Oracle of Delphi

As Toyota Motor Corp. joins the Big Three Detroit automakers in trying to soften up fuel economy legislation winding through Congress that would require a Corporate Average Fuel Economy standard of 35 mpg by 2020, what gets lost in the controversy is that the carmakers actually could achieve the target. They just want a little more time — and money. Key to the fuel economy target in the likely bill: building pickups and sport-utility vehicles that average 27.6 mpg by 2020. Despite complaints from automakers, that goal is certainly attainable. But it's going to take a well-funded information campaign aimed at consumers to prime the marketplace for what amounts to a re-engineering of the U.S. pickup market. This is what automakers, even Toyota, are afraid of. Nobody wants to upset "Bubba" pickup buyer. The automakers have the technology to make the shift happen. But to build pickup trucks that get almost 10 miles more per gallon than they do now will require billions in new investment. This is a legitimate concern on the part of the auto companies, since the three domestics are struggling mightily to make any profit at all these days. Research and consulting firm Global Insight recently studied the issue and concluded that technology and manufacturing investments would be about $12 billion, including $8 billion on eight new diesel engine plants. And those investments would have to be made starting now, says Phil Gott, Global Insight's director of automotive consulting, in order to achieve the ramp-up with consumers. Article continues: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21351883/

Western automakers are fighting to stop sales of China-built cars that resemble their models. Fiat has gone to courts in Italy and China to block sales of the Peri, a car built by Chinese automaker Great Wall Motor. The Peri is almost an exact replica of the Panda, Europe’s best-selling minicar, Fiat says. BMW and Daimler are suing European distributors to stop sales of China-built cars that appear to be clones of their cars. Meanwhile, Toyota has promised to do a better job obtaining design patents for its models in worldwide markets after the UFO, an SUV that closely resembles the second-generation RAV4, went on sale in Europe. Ready to fight Chinese carmakers have been copying Western designs for years. Industry experts estimate that a carmaker can save up to €200 million in development costs for a small car by cloning or reverse-engineering an existing model. The issue is gaining in importance as some of these copies start to arrive in Europe. Automakers want to stop sales of the clones because they fear the often poorly built counterfeits will hurt their brand images. They also fear losing market share to the lower-cost look-alikes. “[The legal proceedings are] sending a message to the Chinese authorities that Western automakers are prepared to defend themselves,” said Colin Couchman, a senior market analyst at Global Insight in London. BMW confirmed that it has started legal proceedings to stop the market launch of the Shuanghuan CEO, an SUV that looks like the first-generation BMW X5. But BMW CEO Norbert Reithofer said, in an interview last month, that Chinese copies are likely to be “more of a problem for mass manufacturers than on the premium side.” Fiat, which has regained market share in its core small-car market, is one volume carmaker that is taking the Chinese advances seriously. “Potentially, Fiat has a lot to lose because if people move to buy [Chinese cars] in significant numbers then their market share will decline,” Couchman said. Courts will decide Paul Nieuwenhuis, director of the Centre for Automotive Industry Research at Cardiff University in Wales, said Fiat also doesn’t want its brand value diminished by poor-quality look-alikes. “Fiat obviously sees an opportunity in the growing Chinese market for small cars,” he said. Fiat has asked courts in China and Italy to block Great Wall from selling the Peri, which it says is the same as the Panda except for its headlights and bumpers. “We expect the first court ruling in China by December and in Turin for Europe by end of January 2008,” said Monica Borgi, Fiat Group Automobiles senior legal counsel. Federico Daffi, managing director at Eurasia Motor, the Italian importer for Great Wall, says it will not import the Peri into Europe before the court case with Fiat is settled. “When everything is cleared, we are ready to begin selling the Peri,” he said. The Peri is Great Wall’s first passenger car. Fiat started investigating the car’s strong resemblance to the Panda after the Peri was unveiled at the Beijing auto show in November 2006. Great Wall plans to start Peri sales in China this month. Export to Europe was originally planned to start next summer. Fiat patented the Panda’s design in Europe in December 2002 and in China seven months later. Fiat’s Borgi said in Europe a court bases its judgment on whether design rights have been infringed after court-appointed technical experts have checked a car’s patent and drawings of the alleged copy. In China, Fiat must submit its technical analysis proving that its design has been copied. Link: http://www.autonews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/arti...mailweeklyANE02

My sub has teeth!

