Rarely does a high-profile hostage-taking resolve itself in such a nice, PG-13 film manner.

Aparecida Schunck, the 67-year-old mother-in-law of Formula One chief Bernie Ecclestone, was found tied up in a dingy apartment near São Paulo, nine days after her kidnapping, the BBC reported last night.

Volkswagen’s multi-billion-dollar make-nice deal with U.S. regulators and owners was given a tentative green light today, after a federal judge gave the settlement his preliminary approval.

The San Francisco hearing is the first of two, and approval of the $14.7 billion buyback and compensation plan could get a full go-ahead on August 25. The hearing shed light on what owners of defeat device-equipped diesels can expect in the coming months.

Brazilian media sources say kidnappers are demanding a huge ransom for the safe return of Formula One boss Bernie Ecclestone’s mother-in-law.

The São Paulo kidnapping of Aparecida Schunck, mother of Ecclestone’s wife Fabiana Flosi, was reported in Veja and Globo, according to the BBC. The assailants are asking for $36.5 million.

Fiat Chrysler Automobiles stopped inflating monthly sales figures after uncovering the practice last year, according to sources within the automaker.

The two insiders told Automotive News that the practice, which involved artificially boosting sales numbers before rolling them back the following month, was discovered by an internal review in mid-2015. FCA sales chief Reid Bigland reportedly put a stop to the practice.

FCA is now under investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Frustrated by congestion and unsafe lane changes, state governments are telling left lane drivers to get the lead out.

Tennessee rolled out a new law on July 1 that dings drivers $50 for driving too slowly in the left lane, joining a growing list of states that want to free up the go-fast lane through penalties. The days of drivers coasting along at (or slightly under) the speed limit in the passing lane are waning, and that’s a good thing.

If you’re anything like the writers at TTAC, Pokémon Go is a strange and scary thing, like what those teenagers might be doing over there.

We’ve avoided writing about the misadventures associated with the nerdy phone app — grown men falling off cliffs, kids finding corpses, awkward romantic escapades — but a moron in Baltimore tipped our hand.

Two nights ago, a Baltimore police officer’s body camera captured a Toyota RAV4 colliding with his parked cruiser. The young male driver, who clearly couldn’t figure out how to cover his ass, immediately admits to playing Pokémon Go behind the wheel.

Volkswagen diesel owners will be able to spend many happy, polluting miles on the road, even after they request a fix instead of a buyback.

Buried in the automaker’s $15.3 billion U.S. settlement is the expectation that most of the recalled vehicles will still spew twice the allowable rate of emissions after being repaired, according to Bloomberg. A fix for the 475,000 2.0-liter diesels hasn’t been approved, but regulators fully expect any repair plan to fail — and they’re grudgingly okay with it.

The state of New York wants its pound of flesh from Volkswagen, as well as $450 million.

A lawsuit filed against the automaker by New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman alleges widespread knowledge of the emissions-cheating “defeat device” used in millions of diesel vehicles, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Fiat Chrysler Automobiles is in hot water with federal authorities over the way it reports its sales.

Late yesterday, it was revealed that the U.S. Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission both launched investigations into the automaker, following months of accusations of inflated sales figures.

Two U.S. Ford dealerships are beyond frustrated with Saleen Automotive after the performance sportscar manufacturer failed to deliver its signature modified Mustangs on time.

According to Automotive News, Red McCombs Ford of San Antonio filed a lawsuit alleging breach of contract and fraud after the three Saleen Mustangs it ordered arrived six months late missing $22,000 in modifications. Friendship Ford of Bristol, Tennessee hasn’t received a Saleen Mustang it ordered over a year ago.

Business is about to get much more expensive for automakers with thirsty fleets.

The penalties leveled by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration against automakers who miss their annual corporate average fuel economy (CAFE) standards are about to go up in August. Way up.

An owner of a 2010 Cadillac CTS Sport Wagon that won a lemon law case against General Motors is now on the receiving end of GM’s legal department.

