REDLANDS, Calif., Feb. 5 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — The law firm of McCuneWright, LLP has filed for a preliminary injunction in United States District Court, Central District of California seeking an immediate order requiring Toyota to expand the Sudden Unintended Acceleration recalls.

McCuneWright, which filed the first and leading class action lawsuit against Toyota to force the automaker to remedy the sudden unintended acceleration defects in all affected makes and models, is asking the court to issue a specific order requiring Toyota to provide a brake over-ride system on all Toyota models equipped with Electronic Throttle Control System — intelligent (”ETCS-i”) that have experienced significant numbers of sudden acceleration events.

The brake override system is a failsafe system that enables the onboard computer to detect when both the throttle and the brake are being activated simultaneously, recognize that there is an error in the signals it is receiving, and immediately return the throttle to idle. It is an important failsafe system used by other vehicle manufacturers to keep a sudden unintended acceleration event from turning into a runaway vehicle with resulting crashes, injuries, and deaths.

Toyota has recently announced that it will install this important safety device on all new Toyota and Lexus vehicles. In its November 26, 2009, recall, Toyota also announced that it would retroactively install this important safety device on just six existing models and further limited the recall to only recent model years — 2007 — 2010 Toyota Camry, 2005 — 2010 Toyota Avalon, 2007 — 2010 Lexus ES 350, 2007 2010 Lexus GS 350, 2006 — 2010 Lexus IS 250, and 2006 2010 Lexus IS 350.

The preliminary injunction motion asserts that by limiting this brake over-ride system recall to recent model years for just six vehicle models, Toyota has left more than 75 percent of the affected models and model years out of this important recall.

“Toyota cannot justify limiting this important recall to models and model years that include less than 25 percent of the reported sudden acceleration problems,” says Richard McCune, a partner at McCuneWright, LLP. “Toyota has identified an important solution to this problem and it has a duty to its customers and to public safety the apply it to all the Toyota vehicles. Toyota shouldn’t wait until there’s another deadly crash.”

On November 5, 2009, McCuneWright filed the first and leading class action on sudden unintended acceleration, Choi, et. al. v. Toyota Motor Company, et. al. CV 09-08143 AHM (FMOx), in United States District Court, Central District of California. The preliminary injunction and supporting exhibits can be found on the Court’s website or is available at www.mccunewright.com/toyota.

Partners Richard McCune and David Wright are available for interview and comment on the motion for preliminary injunction.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) today announced it is opening a formal investigation of the Toyota Prius Hybrid model year 2010 to look into allegations of momentary loss of braking capability while traveling over an uneven road surface, pothole or bump. The agency received 124 reports from consumers, including four alleging that crashes occurred. Investigators have spoken with consumers and conducted pre-investigatory field work.

Just tonight it was announced, on CNN, that Lexus hybrids are being added to the list. Lexus hybrids use the same hybrid synergy drive that the Toyota Prius uses. Toyota told CNN that it was checking the brakes on the Lexus vehicles — as well as a Japanese model called the Sai.

Toyota has announced no recall of these vehicles, however, and said it has not received any complaints about the brakes from consumers.

The complaints on the 2010 Toyota Prius have been as detailed as this one that I found on safercar.gov, the website to go to complain about safety issues:

“On three occasions, while driving on clean, dry road surfaces, my 2010 prius suddenly and briefly accelerated without any warning after I drove over minor bumps and, on 1 occasion, a manhole cover, while braking. The sensation was that of the engine suddenly surging and accelerating. I was fortunately able to apply harder pressure to the brake pedal, regained control of the vehicle and avoided crashing into the car in front of me. I spoke with a Toyota field technical specialist today who told me that the mechanics of the car are such that if a wheel hits a bump or moves onto a surface that causes it to rotate at a different rate versus the other wheels, the car thinks it is going into a skid, and the ABS system kicks in. also, the system that generates energy to recharge the battery, which also effectively brakes the car, suddenly ceases to operate. consequently, you have the sensation of acceleration when in fact, according to the Toyota specialist, the car stopped decelerating. nonetheless, this sudden deceleration is unexpected, and if i was not focused at those exact moments and failed to immediately apply significant pressure to the brake pedal, i could have easily crashed into an object, or car, or person, in front of me. i do not feel safe in this car, and am worried that my wife or son could have a major problem responding to this sudden lack of control. there is great potential for serious injury or death from this type of incident. my car is about 1 month old, with 1,250 miles on it. i understand from the specialist that toyota dealerships on long island have had at least one other similar complaint.”

