Ford Fiesta makes it's return to the USA

Ford Fiesta earns top safety award

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- The new Ford Fiesta was chosen as a Top Safety Pick by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety on Wednesday, becoming the first minicar to win the top rating since the group added a rollover test to its requirements.

Both the 2011 Fiesta sedan and hatchback versions received top ratings for front, side, rollover, and rear crash protection, the IIHS said. The car was also praised for having electronic stability control as standard equipment.

But the award only applies to Fiestas built after July 2010, when Ford made design changes to minimize the possibility of doors opening in side impact crashes, according to IIHS.

[...]

Ford (F, Fortune 500) announced plans to reintroduce the Fiesta in the United States earlier this year as part of a plan to offer more small, fuel efficient cars. Along with the other major U.S. automakers, Ford sales have been slowly recovering after falling sharply during the Great Recession.

The 2011 Fiesta, with a base sticker price of $15,120, can travel an estimated 40 miles on one gallon of gasoline.

However, it remains to be seen how Fiesta sales will fare domestically.

More than 12 million Fiestas have been sold in Europe since it was introduced there in 1976. But the car was only sold in the U.S. market for a brief period between 1978 to 1980.

Well, it looks like a considerable improvement over the Fiesta's I remember from my youth. Still, not all reviews are thrilled:

2011 Ford Fiesta: I wish I could like it better

But in the comments section after that review, the reviewer himself is heavily criticized for nit-picking. The Fiesta is, after all, an ECONOMY car. Fine for tootling around town, great mileage, and safe too.


It's a great economy car to add to Ford's lineup. I hope it does well.


Also see:

The Ford 2009 Fiesta ECOnetic gets 65 mpg!
     

Ford Motor Company's customizations

From the car company that didn't need a bail-out:


Ford's pimp-my-ride plan

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Mustang buyers will soon be able to get flames on their fenders right from the dealer, no fancy artistic skills needed.

Ford Motor Co. is bringing out a line of custom vinyl graphics car buyers can order to give their car or truck the appearance of a custom paint job without the paint.

The carmaker originally launched the Web site, fordcustomgraphics.com, back in November, but it only offered graphics for the Fiesta subcompact car which goes on sale in a few weeks.

The site will soon begin offering graphics for the Ford Mustang and the F-150 truck, both popular vehicles which are commonly customized by owners, Ford announced Wednesday.

"You click on your vehicle and its exterior color, select the graphics you like, and the Web site will show you exactly how the designs will look on your car or truck," said Jim Abraham, Ford's licensed accessories manager, in a company announcement.

Read the rest for details. Plans are to have graphics available for all other Ford models by the end of the year, with about 50 designs created for each model.


Also see: Fordcustomgraphics.com
     

Which one do you believe?

Here is an advertisement from GM, spinning their BS:




Here is a version where someone dubbed it over with a new soundtrack, which explains what REALLY happened:



H.T. to Maynard at TammyBruce.com.

I'll bet by Monday, the 2nd video is going to get yanked off of Youtube.


Also see:

Ford: The way to run an Automobile Company

Let the Automakers Fail - and be Reborn

     

Electric Ford Focus car due late next year

Ford, Microsoft plan system to recharge electric cars at least cost

Ford and Microsoft say they are going to roll out a system that will tell electric car owners the optimal time to recharge their vehicles. The system was announced at the New York Auto Show.

The "Microsoft Hohm" system would start with the all-electric Ford Focus compact car, which goes on sale late next year, says Ford CEO Alan Mulally and via a remote presentation, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer. [...]

The rest is about the recharging system, but this is the first I've heard about the Electric Focus. The focus is a good car, we have one. I was hoping they might make a hybrid Focus, but this one seems to be entirely electric.

More here:

Electric Ford Focus in 2011: What it Means

As we reported yesterday, we now know that Ford has made official its plans to build an electric Ford Focus in 2011. Perhaps most notable is that Ford could be the first automaker in the U.S. to mass-market a pure battery-electric passenger car — and a "real" one, meaning a compact car rather than the type of small commuter cars Toyota has planned for 2012 and Mitsubishi is investigating for compliance with U.S. regulations. Nor is it a $100,000 limited-run sports car like the one being sold by Tesla. [...]

Test Driving the Electric Ford Focus

[...] The Focus will hit the market in 2011 followed the next year by a plug-in electric Escape sport-utility vehicle, which Ford also showed off in San Francisco. Ms. Gioia said she expects electric and plug-in hybrids will account for 10 to 25 percent of the market by 2020.

[...]

