Main page | July 1, 2007 - July 7, 2007 »

Delphi workers ask: What next?

Delphi Corp. workers in Flint and Saginaw -- which rely on the auto-parts maker for more than 3,000 jobs -- expressed resignation, reluctance and relief as they voted on a historic contract proposal Thursday, according to the Detroit Free Press.

The pact would reduce wages for veteran workers, secure some jobs, lose thousands of others and propel Delphi from bankruptcy.

But what matters more to the 17,000 UAW workers at Delphi is what the proposal means for their futures, whether they are closing in on retirement or starting their careers.

Posted by   at 9:44 AM to Unions | Permalink | Comments 0

Oil Back Up Above $70 a Barrel

Oil prices shot back up above the psychologically important $70 a barrel mark on Friday, trading at a level last seen 10 months ago for the second time in two days on worries about gasoline supplies, according the Associated Press.

With most U.S. refineries expected to increase output in the coming months after finishing maintenance, pressure on gasoline was expected to drop. Still, prices could remain high because increased refinery capacity puts greater demands on crude availability.

Posted by   at 9:41 AM to Oil | Permalink | Comments 0

Chrysler sales to stay public as it goes private

The Chrysler Group, preparing to go private under new ownership, plans to continue making public its monthly sales results, according to the Detroit Free Press.

The long-held tradition is important to continue, in part to avoid the appearance that the automaker has something to hide, Steven Landry, Chrysler executive vice president of North America sales, global marketing and services and parts, told the Free Press in an interview Thursday.

Posted by   at 9:37 AM to Chrysler , Sales | Permalink | Comments 0

United Auto Group Inc. to change name to Penske Automotive Group Inc.

United Auto Group Inc. said it will change its corporate name to Penske Automotive Group Inc. effective July 2, according to the Detroit Free Press.

The Bloomfield Hills-based owner and operator of 311 car dealerships said it will also change its ticker symbol to PAG on the New York Stock Exchange on Monday.

Posted by   at 9:34 AM to Auto industry , Sales | Permalink | Comments 0

Honda wins 4 satisfaction awards

Four Honda models, more than any other single automaker, topped the rankings for their vehicle segments in an annual J.D. Power and Associates customer satisfaction survey of U.S. drivers, according to USA Today.
Honda Motor's newly redesigned CR-V small crossover sport-utility vehicle, Ridgeline truck and Odyssey minivan all topped their segments, and the subcompact Fit tied with Toyota Motors (TM) Yaris for a top spot.

Posted by   at 2:11 PM to Honda | Permalink | Comments 0

Importer agrees to recall Chinese tires

A tire importer says it plans to comply with the government's mandate to recall all 450,000 potentially defective Chinese tires it sold to distributors, even if that means it will go out of business, according to USA Today.

"We will do the recall until we run out of money," said Lawrence Lavigne, attorney for New Jersey-based Foreign Tire Sales. "At that point, consumers are on their own."

At issue are tires manufactured by Hangzhou Zhongce Rubber, China's second-largest tire company, that are missing "gum strips," which hold the tire together. Without the gum strips, the treads can separate and cause drivers to lose control and possibly cause the vehicle to roll over. The tires are blamed in the deaths of two Pennsylvania men.

Posted by   at 2:08 PM to Safety | Permalink | Comments 0

My, Your Car Looks So Delicious

The auto industry is naming paint colors after foods, according to a report in the New York Times. Brown is now about coffee and chocolate, said Chris Webb, exterior color trend designer at General Motors, which has the colors Dark Mocha and Cocoa. Other G.M. colors are Black Licorice, Cappuccino Frost and Salsa Red.

Other companies are also using the palate to name their palettes: Chrysler offers Cool Vanilla, Honda has Root Beer and Volvo once offered Saffron (a coppery yellow). Volkswagen has the unsubtle Lemon Yellow and Candy White. (Is that the white of the candy after you have licked off the red stripes from the candy cane?) Hyundai borrows a French menu word for the purple eggplant and calls it aubergine.

