New York City parking spot goes for $1 million

In many parts of the country, a million bucks will buy you a mansion. In New York City, you can get a 12-foot by 23-foot slab of concrete. Yes, Manhattan's first $1 million parking space is scheduled to go on the market this fall.

This seven-figure private garage is in an eight-story, prewar loft building in the city's Greenwich Village neighborhood. It previously had been converted into a parking garage and is now being turned into half a dozen new luxury condominiums, according to the New York Post.

The parking space, dubbed "the city’s gaudiest garage" by the Post, will have a separate deed and sales contract. Based on an average 6 percent commission, this means a real estate agent could earn $60,000 — roughly $10,000 more than the median household income in the U.S. — for selling this parking spot.

The largest unit in the building will be an 8,000-square-foot penthouse with a 3,000-square-foot terrace that will be listed for just under $39 million, the newspaper reported. Only buyers of that penthouse or another 8,000-square-foot unit in the building will have the chance to buy the parking space. In addition to the seven-figure price tag, the owner will be charged maintenance fees on the parking spot.

So what does the owner get for a million bucks plus maintenance fees? Direct street access thanks to a curb cut in front of the garage door, along with 15-foot ceilings. The ceilings are high enough that the spot can be "duplexed;" that is, an elevator can be added so the owner can stack two cars in the space.

This two-for-one capability might make $1 million seem like a little bit more of a bargain, but the owner would still have to get a $115 parking ticket every single day for 24 years straight to equal the cost of the spot, the Post calculated.

Read More

GM won't advertise on next Super Bowl

By Paul A. Eisenstein, The Detroit Bureau
Facebook is not the only place GM is unfriending.

In the latest in a series of surprise moves, General Motors has decided to boycott next January’s Super Bowl advertising extravaganza in protest over a huge increase in advertiser rates.

The decision follows word that the maker will also pull its ads off Facebook, the social media site that is today on its way to what could be the largest IPO in U.S. history. But insiders say GM is weighing more heavily than ever the perceived payoff for its estimated $4.5 billion ad budget, backing out of purchases that might deliver a halo but relatively little in terms of actual results.

“We continue to understand the value the Super Bowl provides,” said GM marketing spokesman Pat Morrissey, “but with the continued increase in price we just can’t justify it,” he said confirming a report in the Wall Street Journal itself attributed to the maker’s marketing czar Joel Ewanick.

The Super Bowl is considered not only the championship game for American football but the ultimate venue for advertisers – at least when it comes to “counting eyeballs,” in advertising parlance. The Nielsen Co. reported 111.3 million Americans watched the game in February of this year, making it the third consecutive year it set a record as the most-watched TV program in U.S. history. It was one of only four broadcasts to top 100 million viewers, a rarified list including the previous two championship games and the 1983 finale of TV series M*A*S*H.

Shake-Up at GM As Maker Prepares for Critical New Product Launches

But advertising rates have been rising faster than the actual viewership of the game, according to industry experts, reportedly reaching between $3.0 million to $3.2 million in February 2012. Sources told TheDetroitBureau.com that the figure is approaching $4 million for the game airing on CBS in 2013.

GM spokesman Morrissey would only say that the maker balked at what he described as a “pretty significant” increase for the planned broadcast of Super Bowl XLVII.

The maker’s boycott comes with a big asterisk, however. GM is only dropping out of “national advertising specific to the in-game” broadcast. In February of this year that included three 30-second spots and a longer, 1-minute commercial for the Chevrolet Silverado that was itself quite controversial.

(It aimed to suggest that after the apocalypse purportedly predicted in the Mayan calendar for late 2012 only the Chevy pickup will still be running. Ford Motor Co. threatened to sue to prevent the commercial’s airing, claiming industry data showed that maker’s F-Series model was more likely to survive the end of life, the universe and everything.)

Martin Scorcese Working up Rolls-Royce Biopic

But it appears GM might not be totally absent from the football festivities. It also ran several ads during the Super Bowl pre- and post-game TV coverage. And Morrissey acknowledged that it has not yet been decided whether to continue or drop those programs, as well.

GM previously pulled out of the 2009 Super Bowl due to the financial crisis that led to it filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection that year.

The maker confirmed, earlier this week, that it will be ending its ad relationship with Facebook over the summer, Chevrolet marketing chief Chris Perry arguing the ads generated “insufficient” results. But GM has also said it will maintain an unpaid presence on the 900-million-member social media site.

Ford and GM Battle it Out in Twitter Flame War

The decisions to drop Facebook and now walk away from the Super Bowl aren’t coming as a huge surprise to Detroit-watchers who have seen big changes in the way the domestic makers have been operating over the last several years. Each of the Big Three has been looking for ways to break out as they struggle to reach potential buyers – especially those who have long ignored domestic products.

GM’s Ewanick has been especially aggressive, building a reputation as a game-changer since his arrival at the maker’s riverfront Detroit headquarters in May 2010. He has fired long-standing agencies, such as Chevy’s nearly eight-decade partner Campbell-Ewald, and more recently approved plans to consolidate a group of agencies to serve the brand on a global scale.

The former head of Hyundai marketing, Ewanick has promised to re-evaluate every aspect of the massive GM ad budget.

Among other things, it has long been a matter of debate just how well sports advertising pays off, but a well-placed media executive at one of Detroit’s largest ad agencies said that the regular run-up in pricing for the Super Bowl spots is simply “all about supply and demand.” Asking not to be identified by name because they didn’t have permission to talk to the media, the executive said, “The rates won’t come down as long as there’s someone who wants it.”

So, might GM’s decision to back out put downward pressure on CBS deal-makers? Not likely, said the advertising executive. “Somebody else will want (the ad slots).”

Read More

Review: 4-cylinder Ford Escape strikes the right tone

Ford

The 2013 Escape will offer only four-cylinder engines. Can such engines really match customers' power expectations? Yes.

By Dan Carney, msnbc.com contributor
We’ve seen this movie before: Stagnant economy. Soaring gas prices. Government-mandated increases in fuel economy that doom the big vehicles Americans prefer.

In the 1970s, automakers responded to those conditions with that they called “downsizing.” Cars became cheaply made, cramped and slow. For some reason, consumers weren’t thrilled with these new models. The quick-and-dirty solution was to bolt a turbocharger onto their wheezing, underperforming four-cylinder engines with the promise of hot performance and good fuel economy. Sailors have made more reliable promises to girls in foreign ports.

The technology was immature and the result was unreliable: short-lived engines with poor dynamic driving qualities. Ford was one of the culprits, with turbocharged four-cylinder engines offered in models like the Mustang and Thunderbird, which were traditionally powered by V8s.

But that was a long time ago. In response to pricey gas and more stringent federal fuel economy standards, Ford is rolling out a family of smaller turbocharged engines to replace bigger, thirstier ones. And this time, Ford got it right.

While the V6 engine option was popular in the outgoing Escape compact SUV, the 2013 Escape will offer only four-cylinder engines. Can such engines really match customers’ power expectations? Yes they can. Especially when they are the turbocharged EcoBoost engines that Ford offers as an upgrade from the base engine.

The base engine is an update of 168-horsepower, 2.5-liter four-cylinder seen in the outgoing model and it is a good one for budget-conscious drivers, with 22 mpg city and 31 mpg highway. But things start to get more interesting with the next step in the lineup, with a 178-hp turbocharger EcoBoost 1.6-liter four-cylinder.

That's an incredibly small engine to expect to move a 3,500-plus pound SUV, but thanks to modern turbocharger technology it makes both the peak power and the low-speed torque to move the Escape with good hustle. It has marginally better horsepower, torque and fuel economy than the base engine, a combination that makes it an appealing upgrade. The EcoBoost 1.6 offers the maximum fuel economy among the Escape’s engines, with 23 mpg city and 33 mpg highway.

A lot of buyers liked their V6 engines, though. What are they to do? The 240-hp 2.0-liter EcoBoost four-cylinder is the answer for them. Ford did extra homework on this engine, giving drivers more power than the old model’s V6 with fuel economy nearly equal to that of the base engine, at 23 mpg city and 30 mpg highway.

But just as importantly, Ford engineers sweated the detailed needed to make the EcoBoost 2.0 smooth and quiet enough to serve as a legitimate substitute for a V6. This is the area where carmakers will see the most resistance from customers, because V6 and V8 engines are smooth and quiet, with a refined exhaust note. Four-cylinders are inherently raucous, challenging engineers to find ways to tame their obnoxious nature if upmarket customers are to accept them.

Ford has achieved that with the 2.0 EcoBoost. The 1.6 EcoBoost targets a customer with a sportier mindset who might want to hear the engine a little bit, so it is louder, but the 2.0-liter is thoroughly muffled.

That quietness is indicative of the 2013 Escape’s overall refinement. Like the Ford Focus compact car on which it is based, the Escape is a notch above its competitors, providing a rich feeling driving experience. Unlike the Focus, the Escape enjoys a proper automatic transmission, with six gears and slick shifts, so the Escape won’t chase away potential buyers with an irritating, rough-driving automated manual transmission posing as an automatic.

The Escape’s cabin is opulently detailed, and even the entry-level models have pleasant soft-touch surfaces. The thick-rimmed steering wheel connects to excellent steering that provides superb feedback. The Mazda CX-5 is the Escape’s only equal dynamically, and the Escape has less road and wind noise inside for a more placid passenger space.

Like other new Fords, the Escape boasts an improved version of the annoying-to-use Sync voice command system and MyFord Touch touch-screen infotainment systems. The latest iteration is less of a pain in the, er, neck to use but still falls short of the simplicity and convenience of properly designed knobs and switches. At this point MyFord Touch remains an exercise in technology for technology’s sake, so we look forward to the next upgrade. We’d still opt for the conventional radio and climate controls.

