Facing a looming deadline to comply with a NHTSA request to recall 2.7 million 1993-2004 Jeep Grand Cherokee and 2002-2007 Jeep Liberty SUVs – some of which are close to 20 years old at this point – Chrysler had decided to comply with NHTSA’s request.

While Chrysler maintains that their vehicles are safety, the auto maker has decided to inspect and, if necessary, repair the affected vehicles, as per their official statement

As a result of the agreement, Chrysler Group will conduct a voluntary campaign with respect to the vehicles in question that, in addition to a visual inspection of the vehicle will, if necessary, provide an upgrade to the rear structure of the vehicle to better manage crash forces in low-speed impacts.

The issue revolves around rear-mounted gas tanks in the two models and the question of whether or not rear-end crashes can cause vehicle fires. NHTSA has been investigating the matter since 2010 and reports a total of 51 deaths resulting from 37 rear-end crashes in both cars.

Chrysler not only maintained that the Jeeps in question were safe, but mounted a mini-PR war against NHTSA, providing data on rear end crash fatalities. The company may have been right, but public perception may have been such that Chrysler didn”t want to risk going through what Ford did during the Pinto fire controversy. The PR battle would have been unwinnable, given the complexity of the issue and the public’s general aversion to nuance and detail when it comes to any sort of discourse. We’ll have more as this story develops.

A scheme to tax cars based on their C02 output could have the unintended consequence of causing UK motorists to scrap tens of thousands of perfectly good cars in the UK, solely because their annual tax rates, based on C02 consumption, have become too expensive for many motorists.

The increase in tax rates would hit tax brackets L and M hardest – these are typically larger engine luxury, performance and off-road vehicles that emit 226 grams of C02 per 100 km or greater. For comparison, a Toyota Prius would qualify for the “A” band (under 100 grams) and is exempt from paying road tax. A Porsche 911 falls under the highest tariff “L” and “M” bands, depending on the model.

Owners of older vehicles that consume relatively more fuel and produce greater levels of C02 could be looking at annual tax rates that amount to as much as one third of their vehicle’s value. Motorists could be eager to dump these cars, further pushing down their residual values, leading to a situation where numerous vehicles in good working order are sent to the scrap heap for no other reason than high tax rates.

Just-Auto spoke to CAP, a vehicle valuation company, regarding the scenario

“We are now in the crazy situation where perfectly good cars have become uneconomical to own because the cost of taxing them could soon approach half their car’s value.

This means more and more cars will become unsalable and will have to be scrapped long before the end of their useful life. Scrapping serviceable cars for the sake of a tax disc makes a mockery of environmental taxes as owners already tend to limit their mileage because the cars are relatively uneconomical. 

Throw in the carbon footprint of building the cars that replace those that are scrapped and the environmental justification for taxing these cars off the road collapses. The government should now consider lowering VED [Vehicle Excise Duty] rates for cars that fall into the brackets L and M after a certain age. This would prevent this potential waste of vehicles that do relatively little harm to the environment but provide cheap and comfortable transport for thousands of hard-pressed motorists in austerity Britain.”

“Hybrid and electric cars are sparing the environment. Critics say they’re hurting the roads,” writes Bloomberg. “The popularity of these fuel-efficient vehicles is being blamed for a drop in gasoline taxes that pay for local highway and bridge maintenance, with three states enacting rules to make up the losses with added fees on the cars and at least five others weighing similar legislation.”

According to Arizona state Senator Steve Farley, a Democrat who wrote a bill to tax electric cars, “the intent is that people who use the roads pay for them. Just because we have somebody who is getting out of doing it because they have an alternative form of fuel, that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t pay for the roads.

State and local gas-tax revenue has declined every year since 2004, falling 7 percent to $37.9 billion in 2010, this according to inflation-adjusted data from the allegedly nonpartisan research group. Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy.

That, however, is not the fault of hybrids and EVs. The market share of hybrids is pretty much stuck at around 3 percent, Hybridcars says. The market share of electric vehicles, which generate no gas tax at all, is close to unobservable, pure EVs and plug-ins together hold half a percent of the American pie.

What is true is that sales-weighted MPG of all new automobiles bought and sold in the U.S. os steadily going up. In October 2007, the index stood at 24.7 MPG. In May, all cars sold had an average CAFE rating of 30 MPG.

