Car News Articles

I have to apologize for the lack of action here recently. I have been hard at work on a new project and I can’t tell you a lot, but I will say it is going to be quite impressive. While I will be shifting a lot of my efforts to the new project, I will do my best to keep this site updated. The focus here may change a little bit though, but we will see how things go.

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eBay Motors is a great site. Although our resident sharp end guy Steven Lang has, uh, moved on, he still reckons there’s no better gauge of a car’s worth than the completed items section. And these guys are serious about providing a safe place to buy and sell an automobile over the internet– an inherently dicey proposition. As Automotive News [sub] reports, eBay has 2k– count ‘em two thousand– staffers who “handle complaints and investigate sham auctions and dishonest sellers.” OK, now, in February, eBay announced they were going to list GM’s Certified Pre-Owned Vehicles (CPO) on the site. All sorts of alarm bells went off. Knowing GM as we do, it seemed obvious that eBay would make it difficult (if not impossible) for consumers to cross-shop the price of these CPO-mobiles against the same cars sold independently. To its discredit, eBay still refuses to provide details of the agreement. In fact, eBay now says they’re talking to “other automakers” about replicating the deal. We call on eBay to disclose enough information about this arrangement to reassure its base– the hundreds of thousands of people who buy cars via the service– that eBay’s not going to sell the end users down the proverbial river by firewalling CPO and non-CPO vehicle sales.  

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Sometimes I am astounded by how much content we generate on this site. Astounded in the sense of blurred vision, caffeine jitters and Daaaaaaddddyyyyyyy! Come NOW! Not to mention (although you know I’m about to) an inability to produce coherent thoughts. OK, a more-pronounced-than-usual inability to tap these keys in some kind of entertaining, informative, auto-oriented fashion. In my defense, I write plenty o’ blogs, the odd editorial [sic] and edit every single word before it enters our little corner of cyberspace– other than our commentators’ efforts. Whose entries I read without exception. Well, I take exception to a few, but you get my drift. Which is what I’m doing now, I suppose. Anyway, yesterday, I ran out of podcast posting time. This week, the news bear has been chasing us (Frank, me and the boys) like we’re smothered in honey (as if). Even as I type, Frank’s catching-up on the remainder of yesterday’s posts– a tactic we normally leave to Autoblog. And I have miles to go before I sleep. But I wouldn’t have it any other way. Front line web work is not for wimps. I salute the troops and resume command (in a completely non-arrogant but still alpha dog kind of way). That is all.  

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Unless you’re the fastidious type, you might want to avoid driving in Melissa. WFAA reports that police in the Texas town pulled over one Mark Robinson for failure to use his turn signal. The police officer then hauled the 24-year-old to jail where “he was booked, strip searched, and sat for 3 hours.” Robinson found himself sitting next to Bubba other dangerous criminals. “They asked me what I was in there for and I said a turn signal violation.” Robinson had a clean (to that point) rap sheet and claimed he’d never been jailed before (yeah? what about that faulty taillight thing?). However, Robison does admit that he “challenged” the officer’s questions when he was stopped. Still, Melissa’s police chief was aghast. “In the 6 years I’ve been the police chief, this is the first time,” says Chief Duane Smith. But he stands behind his officer. “I’m not going to let some little out-of-town asshole punk kid mouth off to my officer. He’s lucky I didn’t beat the shit out of him.” No, I’m kidding. I just made that up. As far as I know.

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The Canadian Auto Workers (CAW) have ratified a generous deal with Ford– frozen wages, no two-tier tears at bedtime– by a reported 67 percent margin. (I guess the other 33 percent thought they could get blood out of a stone). Even more flabbergasting: the contracts aren’t even up until September. CAW boss Buzz Hargrove says [via The Detroit News] that GM and Chrysler will go down just as fast, just as hard. “They will accept the same economic terms. It’s only a question of when. I’m hoping it will be in the next week or so.” Not so fast, Mr. Bond. Chrysler’s teetering on the brink of bankruptcy. They got no game. And GM, well, GM’s got 32 U.S. plants off-line (including all the key ones), the prospect of more union action to come, sweet F.A. going on in its high profit margin SUV and truck biz, and a cash conflagration that could heat Hoboken for a week. Buzz? Buzz wants GM to commit more product to the Ontario factory. Never mind that the Peso is worth less than a Canadian Loonie. Or the fact that GM builds trucks in five other factories, including two in Silao and Toluca, Mexico). Still, look for GM to roll over and play dead (it’s who they are and what they do), while Chrysler delays the inevitable (selling everything to Magna) for as long as possible.  

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Energy Business Review reports that French hypermarketeers System U are pulling the plug on their bio-ethanol pumps for one simple reason: no one’s buying E85. Needless to say, critics of the critics who criticize E85– including the publication’s “staff writer”– view the move as insupportable. “Plans to stop selling the fuel are being driven by a lack of consumer demand, perhaps because the French government has not yet developed a taxation system that offers sufficient incentives for motorists to purchase E85 vehicles.” Zut alors! Meanwhile, System U has betrayed the farmer-friendly French government’s best laid plans. “This marks a further setback for the French government, which had set an objective to open 500 E85 stations by the end of 2007, but has seen only approximately 200 installed to date.” In Total? “French fuel retailer Total made an agreement with the French government through which it was to open 400 of the 500 planned E85 sites by the end of 2007. However, Total has only installed E85 pumps at 35 of its service stations.” So who’s the scélérat here? “By focusing tax benefits purely on tailpipe emissions, to the detriment of the fuel’s carbon-positive effects, the government has been unable to provide an environment in which demand for E85 can flourish. ‘End Intelliext.” C’est la vérité, n’est-ce pas? 

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I see the creative juices have been flowing over at Chrysler which is being hurt more than most by high gas prices. Buy a selected Chrysler model and Chrysler will subsidise the cost of the fuel going in the tank via a special credit card. It’s an interesting one and I must say I like the inherent gambling element involved with holding the fuel price constant for the next three years. Will the actual pump price rise or fall and by how much? Who’s judgement do you trust - Chrysler LLC’s Chief Economist or your Auntie Pam’s?

Seriously, I wonder if other manufacturers are looking at this.

Sure, you can say it’s just another incentive (and it’s capped of course), but it might be one that flies with consumers on the back of a feel-good factor which goes with filling the tank for ‘just’ USD2.99 for the next three years. A guy at Goldman Sachs has just forecast that the price of oil could conceivably rise to USD200 a barrel within six months. Yup, that 2.99 price might start to look like a real bargain.

There again, the price of oil might just go the other way when peace breaks out in the Middle East, the dollar recovers on a stronger than expected 2009 US economic rebound and yet more oil is discovered off Brazil. As any gambler knows, there are no sure bets. 

And I wonder what the most fuel uneconomic Chrysler vehicle covered by this ‘fuel protection’ incentive is?

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