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Archive for the ‘Automotive News’ Category

It is not easy to have a car with perfect performance all the time. As an owner, you are required to perform routine maintenance and inspection of the car, just so you can be sure that the car is in a great condition. Suppose that you already do this and finally you discover there is one small problem in the engine area. What would you do? Get some oem parts such as honda parts to replace the broken parts can be a perfect idea.

The problem is that it is not that easy to get some genuine parts these days. The available stores in the marketplace tend to provide ordinary parts that may endanger your machine condition. Once you find a store with oem part collections, the price is very high. Luckily, with online stores over the internet, the price can be pressed. There are many stores with nissan parts, Honda parts and so forth, and each is available in genuine quality.

You can leave all your worries behind when it comes to the price. They provide those components and other gm parts in an affordable level. This way, you can easily find what you want and when you do, you can purchase it right away and make sure you replace the damaged parts with a better one. Your car will be as new as before.

Some people think that upgrading a car or fixing a car is difficult. They do not know how, they do not know why, and all they know is to ride their ride. But for those who understand automotive, even only for a little, know that fixing a car is not really difficult and instead it is challenging. And you realize it well, too. Right now, after using truck for several months, you know you need to have some ford truck parts and service the car to restore its performance.

The problem would where you are going to find the auto parts and how much you will pay for them. Of course the marketplace could be a solution, but these days, people are starting to leave the marketplace due to some reasons. They turn to the online store because they find not only the ford truck parts, but also some other components from different brands of car.

The other thing you would find over the online store is that list of detailed auto parts, even when you need some from different names. For example, you can get the nissan parts online and mix it with the ford parts just to enhance the performance. It can be done easily, especially when you have the online store on your side so you will not have to seek the marketplace and waste your energy.

The Automotive News Green Car Conference & Exhibition was held November 14 in a conference center just outside the worried city of Detroit. While automotive industry leaders were in Washington, D.C. looking for loans, hundreds of event attendees were learning about the future of green transportation. What follows is a synopsis of our findings.

Future Trends
Without a doubt, eventually we’ll all be driving vehicles motivated by motors. These motors will be powered by batteries charged by any number of sources; the grid, gasoline-fired engines, diesel engines, and eventually hydrogen fuel cells. The transition to EV-motoring will be long and gradual, taking decades for the necessary infrastructure to evolve.

In the meantime, ICEs (internal combustion engines), diesels, and HEVs (high efficiency vehicles, what hybrids are coming to be called) will fill product portfolios for the near- and mid-term. Several speakers talked about improving engine, battery and materials technologies, and how these will lead to incrementally better mileage. Expect single-digit improvements in MPG year over year and model over model.

What was missing from the presentations were silver bullets or magic beans that would provide a cure-all for fuel efficiency, emissions, performance, and reliability. It confirmed what we at Automobile knew going in, a quick and easy fix doesn’t exist. (Somebody … anybody … please forward this to your representatives in Washington.) If an easy solution did exist, this was the place for it to surface. (Perhaps at the next conference somebody will finally take the wraps off a 100-mpg carburetor.)

Advancing Technologies
While no one speaker or panel discussion presented a quick solution to the automotive world’s impact on the environment, we encountered some cool technology that’s worth pointing out.

Dr. Patrick Olivia, Corporate Vice President Prospective & Sustainable Development at Michelin pointed out that in terms of energy consumption, tires eat up about 20-percent of a vehicle’s energy. Many of Michelin’s newest tires (in production now) cut rolling resistance by ten percent leading to a one percent improvement in overall fuel economy. And unlike in years past when low-rolling resistance tires didn’t handle well, our experience in the new Audi Q7 3.0 TDI (shod with Michelin Green X rubber) proved that one can now have high efficiency along with high performance.

The Michelin Active Wheel
Olivia said that rolling resistance and tire aerodynamics present broad areas for improvement, but that we could one day see a wholesale change in technology at each corner of the car. He then referenced a technology shown at the 2008 Paris Auto Show, the Michelin Active Wheel. Designed specifically for electric vehicles, the complete assembly includes a propulsion motor and a second motor that controls the active suspension and braking. It doesn’t take much imagination to see the potential applications for this system.