This is declared national policy, and automakers are working hard to meet the policy. State tax revenue becomes collateral damage.

Farley’s proposed anti-EV tax is a mileage tax. His bill wants one cent per mile driven on Arizona highways by “a vehicle that is propelled by a motor that is powered by electrical energy from rechargeable batteries or another source on the vehicle or from an external source in, on or above the street and that is not capable of being powered by motor vehicle fuel or use fuel.”

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Of course, it is highly unfair to levy a mileage tax on a plug-in only. When the systems are in place to track the handful of plug-in in Arizona, and which most likely will cost more than the tax it generates, a mileage tax for all cars is sure to follow.

In New Jersey, Democratic State Senator Jim Whelan proposed a similar bill to tax cars by mile driven. The cars would be tracked by GPS. Facing criticism, he now proposes that “owners of alternative-fuel vehicles would be charged an annual fee – about $50 per year, though that is not final” as The Atlantic City Press says.

Fiat’s Sergio Marchionne jumped, so to speak, into the flames erupting around the rebuffed Jeep recall.  Says Reuters:

“Marchionne Friday reiterated Chrysler’s resistance to a recall of 2.7 million older-model Jeep vehicles, adding that the automaker is preparing to supply the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) with information it had requested.”

Marchionne told Reuters:

“We will supply them with a complete set of data. Based on all available data, these cars are absolutely safe and totally in line with what the industry was producing at the time. There is no design defect.”

Remote unlocking of your car’s doors via your smartphone , activating horn and lights and remote start, previously part of GM’s paid OnStar service, is becoming a standard feature, GM says.  Buy the car, download the app, and the car can be remote-controlled via your smartphone for five years, whether you pay for OnStar, or not. “Thirty-six 2014 model year GM vehicles are compatible with the RemoteLink mobile app,” says GM in a press release, meaning that most of GM’s new cars are permanently on-line, can be reached, tracked, can reveal their locations, OnStar, or not, ignition on, or not.

At the same time, says Time Magazine,  “Law-enforcement officials from San Francisco to Washington, D.C., are again sounding an alarm over mobile-phone thefts, demanding that the wireless industry, resellers and lawmakers take new steps to quash the thriving black market for boosted devices.” According to the story, “Cell-phone theft in major cities has become a national crime epidemic, like the car-stereo crime wave of the 1990s. In San Francisco, about half of all robberies now involve mobile phones, and in New York City there was a 40% increase in mobile thefts in 2012. One recent Harris poll found that nearly 10% of cellular users said their phone had been stolen at one point.”

Cell phone theft is estimated to cost consumers $30 billion a year. Imagine the cost, when a car is attached to that shiny new phone.Data theft is much more rampant, and it’s your government that does the wholesale stealing.

A report in The Guardian revealed “that under the Obama administration the communication records of millions of US citizens are being collected indiscriminately and in bulk – regardless of whether they are suspected of any wrongdoing.”

Such information is “a critical tool in protecting the nation from terrorist threats to the United States,” a senior administration official told Reuters. Says the wire:

“The revelation raises fresh concerns about President Barack Obama’s handling of privacy and free speech issues. His administration is already under fire for searching Associated Press journalists’ calling records and the emails of a Fox television reporter as part of its inquiries into leaked government information.”

 

A day later, the Washington Post revealed  that the U.S. Government can pull your data “directly from the servers of these U.S. Service Providers: Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, PalTalk, AOL, Skype, YouTube, Apple,” and has been doing so for years. If those good folks cooperate with the Feds, imagine the willingness of people who still are partially owned, and very much controlled by the U.S. Government.

OnStar data are transmitted via wireless data, which is wide open to the government and criminals alike.

Quite possibly, the only defense is to take the battery out of phone and car.

Now that the GM share finally is trading a wee bit above its IPO price, The Treasury is eager to bail from the bailout. The government’s  fiance department announced “plans to sell 30 million shares of General Motors Co common stock as part of its ongoing effort to wind down the government’s stake in the bailed-out automaker,” Reuters says.

On June 6, the formerly disgrace stock will rejoin the S&P 500, which usually provides a lift, because index funds must buy the stock. That’s when the gov’s shares will sold, along with 20 million shares of GM stock held by the UAW Retiree Medical Benefits Trust.

