It is supposed to achieve such remarkable (one might even say too-good-to-be-true) results by transforming the fuel mixture into a state that is part way between gaseous and liquid – a supercritical fluid:
Company engineers have doubled the fuel efficiency numbers in dynamometer tests of gas engines fitted with the company’s prototype SC fuel-injection systems . . . . A modified gasoline engine installed in a 3200-lb (1451-kg) test vehicle, for example, is getting 98 mpg (41.6 km/L) when running at a steady 50 mph (80 km/h) in the lab.
To this day the public believes there might have been a problem with the Audi 5000, but it’s not true. They believe the Suzuki Samurai rolled over easily, and that’s not true either. They think Ford built an unsafe Crown Victoria, when all evidence shows that the other driver’s extreme high-speed impact was actually to blame. Firestone is remembered as the world’s worst manufacturer of tires, but that was far from the truth: In the vast majority of Firestones’ tread-loss incidents, the culprits were old tires, improper inflation, and driving too fast in hot weather. Exactly the conditions that cause all tires to lose their treads.
The Audi official who said his company had investigated those complaints and found nothing was telling the truth. So was Ford when it maintained that Crown Vics could actually take a worse rear-end impact than virtually any other car on the road. Suzuki officials’ pleas that their Samurai was incredibly stable fell on deaf ears—but it was.
Today, no one remembers any of that.
Now it’s Toyota’s turn. They investigated the complaints, found a number of small problems and said that’s the only problems they could find, and moved relatively fast to fix those issues. The only way Toyota could be in trouble now is if, in a Nixonian moment, it was discovered that they’d lied or covered up another defect. The likelihood of that happening is low.
Or maybe Toyota could be in trouble until Government Motors and Chrysler have gained enough market share. “Nice little business you got there. Shame if something should happen to it.”
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — Despite a torrent of high-profile recalls that have tarnished Toyota’s once stellar reputation, a study published Wednesday reveals that the automaker actually gets fewer customer complaints per car than the majority of its competitors.
Edmunds.com reviewed more than 200,000 complaints filed with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) over the last decade and found that Toyota ranked 17th among the top 20 automakers in the overall number of complaints per vehicle sold.
According to the study, Toyota had fewer complaints than its American rivals.
The only automakers to receive fewer complaints than Toyota were Mercedes-Benz, Porsche and the BMW-made* Smart Car.
Another forced recall, and it may begin to seem – to the cynics among us – that the U.S. government has it in for Toyota, for some mysterious reason. I am sure the fact that the government owns two of Toyota’s main competitors, GM and Chrysler, has nothing to do with it whatsoever.
* The Smart, of course, is made by Mercedes-Benz. If I know that, why doesn’t CNN?
How much of your money does the government need to spend to fund a rebate that doesn’t exceed $4500 per car? Try $24,000, because that’s how much Cash for Clunkers cost the taxpayers per sale achieved. Of course, the folks who figured this out are just a bunch of experts who analyze the auto market for a living, so what do they know compared to the real experts - Obama and his czars?
The U.S. government is calling its Cash for Clunkers program a big success, with nearly 690,000 vehicles sold in July and August. But a report by automotive Web site Edmunds.com says the program actually cost taxpayers $24,000 per car sold.
Only 125,000, or 18%, of the sales were incremental, according to Edmunds.com – the remaining 82% of sales would have happened regardless of the program.
The $24,000 is the price for the sales of vehicles that were a direct result of the program, Edmunds.com said.
The clunkers program gave car buyers rebates of up to $4,500 if they traded in less-fuel-efficient vehicles for new vehicles that met certain fuel-economy requirements. The government set aside $3 billion for those rebates.
Edmunds.com looked at the sales trend for luxury vehicles and other models not included in program, and it applied the historic sales volumes of those vehicles and those in the program and estimated what the sales figures would have been without the program. The analysts then divided the $3 billion by their 125,000-vehicle number to get an average of $24,000 per vehicle.
But the czars will do much better when they start running your health care. Just trust them.
Oh no! What would all the liberals drive then?! Diesel Volkswagens?
