Thirty-five years is nearly half a lifetime, but that’s how long Toyota thinks it will take the company to phase out traditional gas-powered vehicles from its product lines. [More]
Transportation & Infrastructure
Uber Lauches UberRUSH Courier Service In Chicago, San Francisco
By 10.14.15
After spending nearly a year-and-a-half testing a courier service that provides customers with on-demand orders from local businesses in New York, Uber has officially expanded UberRUSH to two additional cities. [More]
October Food And Supplement Recall Roundup: Beware Of Surprise Cheese Curls
By 10.14.15
In this month’s Recall Roundup for food and supplements, dried fruit doesn’t declare its sulfites, tortilla chips may have some cheese curls mixed in, sausage patties may have bonus metal shards, and plenty of pet food and treats may contain foodborne illnesses that can make you and your furry friends sick. [More]
Rich People Can Get A $25K Tax Break On $100K Tesla Model X
By 10.13.15
Are you a well-off small-business owner who really wants to buy an expensive electric SUV but don’t want to pay full price? Then you’re lucky that the Tesla Model X is so heavy that it qualifies for a $25,000 tax credit. [More]
Report Claims Mercedes, Honda, Mazda Diesels Also Have Questionable Emissions
By 10.9.15
Volkswagen may not be the only carmaker with diesel engines that pass emissions tests in the garage but would fail if tested on the open road. A new report claims that several other manufacturers have diesel vehicles that test well until you put them in real world driving situations. [More]
Lyft Partners With Hertz To Recruit Drivers Who May Not Own A Car
By 10.9.15
Don’t have a car, but want to make a few extra dollars picking up strangers and taking them point A to point B? A new partnership between Lyft and Hertz car rentals aims to let you do just that — and get free gas, kind of. [More]
Is Giving Up Your Right To Sue Fiat Chrysler Worth $200?
By 10.8.15
Companies that don’t want their customers to sue have a special weapon: they slip mandatory arbitration agreements into new contracts and service agreements, requiring customers to opt out if they would prefer to retain their right to sue. Yet Fiat Chrysler is trying an interesting tactic: they’ll give you a $200 discount if you sign a piece of paper agreeing to arbitration. [More]
GM Wants Your Help To Figure Out How Hackers Could Take Over Its Cars
By 10.8.15
Following the very public hacking of Jeep that eventually led to the recall of more 1.4 million Fiat Chrysler vehicles, rival General Motors is trying to take a proactive stance to potential hack attacks, asking vehicle owners and hackers to give them a heads-up if they discover a vulnerability in the company’s cars. [More]
VW Fix Could Take Two Years Or More; Dealer Profitability Is Main Focus
By 10.8.15
Executives for Volkswagen’s U.S. operations told lawmakers during a hearing on the company’s deceptive emission systems, that he’s confident the 500,000 so-called “clean diesel” vehicles secretly set up to cheat on emissions tests can be fixed with little disruption for owners. [More]
Report: VW May Have Underreported Deaths, Injuries Related To Vehicle Accidents
By 10.8.15
Car manufacturers are required under law to report death and injury claims to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Those figures allow the regulatory agency to identify potentially fatal and dangerous defects. In the last year, the federal agency has investigated reporting inaccuracies related to Honda and Fiat Chrysler. Now, a new report shows that Volkswagen – in the midst of an emissions scandal – may have underreported deaths and injuries relate to its vehicles. [More]
Volkswagen’s U.S. Chief To Be Grilled On Capitol Hill Tomorrow
By 10.7.15
Several weeks after Volkswagen admitted that millions of its so-called “clean diesel” vehicles were secretly set up to cheat on emissions tests, U.S. lawmakers are getting their first chance to directly question the carmaker about the scandal. [More]
VW Offering Owners $2,000 “Loyalty Bonus” For Buying A New Car, Sticking With The Company
By 10.7.15
The hundreds of thousands of consumers still waiting to hear just how Volkswagen plans to fix their “clean diesel” vehicles rigged to cheat emissions tests could simply go buy a new automobile from the carmaker — you know, one that isn’t affected by the scandal. Or at least that’s what it appears VW is saying with the launch of an “Owner Loyalty Bonus” program. [More]
Toyota Plans To Have Self-Driving Car For The Masses By 2020
By 10.7.15
Toyota attempted to break away from the self-driving car fanfare last month by announcing it would instead invest $50 million into creating “life-saving intelligent” vehicles that weren’t necessarily autonomous. Today, the company made it clear that it’s also pursuing the fully driver-less route, revealing plans to release a commercially available self-driving car by 2020. [More]
Volkswagen Recall Repairs Could Start In January, Might Take All Year To Complete
By 10.7.15
The new head of embattled car manufacturer Volkswagen says the company might not be able to start recalling diesel cars that cheat on emissions tests until January, and that it might take most of 2016 for all repairs to be completed. [More]
West Virginia Sues VW Over Deceptive Advertising For Vehicles Equipped With “Defeat Devices”
By 10.6.15
Since the Environmental Protection Agency revealed that Volkswagen had rigged its “clean diesel” to cheat on emissions tests, a number of consumers and cities have sued the carmaker. Now West Virginia becomes the first state to join the list of those alleging the company tricked car-buyers into paying thousands of dollars more for supposedly environmentally-friendly vehicles. [More]
Why Did Volkswagen Only Rig Emissions Systems On Diesel Cars?
By 10.5.15
Volkswagen has admitted to rigging the emissions control systems on 11 million diesel cars over the last seven years, but those only represent a fraction of all the vehicles produced by VW during that time. Why did the carmaker only choose to tinker with its diesel vehicles instead of the larger number of gasoline cars? And how do we know VW didn’t mess with these vehicles? [More]
Studies Try To Estimate Number Of Deaths Tied To Rigged Volkswagen Emissions
By 10.5.15
Over the course of seven years, Volkswagen and its affiliated companies sold millions of diesel vehicles around the world — nearly 500,000 in the U.S. — with emissions control systems rigged so that the cars falsely appeared to meet environmental standards. While much of the focus has been on the carmaker’s alleged fraud and the financial cost to consumers and VW, some researchers have been trying to figure out how many people died as a result of the additional toxic emissions released into the air. [More]
Aspen Foods Recalls 561,000 More Pounds Of Stuffed Chicken Breasts
By 10.5.15
After what we’re guessing were a fraught couple of weeks of discussions between Aspen Foods and the U.S. Department of Agriculture after the government agency warned consumers not to eat the company’s products, stuffed chicken breasts produced since August have officially been recalled. This recall of 561,000 pounds of chicken breasts follows the recall of almost 2 million pounds earlier this year. [More]