The Japanese government has ordered Toyota to investigate the brake problems. Toyota said it had corrected problems with the antilock brake system (ABS) in Prius models sold since January 2010, including those shipped overseas. The flaw is a software program that will need an update to fix.

Ford recalls hybrid

A 30-year testing engineer for Consumer Reports slowed for a stop sign at the turnoff to their test facility in East Haddam, Connecticut, the brake pedal went unexpectedly further down than normal but the car barely slowed. The engineer zoomed through the turn, with brake-system warning lights illuminated on the dash. The car more or less coasted to a stop, with what the engineer described as minimal brake feel.

Consumer Reports called Ford and they already had a service bulletin (TSB-09-22-11) in response to that problem. The service bulletin said that electronic interference might cause the electronic brake-by-wire module to switch itself off temporarily. If that happened, the braking system would revert to a backup conventional hydraulic mode that preserved braking capability, but the pedal would drop over an inch. When the engine is restarted, the electronic braking system would resume.

Sounds like a computer that freezes and you have to reboot.

Ford engineering representatives explained that the software threshold for establishing a fault in the regenerative brake system was set too sensitively, causing the system to transition to conventional brakes when it was not necessary.

Ford estimates that approximately 18,000 2010-model Ford Fusion and Mercury Milan Hybrids could be vulnerable to the electronic brake-software glitch but only a tiny fraction will ever exhibit it.  Ford explained, “The software threshold to transition from regenerative brakes to conventional brakes can cause the system to transition to conventional brakes unnecessarily.”

In a statement, Ford said, “We have received reports that some drivers have experienced a different brake feel when the hybrid’s unique regenerative brakes switch to conventional hydraulic braking. They may initially perceive the condition as loss of brakes even though the vehicle has full braking capability. When this occurs, our system maintains full conventional brakes and full ABS function.”

Ford added, “There have been no injuries related to this condition.”

If you own a Fusion or Milan Hybrid made on or before October 17, 2009 have your local dealer perform the brake-system software update specified by Ford’s “Customer Satisfaction Program 10B13.”

Thanks for the help Consumer Reports

in an interview with The Associated Press the 16th Secretary of Transportation, Ray LaHood, defended his department’s handling of the Toyota investigation. LaHood said the Japanese automaker was “a little safety deaf” during its probe of the problem. The company was so resistant, LaHood said, that it took a trip from federal safety officials to Japan to “wake them up” to the seriousness of the pedal problems.

“They should have taken it seriously from the very beginning when we first started discussing it with them,” LaHood told AP. “Maybe they were a little safety deaf in their North American office until we went to Japan.”

That’s not the reason that John Batchelor thinks that the president and chief operating officer of Toyota Motor Sales (TMS), U.S.A., Inc, Jim Lentz, .should be fired from Toyota. Batchelor thinks Lentz made an egregious error when he told Mattt Lauer on the Today show that the problem was fixed.

I disagreed with that reason.

This is a corporation in crisis. I understand that they’re not doing everything that is expected of them. But LaHood didn’t help when he went in front of a House hearing during testimony to the Appropriations subcommittee on transportation.  LaHood was asked what his advice would be to owners of recalled Toyota and he answered, “don’t drive recalled Toyotas until fixed”.

Later LaHood came out and said he made a misstatement. What LaHood said he meant was, “stop driving it, take it to a Toyota dealer because they believe they have a fix for it.” but LaHood never retracted it on the dot.gov website.

And, of course, we talked about my phone call to Steve “Woz” Wozniak, a proud owner of a 2010 Toyota Prius with intermittent problems.

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“You caught me getting in the shower.”  Oops, sorry Woz. I just want to talk to you about your Toyota Prius. I understand that you own a Toyota Prius and are having electrical problems?

I had heard that Apple Inc. co-founder Steve “Woz” Wozniak was having acceleration problems on his 2010 Toyota Prius.  Wozniak’s Prius started accelerating on its own, up to almost 100 mph, when he used cruise control to increase the vehicle’s speed. Woz pumped the brakes and that worked, but he called Toyota to tell them about the problem.