But here’s a tiny electronic detail they got right: the turn signal. Seems simple enough, but in recent years Ford and other carmakers have decided that it would be better for the control stalk to return to center, even when you’ve activated the turn signal. For the Escape they’ve gone back to having the stalk remain in the raised or lowered position if the turn signal is on, letting you know it is still on and making turning it off simple. When the stalk is already in the middle, how do you cancel a turn signal?

Other electronic gimmicks: a tailgate that opens and closes remotely by kicking your foot under the rear in the manner of an old straight-ahead field goal kicker (props to Redskins kicker Mark Mosley, 1982 NFL MVP, the last straight-ahead kicker and the only kicker ever named MVP!). And electronic grille shutters that block airflow to the radiator at highway speeds to trim aerodynamic drag and boost fuel economy.

The “U” in SUV does stand for “Utility” and Ford added that in the Escape by stretching the vehicle’s wheelbase and adding most of that newfound space to the rear seat for more passenger legroom. The cargo area is also larger for that ubiquitous “stuff” people cite when explaining their need for an SUV rather than a sedan.

The Escape marks our third consecutive compact SUV review, as this hotly contested segment turns over this year. That’s because compact SUVs are second only to sedans in popularity, and the two groups account for 60 percent of new car sales.

With impressive innovations like EcoBoost providing an excellent combination of power and frugality, it is easy to see why these vehicles are attracting a large following.

2013 Ford Escape

Base price: $23,295 (including $825 delivery)Price as tested: $26,875 (including $825 delivery)EPA fuel economy: 23 city, 33 highwayPros: Slippery styling, zippy handling, bank-vault solidityCons: MyFord Touch infotainment hassles, and, um, that’s about itVerdict: The best compact SUV in the mainstream segment, with the handling of the Mazda CX-5 and the quietness of premium-segment models.Standard equipment: 2.5-liter 168-hp four-cylinder engine, six-speed automatic transmission, power steering, AM/FM/CD six-speaker stereo, battery saver featureMajor options: 1.6-liter 178-hp EcoBoost engine, Sync voice control, Sirius satellite radio, fog lamps, SecuriCode keyless entrySafety equipment: electronic stability control , antilock brakes, brake assist, dual-stage front airbags, side airbags, driver’s knee airbag, tire pressure monitoring

Read More

Fiat uses Google Street to photo bomb VW

The Detroit Bureau

That's a Fiat 500, not the VW Up! in front of the German maker's Swedish HQ.

By Paul A. Eisenstein, The Detroit BureauAutomakers normally take their marketing efforts quite seriously, not surprising when you consider the billions of dollars at stake. But every so often, a little humor creeps in – such as the Tweets Ford has been sending out about General Motors’ decision to stop advertising on Facebook.

Fiat, it seems, took a more creative approach to “punking” its rival Volkswagen AG.

Fisker Delaying Atlantic Plug-in Launch By Full Year

Search for the German maker’s Swedish headquarters using Google Street View and parked right in front of the main door and you’ll find a little Fiat 500.

Exactly how the stunt was pulled off isn’t clear. The two makers have their offices fairly close to one another but the challenge is knowing when the Google camera car rolls by. Apparently, once the Fiat folks figured that out they quickly got into position and posed.

E15 Fuel Could Wreck Engines, Study Warns

The folks at Tecca.com first spotted the gag and noticed that the red Fiat 500 tagged along for a while, positioning itself in several other street scenes.

For those not familiar with the service, Google Street View provides a panoramic look at urban, suburban and even many rural roads around the world. The images are recorded from a fleet of specially-equipped vehicles. Where roads are inaccessible the company will even use Google Trikes and snowmobiles. And portable units have been added to offer panoramic views of places such as the White House.

The Detroit Bureau

The Fiat 500 pulls out and gets ready to pose for several other Google Street View images.

Spend enough time searching through the extensive database and you’ll find a number of other pranks from those who spotted the Google camera car in time to offer a “moon” or some other suggestive pose.

Those Underinflated Tires Could Kill You

In fact, Google itself got into the game earlier this year, briefly switching from the normally hi-res images to an 8-bit version for April Fools Day that had the resolution of an early Atari videogame.

Read More

Acura recalls over 56,000 sedans in North America

Honda's Acura brand is recalling 56,881 TL sedans from model years 2007 and 2008 in North America to replace a power steering hose that could leak over time and potentially cause a fire.

The recall affects 52,615 TL sedans in the U.S. and another 4,266 in Canada, the Japanese automaker said.

Acura said the hose may deteriorate and leak over time. Leaking fluid could lead to a loss of power steering assistance or could cause smoke and fire, the Japanese automaker said.

Acura said no crashes, injuries or fires have been reported related to the issue.

The company said owners will be notified of the recall by mail, beginning in mid-June. Customers also can see whether their car is affected by the recall at http://www.recalls.acura.com/ or www.acura.ca/recalls.

Reuters contributed to this report.

Read More

Feds look into report Hyundai air bag sliced ear

DETROIT — Federal safety regulators are investigating a complaint that a car owner's ear was cut in half when a side air bag inflated in a Hyundai Elantra.

The U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said Monday on its website that it's investigating to see if the problem will recur in about 123,000 Elantras from the 2012 model year.

In a complaint filed with the agency, the Elantra owner said the driver's side curtain air bag inflated in a crash on April 7, and a metal bracket came with it, slicing the owner's ear. The owner gave the agency photos showing a metal component sticking out from the car above the driver's seat.

"It appears that the metal component caused a laceration to the driver's ear/face," the NHTSA documents said.

The agency said it will evaluate the compact cars to see if there's a safety problem. No recall has been ordered.

Hyundai spokesman Miles Johnson said in an e-mail that the incident appears to be isolated. "Hyundai has no other reports of injury from side curtain air bag deployment in 2012 Elantras," he wrote.

The company is cooperating with NHTSA in the probe, but neither the company nor the government has had a chance to look at the owner's car, Johnson wrote.

Hyundai has sold more than 164,000 Elantras in the U.S. since June of last year, the first full month that the 2012 model was on sale. Some of those sales likely were from the 2011 model year.

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Read More

Automakers rein in incentives as sales increase

One unfortunate byproduct of strong sales in the new-car market is that automakers’ are able to rein in their incentive spending. According to Edmunds.com, incentives — including cash rebates and cut-rate financing — are at their lowest levels in nearly seven years.

New-car sales incentives averaged $2,071 in April, which is down 2.2 percent from March and 1.8 percent less than last April’s figures. “This is the clearest indication yet that consumer motivation is high and that automakers feel little pressure to rely on incentives in order to keep sales churning,” says Edmunds.com senior analyst Jessica Caldwell. “We’ll likely see incentives linger at these low levels until auto sales ease off the torrid pace we’ve seen so far in 2012.”

Still, we culled through car makers’ websites and other sources to find a robust assortment of top-dollar deals in effect through the end of May, particularly among larger cars and trucks, which we’re highlighting in the accompanying slide show. Among them is an unbelievable $100,000 direct-to-dealer rebate on the Maybach Type 57 and Type 62 ultra-luxury sedans. That’s more than 25 percent off MSRP on the $376,300 Type 57 model, which is a staggering discount in a market segment where price is rarely a consideration.

Given the cost of gasoline and other economic factors you won’t find many great deals among the smallest and most fuel-efficient models these days, which (with the exception of a few industry laggards) are selling well enough on their own. Edmunds.com says that subcompacts were discounted by only an average 2.2 percent last month, with compacts being sold at 4.5 percent below their sticker prices. By comparison, models in the large car segment boasted the deepest discounts last month, selling at an average 13.2 percent off MSRP. The full-size Chevrolet Impala sedan is being offered with as much as $5,500 in incentives depending on the model this month, which is one of the richest among all vehicles this side of the aforementioned Maybach land yachts.

As always, we’re highlighting direct-to-consumer cash rebates, discounted financing promotions and so-called marketing-support incentives, which we call additional dealer discounts. Typically favored by luxury automakers, the latter are cash allowances given to dealers to lower the prices on select models without seeming to cheapen the brand by offering cash rebates. The only catch is that a dealer may or may not automatically pass them on without some hard-nosed negotiations.

Though we aren’t documenting them here, some of the best deals out there are available to those who prefer to lease, rather than buy a car outright. Those who don’t mind making a perpetual car payment will be able to avail themselves of some sweet deals throughout 2012 because of record high resale values and ultra-low interest rates. For example, the midsize Honda Accord sedan is being offered at just $250/month for 35 months with zero due at signing. Going further upscale, a Jaguar XF luxury sedan is leasing at $599/month for 36 months, with a Land Rover Range Rover Sport luxury SUV going for $799/month for 36 months, both with $3,995 due at signing.

The fine print
Additional incentives may apply, such as those often offered to recent college graduates and members of the military and/or owners or lessees trading in same-brand or competing models. Offers may vary by region and are subject to subsequent modification or termination by the manufacturer; cited financing rates are typically open only to qualified buyers with top credit ratings and may vary based on eligibility.

And no matter how great a rebate deal you may be offered, keep in mind that the final transaction price is always open to negotiation. We expect dealer discounts on any of these vehicles will be substantial for hard-nosed hagglers. Be sure to aim for the so-called invoice price as a target, and that’s before deducting any applicable rebate or additional dealer discount.

© 2012 Forbes.com

Read More

The most improved cars for 2012

For more than a decade, the Ford Focus was an also-ran among small cars, unable to keep up with far-superior compacts like the Toyota Corolla, Honda Civic and even the Hyundai Elantra. Distracted by its success with trucks and SUVs, Ford Motor didn’t invest what was needed to keep passenger cars like the Focus in the game.