I'm glad to see you're back, you Saab Snob you! :AH-HA_wink:

i puffi

I stand with your dad! :AH-HA_wink:

The 3800 engine is one of my all time favorite engines.

W W W W !

I'm going to have a hard time picking in this contest, they are all so good!

Or even more worse, a Holden Maloo! :rotflmao:

Exactly. :AH-HA_wink:

Do you accept GM Employee discounts?

Video Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NwG1pjFGoAo

Video Link:

Dr. Seuss - One fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish

The A380 is not their beluga whale, but this is!

When I was in Delaware last weekend, 92 octane was $2.76 at WAWA. I love WAWA!

I have VIS and VOS, among other things!

I'm not a foreigner, I have and EU passport, and that's what I entered the country on. I have dual citizenship, US and Germany. The EU changed my German passport to a EU passport 2 or 3 years ago. All the countries in Europe are going to an EU passport too, if they haven't already . We are one big happy European family now!

Video Link: http://video.msn.com/?mkt=en-US&brand=...16-bdedb2368522

That would suck to have a passion to design cars, spend the money to go to design school, and end up designing kitchen appliances the rest of your life.

Have the pictures already been picked? Would be nice to get a preview.

You could have sold it to me for a dollar, and I would have let you visited it anytime you wanted.

I still like this truck! The car looks very 57ish retro Chevy Bel Air, all it needs is a Chevy grille. :AH-HA_wink:

NEW YORK - Jim Ammons grumbles to himself every time he fills up his Ford Expedition, but he says gas prices would have to almost quadruple to $10 a gallon before he’d ditch his SUV. Still, paying $55 to fill his 20 gallon tank isn’t easy for the information specialist. “This right here is catastrophic for a lot of families,” Ammons, 54, said this week at a Houston Chevron station that was charging $2.65 a gallon for regular unleaded. “A lot of them have to choose: Do I buy food, do I send my kids to school or do I fill up my tank?” That choice may soon get a lot more difficult. The steep rise in oil prices to $90 a barrel over the past month means American consumers are almost certain to pay more for gasoline, heating oil, airline tickets and even food and goods that have to be transported great distances, experts say. Some analysts are now predicting oil could go as high as $120 a barrel, but others argue that underlying supply and demand fundamentals do not support such a spike and that a drop in prices is more likely. What is clear is that oil has become a magnet for “hot money” from hedge funds and other momentum investors betting that the trend for higher prices still has a way to run. The dollar’s decline, which makes dollar-denominated oil futures a bargain to overseas investors, also has played a role in the recent runup. Absent an astounding rise in prices, few economists expect high energy costs alone to push the economy into a recession, as previous oil price shocks did in the 1970s and early 1980s. That’s because the economy has become more energy efficient, and incomes have grown faster than energy costs. On a percentage basis, the country spends half the amount on energy today than it spent in 1980. Gasoline prices now average $2.76 a gallon across the country for unleaded regular, according to the Energy Information Administration. While that’s down almost half a dollar from their May peak, pump prices are still 53 cents higher than a year ago. Gas prices usually fall sharply after Labor Day — they dropped 62 cents last year between the end of August and mid-October, for instance. But this year, prices have actually risen slightly since summer’s end. In part, that’s because oil futures jumped 30 percent since late August, topping $90 a barrel for the first time ever on Thursday. Falling prices for ethanol, a gasoline additive, and rising imports of refined gasoline, which have helped keep supplies adequate, have played a role in keeping retail prices relatively subdued. But that’s not expected to last — many analysts now expect prices to rise by at least 10 to 15 cents a gallon, or more if oil pushes even higher. “Consumers will now see higher prices at the pump in the coming months and weeks,” said John Kilduff, vice president of risk management at MF Global UK Ltd. There are signs high fuel prices are already having an impact. The EIA says demand for gas fell 0.5 percent over the last four weeks from a year ago, and has been lower since Labor Day. That reverses a trend in recent years of steadily rising demand. During some weeks this summer, demand rose more than 1 percent over the previous year. The EIA also expects heating oil costs to jump 22 percent this winter. Demand may slip a little, but there’s only so much homeowners dependent on that fuel source can do to cut back, especially if it turns out to be an unusually cold winter. The result may be less spending on other goods and services, which could hurt economic growth. Article Continues: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21381254/page/2/