Spreading awareness about the dangers of SUVs.

Toyota hurriedly ordered recalls of nearly 10,000 Lexus SUVs for possible rollover dangers Monday and agreed to a record $16.4 million fine for a slow response in its broader earlier recall, scrambling to fix safety worries that threaten the Japanese auto giant’s reputation.

The fine, the maximum under law, could hurt Toyota Motor Corp.’s image more than its financial bottom line: The penalty is the equivalent of a little more than $2 for every vehicle the company sold around the globe in 2009. And analysts said it would have little impact on dozens of private lawsuits, which have been combined before a federal judge in Santa Ana, Calif.

“In the court of public opinion, paying the fine speaks volumes. But at the end of the day, the fines are simply background noise in terms of the civil litigation,” said Richard Arsenault, a plaintiff’s attorney in Alexandria, La. “What’s really important are the facts that were the catalyst for the fines.”

Addressing new safety concerns, Toyota said it would recall all 9,400 of the 2010 Lexus GX 460s that went on sale in late December – 5,600 that have been sold and 3,800 still at dealers or elsewhere in the distribution pipeline. The announcement came less than a week after Consumer Reports issued a warning about the SUVs, a sharp contrast to the government’s contention that Toyota took four months to order its huge recall of other models over sticking gas pedals.

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A Huntington Beach police officer checks out an SUV that winds blew onto its side in the parking lot of Peter’s Landing Marina in Huntington Harbour. No one was in the vehicle when it tipped over.

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The Chinese heavy machinery maker that agreed to buy General Motors’ Hummer brand may find the biggest stumbling blocks to the deal in its home country.

Following last week’s surprise announcement that Sichuan Tengzhong Heavy Industrial Machinery and GM had reached an agreement, analysts and Chinese media were buzzing with talk that the two companies might have jumped the gun.

Reuters newsagency says the pitfalls range from regulatory to financing issues.

GM said a day after its bankruptcy filing that it did not expect any regulatory scrutiny from the US government on the deal, part of its attempt to restore profits by focusing on four core brands: Buick, GMC, Cadillac and Chevrolet.

According to Reuters many China watchers say that resistance could actually come from China itself, as Beijing pushes for development of more energy-efficient technologies that go contrary to Hummer’s lineup of big SUVs.

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GM has sold the Hummer brand to a privately owned Chinese company, Sichuan Tengzhong Heavy Industrial Machinery.

Specializing in heavy industrial and construction machinery, Tengzhong is based in the Schuan province and should have the deal wrapped up by the third quarter of this year.

Although the exact details and amount of money changing hands with regards to the deal are still secret, Credit Suisse is representing Tengzhong whilst America’s Citi bank is acting as financial advisor to GM.

Hummer’s 150 US dealers are expected to survive, yet with its unbundling from the GM stable, new manufacturing facilities will be needed, with the Shreveport, Louisiana plant (responsible for H3 and H3T) still on contact until the end of next year.

GM’s South African manufacturing facility in Port Elizabeth, which built right-hand drive H3s, is in the process of shutting down Hummer production.

AM General’s Mishawaka plant, located in Indiana, faces an uncertain future as it produces the oversized H2 Hummer derivative.

Although US workers will be glad the brand’s core management and dealership network remains, Oriental analysts are at a loss trying to understand the value of the deal. Tengzhong has no experience in the car industry and Hummer is a poisoned chalice of sorts in a world turning away from brash, inefficient, SUV vehicles.

One of the deal sweeteners is a long-term GM supplier agreement for Tengzhong, which could perhaps offset a loss-making Hummer purchase against high revenue supply contracts.

Source

VEHICLE MAKE/MODEL: 2009 HUMMER / H3T

NHTSA CAMPAIGN ID Number: 09V080000

Summary:

GENERAL MOTORS IS RECALLING 1,738 MY 2009 HUMMER H3T VEHICLES. SOME OF THESE VEHICLES HAVE A CONDITION IN WHICH THE FUEL TANK FRONT SUPPORT STRAP MAY FRACTURE. IF THIS OCCURS, THE FUEL TANK WOULD BE SUPPORTED BY THE REAR SUPPORT STRAP AND STONE SHIELD ONLY. CONTINUED USE OF THE VEHICLE MAY EVENTUALLY FRACTURE THE REAR SUPPORT STRAP AND SHIELD FASTENERS.