Now, however, Ford has gotten serious about fixing the car side of its business, and the Focus, redesigned for 2012, is vastly improved.

How much better is it? The Focus went from middle of the pack to the segment leader, according to Total Car Score, a new online resource that aggregates car reviews from multiple sources. The 2012 model scored 80.68, tops among compact sedans and wagons, up from 72.73 for the 2011 model it replaced, according to Karl Brauer, editor-in-chief of Total Car Score. (The average score for 2012 compacts was 74.68.) The Focus’ leap from one model year to the next was the highest of any new vehicle, said Brauer, making it the most improved car of 2012.

The consensus among car critics is that the European-inspired Focus gets kudos for its sporty handling, supple and controlled ride and excellent steering feel along with a stylish interior that’s loaded with upscale amenities and advanced electronics. At 31 mpg combined city and highway driving, it’s also fairly fuel-efficient. But it’s not perfect: a quirky automatic transmission and cramped rear seat were common complaints. Still, sales of the Focus were up 12.5 percent in April, showing consumers like it too.

Other cars on the Most Improved list are the Hyundai Accent, the Toyota Camry and Camry hybrid, and the Toyota Yaris. All were redesigned for 2012. Among SUVs, the Cadillac SRX, Kia Sportage and Honda CR-V also made the list, having scored much higher after they were redesigned.

Auto reviewers, like movie critics, aren’t always unanimous in their points of view. A clever feature to one might be a pet peeve to another. Some reviewers put more weight on vehicle performance, while others emphasize safety or fuel economy or affordability. An overall consensus would be useful.

That’s exactly what Brauer is attempting with Total Car Score, which, he said, aims to be the Rotten Tomatoes of the auto industry. Rotten Tomatoes is a website that culls movie reviews from top film critics and assigns a “certified fresh” or “rotten” icon depending on the percentage of reviews that are positive. (More than 60 percent positive earns the fresh label.) It provides movie-goers with a quick overall opinion of a flick without having to research dozens of individual reviews. Likewise, Total Car Score wants to simplify the task of researching a car purchase.

“Nobody ever says I need more information about automobiles,” said Brauer, pointing to the vast amount of automotive content already available on the Web. “There are a bunch of good sites out there. I brought them all together.”

The problem is not all car reviews use the same scale. Some use a 1-10 scale while others use bubbles, circles or stars. The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety uses words to describe its crash test results: good, acceptable, marginal or poor. No matter the format, Total Car Score takes the ratings from nine well-known automotive authorities including Consumer Reports, Edmunds.com, Consumer Guide and J.D. Power & Associates and converts them into a simple percentage representing what the car could have scored from each source versus what it did score. Then it merely averages the number from all of these sources to get a vehicle’s Total Car Score.

If it seems oversimplified, that’s the point. This is the lazy person’s way to research a car. The vehicle’s absolute score is less important than how it ranks relative to its peers in a particular segment. That at least gives you a starting point to build your shopping list.

What I like about Total Car Score is that it’s totally transparent. It’s not trying to steal anyone else’s content and it shows exactly how each car’s score was calculated. There’s also a “scoring report card” for each vehicle, a page with excerpts and links directly back to each review that factored into the scoring. At the bottom of each vehicle page are links to the related manufacturer website, owner’s manual, forums and road test pages for that vehicle.

It’s the closest thing to a one-stop shopping guide for automobiles.

© 2012 Forbes.com

Read More

BMW, Mercedes look to grow by shrinking

Photo courtesy of BMW

BMW U.S. buyers gave a first impression of the X 1 to April the New York Auto show, but only last week revealed the crossover utility vehicle $31.545 base price.

By Paul A. Eisenstein, msnbc.com of mysteries
Sometimes, you have too small to think bigger. In the hope that its position as market leader U.S. lock luxury, BMW is always ready, some of the smallest products to introduce that has here ever sold there also a new version of its small 1-series and the new BMW vehicle.

The Bavarian manufacturer not alone. The compact and even subcompact luxury classes that hardly existed a few years ago, are suddenly flooded with new product and may be critical in an increasingly competitive market, where unexpectedly resistant against the Lockruf is the luxury cars a new generation of buyers.

"You can no longer assume that Gen-Y want buyer be sure a luxury vehicle," warns Rebecca Lindland, senior analyst at IHS automotive, "and even if they want luxury, they can have the money."

But older buyers review their options through both a deep recession and rising fuel prices, industry observers say.

BMW U.S. buyers gave a first impression of the X 1 to April the New York Auto show, but only last week revealed the crossover utility vehicle $31.545 base price. The compact crossover has been offered in a number of countries in its earlier form, some extensive updates pass before the manufacturer felt it itself could start in the United States

The market was clearly changed since the X in 2008 1 global introduction. Fuel prices have again and again to record or in the close to record levels rose. Younger buyers have shown a growing preference for downsized offer matching trends in other parts of the world. This may reflect also the realities of a generation which could be their standard of living dip under which by their parents to see the first, according to the experts.

Anyway, not BMW will be alone. Mercedes-Benz also downsizing, with one is completely newly designed in fact a class coming in the United States note company representative provide you can as many versions as four different their smallest per model in the United States and the German manufacturer provide the underlying platform, developed for the a-class with its Japanese partner Nissan with it for the planned Etherea model now in development.

The global downsizing trend has swept through the luxury side of the industry. Also Aston Martin responded with the CygNET, a two-seat Microcar, based on a Toyota platform, which appeared recently in the United States as the Scion iQ. Loaded with leather and other high end information, Aston has currently no plans to bring the CygNET in the United States, but this strategy could relocate.

Analyst Jim Hall, region Analytics, remains there are skeptical, just how much demand for the smallest of the new luxury models, but agrees that decision makers are thus expected to give it a try - if for no other reason than "as a CAFE game." With a view to a corporate average fuel economy standard, which will almost double by 2025 BMW, on the one hand models like the large 7 series and the X must low mileage 5 balance sport activity vehicle with models such as the 1-series and X 1.

The luxury market as a whole is expected to be a little smaller than applied for Lindland once had many expected. During luxury demand along with the rest of the US new car market, IHS now forecasts was recover, where high-line models, most make up, 13 percent of total sales compared to 14 percent by the end of the Decade, or more of the consulting firm before the start of the recession of 2008 projected.

And when you consider that the company car market is expected to fall earlier expectations that end could mean a real dogfight in luxury.

In recent years, a three way battle for supremacy, pitting was the leader in the United States last year's winner, Mercedes-Benz, BMW and Lexus, luxury, more than a decade since.

Whether the new small cars such as the BMW 1 series, Audi a significant difference remains A3 and Mercedes a-class to be seen making. So far, only a few entries in the segment achieved relatively modest sales. But the smaller under the brands more traditional offered, such as the Audi A4 and Mercedes c-class, still have traction WINS. The 3 series has long been the dominant model of the BMW line-up.

But only a model small doesn't make necessarily enough, his warns Jack Hollis, Vice President with Lexus parent Toyota, especially in reference to Gen-Y.

"Young buyers do not see, need a car so much today have a social life." Their world of community is so much greater and (they) will not need a car, they take it, "claiming he, argues that even exciting products need it, which include the nature of the related technologies that have become integral part of millennial life."

The brand that find the right balance between size, style, performance, and connectivity to win the penalty shoot-out.

Read More

Buffett snags 10 million shares of GM stock

By Paul A. Eisenstein, The Detroit BureauAnalysts and investors alike will be watching the ticker closely this week to see how the market responds to word that the “Oracle of Omaha” has grabbed 10 million shares of General Motors (GM) stock.

According to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Warren Buffett’s investment firm Berkshire Hathaway will spend $256.6 million for the stock, a nearly 20 percent premium over their value of $214.2 million when trading on the New York Stock Exchange wrapped up on Tuesday.

Shares of GM soared early on Wednesday before settling. GM closed the trading day up 0.50 points, or 2.33 percent.

Fisker Delaying Atlantic Plug-in Launch By Full Year

But that’s still well behind the $330 million Buffett would have invested during GM’s November 2010 IPO. And the question is whether this move signals the possible turnaround in GM shares which have been lagging like most automotive stocks in recent months.

The maker has staged a modest recovery from its $19-a-share 52-week-low, and GM stock surged by $1 as soon as the market opened Wednesday morning before settling back slightly.

“I think he is spot-on,” wrote David Kudla, CEO of Mainstay Capital Management, which manages the portfolios for many General Motors retirees. Kudla emphasized that unlike some other high-profile investors Buffett focuses on the longer-term by buying into companies he sees as selling below their value.

New Nissan Altima is an “All-American” Car

GM’s current slump comes in sharp contrast to the optimism its IPO was greeted with, many analysts subsequently forecasting its shares could surge as high as $50 or more. But the maker – like most of its competitors – has been hit a variety of headwinds, including an uncertain U.S. economy and the European debt crisis.

That, in turn, has resulted in a slump of the Continental car market – worsening GM’s own slide in the European market. The maker had hoped to claw back into the black in 2011 but instead reported a sharp loss which triggered a recent management shake-up. It is expected to announce the latest in a series of turnaround plans in the coming months.

On the positive side, GM posted an all-time record profit of $7.6 billion. And while European losses hurt its first-quarter performance – a $1 billion net profit – earnings from the still-critical North American market shot to $1.7 billion before taxes.

Harold “Red” Poling Dead at 86

Specifically why Berkshire Hathaway has decided to buy GM stock now is something the investment firm won’t disclose, though some analysts have become increasingly bullish about the industry overall – and the domestics in particular – as U.S. car sales continue to outperform the overall economy.

It’s by no means Buffett’s first automotive investment. He currently holds a roughly 10% stake in BYD, a Chinese automaker focused on battery-based powertrains. Short for Build Your Dreams, the firm is also one of the world’s largest providers of cellphone and laptop computer batteries.