It only made sense that one of the icons of technology would have the automotive icon of this generation. And Wozniak understands that all new technology will have issues. What he didn’t understand was Toyota’s lack of interest in their feedback about their product.

“I have had problems, but that was not the biggest problem. The biggest problem was getting someone inside Toyota and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to listen.”

That’s not Wozniak’s problem anymore. After the Woz went on CNN talking about Toyota’s inability to listen to him they are listening, and acting, now.

Toyota has taken possession of Woz’s Prius. Wozniak has agreed not to talk for the next couple weeks while Toyota looks over his car to try to find a fix.

I forgot to ask him if Toyota gave him a loaner, or if he is going to drive his 1979 Nissan 280ZX Black Gold edition.

http://www.carlist.com/blog/?p=1113

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How bad is this for Toyota?

Roughly 2.3 million recalls in the United States, another 2 million in Europe, for a faulty pedal. Eight of Toyota’s most popular products are not allowed to be sold. Toyota is scheduled for a Congressional hearing on February 25, 2010, Consumer Reports has come out saying they would not recommend consumers buy those 8 Toyot products.

All of this is of serious concern for Toyota

How about financially, how will this affect Toyota & their dealerships?

Bloomberg newspaper says that it will cost Toyota’s 1,234 car dealerships $2.47 billion a month in sales to halt the sale of those cars. The dealerships will make some of it back because they will be the only ones that can replace the parts on the recalled cars. Toyota Motor Corp will have to pay the Toyota dealerships to fix the customers cars. The customer will not be the one paying for the fix.

Attorneys from the Corpus Christi, Texas-based law firm of Hilliard Munoz Guerra LLP are announcing a federal class-action lawsuit against Toyota Motor Corp. (Sylvia Pena et al. v. Toyota Motor Corporation, et al., No. 2:10-cv-00037)on behalf of a Texas family and all Texas residents who have purchased Toyota and Lexus vehicles with faulty throttle control systems. Attorneys for the Penas allege that the faulty ETCs have led to hundreds of accidents, 16 deaths and 243 injuries.

What about for our economy?

If you look at our economy, halting the sale of these 8 vehicles sold by Toyota would represent almost 1 million cars last year. We would have sold less than 10 million cars last year if we take those Toyota sales away! That’s money to your cities budget for sales tax and registration. It’s employment in dealerships and manufacturing plants and engine plants. If consumers decide to wait out the fix for a Toyota that means a bigger downturn in an economy that is tenuous at best.

What about other car manufacturers, who will benefit?

It is known that many Toyota buyers number one reason for buying a Toyota is reliability. Toyotas have been called bland, but reliable. If Toyota loses their reliability rating consumers will look somewhere else.

If you look at California, Toyota owns 24.5% percent of 2009 California sales. Who are the big competitors in California?

Behind Toyota is sales in California are:
Honda at 13.4%
and then Ford at 12.4%
General Motors 11.7%

2009 saw Subaru and Hyundai sales increase, so they are on a roll as well and people will look at them.

General Motors, Ford, Hyundai and Kia are offering $1,000 to any Toyota customer that wants to turn in their car for a new vehicle.

Is offering $1,000 incentive by other car companies a good idea?

It’s a great idea! Toyota has a great resale value. If someone buys another car from a dealer the dealer will pay less because the car has a defect, but the dealer will get the car fixed for free by Toyota and be able to sell it on their used car lot.

What does Toyota do for damage control?

Today Toyota Motor Corp. said they developed a remedy to fix faulty accelerator pedals in the 2.3 million recalled vehicles. Toyota will ship the pedals to the car dealers and train them on how to conduct the fix. The remedy involves reinforcing the pedal assembly to eliminate the excess friction that allows the pedals to stick. Visit http://www.toyota.com/recall for more information.

Toyota needs to do more than put an apology in the newspaper, http://www.youtube.com/user/ToyotaUSA,  and on television. They also need to find a way to reward their old customers that stick with them and even possibly give incentives to new customers on a short-term basis.

This is not the first time a product has been taken off the market. Ford Firestone had problems with their tires. In 2009 Ford made a $2.7 billion profit and is gaining in marketshare.

Back in 1982 Tylenol had a cyanide problem in their product. They were told they should discontinue the product, or name it something else. They said no, that the product was good. Today Tylenol owns 35% of their market.

