“With a languid stroke, her lascivious fingers caressed the seat. Out of nowhere, Chopin’s Nocturnes engulfed Rudolfo’s vintage Testatrossa in a sea of glissandi. Soon, Rudolfo’s  testosterone was on full volume. He opened the first button of her blouse, there was a pop, then – silence.”

If Maksim Skorobogatiy of the Polytechnic School in Montreal, Canada, gets his way, then this is how future novels will be written. Or car catalogs. Skorobogatiy suggests:

“In essence we are trying to reproduce the smartphone experience in textile form. We are looking for applications where we can weave in sleek, non-invasive control, avoiding blocks of push buttons.”

The Canadian researchers created a soft polymer-based fiber, or make that fibre, which has electrical properties that change depending on where it is touched. The fiber can be woven into any fabric. That way, it can turn a car seat, or the lady’s blouse (“it`s getting hot, mind if I turn this down a bit … there you go”) into a touch screen.  There already may be a customer.

“Touch-sensitive surfaces are a very interesting technology for controlling operations in a car.”

So said BMW spokeswoman Melina Aulinger to the New Scientist, which opines that “it might not be long before something similar is seen in our cars.”

Totally overlooked, a recent BMW concept car that appeared in March at the Geneva Motor Show, was operated via a touch-sensitive surface, heating and music were controlled by the driver’s gestures, Aulinger told the New Scientist.

It’s probably all a conspiracy to wean us away from leather and make us buy chintzy fabric seats that interface with our iPod.

Canadians already bought the Honda Civic in droves, so it would make sense that another unloved car, the Fiat 500, would do well in a country that favors smaller, more European vehicles, right? Sort of.

Fiat did outsell both MINI and Scion in Canada this past year, but not by much. Accordingly to analyst Timothy Cain, Fiat ranked 27th out of 34 brands on sale in Canada, selling 5392 units. MINI was 28th with 5155 units and Scion was 29th with 4720 units.

The Fiat 500 is a common sight on the streets of Toronto, where being chic goes a long way. Despite the 500 selling in small volumes, the Dodge/Ram brand had a great showing in Canada overall, finishing behind Ford in second place (though Ford outsold Dodge/Ram by 100,152 units). Chrysler and Jeep sales were counted separately.

It’s safe to say that most of the seemingly infinite number of “car of the year” competitions are so utterly bunk that they’re not even worth the effort of exposing. But the reality is that you still see advertisements for cars proudly proclaiming them the favored choice of some local, national, or media outlet’s car of the year competition. So, to show just how non-representative and unscientific these awards can be, we thought we’d share the categories from the Automotive Journalist Association of Canada (AJAC)’s “Test Fest,” which will determine the “Canadian Car Of The Year” as well as the favored cars in several categories. Our Canadian tipster writes:

They do all kinds of crap that skew the results.  For example, they use the cars “as tested” price to determine what category it falls under, rather than MSRP.  So what category the car falls under is completely at the whim of whatever car the manufacturer drops off and what category THEY want the car tested in.  You could have an Elantra fall into the “Over $21,000″ category or “Under $21,000″ category depending on content.  Same car, 2 different categories.  But it gets better.  Some of the categories I call “lump” categories because they just throw everything in one category.  My favorite is Sports Car Under $50K.  They actually have the Veloster competing against an Charger SRT8 and a C Class Merc.  No, I’m not making this us.  I’ve included the list for you, so that you may try and decipher WTF these boobs are doing.

Hit the jump to check out the categories for yourself. But first, it should be noted that despite previous questions about the AJAC award’s ethics, the competition now has a page on its website dedicated specifically to enumerating the ethical obligations of participating journalists and the award’s organizers. Unfortunately that page is limited to the following content:

Code of Ethics

AJAC Ethical Guidelines

Under review.

Oy…

Small Car < $21K
Chevrolet Sonic Sedan
Fiat 500
Honda Civic Sedan
Hyundai Accent
Kia Rio S
Nissan Versa Sedan
Scion iQ

Small Car > $21K
Ford Focus
Hyundai Elantra
Subaru Impreza
Volkswagen Beetle

Family < $30K
Chevrolet Orlando
Chrysler 200
Kia Optima LX
Mazda 5
Toyota Camry
Volkswagen Passat TDI

Family > $30K
Chevrolet Volt
Dodge Charger
Hyundai Sonata Hybrid
Kia Optima Hybrid
MINI Countryman
Toyota Prius V

Luxury Car
Acura TL
Buick LaCrosse eAssist
Chrysler 300S
Infiniti M35h
Lexus CT200h
Mercedes C-Class C350 4MATIC

Sports/Performance < $50K
Buick Regal GS
Dodge Charger SRT8
Honda Civic SI Coupe
Hyundai Veloster
Kia Optima SX
Mercedes C-Class Coupe

Sports/Performance > $50K
BMW 1 Series M Coupe
Chevrolet Camaro Convertible
Chrysler 300 SRT8
Hyundai Genesis R-Spec
Mercedes CLS C-Class
Porsche Cayman R

Prestige > $75K
BMW  6 Series Cabriolet
Jaguar XKR-S
Mercedes S-Class S350 BlueTEC 4MATIC

SUV-CUV < $35K
Dodge Journey
Jeep Compass
Jeep Wrangler

SUV-CUV $35-$60K
BMW X1
Dodge Durango
Ford Explorer
Range Rover Evoque
Volkswagen Touraeg TDI

SUV-CUV > $60K
BMW X3
Jeep Grand Cherokee SRT8
Mercedes M-Class

Jurisdictions throughout the United States have been dropping the use of red light cameras and speed cameras. On Tuesday, the revolt spread to Strathcona County, Canada where the county council voted 5-4 to replace automated ticketing machines with real, live police officers.