Buffett himself drives a Cadillac DTS, one of relatively few luxuries for a man who still lives in the same Omaha home he has owned for over half a century.

Read More

Low tire pressure triples likelihood of crash

Mark Duncan / AP

A new government study warns that as many as one in 20 crashes could be linked to tire-related problems, with underinflated tires posing an especially high risk of causing a problem.

By Paul A. Eisenstein, The Detroit Bureau
Today’s tires are engineering marvels, improving both performance and fuel economy, even if they tend to largely be ignored by motorists. But that’s a problem that also could turn a tire into a killer.

A new government study warns that as many as one in 20 crashes could be linked to tire-related problems, with underinflated tires posing an especially high risk of causing a problem.

“Tire problems are inherently hazardous to vehicle safety,” said the report by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which based its study on crash data covering a three-year period from 2005 to 2007.

The report found that underinflation was the biggest problem, with a tire 25 percent below its rated pressure three times more likely to be involved in a crash.

Part of the problem is that a low tire reduces the vehicle’s stability even under ideal conditions, but it also makes it significantly more difficult for a driver to maintain control in bad weather or during emergency maneuvers, such as swerving to avoid an obstacle in the road.

Problems also can result from worn tires, especially those that have gone bald or have damage to the tire that could lead to a catastrophic blow-out.

The study noted that tire problems, in general, were more likely to lead to accidents in bad weather.

Industry officials say the study underscores the need to properly maintain tires, repairing or replacing those that are damaged while always keeping tires at the proper inflation.

That message should now weigh doubly on the minds of consumers. Properly inflated tires also deliver significantly better fuel economy. A low tire can reduce mileage by as much as 5 to 10 percent, by various estimates.

Carroll Shelby Dead at 89

Regulators and industry officials alike have been paying more attention to tire safety since the recall of 13 million tires used on the Ford Explorer a decade ago. Problems with the tires – compounded by improper inflation – were linked to 280 deaths.

Congress subsequently passed a law mandating all vehicles be equipped with tire-pressure monitoring systems, or TPMS. But the more basic version of the technology is prone to false alerts and doesn’t necessarily show which tire is low, with some studies suggesting consumers often ignore the warnings.

That has led many manufacturers to adopt more advanced TPMS technology – such as will become available in the 2013 Nissan Altima – that provides specific inflation information on each individual tire.

Read More

Report: GM to drop all Facebook advertising

Updated 4:40 P.M. EDT: In what could speak to Facebook’s viability as advertising medium just days before what is shaping up as a possible record initial public offering, General Motors says it will drop all paid advertising on the site, the Wall Street Journal is reporting.

According to the report, the auto giant's marketing executives "determined their paid ads had little impact on consumers."

GM marketing chief Joel Ewanick told the Journal that the automaker "is definitely reassessing our advertising on Facebook, although the content is effective and important."

The automaker will continue to use free options on Facebook.

The largest American automaker spends about $40 million to maintain Facebook presence, the Journal reported, with about $10 million in paid ads.

GM, the country's third-largest advertiser behind Procter & Gamble and AT&T, spent $1.11 billion on U.S. ads last year, according to Kantar Media, an ad-tracking firm. About $271 million of GM's total ad spend last year was for online display and search ads excluding Facebook advertising.

The move raises a question mark about Facebook's current business model as the social network stands at the brink of going public. A new AP-CNBC poll released earlier Tuesday showed that 57 percent of Facebook users never click on ads or other sponsored content when they are on the site.

A mere 4 percent of users said they often click on ads. That's slightly more than the 2-3 percent experts use as the benchmark for effective banner ads, CNBC said. Of course, with Facebook's massive user base, even that amount makes for a lot of eyeballs on an ad.

Facebook raised the price range on its IPO Tuesday from $34 to $38 a share in response to strong demand, a source familiar with the situation said, giving the social network a valuation exceeding $100 billion.

The company is scheduled to price its shares Thursday, and they will begin trading Friday on the Nasdaq stock market.

Reuters contributed to this report.

Read More

Carroll Shelby, muscle-car legend, dies at 89

Kevin Winter / Getty Images

Auto racing legend Carroll Shelby in 2009.

Carroll Shelby, the legendary car designer and champion auto racer who built the fabled Shelby Cobra sports car and injected testosterone into Ford's Mustang and Chrysler's Viper, has died. He was 89.

Shelby was one of the nation's longest-living heart transplant recipients, having received a heart on June 7, 1990, from a 34-year-old man who died of an aneurism. Shelby also received a kidney transplant in 1996 from his son, Michael.

The 1992 inductee into the Automobile Hall of Fame had homes in Los Angeles and his native east Texas.

The one-time chicken farmer had more than a half-dozen successful careers during his long life. Among them: champion race car driver, racing team owner, automobile manufacturer, automotive consultant, safari tour operator, raconteur, chili entrepreneur and philanthropist.

"He's an icon in the medical world and an icon in the automotive world," his longtime friend, Dick Messer, executive director of Los Angeles' Petersen Automotive Museum, once said of Shelby.

"His legacy is the diversity of his life," Messer said. "He's incredibly innovative. His life has always been the reinvention of Carroll Shelby."

Shelby first made his name behind the wheel of a car, winning France's grueling 24 Hours of Le Mans sports car race with teammate Ray Salvadori in 1959. He already was suffering serious heart problems and ran the race "with nitroglycerin pills under his tongue," Messer once noted.

Chris Hondros / Getty Images

Carroll Shelby poses with the 2007 Ford Shelby Mustang GT-H in 2006.

He had turned to the race-car circuit in the 1950s after his chicken ranch failed. He won dozens of races in various classes throughout the 1950s and was twice named Sports Illustrated's Driver of the Year.

Soon after his win at Le Mans, he gave up racing and turned his attention to designing high-powered "muscle cars" that eventually became the Shelby Cobra and the Mustang Shelby GT500.

The Cobra, which used Ford engines and a British sport car chassis, was the fastest production model ever made when it was displayed at the New York Auto Show in 1962.

AP

Carroll Shelby sits in his race car in 1964.

A year later, Cobras were winning races over Corvettes, and in 1964 the Rip Chords had a Top 5 hit on the Billboard pop chart with "Hey, Little Cobra." ("Spring, little Cobra, getting ready to strike, spring, little Cobra, with all of your might. Hey, little Cobra, don't you know you're gonna shut 'em down?")

In 2007, an 800-horsepower model of the Cobra made in 1966, once Shelby's personal car, sold for $5.5 million at auction, a record for an American car.

"It's a special car. It would do just over three seconds to 60 (mph), 40 years ago," Shelby told the crowd before the sale, held in Scottsdale, Ariz.

It was Lee Iacocca, then head of Ford Motor Co., who had assigned Shelby the task of designing a fastback model of Ford's Mustang that could compete against the Corvette for young male buyers.

Turning a vehicle he had once dismissed as "a secretary car" into a rumbling, high-performance model was "the hardest thing I've done in my life," Shelby recalled in a 2000 interview with The Associated Press.

AP

Carroll Shelby, after winning the 200-mile International Grand Prix at the Riverside Raceways, in California in 1960.

That car and the Shelby Cobra made his name a household word in the 1960s.

When the energy crisis of the 1970s limited the market for gas-guzzling high-performance cars, Shelby weathered the downturn by heading to Africa, where he operated a safari company for a dozen years.

By the time he had returned to the United States, Iacocca was running Chrysler Motors and he hired him to design the supercharged Viper sports car.

In the meantime, Shelby had also inaugurated the World Chili Cookoff competition and he began marketing Carroll Shelby Original Texas Chili.

In recent years, Shelby worked as a technical adviser on the Ford GT project and designed the Shelby Series 1 two-seat muscle car, a 21st century clone of his 1965 Cobra.

AP

The Mustang GT 350, is shown in this March 1965 file photo. The sleek fastback built by Carroll Shelby attracted high interest among sports car enthusiasts.

"I just wanted to see if I could do it one more time after a heart transplant and a kidney transplant," he once told the AP.

In 1990 he had marketed the Can-Am Spec Racer, an affordable racing car for entry-level drivers.

He created the Carroll Shelby Children's Foundation in 1991 to provide assistance for children and young people needing acute coronary and kidney care. According to its website, the foundation has helped numerous children receive needed surgery, as well as provided money for research.

Carroll Hall Shelby was born Jan. 11, 1923, in Leesburg, Texas.

During World War II he was an Army Air Corps flight instructor who corresponded with his fiancee by dropping love letters stuck into his flying boots onto her farm.

After leaving the military in 1945, he started a dump truck business, then decided to raise chickens. The poultry business initially flourished, with Shelby earning a $5,000 profit on the first batch of broilers he delivered. He went broke, however, when his second flock died of disease.

A friend then invited him to become an amateur racer and his success led to his joining the Aston-Martin team and competing in races all over the world.

Shelby is survived by his three children, Patrick, Michael and Sharon; his sister Anne Shelby Ellison; and his wife, Cleo.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.

Read More

Shelby leaves behind smokin' legend of sports cars

Courtesy of Shelby American, Inc

Carroll Shelby behind the wheel of a Cobra, the wickedly fast car that he designed.

So death finally overtook cantankerous ol’ Shel. It was a hell of a contest, begun in the 1950s, when Carroll Shelby, who went on to fame and fortune as a sports-car builder, had to take nitroglycerin tablets while driving race cars to keep his iffy heart pumping.

He drove hard almost until the end. At the media introduction of the Shelby GT500 at the New York Auto Show in 2005, I asked how things were going at home in Texas. Not good, he said. The then-82-year-old had just gotten a speeding ticket. “Them sumbitches down in Texas are gettin’ as bad as the sumbitches in California,” he growled.

