Remember how the heads of Volkswagen and Daimler were urging their fellow automakers not to drink so much Google Kool-Aid? General Motors thinks the punch isn’t spiked at all, pressing forward with a plan to bring Android into its brand portfolio by late 2016.

Since the 2015 Dodge Challenger Hellcat roared at the 2014 New York Auto Show, enthusiasts have been waiting for the day the big cats would enter the showroom.

When ordering opened in October, so did the floodgates.

Home to many a ‘Ring time, as well as one 24-hour FIA GT3 throwdown with as many competitors and fans as it can fit, the Nurburgring has found a new owner in Russian billionaire Viktor Kharitonin.

Should companies in the future need to be bailed-out by the federal government, they may not be so forthcoming with the necessary information if General Motors’ confidential documents linked to its own bailout see the light of day.

A day after Fiat Chrysler Automobiles found itself near or at the bottom of Consumer Reports 2014 Annual Reliability Survey, FCA quality boss Doug Betts left the building.

Think you could be the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s next top boss? Then you’re in luck: The Obama administration is looking for someone to fill the shoes currently worn by interim chief David Friedman.

Another bell tolls as Holden draws closer to the end of local production in 2017, this time for brand boss Gerry Dorizas, who resigned after serving just eight months in the position.

Automotive retailer AutoNation is pulling used vehicles off the lot that may be affected by the ongoing Takata airbag recall.

Tuesday, Michigan governor Rick Snyder signed into law a bill that included language reinforcing a direct sales ban established over 30 years ago.

Wednesday? Detroit billionaire Dan Gilbert — best known as the majority owner of the Cleveland Cavaliers who penned a letter in Comic Sans typeface in response to LeBron James making the decision to play for the Miami Heat — had a few words to say about this decision.

It’s official: the ban preventing Tesla from directly selling its wares to customers in Michigan has been reinforced.

While U.S. consumers can opt for a PHEV version of the Fusion or C-Max, European customers have had to look elsewhere.

This could change soon, however.

Come next year, General Motors will have a new general counsel, as Michael Millikin has decided to call it a day.

Sitting on Michigan governor Rick Snyder’s desk is a bill that would add the state to the list of places where Tesla cannot sell its vehicles directly to the public, waiting for his pen to seal the deal.

Cadillac boss Johan de Nysschen has taken a lot of flak as of late for the brand’s moves to New York City, and to (albeit standardized) alphanumeric naming conventions. The first time, he took to Facebook to address his critics.

This time? De Nysschen took it to the source.

Just how much will Panasonic throw down on the table when it comes time to invest in Tesla’s new Gigafactory near Reno, Nev.? According to CEO Kazuhiro Tsuga, “tens of billions” of yen.

Looking to broaden Chevrolet’s green horizons, General Motors global product overlord Mark Reuss says a new EV is in the works, one that will join the Spark EV and the Volt. And just as TTAC reported earlier this year, the new vehicle will be based on the Chevrolet Sonic.

Over 40 workers at the General Motors facility in Spring Hill, Tenn. recently found themselves on a list of “scab workers” published by United Auto Workers Local 1853, a list one anonymous employee says kicked-off an effort to pressure and intimidate into joining.

Fiat Chrysler Automobiles CEO Sergio Marchionne — who will be retiring from the company after the next five-year plan runs its course after 2018 — believes mergers between automakers will one day result in a new No. 1 automaker.

While hot hatches and hypercar hybrids caught the attention of everyone at the 2014 Paris Auto Show, senior executives for some of Europe’s major automakers warned all who would listen that potentially stronger greenhouse-gas regs could prove “fatal” to the European auto industry.

Always wanted to own a Tesla Model S, but couldn’t get past the $71,070 base price? CEO Elon Musk has a plan to make it easier to bring one home: CPO sales.

Minivan shoppers will have a new option to consider in 2015, as Fiat Chrysler Automobiles CEO Sergio Marchionne revealed plans to introduce a PHEV variant of the Chrysler Town & Country late into the coming year.