Nonetheless, the “government looks certain to end up billions of dollars in the hole on the cost of the bailout,” Reuters says.

In a letter sent (“VIA FEDERAL EXPRESS AND ELECTRONIC MAIL”) to Chrysler on Monday, the NHTSA requests that “Chrysler initiate a safety recall on MY 1993-2004 Jeep Grand Cherokee and MY 2002-2007 Jeep Liberty vehicles and implement a remedy action that improves their performance in rear-impacts and crashes.” The NHTSA illustrated its request with pictures of burned-out Jeeps, some of which are in this article.

Yesterday, Chrysler sent out a press release, stating that it “does not agree with NHTSA’s conclusions and does not intend to recall the vehicles cited in the investigation.” It is very rare that an automaker flat out denies such a request, especially one that documents scores of deaths. This is not an article about whether Chrysler is right or wrong. This is a story about curious double standards at the NHTSA. 

In 2009, the Center for Auto Safety requested that the NHTSA look into all 1993-2004 Jeep Grand Cherokee with a fuel tank behind the real axle.” Three and a half years later, the NHTSA came to the conclusion, that “there have been at least 32 fatal rear impact fire crashes involving Grand Cherokees resulting in 44 deaths,” along with at least 5 fatal rear impact crashes that have resulted in 7 deaths.” The NHTSA says that after the Pinto and Bobcat disasters of the 70s (which had about half the deaths of the Jeeps) automakers learned and put the gas tank “in less vulnerable locations than behind the rear axle.”

That insight was lost on Chrysler.  The WJ Grand Cherokee, built from 1999 through MY 2004, “was configured with a fuel tank located behind the rear axle,” says the NHTSA. What’s more, “the MY 2002 through 2007 Liberty has a fuel tank located aft of the rear axle and less than a foot forward of the aft face of the rear bumper.” All that “contravened industry trends,” the NHTSA opines.

Chrysler says the NHTSA is wrong, and that the agency’s “initial conclusions are based on an incomplete analysis of the underlying data.”

The NHTSA countered with a milquetoast statement. NHTSA Administrator David Strickland said that “NHTSA hopes that Chrysler will reconsider its position and take action to protect its customers and the driving public.”

Why Chrysler is digging in its heels is anybody’s guess. Relocating the fuel tank of 2.7 million SUVs is out of the question. However, the Center for Auto Safety estimates it would cost “Chrysler no more than $300 million to install a 3 millimeter steel skid, a fuel tank check valve and better fuel filler hose,” says CNN. Nothing doing, says Chrysler.

Comments Michelle Krebs of Edmunds:

“Chrysler must feel like it has a compelling reason to take such a bold stand. Since Toyota was publicly humiliated for dragging its feet on recalls just a few years ago, automakers have been quick to recall vehicles at NHTSA’s request.”

Speaking of Toyota, during the unintended acceleration frenzy, the government was more robust in its actions. At the same time the NHTSA looked into burning Jeeps in silence, the anti-Toyota campaign went full blast. Transportation Secretary LaHood asked people to stop driving Toyotas, the company was grilled on the Hill, and sentenced three times to pay the maximum fine. The company eventually was absolved. It was driver error. However, a stunned Toyota recalled everything it possibly could recall, and probably some more.

Some pigs definitely are more equal.

In a rare display of defiance, Chrysler is refusing to comply with NHTSA’s request to recall 2.7 million SUVs, and is publicly challenging NHTSA on the validity of the recall.

NHTSA asked Chrysler to recall Grand Cherokee models made between 1993-2004 and Liberty models made between 2002-2007,  due to a defective fueling system that can lead to vehicle fires in rear end crashes. The agency has even blamed the alleged defect for as many as 51 deaths. But Chrysler has dug in its heels, issuing a statement and a white paper on NHTSA’s findings, stating

“The company does not agree with NHTSA’s conclusions and does not intend to recall the vehicles cited in the investigation. The subject vehicles are safe and are not defective…We believe NHTSA’s initial conclusions are based on an incomplete analysis of the underlying data, and we are committed to continue working with the agency to resolve this disagreement.”

