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If a Michigan citizen wants to buy an iPhone from Apple, they can go to an Apple store, buy one from another merchant, or order it online. But if a state resident wants to buy a Tesla, too bad — they'll have to go to Ohio or another state to get one. That's because a law meant to protect new-car dealerships prohibits a manufacturer from directly selling a car to a consumer. At a luncheon hosted in Lansing this week by the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, Dan Crane, an associate dean and law professor at the University of Michigan,...

Their teacher, Steve Schertz, said that during the contest, teams of five high-schoolers have to take apart an engine and put it back together while judges time them. The fastest team wins, though each team is penalized certain numbers of seconds if members drop a part on the floor, start tightening something with a wrench before starting it by hand (which can cause engine damage) or commits other mistakes.

Back in Donald Trump's booming heyday, a car couldn't get much flashier, much more outlandish, much more... Trump than a Lamborghini Diablo. Turns out he actually owned one – a 1997 Lamborghini Diablo VT roadster, to be specific, like the one pictured above. And now it's up for sale. Donald Trump Lamborghini DiabloThis VT roadster is one of just 200 or so that were made before the 1999 facelift. It featured the Viscous Traction (viscous-fluid coupling) all-wheel drive system that debuted on the Diablo VT, and the carbon-fiber roof panel could be removed and stowed over the engine cover. Short...

Hackers took control of a car and crashed it into a ditch by remotely breaking into its systems from 10 miles away whilst sitting on their sofa. In the first such breach of its kind security experts cut out the engine and applied the brakes on the Jeep Cherokee, sending it into a spin. The US hackers said they used just a laptop and mobile phone to access the Jeep’s on-board systems via its wireless Internet connection. They claim that more than 470,000 cars made by Fiat Chrysler could be at risk of being attacked by similar means - including...

The 2016 Chevy Volt promises to be a much better hybrid than its predecessor, with a lower price and better performance... and unfortunately for GM, that improvement might be hurting sales of the outgoing model. The Detroit Free Press reports that there were roughly 6,000 unsold 2015 Volts as of April, or more than twice the 2,779 that sold in the first four months of the year. Sales are down 46 percent versus the same period a year ago, and dealers appear willing to make some serious concessions to clinch a deal.

The chances of dying in a crash in a late-model vehicle have fallen by more than a third in three years, the latest IIHS calculations of driver death rates show. Among 2011 models, a record nine vehicles have driver death rates of zero. However, the gap between the safest and riskiest models remains wide, and three cars have death rates exceeding 100 per million registered vehicle years... ...The list of models with the lowest death rates illustrates just how much vehicles have improved. Eight years ago, there were no models with driver death rates of zero (see Status Report special...

More than a quarter of car buyers still owed an average of $4,257 more than their vehicles were worth. Unlike a home, which can increase in value, a new car loses 11 percent of its value on average the minute it’s driven off the dealership’s lot. After five years of depreciation, the same car has lost two-thirds of its value and is typically worth just 37 percent of its original purchase price. The problem is that many car loans now exceed five years. Although the longer loans mean lower monthly payments, they leave many owners with negative equity in a...

Obama plans to talk manufacturing in Detroit ahead of auto show By Khalil AlHajal | kalhajal@mlive.com January 05, 2015 at 1:48 PM DETROIT, MI -- President Barack Obama is scheduled to speak in Michigan on Wednesday and is expected talk about manufacturing jobs, according to the Associated Press. The visit will come days ahead of the North American International Auto Show in Detroit, which begins with press previews Jan. 12. The president is expected to highlight manufacturing jobs and his decision to bail out the auto industry in a Detroit-area visit before heading to Phoenix the next day to focus...

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Are you stealing cars without knowing it? 10/08/14 - Here's another reason to protect your identity -- car thieves are stealing personal information to buy new vehicles directly from dealerships, according to the National Insurance Crime Bureau (NICB). The bureau says crooks have been frustrated by late-model cars with advanced safeguards that make hot-wiring difficult. But resourceful thieves are now using stolen IDs and fake driver's licenses to purchase or lease vehicles, which they then sell after changing vehicle identification numbers (VINs). "It's comparable to a hacker stealing IDs," explains Joe Wehrle, the NICB president and CEO, in a written...

