We’re losing track of how many top gunners post high-speed-run videos on public roads on YouTube and then get busted. Police take that tomfoolery personally, and you’d think they put the entire department on the case judging by how quickly the perps get caught.
Latest on the list is a Canadian motorcyclist who took his Yamaha on the Trans-Canada Highway and . CBC News now reports that the unidentified rider in question is 25 years old, unlicensed, riding an uninsured Yamaha R1 registered in his mother’s name. Then there’s the small matter of his 25 previous infractions.
Police wasted no time tracking down YouTube poster “Joe Blow,” but he’s been uncooperative up to now. We have no idea why he wasn’t in jail already after 25 violations, but we’re guessing his Internet handle will soon be changed to “Three Hots and a Cot.” to refresh your memory with a video demonstration of his stupidity.
Forbes has measured the largest 100 companies in the world, and 10 automakers have made the list. This list is unique in that it measures the size of a company using a combination of sales, assets, profits and market value.
Volkswagen was rated as the top automaker in the top 100 (number 17 overall), with sales of $221 billion and $21.5 billion in profit. finished a close second, ranked number 25 overall with sales of $228.5 billion. finished at 37 due in part to $188.7 billion in assets and a $66.3 billion market cap. came in at 44 with a market value of $47.5 billion. , which also sells motorcycles and generators, among other things, rounds out the top five with $137.7 billion in assets.
Finishing outside of the top five were (61), (63), (85), (95) and (96). Mitsubishi made the top 100 in part because it sells hoards of electronics around the world.
No automakers were able to crack the top 10, even with massive sales volume and solid profits. The top 10 was, however, dominated by the oil companies that feed those cars and trucks. Exxon finished number one, with five other oil companies in the top 12.
Along with Renault- CEO Carlos Ghosn, CEO Alan Mulally is confident in the growth of the electric car segment. It’s a long-term play, though, so Mulally isn’t committing the electric Ford Focus EV to making a strong sales statement. For now, Ford’s chief says he’d be fine moving fewer than 5,000 Focus EVs in the model’s first full year. And even that would mean a steep rise in uptake based on in December and January.
TheWall Street Journal reports that Mulally has also let slip the cost for the battery pack in the all-electric Focus: “around $12,000 to $15,000,” which makes a bit more understandable. Given that price range and the EV’s 23-kWh battery, that means Ford’s cost is between $522 and $650 per kWh, which is lower than the so far this year.
Reportage on the current sales of EVs is a bit schizophrenic – for example, , , but the commentators and the numbers seem to support Mulally’s confidence. If the Focus EV did manage 5,000 sales this year, that would be a little more than half of the 2011 tally for the , yet according to Bloomberg, EV market share grew more quickly than any other segment in Q1: Nissan is still working through its Leaf pre-order list, sales to 2,129 units vs. March 2011, the Opel Ampera has exceeded sales expectations, and other electric vehicles and their marketing pushes will come online later this year. Oh, and gas prices are still climbing.
There were no Focus EVs sold in February or March, but the retail push is gearing up now for the Spring season.
The 1961 Impala SS inaugurated the SS trim line to the brand, and its SS cars have found more than a million homes since – examples helping the way. Turns out, though, that just got around to patenting the designator SS on April 13, 2012. Since the SS descriptor has historically indicated a model variant or trim level, distinctions that apparently don’t normally warrant trademark protection, the questions are why now and what for?
The evidence would seem to lead to this being a model designator, not just a trim, and there have been of the will hit the market and simply be called SS. But if that’s the case, what would the we’ve seen in spy shots be named, and what – if anything – would happen to the SS trim available on other Chevy models?
Click the image below for a look at the patent application, and we’ll be looking forward to finding out what is going to go where.
The Lamborghini SUV that we’ll shortly be ogling over when it’s introduced at the has a name: the Urus. That’s the word according to Chinese media, at least, which would for some other Lambo creation.
We’ll save you the trip to Wikipedia: a “urus” is an extinct European ox, Bos primigenius, a forebearer of domestic cattle whose last example roamed the Polish forests until 1627. A shaggy-haired, plodding bovine is a bit down on excitement compared to its taurean siblings, so we’ll also keep Urus Khan – descendent of Gehghis and ruler of at least one horde – in the naming inspiration pool. In keeping with Lamborghini tradition, there’s presumably a fighting bull that’s carried the name at some point, as well.