Could the Prius and other Toyota hybrids be banned from the U.S.? It seems unthinkable, but that’s one possible ending to a patent investigation launched this week.
This case centers around Paice, a tiny Florida company that has patented a way to apply force to a car’s wheels from the electric motor or the internal combustion engine.
Paice thinks that Toyota is infringing on its technology, and is going after the automaker in court. The legal spat became much more serious for Toyota this week, when the U.S. International Trade Commission decided to investigate the matter.
The problem is that the ITC can stop any imports that infringe on U.S. patents. So in the worst-case scenario for Toyota, the commission could ban the hybrid Camry, third-generation Prius, Lexus HS250h sedan and Lexus RX450h SUV, according to Bloomberg. . . .
Paice won a 2005 patent suit against Toyota in federal court in Marshall, Tex. And you might snicker at that, because Marshall is notorious for granting all sorts of wacko patent cases. But still, the verdict was upheld on appeal, and a judge ordered Toyota to pay royalties to Paice based on car sales.
Now it looks like Paice wants a much bigger payoff, threatening to have Toyota’s hybrids banned by the same Marshall court.
Jokes aside, it would seem that patent law should have the effect of promoting technological development, not halting it. As it is, the rampant suing for patent infringement that’s going on is beginning to look like personal injury for geeks.
Reality: Super-powerful, super-expensive 21st-century steam-turbine car that looks like a jet fighter smashes the record set by a steam-engine American car in 1906 by a whopping 11 mph by doing a jaw-dropping 139.843 mph.
They would’ve done better if they had simply taken the 1906 Stanley Steamer and covered the wheels to cut the drag a bit.
Toyota’s heavy investment in hybrids seems to be holding it from moving on to the next stage - all-electric cars. Meanwhile, Nissan and Mitsubishi look set to jump from gasoline cars straight to EVs, spending as little resources as possible on the intermediate, time-buying technology – hybrids. The next ten years will be very interesting for the auto industry.
Someone is selling the Benetton Ford B194 in which Michael Schumacher won the first of his record seven F1 world titles in 1994. The car was created by the same designer, Rory Byrne, who would design all other Schumacher’s championship-winning cars – another Benetton and five Ferraris. The highest bid as of now (the first hour of August 16, Eastern Time) is €575,050.00. It should sell for much more.
General Motors has cast doubt over the long-term future of the Chevrolet Volt by claiming it may not be commercially viable and other rivals may overtake it with superior and more advanced technology.
GM submitted a regulatory filing report to the US Treasury yesterday and CEO Fritz Henderson claimed its “disclosures are consistent with our commitment to remain transparent and to keep the public informed of our progress”.
Wasn’t the Volt – and its promise of world leadership in green vehicle technology – a big part of why GM had to be saved with heaps of taxpayer dollars? It certainly sounded better than “we need your money to bail out a union that delivered cash and votes to get the president elected”.
The exchange between the car dealer and the CNN anchorwoman is hilarious. They seem like they are from different planets – or, rather, from different Americas.
A ”semi-assault weapon”, eh? You need to see her face when she utters these words.
The findings are based on where each vehicle is built, its popularity based on sales volume and the percentage of the parts made in the U.S. based on the cost or value of those parts.
This year, the Camry (not counting the hybrid or the Solara) dethroned the F-150 which had been a five-time winner. The Ford truck came in at No. 2.
Toyota had the most individual models on the list with four, including the Sienna minivan in the sixth spot, followed by the Tundra full-size pickup, and the new Venza crossover at No. 10.
Detroit’s Big Three automakers collectively have five vehicles in the top 10 spots, which is their lowest showing since Cars.com started the index in 2006 and was conducted [sic] twice a year initially.
What is good for Toyota is good for America. Can’t say that about Government Motors.
I wonder, though, if it’s a good idea to give so much weight in their formula to a model’s sales volume:
The Ford Taurus had the most domestic parts at 90 percent but landed 9thon the list, largely because the new Taurus is selling about 2,000 units a month compared with about 25,000 Camrys a month.
Ford was the only major automaker to post a smaller-than-expected sales drop in June, and it continued to gain market share on its rivals whom the government was so generous to bail out with your hard-earned money.
