Car News

LOS ANGELES — Calling it the most technically advanced vehicle in the brand’s history, Cadillac kicked off a year that will see the debuts of two vital new models with the XTS luxury sedan at the L.A. auto show Wednesday.The big and roomy XTS sedan goes on sale next spring. It will be followed subsequent summer by the smaller and sportier ATS sedan.”Elegant luxury sedans are innate to Cadillac,” brand advertising chief Don Butler mentioned standing subsequent to an XTS that gives far more passenger and luggage space than its intended rivals at Audi, BMW and Mercedes-Benz.”It is a marketplace Cadillac needs to be in,” mentioned David Champion, Consumer Reports’ director of automotive testing.
(Full post Mark Phelan: Cadillac XTS a bold move…)

Back in 2007 Congress, made the Advanced Technologies Vehicle Manufacturing federal loan plan to allow the government to loan up to $25 billion to vehicle manufacturers. The federal loans had been designed to help supply the cash important to retool factories and construct a lot more fuel-efficient vehicles, but now some members of Congress are searching to end the program nicely brief of the $25 billion mark. The Detroit News reports that Texas Congressman Bill Flores has introduced a bill to end the loan plan.
(Full post Report: Texas senator proposes end to federal auto loans…)

Only days following workers ratified it, Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne says he is unhappy with parts of the new labor agreement reached in between his corporation and the United Auto Workers union. Automotive News reports that Marchionne believes a two-tier wage plan is unsustainable and need to be ended when the Chrysler-UAW labor deal is renegotiated in 2015. The two-tier program originated in 2007 so that Detroit’s Huge Three automakers (Chrysler, Ford, and General Motors) could pay entry-level workers lower wages of about $14 per hour. The concept was to trim costs and preserve the Detroit manufacturers competitive with their European and Asian competitors. “
(Full post Chrysler Can’t Survive With Two-Tier Wages, CEO Says…)

How is Youngman Lotus and Pang Da’s offer of $142 million equivalent for Saab much better than the two Chinese companies’ previous offer you to buy 53.9 percent for the equivalent of $346.6 million? They “have resources to invest in Saab” to ensure lengthy-term viability, says Saab Cars North America President and COO Tim Colbeck. Regardless of Saab’s and Saab North America’s optimism for this deal, the acquire by a tiny Chinese automaker and a Chinese dealership organization remains subject to their government’s approval. “We’re expecting to get that within a couple of weeks,” Colbeck says. Youngman/Pang Da’s
(Full post Swedish Surprise: Chinese Buying Saab After All…)

Filed under the old Batman adage, “Crime Doesn’t Pay,” here we have a Lexus IS-F being sacrificed for the sins of its owner. Seems someone was caught street racing by California authorities, and they didn’t appreciate it. So they relieved the offender of one mighty red IS-F and then didn’t send it to an auction or a good home, but straight to hell. Slowly. There’s a one-minute video with simple instructions on how to make Lexus pepperoni after the jump.
(Full post Video: Watch a 2011 Lexus IS-F be unceremoniously crushed…)

It’s official, ladies and gents: the Caterham SP/300.R is coming to America. (What, the ladies read Autoblog too. Right?) The SP-what-now, you ask? The SP/300.R. It’s the newest product from Caterham, and one of the few it has ever done that has nothing to do with the Lotus Seven. It’s a track car in the mold of an LMP racer. It debuted at the beginning of the year with a 300-horsepower turbocharged Ford Duratec, and you can place an order for yours any day now. Intriguingly, the factory opted not to go with Caterham USA, the company that imports and distributes all manner of Sevens across these United States, but gave the SP/300.R contract to Dyson Racing.
(Full post Official: Dyson Racing to distribute Caterham-Lola SP/300.R in U.S.…)

When the end of the world comes, it will arrive on the shoulders of dancing robots. The researchers behind Asimo, the humanoid robot from Honda, have tapped into the muscle behind the Xbox Kinect system to allow users to control Asimo using nothing more than their own body movements. With self-collision safeguards and upper and lower body correlation programming in place, the adorable face of our robotic overlords is moving more like a human than ever before. What’s more, Aismo can now utilize a database of text-inspired gestures as a form of communication. Why does this matter? In the past, programmers had to individually code the movements in each of Asimo’s joints in
(Full post Video: Honda’s Asimo + Kinect = Creepy animatronic hokey-pokey…)

Times change and so do people, including their tastes. Things we once thought were cool don’t appeal to us anymore. Which brings us to today’s Thread of the Day. We want to know what cars you used to think looked amazing, but no longer do. Forum member Zoomin said he used to think the second-generation Taurus SHO looked good. But, his feelings have changed. Now he thinks “meh, looks kinda old and blobby.” Other candidates included the second-generation Dodge Intrepid, and the first-generation Mercedes-Benz ML SUV. Share with us your list of cars you used to think looked amazing, but don’t anymore in the comment section below.
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(Full post Thread of the Day: Cars You Used to Think Looked Amazing, But Not So Much Anymore.…)

The Honda Insight is a hatchback with its spirit in the right place, but everything else about it has practically no spirit at all. Honda has finally seen to its lackluster hybrid by tweaking nearly everything about it. Its face has been given blue eyes courtesy of tinted headlight covers, and the grille and front spoiler benefit from a welcome sharpening. In back, a revised profile for the spoiler means improved visibility. The Insight’s sparse plastic interior is where TLC was most needed, and the loving comes via nicer seat fabric, “wood look paneling,” and stitching that breaks up the synthetic expanses. There is also more room inside, and less noise.
(Full post Frankfurt: 2012 Honda Insight gets nicer…)

Bob Lutz is on General Motors’ payroll for the third time — this time as a part-time adviser to senior management.The former vice chairman and ultimate car guy retired in spring 2010, but has provided informal advice to GM executives for free ever since.He met about monthly with CEO Dan Akerson, who wanted to formalize the relationship and compensate him, Lutz told the Free Press on Friday. But that idea displeased GM’s part-owner, the U.S. government.”The Feds took a dim view of it,” Lutz said. “I think Dan Akerson argued effectively that there is value in having me on board and that it didn’t diminish any of the current management. …
(Full post Lutz returns to GM as part-time consultant…)