The Urus is expected to have a from the , a rumored 584-horsepower and $200,000 price tag. It’s slated for a 2015 release, and following that could be a hybrid that pushes past the 600-hp mark. Stay tuned for official images and information as the Urus rolls out in Beijing.
Some automakers roll out a new model and that’s pretty much it, while for others, a new model’s introduction is just the starting point. most definitely falls in the latter category. When a new rolls out, for example, you can bet there will be a dozen or more versions to follow. A new ? Slap a roof on it and in another year or so you’ve got a new . So it only stands to reason that the German automaker would do the same with its more family-oriented offerings, the and .
Automobile magazine’s European bureau reports that, when Porsche rolls out a restyled Panamera next year, the four-door model will yield the variants that the current model does not. That will likely include a long-wheelbase model for the Chinese market, as well as a potential shooting brake and a possible four-seat cabriolet.
A slant-back version of the Cayenne is also said to be in the works to take on the , with a new Cayman to put a roof over the new Boxster’s head later this year and a generous array of 911 variants to come out year after year. Couple all those spin-offs with the new crossover, the Pajun (baby Panamera) and a pair of new supercars (918 and 960) to slot in above the 911 range and they’re suddenly looking very busy at Zuffenhausen over the next few years.
Several years ago, we were surprised to discover that the Yugo was still being made. Sometimes dubbed the worst car in history, Serbian automaker Zastava continued producing the Yugo through 2008 when rolled off the assembly line in Kragujevac after a twenty-year production run. That was only months after inked a to buy the company and its assets, including the factory.
Now almost four years later, Fiat has finished upgrading the Cold War-era assembly plant into what it now calls its most advanced factory yet. Inaugurated just the other day by Chrysler/Fiat CEO Sergio Marchionne and Serbian Prime Minister Mirko Cvetkovic, the former Zastava plant has undergone a billion-euro renovation, including new production shops, machinery, infrastructure, landscaping and roof over a 1.4 million square meter site.
By the end of the year, the plant will employ a workforce of some 2,400. Their first task will be production of the new 500L mini-minivan (pictured above), which is scheduled to begin delivery (at a rate of as many as 200,000 units each year) from the former Yugoslavian country to markets across Europe and around the world later this year.
You’ve probably heard it a hundred times before: a product or service calling itself the of its category, or the of another. Well you might call the St. Regis the of hotels, and not by some spurious correlation.
The British automaker has been using the chain’s high-end hotels around the world for years to launch its new models, and last year kicked the relationship up a notch by hosting a driving event through the Italian countryside for Bentley owners and guests of the St. Regis hotels in Rome and Florence. Now that they’re done flirting, the two luxury marques are about to consummate the relationship with a more comprehensive partnership.
The freshly inked collaboration will see fleets of stationed at St. Regis hotels around the world from Singapore and Abu Dhabi to the flagship location in Manhattan. But that’s not the end of it.
The St. Regis and its associated locations in The Luxury Collection of hotels and resorts in the Starwood group will also be hosting a series of driving programs, special events and brand initiatives for Bentley and guests of the hotels, starting with the Springtime Bentley Grand Tour that will take participants over the course of two days from Vienna to Salzburg behind the wheel of the new . for the full press release.
It may come as a shock, but diesel cars are doing well outside of their traditional European home. The just-released shows that , but the real story is that we might be seeing the start of a golden era for diesel-powered cars in the U.S. In fact, clean diesel sales were up 35 percent in the first quarter of 2012 over Q1 2011, a trend – and it is a trend, since diesel sales were up 27 percent in 2011 – that the Diesel Technology Forum (DTF) says is due to higher fuel prices pushing people into the efficient oil-burners.
Allen Schaeffer, DTF’s executive director, said in a statement that, “I expect clean diesel auto sales to increase further as several new diesel cars are introduced in the U.S. market in the next year.”
Right now, it’s pretty much all Jetta TDI, all the time.
