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What law was broken when they allowed any company to install and use android, but required google search/chrome IFF they installed google play? That is simply an app manager. Any company CAN make their own. Amazon did. The fact that Amazon did, SHOWS that they are not monopolizing android.
So, what exactly was illegal about it? There was nothing like Microsoft with Windows who said that if you want windows, you had to install all of it. In addition, The European companies were hit with 1/10 for committing murder and TRUE monopolistic actions, while Google was hit with 1/4th of their TOTAL annual profits, which is a great deal more than anything that has been hit against european companies.
VW was hit with 1B, so, I seriously doubt that Daimler will be hit with more.
Just found this. In fact, Daimlers profits were 9B last year AND the fine for lying and murdering ppl with pollution was a whopping 85 MILLION Euros.
That is why Daimler did not make that list of massive fines.

You are now lying as bad as caffeinated bacon/crimson tsunami. I would have thought better of you.

Not that "tech company" is a separate category anymore what with almost every part of industry transforming itself onto a technological base. But every industry from pharma and insuranceto automobilesto appliances is pouring money into politicians with very predictable results. For decades. For centuries. Now I'm supposed to believe the government is actually reigning in capitalism under a Republican president and a heavily Republican-constrained congress? Pull the other one, it squeakes.

The problem is that it won’t help profitability, not initially. JLR CFO Gregor admitted that the I-Pace’s margins are lower despite being priced 15 percent above an equivalently equipped F-Pace. In fact, he said the I-Pace was more useful to help JLR reach tougher forthcoming CO2 targets in markets such as Europe and China. “Those electric vehicles are really important for balancing out the vehicles that have higher CO2 footprints,” he said. They also mean Jaguar eventually will not need smaller cars to achieve that compliance

Selling an EV that hurts profits, for the purpose of "balancing out vehicles that have higher CO2 footprints", is the definition of a compliance car.

is that like having 2 collision avoidance systems, Uber's and Volvo's, and not disabling Volvo's system, instead of solely relying on Ubers beta product to not run someone over?
        https://www.autonews.com/artic...

Yeah, well, I think if that was actually the case, a lot of Tesla drivers would have noticed and been raising hell. They haven't.

edmunds.com sure is raising hell about their Model 3 LR 36.8 kWh/100miles.

Motortrend don't seem pleased by their 34.9 kWh/100miles (103.7 MPGe) Model 3.

CarAndDriver sound disappointed by their 200miles range Model 3.

This German Environment Minister (and Green Party Tree Hugger)rejected his Tesla (not a Model 3 this time but a Model S P100 (100kWh battery, Model 3 LR only has a 75 kWh battery)), due to 190 miles range (300km), among other quality issues.

Fact of the matter is, reliable sources are getting ~200miles range from Tesla big battery offerings.

I kind of favor reliable sources with known track records rather than anonymous cowards like Rei/KarenRei/Karen Pease, or even yourself Kyr Arvin.

50k in a quarter is a very solid number for a sedan in the US. 100k would be amazing - better than Camry sales. Dunno about OP, but I certainly would have bought more.

That's an extreme form of gambling. You would be betting on Tesla becoming a powerhouse of the car industry. Let's look at some company-wide numbers:

"Toyota Motor Sales U.S.A. said vehicle deliveries in the U.S. fell 2 percent to 223,055 in August, which had the same number of selling days in 2017."

That's over 200,000 in one month.

Now let's look at a comparison of market capitalization in this article from one year ago:

"The top automakers, their market caps as of this week (June 19), and 2016 worldwide sales are:

1. Toyota, $155.88 billion market cap, 10.1 million sales
2. Daimler, (Mercedes-Benz), $70.35 billion, 3 million sales
3. Volkswagen, $67.24 billion, 10.3 million sales
4. Tesla, $60.28 billion, 76,230 sales
5. BMW, $54.77 billion, 2.4 million sales
6. GM, $51.45 billion, 9.6 million sales
7. Ford, $44.65 billion, 6.7 million sales"

Is it possible Tesla can eventually achieve numbers that justify their market cap? Yes. But missing in that price is the very real risk that they won't.