Toyota needs to do act swiftly. Toyota car dealers are talking about staying open 24/7, even driving to the people’s homes if necessary. These are all good things.

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Toyota thought they had the problem fixed. I know. I talked to Robert”Bob” S. Carter Group Vice President and General Manager - Toyota Division Toyota Motor Sales, U.S.A., at the 2009 Los Angeles auto show and we talked about the accelerator problem. I asked him what effect it had on Toyota’s image because of the accelerator problem.

Carter was honest and didn’t mince words, “That is difficult to answer (the image question). We are singularly focused to do what is right for the customer. I was fortunate enough to be on the initial launch of Lexus and we had a quality problem in the second month.”

Carter went on to explain that Toyota had thoroughly exhausted the study and had announced a solution in November, 2009. In some rare circumstances the floor mat could be 3entangled with the accelerator pedal. The repair would be to modify the accelerator pedal and get new floor mats.

In some vehicles Toyota will do a secondary stopgap with a change in software, so that if the brake and accelerator are simultaneously thrust it will reduce the power to the engine.

Carter said the repairs were supposed to start in January, and that customers were already being notified.

The Japanese automaker said the sales suspension includes the following models, the Japanese automaker said the sales suspension includes the following models:

Sticking accelerator pedal recall impacts the following Toyota Division vehicles:

Certain 2009-2010 RAV4*,
Certain 2009-2010 Corolla*,
2009-2010 Matrix,
2005-2010 Avalon,
Certain 2007-2010 Camry*,
Certain 2010 Highlander*,
2007-2010 Tundra,
2008-2010 Sequoia

*Highlander hybrids and Camry hybrids are not affected by this action and will remain for sale.  Further, Camry, RAV 4, Corolla and Highlander vehicles with VINs that begin with “J” are not affected.

The floor mat interference with accelerator pedal recall impacts the following vehicles:
Toyota
2007 - 2010 Camry
2005 - 2010 Avalon
2004 - 2009 Prius
2005 - 2010 Tacoma
2007 - 2010 Tundra
2008 - 2010 Highlander
2009 - 2010 Corolla
2009 - 2010 Venza
2009 - 2010 Matrix

Lexus
2006 - 2010 IS 250
2006 - 2010 IS 350
2007 - 2010 ES 350

All Toyota owners are watching

Eric and Jill own a 2000 Toyota Avalon and are not concerned about their car, “We have a 150,000 miles on the car. The quality on that car is extremely good. I don’t know about the quality of today’s Toyotas. It seems like it would be hard to mess up a sticking pedal that badly.”

How big is the Toyota suspension of seven of their models?

I hear the shutdown might only last a week, but the cars being halted represent 55-65 percent of Toyota’s sales in the United States.
According to J.D. Power, the sales for 2009 for each of these vehicles were:

Toyota Avalon,          27,000
Toyota Tundra           80,000
Toyota Camry,         356,000*
Toyota Sequoia         16,000
Toyota RAV4,          150,000
Toyota Corolla,       266,000
Toyota Matrix,           30,000
Total sales         925,000**

*(there could be more Camrys, like the Camry Solara)
Total 2009 sales     10,409,000

without those sales   9,484,000

Think of sales tax

Toyota told the Associate Press that the move would affect plants in:

Huntsville, Alabama (engine)
Princeton, Indiana
Lafayette, Indiana
Georgetown, Kentucky
San Antonio, Texas
Cambridge, Ontario, Canada
Woodstock, Ontario, Canada

Will these employees be idled as well?

Only the cars on this list will be affected, all other Toyotas will still be for sale. No Lexus or Scion models are affected, they are all still for sale.

Toyota makes:
Toyota 4Runner
Toyota Avalon
Toyota Camry/Camry Solara
Toyota Camry
Toyota Camry Solara
Toyota Corolla
Toyota FJ Cruiser
Toyota Highlander
Toyota Land Cruiser
Toyota Matrix
Toyota Prius
Toyota RAV4
Toyota Sequoia
Toyota Sienna
Toyota Tacoma
Toyota Tundra
Toyota Venza
Toyota Yaris

This will put Toyota’s quality in question, and it may affect more countries and models, depending on whether the parts being changed out are being used in other models in those countries.

Toyota’s customer number is 1-800-331-4331

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General Motor’s Chairman, Board member, and now CEO, Ed Whitacre told everyone that they would be paying back the U.S. and Canadian government by June, 2010. GM announced  its plan to repay its TARP investment to the U.S. Government., but what does the loan restructuring repayment look like?