Once those other vehicles arrive, we’ll see how the market shakes out. Right now, it’s pretty much all , all the time. A while back, we spoke with Lars Ullrich, the director of marketing and business excellence, diesel systems North America, for Robert Bosch LLC. He told us that diesel Jettas made up 44 percent of all diesels sold in the U.S. last year, which makes the Jetta sort of the Prius of diesels in America. Last year, had 58 percent of all diesel sales in the U.S.
Does this mean the Jetta TDI is “the” diesel in the U.S.? Ullrich said it depends on how you look at the numbers. About 60 percent of all s sold in the U.S. in 2011, for example, were diesel, but the A3 sells in smaller numbers overall than the Jetta. When you have diesels available in high-volume models, he said, you end up selling a lot of diesels.
Diesel-powered passenger cars and medium-duty pick-ups had around three percent market share in the U.S. in 2011.
What does the big picture look like? Overall, diesel-powered passenger cars and medium-duty pick-ups had around three percent market share in the U.S. in 2011. That may not sound like a lot, but compare it to the hybrid market share, which has gone from 2.7 to 2.4 to 2.1 percent over the last three years, Ullrich said. Today, there are 25 clean diesel models available in the U.S. By 2014, that number will double, he said, which gives us an indication of where the market is moving. Echoing Schaeffer, Bosch’s prediction is that the U.S. will see diesels grab 10 percent of the market by 2015.
While increasingly popular, diesels are not perfect. There are issues like the , for example, and a fossil fuel is a fossil fuel. But it’s clear that Americans are considering diesel more than they used to. The question is what happens when the and arrive? Or more of ’s -D models? And, further down the line, when we see more merging of electric and diesel powertrains, where the diesel – perhaps – is burned in an efficient generator to generate electricity. That’s when things get even more exciting.
High gas prices are helping and do quite well in the U.S., too. The Diesel Technology Forum says hybrid sales increased 37.2 percent while plug-in electrics jumped 323 percent. Overall, vehicle sales were up 13.4 percent. For more number-crunching details, see our monthly green car sales charts for , and of 2012. The DTF has compiled a list of all the diesel-powered vehicles available in the U.S. .
In the pantheon of bad ideas and even worse ideas, capturing yourself on video gratuitously breaking the law and later flaunting your indiscretions to the local constabulary ranks right between and .
Funny thing is, people seem to make this egregious mistake rather often. Exhibit A: . Exhibit B: The video you’ll see below.
First off, it’s seriously stupid and irresponsible to risk your own life and the lives of others by riding at speeds of up to 185 miles per hour while weaving your way through traffic. But it takes even fewer brain cells to share video evidence on YouTube, especially considering that we can all see that you’re riding what appears to be a 2006 Yamaha R1 painted up in factory blue.
According to CBC News, Vancouver Island police are trying to track down the rider in this clip. Scroll to see the video for yourself.
Last week, a battery research lab in Warren, Michigan. General Motors has since said the fire was caused by a battery that was being tested under “extreme stress.” Engineers were trying to get the pack to fail, which it did, but not to ignite, which it also did when gases leaked out and somehow caught fire.
There’s one detail we have not heard yet, and that’s how much the fire could end up costing GM: up to $5 million, the The Detroit News reports, based on information that the automaker’s representatives submitted in a police report. The local fire department has estimated that the damage could be closer to $3 million, with one million of that due to property loss – at least two labs were damaged – and $2 million worth of damage to the labs’ contents. An investigation into the cause and extent of the fire continues.
The battery pack involved was not the same as the one used in the and GM says that the incident . Media reports have suggested the battery is be intended for the and that the prototype battery pack was made by A123 (which has had recently). Multiple people were injured in the fire but only one remains in the hospital because of “an estimated four-inch gash to the back of his head.”
Youngman has made another bid for bankrupt , according to new reports. The Chinese automaker has offered to buy what’s left of Saab for $470 million at current conversion rates. The news comes courtesy of Dagens Industri. The newspaper also indicates that’s the absolute lowest the Swedish automaker’s pledgees and real estate owners will accept to settle the company’s impressive debt. The deal would also set aside an additional $1.47 billion to restart production at the mothballed Trollhattan facility. Other foreign automakers are also vying over Saab’s remains, including India’s Mahindra & Mahindra.
Pang Da, meanwhile, seems to have no interest in continuing to pursue Saab. The company paid out around $59 million for vehicles Saab was supposed to produce. That never happened, and now the Chinese company has had to undergo the unpleasant task of reporting that loss to its investors.