Against stiff odds, he made it to 1990 with his weak heart before getting a donor's heart that finally quit nearly a quarter-century later. In 1996, his son donated Shelby a kidney. There was a time when the two threatened to scavenge spare body parts from anyone who had the misfortune to expire on the premises of the Shelby American Inc. shop in Las Vegas.

Shelby was best known for his eponymous sports cars, most particularly the fearsome 427 Cobra, a car that resulted from mating a big-block 427-cubic-inch Ford V8 engine with the chassis and bodywork of a diminutive English sports car, the AC Ace. Over the years Shelby’s car production evolved from the original Cobra line to include the GT350 and GT500, which were modified Ford Mustangs.

For a time in the 1980s he sold hot-rodded, turbocharged Chrysler economy cars – their “GLH” moniker stood for “Goes Like Hell” -- that were the precursors of the sport-compact-car movement epitomized by customized Honda Civics.

Shelby also pioneered the modern notion of intellectual property protection and licensing, spawning simultaneous industries licensing his name and designs on the one hand, and sending lawyers after unlicensed knockoffs on the other.

While this earned him a reputation for seeking credit where it might not have been due, I found just the opposite while researching a book on the Dodge Viper sports car. He didn’t want credit for others’ work, only credit -- and payment -- for his own.

Shelby was frequently credited for contributing to the Viper, which was an overt homage to his original Cobra, down to its serpent-inspired name. But he said he had done nothing to help design or build the car, except intercede on the car’s behalf with his longtime collaborator at Ford and Chrysler, then-Chrysler chairman Lee Iacocca.

“I said, ‘I’ll go talk to Iacocca,’ because he had been turning us down for a long time,” Shelby recalled. “So we bulls---ted him that we could do it for about $20 million. He OK’d it, but I had to meet with him and tell him we were on budget – until we got enough money in it he couldn’t back out.”

But you don’t typically plop down on the scene in an industry like the car business and achieve success without some credentials, and Shelby had them. What did Shelby do? What didn’t he do?

He was a pilot during World War II, but spent the war stateside because they made him an instructor. In the '50s he was a three-time U.S. champion sports car racer, drove for the Aston Martin team in Europe and won the prestigious 24 Hours of Le Mans race as a driver. Sports Illustrated twice named him “Driver of the Year.”

During this time he earned his reputation as the racing chicken rancher, when he sped from tending his animals directly to a race, and drove still wearing his bib overalls.

He was forced from the cockpit by his heart problems in 1960 and moved on to car building, producing the first Cobra in 1962 after cutting his first deal with Iacocca when he was at Ford.

In addition to building and selling sports cars, Shelby’s company also raced them, developing the Cobra Daytona Coupe derivative of the open-top Cobra roadster and then the dominant Ford GT40. The latter was a weapon specifically devised by Ford and wielded by Shelby for the purpose of defeating Enzo Ferrari’s red sports cars at Le Mans in a cost-is-no-object campaign fueled by Henry Ford II’s ego and money. Shelby’s team won in 1966 and ’67.

Shelby’s cars were so popular in the mid-‘60s that in 1966 you could rent a Shelby GT-350H from Hertz. Bill Cosby was the car-nut Jerry Seinfeld equivalent of that era, driving a custom-built Cobra that he worked into his comedy routine as the “200 miles per hour” bit.

The ‘70s weren’t kind to cars or racing, and Shelby collected a fat check from Ford in exchange for the opportunity for the company to bastardize Shelby’s legacy with atrocities like the 1978 Mustang II King Cobra.

Shelby returned to his Texas roots and in a move that pre-dated Paul Newman’s popular line of celebrity foods, launched his Carroll Shelby’s Original Texas Brand Chili Preparation mix in 1976.

After receiving a transplanted heart in 1990, Shelby founded the Carroll Shelby Heart Fund, a charity to help children get heart transplants. He called the foundation his most important work.

Author A.J. Baime spent significant time with Shelby researching his book on the Shelby Le Mans races, “Go Like Hell.” “He contributed so much to so many — his cars, his charity, his victories against all odds,” Baime remembered. “I feel lucky to have known him. In the cars that bear his name and in the lore of the greatest motorsport victories in the history of the USA, he will live on forever.”

On May 10, 2012, 89 years after his birth in 1923, Shelby’s second heart finally stopped.

Read More

The cars Americans will not buy

Courtesy of Kia Motors America

Sales of the Kia Rio, which comes in both subcompact and hatchback models, declined 18 percent between 2010 and 2011.

By Michael B. Sauter, 24/7 Wall St.
April car sales data were not a cause for celebration. Though sales were up 2 percent overall from last April, they cooled somewhat since the February and March run. There were a few winners, however, including Toyota, Chrysler and several European auto makers, some of which were up over 20 percent. Meanwhile, General Motors and Ford were down.

While a few brands are doing incredibly well, dealers cannot even give away some models. “Days to turn,” or “days on the lot,” reflects the average number of days a vehicle is in dealer inventory before it is sold. All of the car models on our list spent more than 90 days on the lot, considerably longer than the 52-day average. Working with Edmunds.com, 24/7 Wall St. identified 10 cars that Americans are not buying.

Not surprisingly, time on the lot appears to be an excellent proxy for how vehicles are selling. The average car sold in America sold 35,593 units in 2011, according to Edmunds. Eight of the cars on this list sold less than that. Five sold less than 15,000 units last year.

24/7 Wall St.: Cars so hot they are out of stock

In addition to having poor sales last year, overall sales of seven of the 10 dropped between 2009 and 2011. Total sales of five cars plummeted more than 30 percent. Two of the cars on this list, the DTS and the Honda Element, have been discontinued, and several more may be in jeopardy.

It is not always clear what makes a car unpopular. The cars on the list are all different types, from pickup trucks to compacts. They are also made by a number of different manufacturers, although six are made in Japan.

Fuel efficiency, on the other hand, appears to be a major factor for these cars’ poor sales. As the price of gas climbs to $4 per gallon, Americans appear to be making more fuel-efficient choices for their family vehicle. Six of the vehicles on the list have combined gas mileage -- city and highway -- of 25 mpg or less. According to the EPA, the Nissan Titan, which has among the longest days on lot, gets just 15 combined mpg.

Even when these cars belong to categories that generally get poor gas mileage, such as SUVs and pickups, they are still among the worst in their class. The Cadillac DTS, for example, gets a combined 18 mpg. By comparison, the Honda Accord, another full-size sedan, averages 27 combined mpg.

Based on car reviews, poor quality appears to hurting the sales of the cars on the list as well. JD Power reviewed eight of the 10 models on our list. Only one car scored better than a 3 out of 5 in both “overall quality and design” and “initial quality” -- considered only passable scores. Three models on this list only scored a 2 out of 5 in initial quality.

24/7 Wall St.: America's most miserable states

24/7 Wall St. obtained days-to-turn data for the full year 2011 provided by auto industry analytics organization Edmunds. To avoid inconsistencies that can arise from small data sets, we only looked at vehicles that sold at least 10,000 units in 2011. We also looked at the list prices of these vehicles as provided by the dealer, fuel efficiency data from the U.S. EPA, and quality ratings provided by JD Power & Associates and Consumer Reports. Edmunds also provided sales figures going back to 2006. All unit sales listed are U.S. only.

These are the cars Americans will not buy.

1. Volkswagen Routan

2011 Days to Turn: 107Price: $27,020Configuration: 6 Cyl, 4 DoorMpg: 17 City, 25 Hwy
In 2005, Volkswagen entered into a partnership with Chrysler to develop its own minivan, using the American automaker’s Town & Country as the base model. The Routan, when it was introduced in 2008, became the first minivan made by the German company in North America. Sales, however, have been poor from the start. In 2009, the first full year of sales, just 14,600 units were sold. In 2010, sales were up slightly, to 15,900, but fell more than 20 percent to 12,470 in 2011. The car spent, according to Edmunds, an average of 107 days on the lot -- more than double the U.S. average.

24/7 Wall St.: America's most peaceful states

2. Nissan Titan

Days to Turn: 106Price: $28,520Configuration: 8 Cyl, 2 DoorMpg: 13 City, 18 Hwy
The Nissan Titan was introduced in 2004 as the company’s full-size pickup. The Titan sold well in its early years. In 2007, Nissan sold 65,700 units of the truck in just one year. However, by 2008, sales had declined nearly 50 percent to 34,000. In 2011, the truck sold just fewer than 22,000 in total. Rising gas prices may be a factor in this. The truck’s current generation has an abysmal estimated mileage of 18 mpg on the highway and just 13 mpg in the city.

3. Kia Rio

Days to Turn: 101Price: $13,400Configuration: 4 Cyl, 4 Door/4 Cyl, 5 DoorMpg: 30 City, 40 Hwy
According to Edmunds, “As far as small economy cars go, there are better choices than the 2011 Kia Rio.” The average Kia Rio spent 101 days on the dealer lot in 2011, just shy of twice the length the average vehicle spent on the lot. Sales of the Rio, which comes in both subcompact and hatchback models, declined 18.3 percent, between 2010 and 2011, from 24,600 to 20,100.

Read More

Tesla sedan to hit showrooms in June, earlier than planned

Stephen Lam / Reuters

Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk shows off the Model S at a beta event last year. The company's stock jumped late Wednesday on news that the model will go on sale soon.

Tesla Motors (TSLA) will start delivering its Model S sedan to customers next month, slightly earlier than the electric carmaker had previously projected and a sign of progress for Tesla's most crucial launch yet.

Tesla has described 2012 as a "year of two halves" with the Model S launch as the dividing line. Ninety percent of the company's revenue this year will come from the sedan.