According to WSB-TV in Georgia, the vehicle’s owner, Patrick Morse, won his lemon-law case in 2014. General Motors, instead of abiding by the arbiter’s ruling, is leveraging a little-known law to appeal the ruling in the courts. The appeal process has left Morse with a troublesome car for the last two years — and there’s a possibility it could continue for years to come.

General Motors had hoped to put the issue behind it, but a judge’s ruling just opened the automaker up to billions in damages over its faulty ignition switch scandal.

Yesterday, the U.S. Appeals Court of Manhattan ruled that lawsuits filed against the automaker for accidents that happened before the company’s 2009 bankruptcy sale were still valid. The decision overruled an earlier court decision that protected GM from such suits.

General Motors executives are breathing a sigh of relief after the automaker reached a deal with a supplier that threatened to shut down GM’s entire U.S. assembly operation.

The automaker hammered out an agreement with the bankrupt Clark-Cutler-McDermott Company, a supplier of trim and acoustic insulation that GM had been propping up financially since March, the Wall Street Journal reports.

GM is facing off with a key parts supplier in bankruptcy court today, but the drama between it and the Clark-Cutler-McDermott Company started at the same time the automaker handed the company a nice award.

The Massachusetts-based CCM axed its workforce on July 8 and declared chapter 11 bankruptcy, leaving the automaker without the insulation and trim parts needed to build most of its vehicles. A continued disruption in the supply chain would be a massive blow to the automaker, forcing it to shut down assembly plants throughout North America.

Court documents show that at the same time GM was handing CCM a “Supplier of the Year” award at Detroit’s Cobo Center on March 10, CCM had already told GM it had defaulted on a loan and was looking for a handout in order to stay afloat.

A Massachusetts-based parts supplier you’ve probably never heard of could force General Motors’ entire North American operation to grind to a halt.

Clark-Cutler-McDermott Co. stopped making acoustic insulation and trim pieces for GM vehicles on Friday after declaring Chapter 11 bankruptcy, a situation it blames on money-losing contracts signed with the automaker, a source told The Detroit News.

Jeep and Ram vehicles are being snatched out of driveways in Houston, but the thieves aren’t hacking their way to a free ride, according to the automaker’s U.S. head of security architecture.

A rash of thefts over the past few months in the Houston area had owners of Jeep and Ram vehicles scratching their heads until a garage surveillance video posted by police showed two men making off with a Wrangler. One of the men appears to use a laptop to start up the vehicle, raising fears that tech-minded thieves have developed a program to override security features and commandeer certain vehicles.

Fiat Chrysler Automobiles is working with the Houston Police Department on the case, but claims the video is misleading.

Was the fatal May crash of a Tesla Model S driving in Autopilot mode significant enough for the automaker to inform its shareholders? The Securities and Exchange Commission plans to find out.

The federal agency recently opened an investigation into Tesla to determine if the automaker broke securities laws by not notifying investors of the crash, according to the Wall Street Journal.

With no approved U.S. diesel fix in its grasp, Volkswagen hasn’t even bothered asking the Environmental Protection Agency for permission to resume selling its maligned TDI models, Automotive News reports.

Sales of all new and certified pre-owned TDIs were frozen last September after the diesel emissions scandal became public. Even after agreeing to a $15.3 billion U.S. settlement last month, it looks like the models will cool their heels for months to come.

It looks like car thieves in Houston have found a way to break into (and make off with) Jeep and Ram vehicles without using a slim jim, crowbar or screwdriver.

Surveillance video from a Houston garage shows a Jeep Wrangler being methodically commandeered by a man using a laptop and tablet. After last year’s remote-control Grand Cherokee incident, this is another hacker-related headache for Fiat Chrysler Automobiles.

Thousands of innocent Americans are going to jail due to faulty science and prosecutors who take the results of cheap (and error-prone) roadside drug testing equipment as gospel.

That’s the finding of a damning report published in the New York Times with the help of non-profit investigative journalism body ProPublica.

The Nixon-era chemical-testing technology used by police officers to analyze suspicious substances found in vehicles was never supposed to be the last word on a suspect’s guilt or innocence, but that’s what’s happening across the U.S. Backed into a corner, citizens faced with a “positive” test often accept a plea deal for a reduced sentence to get the nightmare over with faster.