Saab around $1.9 billion at the moment, and its assets are valued at just $532 million.
How do doctors do it? How do they tell people that their loved ones are sick, afflicted, or even terminal? Sure, it’s one thing to deliver bad news like a mechanic: “Your transmission’s fried lady, that’s gonna be three grand.” But doctors need to be sensitive to the great anguish that will accompany their diagnosis. Nobody wants to find out that their formerly healthy family member isn’t well, and a doctor’s compassion is as important as his healing hand. The way the news gets delivered is crucial to how a patient, family and friends come to accept the situation and cope with treatment and its aftermath.
Can we then, get a doctor to write this review of the new Camry? Because after a week behind the wheel of the 2012 SE V6, one thing is clear: This best-seller is ailing.
Now, we understand that the car is a veritable institution – there are presently some 40,000 people snapping up Camrys every month. And yes, for most of the car buying public, the new midsize will continue to provide safe and suitable, if unsurprising, transportation. By our estimation, however, there are at least two, probably three, maybe even four or five other midsize sedans offering a better overall package of price, performance and personality than Toyota’s breadwinner. The short list starts with the and ends with the , but the forthcoming and deserve their shots as well.
That’s the crux of the changes in store for the extended-range plug-in electric vehicle. Changes for the 2013 model year will include a driving mode that lets drivers force the car into gas-powered, extended-range mode in situations where it’s most advantageous to switch out of EV-only mode, GM Inside News reports.
Drivers can choose the Volt’s “EV Hold Mode” in certain cases, such as when the route consists of a bunch of highway driving prior to city driving, according to the publication. Switching over to extended-range mode, in which the gas-powered on-board generator is used, would be better in that situation because high speeds drain a plug-in’s battery charge a lot more rapidly than city driving. “EV Hold Mode” is , the . The closest that U.S. drivers can do with today’s Volt is .”
Additionally, the Volt will eschew its black roof and trunk backing and will go to body colors for those parts of the car for 2013. Other improvements include a lane-departure warning system that’s becoming commonplace on many U.S. vehicles.
GM released details of the 2013 Volt following the model’s since its late-2010 debut. The automaker sold 2,289 Volts in March, a monthly record that is more than three times higher than figures from a year earlier. The Volt missed the 10,000-unit target set by GM for 2011, moving just 7,671 units last year.
Iran just became a bit less interesting for automotive enthusiasts with the by that it will no longer do business there. The announcement was made Monday by and .
“Consumers here have the power to force these companies out of Iran and tighten the screws on Tehran’s regime,” De Blasio said in the statement. “Our message is clear: you can do business with the Iranian regime or you can do business with the American consumer – but you can’t do both.”
This follows news that will also stop selling or servicing its cars in Iran. But despite the ongoing international embargo against Iran, car shoppers there still have plenty manufacturers from which to choose. , , , , , , , , , and are all still selling and/or servicing their models there. Sadly, for Iranians, nothing on par with Porsche.
But then again, most Iranians aren’t exactly flush with cash. A from March says car sales in Iran were down 20 percent with prices up by about the same amount. For example, an imported sells for about $151,000 over there. Even in good times, that’s a tough monthly payment for the average Iranian. In that same report, a Tehran car dealer said he hasn’t replenished his stock of Porsche models for months because no one can afford them.
So either for political or economic reasons, we may soon see other carmakers pulling out of the Iranian car market. Check out the UANI press release .
Forddesign chief J Mays tells Automotive News that the controversial grille design that on the at the won’t necessarily be pasted onto the front of every model. Mays means something quite specific, though: the perimeter of the grille and headlight form will remain, but the “grille texture” – the horizontal lines on the MKZ – could be reworked on other models.
Says Mays, the split-wing outline “is what makes a Lincoln.” But with Lincoln commencing “a pretty long year journey,” his comments to AN give his design team latitude while the brand seeks its new, younger consumers instead of being “trapped” into one grille style.
It’s an interesting position to take – allowing the possibility of different faces – when the brand only has four models (we’re not including the aging stepchild Navigator in this discussion) and is devoted to rebranding itself and making an impression among groups who haven’t paid attention to it in some time – if ever. Of course, Mays isn’t saying that other models won’t have the MKZ grille, but we look forward to seeing how this plays out.