I know you're pretty retarded, but even you could have actually read the article and seen that it says they had a "trip-average Supercharger dwell time of 38.3 minutes" rather than your "ONE FUCKING HOUR!!

Pay attention fuckwit, take for example your 1995 Kia Sephia daily driver (or a 2019 Tesla Model 3...same thing quality wise). If its gas tank had a capacity of 20gal/70liters, does that mean you fucking fill it with 20gal/70liters every time you go to the fucking gas station?

with a car that gets 300 miles on a full charge

This German guy only got 170miles/300km from his Model S P100 (biggest battery Tesla make).
And apparently your shithead missed the article entry where Edmunds.com 2013 Model S P85 barely squeezed out 200 miles as its longest run on full charge.

Fuck off and buy something else.

Now you're making sense.

BTW, where are your Tesla gayboys club buddies (KarenRei, Karen Pease, WindBourne, haruchai, Bruce Perens, Type44Q, KS Kyosuke, barsteward, apoc.famine, sfcat, aaarrrgggh, bgarcia, MachineShedFred, SuperKendall, OakianWarrior, Gavagai80, thegarbz, AlanObject...)?

The guy who orchestrated it was Ex-CEO Martin Winterkorn. He hated licensing Mercedes' diesel exhaust fluid technology (which combines ammonia with nitrous oxides to produce nitrogen, water, and CO2). So he specifically tasked his engineers with coming up with a diesel engine which didn't use DEF.*

When he resigned as CEO, he collected a $32 million golden parachute. Fines won't solve the problem. We need jail time.

* (To their credit, the engineers almost succeeded. The earlier 2-liter engines were a disaster - up to 5x the legal limit of NOx emissions (0.2-0.3 g/mi). But the 2015 2-liter diesel engines met EPA emissions limits without using DEF. They're just included in the scandal because they barely exceeded CARB's limits (0.05 g/mi).)

The OP(your twink Rei?...are you a Musk cocksucker as well?) clearly said TM3 goes farther than 340i in city driving

There's no way any Tesla will even go near 336 miles range of a BMW 340.
A Tesla Model S P100 can only muster 170 miles real world range.
A TMS P100 shockingly packing a 50% larger battery than your homoerotic Elon wet dream >336 miles Model 3 LR.

200 miles in 30 minutes in supercharger

BULLSHIT
2013 Model S P85 driven from California to New York by edmunds.com required 15 hours of charging (exclusively at Superchargers) at a total driving time of 53 hours.
53/15=3.5 hours of driving for every one hour of charging.

Your 30min at a Supercharger will get you about 100min of highway driving (about 90 miles...NOT 200 miles).

The #1 selling Sedan in the US in Q1 was the (far cheaper) Toyota Camry, at just over 18k vehicles sold per month.

Apparently wikipedia thinks it's just over 32k/months.
Is being off by a factor of 2x the effects of being forced fed unrefrigerated rancid Elon Musk bukkake in your mouth Rei? (I heard Tesla is having some cash flow issues and decided to store Elon Musk bukkake in uncapped containers in outdoor tents, where its pungent aroma keeps workers grossed out)

Previously the Model S P100 famously could only achieve 170 miles range from the advertised 311 miles, again the rancid bukkake 2x factor appears.

Really?

Then where are the 300+ mile range EVs from literally ANYBODY else?

How about where are the 300+ mile range EVs from Tesla?

Model S (P100) can only do 170 miles (300 km).

Model 3 LR (only the long range is being manufactured right now) is ~200 mile EV (31.7 kWh/100 mile).

And by the way, just so you know, Toyota sold off a large chunk of the equipment at NUMMI:

The plant was scheduled to close and NUMMI needed to distribute its industrial equipment, transfer or sell them using the Fair Market and Fair Market Value in Place value appraisals to make these decisions.

And transferred most of the rest:

LOS ANGELES (Bloomberg) -- Toyota Motor Corp. was able to cut the U.S. price of its new Camry sedan about 2 percent from the previous version in part by re-using old assembly robots from its former joint-venture plant in California.

