The new Mercedes Benz SLR supercar jointly developed with McLaren can very well trace its history to the 300SLR that had created a lot of regret and anxieties in the Benz boardroom. One of its variants entered the 1955 Le Mans 24-hour endurance race, bumped a slower moving Austin Healey from the rear and flew headlong at 125mph  into a cheering crowd that suddenly turned into horrid spectators when nearly a hundred of them died as the fiery Benz SLR ...

I am truly baffled that the industry that created a lot of great MBA course studies missed out on this one big time.  GM, Chrysler and Ford failed to cover their market segments.   And they capitalized on a trend for short-term gain, forgetting that a trend is just that, a trend that will not last. I am talking about SUVs and large ...

There’s hardly any British auto industry these days.  MGB is still around, but that isn’t exactly what I call an industry for a first world country.  And it certainly isn’t even a shadow of the once mighty and proud British automotive industry that thrived along with their German and Italian counterparts. US car marks might not be so fortunate as to find benevolent companies to bail them out. Everyone is reeling from the global financial ...

The US auto makers are to blame.  Ever since the 50s, US cars have been known to be engineered in excess.  They are large gas-guzzlers that are often the butt of jokes among the Europeans and Japanese who refer to engineer compact and fuel efficient cars. And for the last 20 years, the US industry has been basking on SUVs that just ...

The Brits have long ago lost their thriving automobile industry.  Those famous marquees associated with the King and Queen of England are gone.  The Bentley has gone to German car maker Volkswagen.  The Rolls-Royce is now with BMW.  And so are the Rovers and the Jaguars. Now, it looks like the same will happen with the US auto ...

GM and Chrysler are being sustained by the US taxpapers through bonds.  They are effectively asking the people for load.  Unless Barack Obama goes ahead with his restructuring scheme for the ailing US auto industry, GM and Chrysler are now at the brink of bankruptcy. GM has been asking its bondholders to swallow a 70% reduction in the ...

It was just a matter of time. The NTT Docomo, Nissan Motor Co., Ltd., and Sharp Corporation have jointly developed a cellphone that can be used as a car key.   The new mobile gadget is expected to have the usual remote functionalities like locking and unlocking car doors and even starting the car. After unveiling the devices at ...

Simple answer:  No.  At least not at the moment.  I suppose over time, this can be a reality. And here's why:  For modern cars using key-less systems to open the car, the “car key” does its job by sending radio wave signals to a receiver inside your car. Once received and acknowledged as the right signal frequency, the door ...

Big business.  It’s no secret that the most profitable companies are from the oil industries.  You have oil wells, distribution pipelines, mega refineries and chains of gas pumps around the globe and a whole set of industries and commerce that depend on them to thrive. If someone suddenly announces on CNN he has discovered how to ...

This is a bit late in coming for a US auto giant.  But it’s a refreshing welcome from the gas hungry SUV’s that have lately become a headache for the Detroit car makers.   This one stretches to 34 miles to a gallon of gas in city driving.  Thanks in part to the 2.5cc 16-valve hybrid engine that spews just the right horse power to ...