The state of Indiana is cracking down on motorists driving too slowly in the left lane.

In the first year of the State’s highway slowpokes law, state police issued 109 tickets and at least 1,535 warnings to drivers that didn’t move from the left lane when they should reasonably know another vehicle is trying to overtake them. The law went into effect last July.

There’s a good chance that the former managing director of Audi Volkswagen Korea will soon find himself pleading for a sip of Coke during the 11th hour of a grueling interrogation process.

Park Dong-hoon, now CEO of Renault Samsung Motors, was recently identified as a suspect in South Korea’s investigation into the Volkswagen emissions-cheating scandal, according to Wards Auto. That means a date with the “VIP Suite.”

Edsel Ford II, great-grandson of Ford Motor Company founder Henry Ford, was arrested after an altercation at his Grosse Pointe Farms home last night, but no charges came out of this morning’s arraignment.

According to reports from the arraignment by the Detroit Free Press, police were called to the home by Ford’s wife, Cynthia Layne Neskow. The 67-year-old Ford, son of Henry Ford II and cousin of company chairman William Clay Ford, Jr, spent the night in jail awaiting a misdemeanor domestic violence charge.

After agreeing to fork over up to $14.7 billion to U.S. owners (and the environment) in its U.S. diesel emissions scandal settlement, Volkswagen is saying Nein! to a similar buyback in Europe, because that kind of payout would just be insane.

According to Left Lane News, the embattled automaker isn’t planning any compensation to its clients on the Continent, meaning its 2.0-liter TDI models will go on well into the future, albeit in a slightly detuned form.

A former Volkswagen employee who claimed he was fired when the company discovered his plan to report it for obstruction of justice has dropped his lawsuit.

Daniel Donovan, an information manager working for Volkswagen’s data center in Auburn Hills, Michigan, withdrew the suit on June 9, according to the New York Times. Donovan had claimed he tried to prevent the destruction of documents related to the diesel emissions scandal.

Good news, owners of Volkswagen, Audi and Porsche models powered by a 3.0-liter TDI engine — your heavily polluting diesel probably won’t have to be bought back and scrapped.

A lawyer for the automaker said in court today that Volkswagen believes the 85,000 vehicles can be cleaned up with a not-too-complicated fix, Reuters reports.

Imagine for a second that the cash Volkswagen must now spend to get itself out of trouble in the U.S. was a pile. It would be a great day for tobogganing.

The initial settlement for the diesel emissions scandal — vehicle buyback, compensation, make-the-air-nice-again programs — rings in at $14.7 billion, but the automaker has roughly $18 billion set aside to handle all of the American fallout.

When it comes to cash, the bigger the number, the harder it is to imagine what that figure really looks like. What could it buy? How many bananas is that? Well, there are countries that make less money in a year than Volkswagen, maker of the Jetta, just paid out to one country. (Keep in mind, there’s more countries waiting in the wings for their cash.)

Christmas is coming early for owners of polluting Volkswagen TDI models now that the automaker has agreed to pay up to $14.7 billion to settle claims in the diesel emissions scandal.

Volkswagen’s settlement with the federal government, owners and regulators will see it buy back some 475,000 2.0-liter diesel vehicles in the U.S. at pre-scandal values and offer their owners up to a cool $10,000 in extra compensation, according to figures reported by the New York Times.

It didn’t take long for perennial automotive litigant Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro to assemble a class action lawsuit against Fiat Chrysler Automobiles in the wake of actor Anton Yelchin’s death.

The Seattle-based law firm filed suit against FCA yesterday, alleging the recalled Monostable gear shift levers in certain models pose a risk to drivers, and could have contributed to Yelchin’s death. The firm, acting on behalf of three clients in California, Florida and Ohio, called the shifters “dangerously defective” and demanded a jury trial.

Owners of the 482,000 2.0-liter TDI models caught up in the diesel emissions scandal will get cash compensation tied to the age of their vehicle, anonymous sources said today.

