Free Republic

The Senate on Wednesday afternoon voted in favor of passing a bill reversing the Biden administration's actions mandating states to track and set reduction goals for greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles on highways. The chamber approved the resolution in a 53-47 vote in which Sens. Kyrsten Sinema, I-Ariz.; Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio; Jon Tester, D-Mont.; and Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., joined every Republican voting in the affirmative. The bill was introduced in February by Sens. Kevin Cramer, R-N.D.; Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va.; and Manchin. "Few things are more frustrating in government than un-elected bureaucrats asserting authority they don’t have and foisting federal...

Inflation ticked higher once again in March, with consumer prices up 0.4 percent over the previous month and 3.5 percent compared to one year earlier. The latest data marks the third month in a row that the consumer price index (CPI), a closely watched gauge of inflation, has come in hotter than expected, likely throwing cold water on hopes that the Federal Reserve would begin cutting interest rates soon.

The future for electric vehicles is looking bleaker than ever.According to a Gallup poll published this week, the number of Americans who own an electric vehicle has indeed increased in the last year. However, the number of those interested in buying one is on the decline despite efforts from the federal government to transition the entire automobile market within the next decade. Seven percent of Americans, up from 4% a year ago, report that they own an electric vehicle. That increase is matched by an equal decline in the percentage saying they are seriously considering buying one, from 12% to...

Here's something we learned just from Politico's headline: Republicans are waging a crusade against electric cars, and they might regret that in the 2024 election. Politico is correct if waging a crusade against electric cars means opposing EV mandates and impossible deadlines. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm wants the entire U.S. military fleet to be electric by 2030. It was Politico who told us last December that the Biden administration's $7.5 billion allocation had led to exactly zero charges being installed two years later. It's funny … Politico told us one year ago that Republicans were stoking the fires of the...

From the November 2021 issue of Car and Driver. What's blasting from your car speakers, and more important, how does it sound? For sound-system engineers at the audio-equipment manufacturer Bose, a playlist is more than tracks that slap. To test stereos, they need songs representing a variety of sounds and recording techniques to make sure new systems can re-create a song with the depth of the original recording. To have a common reference point, Bose engineers all over the globe share a master playlist. "Every system engineer knows these tracks inside and out," says Mark Armitage, head of the acoustical-engineering...

Battery electric vehicles like Teslas are fast, sleek, jewelrylike cars that capture the imagination. Hybrid cars, at least in the U.S., often bring to mind the Toyota Prius, long seen as a dawdling, egg-shaped vehicle for shuttling back and forth to Trader Joe's. But quietly amid all the BEV hype, automakers' hybrid fleets took broad strides forward. Car buyers flinched at the challenges of EV ownership. And sales of hybrid cars, led by Toyota Motor (TM) and Honda Motor (HMC), ramped up to outpace those of the flashier electric vehicles. Now carmakers are in overdrive to respond as analysts take...

DETROIT (Reuters) - As U.S. sales of gas-electric hybrid vehicles surge and electric-vehicle sales cool, automakers and suppliers are betting consumer demand for a compromise between all-combustion and all-electric is a durable trend. Automakers and suppliers are adding capacity to build gasoline-electric hybrid and plug-in hybrid vehicles for the U.S. market, responding to increased consumer demand for technology that General Motors and other automakers once planned to phase out in favor of all-electric fleets, industry executives and analysts said. U.S. sales of hybrids grew five times faster than EV sales in February, Morgan Stanley said. A plug-in hybrid version of...

Scientists say they have created an experimental new high-tech window coating that works similarly to polarized lenses on sunglasses by allowing all of the visible light through while also reflecting unwanted heat. If added to existing buildings and car windows, the new coating could reduce internal temperatures in hotter climates without sacrificing any of the visible light while also reducing energy usage for indoor air conditioning by as much as 30%. The new coating was developed by researchers from Notre Dame University who were looking for a cheap yet viable way to reduce the use of air conditioning in cars...

Two dogs tore apart a Florida, woman’s car while trying to reach a feline hiding inside the engine. Christie Barr was shocked when she woke up to see her vehicle torn up with an estimated $3,000 in repairs, WJAX reported. “I thought somebody had maybe taken a BB gun and shot my car,” the Jacksonville woman told the outlet.Barr called the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office and investigators pouring through security camera footage found the four-legged culprits. Video showed two grey dogs tearing off the car’s front tire and otherwise attacking the vehicle.

Tires on electric vehicles (EVs) have less durability and wear more quickly than tires on traditional gas-powered cars, a 2024 study shows. The revelation poses another problem for President Joe Biden’s quest to force Americans into EVs. The J.D. Power 2024 U.S. Original Equipment Tire Customer Satisfaction Study found that EV owners reported more tire wear compared to gas-powered cars, Automotive News reports: Findings from the study highlight EV owners having less satisfaction with the durability of their tires, expecting them to wear similar to gasoline-powered vehicle tires. However, EV tires naturally wear quicker because of greater vehicle weight and...