As I drove a blue prototype around the streets of San Francisco, I was hard-pressed to distinguish the car from one I recently rented at an airport. It was quiet, of course, but that burst of acceleration you get from punching the accelerator of an electric car has been moderated.

The Ford executive sitting shotgun told me that software limits the amount of power instantaneously transferred to the wheels so that the car will perform more like its gasoline-powered cousin.

The production electric Focus, which will be powered by lithium ion battery packs, will be based on the more stylish European version of the car. The Focus will have a range of about 100 miles and a top speed of around 90 miles an hour.

Ford has not announced a price for the car.

It sounds great. But I have to wonder, how "green" is it? I mean, how much electricity does it take to charge it up, and how long does it last, compared to an equal amount of power from a gasoline engine providing the same power? The electric car may not pollute as it operates, but the power plant supplying the power is creating pollution to create that electricity. If they amount of pollution created to charge the car is greater than the amount a gas powered engine would produce, then it should be worse, from a green standpoint.

I've heard conflicting opinions about this, about it being worse or better. I would be nice to see some solid, unbiased data on the topic. If it's worse or the same pollution as gas, then this is all just "feel-good" nonsense. I'd like to know the truth about it.

No doubt if the power source providing the electricity is a "green" source, that would change things. But such sources are not common yet. If it's a nuclear source, then you have to consider the definition of "pollution". It's not air pollution, and 80% of nuclear waste is treatable, but what about the other 20%, and what's the ratio of waste to energy production? And can that 20% waste be rendered harmless with future technology?

I'm sure people will be arguing about these things for years to come. Welcome to our Brave New World.
     

Potatoes and Car Windshields go together?

According to today's WikiHow, they sometimes do:

How to Keep Car Windows Fog Free Using a Potato

This simple method will help keep your windows fog-free. It's a fun one for the kids to try too; they might even consider doing it before you reach the car! [...]

I haven't tried it out, but if it's true... gee, who knew?
     

Zen Driving, Hypermiling, from WikiHow

How to Practice Zen Driving

Driving can be stressful, since people can become very impatient, selfish and discourteous when behind the wheel. By applying the principles of Zen, however, you can make driving an enjoyable, relaxing experience, no matter how everyone else is driving. [...]

How to Hypermile

Hypermiling refers to a collection of driving techniques aimed at improving your car's fuel efficiency by reducing the demands placed on the engine. Since it's possible to improve fuel economy by 37% just by changing the way you drive[1] hypermiling is gaining interest in light of high fuel costs. While some hypermiling methods are controversial and potentially dangerous, this article will focus on safer techniques that can still save you gas and money. [...]

     

Enjoy life now - it has an expiration date!

I got this in my email, it originally appeared in USA Today (link below). It's a good story for a Sunday:

A life without left turns

This is a wonderful piece by Michael Gartner, editor of newspapers large and small and president of NBC News. In 1997, he won the Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing. It is well worth reading, and a few good chuckles are guaranteed. Here goes...

My father never drove a car.

Well, that's not quite right.

I should say I never saw him drive a car. He quit driving in 1927, when he was 25 years old, and the last car he drove was a 1926 Whippet.

"In those days," he told me when he was in his 90s, "to drive a car you had to do things with your hands, and do things with your feet, and look every which way, and I decided you could walk through life and enjoy it or drive through life and miss it."

At which point my mother, a sometimes salty Irishwoman, chimed in:

"Oh, bull——!" she said. "He hit a horse."

"Well," my father said, "there was that, too."

So my brother and I grew up in a household without a car. The neighbors all had cars — the Kollingses next door had a green 1941 Dodge, the VanLaninghams across the street a gray 1936 Plymouth, the Hopsons two doors down a black 1941 Ford — but we had none. My father, a newspaperman in Des Moines, would take the streetcar to work and, often as not, walk the 3 miles home. If he took the streetcar home, my mother and brother and I would walk the three blocks to the streetcar stop, meet him and walk home together.

Our 1950 Chevy

My brother, David, was born in 1935, and I was born in 1938, and sometimes, at dinner, we'd ask how come all the neighbors had cars but we had none. "No one in the family drives," my mother would explain, and that was that. But, sometimes, my father would say, "But as soon as one of you boys turns 16, we'll get one."

It was as if he wasn't sure which one of us would turn 16 first.

But, sure enough, my brother turned 16 before I did, so in 1951 my parents bought a used 1950 Chevrolet from a friend who ran the parts department at a Chevy dealership downtown. It was a four-door, white model, stick shift, fender skirts, loaded with everything, and, since my parents didn't drive, it more or less became my brother's car.