"A lot of the tooling is new, however the equipment isn't," Steve St. Angelo, executive vice president for North American manufacturing and engineering, said in an interview. "We used a lot of used equipment" from the now-closed New United Motor Manufacturing Inc. plant, or Nummi, he said.

Tesla bought the small amount that was left over at the plant, about $15m worth (which is almost nothing in the automotive industry).

China remains the biggest single market for all three of the German premium brands, as well as for mass-market producers like Volkswagen's namesake marque.

All German luxury cars sell higher volumes in China than the US.
There is clearly a market for luxury cars in China. Even Tesla expects China to be it's biggest market in the future.

the range on Tesla vehicles is certified by the EPA

Those Edmunds.com haters managed to repeat the pathetic range (equivalent of ~140 miles) with a Model X towing a small trailer.

Some German energy minister had to reject his Model S (P100 apparently) because 300km (170 miles) unrecharged range.

Looks like EPA estimates are not being realized in real world driving.

BTW pezpunk, where are your battery survey results? (seems like Rei is all talk and no action to the same question)

For GM's effort to be successful, their lobbyists will also submit model legislation progressively requiring the abandonment of personal vehicles and hold harmless laws / limited liability for the manufactures and operators of autonomous vehicle systems. Brings to mind history:

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

"The General Motors streetcar conspiracy refers to convictions of General Motors (GM) and other companies for monopolizing the sale of buses and supplies to National City Lines (NCL) and its subsidiaries, and to allegations that this was part of a deliberate plot to purchase and dismantle streetcar systems in many cities in the United States as an attempt to monopolize surface transportation."

The driver is the auto industries attempt to create an artificial market. Historically, the fundamental basis of personal vehicles was the suburban lifestyle and commuting. Now, most major urban areas have Growth Management plans in place to concentrate residential growth into concentrations ('urban villages') with access to mass transit, urban cores are gentrifying, and worst for them, vehicles themselves are lasting longer and have reached asymptotic performance improvement, and ludicrous price points.

See "Average age of household vehicles for several years" ( https://www.rita.dot.gov/bts/s... ). A car in 1969 had an average lifetime of 5.1 years, in 1990 it was 7.6 years, 2009 it was 9.5 years, and now in 2016 it is 11.6 years. Who is buying is also a problem for them ( http://www.autonews.com/articl... ):

The average new car buyer is now 51.7 years old and earns about $80,000 per year, while the average age of the population is 36.8 years old and the median income is roughly $50,000, Szakaly said. ... “It takes four millennials to replace one boomer” in terms of economic impact, Szakaly said. “There’s going to be this gap between baby boomers and millennials.”

Also, look at the auto industries track record handling any sort of technical problem ( https://www.cheatsheet.com/aut... ). And we can't even get automated trains, an essentially 1 dimensional problem, correct. Two years, right - it takes a commercial aircraft nearly a decade to get a type certification, with 'only' hundreds of lives at stake.

Basically, eventually they hope to follow the same defacto monopoly model of the cable companies - regional and local monopolies with non-existent competition.

Read this article: http://www.autonews.com/articl...

TL;DR "Why is Tesla *SO* special they need an exemption from the law!?!?" Kinda hard to read without getting angry.

Long ago, the argument was that car companies come and go, but dealerships are forever. So you buy a car from a dealership you will always have a place to service it even if the car company goes out of business. That argument sounds pretty silly nowadays. So now they go with "This is how it is, no exemptions for Tesla".

as an owner of a Tesla (and as an owner of a bit of Tesla stock), i am completely and totally thrilled, like almost all other Tesla owners.

http://www.autonews.com/articl...

Samsung has sold millions of these things. Three of them have caught fire. That makes the odds of a device catching fire less than 1 in 1,000,000. Business Insider says that 17 cars catch fire every hour. Where are the cries for recalling cars?

I'm going to keep a copy of your post for safe keeping. This "what about y" device is constantly being invoked as justification for everything from mass surveillance to red rum so often in so many different contexts it usually makes me cringe/sigh Al Gore style whenever I encounter it.