Consequence:

THE FUEL TANK COULD SEPARATE FROM THE VEHICLE INCREASING THE RISK OF A CRASH.

Remedy:

DEALERS WILL INSTALL A NEW-DESIGN FUEL TANK FRONT SUPPORT STRAP FREE OF CHARGE. THE RECALL IS EXPECTED TO BEGIN ON OR BEFORE APRIL 10, 2009. OWNERS MAY CONTACT HUMMER AT 800-732-5493 OR OWNER CENTER AT WWW.GMOWNERCENTER.COM.

Notes:

GENERAL MOTORS 09048. OWNERS MAY ALSO CONTACT THE NATIONAL HIGHWAY TRAFFIC SAFETY ADMINISTRATION’S VEHICLE SAFETY HOTLINE AT 1-888-327-4236 (TTY 1-800-424-9153), OR GO TO HTTP://WWW.SAFERCAR.GOV .

Have you seen the Cadillac commercial for the Escalade Hybrid where they claim it has the same gas mileage as a MINI Cooper? Consider this a lesson in how deceptive and desperate SUV commercials can be.

The Cadillac Escalade in the commercial is a hybrid model. Automotive.com reports the 2009 Cadillac Escalade Hybrid Sport Utility at 21mpg highway and 20mpg city. The base model Escalade gets a dismal 14mpg highway and 10mpg city. Anything is an improvement over that. Regardless, fuel economy in a luxury SUV is an oxymoron.

The voiceover in the commercial simply states that the comparison is made against a MINI Cooper, but doesn’t clarify which model. However, in the hardly legible fine print that briefly rests at the bottom of the screen you might notice that the MINI Cooper they Cadillac compares it to is the Cooper S, which is MINI’s turbocharged model. But Cadillac doesn’t want you to know this. You are led to believe it’s the regular economy car. Regardless, according to Automotive.com, the 2009 MINI Cooper S Hatchback gets 34mpg highway and 26mpg city. Unfortunately, Automotive.com does not have the mileage listed for the convertible model, but MINI’s site claims the same fuel efficiency with a 2-3mpg difference between manual and automatic transmissions. The base model gets 37mpg highway and 28mpg city! Obviously Cadillac wouldn’t compare their hybrid’s gas mileage to that fuel economy.

You also need to take into account that the Escalade Hybrid has a sticker price of over $75,000 – $80,000. The Cooper S, on the other hand, has a sticker price of under $24,000. If you really want to compare apples to oranges as GM did in their commercial, without the blatant lying, there is also a platinum edition (non hybrid) Escalade that is over $80,000. You could almost buy four base model MINI Coopers for that price, as pointed out in the comments here!

Green living blogger Max Gladwell found on his test that the Cadillac Escalade Hybrid, driven around Beverly Hills, CA got only 10.3MPG (see below) during their five mile journey! On what planet is that better than the 26mpg the MINI Cooper S gets in the city?

Now, I’m not a MINI owner, so I was curious as to what comments from true enthusiasts about this blatant false advertising would look like – check out five pages worth at NorthAmericanMotoring.com!

Governor Deval Patrick said today he is looking at a Hummer tax — adding higher registration fees for gas-guzzling cars and offering discounts for those that do less harm to the environment. One industry opponent said it would be the first such fee in the nation on the state level.

The suggestion comes as Patrick prepares to unveil a fuller version of his much-awaited transportation plan on Friday. While he would not release details today, Patrick said at a Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce appearance that any gas tax increase would be coupled with a freeze on toll rates.

Environmentalists applauded the registration proposal, saying it would encourage people to buy smaller and more fuel-efficient cars, which are increasingly seen as key to curbing global warming. Similar proposals have been proposed in Massachusetts since at least 2001, but without the prominent backing of a sitting governor.

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Along with a host of other layoffs announced Monday, HUMMER H2 maker AM General announced it was temporarily laying off 200 workers from its civilian line. According to an AM General spokesperson Craig Mac Nab, plant production will be shut down until at least March.