According to John Krafick, Hyundai’s vice president of product development in America, the Hyundai Genesis Coupe will be available with turbo power when it debuts in the spring of 2009. The turbocharged engine will be the first offered by Hyundai in the U.S.

The turbo option will be available in the 4-cylinder engine that Hyundai is building with its joint venture between Mitsubishi and Chrysler. The Hyundai Genesis Coupe will also be available in a 3.8 liter V6 engine that is estimated to produce more than 300 horsepower. Estimated 0-60 time is said to be less than 6 seconds.

Krafcik said that the turbo option won’t be limited to the Genesis Coupe. “We like the idea of turbo, so we’ll do others,” Krafcik told Automotive News. “I think the timing is good because no one else has a four-cylinder, rear-drive platform with a turbocharger.”

Regarding hybrid and diesels Krafcik said Hyundai has no current plans to offer either. “We’ll get more horsepower and better gas mileage through smaller displacement and direction injection,” he said. “People talk about diesels all of the time, but it’s extremely expensive.”

Hyundai has said that Genesis Coupe and the next-generation Tiburon will be two different models.

“When it hits the market in early 2009, we aim to deliver a driving experience that challenges cars like Infiniti G37, at prices more like Mitsubishi Eclipse,” said Krafcik.

By all accounts, the OnStar system is one of the most unique and sought-after features offered by General Motors. And starting on July 24 drivers of non-GM brands will be able to run by a Best Buy store and pick up the OnStar FMV (For My Vehicle) kit to install in their own cars.

GM first announced the kit at this year’s Consumer Electronics show in Las Vegas. The OnStar FMV contains rearview mirrow module that can be retrofitted into most cars. Likewise, owners of older GM vehicles will be able to purchase the kit as well. GM has priced the kit at $299.99 with service plans that start at $18.95 or $199 a year. The partnership with Best Buy will also allow customers to have the system professionally installed at the store for $75.

“The wait is over,” said OnStar President Linda Marshall. “Since we announced OnStar FMV at the Consumer Electronics Show in January, thousands of people have signed up to be notified when this innovative product is ready to buy. Now, through Best Buy, they can enhance their Fords, Toyotas, Chryslers and other brands with the power of OnStar.”

The OnStar FMV will offer all the same features found on GM cars such as automatic crash response, turn-by-turn navigation, stolen vehicle assistance hands-free calling and roadside assistance.

It happens every time there’s a proposal on the table for increased fuel efficiency. Someone runs the math, points out that high mileage vehicles use less gasoline, then warns that less gas means less gas taxes for maintaining roads. In this case, that someone is Ben Wear over at the Statesman:

• The gas tax has already lost about 50 percent of its purchasing power to inflation since the early 1990s. Now it would lose half of what’s left to fuel efficiency. If you’re scoring, that would mean TxDOT in 14 years could have, effectively, a quarter of what it was spending on Texas roads in 1990. Dodging potholes could become a sort of slalom sport.
• Wear’s solution is to index the tax to fuel efficiency, or to tax mileage rather than gasoline to avoid the “Obama gas tax cut.”
• The truth is that gas taxes already don’t come close to paying for highway spending. At the federal level, fuel taxes and all other forms of “user fees” cover about half the cost of highway spending. In many states, it doesn’t even do that. One big reason is that the taxes set on gasoline are not based on a percentage of the price, but are set as fixed amounts. Most sales taxes are in the form of percentages and, as prices rise, the tax revenue that is collected goes up. Since gas taxes are fixed, each increase requires legislators to go on record voting for a tax increase. So it’s no surprise that gas taxes lag inflation. [Pop quiz: when was it last raised?]
• Many states have exactly the same tax rate now as when gas was going for less than 80 cents a gallon. Gasoline prices have gone up many times and other prices have gone up as well, including asphalt and other materials highly dependent on the cost of petroleum. Gas taxes have not gone up.
• The yawning gap between what gas taxes bring in and what highways cost is already here. It’s not the fault of buyers who seek out vehicles that do a better job of protecting resources that states can’t pay their highway bills. It’s the fault of legislators who love the popularity they get from rolling out new roads, but hate to take the responsibility for paying for them.