Boldly inquiring about cries for recalling products that catch on fire takes it to a whole new level.

http://www.reuters.com/article...

http://q13fox.com/2016/09/30/s...

http://abcnews.go.com/Business...

http://www.techtimes.com/artic...

http://jalopnik.com/5935974/fi...

http://www.autonews.com/articl...

http://www.cnn.com/2016/09/01/...

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04...

http://www.popularmechanics.co...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/...

http://www.streetdirectory.com...

https://www.cpsc.gov/Recalls/2...

If you want to hear cries from victims themselves click keywords and enter fire. http://www-odi.nhtsa.dot.gov/o...

No Lexus vehicles are made in the US. While not the article that immediately jumped to my mind, that one is long forgotten from the 90s when I read that they were making them at an Oldsmobile plant, it does however indicate that Lexus vehicles aren't exclusively made in Japan.

The test mode does have reduced levels of performance, but the bigger issue is the durability of the emissions control system. To lower costs, VW designed the emissions components to survive for the life of the vehicle (semis have parts which are easy to access and replace, but are expensive). In cheat mode, the emissions controls are cycled more frequently and the components will most likely fail before the end of the life of the vehicle. Replacing some of them costs upwards of $6k, and they're required by US law to be under warranty for 8 years/80,000 miles (I might have the exact warranty term wrong, but it's a lot).

Automotive News has a quick description of the different emissions control systems: http://www.autonews.com/article/20150925/OEM11/150929855/how-vws-diesel-emissions-system-works. With their newest engines, VW can actually meet emissions requirements and have parts last for the life of the car. They've just stupidly turned down the dosing rate of diesel exhaust fluid used with SCR so that it needs to be refilled every 10k miles when the car has service, instead of every ~6k miles as required to be compliant.

The CO2 emissions from a car are directly proportional to the amount of fuel it uses, hence inversely proportional to the MPG number. If the half a million estimate is based on the average car in the US (around 25.5 MPG), then the methane leak equals 700.000 Golf TDis (which use 36 MPG).

VW makes more than one product, many in fact. Their products are generally known for high quality and durability. There is not generally much difference in pollution produced by different car brands (see e.g. this report), but VW is often one of the first that ships engines meeting new Euro norms.

They have been under some negative attention for starting the diesel NOx scandal, but the actual on-road emissions are no worse than similar cars from other manufacturers, even including cars that have not yet found to be gaming the emission tests.

"Volkswagon's mistake..."

Apparently it wasn't a "mistake". Apparently Volkswagen used special hardware and software to break the law.

Yesterday on PBS NewsHour the CEO of Volkswagen said the dishonesty was the fault of unknown rogue software engineers, and no managers knew about it. However, special hardware was designed into the system; that couldn't have happened without help from other people in the company, including hardware buyers.

See this article: Older VW diesels will need software and hardware fixes, Horn tells lawmakers.

The CEO seems to be lying deliberately. He says "software". Then later mentions "hardware".

That Auto News article was apparently written by someone who doesn't understand that, if hardware is required, the dishonesty must have been approved by Volkswagen management.

http://europe.autonews.com/art...

I expect we'll do away with speed limits altogether. They will probably be replaced with an acceptable speed range. For example, where the speed limit is currently 55 the acceptable speed might be 50-60 mph. Once you integrate vehicle-to-vehicle communications this speed can change with conditions. The speed range on an icy interstate might be 40-50. That same section of highway might go to 70-80 when it's sunny and dry. http://www.autonews.com/articl...

http://www.media.chrysler.com/...

http://www.autonews.com/articl...

That can't be right - if 105 million USD is 2 weeks net income, then that would suggest that their yearly net income is 2.7 billion USD. Yet their operating profit was 4.1 billion USD - that would suggest that their cost of goods and operating expenses are negative.

Ok, so $105 Million sounds like a lot... and of course it isn't chump change...

But they just issued a recall of 1.4 million vehicles. So $105 Million works out to $75 per vehicle.

I suspect the cost of doing the recall on each vehicle is more than $75.

Frankly, that is less per vehicle than you pay in documentation fees when you buy it (at least here, we pay about $150 for that).