Workers leaving Monday afternoon were largely mum except for one who told local CBS affiliate WSBT, “”Nobody’s safe in this day and age.”

AM General in the past has been able to shift some workers from its civilian operations to its military plant, and that may be an option now for some workers.

“What we are doing at considerable difficulty and expense to the company is moving all eligible employees from the H2 workforce into other parts of the company — finding them jobs,” said Mac Nab. “That will start to happen at the beginning of March. Some of the older employees have already been moved.”

AM General nor HUMMER would speculate on when the H2 production would ramp back up, and Mac Nab added, “Nobody knows what’s going to happen with the H2 plant.”

The loss of jobs can be largely attributed to GM’s announcement Monday to cut 2000 jobs and slow production at nine plants across the country.

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A company that helps auto insurers spot high risks says in a new report that drivers of the H2 and H3 are ticketed by police at more than four times the rate of the average driver – the highest of models it studied.

But contrary to the stereotype of the aggressive sport utility vehicle driver, the report by ISO Quality Planning of San Francisco also found that drivers of Chevrolet Suburbans and Tahoes, big SUVs that share structural and mechanical basics with the H2, are among the least likely to get tickets for moving violations, based on a study of tickets issued nationwide in a 12-month period ended last year by drivers of more than 1.7 million vehicles.

Why the difference? Quality Planning executives can only guess. “The sense of power that Hummer drivers derive from their vehicle may be directly correlated with the number of violations they incur,” president Raj Bhat said in statement. “Or perhaps Hummer drivers, by virtue of their driving position, are less likely to notice road hazards, signs, pedestrians or other drivers.”

On Long Island, homebuilder and renovator Steve Nemiroff of Roslyn Heights said yesterday he has never been ticketed for a moving violation in 163,000 miles of driving the 2003 H2 he bought from North Bay Cadillac Hummer in Great Neck. And he said he does feel safe behind the wheel. “No matter what the weather or where I am,” he said, “I never worry about me getting hurt.”

Quality Planning said other vehicles whose drivers attract above-average numbers of tickets are those that appeal to young people, especially the Toyota/Scion xA, xB and tC; and at least two that appeal to auto enthusiasts, the Mercedes-Benz CLK63 AMG and CLS63 AMG.

Quality Planning’s survey isn’t the first to single out the drivers of Hummers; the Highway Loss Data Institute, a suburban Virginia-based group affiliated with the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, says on its Web site that H3s have a “substantially worse than average,” rate of claims for property damage, though not for other types of claims.

The institute says the larger Hummer H2 has a substantially worse-than-average record for property damage and also for bodily injury and even fire and theft claims.

Drivers of these vehicles get the most tickets: *

Hummer H2, H3
Scion tC
Scion xB
Mercedes CLK63AMG
Toyota Solara Coupe
Mercedes CLS63AMG
Scion xA
Subaru Outback
Audi A4
Toyota Matrix

Drivers of these get the least:

Jaguar XJ
Chevrolet Suburban
Chevrolet Tahoe
Chevrolet C/K 2500/3500 pickup
Buick Park Avenue
Mazda 6
Buick Ranier SUV
Oldsmobile Silhouette minivan
Buick Lucerne
GMC Sierra C1500 pickup

*In order, based on percent of average rate per 100,000 miles driven

Source

At the General Motors annual meeting in Delaware today, CEO Rick Wagoner will be publicly announcing the latest restructuring round for the beleaguered automaker. In response to plummeting sales of large trucks, GM will close down four more North American Assembly plants by 2010. The plants in Janesville, Wisconsin, Oshawa Ontario, Moraine, Ohio, and Toluca, Mexico are already running reduced production schedules and will cease operations entirely as products are discontinued or shifted to other plants. The Janesville plant builds medium trucks and SUVs while Moraine builds the old body on frame Trailblazer, GMC Envoy and Saab 9-7x SUVs. The other plants build full-size pickup trucks. The closures affect 10,000 employees at those plants. Those that aren’t among the 19,000 who are taking buyouts will be offered transfers to other locations to fill spaces vacated by the departing workers. The closures are expected to save GM about $1 billion a year.

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