Once Tesla finishes crash tests required by U.S. safety regulators, Tesla can begin delivering the sedan to customers in June, slightly ahead of its previous target of July. Pricing for the car starts at about $50,000 and goes up to about $100,000 after a $7,500 federal tax credit.

Shares of Tesla shot up 8 percent in after-market trading. The stock closed at $30.06 on the Nasdaq.

"Tesla is entering one of the riskiest moments of its company's history, so anything that supports an on-time launch should be viewed with some relief," Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Jonas said in a research note.

Tesla said it has adopted a "slow, methodical" approach to the launch and expects to deliver 5,000 Model S sedans by the end of 2012. Reservations for the sedan have topped 10,000.

"Once we complete and document the tests, we will be able to sell our vehicles in the United States," Chief Executive Elon Musk said in a letter to shareholders.

Tesla also draws revenue from its partnerships with Toyota and Daimler AG. In February, Tesla announced an expanded deal with Daimler to create an electric powertrain for a new Mercedes Benz EV.

Tesla also makes the powertrain system for the electric Toyota RAV4. Toyota, which unveiled the model earlier this week, said it projects to sell 2,600 of the sport-utility vehicle over the next three years in the United States.

Toyota will wait to test the appetite for the all-electric SUV before expanding the partnership, Musk said. But he added: "The odds of scaling up are good."

Tesla also reported a first-quarter net loss of $89.9 million, or 86 cents per share, compared to $48.9 million or 51 cents per share a year earlier.

Revenue was $30.2 million, down from $49 million last year, reflecting the end of Roadster sales in North America.

The earlier-than-expected delivery date for the Model S prompted Tesla to lift its revenue outlook by $10 million to between $560 million and $600 million.

Read More

Toyota turnaround: Quarterly earnings quadruple

CNBC's Phil LeBeau reports on how shares of Toyota Motor are faring against its rival auto companies.

By Paul A. Eisenstein, The Detroit Bureau
Toyota Motor Co. wrapped up one of the worst fiscal year’s in the company’s history with an unexpectedly strong final quarter in which it saw earnings more than quadruple.

Acknowledging the hardships faced since the disastrous earthquake and tsunami – which cost the maker 100s of thousands of units of lost production – Toyota President Akio Toyoda offered a more positive outlook for the future, though he cautioned there are still challenges ahead.

“Thanks to the concerted efforts of our employees, suppliers and dealers, we were able to recover production and sales faster than anticipated and achieved a strong result,” said Toyada, grandson of the automaker’s founder. “Our vision,” he added, “is to establish a strong business foundation that will ensure profitability under any kind of difficult business environment.”

Toyota quadrupled net income to 121 billion yen, $1.5 billion at current exchange rates, during the January to March period, the final quarter in the Japanese fiscal year. Last year’s first quarter felt the first effects of the March 11, 2011 earthquake and tsunami, driving earnings down to just 25.4 billion yen.

Nevada Hands Out First License for Self-Driving Car

For the latest full year that ended March 31, Toyota reported earnings fell 30% to 283.6 billion yen, or $3.5 billion. But that was nonetheless better than the automaker’s original profit forecast of 200 billion yen, or $2.5 billion – and slightly exceeded analysts’ consensus. According to FactSet, the collective forecast for the year had been $3.49 billion.

Sales for latest quarter rebounded 23% to 5.7 trillion yen, or $71.3 billion. For the full fiscal year they came to 18.58 trillion yen, or $232 billion, a 2% drop.

Looking forward, Toyota is now forecasting profits could climb to $9.5 billion for the fiscal year that began on April 1, 2012. In a conference call with reporters, Senior Managing Officer Takahiko Ijichi said the maker expects sales to jump 1.3 million units to 8.7 million cars, trucks and crossovers.

Much of that is expected to come from the restoration of full production following the March 2011 disaster and the concurrent recovery of lost market share. But Toyota also hopes to further build demand with new products – such as the expanding Prius “family” — and by expanding its penetration in both established and emerging markets. During his conference call, Ijichi noted the maker aims to achieve 1 million units of sales in China, up from 900,000 during the just-ended fiscal year.

Romney: I Saved Auto Industry by Opposing Bailout

Regaining share in the critical U.S. market is one of Toyota’s major goals. It scored some successes during the January to March quarter with products like the redesigned Camry and the latest additions to the Prius family, such as the compact Prius C and larger Prius V. The entire hybrid line, starting with the original Prius hatchback, has fared well in the face of rising U.S. fuel prices.

In the last few months,” said Edmunds.com senior analyst Jessica Caldwell, “Toyota has made big strides to regain the U.S. market share it lost to its competitors.”

But data from research firm TrueCar.com has also shown that Toyota has been forced to sharply ramp up marketing expenses – including incentives – to rebuild U.S. demand.

The American fuel price spike has clearly helped the maker, the Prius surging to new records. But whether that pace will be maintained is uncertain. Past cycles show demand for hybrids dips sharply once fuel prices stabilize, as there are signs is now happening.

Traffic Deaths Continue to Plunge

The automaker also faces challenges due to the strong yen, which has cut into profits in the U.S. and many other parts of the world. Toyota has been attempting to minimize the exchange rate impact by shifting more production of components and vehicles overseas.

That’s a strategy being echoed by its Japanese competitors – notably including Honda, which also showed signs of recovery in its latest quarterly earnings which jumped 61% during the January to March period.

But despite Toyota’s determination to regain its momentum it is facing some equally dogged competitors, including both General Motors – which regained its long-standing position to industry sales leader in 2011 – as well as Volkswagen AG, which landed in the number two slot. VW has a stated goal of becoming the world’s biggest automaker before the end of the decade,

Toyota officials have never confirmed a goal of being – or returning to – number one. But the sales targets for the coming fiscal year show the maker is not going to readily give up that mantle permanently.

Read More

The most improved cars for 2012

For more than a decade, the Ford Focus was an also-ran among small cars, unable to keep up with far-superior compacts like the Toyota Corolla, Honda Civic and even the Hyundai Elantra. Distracted by its success with trucks and SUVs, Ford Motor didn’t invest what was needed to keep passenger cars like the Focus in the game.

Now, however, Ford has gotten serious about fixing the car side of its business, and the Focus, redesigned for 2012, is vastly improved.
How much better is it? The Focus went from middle of the pack to the segment leader, according to Total Car Score, a new online resource that aggregates car reviews from multiple sources. The 2012 model scored 80.68, tops among compact sedans and wagons, up from 72.73 for the 2011 model it replaced, according to Karl Brauer, editor-in-chief of Total Car Score. (The average score for 2012 compacts was 74.68.) The Focus’ leap from one model year to the next was the highest of any new vehicle, said Brauer, making it the most improved car of 2012.
Forbes.com slideshow: See the most improved cars for 2012

The consensus among car critics is that the European-inspired Focus gets kudos for its sporty handling, supple and controlled ride and excellent steering feel along with a stylish interior that’s loaded with upscale amenities and advanced electronics. At 31 mpg combined city and highway driving, it’s also fairly fuel-efficient. But it’s not perfect: a quirky automatic transmission and cramped rear seat were common complaints. Still, sales of the Focus were up 12.5 percent in April, showing consumers like it too.

Other cars on the Most Improved list are the Hyundai Accent, the Toyota Camry and Camry hybrid, and the Toyota Yaris. All were redesigned for 2012. Among SUVs, the Cadillac SRX, Kia Sportage and Honda CR-V also made the list, having scored much higher after they were redesigned.

Auto reviewers, like movie critics, aren’t always unanimous in their points of view. A clever feature to one might be a pet peeve to another. Some reviewers put more weight on vehicle performance, while others emphasize safety or fuel economy or affordability. An overall consensus would be useful.
That’s exactly what Brauer is attempting with Total Car Score, which, he said, aims to be the Rotten Tomatoes of the auto industry. Rotten Tomatoes is a website that culls movie reviews from top film critics and assigns a “certified fresh” or “rotten” icon depending on the percentage of reviews that are positive. (More than 60 percent positive earns the fresh label.) It provides movie-goers with a quick overall opinion of a flick without having to research dozens of individual reviews. Likewise, Total Car Score wants to simplify the task of researching a car purchase.
“Nobody ever says I need more information about automobiles,” said Brauer, pointing to the vast amount of automotive content already available on the Web. “There are a bunch of good sites out there. I brought them all together.”

The problem is not all car reviews use the same scale. Some use a 1-10 scale while others use bubbles, circles or stars. The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety uses words to describe its crash test results: good, acceptable, marginal or poor. No matter the format, Total Car Score takes the ratings from nine well-known automotive authorities including Consumer Reports, Edmunds.com, Consumer Guide and J.D. Power & Associates and converts them into a simple percentage representing what the car could have scored from each source versus what it did score. Then it merely averages the number from all of these sources to get a vehicle’s Total Car Score.

If it seems oversimplified, that’s the point. This is the lazy person’s way to research a car. The vehicle’s absolute score is less important than how it ranks relative to its peers in a particular segment. That at least gives you a starting point to build your shopping list.

What I like about Total Car Score is that it’s totally transparent. It’s not trying to steal anyone else’s content and it shows exactly how each car’s score was calculated. There’s also a “scoring report card” for each vehicle, a page with excerpts and links directly back to each review that factored into the scoring. At the bottom of each vehicle page are links to the related manufacturer website, owner’s manual, forums and road test pages for that vehicle.
It’s the closest thing to a one-stop shopping guide for automobiles.

© 2012 Forbes.com

Read More

US traffic deaths at lowest level since 1949

By Paul A. Eisenstein, The Detroit Bureau


U.S. traffic fatalities continue to plunge, reaching their lowest level since 1949, well before the creation of the American interstate highway system.