“As far as we can tell, other than British Columbia a few years ago, we’re the first jurisdiction in Canada to remove photo radar,” Councillor Brian Botterill told TheNewspaper in an interview.

In 2001, Liberal Party leader Gordon Campbell campaigned in the province of British Columbia with a promise to ban speed cameras. When election day arrived, voters threw out the incumbent NDP party and handed Campbell 77 out of 79 seats in the provincial legislature. Now Botterill and his colleagues are conservatives opposing a policy originally put in place by conservatives in the province of Alberta.

“We see photo radar as a social experiment that failed,” Botterill said. “It was an interesting attempt, but in the end it didn’t work.”

Instead of mobile speed camera vans, Strathcona County will hire five new enforcement services officers, use radar-activated speed boards to warn drivers to slow down and conduct an engineering analysis to maximize safety. The photo enforcement contract with Affiliated Computer Services expires on September 30, so the county will go month-to-month until the new officers are hired, which could take up to nine months. After that happens, the speed vans will be eliminated.

The goal of switching from unmanned enforcement to manned enforcement is to redirect the focus away from ticketing those driving slightly above an underposted speed limit to going after the egregious violators who Botterill contends are the most dangerous. In Canada, 37 percent of fatal accidents were caused by drunk drivers. One out of five accidents were caused by distracted drivers.

“Photo radar could never stop those root causes, but manned enforcement could,” Botterill said. “Let’s focus our limited dollars on the root causes.”

A Royal Canadian Mounted Police report predicted that if the mobile speed cameras were kept they would issue 13,911 tickets and generate $1.2 million in revenue. Of this amount, a $512,000 surplus would be added to county coffers, while five additional officers would cost $270,540 — after taking into account the 8,428 tickets worth $727,010 they would be expected to issue.

“Automated speed enforcement continues to be a significant tool in the long term goal of improving road safety in Strathcona County,” RCMP Sergeant Christian Narbonne argued. “Its use is economical, socially sustainable and environmentally sensitive as per the Strathcona County Strategic Traffic Plan mission statement.”

The majority did not agree with Narbonne. Although the speed cameras will be removed, the red light cameras that generated $237,350 in revenue last year would remain. Instead of removal, the council voted to investigate engineering improvements that would sharply cut down on the number of citations issued.

“We probably shouldn’t be ticketing until the all-red is over,” Botterill said.

The council is also working on a number of other changes to improve safety on county roads. Staff will review and cut on down the number of unnecessary school zones, reducing the current 250 zones to 30 where children actually likely to use the road.

[Courtesy: Thenewspaper.com]

The arrest of 13 young supercar drivers near Vancouver, British Columbia is not necessarily the sort of piece I’d jump all over right away, but it did inspire quite a number of emails from readers tipping us to the story. I’m always intrigued by stories that inspire a lot of tips, but after reading the Vancouver Sun follow-up, I was even more disappointed with the story. To wit:

The drivers face charges of driving without due consideration for others, which comes with a $196 ticket and six driver penalty points, which will trigger a $300 penalty point premium.

Gaumont said there is a lot of disappointment that the drivers face only $196 fines, but there is not enough evidence to charge them with the more serious offence of dangerous driving.

“We don’t have police officers who observed the offence, and we don’t have lasers and radars that have the speeds,” Gaumont said. “We have to really depend on third-party individuals who had called in.”

If I’ve got this right, we’re supposed to be outraged by young people in fast cars, and society’s inability to stop them from wreaking their  ”speeds upwards of 200 km/h” terror. For me, though, the overriding reaction to this story is “how uncool doess this make the supercars look?”

Once upon a time, cars like this would create stories just like this one… in the hands of Steve McQueens and James Deans. People who bought cars like the Jaguar XK-SS and Porsche 550 because they had an appreciation for what they could do. Now supercars are so, and pardon the rock ‘n roll metaphor, commercialized that every kid in Vancouver whose parents have a couple hundred million to rub together gets a Gallardo for their sweet sixteen. There can be no greater indication that the image of the supercar has become utterly divorced from the reality of what actually makes it a supercar, than the story of a dozen 21 year-olds, half of whom still have to have “novice” decals on their quarter-million-dollar rides, driving in a group on the freeway. If stories like this one keep popping up, it seems to me that it’s only a matter of time before supercars lose their cool.

A campaign to reform or eliminate the use of red light cameras and speed cameras is heading up in Winnipeg, Canada. Earlier this month the group WiseUpWinnipeg kicked off the effort with a two-page, full-color advertisement in the Winnipeg Sun newspaper.

“Attention Winnipeg drivers, you are being deliberately deceived,” the ad warned. “The city of Winnipeg is engaged in a deliberate and dangerous campaign to induce photo enforcement violations and siphon your hard earned (cash).”

The group charges city officials with concealing information regarding the program efficacy in order to protect the “predatory cash grab.” WiseUpWinnipeg has been rebuffed on several freedom of information requests for items as simple as a copy of the contract between Winnipeg and Affiliated Computer Services, the Dallas, Texas-based firm in charge of the program. The city also has refused to provide an analysis of the accident rates at photo enforced locations using data from the provincial automobile insurance company. In 2006, the city auditor recommended that this dataset be used because it offers precise numbers for the cost of each accident in the city (view audit report).