Just as in Chattanooga, Tenn., the United Auto Workers has established a local in Tuscaloosa, Ala. for those working on the floor of the Daimler AG-owned MBUSI plant in nearby Vance.

Autumn 2015 will be a big moment for the United Auto Workers, as the union prepares to negotiate new contracts with the Detroit Three, with the aim of improving pay for both Tier 1 and Tier 2 members under conditions that weren’t there in the year prior to the Great Recession.

Warren Buffett — no relation to Jimmy — is a lot of things: investor extraordinaire, railroad magnate, newspaper mogul, hip-hop enthusiast et al. As of last Thursday, however, he picked up a new title: master auto dealer.

Aside from GPS-equipped starter interrupt systems, lenders have another tool to repossess a vehicle, with the added benefit of using the data obtained to acquire better contracts: license plate recognition.

For the past three years, President Barack Obama has called upon Congress to raise tax incentives for electric vehicles from $7,500 to $10,000, with those calls going unanswered.

This year, the top Democrat in the U.S. Senate is taking the charge.

Can you imagine one day visiting a Mazda showroom to buy a new RX-7 and finding anything but a rotary engine under the hood? Neither can global design chief — and RX-8 designer — Ikuo Maeda.

Though Daimler senior management has said repeatedly that the decision to organize the MBUSI plant in Tuscaloosa, Ala. was up to the workers on the floor, Daimler works council boss Michael Brecht is heading there in a few weeks to explore the possibility with the United Auto Workers.

According to the financial overlords of Goldman Sachs, Tesla would need an $6 billion in capital within the next 11 years should its products become truly disruptive to the automotive industry.

As companies like Google, Tesla and Uber seek to reshape the auto industry in their own ways, more automakers and suppliers are beating a path toward Silicon Valley and the Center for Automotive Research Stanford to help adapt to the new reality.

Now that Cadillac and 50 of its B&B have packed up and moved out of Detroit for the American hustle of New York, what do those closest to the brand have to say about the move? General Motors product boss Mark Reuss has a couple of cents to spare.

According to the latest report from the General Motors compensation program published Monday, 21 fatalities linked to the defective ignition switch that launched a thousand recalls will receive payments.

One of the main goals of Tesla’s Gigafactory is to bring down battery pack costs to just under $100 per kilowatt-hour within 10 years. That goal may be harder to achieve, however, according to one skeptic.

[AUTHOR’S NOTE: This story is one I’ve been pursuing since a couple of days before returning to TTAC on the back of the Bumpasaurus Rex last October. As today is my 36th birthday, this is my gift to you, dearest B&B. – CA]

Meet Ian James Corlett and his 1966 Porsche 912. Corlett calls Vancouver, B.C. his home, where he works in the entertainment industry as a voice actor, director, producer, author and musician; his son and daughter, Phillip and Claire, also work in the industry as voice actors in their own right.

As for his 912, it may appear to be no more than a beautifully restored vintage Porsche, but as you’ll soon discover, there’s more than meets the eye with this particular sports car.

All photos provided by Ian James Corlett, Brendan McAleer and Wikipedia.

After running the gauntlet of congressional hearings, numerous recalls and personnel firings under the dark cloud of scandal created in the wake of the February 2014 recall crisis, General Motors believes it’s ready to turn the page, that everything is now in the rear view.

Not so fast.

In the wake of a report written by Republican members of the United States House of Representatives regarding the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration inability to find and link evidence regarding General Motors’ involvement in the design and implementation of an ignition switch now linked to 54 accidents and 19 fatalities, two Democrat members took the report’s authors to task.

If one were so inclined to visit Macau for a bit of gambling, they could hitch a ride to their hotel through one of the many cabs running throughout the city. However, those who will stay at entrepreneur Stephen Hung’s Louis XIII hotel upon its opening in 2016 will be able to paint the town red in a red Rolls-Royce.

