Two children tragically lost their lives when French driver Catherine Kohtz lost control of her Volvo 850. The 1999 incident, which Kohtz blamed on a loss of braking ability in her Volvo, has led to French courts handing down a finding of manslaughter. The guilty verdict against Volvo also carries an €200,000 fine, though Volvo holds that there wasn't anything wrong with the car's braking system and will likely appeal. Driver Kohtz was fined €300 and also sentenced to a six-month jail term, which was suspended.
Kohtz's accident was initially attributed to reckless operation, and tensions in the town of Wasselonne have been stirred by the circumstances of crash. Rumblings of Kohtz, relatively wealthy, having bought her way out of a more serious outcome for the death of two ten year olds from lesser means have been dividing the town in eastern France. An investigation determined that the brakes in the Volvo 850 suffered from a problem known to Volvo. Rather than recall 180,000 850s, Volvo is alleged to have quietly asked its dealers to fix a rubber pipe prone to rupture or detachment, causing a loss of braking ability. An investigating magistrate contended that service documents instructing dealers how to repair the problem were overly vague, leading to an improper and ineffective repair on Kohtz's car. For a company with such an emphasis on safety, its surprising that it would try to cover up a major flaw in such a crucial system. Volvo argued that the service documents that were seized outline an innocuous fault, and that something else like a loose water bottle behind the pedal was to blame.
Daimler's not taking the close resemblance of a Chinese minicar to a smart fortwo lightly. The German automaker has gotten a court order forbidding Martin Motors, the European distributor for China's Shuanghuan Automobile, from displaying the Shuanghuan Noble at the upcoming Bologna Auto Show. This is the second time Daimler has blocked the Noble from being displayed, having taken similar action at the Frankfurt show.
Martin Motors is calling the Noble the Bubble in Europe, since there's already another Noble. Martin contends that the Bubble is not a copy of the fortwo, citing the four seats and front engine configuration among the differentiating details. Martin Motors has also demanded in Italian courts that Daimler prove its exclusive rights to the design of the smart. If a resolution can be reached, the Bubble will go on sale for about $10,000 euros across Europe. The resemblance is striking, but copying the look isn't the same as cribbing the underlying engineering. We haven't had the opportunity to crawl over, under, or through the Bubble, so we can't comment on whether it's better or worse than the smart, but from the looks of things in the video we've posted after the jump, the Bubble is hardly a premium vehicle. Shuanghuan also sells the CEO, a midsize SUV that borrows an awful lot from the BMW X5's looks. The appearance similarities between Shuanghuan's vehicles and those of well respected competitors may not help the Chinese automaker avoid having its European sales bubble burst.
Check the jump to see a video of the Noble/Bubble in action.
Kimi Raikkonen and the boys at Ferrari can breathe a sigh of relief, as their championship has been formally confirmed by the FIA. The title was appealed by the incredibly sore losers at McLaren, who insisted that because of a temperature irregularity in the fuel in BMW's and Williams' cars at the season closer in Brazil, those four cars should have been disqualified, thereby catapulting McLaren's Lewis Hamilton to the championship. (Yeah, they were serious.)
Hamilton, it should be noted, stated that he didn't want to win the championship that way. And nobody else wanted him too, either. Even F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone threatened to quit the sport if the FIA took the title away from Raikkonen and awarded it to Hamilton over the technicality.
The ruling was issued by a specially-convened panel of the FIA's International Court of Appeal, presided over by a Czech motorsport judge and three others from the United States, Greece and Portugal. The court, which heard testimonies from BMW, Williams and McLaren, convened in London instead of the FIA's headquarters in Paris due to traffic issues in the French capital.
Our take: Rules are rules, but if the FIA had stripped Raikkonen of his title, it would have been bad for him, bad for Hamilton, bad for F1 and bad for motorsports. We'll be waiting for Ron Dennis to find a way to blame us for this, too.
General Motors and the former DaimlerChrysler have been handed a disappointment in a Boston district court. At issue was Vermont's adoption of California's carbon dioxide standard, which requires cars and light trucks to reduce their emissions of the greenhouse gas by 30 percent. GM and DCX brought suit against the state of Vermont, claiming that Federal law was being usurped by states demanding their own emissions standards. Furthermore, the automakers say they couldn't meet the standard, and will have to pull out of Vermont as a result.
Judge William Sessions didn't buy the argument of GM and DaimlerChrysler, and instead upheld the Vermont law. While the standards are tighter than the Federal regulations, Sessions was not convinced that they pre-empt the nationwide requirements. It does appear like a thorny States Rights question, and if more states than the current dozen or so adopt California emissions guidelines, it will continue to cause consternation. It does make the federal regs look useless when states are passing requirements that are more rigorous. It also creates extra cost for automakers, as they've either got to make all of their cars compliant, or sell "Federal" and "California" versions of the same car. The decision will be appealed by the automakers, and we expect this issue to have legs – this is not the last we'll hear of this debate.
Let's say you're riding in a car with someone who doesn't exactly heed the letter of the law. Or, hypothetically of course, imagine that you, the passenger, are the law-bender. Now, thanks to a Supreme Court ruling, if the police stop your driver buddy for dodgy reasons, passengers are allowed the same rights to contest the validity of the stop as the driver (and the seizure of any evidence that might have been, ahem, found during the stop).
