Category: Automobiles

Doing well, not good

Dan Neil objects to incremental improvements in SUV mileage.

Strategic: This is the strongest objection. In a time of surpassing urgency — whether your pet issue is global warming, oil security or economic disruption — we are accepting, even rewarding relatively modest and incremental changes in efficiency that require no sacrifice, no change in consumer behavior at all. This isn’t going to get it done, people. The notion that American drivers can sally on as before, driving the miles and tonnage they do, and only the technology under the hood has to change, is complete bollocks. We will incrementalize ourselves to the crack of doom.

Neil points out that the manufacturers and their accomplices legislators in Washington are working to exempt trucks (and thereby large SUVs) from future fuel economy standards (35 mpg by 2020). I will go on to point out, that for example, as noted here this morning, 57% of GMs sales in North America are trucks.

Car talk

57% of General Motors’ sales units are trucks.

If Toyota stopped making vehicles on June 1st, their dealers would be out of stock by Independence Day. If GM stopped making vehicles on June 1st, their dealers could have kept selling stock until Labor Day. (The point being that GM has a million units in dealer stock on average; Toyota 200,000.)

(NewMexiKen was born in Detroit. I can’t help it, I find the automobile industry strangely fascinating.)

Facts gleaned from The Truth About Cars.

Another Year of Automotive Turkeys

In compiling our fourth annual list of Automotive Turkeys, we looked at four factors, all pertaining to 2007 model-year vehicles: number of recalls to date, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) database; reliability ratings from Consumer Reports; depreciation, in the form of Automotive Leasing Guide’s (ALG) star ratings; and safety, from NHTSA and Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) crash-test ratings.

Besides a standout number of recalls, we looked specifically for below-average reliability, high depreciation, and NHTSA ratings below four stars and/or IIHS results of “Marginal” or “Poor.” Of the vehicles that met at least two of these qualifications, we also looked subjectively at other factors, such as fuel efficiency and cost.

Topping the list are the Chrysler Sebring, Dodge Nitro, Jeep Liberty, Dodge Caliber, and Dodge Magnum.

ForbesAutos.com

Turkeys six through ten: Ford Crown Victoria, Chevrolet Aveo, Nissan Quest, Hyundai Entourage and Pontiac Grand Prix.

Don’t drive and talk

According to a report in the Albuquerque Tribune, 798 drivers have been cited for talking on a hand-held cell phone since the ordinance went into effect. Two have been cited twice since enforcement began in April.

It’s $100 for the first offense; $200 for subsequent offenses. Those would be a pretty expensive calls.

NewMexiKen sees this violated all the time, including one police officer I noticed using a hand-held phone while driving.

Elsewhere The Newspaper.com has a lengthy piece on red-light and speed cameras — The Roads Have Eyes.

October Auto Sales Up… Or Down

U.S. auto sales showed their first overall increase since May, with a 1.2 percent gain over last October– if you don’t adjust for selling days. If you do, (as does BusinessWeek) then sales were down about 3 percent.

The Truth About Cars

NewMexiKen passes this along mostly to point out the poor way statistics are reported in the MSM. It seems to me Business Week has it right, but I’d go further. Why can’t the comparison be based against a three-year or five-year October average? Aren’t year-to-year comparisons almost certain to be anomalies (like the number of sales days in one year vs. another)? And were car sales depressed a year ago or good?

Chrysler and Ford were each down around 9% last month from 2006.

Ignorance of the law is no excuse

The Virginia legislature enacted a law five years ago making it a serious crime to drive past a police officer on the side of the road without changing lanes. As a result, unsuspecting motorists, who are not speeding, can nonetheless be caught in a speed trap and face a first degree misdemeanor ticket that carries a fine of up to $2500. According to a Virginia State Police news release issued in July, despite the significant financial penalty involved, nearly three-quarters of all motorists have never heard of “move over” laws.

Forty states have passed these laws which require drivers either to make an immediate lane change when approaching a police officer with his flashing lights activated, or to slow down at least 20 MPH under the posted speed limit.

