Infinite Unknown

The Car Coach Lauren Fix on why ‘E15’ gas could damage drivers’ vehicles older than 2012 models.

Tags: BMW, Cars, Chrysler, EPA, Global News, Government, Honda, Kia, Mercedes, Nissan, Politics, Technology, Toyota, VW

- Chart Of The Day: The Unprecedented Implosion Of European Car Sales (ZeroHedge, Dec 4, 2012):

The graphic below, which presents an unvarnished picture of Europe’s true economic state, needs no explanation:

Source: FT

In the context of the above, no explanation is also needed that quietly, and without much fanfare, French car-maker, Peugeot, and Europe’s second largest after VW, was recently GMed, and received a government bailout.

Carmaker Peugeot gets $9.1B government bailout

The French government has agreed to underwrite up to €7 billion ($9.1 billion) of bonds issued by Banque PSA Finance SA, the financing unit of carmaker PSA Peugeot Citroen SA, allowing the French automaker to offer low-cost credit to its dealerships and clients amid a slump in sales.

Continue reading »

Tags: Bailout, BMW, Cars, Collapse, Economy, EU, Europe, Fiat, Ford, France, Global News, GM, Government, Peugeot, Politics, Renault, VW

- Fisker Karma Is First Car To Burn Underwater (ZeroHedge, Nov 1, 2012):

The plight of the infamous, and quite inflammable, Fisker Karma (not to mention its now defaulted battery vendor A123) has been extensively documented on these pages in the past. Today, we bring it up again, to observe a curious extra feature which its proud buyers may have been unaware of. It appears that, as Jalopnik reports, the car only free government loans with a 0% (or even negative) IRR hurdle rate could conceive, is now the first one to proudly announce it is the only one of its type that merrily burns down… while submerged underwater. We fully expect that the next generation of Fiskers will charge at least $995 for this non-optional standard feature. In other news, perhaps it is time for Karma to issue yet another comprehensive total recall of all of its cars due to “fire risk” – the last one seems to have missed a spark plug or two: they can say this is a recall for the risk of “burning down alive while fully submerged underwater.“

From Jalopnik:

Approximately 16 of the $100,000+ Fisker Karma extended-range luxury hybrids were parked in Port Newark, New Jersey last night when water from Hurricane Sandy’s storm surge apparently breached the port and submerged the vehicles. As Jalopnik has exclusively learned, the cars then caught fire and burned to the ground. Continue reading »

Tags: Cars, Technology

- Porsche, Daimler Indicate Europe’s Car Crisis Spreading (Bloomberg, Sep, 21, 2012)

Tags: Cars, Daimler, Economy, EU, Europe, Germany, Porsche

- More Bad News Imminent: August US Auto Production Set To Plunge By Most In 16 Months (ZeroHedge, Aug 20, 2012)

Over the past several months, many pundits were scratching their heads at the peculiar patterns in summer hiring and layoff trends, which threw all NFP, claims, and JOLTs forecasts in a loop making a mockery of even the best forecasters. The reality is that there was a very specific reason for this abnormal seasonal pattern: numerous car plants worked throughout the summer, avoiding traditional temporary shutdowns and furloughs, in an attempt to provide an optical boost to the Union-endorsed administration. And as always happens (see Cash for Clunkers), every attempt to pull demand or supply from the future to the present results in an eventual collapse in either of these two. Sure enough, with June and July reaping the benefits of advance demand, August is set be an absolutely abysmal month for US auto assemblies and for Industrial Production. Because as Stone McCarthy calculates, based on projections provided by Wards Autos, the U.S. motor vehicle assembly rate for August is projected to decline by 8% to a 10.1 million annualized rate after rising by 4.4% in July. This would be the biggest monthly percentage decline in the assembly rate in about a year and a half, since April 2011′s 9.5% drop.

SMRA continues: Continue reading »

Tags: Cars, Economy, GDP, Global News, U.S.

Necessity is the mother of invention, and for Palestinians living on the West Bank trying to break their dependence on Israel for energy has resulted in a new solar powered vehicle.

­The four-seater is covered in solar panels to convert the suns rays into energy to power a small electric motor which pushes the vehicle along at 20 Kph for about 10 hours. And if the sun doesn’t shine it can be plugged into the wall, and the battery recharged from the mains.

