An alliance of automakers, California regulators, and technology suppliers have launched the California Plug-In Electric Vehicle Collaborative to simplify the process of installing home chargers and will seek to ease restrictions on apartments and condominiums. The collaborative says this is being done to handle a million pure electric and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles that will be on California roads within the next 10 years.
The DOT wants to ban interstate truckers and bus drivers from using hand-held cell phones and is proposing fines up to $2,750 and loss of license. Carriers could also be fined up to $11,000. The government is allowing 60 days to comment on the proposed rule.
Nagi Palle of OpenLane shares his auto industry guidance for 2011. A tight off-lease used vehicle supply will be offset by improved dealer consignment as the new car sales and leasing grow. Palle sees used vehicle inventory to be tight with speculative buying by dealers declining and on-line auction sales increasing as dealers become more targeted on their customers' needs, causing inventory turn rates to improve.
Dealerships along with dealer groups such as AutoNation are including older used vehicles in their inventory and sales mix. Higher quality as well as history information from CarFax and AutoCheck make older used vehicles a significant part of a dealership sales mix. The weak economy and stable used vehicle prices indicate buyers are replacing newer used vehicles with older models. Growing value in this segment will moderate due to the ceiling on price appreciation from new vehicles.
Telematics, the long distance transmission of computerized information, affects vehicle sales on the showroom floor for Ford and GM. Each uses different technology to enable services including hands-free phone, point-to-point directions, entertainment and music as well as 911 calls and safety. GM's OnStar embedded technology improves reliability while Ford's Sync, not embedded, improves flexibility for Ford's world car vision.