In its own statement, NHTSA said that the Jeeps “…may contain a defect that presents an unreasonable risk to safety.” NHTSA has been investigating the models for some time, and Chrysler was first notified of the matter in September 2010. Chrysler has also been the subject of numerous lawsuits regarding the alleged defect.

According to Automotive News, The main point of contention appears to rest with rear crash standards. The two models were compliant with contemporary safety standards, but since 2008, the standard for rear impact fuel leakage had doubled. In addition, proposed modifications would apparently increase the risk of fires during side impact crashes, which are more prevalent.

While the matter may appear to be a squabble between Chrysler and NHTSA over arcane vehicle regulations, the subtext is much more interesting. A major OEM – an American one at that – is taking on NHTSA over a potentially touchy recall subject. Vehicle fires, lawsuits and deaths are all part and parcel of this story, and Chrysler is about to wage a bloody battle against NHTSA – these unpleasant topics will surely come up at some point.

Another auto maker that took Department of Energy money has gone bust. Vehicle Production Group, a producer of special vans designed to meet the needs of the disabled, has suspended operations and is due to be sold, according to Automotive News.

Former CEO John Walsh told AN that the move came after the company fell below a mandated cash threshold set by by the government.

“It was the right thing to do for the employees,” Walsh said. “Many people were going to continue to work there but not be paid, and I couldn’t sleep at night having that happen. It was the best financial decision to suspend the business.”

Walsh stressed that bankruptcy was not in the cards and that the company would likely be acquired by one of two companies, strongly hinting that AM General would be the eventual partner. AM General currently builds VPG’s MV-1 van at their plant in Indiana. So far, VPG has built 2,500 vans and has a backlog of about 2,300 orders. The MV-1 was powered by a 4.6L Ford V8 and used a modified London taxi platform.

VPG applied for the $50-million dollar loan as part of the Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing program, the same one used by companies like Fisker. VPG was said to be using the loan to implement CNG technology on their vehicles.

TTAC’s forays into areas like law, politics and economics are not everyone’s cup of tea, but they do matter. The dry, dense topics like regulation and financial topics have real implications for car enthusiasts, not to mention society as a whole. One subset of that is urban planning, a discipline which can have an enormous impact on our favorite hobby.

Witness the remarks made at the Energy Tomorrow Conference. Sponsored by the New York Times, the theme of this gather is “Building Sustainable Cities”. The IEEE Spectrum quotes Lerner as stating that in the future, the private automobile will become a socially unacceptable vice

Jaime Lerner, a former mayor of Brazil’s Curtiba, known for the work he did there introducing an integrated mass transportation system that has been copied the world over, expressed the belief that cars some day soon will be seen as noxious as tobacco is today. “The car is going to be the cigarette of the future,” Lerner said.

For Lerner, who is best known for pioneering innovative public transportation programs in Brazil, the private automobile is an issue of social justice itself. It is not just a matter of carbon emissions or energy conservation, but the automobile’s mere existence offends him. His sentiments were echoed by Enrique Penalosa, the former mayor of Bogota, who said that

 ”If we are all equal before the law, a bus carrying 100 people should be entitled to 100 times as much road space as a private car.”

If you think that these are just the senile ravings of aging Latin populist politicians, then you might be a bit surprised to find that these kinds of opinions will wind up on your doorstep sooner rather than later. To these types, the private automobile represents a mobility solution based on top-down hierarchical structures (as my least favorite sociology professor would say) that empowers the individual. They would like to see it replaced with collective forms of mobility, like car sharing, public transportation and cycling. I got my first taste of it a number of years ago when a prominent local politician hit a cyclist, resulting in his death.

It didn’t matter that the cyclist was found to be intoxicated and the aggressor in the situation, while the motorist was later absolved of any wrongdoing. The mere fact that he was a wealthy white male driving a Saab convertible while the other party was an Indigenous Canadian of a lower socioeconomic background with a history of mental illness and substance abuse provided the perfect catalyst for these sorts of theories to be floated among the more radical newspapers in my town.

As a resident of a dense, urban neighborhood, it would be disingenuous of me to dismiss cycling, public transit and even walking as real alternatives to our mobility needs. Practicality is another matter. On a balmy 70 degree day like today, walking or biking to the grocery store to buy a carton of eggs is not a big deal. When the forecast calls for freezing rain, getting a whole load of groceries on foot is unpleasant, to say the least. And not all public transit systems are created equally either, as one of our writers discussed last year.

