Electric Cars
Posted by admin on Mar 30, 2009
In an electric car, high performance batteries store electricity, and an electric motor provides propulsion with zero emissions.
Electric cars require no oil changes or tune ups.
Electric cars have fewer than 1/10th as many parts as a gas car.
Electric cars can usually be charged in ones garage overnight.
Electric cars have no engine, no gas tank, and no transmission.
GM plans to launch Chevy Volt Electric Car by the end of 2010.
Ford plans to seell 3 passenger electric vehicles in 2011.
Projection: Plug-in car sales will hit 4 mil in 2020.
Projection: Plug-in cars will account for more than 20 percent of new cars sold in 2020.
Facts on Tesla’s Model S, all-electric car:
Entrepreneur Elon Musk is the South Africa-born co-founder of PayPal and the owner of Tesla Motors.
Tesla’s all-electric Model S was unveiled on March 26, 2009.
Tesla’s Model S is a four-door sedan with an optional third set of seats that can boost capacity to seven people.
Tesla’s Model S is 196 inches long, 5 inches longer than a Honda Accord.
The Model S claims a 300-mile range and fast-charging technology that can have it ready to roll again in 45 minutes.
Model S battery packs will be easier to remove, so long-distance drivers may one day be able to stop at repair shops and borrow a fully charged pack.
The Model S won’t be available until 2011.
Tesla is taking deposits now on the cars, which will cost $49,000 after a $7,500 federal tax credit for electric vehicles.
Tags: Electric Cars
Revised Dodge Challenger SE V6 gets 5-Speed Auto and new Rallye Edition
Posted by admin on Mar 30, 2009
Stop the press; believe it or not, Dodge finally decided to bring the entry-level Challenger SE V6 into (some) terms with the 21st century by replacing the four(!)-speed manual automatic transmission with the same five-speed auto used in the V8 models. The updated Challenger SE with its 3.5-liter V6 was revealed along with a new SE Rallye edition at the Spring Festival of LXs in Irvine California this weekend.
Edmund’s Insideline that broke the story claims that while Chrysler did not announce performance figures, it did reveal that the 5-speed auto helps the SE deliver 25mpg on the highway. However, this could be a typo as that’s the exact fuel economy rating that the company gives for the current SE with the 4-speed auto.
As for the Challenger SE Rallye, it will be available from April with a base price of $26,490 including destination. The Rallye package adds dual hood and deck lid stripes, 18-inch five-spoke alloy wheels with black accents, a body colored boot-lid spoiler, a chrome fuel cap and “Micro Carbon”
Tags: AlloyWheel, Automatic transmission, california, challenger, Chrysler, Dodge, Fuel economy in automobiles, Parts and Accessories, Revised Dodge Challenger SE V6 gets 5-Speed Auto and new Rallye Edition
2009 Aston Martin DBS
Posted by admin on Mar 30, 2009
There are luxury cars and there are sports cars; and surprisingly few that can be called both. Mostly this is the result of luxury items being a detriment to a vehicle’s weight. This explains the spartan interior of a Lotus or the plastic-like cheapness that dogged Italian sports cars for many years. Besides being one of the most iconic cars in the world, the Aston Martin DBS manages to straddle the line between both characteristics and is truly worthy of being called a luxury sports car.
What is essentially a $100,000 option to the DB9, the $270,000 DBS offers more than just a gussied up face to the roughly 300 owners lucky enough to own one. Althought the DBS does share its lightweight aluminum chassis with the DB9, the heart of the DBS beats with a 6.0 liter V12 engine that produces, quite angrily, 510 horsepower. This power translates into a 0-60 mph time of 4.2 seconds and a top speed of 191. Not that it should matter with this sort of car, but a byproduct of this power is a 12 mpg rating. However, unlike other high-end sports cars that scream their speed out to the world, the DBS projects a grownup, almost conservative British visage that is extremely attractive without being obnoxious about it.
Tags: 2009 Aston Martin DBS, Aluminium, Aston Martin DBS, AstonMartin, Automobile, GenevaMotorShow, Luxury vehicle, sports car, V12 engine
GM’s Fritz Henderson: The New Man On The Hot Seat
Posted by admin on Mar 30, 2009
General Motors has always reserved its top spot for executives with strong financial backgrounds. So from that perspective, Fritz Henderson, previously GM president and chief operating officer, is a natural to take over for just-departing CEO Rick Wagoner, who also rose through the company’s treasurer’s office.
But the highly regarded Henderson faces at least two big problems if he hopes to extend his “interim” as GM’s new CEO into a permanent gig.
First, all the financial levers that the company traditionally has used to power its business, and that have called for a money man to be at the helm, have been frozen for the past few months and are now being manipulated by the federal government. Production plans, incentive levels, stock sales, union contracts - all of these things are still nominally under Henderson’s purview, but now they’re under the de facto jurisdiction of the federal government’s auto-industry task force.
