Blog Profile / The Truth About Cars
| URL : | http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/ | |
|---|---|---|
| Filed Under: | Vehicles / Automotive Industry News | |
| Posts on Regator: | 23205 | |
| Posts / Week: | 85.3 | |
| Archived Since: | March 2, 2008 | |
Blog Post Archive
Has the Dept of Energy’s Advanced Technology Vehicle Manufacturing Program Been a Failure? Not Really
Critics of the current administration have pointed to the impending bankruptcy of Fisker Automotive and the recent suspension of operations at taxi maker Vehicle Production Group as examples of why the government shouldn’t be picking winners and losers in it’s zeal to promote alternative energy. The DoE effort under which those two companies received financing is [...]
Autobiography Of BS© : How I Harmed Sundry Animals
While a minor shit storm erupted the other day over the use of a word denoting short-haired women who love women, and, allegedly, certain cars, I did a little of the required soul-searching and self-reflection, and I thought about all the scandals I may have caused in my life, and which I would regret, [...]
The Fisker Saga, Courtesy of GigaOM
Most of our readers probably already know the broad strokes of the Fisker story. If you’re interested in the finer details of the history of the extended range EV company that appears to be circling the drain, GigaOM, a site that covers the investment side of tech companies, has published a fairly comprehensive 4,000 [...]
The Truth About Brazilian Cars Being “Unsafe”
This week, the idea of Brazil’s cars being “unsafe” due to inferior construction has been gaining a lot of currency on the blogosphere after the Associated Press published a report on this topic. Very few outlets have anyone posted in Brazil to do any deeper digging, but TTAC does. Unfortunately, our man Marcelo de Vasconcellos [...]
Help Solve the Mystery of the Stretched Volvo on Long Island
So much is going on in the automotive world. Unfunded mandates by government for fuel efficiency, electronic safety systems, pedestrian safety and so on. The whole rising gas prices thing etc. etc. I’ve found something that trumps all of those non-issues. A few weeks ago, I was driving along the Long Island Expressway, [...]
Tips for Driving in a Roundabout
The city of Atlanta (Motto: “Home of the airport where you changed planes last Christmas”) has installed a roundabout at a rather busy intersection near my house. This is highly entertaining if you’re watching from a safe distance, such as a nearby restaurant patio, or possibly South Carolina. But actually driving in this roundabout is [...]
GM Stock In Plus Territory
GM stockholders, especially the large stockholder in Washington, DC, have reason to rejoice: Today, GM shares “topped their 2010 initial public offering price, which will help the automaker’s largest shareholder, the U.S. Treasury, pare its losses,” Reuters says. The price in the November 2010 IPO was $33.00. Today, the stock rose as high as $33.58 [...]
The Tipping Point
Years ago, I was paid to help a neighbor clean out his garage. It was an old, ramshackle building with a dirt floor and over the years it had been filled with an amazing amount of crap. At the very back, under a canvas tarp, I found a long neglected late 60s Honda CB750 in [...]
Volkswagen’s CrossBlue Said To See The Light In China
The Volkswagen CrossBlue and CrossBlue Coupe will be made in China by the Shanghai-Volkswagen joint venture, Carnewschina reports today. According to the report, the car will be built when Volkswagen’s new factory will open in Changsha in China’s Hunan Province. The plant will have an annual output of 300,000 units, construction of the plant started [...]
Homeland Security’s New Job: Seizing Land Rover Defenders
Car and Driver scribe (and TTAC alum) Justin Berkowitz has penned an amazing feature about the U.S. Government’s campaign against grey market Land Rover Defenders. According to Berkowitz, Defender enthusiasts have been trying to skirt the government’s 25 year exemption for imported cars by fudging the ages of Defenders from Europe and elsewhere. VIN plates are [...]
Europe In April 2013: Up A Tad
As predicted by TTAC, European car sales were up slightly in April. Car sales in the EU rose by 1.7 percent in the month, Europe’s car manufacturer association ACEA says. We warned you not to read too much into it. According to the ACEA, “the region counted on average two more working days compared to [...]
Autobiography Of BS, Now Available On Dead Trees
Those who frequently demanded that the Autobiography Of BS © is turned into a book or a blockbuster movie see themselves a little closer to their declared goal. The series will be a monthly feature in Top Gear Deutschland, a very glossy magazine and spin-off of the TV series. The BBC-inspired buff book already hit [...]
Ford Consolidating Fiesta Production In Thailand
The Ford Fiesta looks to be picking up and moving from its current assembly locations in India and Mexico to a central location in Thailand when the next generation rolls around in 2016. While other outlets are reporting the story as a rumor, TTAC has confirmed this news via an independent source. Since Fiesta’s main [...]
Junkyard Find: 1985 Toyota Camry LE Liftback
I thought I’d seen the rarest member of the Camry species in North America when I spotted this 1990 Camry All-Trac on the coldest day I’ve ever experienced in a junkyard. Perhaps I was wrong. Here’s one of the very few first-gen Camry liftbacks sold in this country, now Crusher-bound. 331,120 miles on the clock, [...]
Papal Visit Set Zetsche On His Road To Damascus
If it weren’t for a Papal visit, Dr. Z may never have come to know Mercedes-Benz. A brief article in Automotive News mentions M-B boss Dieter Zetsche’s first encounter with a Mercedes-Benz S-Class, which ultimately led him to the company that he is now CEO of During the launch of the new S class in [...]
Toyota Ramps Up Exports. From Europe and America
Toyota started shipping French-made Yaris compact cars to customers in North America for the first time this month. Last year, Toyota expressed intentions to do so and said it would be around 25,000 units per year. The Yaris is made at Toyota’s Onnaing-Valenciennes plant in France, from where it is shipped to the United States, [...]
Coming Soon To A Turnpike Near You: Drones
State Sen. Nicholas Sacco, D-Hudson, says drones could benefit society if used correctly; his bill, introduced on April 25, would let police and fire departments use drones for extreme conditions that might be too dangerous for humans, or where existing tools simply wouldn’t work. “Think about missing children, missing seniors,” Sacco told the Star-Ledger [...]
Hey Duke, Ever Worked On One-a-Dese Choiman Transmissions Before?
It wasn’t that many decades ago that imported cars— any imported cars— were considered fairly exotic. I’ve dredged up memories of some very funny 1980 Aamco ads that deal with that subject, and the internet has obliged by providing those very ads for us! The bumbling rubes working in the transmission shop in this ad [...]
Announcing The Not So New S-Class
Daimler presented its new S-Class yesterday night in the airbus factory in Hamburg, and with the pomp and circumstance appropriate for a car that is supposed to bring the big turn-around at Daimler. German Spiegel magazine promptly grouched “that the most revolutionary part in the car is the fact that in large parts, it is [...]
McLaren, Powered By Honda
Thursday-afternoon press conferences at Mitsubishi and Nissan remained mostly deserted as the Fourth Estate congregated at Honda to hear the not so secret news that Honda will return to F1. I didn’t go because I thought we don’t cover F1. When I remembered that we now do, it was too late. Did I mention that [...]