Congestion is a major issue in urban centers, and something will have to be done about it. Cities are experimenting with congestion charges, road tolls and expanded public transit, but nobody has a definitive solution. I wish I knew what the answer was, and if I did, I would be racking up appearance fees rather than writing at TTAC. But heavy-handed, top down solutions are not the answer. The next generation of urban planners are being educated in universities by liberal arts faculty members hold views that are largely not representative of the opinions and needs of the general public. Combine that with a growing apathy for the automobile among young people and you create a situation where anti-car sentiment is easily bred. Look no further than the move to ban EV charging stations from urban areas as a perfect example of their utter refusal to meet reality on reality’s terms.

Even as gas prices rise higher and higher and the cost of new cars increase, people still opt for their own private transportation in record numbers. For some it is a matter of convenience, while for others who must commute from the suburbs, it is one of necessity. While top-down directives for public transportation may fly in parts of the globe where no previous infrastructure existed and cars remain unaffordable, I can only imagine that it would be poorly received in countries which emphasize individual choice and the free market as pillars of society. But still, don’t be surprised if this line of thought becomes part of the discourse at some point in the near future.

 The days of Government Motors are slowly coming to an end. “The U.S. Treasury will begin another round of sales for General Motor stock acquired during the government’s bailout of the auto sector,” the Treasury told Reuters.

In December, the Treasury said it would fully exit its GM investments within the following 12 to 15 months, “subject to market conditions.”  Executives want the government to be out ASAP. They are already looking at brochures of executives jets and are making plans on how to spend the big bonuses.

President Obama announced the nomination of Anthony Foxx, the current mayor of Charlotte, North Carolina, as his choice to succeed Ray LaHood as the next head of the Department of Transportation.

While LaHood’s legacy will largely relate to distracted driving legislation and an increase in the CAFE standard, little is known about how Foxx will align himself and the DOT on auto related issues. So far, much of Foxx’s transportation related work involves infastructure, specifically mass transit projects for his home city.

The Feds will get an additional 10,000 hybrids over the 10,672 they already have, lifting the federal hybrid market share from 5.3 percent to over 10 percent, the Detroit News says.

According to the paper, the GSA will fund the incremental cost to replace eligible vehicles with new hybrid sedans.

Allegedly, the move will save 1 million gallons of fuel per year for the life of these vehicles.

It was not released what badges the division-strength hybrids will carry. Seeking Alpha presumes that “General Motors and Ford will receive some home field advantage.”

Congressional Republicans blasted current and former Fisker executives, as well as an official from the Department of Energy over missed milestones for their Department of Energy loans, which saw the company repeatedly fail to meet obligations while continuing to receive taxpayer money.

Fisker has had a trouble history as an automaker, despite its namesake’s success in penning iconic designs for the likes of BMW and Aston Martin. California Republican Congressman Darrell Issa compared Fisker to the likes of Preston Tucker, John DeLorean and Malcolm Bricklin, blunty telling Fisker ”Quite frankly, innovative cars have a history of failing.”

But for many Republicans, their ire was aimed less at Fisker than at the Department of Energy. Sub-committee chairman Jim Jordan noted that

“Taxpayers have effectively subsidized luxury novelty vehicles for the likes of Justin Bieber, Leonardo DiCaprio and Al Gore,” Jordan said. “Fisker was not a well thought out startup. It had a fancy design and big names behind it, but no real business acumen. It was never destined to be a company of job creators, rather skillful rent-seekers.”

Fisker’s funding was cut off in 2011, after Fisker had received $192 million of a $529 million loan had been granted. A judge ruled that Fisker had failed to reach production and sales milestones associated with the loan. While the Karma was built in Finland, the next product, the smaller Atlantic sedan, was ostensibly going to be built in a former GM plant in Delaware. But supplier issues (including the bankruptcy of A123 Systems, their battery supplier) along with Fisker’s various recalls and mechanical problems with the Karma, helped derail Fisker’s plans.

Currently, Fisker’s prospects look quite bleak. Bankruptcy is predicted by a number of industry observers, and Fisker COO Bernard Koehler stated ”whether the company will find new investors or whether the company may be obliged to seek bankruptcy protection.”