Winnipeg standardizes all of its intersections at 4 seconds of yellow, regardless of particular intersection speeds and characteristics. WiseUpWinnipeg has been trying to pressure the city to give drivers a longer warning period, as a 2005 Texas Transportation Institute study showed an extra second of yellow beyond the bare minimum ITE standard caused a significant reduction in the number of accidents (view study). Conversely, retaining insufficient yellow timing has been shown to increase violations.

“The four-second amber is the cornerstone of the entire scheme,” group co-founder Todd Dube said in a statement. “It is what creates the dangerous yet profitable ‘dilemma zone’ for drivers — without it the program would be reduced to capturing the ‘real red light runners’ and there aren’t enough of those to line the coffers at city hall.”

As part of the “Taking it the the Streets” campaign, WiseUpWinnipeg is offering free signs warning of speed cameras and short yellow times that residents can use to save their neighbors from falling into a speed trap. The group is urging the public to email their thoughts on cameras to Mayor Sam Katz. The advertisement also urges all ticket recipients to plead not guilty to every photo enforcement ticket.

[Courtesy: Thenewspaper.com]

With new compact and subcompact models from Ford and GM enjoying respectable sales, the mainstream media has been indulging in some “feel-good” headlines, like the New York Times’s Detroit’s Rebound Is Built on Smaller Cars, or CBS’s more equivocal Can small cars rebound U.S. auto industry? It’s an understandable instinct, as the media has long battered Detroit’s inability to build competitive compact and subcompact cars, and in the post-bailout atmosphere of redemption, these headlines definitely help reassure Americans about the value of their “investment.” Unfortunately (if unsurprisingly), however, these pieces gloss over the full truth of the situation. Yes, Ford and GM are enjoying improved sales success with small cars. The “U.S. auto industry,” on the other hand, isn’t actually getting all that much out of the situation, beyond some fluffily positive press. Here’s why:

Final assembly, as many know, is just one way in which to measure the impact of a given car on the thousands of firms that make up the U.S. auto industry. Some cars which the MSM are highlighting as perception changers for “Detroit” and “the US auto industry,” like the Ford Fiesta (or the Cadillac SRX compact crossover), are not built in the US at all. But even those that do are hardly any more American than strong-selling nameplates that have been built in America for years. To understand how this can be, it’s important to understand “content mix,” or the percentage of US/Canadian origin in each vehicle. Luckily Car & Driver publicized 2010′s NAFTA-area domestic content mix by model, in a PDF that you can download here.

What that data shows is that most of the cars that are being most closely associated with the “American Small Car Rebound” are not, well, all that American. Fiesta and Chevrolet’s Cruze are perhaps the most widely-referenced “perception-changing” Detroit small car, and yet both are average or worse when it comes to US/Canadian content mix for their segment. A Honda Civic made in Indiana, for example, uses considerably more North American-sourced parts than either the Cruze or its even-more-lauded Volt platform-mate. Nissan’s Mexican-made Versa has more North American parts content than any other NAFTA-made subcompact. In short, the Detroit firms may be selling more domestically-branded small cars, but they’re hardly breaking new ground in terms of selling high-domestic-content compact and subcompact cars… yet.

The good news is that this situation should improve in some cases. GM’s 2% North American Aveo will be replaced later this year by the Sonic, a 65% NA content subcompact, built in Michigan. Ford’s new 2012 Focus appears to keep its high domestic parts content mix, apparently improving over its predecessor by one percent for a segment-leading 85% North American content. On the other hand, Dodge is getting a new Fiat-based replacement for Caliber soon, and a relatively rapid homologation could mean much lower domestic content there.

In any case, though Ford and GM’s sales numbers show improvement in the small car arena, America still has a long way to go before it’s a small car manufacturing hub. Furthermore, the improvements in Ford and GM’s small car sales still aren’t having as much of an impact on the “real US auto industry,” the thousands of parts suppliers and related firms across the US, as the mainstream media’s narrative implies. And the most-hyped cars, in particular, still don’t match the North American parts content mixes that transplants have been achieving for some time.

Honda had been alerted by “unusual volume on the sites,” including “some unauthorized attempts to access account information,” a letter to customers says. The letter said customers should be on the alert for marketing overtures that reference ownership of a Honda or Acura vehicle.

It is not the first time that Honda had become a target. Last year, 4.9 million data sets were stolen from Honda USA. Hackers made away with 2.2 million names, email addresses and car information of current owners who registered their data on the Honda or Acura websites. The VINs of these cars were also taken. The blackhats also absconded with 2.7 million names and email addresses of people who had expressed their interest in receiving Acura information.

Supposedly, Honda responded to the U.S. breaches with an audit of its online security practices and its web vendors. The results of that audit must not have filtered up north.

When I visited GM’s Detroit-Hamtramck Assembly plant back in October, I was greeted with a few surprises. One was a small fire that flared briefly on my sweater after a cinder from the Volt’s body-welding station struck me. The other was the sight of GM’s latest, most high-tech green car being assembled on a line that was filled with GM’s oldest-school dinosaur cars, the Cadillac DTS and Buick Lucerne. The scene was no doubt intended to inspire appreciation for the changing face of GM, but the scarcity of Volts amid the oceans of giant front-drive barges (production was just beginning) made it clear that it would be a while before Volt production would occupy much of the sprawling facility. With the DTS and Lucerne headed for retirement, the new 2013 Malibu will be taking up residence at Detroit-Hamtramck later this year, even as Volt production capacity is increased to hit next year’s 60k unit goal. And now GM is announcing that the next generation of Chevy Impala will be built at Detroit-Hamtramck as well, leaving folks in Oshawa saying “eh?” (or words to that effect).

