Industry
Toyota Demands Site Remove Fan-Submitted Photos
To the owner of DesktopNexus.com—a site dedicated to sharing user-submitted desktop wallpaper—it sounded as if the attorney from the Toyota Motor Corporation on the phone was reading from a script. He was basically repeating the same demand that Toyota had made over the course of six months in several emails: The car giant wanted Harry Maugans to remove all images on his site containing a Toyota, Lexus and Scion gallery.
GM Asks Employees to Beg Congress for Money
General Motors, teetering on the brink of insolvency, has taken the extraordinary step of calling on employees and dealers to personally urge lawmakers to approve another loan package that might keep the beleaguered automaker from going under.
Fisker's On A Roll and Michigan Gets Karma
Times are tough in Motor City these days, but Michigan got some good news this week with the announcement that Fisker Automotive will put as many as 200 engineers and designers to work on the ultra-luxury Karma plug-in hybrid at a new R&D center in Pontiac.
Motor City Needs A Good Ol' Fashion Shotgun Wedding
Desperate times call for desperate measures, and no one in Detroit is more desperate than General Motors -- which explains why the General is lookin' to marry cross-town rival Chrysler. They've been courting for about a month now, and it's time to break out the shotgun and get everyone to the altar.
Getting Audiophile Sound In the Worst Place For It
Getting audiophile sound out of your car often means a trip to a stereo shop, where some kid with no musical taste fills your ride with gear that strains your alternator, drains your wallet and invariably sound better in the showroom than behind the wheel.
Every New Car Will Be A Hybrid By 2020
All new cars will have some degree of hybridization by 2020, by which point battery technology will be ubiquitous and vehicles will communicate with one another and the road to make driving safer and easier.
That vision of the future is laid out in "Automotive 2020: Clarity Beyond the Chaos," (.pdf) by the IBM Institute for Business Value. The report, based on interviews with 125 auto industry executives in 15 countries, says the industry is on the cusp of revolutionary changes that will see environmental sustainability and technological innovation become top priorities as automakers respond to consumer demands for more efficient cars that don't sacrifice performance, comfort or reliability.
read more »China Ressurects The Quintessential British Sports Car
They've cleared away the cobwebs and fired up the machinery at the venerable Longbridge factory in Birmingham, England, where MG roadsters are once again rolling off an assembly line.
Although the MG TF remains quintessentially British and looks pretty much like it did when the company went belly-up three years go, it is now half Chinese. The 1.8 liter engine and drivetrain are built in China and shipped to Longbridge for final assembly. Still, it's a sweet little package based on what was one of Europe's best-selling sports cars of the 1990s and there's a waiting list to get one. The first run will be limited to 500 special edition cars dubbed the TF LE500, and 70 percent of them are spoken for.
read more »Supply and Demand, Prius Style
The value consumers place on goods and services often is a matter of simple economics. When demand is high and supply low, relative worth heads north. This fundamental truth from our friend Adam Smith couldn’t be more relevant to the car business these days.
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