As part of their campaign against “distracted driving”, NHTSA has released new voluntary guidelines governing the use of in-car infotainment systems.

Among the core of the recommendations, as reported by Automotive News

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration specifically recommended disabling several operations unless a vehicle is stopped and in park:

• Manual text entry for the purposes of text messaging and internet browsing

• Video-based entertainment and communications such as video phoning or video conferencing

• Displaying certain types of text, including text messages, Web pages, and social-media content

Also recommended are guidelines for how many times drivers can touch a screen within a set time limit (6 touches for 12 seconds) to change things like the radio station or temperature.

Meanwhile, Juan Barnett over at DC Auto Geek has been compiling data on “distracted driving” for some time now, and when one really dives into it, it’s clear that cell phones and hand-held devices are really a minor issue in the grand scheme of things. Barnett previously lent TTAC a handy infographic that breaks down the causes behind “distracted driving”, while a recent guest post at Jalopnik provides a more in-depth examination of NHTSA’s own data.

Barnett shows that NHTSA’s data is full of vague catch-all categories, but the number of distracted driving events related to cell-phone use could be as high as 12 percent at best – and that’s when all cell phone category events are aggregated. Texting, as a specific category, accounts for just 1 percent of all distracted driving events. 39 Americans died from texting and driving in 2011, while 45 Americans died from syphilis, a disease that is generally considered a non-entity.

PrivCo, a private corporate intelligence firm, has published a 20+ page dossier on Fisker’s seemingly strong ability to fundraise for itself, while failing to do a good job of actually creating cars. With Fisker teetering on the verge of bankruptcy, the results are staggering; with just under 2000 units sold, Fisker burned through an estimated $1.3 billion in venture capital, taxpayer-funded loans and private investor funds.

According to PrivCo’s estimates, that amounts to $660,000 per Karma sold. PrivCo has charted out an extensive, detailed timeline of Fisker’s operations, and highlighted key information pertaining to corporate developments, government loan proceedings and the various ways that Fisker breached their agreements with the government. What materializes is an amazing picture of how Fisker was able to raise enormous sums of money merely on the promise of providing a “green” car for the very wealthy few, without every creating anything tangible or ready for the marketplace. According to the firm, the government

“…applied negligent underwriting standards in granting the DOE Loan and Credit Agreement to Fisker, which was by any commercial standard clearly a financially unqualified borrower for the loan.”

You can view the full report at PrivCo’s website.

A U.S. House of Represenatives subcommittee meeting became a forum for Ford to advocate on behalf of harmonized vehicle standards, as the US and EU continue to discuss a possible free trade deal.

Joe Hinrichs, Ford’s President of the Americas, said that harmonized standards would allow Ford to cut costs in areas like design, manufacturing and engineering. Ford is aiming to homogenize its lineup across the globe under its “One Ford” plan, eliminating regional models where necessary. Vehicles like the Edge and Mustang will be engineered for world markets in their next generation, while regional models like the rear-drive Falcon, sold in Australia and select world markets, will be killed off.

Automotive News reports bi-partisan support for the measure. Rep. John Dingell, whose Michigan congressional district encompasses Dearborn, where Ford is based, offered support for the measure, while Rep. Terry Lee, who chairs the subcommittee on commerce, manufacturing and trade noted “positive effects that pursuing a regulatory mutual recognition standard could have on the domestic automotive industry.” Translation: if this goes through, we may just get the Focus RS.

California Congressman Darrell Issa wants to investigate the Department of Energy’s loans to nearly-bankrupt Fisker after the company laid off most of its employees and retained bankruptcy lawyers last week.

According to Bloomberg, Issa is concerned that Fisker’s loan may have prevented other, more deserving companies from getting the money, stating

“[Fisker] is a design company, not a manufacturing company…It was destined to fail from the beginning. The greater concern is, does this affect more viable companies, whether they received loans or not.”

Bloomberg notes that Aptera, an EV start-up that Issa backed in the past (and was based in his congressional district) was denied a DoE loan under the Advanced TechnologyVehicles Manufacturing Program – the same program that Fisker got its funding from. Fisker’s $529 million loan was meant to convert a former GM factory in Delaware into a Fisker production center. But Fisker never produced a single car there, instead relying on Finland’s Valmet to produce the Fisker Karma sedan under contract.