I’m sure TTAC’s resident Oshawa Impala vet, mikey, will want to weigh in here, but in the meantime, here’s what CAW president Ken Lewenza is telling AN [sub] about GM’s move to bring Impala production back to the states:

It creates a sense of nervousness because you need the market to substantiate two facilities building the same vehicle. If the market isn’t there, one would have to take a look and question GM’s decision when they already had the investment in the Oshawa facility.

GM has not publicly stated when production of the next-gen Impala will begin in Detroit, or that Oshawa will definitely lose production of the car. But, as Lewenza points out, tooling up Det-Ham would allow GM to potentially pull the Impala out of Oshawa where it has been built with only brief interruptions since 1965. And, as it turns out, Lewenza could have reason to worry: the CAW has opposed the UAW’s two-tier wage structure, and its contract with GM is up in 2012 (Impala is said to be all-new for the 2014 model-year). Creating “overflow” capacity at Det-Ham could be as useful as a negotiating tool to force the CAW to accept two-tier as it is for actually keeping up with excess demand (GM must build 16% of its NA production in Canada under the current contract).

And luckily Det-Ham is a giant facility, with almost 3m square feet and an initial capacity of 250k units annually when it was built in 1985. Last year the plant built a little over 50k units, but with Volt production reportedly headed for 120k annual units (although definitely not next year… would someone please tell the feds?), GM will probably keep Malibu and Impala production on a strictly overflow basis. If that 250k capacity still applies (and it may not), there could only be 130k units of capacity for Impala and Malibu combined. If Fairfax remains the main Malibu production site, GM might be able to threaten the CAW with an Impala pullout, but that would limit further Volt ramp-ups, including Det-Ham production for a likely Volt MPV.

In short, mikey‘s Impala-building bretheren probably have nothing to fear… except the two-tier wages which they’ll probably be forced to accept at some point. Luckily the UAW may use the current negotiating session to narrow the gap between the tiers, creating a more equitable option for the CAW. That could be the key to keeping the Impala where it’s been since the days when GM enjoyed a 50%+ market share.

Activists in Winnipeg, Canada have hounded city officials about problems with the photo radar program. The group WiseUpWinnipeg caught the city using improper warning signs, hiding information from freedom of information requests and exploiting short yellow timing at intersections. The group’s leader, Larry Stefanuik, believed it was time to “amp it up” after his findings have been ignored.

“Mayor Sam Katz, Police Chief [Keith] McCaskill, ACS, councilors, Premier [Greg] Selinger and provincial politicians all turn a blind eye from the qualified research, the increased collision statistics and the success of real safety programs in other cities and countries,” Stefanuik wrote. “They do not want to hear them or test them because they know revenue will drop quickly and the city will be on the hook for $5 million a year regardless. That leaves we the people no other choice the to force an intervention with the addict and try and get them off the juice by slowing or stopping the supply of cash earned in a predatory fashion. Yes it’s time to hit them in the pocketbook.”

The group is offering free warning signs that say “Slow Down, Photo Enforcement Ahead” and encouraging motorists to park behind photo radar vans and display the signs to warn fellow drivers in advance of the speed trap. Once the sign are up, Stefanuik finds that people slow down and the speed camera van no longer flashes.

“We figure a couple of really good months shutting them down will make an impact on the city’s budget,” Stefanuik told TheNewspaper.

Photo enforcement systems typically depend on surprise for maximum effectiveness. WiseUpWinnipeg caught city officials actively taking down photo enforcement signs from medians in order to increase the number of citations issued. The group compared recent photographs of photo ticketing locations with Google Street View imagery from 2009 and found a number of signs had disappeared.

Stefanuik last week pointed out that the desire to remove warning signs is at odds with publicity materials developed in in 2005. Winnipeg ran a campaign devoted to the message: “Thank you for seeing the signs and slowing down.” Since Winnipeg has reduced the number of municipal signs, WiseUpWinnipeg hopes their privately funded warning signs will slow people down as well.

[Courtesy:Thenewspaper.com]

Activists in Winnipeg, Canada yesterday charged city leaders with using photo radar to exploit a hard-to-see sign used to provide notice of a change in the speed limit. To make its case, WiseUpWinnipeg broke out a copy of the official regulations governing signs, the Manual of Uniform Traffic Control Device (MUTCD) for Canada, to determine whether the speed limit signs were placed in accordance with national standards. The group concluded that several of the signs are substantially out of compliance.
“For signage to be effective it has to be properly and consistently placed as per MUTCD requirement so as to optimize visibility for motorists, otherwise what is the point?” asked WiseUpWinnipeg spokesman Todd Dube. “Unless of course the point is revenue and not safety.”

Dube and his fellow activists created a measuring tool set to the maximum allowable height and distance specifications. They found one of the top ticket-producing speed camera locations, the intersection of Grant Avenue and Wilton Street, has the photo radar unit placed just beyond a single sign announcing a reduction in the maximum legal speed from 60 km/h (37 MPH) to 50 km/h (31 MPH). This sign is placed at least two feet above the maximum permissible height, which the group pointed out significantly reduces visibility at night because it is above the reach of most headlights.

For comparison, the group examined roads maintained by the Province of Manitoba and found provincial authorities strictly adhered to MUTCD requirements in all respects.