Having a car but not being able to drive didn't bother my father, but it didn't make sense to my mother. So in 1952, when she was 43 years old, she asked a friend to teach her to drive. She learned in a nearby cemetery, the place where I learned to drive the following year and where, a generation later, I took my two sons to practice driving. The cemetery probably was my father's idea. "Who can your mother hurt in the cemetery?" I remember him saying once.

For the next 45 years or so, until she was 90, my mother was the driver in the family. Neither she nor my father had any sense of direction, but he loaded up on maps — though they seldom left the city limits — and appointed himself navigator. It seemed to work.

The ritual walk to church

Still, they both continued to walk a lot. My mother was a devout Catholic, and my father an equally devout agnostic, an arrangement that didn't seem to bother either of them through their 75 years of marriage. (Yes, 75 years, and they were deeply in love the entire time.) He retired when he was 70, and nearly every morning for the next 20 years or so, he would walk with her the mile to St. Augustin's Church. She would walk down and sit in the front pew, and he would wait in the back until he saw which of the parish's two priests was on duty that morning. If it was the pastor, my father then would go out and take a 2-mile walk, meeting my mother at the end of the service and walking her home. If it was the assistant pastor, he'd take just a 1-mile walk and then head back to the church.

He called the priests "Father Fast" and "Father Slow."

After he retired, my father almost always accompanied my mother whenever she drove anywhere, even if he had no reason to go along. If she were going to the beauty parlor, he'd sit in the car and read, or go take a stroll or, if it was summer, have her keep the engine running so he could listen to the Cubs game on the radio. (In the evening, then, when I'd stop by, he'd explain: "The Cubs lost again. The millionaire on second base made a bad throw to the millionaire on first base, so the multimillionaire on third base scored.") If she were going to the grocery store, he would go along to carry the bags out — and to make sure she loaded up on ice cream.

As I said, he was always the navigator, and once, when he was 95 and she was 88 and still driving, he said to me, "Do you want to know the secret of a long life?" "I guess so," I said, knowing it probably would be something bizarre.

"No left turns," he said.

"What?" I asked.

"No left turns," he repeated. "Several years ago, your mother and I read an article that said most accidents that old people are in happen when they turn left in front of oncoming traffic. As you get older, your eyesight worsens, and you can lose your depth perception, it said. So your mother and I decided never again to make a left turn."

"What?" I said again. "No left turns," he said. "Think about it. Three rights are the same as a left, and that's a lot safer. So we always make three rights."

"You're kidding!" I said, and I turned to my mother for support. "No," she said, "your father is right. We make three rights. It works."

But then she added: "Except when your father loses count."

I was driving at the time, and I almost drove off the road as I started laughing. "Loses count?" I asked. "Yes," my father admitted, "that sometimes happens. But it's not a problem. You just make seven rights, and you're okay again."

I couldn't resist. "Do you ever go for 11?" I asked.

"No," he said. "If we miss it at seven, we just come home and call it a bad day. Besides, nothing in life is so important it can't be put off another day or another week."

My mother was never in an accident, but one evening she handed me her car keys and said she had decided to quit driving. That was in 1999, when she was 90. She lived four more years, until 2003. My father died the next year, at 102. They both died in the bungalow they had moved into in 1937 and bought a few years later for $3,000. (Sixty years later, my brother and I paid $8,000 to have a shower put in the tiny bathroom — the house had never had one. My father would have died then and there if he knew the shower cost nearly three times what he paid for the house.) He continued to walk daily — he had me get him a treadmill when he was 101 because he was afraid he'd fall on the icy sidewalks but wanted to keep exercising — and he was of sound mind and sound body until the moment he died.

A happy life

One September afternoon in 2004, he and my son went with me when I had to give a talk in a neighboring town, and it was clear to all three of us that he was wearing out, though we had the usual wide-ranging conversation about politics and newspapers and things in the news. A few weeks earlier, he had told my son, "You know, Mike, the first hundred years are a lot easier than the second hundred." At one point in our drive that Saturday, he said, "You know, I'm probably not going to live much longer." "You're probably right," I said. "Why would you say that?" he countered, somewhat irritated. "Because you're 102 years old," I said. "Yes," he said, "you're right." He stayed in bed all the next day. That night, I suggested to my son and daughter that we sit up with him through the night. He appreciated it, he said, though at one point, apparently seeing us look gloomy, he said: "I would like to make an announcement. No one in this room is dead yet." An hour or so later, he spoke his last words:

"I want you to know," he said, clearly and lucidly, "that I am in no pain. I am very comfortable. And I have had as happy a life as anyone on this earth could ever have."

