Main page | March 11, 2007 - March 17, 2007 »

Bentley considering going green

Bentley, one of the last of the old auto aristocrats, is considering offering hybrid and diesel versions of its luxury models, according to leftlanenews.com. Of course, the brand while ostensibly British, is owned by Volkswagen. Leftlanenews.com cites the German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung for the news.

Posted by   at 11:42 AM | Permalink | Comments 0

Ford expected to sell Aston Martin today

Ford is expected to sell Aston Martin, the iconic luxury brand, to iconsortium of business interests from America and the Middle East, headed by Prodrive founder and world rally championship owner David Richards, according to Britain's Daily Telegraph.
The deal is estimated to be worth $900 million. According to its Web site, Prodrive is is one of the world’s leading motorsport and automotive technology businesses, employing more than 1000 people at operations in the UK, USA, Germany, Thailand and Australia.

Posted by   at 11:33 AM | Permalink | Comments 0

Exxon Mobil to produce extra million barrels of oil a day

Exxon Mobil Corp. said Wednesday it will spend some of its record profits on more than 20 new global projects in the next three years, investments expected to add 1 million oil-equivalent barrels a day to the company's volumes at peak production, according to the Associated Press.
Chairman and CEO Rex Tillerson said the company's capital spending would be about $20 billion a year through the end of the decade. The company's capital spending tab in 2006 was nearly $20 billion, up $2.2 billion from 2005.

Posted by   at 12:45 PM | Permalink | Comments 0

Gas prices edging up in Western states

Gasoline prices have jumped above $3 a gallon in some parts of California and Hawaii, and may hit that level in other parts of the country when the busy summer driving season approaches, according to the Associated Press.
Analysts say drivers should brace for more increases in the coming weeks. Crude oil, which makes up about half the price of gasoline, is trading above $60 a barrel. Higher demand, refinery maintenance and fears about springtime shortages are also driving up prices, particularly on the West Coast.

Posted by   at 12:39 PM to Gas prices | Permalink | Comments 0

Ford recalling certain Crown Victoria police cars

Starting next week, Ford will be recalling nearly 110,000 2003-2005 Crown Victoria police cars because possible wheel cracks could cause rapid air loss in tires during high-speed pursuits, according to an Associated Press report in USA Today. The cracks have been reported in only a small percentage of the wheels.

Posted by   at 12:23 PM to Companies | Permalink | Comments 0

Germany's dirty cars a hurdle for Chancellor Angela Merkel

Europe prides itself on its pioneering approach to climate change. However, Germany's fabled cars are among the dirtiest when it comes to carbon dioxide emissions. That means Chancellor Angela Merkel, currently president of the European Union, must face down the German auto industry before trying to persuade Europe to accept stringent new cuts in carbon dioxide emissions, according to a report in The New York Times.

Posted by   at 11:15 AM to Environment | Permalink | Comments 0

Small and mid-size steal Geneva Auto Show

The Detroit Free Press's auto critic Mark Phelan reports that small and midsize cars are dominating the Geneva Auto Show in Switzerland. Sure, the glamor cars are there - Ferrari, Rolls-Royce, Bentley - but he says it's cars like the Ford Mondeo, Mercedes-Benz C-Class, Toyota Auris, Opel GTC, Honda Small Hybrid Sports concept and Dodge Demon concept that are stealing the show.

Posted by   at 12:05 PM to Shows | Permalink | Comments 0

NHTSA mulls changes to crash tests

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is holding a hearing today on proposals to overhaul its crash tests of cars and trucks, according to USA Today. The agency has been rating vehicles for 30 years and currently gives vehicles one to five stars, five being best, based on how they perform in a 35-mile-per-hour head-on crash and in a side-impact crash. The agency is thinking of adding tests at lower speeds and considering how well vehicles avoid crashes.

Posted by   at 11:52 AM to Safety | Permalink | Comments 0

Toyota unveils future of hybrid design

Toyota introduced its Hybrid X concept car at the Geneva Motor show Wednesday which the auto giant says represents the future of its successful Prius. It's a 4-door conventional family car with a radical futuristic design that can be viewed at leftlanenews.com

Posted by   at 11:35 AM | Permalink | Comments 0

Oil prices are popping again

Oil prices have topped $60 a barrel today as many European and Asian stock markets bounced back from a weeklong slide, and strategists pointed to robust demand for gasoline and falling petroleum inventories, according to an Associated Press report cited on signonsandiego.com.
Light, sweet crude for April delivery rose 63 cents to $60.70 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange by midday in Europe. The contract fell 2.5 percent yesterday to settle at $60.07 a barrel, the lowest for a front-month contract since Feb. 21.

Posted by   at 10:49 AM to Oil | Permalink | Comments 0

R.I. Gasoline jumps 17 cents in just a week

Check out Tim Barmann's story about spiking gas price in today's Business Section of the Providence Jouranl. Barmann writes that any hope of $2-a-gallon gasoline in the near future seems to have evaporated with the latest survey of area gas prices. The state Office of Energy Resources said that the average price of regular, self-serve gasoline yesterday was $2.499 a gallon, a jump of 17 cents a gallon from last week’s average price of $2.329 a gallon.
That was the biggest one-week increase since last April, he writes. Gasoline prices have now gone up a total of 33 cents over the past four weeks, after declining for several weeks. The average price has not been this high since September of last year. It is 26 cents higher than it was one year ago when the average cost was $2.239, AAA said.

Posted by   at 10:40 AM | Permalink | Comments 0

Workers nix production plans for Chrysler Imperial

leftlanenews.com reports Chrysler's workers at its assembly plant in Brampton, Ontario, rejected a company proposal that asked them to give up $115 a week in exchange for a contract to build known as Product X, but which has been identified by WardsAuto as the Chrysler Imperial.

Posted by   at 10:15 AM to Companies | Permalink | Comments 0

Private group seen circling Chrysler

Reuters reports that U.S. buyout firm Blackstone Group is showing an interest in Chrysler which effectively went up on the blocks after DaimlerChrysler Chief Executive Dieter Zetsche announced last month ago that "all options were open."
Reuters today cited a a person familiar with the situation as saying said the private equity group has approached Chrysler and been granted access to its books in preparation for a possible bid.
But Reuters said he source said there was no guarantee that the firm, already an investor in Germany's Deutsche Telekom, would make an offer for Chrysler.
Blackstone, which is majority owner of TRW Automotive and formerly an investor in American Axle and Manufacturing declined to comment. And Zetsche gave reporters at the auto show in Geneva no details on the status of the Chrysler's status.

Posted by   at 10:05 AM | Permalink | Comments 0

If you have to ask how much ...

LP Wheel Group's Tony Lee seems to have topped the charts with his ultra-blingy diamond studded stick shift, according to Sunday's New York Times. For a $165,000 Bentley Continental GT, the master of glitz created a diamond studded, 18-karat white-gold shift knob, priced at a mere $150,000.

Posted by   at 1:07 PM | Permalink | Comments 0