Volkswagen won’t release details on its buyback/fix/remediation plan until Tuesday of next week, but sources briefed on the matter blabbed to the media despite a court-imposed gag order. The Associated Press puts the cost of settling the U.S. fallout at $10.2 billion, with some of that money going towards government penalties.

It’s already known that Volkswagen plans to buy back (or fix, at the owner’s request) 2.0-liter diesel models sold from 2009 on. What’s murky is whether the figures quoted by the sources relate to the vehicle buyback or the separate compensation expected to be handed to owners.

Let’s hope the cutlery was plastic and the sandwiches didn’t come with toothpicks.

Amid an investigation into the emissions scandal that recently ensnared the company’s ex-CEO and current brand chief, Volkswagen shareholders big and small gathered today to calmly discuss the company’s actions and finances.

By all accounts, the calm didn’t last.

Statistics show that, as a whole, teen drivers are unsafe, and could easily saddle you with a huge repair bill.

So, what’s the best state to live in if you’re planning to hand your keys to someone aged 15 to 24? A new study by WalletHub maps it out, ranking each state based on three categories — safety conditions, driving laws and economic environment.

A day after German prosecutors announced an investigation into former Volkswagen CEO Martin Winterkorn, the company’s brand chief was named as the second executive placed under the microscope in their probe of the diesel emissions scandal.

Herbert Diess, the man lured away from BMW last year to oversee the Volkswagen passenger car brand, now gets to enjoy his own investigation, according to Reuters.

The first suspect identified by German prosecutors in their probe of the Volkswagen diesel emissions scandal is none other than the company’s former CEO.

Martin Winterkorn is under investigation for his role in the “defeat device” deception after the country’s financial watchdog demanded it, according to the New York Times.

It looks like a gas card mailout didn’t take all the heat off of General Motors.

After compensating owners of its full-size 2016 crossovers in the wake of the recent fuel economy controversy, a class action lawsuit filed in a California court is pointing the finger at older models and demanding the automaker pay up.

Where is a parked car not a parked car? The answer is California, where your vehicle will magically transform into an empty spot with a scattering of window glass on the pavement.

The National Insurance Crime Bureau (NICB) just released its 2015 vehicle theft Hot Spots report, and the Golden State gets top billing, with eight of its cities listed in the top 10.

When a police cruiser lights up behind you, a driver usually fears two things: a costly speeding ticket, or a roadside breathalyzer test.

The driver probably isn’t worrying about having the contents of his or her bank account seized, followed by a long and possibly fruitless journey to recoup their lost cash, but that’s the power local law enforcement has over its citizens.

And technology is now making it easier to use that power more and more often.

Let’s have some fun with this video featuring two narcissists whining at each other about the use of a cell phone in a stopped vehicle. It’s extra fun, because one of them is a cop!

The man who allegedly opened fire on two UAW officials last week, wounding both, has been arrested and charged, Chicago police announced late Tuesday.

William Cowart, 50, was brought in on charges of felony aggravated battery and discharging a firearm in connection with the June 3 shooting.

As the Environmental Protection Agency readied charges against Volkswagen, the automaker’s employees were told to remove evidence related to the diesel emissions scandal, German media reports claim.

The New York Times says several Volkswagen employees told investigators that just before the scandal broke, someone in a “supervisory position” told them indirectly to remove evidence of the emissions-cheating defeat devices installed in millions of diesel vehicles.

The Los Angeles Police Department just inked a deal that will see 100 BMW i3 electric vehicles wear the iconic black-and-white paint job of their vehicle fleet.

BMW emerged the winner in a supply bid that saw the i3 and rival EVs vie for the LAPD contract. The force chose the slab-sided Bimmer for its reliability and connectivity, and for the company’s charging infrastructure and service network.

Volkswagen can start hauling the first of 800,000 Passat, CC and Eos models off of European streets after a German regulator granted approval to the automaker’s diesel emissions fix.

The Federal Motor Transport Authority (KBA) says there’s nothing wrong with the plan to bring 2.0-liter diesel versions of those models into compliance with pollution laws. No doubt Volkswagen execs are happy to cross off another thing off their “to do” list.

