Free Republic

In the history of data from The Fed, this has never happened before... Aggregate Auto Loan volume actually fell last week... And less loans means one simple thing... less sales (because prices have never been higher and no one is paying cash)... Which is a major problem since motor vehicle production continues to rise as management is blindly belieiving the Hillbama narrative that everything is (and will be) awesome. The problem is... inventories are already at near record highs relative to sales (which are anything but plateauing)... In fact, the last time inventories were this high relative to sales, GM...

Is the electric car the inevitable wave of the future? Is the internal combustion engine finished, through, a relic of the 20th century—as many are now saying? I have argued before that electric cars are overhyped. I calculated that the Tesla, for example, is still a really bad deal when you compare its substantial extra costs against the cost of operating a similar gasoline-powered car over five or ten years. But what if I'm wrong? For example, how much of that calculation is due to the inflated cost of a Tesla, which uses all of the positive publicity lavished on...

MONTROSE, Colo. — There is a new menace on America’s roads: diesel truck drivers who soup up their engines and remove their emissions controls to “roll coal,” or belch black smoke, at pedestrians, cyclists and unsuspecting Prius drivers. Sgt. Chris Worthington of the Montrose Police Department here is out to stop them. “You can hear those trucks across town, driving like idiots,” he said on a recent Friday evening patrol. He is among the first law enforcement officers in the country to be trained at “smoke school” to pick up the skills to police the coal rollers. He lost sight...

The German government has accused Fiat-Chrysler of building emissions cheating technology into some vehicles... Affected vehicles deactivated their storage catalytic converters and exhaust recuperation systems after six test cycles or a 22-minute delay -- two minutes longer than the standard length of an emissions test -- resulting in NOx emissions "9 to 15 times higher than the legal limit", it said... Under EU law, each manufacturer earns approval from its national regulator, allowing it to sell vehicles Europe-wide. But critics say the system means that regulators can go easy on their own country's auto-makers. Berlin has been under pressure from...

The Environmental Protection Agency and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration jointly issued a new regulation last week that is meant to help protect the world from “climate change” by limiting “greenhouse gas emissions” and improving fuel efficiency in medium- and heavy-duty vehicles operated in the United States. The 1,690-page regulation is approximately 700,000 words long. A “regulatory impact analysis” published by EPA and NHTSA estimates the regulation will add an average of as much as $13,749 to the cost of a tractor truck and $1,370 to a trailer, making some tractor-trailer combinations $15,119 more expensive in 2027 than they...

Hydrogen fuel-cell cars face an uphill battle toward mass adoption. Both cars and fueling infrastructure need to be made widely available before large numbers of consumers can seriously consider switching from gasoline to hydrogen. But under certain circumstances, hydrogen could prove very attractive to consumers for one simple reason. When produced using renewable energy, hydrogen could cost nearly the equivalent of 50-cent-per-gallon gasoline, according to a study by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). That will only happen if "the stars align" and several factors work in hydrogen's favor, notes industry trade journal WardsAuto noted in a June report on...

96 Camry V6, 166k miles, engine = 1MZFE (I think) Flushed engine, changed oil, got a low oil-pressure light, pulled over. Dropped oil pan, cleared out a TON of oil boogers that were in the pan, YIKES..! Also swished the oil pick-up tube around in some flush solution, cleared the screen. Drove around a week and it was FINE..! Then oil pressure light returned :( Swapped out the oil pressure sender switch (don't have the oil pressure tester gauge but I ordered one) and the oil pressure light did come with the new switch. Hoping it's more oil boogers in...

The HVA takes a look at the story of the first Chevrolet Camaro built visiting with its stewards and marque historians. The first Camaro built is being recognized as No. 15 on the HVA National Historic Vehicle Register program in partnership with the U.S. Department of the Interior, Historic American Engineering Record (HAER) to be archived in Library of Congress.

Citing concerns about the impact on drivers in Western Massachusetts, Gov. Charlie Baker on Wednesday vetoed a pilot program to test a mileage-based tax on drivers. "I worry a lot about the consequences of this for everybody from Worcester west," Baker said. "It feels to me like it falls into a category of something people really ought to know a lot more about before they head down this road." The Massachusetts Legislature sent Baker a road and bridge funding bill with a provision directing the administration to apply for federal funding to test a new tax on drivers based on...