This is a trivial amount of money if the point is to punish a company that has over $22 billion in cash on hand and a profit of $4.1 billion in 2014.

http://www.autonews.com/articl....

They'll pay it and move on, nothing will change. Fine them a billion dollars and then it would actually be real money.

I could have sworn that Audi demoed this autodimming feature several years ago...

No, what should have applied here was the Motor Vehicle Owners Right to Repair Act of 2009 http://righttorepair.org/about/default.aspx, but after several years of fighting the bill the automakers finally killed it last year by agreeing to allow independent repair shops access to the necessary information http://www.autonews.com/article/20140125/RETAIL05/301279936/automakers-agree-to-right-to-repair-deal.

This deal allowed them to continue to withhold the information from car owners and shade tree mechanics, since they can (and do) put up process hoops to make repair shops prove they are a commercial enterprise.

1) Modern diesel engines burn cleaner than gasoline.

2) Modern wood-stoves can produce 1/10th the emissions of your granddad's outdoor wood boiler.

I don't know about agriculture as a source of air pollution, though I know the runoff causes massive damage to aquatic ecosystems.

The bigger problem here, we just have too damned many humans. Not too many cars, not too many woodstoves, not fuel-X vs fuel-Y, not farming-method-P vs farming-method-Q. We don't need emissions controls (well, we do, but I consider that secondart); we need population controls.

Nothing short of that will "fix" our pollution problem, our energy needs, our water needs, our space needs. Our planet just can't handle the size of our species.

But whatever. Companies that are successful hardly ever fire. Toyota keeps hiring. Google keeps hiring.

WHAAAAAAA?

You might wish to let these ex-Toyota workers know. Or these ones. Or the 4,000 ex-Motorola-turned-Google employees Google laid off because they were - wait for it - exiting a line of business they didn't think they wanted to be in anymore.

Good companies get out of bad businesses all the time. Usually they fire the people who worked in that business. It sucks but it's true, and to think that good companies never exit lines of business or lay people off is insane.

I would love to see actual evidence of this

What, that car manufacturers have treated upgrades and options as a cash cow for decades? Really? OnStar alone makes GM hundreds of millions of dollars in profit. You don't think getting your infotainment system on a subscription would be lucrative???

"So when we look at what we can do with a 4G pipe into a car," Akerson said, "you can change the business model almost entirely."

GM foresees expanded offerings such as custom apps, streaming entertainment and enhanced diagnostic links to dealers. To create the new OnStar, GM appears willing to reboot a business that churns out steady profits but has limited growth potential.

OnStar COO Terry Inch says basic services such as crash notification, security and navigation will remain OnStar's core. But, he says, 4G will enable GM to surpass other automakers.

As in ... look at all the bloody money we can make from our proprietary infotainment system once this sucker is hooked up to the cell network.

IMHO, making it difficult to upgrade audio with the whole "integrated dash systems" is NOT a selling point, but is often quite the opposite.

I did not say it was a selling point ... at least not the to buyer.

You don't say to the buyer "hey, you know you want this proprietary system which will be obsolete and you'll never be able to upgrade".

You say "look at this super awesome system we have".

The people who sell this shit think them having a proprietary system is good for them, because it will "effectively monetize the driving and in-car infotainment experience of the driver in a highly profitable manner which allows us to expand outside of our core markets" or some other buzzword-bingo mission statement.

Inch says that with 4G, OnStar will be able to send the onboard diagnosis of any problem to a customer's dealer, who could contact the customer. That could increase dealer service revenues. GM also sees it as a way to detect emerging problems early, minimizing warranty work and recalls.

Analyst Roger Lanctot of Strategy Analytics in Newton, Mass., says that could be a major plus.

"Between the vehicle diagnostics and the dealer integration, that's where the rubber hits the road," he says. "That's very valuable aftermarket business."

These damned things are part of long-term, multi-billion dollar business strategies.

They simply are not going to make a standardized, easily upgraded or replaced platform which they all share.

From their perspective, that would be idiotic.

This promise, or pledge, or PR stunt ... is neither legally binding nor particularly meaningful.

