Filed under: Government/Legal , Safety , Toyota A new report from the The Wall Street Journal claims that the Department of Transportation is blocking the release of National Highway Transportation Safety Administration findings on the Toyota unintended acceleration issues. According to the article, NHTSA has compiled all the relevant information and written a report on its findings, but George Pearson, the former head of the agency’s... 

The road to a national unified program to regulate fuel economy and greenhouse gas emissions for light duty automobiles in the U.S. was a long one. It started years ago, with automakers pitted against the U.S. government, California and a dozen or so other states in a battle to avoid having to deal with the fractious and discordant set of emissions and fuel economy regulations that were beginning to spring up all over the U.S. (more…)... 

Filed under: Truck , Recalls , Safety , Suzuki 2010 Suzuki Equator – Click above for high-res image gallery Remember the Suzuki Equator – the overlooked, rebadged version of the Nissan Frontier that went on sale in early 2009? There hasn’t been much to talk about the slow-selling Fronquator, but now a recall involving vehicles manufactured between November 2009 and March 2010 (a whopping total of 582 units) brings the little... 

Just about a month ago U.S. automakers, the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency — working in coordination with the White House — adopted landmark regulations to relatively quickly raise the average new car fuel efficiency to 35 mpg by 2016. That process took a year to accomplish , but it represented an amazing shift on the part of automakers to lower their resistance to such a national... 

Neighborhood Electric Vehicles (NEVs) have been touted as a low-cost way to quickly electrify much of the daily driving that people do. They typically don’t go faster than 35 mph and are increasingly showing up in cities as a way to make short commutes and run errands in a fuel-less and environmentally beneficial way. But after a series of crash tests that the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) conducted on a few popular models... 

Filed under: SUV , Truck , Recalls , GM , Hummer Hummer H3T – Click above for high-res image gallery General Motors has just announced a sizeable recall on Hummer H3 models manufactured between 2006 and 2010. According to Consumer Reports , the vehicles have defective hood louvers that could come loose over time and detach from the vehicle while driving. The tabs that hold the louvers in place have been found to break, causing vibration... 

Filed under: Sedan , Recalls , Safety , Porsche 2010 Porsche Panamera – Click above for high-res image gallery Porsche and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration are issuing a recall for the 2010 Panamera for a potential seat belt defect that could leave the driver unprotected in the event of a crash. NHTSA says the defect can occur when either front seat is put in an “extreme position,” which could lead to the... 

Filed under: Government/Legal , Toyota , Earnings/Financials According to a report by Automotive News , Toyota is ready to pay the $16.4 million fine levied against the company by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration… on one condition: the company wouldn’t be required to admit wrongdoing. If the NHTSA goes for that, apparently it can stuff its coffers; if not, the report suggests there’s a chance Toyota could... 

Filed under: Government/Legal , Recalls , Safety , Toyota Automotive News reports that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration could hit Toyota with another fine on top of the $16.4 million levied last week. As for that most recent fine, turns out that it could have been as much as $13.8 billion, based on Toyota having to pay a fine on each of the 2.3 million cars recalled. A statute, however, limits the amount to the one imposed.... 

Yesterday, the Department of Transportation and Environmental Protection Agency released new fuel-economy standards for model years 2012 to 2016. In short, fuel economy is going to improve. Under the new rules, combined fleet fuel economy will have to increase to 29.7 mpg for the 2012 model year, ramping up to 34.1 mpg by 2016. The passenger-car slice of that number goes from 33.3 (2012) to 37.8 mpg (2016) while light trucks increase from 25.4... 

Safest. Year. Ever. Traffic fatalities in 2009 were the lowest recorded according to preliminary data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). Last year’s fatalities are projected to total 33,963, down 9 percent from 2008’s figure of 37,261. We’re not exactly sure how they can estimate fatalities—there’s a brief and vague explanation of the process at the link below—but the numbers are good news. The... 

Filed under: Government/Legal , Recalls , Safety , Toyota The Congressional hearings entitled “Response by Toyota and NHTSA to Incidents of Sudden Unintended Acceleration” may have started today , but the actual response by Toyoda – that’s Akio Toyoda with a “D,” head of the Japanese automaker – will come tomorrow. If you plan on tuning in to see what interesting new information comes out in Toyoda’s... 

Filed under: Government/Legal , Recalls , Safety , Toyota There’s no arguing that Toyota ’s recent string of recalls and safety issues is a huge deal. After all, Toyota enjoyed years of rapid growth due in large part to its sterling record of safety, reliability and practicality. When analyzing the actual data, though, an interesting question arises: Are we – both the media and the public at large – blowing the Toyota... 

Filed under: Government/Legal , Japan , Recalls , Toyota Man, when it rains, it absolutely pours . Especially if you’re a carmaker called Toyota and are already embroiled in a credibility-killing ( and sales-smothering ) gas pedal recall plus another for defective floor mats . According to the Detroit Free Press , none other than U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood has absolutely blasted the Japanese giant, calling it “a little... 

What a humiliating failure the President’s Asian trip was. Not only did the President make the humiliating faux pas of bowing deeply to one tiny Asian leader, but no sooner had he returned than two more Asian leaders made counter-offers of deep cuts in carbon emissions at Copenhagen: India offered reductions of 20% and China offered 40%. Read more of this story  Read More →