“Just because you’re paranoid,” my father used to joke, “it doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you.” WMATA, the metro rail system of Washington, DC, has long been infamous for subpar service, indifferent adherence to schedule, and a truly staggering amount of crime that includes over 100 reported felony assaults in a four-year period.

Starting today, however, WMATA added a new nightmare for commuters who have already been brutalized into submission: the “SafeTrack” program that features maintenance “surges” to replace dangerous and degraded sections of railway. The resulting closures and delays have riders looking for alternatives to WMATA — but isn’t WMATA supposed to be an alternative to owning and operating a private automobile? What’s at the end of this “alternative” rabbit hole?

But if you needed another reason to quit WMATA besides WMATA asking you to quit, there’s a very good “alternative” reason out there as well: roving gangs of rapists.

When is a Range Rover Evoque not a Range Rover Evoque? When it’s a Landwind X7 — a carbon copy Chinese imitation that Jaguar Land Rover wants out of the picture.

According to a report in Reuters, the automaker recently served China’s Jiangling Motor with legal papers over their copycat crossover SUV, alleging the vehicle amounts to copyright infringement and unfair competition.

In the made-for-TV movie Duel, a somewhat legendary film for car enthusiasts, Steven Spielberg and Richard Matheson tapped into drivers’ primal fear of being harassed by a malevolent trucker at the wheel of a semi much larger than their own vehicles.

Drivers in Indiana and Michigan experienced a non-fiction form of that fear last week, when a possibly drugged truck driver sideswiped cars as he drove erratically for almost 50 miles before police shot out one of the truck’s driving tires. The driver then punched a police dog and it took a number of officers to corral and restrain him even after he was tasered.

Around 8:30 p.m. last Thursday, May 26, Indiana State Police started receiving cellphone calls from drivers on eastbound Interstate 94 near Portage, Indiana. The drivers all reported a metal-hauling semi hitting construction barrels and sideswiping cars.

By the time Michigan State Police managed to stop him, the driver of the truck had traveled 48 miles from the time of the first reports. That highway is the main route between Chicago and Detroit and at that time of the evening, traffic is still pretty heavy as drivers sweep around the southern tip of Lake Michigan. It was fortunate that nobody was injured in the incident, according to Mlive.com.

Defective airbags linked to at least 10 U.S. deaths are still rolling off dealer lots, despite a massive safety recall.

Four automakers admit to selling new vehicles equipped with faulty Takata airbags, but it’s all legal as long as those cars are fixed within two years. The companies were revealed in a report tabled today by U.S. Senate Commerce Committee Democrats.

It’s common for younger and more progressive members of the B&B to lambaste me as a sort of grunting throwback to a past that never truly existed, a Triceratops grazing contentedly through a field of single mothers, pernambuco-necked guitars, and filets mignon while the participation-trophy-shaped asteroid of genderless, sexless, non-meritocratic, feelings-centric, pansy-assed Millennial culture streaks overhead to announce my impending doom. Maybe they’re right — but it doesn’t feel that way to me. The truth is that for most of my life I never really sympathized much with traditional Western culture or “caveman fragile masculinity” or any of that stuff.

When I was a young man, I saw myself as a progressive, non-traditional thinker. If there was a machine out there, so to speak, I wanted to rage against it. Obviously, I’m not exactly Charleston Heston, you know? I listen to disco music and order lime green cars and refer to Robert Bly every chance I get. Yet, here I am, taking a last stand against the overwhelming hordes of adult-kickball players and streaming-video addicts. If nobody else is going to stand up for the culture that lifted us from the caves of Altamira to the Manhattan Project, then I’m going to do it. You could argue that I’m in the position of the last Byzantine emperors: making a last-ditch stand to preserve a system to which I was not born.

With all of this in mind, I’d like to sit down with all of you and take a serious, considered look at the video below the jump. I’d like to argue that it represents several important trends in modern culture — trends of which many TTAC readers approve in theory but might be surprised to see taken to their logical extremes.

First-quarter earnings just released by Volkswagen Group show a massive hit to the company’s namesake brand, all thanks to fallout from the diesel emissions scandal.