What'll happen is one or more States will pass laws to codify those privacy pledges.
Then the manufacturers will push for a national standard/law so that they aren't stuck with a patchwork of 50 State laws.

It's what happened once Massachusetts passed a Right-To-Repair law

http://www.mojomotors.com/blog...

http://www.autonews.com/articl...

Let me add to your reasoning. This is the same argument as for the television in the late 1940s, or the VCR in my own lifetime.

I remember many years ago walking out of a specialty store that sold VCR equipment. The prices were way high, and before I left I commented to the sales person that VCRs were a rich man's game. At that point, it was a true statement.

The 5% who can afford these electric cars will fund the initial manufacturing. Infrastructure will grow. Costs will come down. Given the power electricity has, and the relative safety of supplying outlets and other infrastructure, even more people will see the advantages, be able to afford it and buy it, and so on, increasingly, until it is being massed produced at ordinary consumer prices. The US, for one, is slowly but surely going to change in the transportation area.

Note: U.S. sales by luxury brands should easily top 1.8 million this year Source

Autonews needs to work on their figure coloring skills. In a related article linked from the one previously mentioned, GA is colored medium orange, which indicates "Uncertain -- No formal legal or legislative challenges are known", when it should instead be colored light orange ("Legally allowed with restrictions on number of cars sold or number of stores"). From the article, it is clear that GA is legally allowed with restrictions on numbers of cars sold or number of stores, and there have clearly been formal legal or legislative challenges. Sad that they can't get their figures to match their own reporting....

Tesla *has* publicly commented on how many vehicles it has sold in Georgia, it says that the 150 maximum is for a calendar year, while the 173 figure is for October to June and it hasn't hit the 150 mark for 2014.

http://www.autonews.com/articl...

That is complete nonsense, there never was any protective law to prevent car imports. It would be against any "fair trade" agreement anyway.

Typical German delusion. The truth is free trade for you, concede in things like apparel, footwear and other things you scarcely manufacture in the first place and screw anyone trying to get into your automotive and machine tool markets.

http://www.autonews.com/articl...
http://europe.autonews.com/art...

First it was the informal quotas - 'voluntary' agreements that lasted for decades and kept Japanese car sales in western Europe capped at 10 to 15 percent of the market.

In other words the Japanese had their sales capped at 10 to 15% of the market in Europe for years.

When they built UK transplants in the late 1980s and early 1990s their share seemed certain to grow. Who knew that the pound would strengthen and that Britain would weaken as an industrial base?

In other words the Japanese were then FORCED to build plants in the EU to be able to sell cars in the EU.

Then there are the tricks companies like Volkswagen play in the European market. Where they finance car sales via their own bank which has lower interest rates than the rest of the Eurozone and can do this without currency transfers or bank transfer fees like an Asian manufacturer would need to do. In other words they sales are being inflated by German interest rates.

German car sales are no miracle. If the protections came down their sales would come down as well.

http://www.globalpost.com/disp...

During the five-day talks -- a key session before the European Union's review in April of whether Tokyo has made progress in eliminating trade barriers -- abolition of EU tariffs on Japanese automobiles was also a main topic of discussion.

The review, a year after the negotiations began, will be conducted to decide whether to continue the free trade talks based on how much effort Japan has made to eliminate nontariff barriers, especially in the railway sector.

The two sides agreed earlier to exchange proposals on scrapping or lowering tariffs at an early date. A senior Japanese government official has said that they were striving to exchange offers by April.

Japan, which wants to expand its auto exports to the European Union, plans to propose scrapping tariffs on EU wine in stages so it can draw a concession from the 28-country bloc in the automobile sector.

That is complete nonsense, there never was any protective law to prevent car imports. It would be against any "fair trade" agreement anyway.

Typical German delusion. The truth is free trade for you, concede in things like apparel, footwear and other things you scarcely manufacture in the first place and screw anyone trying to get into your automotive and machine tool markets.

http://www.autonews.com/articl...
http://europe.autonews.com/art...

First it was the informal quotas - 'voluntary' agreements that lasted for decades and kept Japanese car sales in western Europe capped at 10 to 15 percent of the market.

