While the video above doesn’t show any actual drifting or rally racing, it is still pretty cool. The video shows Ken Block and his new Ford ride. Glad to see Ken finally chose to go with a winner, as Subaru hasn’t done much in the past few years.
Select German and Asian automakers given less strict emission standards
As per a law proposed by the Obama administration, new fuel efficiency rules will be rolled out by 2016. I think fuel efficiency rules are important for reducing their impact on the enviornment, but they should be fair for everyone. The reason why this bill is unfair is the rule that automakers who sell less than 400,000 cars per year will have less strict regulations. As the Detroit News says, based on last year’s sales, it will give some brands an unfair disadvantage. These brands include Germany’s Daimler AG, BMW AG and Volkswagen AG, as well as Japan’s Mazda Motor Corp. and Mitsubishi Motors Corp. and other Asian brands such as Kia, Suzuki and Subaru.
The rational for this is to set one national standard by harmonizing with the standards that are set in California. But do we need to give the automakers who import a majority of their vehicles into the United States and export a majority of their profits out any additional advantages? Why does the government of the United States continue to tax and put the large domestic automakers at a disadvantage? How much more can Ford, Chrysler and GM take???
For the original article, see this link to the Detroit News.
Sales decline (blogspot.com)
Sales figures for March 2009 vs. 2008 are in and, as expected, they’re pretty bad. Every automaker saw sales declines except for Subaru and Kia (in terms of the daily average sales rate, not monthly.) The one spot of good news is that domestic sales were not as bad as they were expected, and even more interesting is the fact that Honda, Nissan and Toyota all posted sales declines that were very close to those seen at Chrysler, Ford and General Motors. For the full list, head on over to Autoblog.