Posted by   at 2:04 PM to Accessories , Auto industry , Companies , Popular culture | Permalink | Comments 0

GM Sells Allison Transmission for $5.6 billion

General Motors says it has agreed to sell its Allison Transmission commercial and military business for about $5.6 billion to the private equity firm The Carlyle Group and Canada's Onex Corp, according to the Associated Press.

GM shares rose 2 percent in morning trading.

Posted by   at 1:48 PM to GM | Permalink | Comments 0

Oil Rises Above $70 a Barrel

Oil futures rose above $70 a barrel in New York trading today for first time since Sept. 1 and retail gasoline prices stopped falling after a government report showed that gasoline inventories dropped unexpectedly just as the summer driving season is about to peak, the Associated Press reports.

Posted by   at 1:46 PM to Gas prices , Oil | Permalink | Comments 0

Tires made in China recalled

The government has ordered a small New Jersey tire importer to recall 450,000 Chinese-made light-truck tires because they might come apart and cause fatal crashes, even though the importer says the costs of a recall would bankrupt it, USA Today reports.

The tires, in sizes typically used by full-size vans, SUVs and pickups, are blamed in a fatal accident outside Philadelphia that's generated a lawsuit against Foreign Tire Sales of Union, N.J. FTS has in turn sued Hangzhou Zhongce Rubber, one of China's biggest tiremakers, which sold it the potentially faulty tires.

Posted by   at 9:54 AM to Safety | Permalink | Comments 0

Nissan Sees Future in Electric Cars

Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn says his company is working hard to develop the next generation of smaller, lighter auto batteries - a technology that holds promise for electric cars as well as for hybrids, AP reports.

He also said Nissan and its French partner Renault SA are moving ahead with studies on a $3,000 car for the Indian market.

Posted by   at 9:51 AM to Alternative fuels , Environment , Nissan , Technology | Permalink | Comments 0

Oil Prices Slip Toward $67 a Barrel

Oil prices fell as traders awaited the release of a U.S. government inventory report expected to show increases in supplies of crude, gasoline and distillates, the Associated Press reports.

Comments from OPEC that the group did not plan to increase production in the coming months despite consistently high prices limited the decline.

Light, sweet crude for August delivery on the New York Mercantile Exchange fell 59 cents to $67.18 a barrel in electronic trading by afternoon in Europe. The contract had fallen $1.41 on Tuesday.

Posted by   at 9:49 AM to Oil | Permalink | Comments 0

Backseat Driver: Bob Tasca III ranked No.5 in Top Alcohol Funny Cars

Rhode Island's Bob Tasca III now ranks No.5 nationally in the Top Alcohol Funny Car points standings following a spectacular series of runs in his Ford Mustang at last weekend's National Hot Rod Association SuperNationals at Englishtown, N.J.
"It was a storybook weekend," Tasca said on Monday. "We were told that what we did was the greatest turnaround in the history of the NHRA."

After struggling at the two previous meets in Chicago and Atco, N.J., Tasca's team has a further setback during qualifiying heats on Friday when the car crashed into a bank of sand and gravel after its parachutes failed. "One of the chutes failed to blossom," he said.

He said the car was not too badly damaged, although it picked up about 25 pounds of gravel which had to be cleaned out.

So when the team started competing on Saturday, Tasca said that "Maybe 5 people out of the crowd of 100,000 thought we could win."

Instead, he went on to win all this heats, even beating his nemesis and the current No.2 in the rankings, Frank Manzo of New Jersey. Times for the run were close, with Manzo clocking 5.573 seconds at 248.29 mph against Tasca's 5.585 seconds at 263.92 mph. However, Tasca was quick off the start, with 0.030 seconds compared with Manzo's 0.055 seconds.

That was Round 2. Tasca went on to beat Mickey Ferro (currently No.6) in Round 3 and Bob Newberry (No.4) in Round 4. In Round 1, he beat Fred Tigges (No. 44).

Tasca said short of his wife and three children, the weekend was "the greatest accomplishment of my life." He said the win was also special because so many of his family and sponsors were on hand to see it, including his grandfather, 82-year old Bob Tasca Sr., the patriarch of the Tasca family.

And with six races left, Tasca and his team have plenty of time to make further progress up the standings.