In other words the Japanese had their sales capped at 10 to 15% of the market in Europe for years.

When they built UK transplants in the late 1980s and early 1990s their share seemed certain to grow. Who knew that the pound would strengthen and that Britain would weaken as an industrial base?

In other words the Japanese were then FORCED to build plants in the EU to be able to sell cars in the EU.

Then there are the tricks companies like Volkswagen play in the European market. Where they finance car sales via their own bank which has lower interest rates than the rest of the Eurozone and can do this without currency transfers or bank transfer fees like an Asian manufacturer would need to do. In other words they sales are being inflated by German interest rates.

German car sales are no miracle. If the protections came down their sales would come down as well.

http://www.globalpost.com/disp...

During the five-day talks -- a key session before the European Union's review in April of whether Tokyo has made progress in eliminating trade barriers -- abolition of EU tariffs on Japanese automobiles was also a main topic of discussion.

The review, a year after the negotiations began, will be conducted to decide whether to continue the free trade talks based on how much effort Japan has made to eliminate nontariff barriers, especially in the railway sector.

The two sides agreed earlier to exchange proposals on scrapping or lowering tariffs at an early date. A senior Japanese government official has said that they were striving to exchange offers by April.

Japan, which wants to expand its auto exports to the European Union, plans to propose scrapping tariffs on EU wine in stages so it can draw a concession from the 28-country bloc in the automobile sector.

My fear is that what steps would be taken would force the car into the shop for any minor issue. Already, one automaker, if you change the battery out, the vehicle will refuse to start until the vehicle goes into the dealership and the battery is "registered" into the ECM.

That crap is finally coming to an end.

Automakers agree to 'right to repair' deal
http://www.autonews.com/article/20140125/RETAIL05/301279936/automakers-agree-to-right-to-repair-deal
January 25, 2014

Last week, two trade groups representing automakers -- the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers and the Association of Global Automakers -- announced an agreement with independent garages and retailers to make Massachusetts' law a national standard.

[...]

Under the deal, all auto companies would make their diagnostic codes and repair data available in a common format by the 2018 model year, as the Massachusetts law requires. In return, lobbying groups for repair shops and parts retailers would refrain from pursuing state-by-state legislation.

The Massachusetts law requires that anything an auto manufacturer would sell to a dealer/authorized facility, the manufacturer must also sell to an independent mechanic.
So all those ridiculous automotive DRM systems will no longer automatically require a trip to the dealer.

What's worse, in the newest cars as of next year... devices will be registered by mac address to the cars computer. As a result you'll need to log in with a $6k+ software package you can only buy from Ford, GM, etc... and register the mac addresses of new devices you install. You will not be able to remove or replace anything on your own at home anymore. In fact, I bet the dealer will be the only place you can get repairs done within 20yrs.

Automakers agree to 'right to repair' deal
http://www.autonews.com/article/20140125/RETAIL05/301279936/automakers-agree-to-right-to-repair-deal
January 25, 2014

Last week, two trade groups representing automakers -- the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers and the Association of Global Automakers -- announced an agreement with independent garages and retailers to make Massachusetts' law a national standard.

[...]

Under the deal, all auto companies would make their diagnostic codes and repair data available in a common format by the 2018 model year, as the Massachusetts law requires. In return, lobbying groups for repair shops and parts retailers would refrain from pursuing state-by-state legislation.

You couldn't be more wrong.

As does this Mazda 2 prototype with 0.33 litre rotary engine. http://www.autonews.com/articl...

The new Ford F-150 is aluminum bodied, and the 2003 Jaguar XJ (made by Ford) also had one.

Matter of fact, Ford has been experimenting with aluminum car bodies since the 1990's.

I read about the Ford's. I know they've been replacing parts with aluminum for a few years on the F series. But the all aluminum one isn't out quite yet is it? I thought that was for the 2015 model year. The XJ also based at around $70K and went up from there. About the same as a Z06. I think the NSX was around $80K. My point was that all aluminum bodied cars are not that mainstream. While Jaguar makes some beautiful looking cars, you can barely keep them out of the shop mechanically. And lets face it, Corvettes and the NSX are expensive toys. Not mainstream. My entire point was that Carbon fiber is already as mainstream as aluminum in car bodies.