TheNewspaper.com

Photo Enforcement Generating Millions

All together, [Albuquerque] collected $10,611,397 in revenue and handed over $2,844,920 to Redflex. This left the city with between $5.8 and $7.8 million in net profit. The precise figure is not known as officials charged as photo enforcement expenses a number of part and full-time police officer salaries as well as the entire administrative hearing office budget. The audit report sidestepped the question of whether the ticketing program has had any beneficial effect on traffic accidents. It mentioned that police could claim only two of the nineteen intersections with cameras might have seen a decrease in accidents.

TheNewspaper

I like this most about our local system: “The so-called ‘speed on green’ feature ensures that motorists will not be able to adjust their speed to make it through a short yellow light without getting a ticket.”

No brainers

“The interstate highway system could turn into a nationwide network of toll roads as plans proceed to add tolls to existing freeways in Maine and Pennsylvania while an entirely new tolled interstate is approved for South Carolina.”

TheNewspaper has details.

Many of these same politicians scream mightily at the thought of raising the tax on gasoline. The federal tax has remained constant at 18.4¢ a gallon while the price of gas has gone up 200 percent. As the majority of the gasoline tax goes to maintaining roads and bridges, this seems like a no-brainer to NewMexiKen. Raise the tax a few cents and forego the expense of toll gates and booths, electronic toll systems and the associated bureaucracy.

But there are a lot of no-brainers in political office.

Count the cultural references

It doesn’t matter the car, I just love reading L.A. Times auto critic Dan Neil:

VERILY, it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a chubby eighth-grader to wriggle into the back seat of most four-door, three-row crossovers. Here is the functional impasse of vehicles like the Mazda CX-9, Volvo XC90 and Acura MDX: The opening for the rear doors cannot be made large enough for passengers to readily ingress the third row. Widening the rear-door openings results in something like the Mercedes-Benz R-Class, whose huge rear doors spread to the wingspan of a U2 spy plane, or the ears of Alfred E. Neuman.

What buyers of these vehicles really want is a minivan, a seven-passenger vehicle with large and convenient sliding doors on the sides. Oh, but heaven forfend! If you drove a minivan people might think you’re a . . . you know . . . parent or something! It seems to me the whole crossover segment is driven by a single, neurotic imperative to deny family status. Trust me, people: If you’re driving a big honking crossover with child car seats in the back, you’re not fooling anyone. You are soooo married.

And all you guys on Paseo doing 75 think you’re so cool

“Londoner Tim Brady is now the new British national automobile speeding ticket record holder. Brady broke the old record by 16mph, by doing 172mph (277kph) in a 3.6 liter Porsche 911 Turbo ‘borrowed’ from his employer, a luxury car rental company.”

The Truth About Cars

Cost Brady 10 weeks in jail among other things.

The fastest an American has ever been caught is “205mph (330kph) on a Honda RC51 superbike.”

Pure car porn

Let’s assume there’s a bright side to the universe, a place where mercy and justice prevail, where the good are rewarded and the bad punished with equal alacrity. On this sunny shore, public school teachers make six figures, all stray kittens find good homes, and yard gnomes never get their little ceramic heads caved in.

Do not look for the Mercedes-Benz CL63 AMG there. This is the Car of Sauron, a black-hearted sin of mechanical seduction, an automobile to make you eat all your pretty little words about carbon footprints and warming greenhouses. A veritable neutron star of gas-burning evil, this stupendous, beautiful two-door — the rakish coupe version of the obsidian-souled S63 sedan — has the power to corrupt, oh yeah, absolutely. I honestly believe if you loaned this car to Ralph Nader and Ed Begley Jr. for the weekend, by Sunday night they’d be doing doughnuts in a Ralphs parking lot.

Dan Neil

0-to-155 in less than 30 seconds. 518 hp. Neil was getting “about 9 miles per gallon at one point.”

Fast commuter trains and grade crossings — a deadly mix — again

The Rail Runner commuter train collided with a vehicle Wednesday, killing one person, state police said.

The collision occurred just after 6 p.m. at a private crossing midway between Los Lunas and Belen. It was about a quarter of a mile from where the train struck a sport utility vehicle last month, killing two people.

