Automotive Reporter Biz News for Wk of 11-9-15

This week’s column can be posted on your refrigerator as a hint for Santa this Christmas.
If you don’t get what you want this year, perhaps you can just print up a 3-D version of anything your heart desires.
It’s coming to that.

On display at the SEMA show in Las Vegas, the Local Motors’ LM3D Swim—which the company touts as the “latest rapid vehicle iteration leading to a fully homologated 3D-printed vehicle…”
Say what?

That’s a fancy way of saying the 3D-printed car will be approved for sale, and you can purchase one as early as next year. The LM3D-Swim is the first of a series of vehicles to be built using the Direct Digital Manufacturing (DDM) process, which includes 3D printing. 

The design for the car by Local Motors’ community member, Kevin Lo, was selected by a judging panel that included Jay Leno and SEMA VP of Vehicle Technology, John Waraniak. Local Motors is now entering the car into the testing phase, including trials for highway safety and federal crash tests.  The company is constructing a microfactory in Knoxville, Tennessee, to produce the vehicles starting next year. MRSP will be around $53,000.
Colored ink is optional.

A few months ago I wrote about a problem created by trying to put the wrong tires on my MX-5 Miata. I learned the chassis for the Mazda utilizes the same geometry and design as a Lotus, and was in fact told that the Mazda two-seater is essentially a Japanese Lotus.

Pretty sure Lotus doesn’t tell everyone it’s a British Miata, but the similarities in proportional performance still exist. Behold, Lotus is now offering the 2017 Evora 400, which boasts 55-hp more oomph, 92-pounds less weight, and a plethora of advancements.  The company produced this promotional video to show how much fun you can buy for $91,375.

The newest Evora is fitted with a mid-mounted supercharged 400-hp 3.5-Litre V-6 on a new aluminum chassis wrapped in a composite body.
Are you reading this, Santa?

If yon’t have $91k to plunk down on a Lotus, there’s always the Mazda Miata or Toyota’s Scion FR-S. Evo’s “Deadly Rivals” series pits the pair on a racetrack with Dan Prosser at the controls. He’s partial to one car, but cannot deny the superiority of the other. The video tells the tale of the tape.
This clip is also great for sharing with Santa.

We teased this news last week on the Automotive Reporter Radio Show: Hyundai is creating a separate division with its ‘Genesis’ brand to compete with the world’s leading luxury car nameplates. The company’s press release touts “human-centered” luxury with a half-dozen new models. 

Genesis will change its model designations to an alpha system, combining “G” with the numbers 90, 80, 0r 70. In your face, M-Series.

Hyundai is also retooling the Genesis winged badge emblem to create a more luxurious look. Back atcha, Bentley. 

This makes perfect business sense.
For a long time I have believed the Genesis series of automobiles to be among the best values on the road, blending manufacturing excellence with sexy design cues, and backed by Hyundai’s nearly interminable 100,000k warranty.

Dodge SRT is adopting the Bob Bondurant School of High Performance Driving as the “official” driving school of the brand. When you purchase a new 2015 or ’16 SRT model, you receive one full-day session of high-performance driving, including track time and professional instruction.
Hotel and airfare not included.

The entire fleet of Bondurant trainers is being converted to Dodge SRT’s—Chargers, Challengers, and Vipers.

Bondurant says he’s been waiting for the right circumstances to launch the school and capitalize on his racing championship legacy. “The Dodge/SRT muscle cars provide me the perfect platform needed to thoroughly teach road racing,” he says.

The classes combine advanced street driving skills with proven racing techniques, plus hours of track time for vital hands-on experience behind the wheel. The course includes skid control, accident avoidance, line technique and a lead-and-follow session.
This would make a great stocking stuffer. Just sayin...

Following the legacy of its founder, Ford Motor Company is sharing the intellectual wealth by licensing robotic vehicle testing technology to other car makers. Working with Autonomous Solutions Inc, Ford has developed a turnkey test kit available directly from ASI. The package can save time and spare human drivers from the tedium of driving over curbs and through potholes in automobile endurance testing. Or they could just slap a GoPro on some of the bluehair drivers in Houston for that test.

The robotically driven vehicles will perform repetitive tests on torturous surfaces with names like Silver Creek, Power Hop Hill and Curb Your Enthusiasm, compressing ten years of daily driving abuse into courses just a few hundred yards long. 

They should come tryout Houston’s Monroe Drive near the Hobby Airport.
Same thing.

Listen to the Automotive Reporter Radio Show every weekend on Stitcher.com, or from our webpage.