“City signage does not meet MUTCD standards by design as a means of entrapping motorists who are unaware of the reduced limit,” WiseUpWinnipeg’s Larry Stefanuik said in a statement. “The Grant at Wilton scenario is a clear example of the predatory intent behind the program.”

Stefanuik and Dube are calling on Winnipeg to refund tickets issued at the intersection because the city itself failed to comply with the law.

[Courtesy:Thenewspaper.com]

Alberta is a province in Canada. A lot is agricultural, but what is much more important are the treasures beneath the soil. Alberta sits on more than 1.7 trillion barrels of bitumen, better known as oil sand. That’s about equal to the world’s total proven reserves of conventional petroleum. Canadians are troubled that EVs might ruin these riches.

Oil sand competes with electric vehicles in insidious ways: Electric vehicles are expensive. They only make sense when the oil price goes up. It costs money to extract the oil from the sands. The higher the price of oil, the more sense it makes to harvest the sands. At 2006 prices, 170 billion barrels were considered economically recoverable from the sticky sands. That put Canada’s oil reserves in second place behind Saudi Arabia. However, it represents only 10 percent of what’s there. The people of Alberta should be as interested in higher oil prices as the proponents of EVs, one would think: The higher the price, the more sand can be turned into oil. Instead, the people of Alberta are getting very nervous.

“Electric cars could make driving cheaper and cleaner, but also could put some Albertans out of work,” worries the St. Albert Gazette. “Cars are a major source of greenhouse gas emissions. Electric cars could take care of those emissions, but what would that do to the demand for Alberta oil?”

The Albertans are one step ahead of us. Instead of getting anxious about vanishing oil reserves, they get apprehensive about a sinking demand by a wide adoption of EVs. Which would put Alberta out of business. They still remember the 80s when oil became cheap and most of their mines closed. They became rich again by the middle of the last decade. Now, Canada is the largest foreign source of oil for the United States, supplying nearly a million barrels a day from oil sand, says the Gazette. Checking data by the U.S. Department of Energy, the number makes sense. However, it also makes sense to say that Canada only supplied 22 percent of the imported oil in one of the last months of 2010.

Be it as it may, reading the papers about the success of EVs, Albertans are worried about a bust cycle. People did what people do when they don’t know what to do: They assembled a panel of experts.  The panel will first meet next Tuesday in Edmonton.

Talk organizer and St. Albert resident Perry Kinkaide already sees a new boom ahead for Alberta: It could mean a new auto industry in Alberta, he suggests, as oil companies shift from using oil as fuel to oil as a starting product for lightweight electric car parts. “In the old days you needed to be near steel. In the new days, you may need to be where the oil is.” Comforting thoughts – for Albertans.

Axel Meisen, chair of foresight at Albert Innovates Technology Futures, toots in the same vuvuzela: “Alberta should think of other uses for petroleum than for fuel, such as carbon fiber. This light, strong material will be popular in electric cars, and could see use in bridges and other buildings.”

Al Cormier, the talk’s facilitator and executive director of Electric Mobility Canada, a national industry group that promotes electric vehicles, also sees no reason for alarm. EVs surely are the wave of the future and will lower the demand for oil, but “assembling an electric vehicle probably takes just as long as assembling a regular vehicle,” Cormier says, and he does not expect any job losses there. If the cars are assembled in Alberta.

The proceedings of the panel’s meetings will be available at www.abctech.ca.

Now here comes an heretic thought: If EVs  indeed become wildly successful and kill the demand for oil so much that Alberta will have to close oil sand mines and take to assembling electric motors and plastic parts, does that mean that us Luddites can drive down to the gas station and say “Fill ‘er up” for, say, $1.80 a gallon?

Unable to verify the accuracy of certain speed camera readings, the government of Alberta, Canada announced Monday that it would issue full refunds to motorists. Doubt surrounds speeding citations issued from any of the forty-seven red light camera intersections in the city of Edmonton under a program known as “speed on green.” The refunds cover automated tickets mailed between November 2009 and January 14, 2011.

“This is the right action to take,” Minister of Justice and Attorney General Alison Redford said in a statement. “Our first concern is the fair administration of justice, and we cannot proceed with legal action when there is doubt about the accuracy of the city’s speed on green ticket technology.”

Edmonton Police Service officials have not disclosed the precise cause of inaccurate speed readings, but they admitted the automated ticketing machines generated at least twenty-six bogus readings. The problem was discovered when prosecutors examined a ticket claiming a vehicle was traveling at 143km/h (89 MPH) on Yellowhead Trail — along with every other vehicle on the road.

Although 141,729 tickets worth about $17 million were generated, only 102,700 worth $12.3 million have been paid. The profit is split between the city, the for-profit vendor, and the province which takes about 17 percent.

Despite the significant pricetag of paying back the fines, the Edmonton incident is far from the largest photo ticketing refund on record. In July 2003, a speed camera in Victoria, Australia accused motorist Vanessa Bridges’ 1975 Datsun 120Y of driving at 98 MPH, setting off a chain reaction of events that ultimately cost the state government A$26 million in refunds. Even after the thirty-year-old Datsun was tested and found to be capable of reaching speeds no greater than 73 MPH, police dug in their heels and insisted the photo enforcement system was accurate and that Bridges’ fine would stand. Intense publicity arising out of her case, however, forced an investigation into the cameras on the Western Ring Road. Independent testing showed faulty in-ground sensors and electromagnetic interference had been responsible for generating bogus speed readings. The government had no choice but to cancel 165,000 camera tickets.