To understand what they are paying back we need to look at what they owe and who they owe it you. Tom Wilkinson, spokesperson for General Motors, helped me figure it all out.

Who owns General Motors, and by how much?

60% is owned by the Government

17.5% is owned by voluntary employees’ beneficiary association (VEBA), which is supervised by an independent board

11.7% is owned by the Canadian/Ontario governments

10% is owned by the Motor Liquidations Company (MLC) , or commonly known as, the old GM

There are  three different piles of money General Motors owes the U.S. treasury:

1. $6.7 billion pure loan. That first payment was made in late December or mid-December of about $1 billion.  There is $5.7 billion of that debt remaining outstanding.

2. preferred shares - $2.1 billion worth of preferred shares that pay dividends and can be sold anytime.  This is  owned by governments and the UAW VEBA.

3. 60.8% of common stock

Whitacre said that GM was also going to pay back the $1.2 billion they owned the Canadian/Ontario government.

So, where will they get the money?

General Motors currently has $13.4 billion dollars in a restricted cash account, known as a Debtor-in-possession (DIP), which means that the company has to get approval from the UST for utilizing that money.  GM has paid down some debt, including repayment of $4 billion to pay the German government and for their first debt repayment. Once the $5.7 billion to the United States and $1.2 billion debt to Canada/Ontario is paid off the rest of that cash becomes unrestricted.

Are they paying interest on the loan?

Mr. Bloom: As far as the interest, I know the rate is seven percent on the loan.  I think so far if you include both the interest and the dividends on the preferred, so far, they’ve paid $470 million to us. So there will obviously be an additional number that will come between here and June, which I don’t have off the top of my head, but to date, it’s $470 million.

Mr. Bloom was asked if the task force asked GM to pay the money back, or did GM volunteer?  This was his response:

MR. BLOOM: We have regular dialogue with General Motors regarding issues facing the company.  We keep very close tabs on their financial performance.  I think both of us thought this was a good idea.  I can’t actually tell you who the initiator was.  Mr. Whitaker has publicly said he wants to pay the government back, the debt money that is owed and we certainly didn’t discourage him from that. So I would say it was a mutual thing.

And why did you think it was a good idea?

MR. BLOOM:  I think it’s a good idea because, number one, the faster the taxpayers can’t get their debt securities repaid and the faster that money flows back to the Treasury of the United States, the better for the Treasury and for the taxpayers, number one.  Number two, we do not feel that this in any way endangers GM.  They’re doing well.  They’re doing a little bit better actually than the plan we had originally looked at when we put the financing together.  And so on the one side, it’s good for the taxpayers to get their money back, and on the other side, we do not feel that this puts GM in any way, shape or form in harm’s way. So when you have a positive and no negative, you go forward with it.

Before bankruptcy the old GM had $94.7 billion in debt. At the end of the third quarter of 2009 GM had $17.2 billion in government and non-government debt.

General Motors has a revenue stream of $110-$120 billion yearly on a worldwide basis.

Wilkinson says that they would still like to try for an IPO in the 2nd half of 2010, but timing depends on market conditions and auto industry and General Motors performance.

What would Mr. Bloom have to say about an IPO?:

MR. BLOOM:  Well, we’ve said before and I don’t think I have anything particularly new on that topic.  We are hopeful that sometime in the back half of 2010, the company is able to execute an initial public offering.  That will obviously remain dependent on how markets are and whether the company continues to make progress on their restructuring, but it is our hope that that could occur.  At that stage, we would expect to sell some of our ownership.  We do not think it is practical to sell all 60.8 percent in one fell swoop.  And so there will be a staged exit beginning with the IPO and moving out after that. We have stated as a principle, the president has approved a principle that says we should exit this investment as soon as is practicable, but exactly how long it takes is going to depend on market factors and other things which we’re not in a position to predict at this point.

The precise determination of the period under which Mr. Feinberg will be supervising GM, while the government is still in possession of stock, is something that’s still being worked out.

How much money was given to General Motors?

