While You Were Sleeping: July 3, 2014

Don’t you just hate it when you ask people to put on a sweater in the winter, metaphorically speaking, and then your tax on tank tops fails to bring in the cash harvest?

Just Imagine How Good It Would Be Without Those Ecoboost Fords: The averaged fuel economy of all new light vehicles sold in June slipped a bit, according to Wards. The 25.3mpg figure was still better than June of last year and nearly 21% better than June of 2007. The highest-rated automaker was Mitsubishi with a fleet average of 30.2mpg, the only automaker to exceed the 30mpg mark. The average for all cars was 29.4mpg, the average for all trucks was 21.0mpg.

In Completely Unrelated News To What You Just Read The Federal Highway Fund is going to be in the red as early as August of this year, a consequence of fleet fuel economy that has significantly increased and more drivers staying home in the recession that dare not have its name spoken by the media. Ideas floated by politicians and their lapdogs in the media include: raising the gas tax, switching to per-mile user fees, doubling the tariff on tea.

From Britain To Infiniti: The new Infiniti Q30 compact car and the QX30 CUV will be built using Nissan facilities in Sunderland, UK. They’ll share platforms with the B-Class Mercedes-Benz and will almost certainly never appear in the United States, primarily because dealers here continue to remember the sales nightmare that was the Infiniti G20.

It’ll Be Like Spending Six Months With Katy Perry Then Marrying One Of Those “Dove Real Beauty” Women: Morons Buyers who are waitlisted on the new “Porsche” Macan are being offered a way to pass the time: short-term leases of a Boxster or Cayman. On the face of it, this is easily the most stupid idea Porsche’s ever had, and given that the company spent two years selling a 911 with no head gaskets that’s saying something. But a few minutes’ worth of Ketel One consumption thought on the issue is enough to change my mind. Some percentage of the Macandroids might actually enjoy driving a sports car enough to cancel their order for the Q5-via-Leipzig, which reduces the waiting list and modestly bumps sales of Porsche’s best mass-market vehicles a bit. It will also reduce the confusion of their neighbors, who would be highly surprised to see something that looks like a CR-V with thyroid disorder appear after hearing boasting about having a “Porsche on waitlist”.

What Do You Want To Bet Birdman’s Contract Says The Same Thing: Ford’s new boss, Mark Fields, will likely be cashing out over and above the $10.2 million in total compensation he received last year. His base salary will increase nine percent, a modest increase that could be said to parallel the complete and utter wage stagnation seen by the employed middle class since 2008. Best of all, however, “Fields would be required to use a private plane when traveling on company business for safety and efficiency, the company said.” Fly like a G6!