The case was brought by a man in California who was a passenger in a car that police stopped on suspicion of an expired registration. After the police booked him for parole and drug violations, he challenged the right for the police to make the stop in the first place. It turns out the police didn't have any right to stop the car because they already knew from a previous encounter that day that the car's registration was valid. The Supreme Court agreed that passengers in a car are just as "seized" during a police stop as the driver, and so should have as much right as the driver to call police actions into question. So, ignoring the fact that the man who instigated this actually was violating parole and carrying drugs -- his bad example has made life better for passengers everywhere. Kudos to the guys in the long black robes.
We generally try to avoid any coverage of celebrity foul ups, leaving it to the gossip sites to do their worst. This, however, is a story we couldn't pass up.
After one drunken driving arrest, two traffic violations and failing to enroll in a mandatory alcohol education program, Paris Hilton has been sentenced to 45 days in a woman's prison in Lynwood, CA.
After arriving fashionably late to her court date, Paris the heiress was accompanied by her mother, Kathy, who laughed out loud when the prosecutor was making his closing statement (apple, tree, you know the rest). Afterwards, Paris made a statement laden with apologies, yet seeming to lack any real substance.
As flawed as our system can be, it's nice to know that justice can been served, even to the wealthy elite that generally live above the law. Her sentence begins on June 5th and we're looking forward to 45 Paris-free days during her time in custody.
In most countries, acts like murder, treason, or plotting to overthrow the government rank among the most heinous crimes a person can commit. In Italy, stealing secrets from Ferrari ranks right up near the top of the list, too.
Following a long, drawn out process, two former Scuderia Ferrari engineers, who stood accused of stealing secrets from Maranello and giving them to rivals at Toyota F1, have been convicted. Pending appeal, Angelo Santini was sentenced to nine months and Mauro Iacconi to 16 behind bars on charges of industrial espionage.
Back at the start of the 2003 season, Toyota built a wind-tunnel down the road from Ferrari in Sant'Agata Bolognese, near the Lamborghini factory. Naturally the project recruited the talents of many former Ferrari engineers, but when the season kicked off, Toyota's car looked suspiciously like Ferrari's. Complaints were filed in Italy and in Germany, and the case against Santini and Iacconi went to court a year ago. Toyota's former team principal, chief designer and chief aerodynamicist were all charged in Germany, where the case against them is pending prosecution.
It seems that Toyota will stop at nothing to catch up to Ferrari, and when hiring a Schumacher didn't work, less legal means were employed.
The case file on Stefan Eriksson just keeps growing longer and longer. The failed video-game executive crashed (and completely destroyed) a Ferrari Enzo on February 21. Totaling an Enzo is enough to put him in our bad books, but Eriksson just keeps on digging deeper into trouble.
First he was charged with a drunk driving misdemeanor after crashing the Enzo, to which he pleaded no contest. Then he was arrested on April 7 and is currently on trial for embezzlement and grand theft charges. Not enough? Apparently Eriksson was also the perpetrator of a hit-and-run.
According to the allegations, Eriksson was driving someone else's Porsche Cayenne SUV on January 4 when he drove right into the back of a Ford Explorer sitting at a red light. Well done! To make matters worse, he allegedly refused to give his information to the driver of the Explorer and just drove off instead. And why did he do that? Well apparently Eriksson was driving without a valid license or insurance. No word on whether he was driving drunk this time.
Why are we left with this feeling that Eriksson will also be charged with having sunk the Titanic, or maybe with having slashed the tires on Richard Hammond's dragster?
Just a few months ago, based on its threat to cancel union labor contracts, Tower Automotive appeared on the brink of a work stoppage - an event that would have halted a significant amount of North American vehicle production. Now we can all breath a bit easier, as the bankrupt supplier has reached a tentative deal with the United Auto Workers and United Steelworkers.
Details of the agreements have not yet been released, but presumably it's somewhat sweeter than the original proposal floated to the workers, which would have cut wages by $2-3, frozen the pension plan, and significantly raised health care costs. Tower's previous contracts were not nearly as "fat" as those from other manufacturers currently in the news, with wages reportedly in the $13-17 range.
Some days we see Delphi's point of view in this whole war of wages, and then there are days like today when we learn that Delphi is planning to pay up to $60 million in performance bonuses to 14,000 white collar workers. Obviously the 33,000 blue collar workers whose wages are on the chopping block aren't too pleased. True, Delphi's white collared workers haven't received bonuses for over three years and true, those same workers are paid less than their counterparts at similar companies, but still... timing is everything.
2010 Nissan Cube breaks cover in Japan
Officially Official: 2010 Ford Mustang!
2010 Ford Mustang revealed early on Ford's own website!
2009 Nissan 370Z rolls out early in So. Cal
VIDEO: 2009 Nissan 370Z revealed early in So. Cal.
In the Autoblog Garage: 2009 HUMMER H3T Alpha
In the Autoblog Garage: 2009 Mercedes Benz C63 AMG
In the Autoblog Garage: 2009 Hyundai Genesis
In the Autoblog Garage: 2009 Chevrolet Traverse LT