In a press conference today Ron Bloom, auto task force leader said that the total amount the Government paid General Motors was $49.5 billion. On December 31, 2008, Treasury agreed to make loan $13.4 billion to General Motors Corporation to fund working capital. Under the loan agreement, GM was also required

to implement a viable restructuring plan. The first plan GM submitted failed to establish a credible path to viability, and the deadline was extended to June 1. Treasury loaned an additional $6 billion to fund GM during this period. To achieve an orderly restructuring, GM filed for bankruptcy on June 1, 2009. Treasury provided $30.1 billion under a debtor-in-possession financing agreement to assist GM during the bankruptcy. The new entity, General Motors Company (New GM), began operating on July 10, 2009, following its  purchase of most of the assets of the Old GM.

Was part of that loan written off in the bankruptcy?

Mr. Bloom: The Bush administration did loan General Motors $13.4 (billion), there were some additional investments made and then the DIP loan. Essentially, the entire investment that the Treasury made was converted into the three instruments I described, which is to say the $6.7 (billion) in debt, the $2.1 (billion) of preferred, those two obviously equal $8.8 (billion) of fixed obligations and the 60.8 percent ownership of the common stock. So that’s what the government has and the return on that total investment will be, you know, $8.8 (billion), which we’ll get back in the preferred and the debt plus the interest and dividends, which I spoke about, and obviously, whatever we’re able to realize on the common stock.

Q     Okay.  So that $13.4 (billion) is part of that larger breakdown that you get, it’s not a separate — it’s not looked at or held separately in any way?

MR. BLOOM:  No.  No, it’s not.  What we have in totality and we said this at the time of the restructuring that we thought it would be challenging for the value of the stock to go high enough that the entirety of the investment including the $13.4 (billion) would be repaid and that’s been talked about by the various oversight bodies. On the other hand, the future value of the common stock is unknowable and over time it will be what it will be.

Q:  So the total amount is the $30.1 (billion) in DIP financing plus the $13.4 (billion) plus a couple of other –

MR. BLOOM:  The total, total, total if you include all of the monies is $49.5 billion.

Armadillos love basking in the sun with their tuff shells shining

Let’s face it, even Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan have to get tired of being known as drama queens.  General Motors has been shooting themselves in the foot for years and wondering why they were bleeding.

It came to a head in November, 2009. Henderson was fired by the U.S. government made Board, with Ed Whitacre in charge. The drama was fierce: the firing happened the night before the Los Angeles auto show. Henderson was the keynote speaker and every media personality had their 15 minutes lined up with him.

It was a time for General Motors to finally get California onboard. They were going to bring out relevant good product, which was so needed by them. With California making up thirteen percent of the nation’s car sales they could use California. Year-over-year the sales had gone down anywhere from 42-55 percent for Buick, Cadillac, Chevy and GMC.

But the drama continued. Till today.

Ed Whitacre has just come out and said that he will be the CEO of General Motors.

Are people inside General Motors happy?

I think people inside GM are tired of feeling like the drama queens of the industry. They just want to work for a living with a leader that has a long-term goal with short term objectives showing the way.

Ed Whitacre says General Motors will pay back the loans to the Government - is that a good thing?

Because of bankruptcy and production pared to demand GM is making money. They will create a secondary offering (IPO) to fund their operations.

Once again, people inside General Motors like this. They want people to stop calling them Government Motors.

How long will Whitacre keep the job?

“I don’t know”, said the tall Texan in his long Southern drawl, “I didn’t come into it with that intention”.  But from someone who came from a conservative corporation (I used to work at Chevron) this limelight is fun.

Armadillos love basking in the sun with the tuff shells shining

Does it matter that Whitacre doesn’t know “anything about cars”?

That was Whitacres own words in his first commercial to the world. I wrote that it only mattered if he knew about cars if he was going to be CEO.

Well, now he is CEO. How quickly can Whitacre go from being a CEO of any corporation to a CEO of a corporation whose sells depend on emotional impulse?

What does Whitacre get in salary?

As Chairman of the Board Whitacre gets $150,000 a year.

As a Board member he gets $200,000 a year

The amount he will get as CEO is yet to be determined.

What did Whitacre get at SBC/AT&t?

A CNBC piece said that Whitacre walked away, in the mid-2007s, with $158 million in cash and stock. They calculated that to be about $7.9 million a year in cash. He also got $26,889 in auto benefits and $24,505 in club memberships.

What does Ron Bloom, the head of the government’s auto task force think?

