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The German Automotive Club (ADAC) tested 24 different cars with the new Keyless Go technology for safety. The result: all of the cars could be stolen with one easy trick. […] In a report released Thursday, the ADAC tested 24 car models from 2015 from 19 different manufacturers, including Audi, BMW, VW, Toyota, Renault, and Ford. The results were damning. They managed to illegally open every single car and drive it away within a few seconds. “All you need to do is extend the transmission range of the key from two or three meters to a few hundred meters. The...

"The FBI and NHTSA are warning the general public and manufacturers — of vehicles, vehicle components, and aftermarket devices — to maintain awareness of potential issues and cybersecurity threats related to connected vehicle technologies in modern vehicles," the agencies said in the bulletin. In July 2015, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV recalled 1.4 million U.S. vehicles to install software after a magazine report raised concerns about hacking, the first action of its kind for the auto industry. ... "While not all hacking incidents may result in a risk to safety — such as an attacker taking control of a vehicle —...

We've come a long, long way from the Model T. And if you think about it, our cars play a huge part in the journeys of our lives. I can still remember how my grandparents' dark gray Lincoln smelled back in the '70s, and almost feel those deliciously warm seats, heated from warm Florida days with the windows rolled down (with cigarette smoke wafting out, no doubt). I loved being dropped off for a weekend at their house, with my dad flying through their neighborhood (no worries about seat belts, kids!) to deliver me in our family station wagon, seemingly...

WASHINGTON, PRNewswire — The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has proposed a regulation to prohibit conversion of vehicles originally designed for on-road use into racecars. The regulation would also make the sale of certain products for use on such vehicles illegal. The proposed regulation was contained within a non-related proposed regulation entitled “Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Fuel Efficiency Standards for Medium- and Heavy-Duty Engines and Vehicles-Phase 2.” The regulation would impact all vehicle types, including the sports cars, sedans and hatch-backs commonly converted strictly for use at the track. While the Clean Air Act prohibits certain modifications to motor vehicles,...

Let’s face it: when it comes to modern cars, no model is as maligned as the diminutive two-seat Smart Fortwo. Well, maybe the Mitsubishi Mirage. Measuring just 8-feet-10-inches in length, the rear-engined Smart looks less like a car than a rolling phone booth, or perhaps the bubble that would take Patrick McGoohan back to The Village in the TV show “The Prisoner.” Jokes and instances of car-tipping aside, the Smart harbors a secret ability that sets it apart from its larger peers — and it took an Ontario mechanic to find it. A regular day will find Tod Anderson working...

Surprise, surprise: Female buyers still encounter sexism in the dealership. So a man and a woman walk into a car dealership … nah, there’s no punchline. But it’s likely they will have a different experience. A discussion I had recently at the Canadian International Auto Show about the role of women in the auto industry shifted around, as it always does, to a version of “What Do Women Really Want?” No matter how you examine it, this is still a heavily male-dominated industry that simultaneously courts women and turns them off. That pushmi-pullyu creature is real; they want our money...

"Robots can't deal with the degree of individualization and the many variants that we have today," said the company's head of production Markus Schaefer. "We're saving money and safeguarding our future by employing more people." The change comes at a time when a number of companies are replacing people with robotic devices. International Federation of Robotics (IFR) released a survey today stating that 1.3 million of the industrial robots will be in use by 2018. In fact, the number of those machines rose 43 percent in a year between 2013 and 2014. However, as Mercedes continues to expand the options...

Hey, Domino's, sweet ride! Behold the Domino's DXP (Delivery eXPert), a modified Chevrolet Spark tricked out with a warming oven and space for 80 pizzas, sides, two-liter bottles of soda and dipping sauces. (The driver's seat is the only seat, because, like cowboys, pizza delivery dude/-ettes ride alone.) There's even a puddle light that projects the Domino's logo onto the ground. (Please, no jokes about the gutter being the perfect place to see this particular brand's emblem.) Alas, the DXP isn't shaped like a slice of pizza, but we can't have everything in this life....

For all the expense, worry, and inconvenience of automotive maintenance and repairs, you’d think we would know better. But time and again, we ignore or do certain things to our vehicles that will almost always drive repair bills into the stratosphere. And no matter how highly rated or reliable your daily drive is, no matter how “bullet proof” you think it might be, these very simple things will roll any vehicle into an early grave:

This is the Lamborghini story like you’ve never heard it before: from the son of Ferruccio, Tonino Lamborghini, the kid sitting at the dinner table. If you’re in the Bologna area, you must visit the Ferruccio Lamborghini Museum. It was set up by Ferruccio’s son, who started collecting his father’s tractors and cars back in the day despite the fact that his old man thought he should be working instead of collecting old stuff. But as more and more vehicles ended up in the warehouse, Ferruccio started to spend more time in there as well, smoking cigarettes and enjoying the...