In a sign of just how much Chinese money is now shaping the electric vehicle industry, it’s been revealed that Karma Automotive and Faraday Future will both be building new manufacturing facilities in the same Chinese city, according to recent reports. Despite developing these new facilities in the same city (Hangzhou), it should be noted that the companies don’t seem to have any funding in common — Karma Automotive is backed by Wanxiang, but Faraday Future by LeEco. Karma ReveroWith regard to the Karma Automotive facility, Wanxiang recently applied for the environmental-impact review of a proposed site in Hangzhou for...

ATSUGI, JAPAN -- Japanese automaker Nissan Motor Co has come up with a new type of gasoline engine it says may make some of today's advanced diesel engines obsolete. The new engine uses variable compression technology, which Nissan engineers say allows it at any given moment to choose an optimal compression ratio for combustion - a key factor in the trade-off between power and efficiency in all gasoline-fuelled engines. The technology gives the new engine the performance of turbo-charged gasoline engines while matching the power and fuel economy of today's diesel and hybrid powertrains - a level of performance and...

"We hardly have visitors these days,” one salesman at the dealership said, declining to be identified. “For now, these are the only cars we can sell,” he said, pointing to the two white cars. “It’s a government’s order, so what can we do?” On Aug. 2, the Environment Ministry revoked the certification of 80 models of Audi, Volkswagen and Bentley vehicles for cheating on emissions and noise level tests. The ministry also banned them from being sold here. “Audi Volkswagen Korea would not necessarily leave the Korean market, but for dealers, they will have to go hungry,” said Kim Pil-soo,...

The European Union has slapped its biggest ever cartel fine, worth $3.24 billion and twice the previous record, on several of Europe’s top truck producers for colluding to keep prices artificially high at the expense of consumers. EU Antitrust Commissioner Margrethe Vestager said EU-based MAN, Volvo/Renault, Daimler, Iveco and DAF “colluded on the pricing and on passing on the costs for meeting environmental standards to customers.” Germany’s Daimler received the biggest fine of €1 billion ($1.1 billion), followed by €752 million ($832 million) for DAF of the Netherlands, €670 million ($741 million) for Volvo/Renault and €494 million ($546 million) for...

A Chevy Impala that defines “Muscle car”

There are millions of trucks on the world’s highways at any given time, carrying cargo from one place to another and spewing diesel exhaust fumes. That’s how it’s been since the dawn of trucking, that’s how it still is. But that’s not necessarily how it will be in the future. Electric trucks are a fact, though not a very popular one, which is undeserved to a certain degree. While short-haul deliveries are perfect for utilizing electric freight carriers, a long-haul electric truck would need a battery weighing 23 tons to be able to make a 500-mile journey in one go....

Falling prices at the pump have given motorists reason to rejoice continuously over the last year and a half, but they’re not good news for everyone. At least, not for the people who are about fuel economy. The latest sales-weighted fuel economy ratings report by the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute revealed that in June, the value of the indicator was 25.3 miles per gallon, down from 25.4 mpg in May. Now, that’s not a huge dip, as Road Show author Andrew Krok notes, but it follows a pattern of declining fuel economy that parallels the decline in gas...

Multi-billionaire Jack Taylor, who made his fortune after founding Enterprise Rent-A-Car in the 1950s, has died aged 94. Taylor, who launched the company in St. Louis, Missouri in 1957, passed away on Saturday after a short illness. This year, Forbes magazine estimated his wealth at $5.3 billion and listed him in the top 250 richest people in the world. But more than anything else, Taylor simply wanted to be remembered as 'a nice guy.'

Iron Maiden frontman Bruce Dickinson will join a team of men driving from Surrey to Cannes without using sat-navs or motorways – in cars worth less than £500

Is there a Moterhead ping list? So, the Soup owns one of those baaaad TDi's that the EPA want off the road. The choice is for the Soup to give it back, pay off TDI loan and have about 11K to buy another vehicle. Or wait until they announce a fix within 2 years have it fixed and walk away with 5100 probably taxable dollars. The TDI gets 50 to the gallon and is in good shape, 2013 golf standard transmission. Another factor is it has the famous Tadaka Airbag. I like the diesel and I like the power and...

Firestone Complete Auto Care centers in Riverside, San Bernardino and Upland are among 22 locations accused of fraud by the California Department of Consumer Affairs Bureau of Automotive Repair after an undercover sting operation. Undercover Consumer Affairs investigators who went into the three Inland auto care centers to purchase new tires on May 12, 2015, were billed for parts that were not replaced and services that were not rendered, according to a 64-page complaint against Bridgestone Americas, Firestone’s parent company.