It looks a bit like an over-sized golf cart and took the Royal Industrial Trading Company around two months and $5000 to develop. Continue reading »

Tags: Cars, Global News, Israel, Palestinians, Solar Energy, Technology

- Contaminated Japanese cars rejected by Russian custom office (Fukushima Diary, Aug 12, 2012):

Series of cars from Japan are seized at port in Russia.

On 7/27/2012, Ria Novosti reported radioactive contaminated cars from Japan were seized by Russian custom at Korsakov port in the south part of Sakhalin.

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Tags: Cars, Contamination, Fukushima, Global News, Japan, Nuclear, Radiation, Russia

America’s largest car firm made $1.5bn in the second quarter of 2012, with European division reporting operating loss of $361m

GM’s CEO Dan Akerson said: ‘We have more work to do to offset the headwinds we face.’ Photograph: Jeff Kowalsky/EPA

- GM profits slip 41% as European struggles take their toll (Guardian, Aug 2, 2012):

General Motors’ profits fell 41% in the second quarter as troubles in Europe undercut strong sales in North America.

America’s largest automaker made $1.5bn in the second quarter of 2012, compared with $2.5bn for the same period last year. Revenue fell to $37.6bn from $39.4bn in the second quarter of 2011. The results exceeded analysts’ estimates, but further underlined Europe’s drag on the US economy.

“Our results in North America were solid, but we clearly have more work to do to offset the headwinds we face, especially in regions like Europe and South America,” said GM chairman and CEO Dan Akerson. “Despite the challenging environment, GM has now achieved 10 consecutive quarters of profitability, which is a milestone the company has not achieved in more than a decade.”

Continue reading »

Tags: Cars, Economy, General Motors, Global News

- Chinese Ultra-Luxury Car Bubble Pops As 1 Year Old Used Lambo Gallardo Sells 70% Off Sticker (ZeroHedge, July 31, 2012):

Rumors are circulating that reports of the demise of the Chinese auto market may be exaggerated now that even David Einhorn is forced to defend his GM long (because it “has a strong cash position” – sure, and stuffs channels like no other) however stripped of stereotypes and hype, the reality is that even the one time impregnable ultra luxury car market in China is now faltering at an ever faster pace. BusinessWeek reports: “Waiting lists for ultra-luxury cars in Hong Kong are getting shorter and used-car lots are cutting prices on Lamborghinis, Ferraris and Bentleys in the latest sign of China’s slowdown. At first glance, the numbers are deceiving: Sales of very expensive new autos surged 47 percent in the first six months, according to industry analyst IHS Automotive. Look more deeply, however, and another picture emerges, especially in the city’s used-car lots.” The picture is ugly: ““The more expensive the car, the more dry the business,” said Tommy Siu at the Causeway Bay showroom of Vin’s Motors Co., the used-car dealership he founded two decades ago. Sales of ultra-luxury cars have halved in the past two or three months, he said. “A lot of bankers don’t want to spend too much money for a car now. At this moment, they don’t know if they’ll have a big bonus.”” Sad: they should all just go to Singapore and manipulate Libor. Oh wait, too soon?

Curiously, unlike virtually every other manipulated asset class, Hong Kong car sales provide a somewhat insulated view into the heart of China’s beating economy: Continue reading »

Tags: Aston Martin, Bentley, Cars, China, Collapse, Economy, Ferrari, Global News, Lamborghini, Rolls Royce, Society

- GM’s Channel Stuffing Goes To Germany: Is Europe’s Largest Economy A Fraud? (ZeroHedge, July 31, 2012)

We have long argued that auto manufacturers have been channel-stuffing (and subprime-lending) themselves back into a disaster and as such class-action lawsuits have begun. Recently we also pointed out the epidemic of dealer-inventory-stuffing in China (and again this morning the Chinese luxury car market’s over-stuffing). So today’s report from Reuters that German auto manufacturers have been stuffing dealer channels just like the rest of the world as Europe’s largest car market is in recession even if few outside of the industry would know it. “Essentially, the carmakers are deceiving their shareholders, since they make it look as if the vehicles were actually sold. They want to pull the wool over their eyes,” as three in every ten new vehicles in Germany are sold not to customers, but to carmakers and their dealers – a type of automotive industry pump priming known as “self-registration”. At nearly half a million such registrations in the six months through June, the total is greater than the entire new car market in Spain. Is Germany’s economy really what it is reported to be given all this fake demand pull-forward – or is it a total fraud?

Via Reuters

Reality versus ‘official’ figures: Continue reading »

Tags: Cars, Economy, EU, Europe, Global News