Last year, police in Victoria, Australia admitted accuracy problems had surfaced again on the Hume Highway as the clocks used by average-speed cameras became unsynchronized. So far, officials have refused to provide refunds while a formal review is conducted. A report on the incident is expected within a week.

[Courtesy:Thenewspaper.com]

Bailing out the U.S. auto industry was all in the name of jobs, jobs, jobs, and the recent sales increases in new cars should have made a decent dent into the jobless rate. It just didn’t work out quite as expected. By the end of the year, J.D. Power expects that 11.8 million units will have been made in North America, up 38 percent from 8.5 million units in 2009. And where did the jobs go? They went mostly south.

According to J.D. Power, “Mexico is expected to post the strongest year-over-year increase, with production up nearly 50 percent to 2.2 million units.” Ironically, it is the American idol, the truck, that accounts for most of the Mexican increases. But aren’t Americans supposed to downsize? “The addition of the Ford Fiesta” also did light a fire under Mexican production, says J.D.Power.

Next in line for production increases: The Great White North. “Canadian production is expected to be up 39 percent to 2.1 million units,” says J.D.Power. Canada gained disproportionally from the return of the trucks.

According to latest available data, (courtesy of Automotive News [sub],) N.A. truck production is up 51 percent. That translates into 66 percent more trucks made in Mexico, 71 percent more trucks made in Canada, and only 44 percent more in the U.S.

Overall, the U.S. gains the least. “Volume in the U.S. is projected to be up 35 percent,” says Power. Be glad that the U.S. still leads in absolute numbers: 7.6 million units will have been produced in the U.S. by the end of the year, assuming a properly functioning crystal ball at J.D. Power. (The ball appears to be in good working order, the numbers cross-check with those provided by Automotive News [sub].)

By the end of November, North American production stood as follows (data brought to you by Automotive News [sub]: )

For those who still don’t believe the numbers, Automotive News [sub] provides a breakdown of production by North American plant. The list reminds us that that there is a CAMI truck pant in Ingersol, Ontario, a Ram truck plant in Saltillo, Mexico, a Dodge truck plant in Zoluca, Mexico, a Chrysler truck plant in Windsor, Ontario, a Ford F series truck plant in Cuautitlan, Mexico, a Ford Econoline production in Oakville, Ontario, a Chevy truck production in Silao, Mexico, and so forth. Those who have doubts whether some of these should be counted as real trucks should express their anger to the DOT or the EPA.

Were you curious why sales go up, and GM continues to cut down its ranks of skilled trade workers, of which it has “several thousand” too many? Now you know at least a part of the story.

A watchdog group last week filed a complaint with Canada’s privacy commissioner and the Manitoba Ombudsman’s Office over the city of Winnipeg’s refusal to release data about its photo enforcement efforts. Over the past five months, WiseUpWinnipeg had filed three separate requests for basic information under under a freedom of information law known as FIPPA, but city officials have refused to comply.

In the US, copies of the contracts under which for-profit red light camera and speed camera operators partner with municipalities are widely available. In August, Winnipeg officials refused to disclose the terms of its arrangement with Affiliated Computer Services (ACS) on the grounds that doing so would “negatively prejudice or harm” the competitive position of ACS and “interfere with future contractual negotiations.” WiseUpWinnipeg wants to see the contract because, according to the city auditor, ACS was effectively handed a sole-source contract.

In September, the Winnipeg Police Service (WPS) denied the group’s request for the “black box” data from red light camera tickets that gives the time, date, location, yellow time, time-into-red and other key information about specific violations. The request was denied on the grounds that “the requested records are in the custody and under the control of ACS Public Sector Solutions Inc… The WPS does not have the ability to retrieve the information.” WiseUpWinnipeg co-founder Todd Dube found that curious because he had previously received copies of tickets from the Manitoba Provincial Court and the 2006 city document laying out the bid requirement for the photo enforcement program stated citation photographs will remain property of the city.

“Our position legally is that ACS is not authorized to control and handle personal information and we will be challenging their authority to possess that information under the Privacy Act,” Dube said in a statement.

Winnipeg has stated it uses mobile photo radar to protect children in so-called playground zones. Officials in November declined to release a list of the zones claiming the records are not available.

“Declaring that playground zone location records do not exist, while they have been enforcing in playground zones, is preposterous,” Dube said. “A specific location code is required to be included in the data/black box display of each violation issued. Clearly, the black box data is the smoking gun that ACS does not want the public to see.”

[Courtesy:Thenewspaper.com]

The world’s largest car maker, Toyota, saw sales decline 22.7 percent. Over the year of 2010, Toyota Canada’s sales have dropped 12.4 percent to 150,119 units. This is bad news for ToMoCo. But wait, there’s less!  What made this sales decline even worse was the fact that Toyota had just introduced their youth brand, Scion, to Canada in a bid to breathe life into their Canadian subsidiary. In its first full month of sales, Scion could only clock up sales of 247 units over a dealership network of 46. If Toyota has a secret weapon to boost sales, they might want to think about activating it sometime soon.

And while we are at it: Toyota’s sales dropped in another country also. Starts with a C also. But is a bit bigger than Canada: China. Toyota sales in China fell 6.0 percent in October to 61,600 vehicles, marking the first year-on-year decline in 18 months. That hurts.