A short time later, he died.

I miss him a lot, and I think about him a lot. I've wondered now and then how it was that my family and I were so lucky that he lived so long.

I can't figure out if it was because he walked through life.

Or because he quit taking left turns.

The link to USA today has a photo. The email ended with this:

Life is too short to wake up with regrets.
So love the people who treat you right.
Forget about the one's who don't.
Believe everything happens for a reason.
If you get a chance,take it & if it changes your life, let it.
Nobody said life would be easy, they just promised it would
most likely be worth it."

ENJOY LIFE NOW - IT HAS AN EXPIRATION DATE!

     

Is the "Jupiter Jack" any good? I doubt it.

Pat thought we should get one, maybe two. But I looked it up on Amazon.com. The customer reviews of it are not impressive. It sounds like junk:

Amazon.com Customer Reviews of Jupiter Jack

Many of the customers go into detail about the problems. Not good.

There have been complaints too, about extra shipping charges when ordering directly from the company:

How to Not Get Scammed by Jupiter Jack

At this point I'm not tempted to try it. I think it's perhaps a good idea that needs more development, and maybe a stronger transmitter. In fact one of the Amazon reviewers said that the company is also pitching a "stronger" model than the one on sale. They also said that the $20 two-for-one offer ends up costing $54.00 because there is separate shipping charges for each item, including the dashboard holders (which you only find out about AFTER they have your credit card number). It does not sound good: Buyer Beware.

     

Ford: The way to run an Automobile Company

Ford Reports Nearly $1 Billion Profit
The latest and strongest sign of the automaker's comeback comes as it pays down debt and adds to U.S. market share

It's now fair to declare Ford Motor (F) an unqualified turnaround story.

The company reported a $997 million third-quarter profit on Nov. 2, adding profits to gains in market share and improvements in quality since CEO Alan Mulally took over in September 2006. The nearly $1 billion profit is a $1.2 billion turnaround from the third quarter of last year. The company also generated $1 billion in cash and paid down $2 billion in debt.

"Ford is making tremendous progress," Mulally said on a conference call. "Our transformation is working."

Strong earnings are a big victory for Ford and Mulally. The company has been far stronger than rivals General Motors and Chrysler (FIA.MI), gaining market share this year. But looking healthier than GM and Chrysler, both of which were in bankruptcy earlier this year, was hardly a great feat.

Ford still has a big debt load, something that GM and Chrysler were able to greatly reduce in bankruptcy. The company dropped long-term debt to $23 billion. But adding short-term debt and obligations to the UAW's retiree health-care trust, Ford's debt is estimated at $38 billion. It's a disadvantage, but Barclays Capital analyst Brian Johnson says Ford should have enough cash to meet its needs. [...]

Ford is succeeding, but it has to compete with failed companies who are unfairly being subsidized with taxpayer's dollars. Why is the government using our tax dollars to reward failure, and to compete against successful privately owned companies?
     

A car of the future... for sale this October!

Exclusive: Aptera 2e

I'm accelerating and cornering — hard — on three wheels, little wisps of tire smoke curling out of the slender front wheel pants as steering is cranked in and "throttle" applied. And no, I'm not in an early Volkswagen GTI that hikes up its inside rear tire. Rather, I've been given a drive in the Aptera 2e, a soon-to-be-produced electric vehicle whose shape is slipperier than a Teflon-coated salmon on glare ice, and whose composite construction offers both light weight and impressive structural integrity. Better yet, the 2e is scheduled to begin rolling off the Vista, California, assembly line this October for an as-yet-to-be-determined price between $25,000 and $40,000. Charge it overnight from your 110-volt home outlet, and it's claimed to have a range of 100 miles...in the carpool lane, if you wish.

Pie in the sky? Nope. The business model looks sound; nearly 4000 deposits have been placed (Robin Williams among the clientele), enthusiastic investors are locked in, and co-founders Steve Fambro and Chris Anthony have assembled a team that balances Detroit low-volume niche-production experience with California "anything is possible" attitude. [...]

This car is amazing in many ways, a clever, graceful design with carefully selected materials.


I've read that three wheel cars are quite stable if the third wheel is in the back,, and the majority of the weight is on the two front wheels. This car beautifully merges form and function. And it's not some far-off Sci-fi prototype, it's going to be available for sale this year. The future is here.
     

Congressional Motor's New Car of the Future

From IowaHawk: Lemon.