In a press conference Bloom said, “We also, obviously, note that the company has removed the word, interim from Mr. Whitaker’s title.  He is now serving as the CEO.  We were not involved in that decision.  That was the decision by the board of directors of the company, as we’ve said before, a very excellent group of men and women who are responsible for the corporation’s affairs and we certainly wish Mr. Whitaker well in this very challenging endeavor he’s taken on.  He’s been serving as the interim CEO.  We remain in regular contact with the company to continue to monitor the taxpayer’s investment and we’re very hopeful that Mr. Whitaker will do an excellent job in his new title.”

MSNBC, January 24, 2010 -  The Toyota Prius, introduced in 2001 in the United States, was the first mass-produced hybrid. Hybrids are common place today with more coming out every month.

When you talk to people about electric vehicles there is a range anxiety. People are concerned that they will run out of electricity on the highway.

It is for that reason that taking baby steps will be important for plug-in electric vehicles to succeed.

There are two types of electric vehicles I look forward to on the road: the E-flex extended range vehicle (E-REV)and the Plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV).

There are a number of range extenders from Cadillac, Chrysler, Mercedes, and Fisker. Jaguar is testing a 4-door luxury sedan in a couple years that they say will get the equivalent of 60-70 miles to the gallon.

The Politics of Electric Cars

Let’s put aside the batteries, or anything to do with cars. Let’s assume the car companies are ready and the people will buy the cars.

There are questions that need to be answered by the city and country politicians about electricity.

Take me for example. I live in the country, with plenty of room to put a charger in my garage. But my electric lines were put up over 50 years ago, before air conditioning, hair dryers, flat screen TVs. How much would it cost to change out these old lines to accommodate the need for more energy? And who will pay for the upgrades?

What if I lived in the city?

Wouldn’t it be great to think that you park on the street, put some change in a parking meter and some more change in a charging unit?

There are companies that are working on stand alone units to charge your car for a price.

The problem with that is the electric companies are franchised monopolies. As it stands right now, no one is allowed to resell electricity.

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2010 North American International Auto Show (NAIAS), Detroit, MI - Dr. Patrick Oliva is the global Vice President of sustainable development for the Michelin Group.

I wrote an article in 2006 about the savings from a In a white paper written by the USEPA entitled “Effect of Single Wide Tires and Trailer Aerodynamics on Fuel Economy and NOx Emissions of Class 8 line-haul tractor-trailers” tests were done that proved that there was a fuel savings with the X-One single wide tire on Class 8 trucks.

Luc M. Minguet, Executive Vice President of Michelin North America explained how the biggest savings occurred; “the duals truckers have been using, XDAHT, were the least fuel efficient. The truckers got on average 5mpg with these tires. If they were replaced with the more fuel efficient XDAs they received an increase in fuel efficiency of 5.25 mpg.

If the duals were replaced with X-Ones the mpg went up to 5.45 on the same vehicle.” CFI gets 6 mpg. They have studied their numbers in real world exercises and know they will get an increase of 5/10 from duallies to X-Ones that brings their mileage to 6.30 mpg.

To a passenger car that goes about 15,000 miles a year an increase of .30 mpg is nothing. You could get that much of an increase by clearing the junk out of your trunk. But to a long-hauler every increase in mpg counts.

On average a long-hauler drives 130,000 miles per year. At 6 mpg the long-hauler purchases 21,667 gallons of gas per year. By just switching to X-Ones there would be a savings of close to 1,032 gallons of gas a year. There are approximately 1,250,000 long-haulers on the road yearly, bringing the savings of fuel to 12,900,000 gallons of gas yearly if they changed their duallies to the X-One wide tire.

There is also a savings in oil when making the X-One wide tire. The main ingredients in producing a tire are steel, natural and synthetic rubber and carbon black, aka oil products. It takes approximately seven gallons of oil to produce one dual truck tire.

According to Michelin engineers it takes 9.5 gallons of oil products to produce an X-One. On an 18-wheeler with dual tires (2 steer tires and 16 duals) that means 126 gallons of oil product used in the production of tires. Replacing the tractor and trailer duals to X-Ones would save 36 gallons of oil products in production. With 1,250,000 18-wheelers on the road that would be a savings of 45,000,000 gallons of oil products.

Watch Now:

 Dr. Patrick Oliva, Michelin, at the 2010 NAIAS [3:25m]: Play Now | Play in Popup