And if President Obama forces GM into bankruptcy court as reports Monday have suggested are possible, Henderson’s hands will be tied even further.
Indeed, in his first meeting with reporters after becoming GM’s CEO, Henderson admitted Monday there’s a greater risk that the company will have to reorganize through bankruptcy, because of greater demands from the Obama administration to get debt off its balance sheet. But he reiterated what GM executives have said for months — restructuring outside of the court but with Washington’s support is preferrable.
Second, of course, Henderson suffers immediately and irreversibly from his association with the Wagoner regime. That’s why many observers give him no better than a 50-50 chance of hanging on to his new job for the long term.
It’s very possible that the Obama administration simply had to have Wagoner’s scalp immediately - because of GM’s failure to come up with a viable survival plan by tomorrow’s deadline - but that they can wait a while to take Henderson’s. Perhaps they just want Henderson to plunge GM into bankruptcy court and preside over the triage then take his walking papers and catch up with Wagoner.
Still, if Obama actually gives GM the opportunity to pull itself up by its boostraps with government aid, many industry watchers believe that Henderson would be a good leader toward renaissance. “He’s a GM lifer and incredibly capable,” said Joseph Phillippi, president of AutoTrends Consulting, in Short Hills, N.J., said about Henderson a while ago.
Within GM’s self-defined universe, the 50-year-old Henderson has been a whiz kid. The Detroit native graduated from the University of Michigan, where he was a baseball pitcher. He joined the automaker’s treasurer’s office in New York as a senior analyst in 1984 just after graduating from Harvard Business School.
Henderson shortly worked his way up through GMAC. In the mid-Nineties for a while he ran GM’s parts-making operations. But he made the biggest splash in Brazil, where Henderson joined Wagoner and ex-GM high-flyer Mark Hogan in transforming the company’s operations there into a global model.
In 2000, Henderson became the only non-European executive of GM besides Wagoner to be chosen for a six-person steering committee that was to work with Fiat on an agreement to make frames for GM’s European cars. Soon he was overseeing GM in all of Latin America, Africa and the Middle East. The next year, Henderson was appointed to run GM Asia-Pacific. And in 2004, he became head of GM’s European operations.
Henderson became GM’s CFO more than three years ago and was elevated to COO about a year ago. As such, he has had a central role representing Wagoner in negotiations aimed at securing more and more federal loan dollars - and at keeping GM out of bankruptcy court.
Now, it falls to Henderson to shepherd GM through the next stage of the death of the company as the world has known it. Whether he has a chance of lasting at the top beyond that, probably only the federal auto task force knows for sure.
Tags: GM's Fritz Henderson, GM's Fritz Henderson: The New Man On The Hot Seat, The New Man On The Hot Seat
The Obama administration’s auto industry plan
Posted by admin on Mar 30, 2009
President Barack Obama’s auto task force determined that General Motors has not presented a viable plan that would succeed.
_ Top executive Rick Wagoner will step down as chairman and chief executive. Kent Kresa, a GM board member, will serve as interim chairman and current president Fritz Henderson will serve as chief executive.
_ The administration is willing to give GM adequate working capital for 60 days to develop a more aggressive restructuring plan.
_ The company’s stakeholders — unions, bondholders and others — will need to make sacrifices.
_ Using the bankruptcy code “in a quick and surgical way” could be employed to help revitalize General Motors.
CHRYSLER:
_ The task force has concluded that Chrysler is not viable as a standalone company.
_ The administration will provide Chrysler with working capital for 30 days to conclude an alliance with Fiat SpA, an Italian automaker.
_ If successful, the government will consider investing up to $6 billion to help the partnership between Chrysler and Fiat succeed.
_ If the agreement is not reached, the government will not invest any additional taxpayer funds in Chrysler.
_ The company’s stakeholders — unions, bondholders and others — will need to make sacrifices.
_ Employing the bankruptcy code “in a quick and surgical way” could be used to help revitalize Chrysler.
CONSUMERS:
_ The administration will protect consumer warranties from General Motors and Chrysler vehicles.
_ The plan includes an incentive program meant to increase car sales. Obama will work with Congress to use parts of the economic stimulus package to fund a program that would give consumers a “generous credit” when they replace an older, less fuel-efficient car and buy a new, cleaner vehicle. What form such a credit would take, such as a tax credit, was not specified in the plan.
_ The Internal Revenue Service will launch a campaign to alert consumers of a new tax benefit for auto purchases between Feb. 16 and the end of the year. Consumers may be able to deduct the cost of any sales and excise taxes, a provision that could lead to has many as 100,000 new car sales.
Tags: The Obama administration's auto industry plan