If Ford actually comes to market with a new GT, then we’ll be right there with them.
With the debut of its at the earlier this month, you might be wondering what direction Shelby will be headed in the future. After all, they can’t just keep adding more horsepower to the . Can they?
Shelby president John Luft tells us that while they will continue producing post-title packages (they have a product plan for the pony car through 2020), the company is also considering branching out to other vehicles in the lineup.
“Our plans include everything from the Mustang to looking at future development of the EcoBoost motor,” he told us. “There could be a or development in our future.”
The plans don’t stop there, though. Luft revealed to us that Shelby is considering producing another halo sports car like they did in the late 1990s with the Series 1.
“We always pose the ‘what if’. If you remember when the Series 1 was developed, that was a purpose-built halo sports car for the Shelby brand. We always put those things in the plan because maybe down the road we would want to readdress a purpose-built Shelby sports car. It doesn’t mean we’ll build it, but we always want to challenge ourselves to put it on the table and talk about the practicality of it.”
Keep reading for more insights into Shelby’s plans for the future.
While the top four teams – you know, the ones that will be winning most if not all of the grands prix this year – have kept the same drivers, the same engines, the same sponsors and the same colors as last year, this year’s Formula One World Championship has seen plenty of changes on the grid.
and Caterham have finally solved their naming-rights dispute, and both changed both of their drivers – including former World Champion Kimi Raikkonen coming back to F1. Scuderia Toro Rosso also dumped both its drivers, as did HRT, and Williams axed one Brazilian (Rubens Barrichello) for another (Bruno Senna). Virgin changed its name to Marussia, and Force India sold nearly half the team to Sahara.
Can’t keep track of it all? Fortunately, YankeeF1 has provided us with spotter’s guide for easy reference, showing each of the teams, its car and its drivers, plus a calendar of the grands prix this season and the color-coded tires. Keep it handy next race Sunday and you might just be able to make sense of it all.
There’s an old newspaper adage that dictates: “Dog bites man” is not news. “Man bites dog,” now that’s news. In other words, the subversion of the usual order of things is what sells papers. And you might say the same about . A Caddy getting bigger, by that logic, is hardly news, but a Caddy getting smaller sure is.
That’s what makes the new such a big step for the top-end of the brand portfolio. Occupying the place once taken by the Catera (which led to the ), that model now has to kick up a size to make room for its new baby brother. And so it appears to be doing.
These spy shots show what our intrepid auto paparazzi say is the next-gen CTS, applying the same Art & Science design language to a slightly larger form that’s expected to switch from the Sigma II platform to a stretched version of The General’s new rear-drive Alpha architecture.
In between the camouflage we can make out a new grille, projector headlamps with LED daytime runners, with radar sensors aplenty and dual exhaust tips around the back. Sources expect a 2.0-liter turbo four to come in with 270 horsepower as the base engine in the new CTS, with the 3.6-liter V6 also expected to be on offer as well as a turbo six sometime after production kicks off at Lansing Grand River Assembly in September 2013.
We’ve never been falsely accused of a traffic violation, having earned every last second of our time before a judge, but when it does happen to us, we’ll certainly want to brush up on our physics. Dmitiri Krioukov, a physicist with the University of California, recently pleaded his way out of a fine for rolling through a stop sign using the power of mathematics. Krioukov worked up a four-page physics paper underscoring the differences between linear and angular motion to prove that he could have theoretically come to a complete stop and resumed traveling in the time it took another vehicle to pass between him and the citing officer.
The idea is that perception of speed can be altered depending on one’s viewpoint. Since the officer viewed Krioukov from the side and the physicist supposedly came to a complete stop very quickly before accelerating again just as fast, it appeared as if he never stopped at all. Or at least that was the notion. Whether or not the judge believed the professor didn’t matter so much as the fact that Krioukov managed to shed some doubt on the accusation. He was declared innocent and spared the $400 fine.
But the story doesn’t end there. The physicist left a flaw in his proof, and has invited everyone to see if they can figure it out. From our layman’s point of view, it appears Krioukov’s managed to fall from 22 mph to 0 and vault back up to 22 in the span of three seconds. Must be quite the machine. You can check out the full paper .
