Free Republic

The major oil companies greatly underestimate the impact electric vehicles will have on their market, write independent energy advisors Salman Ghouri and Andreas de Vries. According to Ghouri and De Vries, the trends currently underway in the auto industry are likely to have a substantial impact on oil demand in the medium term, and even a devastating impact in the longer term. If there is one event in history that has shaped the crude oil industry, it is the popularization of the internal combustion engine (ICE) by the auto industry. At the beginning of the 20th century, coal and wood...

Auto giant Ford is planning a new assembly plant south of the U.S. border, the Wall Street Journal reported Sunday, and will sharply increase factory output from Mexico just months after signing a labor deal. Citing people familiar with the matter, The Journal reported that Ford will add half a million units of annual capacity from Mexico starting in 2018, which is double the amount it built in 2015. The new assembly complex will be based in San Luis Potosi, and Ford will expand an existing facility near Mexico City, the publication added. The move may heighten the debate over...

Dyson is developing an electric car at its headquarters in Wiltshire with help from public money, according to government documents. The company, which makes a range of products that utilise the sort of highly efficient motors needed for an electric car such as vacuum cleaners, hand dryers and bladeless fans, last year refused to rule out rumours it was building one. But on Wednesday, the government appeared to have accidentally disclosed Dyson is working on one, along with other big companies outside of the automotive industry, such as Apple. "The government is funding Dyson to develop a new battery electric...

When the Ford Motor Co. decided to move jobs south to Mexico so that it could pay its workers less, billionaire businessman Donald Trump was furious. He made trade inequalities and Ford’s betrayal of American workers a central issue of his campaign. And, without his even being in the Oval Office, it worked. In an interview with CNBC, Ford CEO Mark Fields said that the automaker would be “here to stay.” He also said he had outlined his company’s plans in a letter to Trump.

The Illinois Secretary of State’s Office has cancelled its annual Vehicle Show and Swap Meet due to the state budget impasse. The event, held in downtown Springfield near the capitol building, usually costs around $18,000 to put on, but is being postponed this year to save money. The show usually draws about 300 entries from car enthusiasts around the state and attracts more than 1-thousand people. The show has been around since 1949 and featured cars, trucks, motorcycles, hot rods, tractors and even recreational vehicles. A spokesman for the Illinois Secretary of State’s Office says it’s their hope the show...

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.