It's in the way you dress. The way you boogie down. The way you sign your unemployment check. You're a man who likes to do things your own way. And on those special odd-numbered Saturdays when driving is permitted, you want it in your car. It's that special feeling of a zero-emissions wind at your back and a road ahead meandering with possibilities. The kind of feeling you get behind the wheel of the Pelosi GTxi SS/Rt Sport Edition from Congressional Motors.

All new for 2012, the Pelosi GTxi SS/Rt Sport Edition is the mandatory American car so advanced it took $100 billion and an entire Congress to design it. We started with same reliable 7-way hybrid ethanol-biodeisel-electric-clean coal-wind-solar-pedal power plant behind the base model Pelosi, but packed it with extra oomph and the sassy styling pizazz that tells the world that 1974 Detroit is back again -- with a vengeance.

We've subsidized the features you want and taxed away the rest. [...]

Do follow the link and read the whole thing, it's deliciously rude!


Related Links:

SO THE AUTO BAILOUT IS DEAD ... FOR NOW

Let the Automakers Fail - and be Reborn
     

Let the Automakers Fail - and be Reborn

It's ok to let them fail, because they won't disappear. They will go through bankrupcy, re-structure, and return to business without the unions that are currently choking them to death. George will explains:

In Detroit, Failure's a Done Deal

WASHINGTON -- "Nothing," said a General Motors spokesman last week, "has changed relative to the GM board's support for the GM management team during this historically difficult economic period for the U.S. auto industry." Nothing? Not even the evaporation of almost all shareholder value?

GM's statement comes as the mendicant company is threatening to collapse and make a mess unless Washington, which has already voted $25 billion for GM, Ford and Chrysler, provides up to $50 billion more -- the last subsidy until the next one. The statement uses the 11 words after "team" to suggest that the company's parlous condition has been caused by events since mid-September. That is as ludicrous as the mantra that GM is "too big to fail." It has failed; the question is what to do about that.

The answer? Do nothing that will delay bankrupt companies from filing for bankruptcy protection, so that improvident labor contracts can be unraveled, allowing the companies to try to devise plausible business models. Instead, advocates of a "rescue" propose extending to Detroit the government's business model for the nation -- redistributing wealth from the successful to the failed, an implausible formula for prosperity. [...]

We must not throw good money after bad by rewarding failure. Read the rest, to see how the unions of the big three automakers are strangling them. The other automakers in the US do not have their problems, they don't need a bail-out, because they don't have these choking unions.

The Democrats were heavily supported by the Unions in our recent elections. While it would be hard for the Dems to say "no" to an automakers bail-out, they had better be very careful. If they start throwing massive amounts of taxpayers money into a never ending black hole, in financial times like these, it could come back to bite them in the next election. It will be interesting to see how they are going to handle this.
     

Ford Motor Company changes production plans

From CNNMoney.com:

UPDATE: Ford Unveils Details Of Overhaul Plan As Losses Grow

DETROIT -(Dow Jones)- Ford Motor Co. (F) on Thursday unveiled details of its plan to radically alter its North American product portfolio, as losses continue to mount and expectations for a U.S. auto market recovery are pushed back to 2010.

The second-largest U.S.-based auto maker plans to convert three North American truck and SUV plants to small-car production and introduce six of its European models in the U.S. The company is also accelerating the introduction of more fuel-efficient engines and plans to double production of gasoline-electric hybrid vehicles in 2009.

The moves represent a strategic shift for an auto maker that, like its Detroit rivals, has relied on sales of trucks and SUVs for the bulk of its North America revenue for more than a decade. Auto makers are scrambling to adjust to shifting consumer preferences as U.S. gasoline prices are above $4 a gallon and economic conditions remain weak.

[...]

Ford said it expects the U.S. economic recovery to begin by early 2010, with U.S. auto industry sales returning to trend levels as the economy returns to health. U.S. auto sales are currently at their lowest levels in about 15 years.

Ford Chief Financial Officer Don Leclair said Thursday that the performance of the U.S. auto industry in 2009 will likely "mirror" that of 2008.

He said the auto maker has enough cash to carry out its plans to convert the truck and SUV plants and wait out an upswing in the U.S. economy. He said Ford, which raised about $23 billion in late 2006 by offering up nearly all its assets as collateral, won't need to seek additional funding. [...]

For years Ford has been talking about making it's diesel version of the Ford Focus available here in the USA, but they have as yet to follow through on that. It was an appealing option to me... until recently, when I last looked, diesel prices here had gone higher than regular gas.

We will be looking at their hybrid options.