Archive for the ‘Politics’ Category

We’ve been here before. The government mandates more fuel-efficient vehicles across the board, yet the American public continues to gravitate toward what’s big and powerful.

Barring this era of greater responsibility and restraint, which might pass like a fleeting fancy with the recession, why not pick the bigger or more powerful car, we say?

A lot of things are different this time around, though. Perhaps most remarkably, quite a few executives of automakers and major auto-supplier companies are voicing out in favor of higher fuel taxes—of more rigorous regulation of what types of vehicles can be built and sold—as a way of reducing our...

Vice President Joe Biden, known for repeated instances of foot-in-mouth disease, unwittingly spilled the beans on Fisker Automotive's plan for a Delaware-built, three-vehicle family of plug-in hybrids.

Fox News reports that Biden told press gathered in Wilmington, Del., that Fisker would eventually build 100,000 plug-in hybrid sedans, coupes and crossovers "every single year."

In a follow-up interview, founder Henrik Fisker told Fox that Biden "definitely told what our product plans are."

Fisker's gambit in the government's full-court press for electrified vehicles is a brilliant one, on its face. While electric-car company Tesla has yet to...

TCC's Frugal Shopper ALERT: If you drive a small, aging econocar—or even a mid-size sedan—and have been thinking about new tires, get them now, because several weeks from now you might be paying $20 or $30 more for a set.

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Last month the federal government imposed a controversial new 35-percent tire tariff on passenger car and light-truck tires imported from China. The tire industry—including a number of retailers—had been opposing the tariff and predicted that prices will rise as a result-at an inopportune time, with affordable tires most affected at a time when owners can't afford the extra cost.

The tariff was heavily influenced by...