According to estimates from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, 32,310 people died in traffic accidents in 2011, a 1.7% year-over-year decline. That marks the seventh consecutive year that the death rate has declined.

Since just 2005, traffic fatalities have fallen by more than 25% — and when measured in terms of deaths per mile driven the figure has reached its lowest level since record-keeping began in 1921, according to NHTSA.

Romney: I Saved Auto Industry by Opposing Bailout
While federal officials declined to point to specific factors, experts suggest there are several reasons behind the sharp drop. These include a crackdown on drunk driving – which some once linked to as many as half of all highway deaths – increased use of seatbelts and improved vehicle design complying with stricter federal safety requirements. In just the last several years, NHTSA has mandated the installation of electronic stability control systems on all new vehicles, along with tougher roof crush standards.

But some experts also point to the economic downturn which has been credited – or blamed – for a sharp drop in the number of miles the average American has been driving in recent years. The preliminary NHTSA study shows U.S. motorists collectively drove 35.7 billion vehicle miles fewer in 2011 than the year before – a 1.2% decline. As the economy recovers, some observers warn, fatalities could rise as people again drive more.

Cadillac ATS to Start at $33,990
But even when adjusted to an apples-to-apples, the death rate is down, reaching a low of 1.09 for every 100 million miles driven compared to 1.11 deaths in 2010. At its peak, that was closer to 7 per 100 million vehicle miles.

As recently as 2005, traffic accidents were responsible for 43,510 deaths in the United States – a figure that includes pedestrian fatalities.

The decline varied by region, and New England experienced the biggest drop, fatalities down by 7.2% last year. In the American heartland, including Kansas, Missouri and Nebraska, the death toll dipped 5.3%. But the three-state region including Hawaii, California and Arizona bucked the trend, with fatalities actually increasing by 3.3% last year.

Relief at the Pump: Oil Prices Slip Below $100
Despite the overall decline, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood has repeatedly said the traffic fatality rate is still too high and is pressing for further efforts to bring it down. The agency is in the preliminary stages of preparing new rules to address what LaHood has described as an “epidemic” of distracted driving deaths.
NHTSA, meanwhile, is proposing new rules that would mandate a brake-throttle override, a system that would cut engine power if a motorist were to inadvertently hit both the brake and throttle at the same time. Such driver error has been blamed, in many cases, for reports of so-called unintended acceleration.

Read More

Automakers eager to open up the 'other' China

Odd Andersen / AFP - Getty Images

Volkswagen Chairman Martin Winterkorn, left, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, middle and China's Prime Minister Wen Jiabao. Earlier this year, VW signed a contract for a new plant in Xinjiang.

By Paul A. Eisenstein, msnbc.com contributor
Despite an unexpected slowdown in sales earlier this year, the Chinese auto market is expected to hit an industry-record 20 million vehicles this year – prompting manufacturers to announce billions of dollars in new factory investments designed to keep up with booming demand.

Ford will invest nearly $1 billion to double its capacity in the Chinese market. Nissan needs to support plans that would boost its own sales from 1.2 million units this year to 2 million by mid-decade. And then there’s Volkswagen, second only to General Motors as a Chinese powerhouse. VW will spend $225 million on a new factory in Urumqi.

What’s unusual about the VW investment is that it is targeting the western province of Xinjiang, far from the established Chinese automotive manufacturing center, which stretches along the nation’s Pacific coast. That includes cities such as Shanghai and Beijing that have also provided the bulk of demand to support the decade-long Chinese automotive boom.

Xinjiang, by contrast, is a provincial backwater, a land of sparse, high mountain deserts that has barely felt the impact of China’s economic revolution. So why would Volkswagen want to build a plant there?

While the German maker won’t confirm it, there was likely at least some gentle pressure from the Chinese government, which is looking to spread the wealth, so to speak, bringing economic improvement to the rest of the country.

And automotive industry leaders generally agree with that strategy as a way to further expand their market. That’s especially true for makers, like Ford, who were slow to target China.

The second largest of Detroit’s makers, Ford is little more than an also-ran in China with sales of a little more than 600,000 vehicles last year – compared to nearly 2.3 million for GM. Ford’s own new plant in Hangzhou is a bit off the beaten path. And the maker is betting that much of the demand will come from first-time buyers “in the new markets in Western China,” said Joe Hinrichs, head of Ford’s Asia, Pacific and Africa operations during an interview at the Beijing Motor Show.

The disparity between the booming Pacific Coast and the rest of China is enormous, especially when it comes to the automotive market, said Yale Zhang, managing director of the consulting firm Automotive Foresight (Shanghai).

In so-called Tier I cities, such as Shanghai and Beijing, car ownership is now approaching levels seen in Japan, if not the United States – anywhere from 250 to 500 cars for every 1,000 residents. That boom is creating chaos on the streets, leading some cities to attempt to curb car purchases. Beijing last year enacted a registration lottery. Only those who win one can buy a car.

“Beijing’s traffic, cannot be sustained at the current level” of growth, Zhang explained.

In cities like Urumqi, however, there’s not much more traffic than a decade ago, when the Chinese automotive industry first got going. But building up a market won’t be easy, the analyst cautioned, noting that income is also substantially lower when you move off the fertile Pacific Coast.

So manufacturers targeting central and western China are focusing on smaller and markedly less expensive vehicles than those sold in the east. GM and its Chinese partners, Shanghai-based SAIC and Liuzhou’s Wuling, have created an entirely new brand, dubbed Baojun – or “Treasured Horse” – specifically to go after the lower-tier cities.

The new brand -- and similar new competitors, such as the Nissan/Dongfeng joint venture called Venucia -- is largely focused on products in the $5,000 to $10,000 range. That’s apparently connecting with wannabe Chinese motorists. Within its first few months on the market, Baojun already had a 2 percent share of its market segment. So far this year that has more than quadrupled.

While so-called Tier III, IV and V cities will likely be slower to go mobile they still hold out significant promise according to Kevin Wales, head of GM’s Chinese operations. By various estimates, he said, there are somewhere between 200 and 300 cities in China with populations of more than 1 million. Even a modest increase in car sales in those new regions would help maintain the Chinese automotive boom.

While the days of 20, 40, even 60 percent annual growth are likely over, Automotive Forecast’s Zhang still anticipates the overall market will increase between 6 percent and 12 percent in 2012 – figures most analysts and industry planners agree with. With demand clearly on the rise after the first-quarter slowdown, Chinese motorists are all but certain to snap up at least 20 million vehicles this year

Read More

GM reports $1 billion Q1 profit, beating estimates

GM reported a Q1 profit that beat expectations as it was able to boost vehicle prices and cut losses in Europe, with CNBC's Phil LeBeau. Bob Lutz, former GM vice chairman, also weighs in.

By msnbc.com staff and news wires
GM (GM) posted a profit of $1 billion in the first quarter, beating Wall Street expectations on strong demand in its key North American market.

GM also said the U.S. economy was improving and it expected its core North American results in the second and third quarters to largely match the first quarter due to scheduled downtime at its large truck plants.

"We're clearly seeing some improvement in the (U.S.) economy," Chief Financial Officer Dan Ammann told reporters. "It's a modest underlying improvement, but it's patchy and it won't necessarily all go in a straight line."

The quarter included the impact of $800 million in higher vehicle pricing and lower consumer incentives, half of which came in North America. Last year, GM offered heavy consumer incentives to drive sales in the U.S. market, something it did not do this year.

GM lost $256 million pretax in Europe, where it took a $590 million charge related to pension costs. Excluding one-time items related to the impairment of goodwill primarily in Europe, the No. 1 U.S. automaker reported a profit of 93 cents per share.

Analysts, on average, expected GM to earn 85 cents per share, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

Net income fell to $1 billion, or 60 cents a share, from $3.15 billion, or $1.77 a share, in the same quarter a year earlier. Last year's quarter included a one-time gain of $1.5 billion related to the sale of stakes in Delphi and Ally.

Revenue for the quarter was $37.8 billion, up 4.4 percent from $36.2 billion a year ago.

Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Read More

Chrysler sales jump; Ford and GM dip slightly

CNBC's Phil LeBeau reports on the state of automaker stocks, including Toyota and Honda increasing incentives.

By msnbc.com staff and news wires
Updated 2:05 p.m. ET: General Motors and Ford reported slight dips in U.S. new vehicle sales for April, but GM lifted its outlook for U.S. sales this year based on encouraging signs that the broader economy will grow.

Chrysler, controlled by Italian automaker Fiat SpA , said sales rose 20 percent to 141,165 vehicles, compared with 117,225 in the same month last year. Chrysler's performance was its strongest April in four years.

And Toyota, after a tough year of earthquake-related shortages, is back.

GM now projects the U.S. auto industry will sell between 14 million and 14.5 million cars and trucks this year, up from its previous outlook of 13.5 million to 14 million.

"Over time, strength in the manufacturing sector and strong retail sales will lead to more job creation," GM sales executive Don Johnson said in a statement. "That will help more consumers put the recession behind them."

The sales declines at GM and Ford were due partly to a quirk in the calendar. April has three fewer selling days than last year, which can skew results.

Including medium and heavy trucks, Ford expects the overall industry to post an annual sales rate in the "mid-14 million" range. Chrysler Group, the No. 3 U.S. automaker, forecast an April sales rate for the industry of 14.6 million vehicles.

That would be stronger than the 14.4 million rate projected by economists, according to Thomson Reuters, and would also top the March rate of 14.4 million.

GM reported an 8 percent decline in sales, due a 25 percent drop in fleet sales, to 213,387.

Ford sales fell 5 percent to 180,350 from 189,778 a year earlier. Sales of its Escape SUV model, which is expected to be replaced later this year, fell by a fifth while Fiesta subcompact sales dropped 44 percent.