At least eight states are planning to ban the sale of new gas-powered cars in the next decade - and others are considering joining them. Only zero-emission vehicles can be sold in participating states beginning from the 2035 model year, according to the Advanced Clean Cars II legislation. The rule, which was first adopted by California, means that automakers and dealerships would be banned from selling new gas cars in these states from that point onwards.

Oakland City Council approved funding to hire more tow companies and use the state DOT’s vacant lots.Oakland, California is struggling to deal with a deluge of abandoned vehicles across the city. According to the Oakland Department of Transportation, 13,856 cars were reported abandoned over a six-month period in 2023. The city ran out of space in its storage lots and is renting even more room to hold the excess. In total, Oakland is spending $1 million on storage. Anecdotally, car theft is the root of this problem. ABC7 Bay Area reports the Oakland Police Department will not respond to...

How one quick trick in 2012 changed the way America drives—and undermined its climate rules In less than a decade after that change took effect—between 2012 and 2021—the EPA found that the percentage of new vehicle sales classified as passenger cars and those classified as light trucks has essentially flipped. In 2012, 64 percent of new vehicle sales were classified as passenger vehicles, while 34 percent were classified as light trucks. By 2021, light trucks accounted for 63 percent of sales while passenger vehicles accounted for 37 percent of sales. “Sedans have largely been replaced with taller vehicles such as...

If you pay for car insurance, you’ve probably noticed that rates are really high lately. You’re not alone. Last week’s Consumer Price Index (CPI) report — the government’s method for tracking what people are paying for goods and services and how that’s changing over time — noted that the price of car insurance was up more than 20 percent over the same time last year. What’s particularly painful is that rates were already rising: CPI reports have shown that, overall, car insurance rates are up more than 38 percent since January 2020. What’s going on? The big insurance companies have...

For years now, Oakland has been battling an onslaught of burned, stripped and abandoned vehicles that have made certain parts of the city feel like a scene from a John Carpenter sci-fi epic — and new data presented at an Oakland Public Works and Transportation Committee meeting on March 12 indicates that this pervasive issue is only getting worse. The city received more than 11,000 requests to clear out abandoned vehicles from June 1 to Nov. 30, 2023, which was a “staggering increase,” according to Michael Ford, parking and mobility manager at Oakland’s Department of Transportation, who spoke during the...

The startup electric car company Fisker said this week that it is halting the production of its vehicles to raise $150 million in emergency funds as it grapples with a cash crunch spurred by a low demand for electric vehicles. The California-based company, which says its mission is to “create the world’s most emotional and sustainable electric vehicles,” has barely produced over a thousand electric vehicles worldwide for the year. “The company has approximately 4,700 vehicles in its currently inventory, carried over from 2023 and including 2024 production,” the company said. “While it has not completed an NRV analysis for...

President Joe Biden has issued a new environmental federal regulation to begin phasing out gas-powered cars, requiring American automakers to produce Electric Vehicles (EVs) as part of his sweeping green energy agenda. On Wednesday, Biden announced the rule to require that a majority of new cars sold in the U.S. market are EVs or hybrids by 2032, the New York Times details: Nearly three years in the making, the new tailpipe pollution limits from the Environmental Protection Agency would transform the American automobile market. A record 1.2 million electric vehicles rolled off dealers’ lots last year, but they made up...

Some cars just attract a certain type of buyer, don't they?A few weeks ago we talked about cars that looked dumb, but that doesn’t necessarily mean their owners are dummies themselves. That got me thinking: What cars are only driven by idiots? What cars are driven by the sort of people who can only breathe with their mouths wide open and their knuckles dragging on the ground? It’s a question that has kept me up at night since I came up with it yesterday, and now I want to know what you think. Whether that’s a wise idea or...

One in every five car owners are planning to get rid of their car over the coming years, new research has found. The rising cost of running a car is among the big drivers, the survey discovered, with almost two thirds citing this as an influence on their decision. However, just over three quarters said that grocery shopping remains the biggest barrier to them doing away with their wheels. A little over a third claimed they use their car every day to get to and from work. Overall, a fifth of car users said they would prefer to use their...

WAUKESHA, WI — A group of teenagers believed to be from the Chicago area broke into a luxury car dealership in Wisconsin and drove off with nine vehicles worth more than a half-million dollars, police said. Sunday's heist at a Jaguar-Land Rover dealership in Waukesha was captured on surveillance camera footage showing nine masked suspects filing into the dealership before each drives off in a car in the city about 19 miles (30.5 kilometers) west of Milwaukee. The video also shows one car being backed up and smashed through an overhead service door. Waukesha Police Capt. Dan Baumann said the...