Car News Articles

Audi has unofficially said it will sell an electric version of the VW Up (pictured, right) as soon as it becomes available, with the earliest estimate being late 2010. 

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Thatsracin.com is reporting that Darian Grubb will be leaving Hendrick Motorsports at the end of the season to join Stewart-Haas Racing in 2009 as Tony Stewart’s crew chief. Grubb is the engineering manager for the Nos. 5 and 88 teams at HMS and has served as crew chief for Casey Mears (2007) and interim crew chief for Jimmie Johnson (2006).

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As a single mom, I wear entirely too many hats: Mom, dad, breadwinner, businesswoman, tutor, chauffeur, coach, cheerleader, stylist and on and on. I don’t have the time or emotional energy to date losers, and I must weed them out before the reach my front door. One way to do that is by looking at the car a potential suitor drives.

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Ford says it’s not killing Mercury but their actions indicate otherwise. In the past two years, The Blue Oval Boyz have cut their ranks by 400 dealers, mainly by merging the three brands under one roof in many areas. Automotive News [sub] reports that starting this week, Ford execs will tell the remaining stand-alone Lincoln-Mercury dealers their latest and greatest consolidation plan for rolling them into Ford dealerships. The dealers aren’t overly pleased with the prospects, but they see the handwriting on the wall. While Ford says they stand behind the Mercury brand and will give it a new small car, “one Ford insider told Automotive News that company executives want to make it clear to dealers that no major influx of new product is coming for Mercury.” Once the dealer consolidation is done, you can just about bet that the Mercury brand will be starved for product, with all of the new models going to Ford or Lincoln. Then it’s just a matter of time before Mercury just fades away like DeSoto in the early 60s.

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That’s right, folks. While Robert is off this week (and by off, we mean inflating his tires and changing his light bulbs from incandescent to fluorescent), the inmates have control of the asylum. And so far, it has been a valuable learning experience for this writer, at least. New skills include: swearing when the site goes down, as it did for at least an hour earlier today, learning to record podcasts on my computer (we’re digital, baby), and hawkishly, Farragously monitoring the comments section. It’s just a glimpse into how much work the site actually takes to run - and the burden has been mostly shouldered by superstar Frank Williams, filling out his final week with TTAC. Most of all what I realized though is that it’s you people, the readers and commenters that really make the site great. Meanwhile, Jonny and I get into some serious car talk.

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The police in North Wales [UK] aren’t horsing around. Literally. They’re using an SUV hauling an empty horse trailer to hide a speed camera to fatten the civic coffers catch miscreants brazen enough to flaunt the law by exceeding the posted speed limit. The video shows the setup in action and the police scurrying to move it to a different location when they realize they’re being watched. And if that wasn’t sneaky enough, the Welsh po-po also deploy a pair of high-performance motorcycles for the same purpose. The unmarked bikes sit by the side of the road until a group of bikers pass. Then they join at the rear of the pack. They just wait for the bikes ahead to start speeding so the camera can start printing money photographing lawbreakers. At £60 each ($120), it hasn’t taken long for these to become part of the revenue machine. TheNewspaper.com reports “local speed camera partnerships collected £10 million (US $20 million) from 160,126 automated tickets issued in 2006 with North Wales accounting for more than a third of the total.”

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On April 1st, 2008 significant modifications to road safety regulations in the Canadian provinces of Québec and Nova Scotia went into effect. CTV.ca reports that handheld cellular phones are now verboten while at the wheel, though hands free devices are still tolerated. Nova Scotia will begin ticketing the offense immediately, while Québec has allowed for a three-month grace periods in which offenders will only receive stern warnings and moralizing sermons. The first offense in Nova Scotia will cost $165, while costing $80-$110 and three demerit points in Québec. Still not satisfied, road safety advocate Jean-Marie de Koeninck argues that “[h]ands-free is just as dangerous. (But) by forbidding the hand-held it does send a signal that there is a problem with the cellphone, there’s a problem with concentration”. Meanwhile, the same traffic safety bill in Québec also doubled all speeding fines , with new suspension of license provisions for those caught traveling at 40 km/h over the limit in under-60 zones, 50 km/h in 60-90 over zones, and 60 km/h over in 100+ zones. All in the name of safety, presumably.

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Government fleet purchases are a major factor in keeping the ethanol crazy-train rolling. Not to mention damning evidence of ethanol’s inviability on the free market. But even local governments who hoped that cheap ethanol would reduce costs and support energy independence are beginning to realize that switching to corn juice just brings lower mileage and higher food prices. In fact, the Times Herald-Record reports that Orange County, NY actually did the math and found that the 25 percent reduction in efficiency with ethanol outweighed any benefits. And that’s not even including the costs of installing a new pump and fuel tank. And keep in mind we’re not talking about some business that is continuously hacking away at its bottom line. Governments are usually more than happy to spend a little extra on something like ethanol that will provide a “we’re doing the right thing” PR buzz. Indeed, E85 has come as far as it has based largely on government fleet purchases made as political favors to the ethanol alliance. Now that local governments can no longer justify ethanol’s shocking inefficiency, the party seems to be winding up. And not a moment too soon.

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