The new Ford F-150 is aluminum bodied, and the 2003 Jaguar XJ (made by Ford) also had one.

Matter of fact, Ford has been experimenting with aluminum car bodies since the 1990's.

Actually, even if this ends up being mostly highway-only

It won't.

The article doesn't mention it, but here is another link about the project. It is essentially the old Google-tech that has been tested on highways but improved to handle high traffic situations in inner cities.

So, when Tesla gets Google's tech with minor changes to their cars, who do you think will be ahead?

Uhm.. this is Google's tech

Volvo Car Group and Google Inc. said they have begun testing self-driving cars on city streets, a crucial new phase in the quest to make the technology a standard feature in automobiles.

Tesla might fit Google's tech to their cars later but Volvo has already done it.
I am pretty sure Volvo will still be ahead when Tesla gets around to it.

And regarding

Google has 100's of cars on the road for the last 5 years.

there is a pretty big difference.

"A mile of city driving is much more complex than a mile of freeway driving, with hundreds of different objects moving according to different rules of the road in a small area," wrote Chris Urmson, the director of Google's self-driving car project in the blog post on Monday.

> The Leaf's battery is warrantied for 10 years. Most people don't own a car for 10 years.

Yes they do.

> The overall maintenance schedule is ridiculously light. No $600/year checkup. No oil changes. It's pretty much just cabin air filters and brakes.

Which makes the Tesla's mandatory $600/yr service contract ridiculous. Sure the people buying tesla's can probably afford it, but that still doesn't make it any less bullshit.

I think you are misinformed. The workers voted down the UAW union at VW and not the works council. For some strange reason you need a union in the USA to form a works council (see National Labor Relations Act. My guess is the Act was enacted to strengthen unions in America, but is backfiring now because for some reason the VW workers does not want to join a union.

Also I don't understand why you think a works council is a result of "Germany's fascist and totalitarian history". Forms of a works council were introduced in 1900, by liberal owners of companies. Then the Weimar Constitution (1919) codified the works council. Under Nazi Germany works council were forbidden, and were introduced as law again in 1952.

And it's also not unique to Germany. In 1994 the EU passed the Directive (94/45/EC) on the establishment of a European Works Council (EWC). See European Works Councils. "The EWC Directive applies to companies with at least 1,000 employees within the EU and at least 150 employees in each of at least two Member States." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W...

http://www.reuters.com/article...
"Frank Fischer, chief executive of VW Chattanooga and manager of the plant, emphasized on Friday night that while the workers voted against the UAW they did not vote down the idea of a works council. "Throughout this process, we found great enthusiasm for the idea of an American-style works council both inside and outside our plant, " Fischer said. "Our goal continues to be to determine the best method for establishing a works council in accordance with the requirements of U. S. labor law. "

http://www.autonews.com/articl...
"Now that Volkswagen workers here have turned away the UAW, labor leaders within VW are going back to the drawing board to achieve their broader goal: setting up a works council to give workers a say in corporate decisions. "

Yes, but cars are heavily regulated, computers are not... In addition, there is a time limit beyond which they no longer do recalls and the manufactures no longer have to pay for them.

After all, when is the last time you heard of a recall of a 1978 Chevy? There is a sunset period beyond which no one cares anymore.

That sunset period is ten years.

With the speed of computer development, that period is much shorter than cars.

The sunset period reflects the period in which the product may be in use, not the period in which the product is state of the art. Many servers are regularly in place for ten years. The average age of [a] personal computer was 4.5 years in 2006. The average age of a car in the US is now 11.4 years and the lifespan of an OTR truck is 4-5 years. It seems reasonable to have a 10 years sunset lifespan on computers to me, especially given that their useful lifespans are increasing, not decreasing. The rate at which processor, memory, and storage speed is increasing has slowed, so we're using our PCs longer — their lifespans are increasing. The support period should thus increase.