When adjusted for the fewer selling days, Ford said its April sales rose 7 percent.

Last week, executives said Ford's incentive strategy in April would contribute to a drop in its U.S. market share for the month. TrueCar.com said incentives on Ford cars and trucks fell about 10 percent, compared with a drop of 4.7 percent for the industry.

Volkswagen AG reported a 31.5 percent increase in sales.

Toyota's share of U.S. auto sales likely climbed back to a level not seen since last year's Japanese earthquake, which disrupted production. Replenished supplies and hot sellers like the new Camry sedan and Prius C subcompact drove sales, analysts say.

Auto buying site TrueCar.com predicts Toyota's U.S. market share reached 15.3 percent last month, its highest level since December 2010. That's up from a low of 12.5 percent last September, when the automaker sold 61,600 fewer vehicles than it's expected to in April.

"We knew they were going to be able to gain back part of their share this year, but they're doing it quicker than we thought. The new products are doing well," says Jesse Toprak, TrueCar's vice president of market intelligence.

Auto sales are watched as one of the earliest snapshots of American consumer demand. In recent months, sales figures have proven a bright spot in an economy that expanded at a 2.2 percent annual rate in the first quarter.

But there are mounting signs that the broader U.S. economy is losing steam. Analysts debate whether high fuel prices and warm weather boosted sales in the first quarter, potentially leading to a pullback in sales later in the year.

Ford shares were up 1 cent at $11.29 and GM shares were up 13 cents at $23.13 on Tuesday morning on the New York Stock Exchange.

Reuters and the Associated Press contributed to this report.

Read More

It's official: Auto industry firing on all cylinders

CNBC's Phil LeBeau reports on the state of automaker stocks, including Toyota and Honda increasing incentives.

By Paul A. Eisenstein, msnbc.com contributor
It’s hard to say whether there’s a direct link between the strong surge in April car sales and the four-year high the Dow Jones industrial average is on track to set today, but both are clearly delivering a dose of much-needed news about an uncertain economic recovery.

With the last few automakers finally reporting, the industry appeared to continue gaining momentum despite worries about fuel prices and other economic issues. General Motors boosted its forecast for all of 2012 by a full 500,000 vehicles, to somewhere between 14 million and 14.5 million.

That’s despite the fact that both GM and Ford posted modest declines for April -- as did Asian rival Nissan -- but the slowdown in sales that some feared after the unusual warm winter clearly didn’t materialize. And a number of makers, including Audi and Volkswagen, are today bragging about setting records. VW sales were their best in 40 years, Audi their best ever for the month.

“It’s good to see the market is still growing,” said David Sullivan, an auto analyst with AutoPacific, Inc. What surprised Sullivan -- and many other analysts -- was the fact that while demand was up for small, high-mileage vehicles, American motorists also plunked their money down on many of the bigger pickups that were supposedly going out of style.

Related: Chrysler sales jump; Ford, GM dip slightly

Nissan, for example, set new April sales records for both its small Rogue crossover and subcompact Versa models. But demand, the maker said, was also up for the full-size Titan pickup as well as the big Quest minivan.

Also noteworthy was the fact that the industry, on the whole, maintained its momentum without having to ramp up incentives. Quite the contrary. OVerall, manufacturers trimmed rebates and other givebacks by an average 4.7 percent compared to March of this year, or about $120 a vehicle -- with the average car, truck or crossover sold in April 2012 carrying incentives of $2,446, according to data collected by research firm TrueCar.com.

There were a few exceptions, notably Honda ramped up spending by 8 percent for the month, to $2,398 per vehicle, while Toyota increased its givebacks 4.4 percent, to $1,823, said TrueCar.

"Incentives continued to decline for most automakers with the exception of Honda and Toyota as both are vying for recapturing their lost market share from last year,” said Jesse Toprak, TrueCar’s director of industry trends and insights. “Ford is now spending less on incentives as a percentage of their average transaction price then Honda.”

The spending did appear to pay off, however, with Toyota sales increasing 11.6 percent for the month while Honda’s rose 9.2 percent to April 2011. The incentives helped the smaller maker breathe some life back into its fading Accord line. Long one of the nation’s top-sellers, that midsized sedan took an embarrassing slip in recent months, falling behind the Nissan Altima. Accord was up 41 percent for the month, handily outpacing the Altima.

But Nissan’s April slowdown reflects, in part, the fact that it trimmed back production of its midsize model in preparation for the launch of an all-new Altima next month. And CEO Carlos Ghosn has boldly declared his belief that the next-generation sedan will be able to overtake both Accord and the long-dominant Toyota Camry.

Nissan’s Infiniti division was in the black for April, buoyed by demand for its new three-row JX crossover. Company officials recently predicted that they’re on track to hit 200,000 units in annual sales in the next several years -- which would move the long-lagging luxury brand into the upper tier of upscale marques.

The initial success of the big JX -- as well as Nissan’s other large trucks and crossovers was matched by strong demand for some of the bigger models in the Chrysler corporate portfolio, especially the Jeep Grand Cherokee.

Chrysler posted a 20 percent overall jump in April, with all of its brands exceeding the industry average sales increase. The Fiat brand surged 336 percent after a painfully slow launch of the little Fiat 500. It was, in fact, the 25th consecutive month of sales gains for Chrysler and the 14th month in a row when the maker beat the industry average increase.

“Chrysler continues to surprise on the upside every month now,” said analyst Joe Phillippi, of AutoTrends Consulting. “The new products, the Grand Cherokee, the 300 and even the 200 are doing well.”

Like other analysts, Phillippi suggested the Detroit maker has been countering its long-time reputation for poor quality with new vehicles that are “really well screwed together.”

That was echoed by Reid Bigland, president and CEO of the Dodge brand and Chrysler’s head of U.S. sales.

"This business is all about product,” he said, “and the quality and fuel efficiency of our current vehicle line-up has never been better which is evident in our results."

The April numbers are particularly impressing analysts because they are less dependent both on incentives and on fleet sales, a traditional dumping ground for manufacturers desperate to keep their factories humming. Lower fleet business was the primary reason behind the modest decline at General Motors -- where retail sales ran roughly flat with April 2011 -- and at Ford.

But the latter maker could crow about the strong demand for its higher-mileage models, including both the Edge crossover and midsize Fusion, both setting April sales records. On the high end, buyers yet again bought more full-size F-Series pickups with V-6 engines rather than the traditional big-truck V-8s.

Can the market maintain its momentum? Analyst Phillippi is upbeat, at least for the near-term, suggesting that even the modest U.S. economic recovery is sending buyers back to showrooms. That’s particularly true for products like the F-Series and Nissan Titan.

“There are a lot of people who need work vehicles, especially to replace the ones they’ve been hanging onto” during the recession, said Phillippi. “A lot of those trucks are just wearing out.”

GM raised its forecast for the year to somewhere between 14 million and 14.5 million, which could mean a year-over-year jump of about 1.5 million units compared to all of 2011.

“We expect gradual improvement in the economy going forward,” said Don Johnson, vice president, U.S. Sales Operations. “Over time, strength in the manufacturing sector and strong retail sales will lead to more job creation. That will help more consumers put the recession behind them, gain even more confidence and drive vehicle sales higher for both the industry and GM.”

Read More

Turn signal neglect a real danger, study shows

Joe Raedle / Getty Images file

Drivers either neglect to use their signals when changing lanes – or fail to turn the signals off – 48% of the time.

By Paul A. Eisenstein, The Detroit Bureau
Forget distracted driving. A new study says there’s a far more serious problem that’s responsible for as many as 2 million accidents annually.

When’s the last time you used your own turn signals? According to research by the Society of Automotive Engineers, drivers either neglect to use their signals when changing lanes – or fail to turn the signals off – 48% of the time. And when making a turn the failure rate is around 25%. That works out to 2 billion times a day drivers fail to use signals, or 750 billion times annually.

Automakers May Sidestep Resin Shortage

A lack of courtesy? Laziness? Poor training? Whatever the reason, the SAE study says the problem results in about 2 million roadway collisions annually. That’s more than twice the 950,000 accidents linked to distracted driving, which has become one of the central topics of the U.S. Department of Transportation under Sec. Ray LaHood.

“This is a first of its kind report on a subject that amazingly, has never been studied,” said Richard Ponziani, P.E., President of RLP Engineering and author of the report. Yet, despite the fact that turn signals are simple, ubiquitous and “extremely effective,” there is an epidemic lack of compliance even though “all drivers have an ongoing duty to use it, just as they have a duty to stop at a stop sign or at a red light.”

Car-to-Car Link Could Cut Collisions by 80%

Anecdotal evidence suggests that police put little effort into enforcement, less than they devote to speeding, or running stop signs and red lights. Other than shifting priorities, the new study suggests an alternative that it dubs the “Smart Turn Signal.”

They “are the perfect complement to the Stability Control System since Stability Control predominately prevents single-vehicle crashes, whereas the Smart Turn Signal prevents multi-vehicle crashes,” suggested Ponziani.

Such a system would automatically shut off a turn signal, likely by timing out after a set delay or by detecting when a vehicle has finished changing lanes – much as today’s cars automatically cancel the signals after making a turn at an intersection.

Can Chrysler Match Japanese Quality?

For scofflaws who simply don’t use their signals, the system would work much like a seatbelt reminder. It would be able to sense if drivers routinely ignore their turn signals and start to flash what the study calls a “friendly” reminder.

Using the latest electronics, a Smart Turn Signal system would actually be simpler and less expensive than the current mechanical trip mechanism, according to Ponziani, a press release concluding that, “This breakthrough represents a perfect opportunity to significantly reduce multi-vehicle crash rates, reduce vehicle cost and make driving a lot more friendly and courteous across the U.S.”

Read More