It’s easy to see where Mr Mondragon is coming from. According to the article, “last month, light trucks accounted for 55 percent of all vehicles sold in Canada, compared to 45 percent of sales of passenger cars. That’s an exact reversal of the ratio from 2008, when oil prices reached $145 a barrel and fuel-efficient vehicles were sought after.” At the time of this writing, a barrel of oil is trading at $76.45 on the Nymex. Now that may be over half of the $145 per barrel peak, but couple that with the peak oil report published earlier and Mr Mondragon is probably right to say brace yourself. Those electric Focuses better arrive soon. Provided the electricity powering them comes from non-fossil fuel based electric…

An Ontario, Canada judge in July faulted the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) and Attorney General of Ontario for attempting to confiscate $46,078 contrary to the law. Officer Paul Barkley had pulled over a 2000 Mazda traveling on Highway 401 near Morrisburg just after midnight on October 16, 2009. Barkley had assumed the driver, Remus Petran, might have been drunk because he was driving below the speed limit. After speaking to Petran, who was sober, Barkley decided to search the vehicle.

In the Mazda’s trunk, Barkley found a gym bag containing CDN $74,980. Petran explained that he worked in construction and was paid in cash. For this, Petran was arrested for possession of property obtained by crime and his car towed away. After police found no evidence of a crime, Petran was unconditionally released with his car and without any charges filed — but police kept the cash.

“It was money associated with drug trafficking or some other profit-motivated unlawful activity and that, on the night of October 16, 2009, Remus Petran was acting as a courier engaged in profit-motivated criminal enterprise,” OPP Detective Constable Richard Weekes said in a deposition.

An order to seize the money gave police three months to keep the money while criminal charges were investigated. That order expired in January, and no charges were ever laid. By April 16 the Canada Revenue Agency decided it was entitled to $28,901 in unpaid taxes on the funds. Weekes and the attorney general filed with the Ontario Superior Court to keep the remaining $46,078.46. Justice David M. Brown was not impressed with the request.

“First, I am troubled by the five month delay in bringing this motion,” Brown wrote. “The Criminal Code creates a regime for the detention of seized property. The Civil Remedies Act establishes a civil regime to deal with property, including seized property, that is the proceeds of, or an instrument of, unlawful activity. These regimes enable prosecutors, peace officers or the Attorney General of Ontario to apply for the continued detention or the interlocutory preservation of seized property. However, they do not permit those government actors to detain seized property without some form of legal authorization.”

When OPP applied to keep the money, it failed to inform the court that it gave away some of the cash to Canada Revenue. Brown scolded the police for acting without clear legal authority.

“Would Mr. Petran, as taxpayer, have enjoyed a basis to resist payment of a demand from the Canada Revenue Agency?” Brown asked. “One cannot tell because the materials are silent on the point. For one government agency to distribute to another property it did not own, without notice to the purported owner of the property or without the sanction of a court order, may strike those agencies as an efficient, uncluttered way in which to collect tax. But the Attorney General of Ontario should understand that such conduct, absent adequate explanatory evidence, will raise questions in the mind of a court about the propriety and legality of such conduct.”

Despite not buying Petran’s story, Brown found he had no choice but to dismiss the confiscation request with prejudice and order the reasons for this denial to be delivered to Petran.

The decision is available in a 40k PDF file at the source link below.

Source: Attorney General of Ontario v. CDN. $46,078.46 (Superior Court of Justice, Ontario, Canada, 7/5/2010)

[Courtesy:thenewspaper.com]

The CBC reports that:

Ontario premier Dalton McGuinty said Friday his government will wait to see how General Motors prices its public share offering before deciding whether to sell its stake in the company.

McGuinty said the government needs to be “patient” and sell at the most profitable time.

The Canadian and Ontario governments own about 12 percent of GM. The US Treasury, which owns about 60 percent of GM has said that it expects to sell “some” of its GM stake during the IPO, which is expected to occur by the end of this year. In short, as Ken Elias predicts, GM won’t stop being “Government Motors” after it goes public. No matter how emphatically Ed Whitacre declares victory.

With the autoblogosphere abuzz over Peter Cheney’s “unintended acceleration event,” Jill McIntosh has made a fascinating connection between one auto-journo’s son’s voyage of manual transmission discovery, and a former Ontario Attorney General’s killing of a cyclist back in September. Linking to a Toronto Star report on the trial of Michael Bryant, who killed cyclist Darcy Allan Shephard, McIntosh notes a strange similarity between that fatal incident and Cheney Junior’s garage door tango:

According to a statement read in court, reprinted in the Toronto Star today: Bryant hits the brakes. His vehicle stalls. Bryant tries to start his car, but it stalls again, lurching forward … Bryant tries to start the car again. He’s concentrating on the Saab’s sensitive clutch with his head down. He succeeds at restarting the engine and the Saab accelerates into Sheppard, who lands on the hood.

Obviously, two incidents do not a crisis make, but this is hardly the only evidence suggesting that manual gear-swapping is fast becoming a lost art. But do we really want to further stigmatize manual transmissions by mandating special licenses for manual-equipped cars, as McIntosh suggests?

Making clutches mandatory would not only prevent these situations, but it would also cut down on distracted driving, and generally make for better drivers… but realistically, we all know that will never happen. So, what about mandating that all driver’s tests be taken on a manual-equipped vehicle? Or, for the contrarians out here, what about banning manuals altogether? Sadly this option almost seems the most likely response, given how little demand there is for new cars with manual transmissions. Or is this just a problem for Canadian drivers?

We’ve seen photos of the refreshed BMW 3-Series coupe and convertible, but shots of the sedan have proven somewhat more elusive. Luckily TTAC has eyes everywhere. Commenter dinu01 spied this updated 3-Series testing near Toronto. “Both front and rear emblems are taped,” he reports. “The driver did not want to be photographed and went between 150-160 km/h.” Have a spy shot of your own? Share it with our contact form, and we’ll share it with TTAC’s readers.

