Archive for the ‘merging’ Category

As we mentioned a couple of weeks ago, new fuel efficiency and emissions regulations issued by the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Transportation could have a serious impact on gas-guzzling luxury vehicles. If approved as they stand in draft form, the regulations provide very little room for deviation, which could result in some very uncomfortable mergers and partnerships among brands like BMW, Mercedes-Benz, and Porsche.

Current regulations allow manufacturers to pay fines on vehicles that fail to meet U.S. efficiency and emissions standards. Those fines are fairly small, and they're passed on to luxury consumers, who...

Under the leadership of Volkswagen chairman Ferdinand Piech, Porsche may be subjected to fairly strict controls -- at least as far as the marque's lineup is concerned. Most importantly for Porsche enthusiasts, rumor has it that the company's new owner will axe the Porsche Cayenne SUV and Panamera sedan when their product cycles wind down seven years from now.

This is potentially great news for Porsche. Many have accused the Cayenne of diluting the normally sporty Porsche family with a perfunctory SUV for upscale soccer moms. Similarly, the brand-new Panamera has been the target of frequent ridicule in the press, in part because of its...

It all began, explains author Tom Vanderbilt, when he finally became a "late merger". Instead of meekly getting into line while those [fill in epithet here] zoomed past him to merge just before the end of the lane...he joined them.

His wife cringed. He wondered what this would do to his self-image. Was he really that kind of person? And, more deeply, why do we behave the way we do in traffic? Is it true that late merging actually makes traffic move faster on average?

And that's how this unexpectedly compelling book starts. Face it, if someone said they wanted you to read a fascinating book on ... traffic ... you'd politely nod and try to...