Automotive Reporter Biz News for Wk of 10-5-15

As if the exciting previews of the new 007 movie aren’t enough brand placement for Aston Martin, the automaker is also capitalizing on the final flight of an iconic Cold War-era British bomber later this month.   

The Avro Vulcan XH558, a delta-wing  long-range bomber built in the ‘50’s, is being reunited with its modern day namesake, the Aston Martin Vulcan, an 800-hp, all-carbon fiber supercar. There are only 24 models of the racecar in existence. 

The company staged a flyby of the Vulcan bomber over the Vulcan race car at Elvington Airfield in Yorkshire. The final flight of the Vulcan will be this weekend (10/10-11).

The charity that owns and operates the XH558, the Vulcan to the Sky Trust, has concluded it is no longer safe to fly the aircraft, as technical support for the bombers Rolls Royce jet engines and other systems are being discontinued by various vendors and providers. The Vulcan has already exceeded the maximum flight hours experienced by other Vulcans by more than ten percent, and it is the studied opinion of her operators that identifying and diagnosing future problems and maintenance issues with the aircraft would be increasingly difficult. Without such support, the British Civil Aviation Authority is effectively grounding the aircraft. The bomber will be on permanent static display in England at the Robin Hood Airport in Doncaster.
I have no idea where that is.

Aston Martin says the first deliveries of the track-only Aston Martin Vulcan to customers worldwide will take place before the end of the year. This week Aston Martin also announced the appointment of Laura Schwab as President for Aston Martin The Americas, effective later this month.

The recent backlash over cellphone use in public places has created some interesting social solutions. There is an emerging trend to stack smartphones in the center of the table for the duration of a meal, and the first person to grab theirs has to pay for the group’s tab.

Chevrolet takes that notion one step further, while capitalizing on the need for personal connectivity in a new series of TV commercials you’ll be seeing this week. The point is memorably made.

“Focus Groups” are brought into a room with a big round table, and a big red wood chipper. They are told to surrender their devices for reasons of intellectual security, at which point the moderator calmly walks over to the wood chipper, and feeds the phones into the machine. The reactions of the group members are pretty priceless, albeit rather sedate compared to what my personal response might be in the same situation. The point of the exercise keys in on our perceived need for total connectivity at all times, which Chevrolet says it can deliver in the new Cruse Lite 4G Wifi automobile.

Has Toyota created a flying car? While the new Toyota Mirai Hyrdogen Fuel Cell electric car cannot literally fly, Toyota says it is flying off the virtual shelf!

Nearly 1,900 people have reserved their Miraii, exceeding the expected initial production run of 1,000 vehicles, and pushing the grammatical envelope on how to properly describe what is the plural of Mirai.
Mirai's? Miraii? What?  

Toyota’s order request portal now directs customers to a wait list until production can catch up with demand.  Toyota says existing order requests are being reviewed, and automaker will begin placing the first customers in the driver’s seat of their new Mirai later this month.   

A fellow Mazda MX-5 Miata owner pulled up in front of my house on Friday evening in his early-edition NB and turned off the engine. He sat in the car at the curb for a very long time, tapping on his smartphone, before walking up to my door. His clutch slave cylinder had failed, and he couldn’t shift the manual transmission. 

I repressed my urge to discuss with him the art of engine-rev clutchless shifting, and instead commiserated about the extent to which owners go to keep our MX-5’s running at peak performance, regardless of the vintage. The car remains parked in front of my house this morning, as I compose this column. I don’t know who his insurance company is, but my towing service would’ve been on scene within the hour.

As a public service to him, and to you, I am passing on Mazda’s just-released pricing points for its new Global Mazda MX-5 Cup cars. The version is Mazda Motorsports first-ever ready-to-race production MX-5 Miata, checking in at only $53k. It is an entry-level  racing car, and is Mazda’s contribution to growing the sport by encouraging new drivers to affordably enter the competition. What do you get for that price?

Long Road Racing, Inc. takes a street version of the MX-5 and strips it down to replace several OEM items with high-performance components, including a high-capacity radiator, limited slip differential, a racing cage, cooling lines, performance brakes, and racing fluids for the transmission and crankcase. 

Each Miata Cup car is built identically so that their performance on the track is altered only by the skill of who’s behind the wheel. You can order yours online at www.MazdaMotorsports.com.
You’re welcome.

Ford Motor Company’s newest advertising campaign for Ford service is themed, “The Specialists at Ford,” and will feature big-screen action hero, producer and business entrepreneur Dwayne Johnson.
Yes, The Rock drives a Ford—several, in fact. His favorite: The Ford F-150.