When we reported that unintended acceleration in general and Toyota in particular are not a big topic in Europe and Japan, the answer was: “What do they know? They use their excellent public transport system and drive less.” (A myth, by the way. Unless there are mandatory annual odometer readings, nobody knows for sure. But the generally accepted average number of miles driven by year and car is 12,000 in the U.S.A. In Germany, the industry works with a 20,000 km average. Which is 12,427 miles.) The only countries halfway accepted as comparisons were Australia and Canada. Well, their numbers are in.

The Sydney Morning Herald reports that despite the negative publicity and media bashing that Toyota has endured, Toyota increased their market share in Australia to 20.5 percent in February, with sales increasing year-on-year by 13 percent. This cements Toyota’s reputation as Australia’s number one car brand. So, it seems the Aussies aren’t that concerned with a worldwide recall over 9 million vehicles for safety defects (which is a pretty serious defect). Now, at this point, I suspect you are thinking “But Cammy, this is Australia. They’ve always had a thing for Toyota. They’re brand loyalists”. OK, let’s try somewhere closer to (your) home.

The Vancouver Sun reports that Toyota Canada sales have risen 25.2 percent compared to February last year (the car-pocalypse). Toyota sold 12,693 Toyota and Lexus cars, trucks and SUV’s for February 2010. In addition, the Toyota Prius, Corolla and Matrix recorded their best ever February sales. “We thank our customers for continued confidence in Toyota vehicles –– vehicles that are reliable, safe and fuel-efficient,” said Yoichi Tomihara, president of Toyota Canada Inc. “We also thank our team members at our coast to coast dealerships for their quick and reliable work in servicing recall repairs and bringing peace of mind to our family of Toyota and Lexus customers.” With those numbers, he probably meant it.

Now here’s a question for you. What do Australia, Canada and the United States all have in common? Some of you already answered it: they are all huge countries, sparsely populated in huge stretches, with transport infrastructure not as sophisticated as Europe or Japan. In essence, these countries rely more on their cars in order to get around. And it seems that Australia and Canada are OK to entrust that job to Toyota. Or maybe it’s a vote of confidence against the witch hunt which they feel Toyota is unfairly getting? Either way, Toyota aren’t down and out down under and in the Great White North.

Canoe.ca reports that Hyundai are considering the option of a new production plant in Canada, provided the brand’s sales growth continues its upward momentum. “In Canada, if our volumes grow to the point we could support a plant we would consider it”. President and Chief Executive of Hyundai Canada, Steve Kelleher said. But, he warned, “for manufacturers there is a real urge to grow sales and put up plants to meet that growth, but if you do it too fast you lose the focus on what got you to where you are in the first place, and that’s quality.” Goodness, what could he possibly be referring to?

Mr Kelleher did give some tangibles, saying that if Hyundai’s market share were to grow to 10-15%, it would be enough to make a plant viable. Hyundai are not far off that goal; their market share rose to 7.5% from 6% a year ago. And it wasn’t just manufacturing Hyundai are bullish in. Hyundai are also adding more dealerships across Canada to facilitate the good growth they’ve experienced. “For Hyundai the sales growth is sustainable,” Kelleher said. Car makers in Canada had better figure out a gameplan, soon, because Hyundai aren’t waiting for anybody.

GM withdrew its sponsorship of the US Olympic team after the 2008 games, because, as a spokesperson explained at the time, “we have other avenues to be able to reach this same audience without bearing the expense of being an official sponsor of the U.S. Olympic team.” However, GM is a main sponsor and official vehicle supplier of the 2010 games in addition to being the main sponsor of the Canadian national team. According to TNS Media, GM was the leading advertiser in the 2006 Winter Games, spending $111.6m and leading the auto sector to a resounding lead in ad spending (total $156.7m). General Motors has reportedly cut back its ad spend on Vancouver, but details aren’t being disclosed. And at least one GM investment in Vancouver-related publicity won’t be paying off: the General Motors Place is being temporarily renamed the Canada Hockey Place in order to comply with IOC standards. We’d normally make some crack here about your tax dollars at work, but Olympic sponsorships are lined up years in advance. Too bad that back in 2007, when GM was losing $2b annually, it denied that its financial status had anything to do with its removal of US Olympic team sponsorship. Had the firm been more realistic about its financial health… well, who knows where we’d be right now.

The Globe and Mail reports that Toronto-based Trillium Motor World has filed a $750m class action suit on behalf of 215 culled Canadian GM dealers. The suit names General Motors and, in an interesting twist, its law firm Cassels Brock & Blackwell LLP. According to a suit’s statement of claim, Cassels Brock was representing Canada’s federal government in bailout talks with GM at the same time as it was representing the Canadian Automobile Dealers Association, a relationship it never disclosed to the dealers. Conflict of interest much?

According to the G&M:

GM Canada sent e-mail notices to the dealers on May 20 and gave them until May 26 to respond to a compensation offer. The suit says GM warned dealers that “there was a ‘strong possibility’ that GM would file for reorganization under the Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act.”

GM Canada did not file for protection under the CCAA, but the suit says the company did not offer any dealers who signed the wind-down agreement the option of changing their minds.

The suit accuses the auto maker of adopting “a ‘shock and awe’ strategy giving the affected dealers no more than a few days to come to grips with what they were facing, organize themselves and obtain effective legal representation on the WDA.”

This combined with allegations against Cassels Brock combine for a potent combination. More from Reuters.