Juan Barnett, aka DCAutoGeek, put together this infographic on “distracted driving” using NHTSA’s own data from their latest study. I’ll let you be the judge on the matter, but the numbers are straight from NHTSA itself.

The California state DMV is offering motorists the chance to step back in time and order new license plates in historic color combinations.

Your choices are black letters on a yellow background, yellow letters on a black background (the famous original black plates often found on California barn finds) and, my favorite – the color combination synonymous with the 1970s, Disco, leisure suits and “CHiPs,” – yellow letters on a blue background.

The program requires a minimum of 7500 paid pre-orders prior to January 1, 2015, but the DMV’s information states that, once that magic number of has been hit, the program will begin immediately so the wait for your new plates may be substantially less than it first appears. The best news is that you don’t have to own a classic car to get that classic look. But it helps!

http://www.dmv.ca.gov/legacyplates/index.htm

“The only way to break this cycle of spiking gas prices — the only way to break that cycle for good — is to shift our cars entirely, our cars and trucks, off oil,”

So said President Obama during a speech in Illinois, where he outlined a plan to provide $200 million a year for 10 years to a fund that would promote the development of alternative fuel vehicles. The funds would be provided by royalties from oil drilling on the Out Continental Shelf.

One notable omission from his remarks was the absence of any mention of hydrogen vehicles. Using his noted flair for rhetoric, Obama laid out his vision petroleum-free future while ignoring the fact that multiple OEMs are gearing up for a big push into fuel-cell technology

We can support scientists who are designing new engines that are more energy efficient; support scientists that are developing cheaper batteries that can go farther on a single charge; support scientists and engineers that are devising new ways to fuel our cars and trucks with new sources of clean energy — like advanced biofuels and natural gas — so drivers can one day go coast to coast without using a drop of oil.

One insider suggested that the lack of love for hydrogen has been a result of “not invented here syndrome” that is a hold over of the Bush 43 administration. While Dubya was fond of hydrogen as an alternative fuel, Obama and former Energy Secretary Steven Chu are said to be unfriendly, bordering on hostile, to the idea of hydrogen fuel cells. Unfortunately, many feel that a government partnership with the private sector will be the key to a hydrogen infrastructure breakthrough – but those parties feel that this is more likely than a cost effective, right-sized battery pack capable for a 500 mile range.

“Elmwood Place is engaged in nothing more than a high-tech game of 3-Card Monty, (sic)” Ruehlman wrote, referring to a card game used by con artists.

And with that phrase, Hamilton County Common Pleas Judge Robert Ruehlman stopped a six-thousand-ticket-per-month operation.

According to the Columbus Dispatch, the tiny village of Elmwood Place near Cincinnati, Ohio was partnered with speed-camera firm Optotraffic to write three tickets a month for every man, woman, and child residing within the municipal limits. Optotraffic received $41 of every $105 ticket. At the village boundaries, the speed limit drops from 35 to 25mph — a tactic used infamously by “the corruption capitol of Ohio”, New Rome. Unlike that now-defunct municipality, however, Elmwood Place doesn’t have a kangaroo court and outsized police force to do their dirty work. They simply sit back and let the private partnership with Optotraffic rake in over three hundred thousand dollars per month in fines.

No longer. Judge Ruehlman brought a halt to the proceedings with a permanent injunction. Elmwood Place plans to appeal, of course. This may be the start of a genuine legal dialogue about speed cameras in Ohio — or it may simply be a rare sensible and ethical act from the state’s judiciary. Let’s hope it’s the former.

With a US-EU free trade agreement looming on the horizon, Ford is calling for a harmonization between the US and EU vehicle standards, as well as a removal of tariffs on vehicles between the two entities.

Automotive News reports on some of the positives; niche vehicles could be imported without the expensive homologation process, and production flexibility would be drastically increased if the US accepted vehicles that adhered to the ECE standard as well as America’s own FMVSS regulations. Ford’s Wolfgang Schneider told Automotive News

“It will allow us far more flexibility to produce in the best place,” Wolfgang Schneider, Ford’s European vice president for governmental affairs, told Automotive News Europe in an interview. “Do we need this when we sell 500,000 units of a particular model in a country? No. But you are talking about 20,000 or 30,000, yes, because it enables you to bring in niche products.”