“The Specialists at Ford” are an elite crew of Ford technicians led by Johnson. This dedicated team has all of the training, diagnostic tools and Motorcraft parts that make servicing your vehicle at your local Ford dealership the right decision.

I wonder if he’ll glare into the camera and snarl, “Can you smell what The Rock is fixing?”

Listen to the Automotive Reporter Radio Show every weekend on Stitcher.com, or from our webpage.  

Automotive Reporter/Biz News for Wk of 8-3-2015

I mentioned last week that my first, brand-new car was a 1976 Honda Civic CVCC Hatchback. Even back then they were called rice-burners, and I was viewed with some disdain by my peers. But, hey—there had been this thing called an Oil Embargo, and gasoline prices were on the rise. The Civic may have been made in Japan, but it was made for the U.S.

Fast-forward 40-years, and in an ironic turnabout, Korean drivers may now begin ordering US-built 2015 Chevrolet Impala’s—the first time the brand is introducing a full-size sedan domestically. Cars destined for Korea will be assembled at GM’s Hamtramck Assembly plant in Detroit. 

The Korean-Impala (“The Krimpala?”) will be strikingly similar to its US brothers, but the Korean-only vehicles will have folding side mirrors, electronic toll collection capability, and heated rear seats.

Don’t try this at home.
BMW’s new 7-Series sedan is prominently featured in the 5^th edition of the Mission: Impossible film series, “Rogue Nation,” reprising the partnership  with Paramount in “Ghost Protocol” in 2011.

“The 2016 BMW 7 Series sets a new benchmark in lightweight design, driving dynamics, comfort, intelligent connectivity and intuitive operation,” the company’s press release exhorts. The car apparently can also traverse several levels of stair steps, and is capable of launching itself, in reverse, into space, and landing end-over-end, keeping driver and passengers intact. (Remember, it’s a movie.)

The association with MI-5 is not without promotional benefit. BMW is also initiating a “Mission to Drive” marketing campaign around this weekend’s motive release, should you choose to accept it. Additionally, the all-new BMW 7 Series features the world’s first Gesture Control. Pre-selected hand movements in the vicinity of the center console enable you to adjust the audio volume control, and accept or reject incoming phone calls, among other functions. Yes, I suppose you can program it to respond to that hand gesture, too.

I give the film a “7” on my 1-10 scale of entertainment and excitement. “Rogue” has a tall hill to climb this summer, competing against “The Man from U.N.C.L.E.” and the next James Bond serial, “Spectre.” 

Speaking of spies, more and more drivers believe vehicle hacking will be a growing problem in coming years, and may temper their buying tastes for new cars. Most respondents to a new Kelly Blue Book survey on vehicle hacking do not believe there will ever be a permanent solution to the problem.

In the survey, 72% of drivers were aware of the recent Jeep Cherokee hacking incident. 70% perceived Fiat vehicles the most vulnerable to hacking, including FIAT, Chrysler, Jeep, Dodge, and RAM. Interestingly, slightly more than half of the drivers questioned would consider paying a monthly fee to guarantee their car was hack-proof, up to about $8/month for the peace of mind.

Elio CEO Paul Elio

Just one month after launching its crowdfunding campaign under new investing rules, Elio Motors says it has received non-binding indicators of interest worth over $25-million. The company used the StartEngine crowdfunding platform to get the word out, and the potential orders rolling in.

The money raised will help fund next year’s roll-out of Elio’s three-wheel enclosed vehicle. The unorthodox car is expected to sell for $6,800 and deliver 84mpg. The company says it has taken over 45,000 reservations for the cars.

In a very self-serving comparison piece by MazdaPartsUSA.com, the 2016 Mazda MX-5 Miata will offer 90% of the Porsche experience at about 50% of the price. 

Whaaat?

Yes, they did a side-by-side comparison of the new ND with a 2015 Porsche Boxster, looking at all the usual areas, like horsepower, zero-to-60 times, and curb weight. You scoff? There are some amazing similarities.

While the new Miata has a smaller, 2-Liter 4-cylinder engine than the Boxster's 2.7-Liter flat six, the Miata trails the Boxster by only 0.3 seconds in a race from 0-60. And remember, it’s a lot less expensive than the high-priced spread. 

The 2016 Miata's $24,915 base price is less than half the cost of the 2015 Boxster's base MSRP of $52,395.

The chart is displayed below, or you can download it here.
I don’t think the Mazda folks are really going to have to work this hard to sell the new MX-5.

 Listen to the Automotive Reporter Radio Show every weekend on Stitcher.com, or from our webpage.