That manual transmissions in vehicles survive in now-permanent status of endangered species-dom will come as no surprise. Despite all the driving benefits and sense of control a manual brings, even most sports cars now sell more automatics than sticks when they offer their drivers the option. (And when they don't, like the Dodge Viper, they don't sell well at all.) Today, in its annual report on U.S. vehicle fuel efficiency, the Environmental Protection Agency provided a clear snapshot of just how endangered manuals are in two vivid graphs — along with a surprising sliver of hope for those who prefer...

Alex Davies October 3, 2014 If you're going to buy a new or used car, it's good to know that it's not going to break down after a few thousand miles. Even better is knowing that it'll have a good shot at crossing the 200,000 mile mark. To find the vehicles mostly likely to reach that milestone, iSeeCars, which helps shoppers find good deals on used cars, analyzed listings for 30 million used vehicles from the past year. Turns out that if you want to go the distance, your best choice is the Ford F-250, followed by the Chevy Silverado...

Certain cars attract certain drivers. Owners of the turbocharged all-wheel-drive Subaru WRX get more tickets than any other car, with one in every three owners reporting a traffic violation in the past three years, according to a recent study by Insurance.com. “The fact that you have a WRX is not causing you to get a ticket,” explains Des Toups, Managing Editor of the insurance shopping site. “You are.” Owners of the Pontiac GTO, Scion FR-S, Toyota Supra and Subaru Tribeca rounded out the top five spots. The data was based on info provided by 557,238 drivers shopping for car insurance...

Chevrolet Chief Marketing Officer Tim Mahoney told the industry seminars in Traverse City, Mich., that General Motors will show the next-generation Chevrolet Volt at the Detroit auto show in January. But he also told me that GM considers Volt “not a mass-market” vehicle any longer. The next generation of GM’s groundbreaking plug-in hybrid is expected to arrive in showrooms sometime late next year. It will sport a third seat in the rear and feature a downsized 1.0-liter, three-cylinder engine compared with the current 1.4-liter, four-cylinder engine, Automotive News reported. Mahoney promised the industry audience improvements from technology to design. But...

General Motors Co last month recalled millions of vehicles with three different designs of ignition switches that could accidentally turn off the engine and disable air bags in a crash. But the automaker has concluded that more than 2 million other vehicles having exactly the same switches are safe. The vehicles which have not been recalled include fullsize crossovers such as the Buick Enclave and Chevrolet Traverse made from 2007 to the present, which share a switch with recalled late-model Chevrolet Camaros and Cadillac CTSs. Two other switch designs are in other sets of vehicles. GM spokesman Alan Adler said...

Rev it up with hundreds of authentic vehicles from the 1890s through 1932 at America’s longest-running antique car show. Open ’til 9pm on Saturday night! For one weekend a year, we celebrate the triumphs of the earliest years of the automotive industry. It is a glorious spectacle, as the streets and grounds of Greenfield Village fill with the sights, sounds and smells of hundreds of authentic vehicles made from the 1890s through 1932. Wander through the village and talk to owners about their treasured vehicles. Watch drivers engage in games of skill, see a Model T assembled in just minutes,...

1942 Dodge 'blackout' (Library of Congress) More/photos at Reaganite Republican...

An event held at Washington D.C’s Brookings Institute saw FCA CEO Sergio Marchionne and former National Economic Council head Larry Summers discuss the auto bailout on its five-year anniversary. As always, Marchionne had some colorful commentary, with a one interesting nugget about Fiat. According to Christina Rogers of the Wall Street Journal, Marchionne claimed that the Fiat 500 was only imported to the United States due to the government’s hand, with Marchionne stating “It was a condition assigned to the [bailout] deal” This has previously never been stated in any bailout related discussion – only the Dodge Dart and its...

There’s a post at the Zero Hedge finance site that’s getting some attention. It’s really a repost from this site, and it includes a number of aerial and satellite photos of thousands of new automobiles that the author says are sitting on storage lots, unsold. The author claims that automobile manufacturers are continuing to churn out thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of cars that will likely never ever sell. He warns that those cars that do sell will suffer mechanical issues from having sat for so long. He claims that those cars that don’t sell are recycled and that it’s...

In the past several years, one of the topics covered in detail on these pages has been the surge in such gimmicks designed to disguise lack of demand and end customer sales, used extensively by US automotive manufacturers, better known as "channel stuffing", of which General Motors is particularly guilty and whose inventory at dealer lots just hit a new record high. But did you know that when it comes to flat or declining sales and stagnant end demand, channel stuffing is merely the beginning?Presenting...Where the World's Unsold Cars Go To Die (courtesy of Vincent Lewis' Unsold Cars)Above is just...