Santa Fe New Mexican

At top speed the Rail Runner is moving 116 feet a second. People aren’t used to trains moving that fast — and they usually don’t on rails that have grade crossings. One of these collisions is going to kill people on the train.

10 things never to say to a car salesman

“I’m ready to buy …”
“I can afford this much … ”
“Yes, I have a trade-in …”
“I’m only buying the …”
“I’m not sure … which model …”
“Oh, I’ve wanted one …”
“I’ll take whatever …”
“What’s the lowest price …”
“Sure, I’ll look at the numbers …”
“I think you can do a lot better …”

Forbes has the follow-up on each.

Idle thoughts

I love America and I love New Mexico and I love the New Mexico State Fair. Could there be anything more American than the fair with it’s crazy food, and horses barrel racing, and street entertainers, and bands, and high school students reciting their own poems, and FFA displays? And blue ribbons everywhere — pottery, Indian bead work, photographs, Lego projects, paintings, cookies, scrapbook pages, woodworking, quilts.

At the Fair a number of schools and school districts from around the state had displays of student art work. Some was what you’d expect and some was great. And I don’t know if there is some secret art colony in Clayton, New Mexico, or an art teacher of extraordinary talent, but WOW! can those kids do art in Clayton, population 2,132.

NewMexiKen took my car in for servicing early this morning. On the floor in the Lexus showroom were four cars, three of them black. Henry Ford would be so proud. (Ford once said, “Any customer can have a car painted any color that he wants so long as it is black.” Black paint dried faster.)

“Today” was on the TV in the customer lounge at Lexus and I saw an interview with Jodie Foster, who has a new film. Watching Foster I decided John Hinckley Jr. wasn’t completely crazy.

The crowd of 41,000 for the New Mexico State vs. New Mexico football game last Saturday night doesn’t sound very impressive until you realize that was nearly as many people as live in Farmington, the sixth largest city in the whole state.

Not your father’s Honda Accord — Well, yes it probably is

The ever-awesome Dan Neil reviews the new Honda Accord. He begins:

I was sitting at a red light when they rolled up beside me, the guy riding his Suzuki Do-Me 8000 with his hot female companion on the back, her thongage pouring out of her low-rise jeans. Her blond hair fell from beneath the helmet and fluffed weightlessly in the hot breeze. Her skintight ballistic-armor motorcycle jacket was unzipped down to her navel. It’s a good look, I guess, if you go in for that sort of thing.

As I sat there in the Amana-white 2008 Honda Accord EX-L sedan, she looked over at me. I knew what she was thinking. I knew she wanted me.

And why wouldn’t she? The Honda Accord ska-reams confirmed heterosexual, and not in a Larry Craig way, either. This car ought to be issued with a complimentary pair of relaxed-fit dad jeans. Every male owner should get a free BlackBerry, which is like monogamy’s ankle bracelet. To own this car is to be possessed with an inexplicable urge to trim hedges. While other cars suggest the owner is still working out issues — experimenting, if you will — the Accord sedan says, “Hey, I’m past all that. I’m a smoldering volcano of straight suburban love, and I accept it.”

“[T]he Accord is an institution, like the Federal Reserve or the missionary position.”

More Tolling

Tolls in Florida are expected to bring in more than $1 billion in revenue this year with future revenues expected to explode as new tolls come online. Last month, the US Department of Transportation handed FDOT $62.9 million as a reward to create toll lanes on Interstate 95 in Miami. Lee County expects to add toll lanes to Interstate 75. Florida Governor Charlie Crist (R) on Tuesday suggested tolling could help solve the state’s budget deficit.

The Newspaper

Slow Down Arizona

Arizona Department of Public Safety officials inked a deal with an Australian manufacturer of automated ticketing machines to begin a statewide freeway photo radar program by November. The state will allow Redflex to run a pair of speed camera vans on freeways and two-lane roads anywhere in the state where they might generate significant revenue. The cameras are merely the first installment in a more comprehensive plan by Governor Janet Napolitano (D) to set up permanent speed cameras on every major freeway in the state.

The Newspaper