Both Ford and Toyota are recalling their hybrid cars with similar braking issues. The big news of the day is that Toyota will be announcing a recall of its Prius to do a programming fix on its breaking system. Ford, while not calling it a recall, is doing a similar reprogramming of the breaking system on its Fusion and Mercury Milan hybrids.
In hybrids, the brakes are used to recharge the batteries when you get the car moving forward, but reverts to conventional stopping functions when the brake pedal is pushed down. The problem with the Prius appears to be that the brakes are slow to change over from recharging mode to stopping-the-car mode. The Fusion/Milan brakes are having much the same problem, which may be a bug of the type of regenerative braking system used in hybrids.
New technologies sometimes need some time to get all the bugs out, and drivers of this first major wave of hybrids may essentially be beta-testers. When Ford and Toyota are having the same type of problem, it might be the technology that did them wrong rather than a particular in-house problem.
Toyota will want to get back to moving cars out to dealers as soon as possible, and this doesn’t help matter. However, if it is a programming fix, it should be easier to administer and could be done in a few minutes rather than the half-hour estimated to fix the brakes on the non-hybrid cars in Toyota’s fleet.
What other glitches does Toyota have? At this rate, Murphy’s Law would say at least one more bug has to come out.
Sources: http://www.detnews.com/article/20100204/AU...to-recall-Prius
http://www.autoweek.com/article/20100204/CARNEWS/100209951
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Showing posts with label moving cars. Show all posts
Showing posts with label moving cars. Show all posts
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Friday, February 5, 2010
Avis and Enterprise Stop Leasing Toyotas, Hertz Yet to Make Decision, moving cars, car hauler
The major car rental companies will be moving cars with Toyota decals to the back of the lot, as both Avis Budget and Enterprise are opting to not rent out the Toyotas currently under recall. The peddle problems generally don’t manifest themselves in the low-mileage cars in the rental fleets, but the rental car companies don’t want to be seen leasing flawed cars.
Fleet sales to rental car companies are large parts of car company’s sales. They are also good marketing tools, as people might go on to buy a car they drove as a rental; I recall giving the PT Cruiser a serious look after driving one as a rental car. Having the major rental car companies pull most of their Toyotas will mean that customers won’t get that experience.
If the affected Toyotas get a bad reputation and people prefer not driving them, the fleet cars could be retired early. That would lead to some premature car hauler business taking the old Toyotas in the rental car fleet to auctions or used car lots and bringing replacement cars in.
On the bright side, this might loosen up a tight used car market. The Cash for Clunkers program took a lot of old cars off the market, but there might be a new set of “clunkers” heading into used car lots to offset their loss. I put “clunker” in quotes, for the cars should be just fine once the accelerator issue is fixed, but they may well have a bad reputation if the press of this week is any indication.
Source: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405...ustryCollection
Fleet sales to rental car companies are large parts of car company’s sales. They are also good marketing tools, as people might go on to buy a car they drove as a rental; I recall giving the PT Cruiser a serious look after driving one as a rental car. Having the major rental car companies pull most of their Toyotas will mean that customers won’t get that experience.
If the affected Toyotas get a bad reputation and people prefer not driving them, the fleet cars could be retired early. That would lead to some premature car hauler business taking the old Toyotas in the rental car fleet to auctions or used car lots and bringing replacement cars in.
On the bright side, this might loosen up a tight used car market. The Cash for Clunkers program took a lot of old cars off the market, but there might be a new set of “clunkers” heading into used car lots to offset their loss. I put “clunker” in quotes, for the cars should be just fine once the accelerator issue is fixed, but they may well have a bad reputation if the press of this week is any indication.
Source: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405...ustryCollection
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
Tesla Files IPO Paperwork With SEC, Roadster Production on Hiatus in 2011
Tesla Motors, the luxury electric car maker, has issued the initial registration of its IPO registration with the SEC, but while they hope to be shipping cars that don’t need any gas, their Roadster may be taking a hiatus in 2011.
Back when I was teaching finance, I pointed students to the Management Discussion and Analysis section of a company’s annual 10-K report with the SEC, for there is often some good in-depth information that you might not get elsewhere. The folks at Wired’s Autopia blog caught an interesting point in the MD&A of the S-1 form; on page 62, Tesla notes that they will be changing versions of the Roadster and that only the new Model S will be available in 2011. Manufacturing of the Roadster is being contracted out to British car-maker Lotus and retooling there will have their lines down in 2011.
That is going to make Tesla a dicey stock, since they will be banking on the Model S to make money in 2011. If there are any problems getting the Model S up and running, there will not be moving cars in 2011.
That may make investors in Tesla a bit skittish, as will the red ink that has already been endured at Tesla and the position of convertible preferred stockholders ahead of them at present and as future fellow common shareholders in the future. However, the nature of the stock will have both car enthusiasts and green investors interested in the stock, so that the Tesla IPO might come out at a price higher than it would if it were a more mundane stock.
However, if all goes well, car haulers will have some new customers to deliver to as Tesla goes more mainstream.
Sources: http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/131...htm#toc51863_12
http://www.wired.com/autopia/2010/01/tesla...o-exit-in-2011/
Back when I was teaching finance, I pointed students to the Management Discussion and Analysis section of a company’s annual 10-K report with the SEC, for there is often some good in-depth information that you might not get elsewhere. The folks at Wired’s Autopia blog caught an interesting point in the MD&A of the S-1 form; on page 62, Tesla notes that they will be changing versions of the Roadster and that only the new Model S will be available in 2011. Manufacturing of the Roadster is being contracted out to British car-maker Lotus and retooling there will have their lines down in 2011.
That is going to make Tesla a dicey stock, since they will be banking on the Model S to make money in 2011. If there are any problems getting the Model S up and running, there will not be moving cars in 2011.
That may make investors in Tesla a bit skittish, as will the red ink that has already been endured at Tesla and the position of convertible preferred stockholders ahead of them at present and as future fellow common shareholders in the future. However, the nature of the stock will have both car enthusiasts and green investors interested in the stock, so that the Tesla IPO might come out at a price higher than it would if it were a more mundane stock.
However, if all goes well, car haulers will have some new customers to deliver to as Tesla goes more mainstream.
Sources: http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/131...htm#toc51863_12
http://www.wired.com/autopia/2010/01/tesla...o-exit-in-2011/
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