Chrysler Recalling 600,000 Minivans and Jeeps

Chrysler Recalling 600,000 Minivans and Jeeps

Chrysler is recalling 600,000 of its Jeep Wrangler SUVs, and Dodge and Chrysler minivans to address potential safety problems involving brake and wiring defects. The announcement is the latest setback for the struggling automaker, and comes just days after it issued a...
Chrysler Recalls Dodge Calibers for Sticky Pedals

Chrysler Recalls Dodge Calibers for Sticky Pedals

Chrysler Group is recalling almost 35,000 Dodge Calibers in the United States, Canada Mexico and other countries to fix a potential problem with sticky gas pedals, the same defect that affected millions of Toyotas. A small number of Jeep Compass models, 90,  are also...
Driving the Chevrolet Cruze

Driving the Chevrolet Cruze

In the hotly contested family car market, Chevrolet is finally replacing its aging Cobalt with the Cruze sedan, which is already on sale since 2009 in more than 60 countries throughout Asia and Europe. The Cruze is a design hybrid, so to speak, since its engineering...
GM CEO Whitacre Takes Over Product Planning

GM CEO Whitacre Takes Over Product Planning

General Motors has re-shuffled key executives once again this week as it moved responsibility for global product planning from under vice chairman Tom Stephens and into the office of GM Chairman Ed Whitacre. The change came as GM also announced it was setting up its...
Car Czar from Wall Street Faces S.E.C. Ban?

Car Czar from Wall Street Faces S.E.C. Ban?

A Wall Street financier who was the Obama administration’s Car Czar is apparently fighting a Security and Exchange Commission move to ban him from working in the financial industry for his part in a “pay to play” scheme. According to numerous press reports, Steven...
First Drive: 2010 Saab 9-5

First Drive: 2010 Saab 9-5

The Swedish are coming.  The Swedish are coming.  And it was well worth the wait. As General Motors plunged into bankruptcy, almost exactly a year ago, it became increasingly apparent the maker would have to abandon as many as four of its North American brands,...
Audi Launches a “Travolution”

Audi Launches a “Travolution”

Few things are more frustrating than bouncing from one red light to another when you’re doing your daily commute.  Worse, every stop eats up fuel. Enter Audi’s travolution concept, which uses WiFi-like technologies to link a car to the roadway infrastructure.  As...
Toyota Incentives Slow, But Don’t Halt U.S. Slide

Toyota Incentives Slow, But Don’t Halt U.S. Slide

Toyota Motor Sales (TMS), U.S.A. reported May sales of 162,813 Toyota, Lexus and Scion vehicles, an increase of 7% compared with the year-ago month. Last May, Toyota was clearly benefiting from the collapse of Chrysler and General Motors. However, that was also well...
Ford Bans The Mercury Brand

Ford Bans The Mercury Brand

The demise of Mercury was a long time coming. To understand it, you have to know a lot about the car’s history, and how things work inside Ford Motor Company. First the history: During the 1930s, so-called “medium-priced” brands like Buick and Dodge flourished....