truth about domestics

Ford says they did not design the 2010 Taurus (base price around $26,000) to compete with luxury cars costing $60,000 or more.  That didn’t stop them from comparing the new Taurus to several luxury cars like the Lexus LS and the Acura RL.  A spokesperson from Ford says the cars were chosen not to target luxury car buyers, but to showcase the advanced technologies in the Taurus that the more expensive cars do not even offer.  Both videos above are well worth watching, so, enjoy!

General Motors has been pushing OnStar, its in-car telecommunications service since the 1990’s and has actually been having success with it.  Click on the video to see all 60,000 calls to OnStar that occurred over a one day period.  It’s actually quite impressive!  I think blue dots are general calls for directions and unlocking of doors, the red dots might be accidents (there were 60 on this particular day.)

Another impressive note is that no other automaker in the world offers a service like OnStar, one that can call authorities for you if you are involved in a car accident, give you directions, make reservations for you and give you service updates on your car right to your email.

Growing up I loved playing with Legos.  Especially when you could use Legos to build cars.  Man, two of the things I loved most in life coming together to form one awesome toy.  The progress on the 2011 Chevrolet Volt has reached the Lego stage.  Parts are starting to come together to build the pre-production prototypes for larger scale testing!  The video above explains it all, so sit back and enjoy!

Ford seemed to have a hit on their hands with the 2010 Fusion ads that claimed, “We speak car.”  Well the Fusion is selling at record levels compared to last years numbers, so now the push begins to sell the brand new 2010 Taurus and its sporty, Ecoboost equipped sibling, the Taurus SHO.  The ads focus mostly on the technological goodies that are packed into the Taurus, as well as items not found anywhere else like SYNC.  For all of the details, as well as the comparison graphics, head on over to Jalopnik.

To celebrate it’s 15th anniversary, the National Corvette Museum is selling 2,009 tickets at $150 a piece for the chance to win a 2010 Corvette Grand Sport.  This is no ordinary Grand Sport though, it features a unique paint job, badges and even the spoiler from a ZR1!  For more details and some pretty pictures, head on over to Autoblog.

When General Motors gave up leasing last year, it made up 20% of their business.  That’s some huge change that they’re missing out on, so GMAC has decided to start leasing vehicles again.  The only car available at first will be the Cadillac CTS as the luxury segment is very lease-heavy.  For more head on over to Autoblog.

In another brilliant move by our government, it seems as though they have left a loophole open in order to screw customers out of their Cash For Clunkers money.  Several customers have made deals with dealerships in order to sell their old car and get new ones.  But there are examples of peoples cars going from being rated 18 MPG on the website a week ago and now being rated 19 MPG.  This puts these cars just out of the range for many cash for clunker deals because of the smaller difference in the MPG ratings between your old and new car.  The EPA has admitted they have changed the way they calculated the MPG statistic recently.  It seems pretty convenient timing for people who have these types of cars and can no longer get the government money.  Here is the original story at Jalopnik.

General Motor’s Delaware assembly plant, home of the Kappa based roadsters, closed yesterday.  It really is a sad end to what was a great product.  Sure, it had some quirks, but the vehicles were moved from concept to production in a very short amount of time.  It just goes to show you, the general public is full of morons.  Feedback from the public at auto shows was the reason the cars were given the green light and then no one decided to follow through and buy one.  People say the American companies don’t make cars people want…well here are two reasons why.

Dodge’s engineers sat down and said, how can we make the 2010 Dodge Ram better, without actually having to change anything.  Their conclusion?  The 2010 truck can handle 1,500 more pounds of towing load than the 2009 without any mechanical changes to the truck whatsoever.  Does that mean the 2009 trucks are capable of towing 10,450 pounds, or are they only good for the originally stated 9,100 pounds?  Who cares!  This now puts the Ram into the thick of the half-ton towing race, behind the Ford F-150 (11,000 pounds) and the Toyota Tundra (10,800 pounds) and slightly ahead of the Chevrolet Silverado (10,300 pounds.)

For more details, head on over to Pickuptrucks.com!

NUMMI (New United Motor Manufacturing, Inc.) has been producing Toyota and GM vehicles in Fremont, California since 1984.  Now that General Motors has pulled out of the plant, Toyota is most likely going to be closing it down, leaving 4,500 union workers without jobs.  So the UAW has decided to write it’s members and ask them to contact Congress so that they can keep the plant going. 

This plant is the only Toyota facility in the U. S. where its workers are unionized, and it’s the only automobile plant in California.  For more details, head on over to Autoblog.