Car News Articles

Supplier executives face difficult times as auto production slows in Europe and North America, raw material prices continue to rise and automakers ask for lower prices.

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Jaguar is working flat out on the development of its new XJ flagship – caught here heading back from the track to the company’s test facility on the perimeter of the Nurburgring in Germany. We’ve seen quite a few XJ mules in 2008 both in the UK and in Germany, but this is the first one caught undergoing new engine trials, indicating Jaguar’s rate of progress.

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Bloomburg News reported Friday that a subway operator is investigating a report that static electricity from a train passing beneath the Singapore Grand Prix caused a Formula One car to break down.
SMRT Corp. is making enquiries after Autosport magazine reported Mark Webber’s Red Bull car had a gear malfunction during the Sept. 28 race because of a train, company spokeswoman Kuer Chor Ling said by telephone.
Toro Rosso driver Sebastien Bourdais experienced the same problem in a practice two days before the race, the U.K. magazine reported, citing an interview with Red Bull team manager Christian Horner.
The Singapore Grand Prix, the country’s first Formula One race, was held at night on a street circuit. Read the Autosport story here.

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You’ll find the same sassy and informative content written by the same team of fabulous mamas, just reorganized with a new look and feel.  At your request, we’ve organized our content so that it’s easy to find everything that matters to your family’s lifestage. Do you have kids in diapers, school or that awkward teenage stage? A quick click will filter all of our content down to what’s important to you.

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Time to catch up on things with some more older photos. Here we have a trip up to the top of Mt. Tsukuba from back in May. I wrote a piece about Tsukba-san’s touge on Speedhunters a few weeks ago, but the area is also a popular destination for people looking to take in some scenic views and fresh mountain air.

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Back when there still was a real estate market, the San Francisco Bay area was one of the hottest. Los Gatos’ auto row included several venerable multi-generation family operations. Last year Swanson Ford gave up the ghost. Last week, Los Gatos Chevrolet hung up its spurs. Now lonely Moore Buick-Pontiac-GMC finds itself the sole survivor, stuck between the carcasses of Swanson on one side and Los Gatos Chevrolet on the other. According to the The San Jose Mercury News (SJMN), “Perhaps a dozen San Jose-area dealerships have closed in the past few years, including Silicon Valley Hummer, Stevens Creek Buick-Pontiac-GMC, Sunnyvale Dodge-Chrysler-Jeep and Sunnyvale Lincoln-Mercury this year. Smythe Volvo closed a location on Capitol Expressway Auto Mall, but remains open on Stevens Creek Boulevard.” Paul Melville of Grant Thornton LLP sums up the nationwide situation: “‘An increasing number of dealers are simply closing their doors because sales have plummeted, credit has dried up, the overall retail environment is increasingly challenging and potential investors are sitting on the sidelines… In addition, the domestic automakers who badly need retail consolidation are not spending much of their scarce capital on the problem because the economy is doing it for them.’” Even so, the dealer networks are not yet shrinking as fast as retail sales are falling. Carmageddon indeed.

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Detroit’s Big Three are in serious trouble. That’s not news to anyone. Toyota and Honda, while suffering sales decreases last month, are still in the black. But the big question is where the future of the American automotive industry is - if there is one. Even if the Big Three don’t completely vanish, their continued downsizing will leave boatloads of engineers and mid-level execs without a job. Is the Silicon Valley model of business the future for the automotive industry for the next twenty years? Tesla seemed to raise plenty of dough despite immense production issues. And Carbon Motors is attempting to crank out a custom-built police car. There’s no way tiny companies like these could build enough cars for the entire US population. Nor could they compete with big boys like Toyota. But we might see a boom in purpose-built vehicles coming from smaller companies. Dodge Vipers from whoever buys the program. Electric sports cars from Tesla. An electric sedan from somebody. Carbon Motors’ police cars. Single-purpose taxicabs. And so on. Even after the small companies consolidate, it would be a clean start for the American automotive industry. Is it going to happen? No. But I’m just sayin’.

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Flash Of Genius, which opens at theaters today, is such a TTAC movie. It’s a story of automotive invention and one man’s struggles against the corrupt practices of an industry that stole his patented intermittent wiper design. Hell, it’s already got Ford’s PR flacks in a frenzy. Automotive News [sub] is reprinting its take on the eventually happy conclusion of the Bob Kearns story today, in honor of the film’s release. The story, dating from December 16, 1991 (this blogger’s ninth birthday), reports the successful conclusion of Kearns’ patent lawsuit against Chrysler. Having already won a $10.2m settlement against Ford, Kearns was asking for $39m from Chrysler for stealing his invention. After 13 years of litigation and $10m in legal fees, Kearns had finally beat the industry that so viciously screwed him. Check out the movie that retells the story of his invention and legal battles, opening today at theaters near you.

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First it was “the HUMMER H2 is better for the environment than the Prius.” Now it’s big cars in general are better for the planet– and your wallet– than small ones. “Small cars don’t last,” automotive analyst Dennis DesRosiers tells wordsmith Barbara Righton of Macleans. “They fail to retain value, utility or desirability.” Babs connects the dots. “Small cars are less durable. First off, they are built lighter. Secondly, they are cheaper, so they attract younger drivers who tend to maintain them poorly. They have a lower resale value, which guarantees they won’t trade hands many times before they are scrapped, and they’re more likely to be written off by insurance companies if they are involved in serious collisions. In other words, ‘the useful life of the vehicle’ is as short as their wheel base, according to Erich Merkle, an automotive consultant with Crowe Chizek in Grand Rapids, Mich.” Quite aside from the fallacy of the argument (I’ll let the Best and Brightest make the case), do I detect some kind of weird sneering thing going on? Indeed I do. “Merkle advises consumers to buy a mid-sized car that is a couple of years old and hang onto it. That way they can sit contentedly and watch the parade of tiny cars in their neighbours’ driveways come — and go.”

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A report by the Minneapolis-based Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy warns that the ethanol industry’s appetite for H20 may torpedo its future. As reported by The Economist, “a typical ethanol factory producing 50m gallons of biofuels a year needs about 500 gallons of water a minute.” The mag cites opposition to plants in Missouri, Minnesota, Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas and in central Illinois based on proposed plants draining local aquifers. As we’ve reported before, Florida is amongst those states providing ethanol-justified subsidies to its corn growers. And yet… “OFFICIALS in Tampa, Florida, got a surprise recently when a local firm building the state’s first ethanol-production factory put in a request for 400,000 gallons (1.5m litres) a day of city water. The request by US Envirofuels would make the facility one of the city’s top ten water consumers overnight, and the company plans to double its size. Florida is suffering from a prolonged drought. Rivers and lakes are at record lows and residents wonder where the extra water will come from.” While the ethanol industry has halved its H20 needs in the last ten years, 50 percent of a massive amount of water to turn corn into ethanol still ain’t chicken feed. Literally. [thanks to starlightmica for the link]

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