While European car makers and EU officials have expressed reservations about FTAs with Japan and South Korean, the US-EU deal has won widespread support. Ford in particular would stand to benefit, as its “One Ford” plan for a single, harmonized lineup could then be fully integrated (global Ranger and Focus RS, perhaps?).

Worth noting is that Ford stopped short of calling for true harmonization. The level of minutiae that would have to be agreed upon is apparently too daunting for either party to consider, and a likely stumbling block to reform. Instead, Ford suggested “mutual recognition”, which would ostensibly be some kind of reciprocity agreement whereby the US and EU would accept vehicle’s built to either standard.

The French government is planning on raising taxes on diesel fuel, branding it a “health issue”, much to the chagrin of consumers and the country’s auto industry.

France’s environment minister, Delphine Bartho, told French radio (via Bloomberg) that a study by the WHO showed that diesel fumes presented a significant health hazard, and the French government would move to raise taxes on the fuel to help soften demand.

“It’s inescapable,” Batho told RMC radio today when asked whether lower taxes paid on diesel compared with gasoline should be eliminated. “I am favorable. It’s a public health issue.”

Currently, diesel is about 20 cents cheaper per liter than gasoline, but France’s new tax regimen would bring diesel costs in line with gasoline. Originally, diesel was taxed at a favorable rate due to its use in farm equipment and heavy-duty vehicles, but the lower cost led to a massive shift towards diesel powered passenger cars. 73 percent of cars sold in France last year came with a diesel engine, compared to 55 percent on average in Western Europe.

Renault and PSA have been less than enthused with the new tax hikes. PSA is one of the world’s largest producers of diesel engines, and had criticized the studies cited by the French government, with PSA’s Director of R&D, William Faury, stating that they ignored modern particulate-filter diesel engines in favor of old-style engines.

The problem is not the diesel engines on sale now, but the pre-filter era diesels. Current Euro 5 standards for diesel engines are exceedingly tough, and PSA already has diesel powered models capable of emitting a Prius-like 100 grams of CO2 per km. PSA’s aggregate CO2 emissions level for its fleet of cars is already the lowest in Europe, at 122.5 grams per kilometer, just ahead of Toyota. And thanks to the upcoming Euro 6 emissions standards, that number should fall, as diesel NOx emissions are required to be aligned with those of gasoline engines.

While the government may be genuinely concerned about the health of its citizens, it’s hard not to see this as another cynical political calculation, similar to the now shelved plans for extremely high tax rates on France’s top earners. A hallmark of ineffective government is the use of dramatic, headline grabbing solutions, which are little more than PR stunts and rarely mistaken for solid governance. Despite the posturing of France’s current administration. A La Tribune columnist noted that the Environment minister herself admitted that diesel engines from a decade prior are the real problem, since they can emit as much as 30 times more pollution than the current crop of diesels.

To add to the matter, both PSA and Renault are in a precarious position. TTAC readers will know that the French government has been marshaled to help provide de facto bailouts to PSA and quell the ongoing labor disputes between the French auto makers and the myriad of unions entrenched in their factories. With Europe’s new car market already hanging by a thread, the diesel tax comes at a particularly bad time for France’s domestic auto industry.

Tesla announced plans to pay down their $465 million dollar Department of Energy loan in 5 years or less, as Tesla seeks to achieve profitability.

Automotive News reported on comments made by Tesla CEO Elon Musk while attending a conference in the Washington, D.C. area

That loan currently must be repaid within 10 years, Musk said. Tesla will “codify” a commitment with DOE to reimburse the government within five years or less, Musk added, after declaring that the loan guarantee should be “viewed as a success.”

In addition to Tesla, Ford, Nissan and Fisker all received loans under the $25-billion dollar program Advanced Vehicle Technology Manufacturing program, which was introduced by President George W. Bush.

Ford and Nissan’s loans are worth $5.9 billion and $1.4 billion respectively, and Energy Secretary Steven Chu said that he expects to be paid back in full by the auto makers, despite other loans that “…may be at risk”. According to Tesla’s 10-Q filing for Q4 2012, the company made its first loan payment of $12.7 million on schedule, with the next payment due in March.