Filed under: Government/Legal There’s really no good news about a recession, but if you really hate your commute (and you’re not one of the millions of Americans out of work) at least traffic congestion subsides a bit. We don’t know about you, but we’d rather see a strong economy even if it means a bit more cars on the road, and a new study by traffic and navigation services…

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Autoblog

Topics: trafficcongestion, traffic, recession, bottlenecks

Filed under: Etc. , Government/Legal Tampa Strippermobile gets shut down - Click above to watch video after the jump To advertise the D

Topics: florida, entry, strippermobile

Filed under: Etc. , Government/Legal , Safety , Technology According the SEMA Action Network, a bill has been introduced in Utah that will “ban the use of aftermarket exhaust systems.” The organization is urging people to contact Utah Senators immediately to protest the substitute bill ( S.B. 106 ), introduced by Senator Patricia Jones, for the following reasons: S.B. 106 ignores the fact that aftermarket exhaust systems are designed to make vehicles run more …

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Autoblog

Topics: tech, safety, senator, exhaust system, overly-alarming

Filed under: Government/Legal , Recalls , Safety , Toyota And the saga continues. According to House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Ed Towns (D-N.Y.), documents obtained by the committee under subpoena from Dimitrios Biller - managing counsel in the product liability group of Toyota Motor Sales USA from April 2003 to September 2007 - “indicate Toyota deliberately withheld records that it was legally required to produce in response to discovery orders in litigation.” Towns further says that many such documents “concern…

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Autoblog

Topics: toyotasafety, house, edtowns

Filed under: Government/Legal , Recalls , Safety , Technology , Toyota Airplanes have so-called black boxes that track what takes place in the moments before a crash. allowing authorities and investigators to piece together the accident so that something similar can be avoided in the future. Soon, cars and trucks will be carrying such devices as well, spurred on in no small part by the recent cases of unintended acceleration reported by a number of Toyota drivers and the automaker’s subsequent recalls…

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Autoblog

Topics: operator, north, united-states, images, toyota

There’s a new verb in the auto vernacular. Saab-ing it. That’s what people inside Hummer and General Motors say they are doing with the menacing-SUV brand now that a tentative deal to sell it to China’s Sichuan Tengzhong Industrial Machinery has fallen through. GM says they will wind Hummer down. Recall over the past several months before closing the sale of Saab to Spyker Cars that GM said a couple of times…

David Welch

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Auto Beat - BusinessWeek

Topics: auto, china, consumer, definition

Filed under: SUV , Government/Legal , GM , Hummer , Off-Road According to a report by the Wall Street Journal , General Motors is taking a second look at two previous offers for Hummer after the deal to sell the ailing sports utility brand finally succumbed to a slow death yesterday . The WSJ doesn’t divulge which companies are in the offing to purchase Hummer, only saying that GM had rejected offers from the two firms last year…

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Autoblog

Topics: image, entry, china

Filed under: Government/Legal , Recalls Cummins Inc. has lodged a settlement in the U.S. District Court for D.C. agreeing to pay a $2.1 million penalty for violating the Clean Air Act. What did Cummins do? Well, it “shipped more than 570,000 heavy duty diesel engines to vehicle equipment manufacturers nationwide without pollution control equipment included” between 1998 and 2006. Even with that many engines sold, Cummins has agreed to recall only 405 of …

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Topics: cumminscleanairact, correct, cummins clean air act, cummins diesel, clean air act

Filed under: Government/Legal , Recalls , Safety , Toyota The second day of Congressional hearings on the “Response by Toyota and NHTSA to Incidents of Sudden Unintended Acceleration” has been underway since 11 am this morning, with an animated NHTSA Secretary Ray LaHood juking and jiving around Congress’ questions. But the big showing today is Toyota President Akio Toyoda, who’s taking the stand in 10 minutes to discuss the automaker’s handing of the 8.5 million vehicles being recalled for accelerator defects. You…

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Autoblog

Topics: hearings, akiotoyoda, congress

Filed under: Aftermarket , Europe , Government/Legal This business with Uwe Gemballa just keeps getting sketchier and sketchier with each passing day. And by business, we mean business . The founder and namesake of the Porsche tuning outfit was reported missing a couple of weeks ago upon a trip to South Africa. Initially the news was taken at face value, but then more reports began pouring in, indicating that the German authorities had raided…

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Autoblog

Topics: southafrica, entry, gemballa