This database is the main source of data for the Future of Diesel Engines: Five Year Forecast book, a forecast book providing specific application trends, logical assumptions, detailed graphs and experienced insights. The Five Year Forecast book is included Free with the database or can be purchased separately. The intent of the forecast database is to provide invaluable references and information sources for manufacturers and dealers in the diesel engine and related industries, financial institutions, consulting and research organizations. You will receive accurate, pertinent, comprehensive, easy-to-use and affordable diesel engine production forecasts in an Excel format.

The diesel engine industry and manufacturers are not like other industries, i.e. automobiles. The information on future programs is well guarded and manufacturers like to announce new and updated programs at the last minute keeping competitors off balance. As we continue our journey through the emissions regulations era, secrecy and security have become more intense. As a result, to forecast accurately, a number of sources must be fine-tuned by market trends and intuition. The major sources of information used for this NAFTA five year diesel engine production forecast database include:

Conversations and interviews with diesel engine manufacturers, distributors, dealers and components suppliers,
Discussions with vehicle and equipment OEM’s, analysts and industry experts,
Industry reports, publications and analyses,
Government data sources for economics, trends and engine information,
Industry association contacts and reports,
Over 45 years of industry knowledge, insights and intuition.

In this rapidly changing industry, it is vital that you keep up-to date with any changes that can affect your company. This report can provide you with that in depth look at your industry, highlight new market opportunities, and provide important information to help develop accurate business plans.

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the transmission company, showed its 8-speed automatic gearbox in the expo hall next door to where the expo’s seminars were taking place. While we’ve become used to transmissions with more gears, this unit held a surprise that points to another intermediate technology toward going fully electric.

Beyond functioning as an automatic transmission, the conventional torque converter in this unit can be swapped out for an electric motor, making it a hybrid transmission. This technology greatly simplifies the integration of hybrid technologies into existing vehicle lines. For example, if a manufacturer wanted to add a hybrid edition to an existing vehicle line (say a BMW X5), the builder could select one of their current engines then add the ZF hybrid transmission, a starter/generator unit (that enables an engine to immediately restart after a fuel-saving Auto Stop), and a battery module. Voila … a new X5 Hybrid is born. Fuel savings would be in the double digits.

The Michelin and ZF technologies demonstrate the type of innovation coming from the supplier-side of the business. Expect to see more ideas in the coming months.

Another major theme: the rollout of new small cars, electric vehicles and hybrids that major automakers have readied at a time when oil prices — and gasoline prices at the pump — are heading higher.

Those include a larger version of Toyota’s market-leading Prius hybrid, the first-ever compact sedan for General Motors’ Buick and a boxy concept known as the Curb from Hyundai.

The Korean automaker grew at more than twice the rate of the overall market in 2010 at 24 percent, seizing market share from rivals with competitive pricing and a reputation for sharply better quality.

The Detroit auto show also represents a major milestone for Volkswagen. The German automaker plans to show off a new version of its Passat that will be built at its first U.S. plant since the 1980s. The $1 billion plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee, is near completion and will begin operations later this year.
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The Detroit show is also significant for the U.S. automakers, which are in varying stages of a comeback in sales and in profitability.

GM completed its public share offering in November, the largest ever, and its shares are up 18 percent from the IPO price. Chrysler is expected to launch its own IPO in the second half of 2011.

Ford passed Toyota as the No. 2 U.S. automaker in sales behind GM in 2010 and its stock has risen more than 80 percent since the start of last year.

Ford posted a 19 percent U.S. sales gain in 2010, its largest percentage increase since 1984.

A KPMG survey found a much higher percentage of senior automotive industry executives expects global market share growth from Ford than Toyota in 2011.

“Ford in one year essentially eclipsed Toyota, which is a big change in one year,” said Gary Silberg, who leads