It was a long day for David Friedman and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration during congressional testimony Tuesday, admitting before a Senate panel that his agency has more work to do to improve itself, and that General Motors made “incredibly poor decisions” as far as recalls were concerned.

Over a month since the first claims were filed by those affected by a defective General Motors ignition switch originally linked to 31 accidents and 13 deaths, compensation administrator and attorney Kenneth Feinberg has found a total of 19 deaths and 31 eligible claims thus far.

With the departure of Luca Cordero di Montezemolo from Ferrari, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles CEO Sergio Marchionne will become the premium brand’s chair next month, with the first order of business being to increase output to satisfy more demand.

A couple of months after General Motors CEO Mary Barra turned up inside the Beltway for a second round of testimony before the United States Senate over its part of the February 2014 ignition switch crisis, it’s now the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s own second turn in the hot seat.

Dodge dealers wanting to help their customers destroy wannabes with the 2015 Challenger SRT Hellcat will themselves need to prove their worth to the brand before a single car leaves the carrier.

The surge in United States auto sales last month could push the final figures to a height not seen since 2006 when January 2015 rolls around.

Prior to becoming Aston Martin’s new CEO, former Nissan senior exec Andy Palmer proposed to the automaker to buy a stake in AM, only for Nissan to decline.

Despite allegations to the contrary, Daimler AG chair Dieter “Dr. Z” Zetsche says his company remains neutral on the subject of unionization in regards to the Mercedes factory in Vance, Ala.

It’s official: Tesla will build its Gigafactory in Nevada pending legislative approval.

Lamborghini’s newest foray into the premium truck/SUV market may still be for the production stop light to go green, but when it does, it will likely be priced in line with the Huracán.

Though the departures of Johan de Nysschen and Andy Palmer from Infiniti and Nissan respectively may be setbacks in the premium brand’s overall trek toward becoming a proper player in the luxury game, Infiniti Americas VP Michael Bartsch believes the brand will stay the course in the end.

Remember when we reported on an initiative to bring ZEV credits and incentives to low-income residents in California? The initiative is two steps away from becoming law.

If you’re Justin Bieber, Carlos Santana or Bob Lutz — and even if you’re not — you’ll be happy to know that your Fisker Karma will be more fixable in the event of a fender-bender or two, all thanks to parent company Wanxiang.

In response to the United Auto Workers establishing a union local in Chattanooga, Tenn., anti-UAW Volkswagen employees have begun the process of forming their own union.

Former Porsche CEO Wendelin Wiedeking may be facing jail time in the future if convicted on charges of market manipulation recently revived by a German court.

Within the next few months, the 2016 Chevrolet Volt will enter showrooms on a new platform, cutting ties to the Delta II platform underpinning both the first-gen Volt and the Cadillac ELR. The move won’t matter ultimately, as the premium PHEV may not be long for this world as it is.

Though it won’t be until next September when Detroit Three employees in Michigan will be able to opt-out of paying dues to the United Auto Workers, one Ford employee has gone ahead with legal action to recoup some of his dues now.

As part of brand boss Johan de Nysschen’s overall plan to boost its image outside of the United States, Cadillac is considering moving some of its functions to New York City.

General Motors global product development chief Mark Reuss revealed Tuesday that Cadillac will press ahead with an F-segment sedan built upon a new platform.

In an effort to convince governments that its services are key to making transportation “as reliable as running water,” transportation network company Uber has hired the man who helped Barack Obama become President of the United States in 2008, David Plouffe.

Once reporting information on the group of vehicles affected by the February 2014 recall, General Motors’ website on the matter recently expanded to cover all 20 vehicles affected by the original and subsequent recalls over ignition problems.

Though the man who steered Infiniti toward its current Q-bound direction has since left for Cadillac, the premium brand is still on track to expanding its lineup on the way towards becoming a full-time player in the luxury game.

California’s low- and mid-income residents may soon be able to board the EV train with help from a bill now working its way through the state’s legislature.