Enter the Interstate Highway System — and the Highway Trust Fund that literally paid to pave its way.
Compared with February 2016, March 2016’s U.S. sales at the Volkswagen brand jumped 21 percent.
So everything’s back to normal, right? The diesel emissions scandal’s impact has clearly waned, right? Volkswagen’s U.S. team obviously figured out how to market, price, and stock a gas-only lineup, right?
No. This is why we examine an automaker’s sales volume on a year-over-year basis, and why understanding the seasonality of the auto business is essential. Read More >
Hump Day can be a drag, but nothing puts a smile on the faces of hard-working Americans like value-laden Chrysler Corporation compacts and telling OPEC to go screw themselves.
While diving deep into the YouTube wormhole the other day, a promotional music video for the 1981 Plymouth Reliant and Dodge Aries twins reared its patriotic head.
It needs to be shared. Read More >
Changes to the Tesla lineup have never come at a more rapid pace.
After revealing the new face of the Model S yesterday, and two weeks after unveiling the Model 3, Tesla has kept the news flowing by ditching the 70 kilowatt-hour battery in the base Model X for a 75 kWh juice pack — and bumping up the price to match.
The all-wheel-drive SUV doesn’t get any faster with the upgrade — the 0-60 mph time is still six seconds — but the 75D can now travel 17 miles further on a charge, going from a 220-mile range to 237 miles.
If there’s about $450,000 burning a hole in your pocket, Ford wants you to get in line for the new GT.
The application process for the 2017 and 2018 model years of the carbon fiber supercar kicked off today, and along with it, a very selective customer screening process.
Ford will sell a limited number of GTs each year, produced by Canadian firm Multimatic, so it could be a long wait if you don’t make the cut this time around. Ford anticipates first deliveries will begin late this year, with applications ending on May 12. Oh, and Russia? You can’t order a Ford GT, unless you have a friend buy it for you in an eligible country — like, say, China.
It’s a bit like Scooby-Doo meets A Clockwork Orange.
Graduate students at Clemson University’s International Center for Automotive Research (CU-ICAR) spent two years working with Toyota to create the ideal vehicle for the next age demographic to leap into the car-buying fray: Generation Z.
No, we’re not talking about some stodgy Millennial born in 1985, with his cardigans and Dodge Journey. Generation Z refers to the cohort born in the late 1990s (at the earliest) onward, and these are the people automakers are going to start targeting right … about … now.
Referring to one’s corporate buildings as a campus is en vogue, from Apple’s planned Spaceship HQ to the Googleplex in Mountain View, California. Yesterday, Ford Motor Company announced plans to transform its facilities in Dearborn into a green, modern, and high-tech work environment.
The 10-year plan will co-locate over 20,000 employees in the Dearborn area. Ford currently has a hodgepodge of more than 70 disconnected buildings along Oakwood Boulevard, many of which have been around since the Falcon and Galaxie were being sold in showrooms.
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