Hyundai’s just-unveiled Sonata Hybrid is the latest step in the Korean brand’s assault on the American automotive landscape, and it looks to have been a good one. No licensed bits from Toyota here, in fact Hyundai’s new powertrain does away with Toyota’s powersplit-CVT concept, simply replacing the torque converter on its automatic transmission with a starter-generator motor and a high-efficiency oil pump. Ok, maybe not simply.
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In a number of municipalities, decreases in tax receipts seem to be followed by an increase in traffic tickets according to USA Today [Hat Tip: ClutchCarGo]. Surprised? Clearly you don’t read much of our coverage of the proliferation of speed cameras. It’s no surprise that cities turn to speed cameras to shore up budget gaps, as the companies that sell automated ticketing machines regularly highlight the revenue upsides of their products to politicians. But what about “the cushion,” the five to ten mile per hour grace given by gentlemanly police officers to motorists just barely over the speed limit?

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Due to the poor planning of yours truly, TTAC won’t have its own New York Auto Show photography until a bit later in the week. But then, it’s also beginning to look like Toyota won’t have a real sports coupe worth mentioning until the FT-86 comes out sometime around 2012. Hey, nobody’s perfect. Meanwhile, let’s try to enjoy what we do have: press shots of a warmed-over, front-drive cute-coupe. Scion swears the tC’s 2.5 liter engine and platform (McPherson front/Double Wishbone rear) are “all new,” but it’s not enough to make you forget that a $25k, RWD, boxer-engined “true” sports coupe is coming from Toyota in a few short years. Which is good for patient enthusiasts, but not so great for the Scion brand.

This is not the car for those who suffer from either scopophobia (fear of being seen) or amaxophobia (fear of riding in a car), or God forbid you suffer from both. But if you do and get offered a ride in a 1968 Quasar Unipower, at least a grab bar is handily available for the afflicted passenger. (Read More…)

An RL Polk study, reported in the Detroit Free Press, reveals that Americans scrapped 1.2m more vehicles than they bought in the 15 months ending in September 2009. 14.8m vehicles were scrapped in that time period, compared to 13.6 new registrations, suggesting that new car sales could be heading towards an upswing. And with an average fleet age of 10.2 years (the highest in 14 years), common sense seems to indicate that the rebound should happen soon. Polk VP Lonnie Miller explains:

It foreshadows what may be pentup demand. The assumption is that those vehicles have to be replaced.

But is it that simple? Even Miller admits that a number of factors might cause scrappage to exceed new registration for the immediate future.

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Japan appears to get extremely serious about all-electric cars. What stands in the way of their success? Apart from the price (we’ll get to that later:) It’s the infrastructure, stupid. Fabricating, fuelling, and fixing an ICE-powered car is supported by an infrastructure that had more than 100 years to grow. Keeping a plug-in running needs an infrastructure to guarantee mobility away from the charger at home. Japan’s Environment Ministry teams up with Nissan, Sumitomo, and other companies to build the infrastructure for electric vehicles, reports The Nikkei [sub]. (Read More…)

Why the endless questions and arguments about the origins of the Chrysler minivans? It’s the old story: “success has a thousand fathers”. You don’t see designers and execs fighting about the paternity of the Aztek. We stepped on some toes regarding the origins of the Espace, and heard from its father. And we took a wild (and disputed) stab at finding the maternal lineage of European minivans, but the American minivan paternity wars go on. Its origins clearly go back to the early seventies, when both Chrysler and Ford developers claim to have been working on “garageable vans”. Meanwhile, the commonly held story is that Hal Sperlich and Lee Iaccocca’s Minimax concept was spurned by Henry Ford II, and they took it with them to bring to fruition at Chrysler. And as usual, its not quite as simple as that.  (Read More…)

We recently asked our Best and Brightest to show us their favorite car ads of all time, and we all wasted the rest of the day staring at old Youtube clips of some of the best auto spots of all time. But what was the best car ad to come out in 2009? According to Automotive News [sub], Nielsen IAG Automotive has awarded this Kia Soul ad the prize of “Automotive Ad of the Year for effectiveness” for 2009. But was it really the best? Be sure to include your own nominations for the best car ad of ’09 in your comments.

Reuters reports that Ford and Microsoft are deepening ties that began with the Sync hands-free system, announcing a new online app aimed at plug-in vehicle owners. “Hohm,” as the new app is called, will be made available for free to owners of Ford electric vehicles, and will “help vehicle and home owners decide when to power up electric vehicle batteries, in the hope that consumers will draw power from the grid at night, when energy use and costs are lower” according to Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer. Which leaves only one problem: the fact that Ford doesn’t sell any electric vehicles. An EV version of the Transit Connect commercial van will be made available later this year, one of five EVs Ford says it will sell by 2013. But how much will EV recharging be about planning the most efficient time to maximize grid downtime? Won’t people who use their EV every day simply plug in when they get home and unplug when they head to work in the morning? Does there really need to be an app for this? Oh right, as a society we’ve stopped asking that particular question. Very well, carry on.

Ed Niedermeyer is probably too humble to say it, so it’s left for me to say: TTAC has been doing exceptionally well over the last few months. Thank you.

Yesterday was another record day: 122,000 views. Thank you,  Jack Baruth for having written the 2011 Mustang review. It pulled in readers in droves. (Today’s Mustang GT review is developing into another scorcher. And thank you, Ford, for making the cars available.) Thank you, Paul, for writing another classic curbside classic about the Honda Prelude, and about the illicit substances you had sworn to keep away from your son. Thank you, Paul, for writing the runner-up traffic generator, about Honda’s high-revving, mid-engined whacky pick-up.

As you see, the most read topics on Thetruthaboutcars.com are as eclectic as our readers. Which brings me to the secret of TTAC’s success: (Read More…)