Profit at Volkswagen passenger cars fell 86 percent to 73 million euros ($81 million), down from 514 million euros last year. That plunge leaves the brand with a nano particle-thin operating margin of 0.3 percent.

Still, the scandal isn’t a killing blow for the company. Why? Investment advisers aren’t lying when they say diversity is key to weathering shocks.

Bad PR from customers annoyed by their problem-plagued Tesla Model X SUVs continues to hammer the electric automaker.

A lawsuit filed against Tesla by a California man is the latest bit of bad news (and press) for the company. According to Barrett Lyon, the bizarre electrical gremlins running loose in his Model X turned his vehicle into a static driveway decoration.

Modern technology helps vehicles avoid collisions and prevents injury, but the potential for a deadly collision inside the vehicle is being overlooked, some say.

Seat back collapses have killed or seriously injured 100 people since 1989, a CBS News investigation found, and lawmakers in Congress are now joining victims in calling for action.

Owners of 2.0-liter Volkswagen diesels will have to wait a little longer before learning exactly when their rolling pariahs will leave their driveways.

The automaker is on track to meet a June 21 settlement deadline, a federal judge stated yesterday, but details on the wildly expensive U.S. buyback and compensation program won’t be made public just yet.

Do investors trust Volkswagen to investigate itself and lay the appropriate blame? Not these three groups.

With the financial damage of the diesel emissions scandal now clear, three large investor groups are calling for accountability and the launch of an independent investigation, Reuters reports.

Human error causes most vehicle wrecks, so why is “car accident” still the go-to term?

A safety advocate-led movement is gaining steam to change the lexicon, the New York Times reports, with “crash” being the preferred word to replace “accident.”

With fatal crashes on the rise on U.S. roads, policymakers are joining the groundswell of voices calling for eradication of the word, which they say absolves blame.

You could fill the better part of a day watching bone-headed wrecks filmed outside Cars and Coffee meetups.

The latest (but not the last) automotive crunchfest entertained spectators at last week’s Reno, Nevada event.

The driver of a first-generation Chevrolet Camaro dragster figured laying a magnificent strip of rubber would lend some much-needed panache to his exit. Oh, and it sounded good. Everything was going according to the one-point plan.

Owners of full-size 2016 General Motors crossovers will get a welcome present in the mail to make up for the automaker’s window sticker snafu.

About 135,000 retail customers will receive debit cards worth between $450 and $1,500, Automotive News reports, making GM square with owners of affected Buick Enclave, Chevrolet Traverse and GMC Acadia models.

Volkswagen must be enjoying watching its rival squirm on the end of the same hook.

German regulators have singled out GM’s Opel division over carbon dioxide emissions from some of its vehicles, but the automaker says it isn’t in the wrong.

Facing accusations that it used a ‘defeat device’ to shut off emissions controls, Opel must now submit information to an investigating committee. During a meeting yesterday, Opel executives admitted that the popular Zafira model has software that shuts down exhaust treatment systems at high speeds and altitudes.

On the heels of a stop sale order and subsequent rush to reprint Monroney stickers with correct EPA fuel economy ratings, General Motors is working on a plan to compensate buyers of the 2016 Chevrolet Traverse, GMC Acadia and Buick Enclave.

Seeking to smooth any ruffled feathers, GM expects to announce a plan to dealers and customers within the next seven days, according to Automotive News.

That assurance isn’t enough to placate some owners of the full-size crossover, as GM was slapped with a prospective class-action lawsuit on Tuesday.

Ford Motor Company probably wishes it had gone with a CVT.

After weathering years of complaints about the performance of its six-speed PowerShift dual clutch transmission, Australia just added to the misery with a class-action lawsuit, CarAdvice reports.

The suit, which alleges the transmissions are unsafe, concerns 2010–2014 Ford Fiesta and Focus models.

He’s been with the company since the Plymouth Sapporo/Dodge Challenger era, but Mitsubishi president Tetsuro Aikawa’s tenure comes to an abrupt end in June.

Aikawa stepped down today after less than two years at the helm, the victim of his company’s ongoing fuel economy scandal, according to an announcement from the automaker. Ryugo Nakao, the company’s executive vice-president in charge of quality, is also out the door.