Ford's GT40 enjoyed great success as a racing car, but as a passenger car, a role required for FIA homologation, it was a failure. In order to move the 20 or so cars built for homologation purposes, Ford promoted the car with a dealer roadshow and deep discounting, eventually clearing its inventory with very little (or perhaps no) profit. On March 11, a 1966 Ford GT40 Mk I, once part of the automaker’s Promotion and Disposal Program, will cross the auction block in Amelia Island, where (this time) no additional fanfare will be needed to market the car. The Ford...

New cars just aren’t what they used to be. No, we’re not getting all crotchety and decrying the evolution in styling and technological breakthroughs that have literally reinvented the automobile during the last quarter millennium. Rather, we’re bemoaning the fact that, unlike as in past model years, there’s a dearth of truly wretched cars on the market for us to openly and readily ridicule. We consulted J.D. Power for the latest results in the company’s initial quality and long-term reliability surveys and its scores for performance and design; rankings for resale value depreciation came from the automotive valuation experts at...

Last week, WUWT ran a press release from SEMA as "The EPA is out of control - now they want to ban hobby race cars" that looked to be completely legit and accurate. It was in fact legit, coming from SEMA, but it was also inaccurate in that the SEMA press release didn't accurately gauge the EPA proposal at all. To set the record straight, see this article in Jalopnik, partially reproduced below. Anthony Motor Trend, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Dodge, wasn't the only publication to weigh in on SEMA's wild-but-plausible allegations against the Environmental Protection Agency's "clarifying" that it...

Could MotoAmerica be forced to run standard exhaust systems? If the EPA has its way, then yes. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is looking at making the practice of modifying a racing vehicle’s emission equipment illegal in the U.S. It is already illegal practice in the U.S. to tamper with or modify any part of a road-registered vehicle that could have an effect on the emissions it produces, now it appears the EPA is looking at applying that rule to competition vehicles as well. According to autoblog.com, the EPA’s proposal titled Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Fuel Efficiency Standards for Medium-...

I can't separate the video from the site but its worth a watch if you like speed.

The Environmental Protection Agency has issued a clarification in response to claims that it is proposing a ban on converting road vehicles into race cars. The Specialty Equipment Market Association (SEMA) issued a statement on Monday indicating its intention to fight an EPA proposal to change the wording to the Clean Air Act as it applies to the installation of aftermarket parts that might circumvent stock emission-control devices. But in a separate statement released to the media today, the EPA said that the proposed change is merely intended to clean up the wording of an existing law: "People may use...

Electronic gear shifters on some newer Fiat Chrysler SUVs and cars are so confusing that drivers have exited the vehicles with the engines running and while they are still in gear, causing crashes and serious injuries, U.S. safety investigators have determined. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, in documents posted during the weekend, has doubled the number of vehicles involved in an investigation of the problem, but it stopped short of seeking a recall. The agency found more than 100 crashes and over a dozen injuries, mostly in Jeep Grand Cherokees. Agency tests found that operating the centre console shift...

Toyota is committing corporate filicide. The automaker has announced that it is killing its youth-oriented Scion brand and transitioning the models currently sold by the division to Toyota in August. Scion was launched in 2002 in an effort to attract younger car buyers to the Toyota fray, and was successful at that. Its average customer age of 36 is the lowest in the automotive industry, but its overall sales peaked at 173,034 in 2006 and were just 56,167 last year.

Here's one that wasn't hard to see coming. General Motors has announced that it is ending production of the Cadillac ELR , which was essentially a gussied upChevy Volt at twice the price. You can call this one a mercy killing as the overpriced, pseudo-green, government-subsidized vehicle was doomed for failure as low sales figures reflected the lack of value offered by the vehicle. That failure was predicted here back in December of 2013 when the ELR was rolled out. As with the sales-challenged Chevy Volt, most of the media bought into the Cadillac ELR hype, calling it a...

I'm a big fan of the Ford Ranger truck. Back in 2011 Ford unwisely discontinued Ranger production in the United States. But recently the Internet has been filled with stories about the Ranger coming back to the US in 2016. The official Ford site is silent about this. So today I called a nearby Ford dearship. Forget about it, they said, the Ranger is not coming back to the US. Maybe that's true, maybe they just want to sell me a F150 today. So does anybody here know the inside scoop on the Ranger?