"We're withing striking distance of the championship," he said, but added, "I am very humble, a very, very green driver."

At the same time, he said he was delighted by the way his engine performed. "We didn't hurt a sparkplug," he said. "The motor is happy and if it can run that fast and be happy, look out baby, we can start pulling the string in."

Posted by   at 1:53 PM to Racing | Permalink | Comments 0

24 Hours of Dusting Wheels and Rolling Tires

Someone told me that there is no sleep better than the sleep after the 24 Hours of Le Mans. But 23 hours into the race, which took place last weekend on 8.4 miles of public roads about an hour and a half southwest of Paris, no one on the Corvette Racing team was close to dozing, according to Nick Kurczewski of the New York Times.

Months before, I had politely turned down an offer from Chevrolet’s Corvette Racing team to watch the 75th running of the race from the comfort of the V.I.P. lounges. I really wanted to experience the race as a member of the pit crew, no frills attached.

The team said yes, and it was agreed that from 3 p.m. (9 a.m. E.S.T.) June 16 to 3 p.m. June 17, I would trade my pen and notepad for a fireproof suit and a pair of work gloves.

Posted by   at 12:14 PM to Racing | Permalink | Comments 0

Vatican issues driving guidelines

The Vatican has issued a document - "Guidelines for the Patoral Care of the Road" - which addresses a number of issues, such as problems of the international transportation of women and children for prostitution as well as the homeless on the world's roads.

It also addresses driving itself, particularly the issue of manners or consideration for others, going as far as drawing up a ten commandments of the road:

I. You shall not kill.

II. The road shall be for you a means of communion between people and not of mortal harm.

III. Courtesy, uprightness and prudence will help you deal with unforeseen events.

IV. Be charitable and help your neighbour in need, especially victims of accidents.

V. Cars shall not be for you an expression of power and domination, and an occasion of sin.

VI. Charitably convince the young and not so young not to drive when they are not in a fitting condition to do so.

VII. Support the families of accident victims.

VIII. Bring guilty motorists and their victims together, at the appropriate time, so that they can undergo the liberating experience of forgiveness.

IX. On the road, protect the more vulnerable party.

X. Feel responsible towards others.

Posted by   at 11:55 AM to On the road | Permalink | Comments 0

Automakers latch onto fuel-saving tech

A promising, if so far underwhelming, fuel-economy technology is gaining momentum as automakers, squeezed by social and political pressure, look under every rock to gain even a few tenths of a mile per gallon, according to USA Today.

The technology goes by various names but by any name does the same thing: shuts off fuel to some of an engine's cylinders when the vehicle needs only partial power.

Chrysler just said that a new line of V-6 engines will have cylinder deactivation, starting in 2010. Honda says it will have an enhanced version of what it calls Variable Cylinder Management on V-6 engines in the redesigned 2008 Accord coming this fall. And General Motors says it will use the feature on a 2008 Buick LaCrosse V-8 and '08 hybrid versions of full-size Chevrolet and GMC SUVs.

Posted by   at 11:37 AM to Chrysler , Fuel economy , GM , Honda , Technology | Permalink | Comments 0

House plans to follow Senate on renewable energy bill

Democrats celebrated a step toward reducing U.S. dependence on oil as the Senate approved a bill calling for more ethanol and the first boost in gas mileage in decades.
Now the House plans to follow suit, perhaps as early as next week, USA Today reports.

The Senate late Thursday voted 65-27 to pass the first energy bill since Democrats took control of Congress in January. But it was far from a complete victory.

Posted by   at 11:09 AM to Fuel economy | Permalink | Comments 0

Gettelfinger Lauds GM for Tentative Deal

United Auto Workers President Ron Gettelfinger credited General Motors for a tentative wage-concession deal with Delphi Corp. meant to help the struggling auto supplier emerge from bankruptcy and avoid a strike, according to the Associated Press.

Meanwhile, Gettelfinger continued to criticize Delphi's leaders, whom he said wanted to drag out the bankruptcy and put the Troy-based Delphi in foreign hands.

Posted by   at 11:04 AM to GM | Permalink | Comments 0