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Customers called it “the $75,999 Volt.” Cadillac has reportedly opted to cancel any plans to continue producing its ELR plug-in hybrid coupe after watching the luxury hybrid’s sales fall last year. According to Automotive News, Cadillac president Johan de Nysschen confirmed last week that the General Motors GM -2.46% division does not plan a follow-up to the first generation of ELRs that launched at the end of 2013. The trade publication noted that ELR sales dropped 22% last year to only 1,024 vehicles, as dealers complained about the car’s high price tag of nearly $76,000 (with shipping).

The Obama administration is taking a $4 billion gamble on self-driving cars as the vehicles of the future. This past Thursday at the Detroit Auto Show, Department of Transportation secretary Anthony Foxx unveiled a plan to develop a legal framework for autonomous driving technology that would encourage consistent rules across all 50 states. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) will be in charge in drafting the framework. Although the federal government can dictate manufacturing regulations, non-interstate highway traffic laws are left to the states. California, Nevada, Michigan and Florida have their own respective regulations on self-driving cars, creating a...

A civil trial set to start this month in New York City will test the legal boundaries of hundreds of claims remaining against General Motors Co. stemming from faulty ignition switches. The case involves an Oklahoma man who blames a defective ignition switch for preventing his air bags from deploying during a crash. It's the first trial to result from hundreds of lawsuits filed against GM after the auto giant revealed in 2014 that faulty ignition switches in Chevy Cobalts and other small cars necessitated an unprecedented recall. The switches can slip out of the "on" position, causing the cars...

Motoring presenter Jeremy Clarkson is working on a new show for Amazon Prime, eagerly awaited by his many fans. He's also being sued by the BBC producer he punched earlier this year.The blow Clarkson struck in March led the BBC not to renew his Top Gear contract. Radio 2 DJ Chris Evans will take over the BBC show, while Clarkson works for his new online employer.So what do we know so far about Clarkson's new TV show?The presenters will be the same Clarkson, James May and Richard Hammond will provide their signature banter as a trio for the new show...

NEW YORK: A U.S. judge on Monday said that General Motors Co may be liable for punitive damages in lawsuits it faces over an ignition switch problem that prompted the recall of millions of vehicles last year. The decision from U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Robert Gerber in Manhattan could increase GM's financial exposure to claims for injuries, deaths or loss of vehicle value stemming from the 2014 recall. Unlike compensatory damages, which are meant to make up for plaintiffs' losses, punitive damages are designed to punish defendants for egregious or negligent conduct, and to deter future misbehavior. Gerber said, however, post-bankruptcy...

United Auto Workers union members at General Motors appear poised to approve a new four-year contract with the company. Workers at two union locals at a huge factory in Lordstown, Ohio, east of Cleveland, and at an SUV assembly plant near Lansing, Michigan, voted overwhelmingly for the deal on Friday. ...

The United Auto Workers union says its workers at General Motors will strike if it can’t agree on a new contract with the company by 11:59 p.m. Sunday. Both sides are still negotiating. The union made a similar threat in recent discussions with FIAT Chrysler before agreeing to a new four-year contract. …

The weekend break has not helped Volkswagen.Shares in the troubled German carmaker are crashing again, down 8.5% at 12.50 a.m. BST (7.50 a.m. ET).Google FinanceVolkswagen shares have been diving since it emerged that software in the company's cars was juicing the numbers on diesel emissions.On Monday, news broke that the scandal was even worse than first thought — over 2 million Audi cars are fitted with the same emissions-cheating software as Volkswagen's cars. Audi is owned by Volkswagen and produces higher-end cars.Bloomberg is also reporting that Volkswagen executives in Germany were directly involved in the faking of emissions, and former...

Chinese officials have summoned top American tech executives to Seattle for a forum on Wednesday in a show of force that could make the Obama administration’s standing in Silicon Valley appear weak by comparison. Beijing moved up the date of the annual event to coincide with President Xi Jinping’s U.S. visit and reportedly pressured major Silicon Valley players to send their chief executives to what is normally an annual summit for midlevel management, threatening regulatory scrutiny if they didn’t comply. “It’s not really voluntary,” said Atlantic Council Senior Fellow Jason Healey, a former director of cyber infrastructure protection at the...

The response of the Justice Department to General Motors’ ignition switch defect cover-up was announced last week. GM’s failure to address the deadly defect led to the loss of lives of at least 169 people. Any hopes for the families of the victims that the crony status of GM would not stand in the way of justice were squashed as the company was given a slap on the wrist by its friends at the Obama Administration. The Justice Department’s news release regarding the meager $900 million penalty reeked of hypocrisy as it tried to paint a picture of a repentant...

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and California officials say some 482,000 Volkswagen and Audi diesels were engineered to falsify their emissions for federal tests—a violation that opens the German automaker to a theoretical fine totaling $18 billion. The EPA and California Air Resources Board say the affected models had software in its computer engine controls that could sense exactly when it was being tested for emissions quality. At all other times, it would run the diesels in a different mode with illegal levels of pollution; for example, spewing up to 40 times more nitrogen oxide, a key component of smog,...

The United Auto Workers union will accelerate its bargaining efforts with Fiat Chrysler Automobile in the hopes of hammering out a template for a new labor contract the other two Detroit auto makers will match. The choice of Fiat Chrysler's FCA US unit as the target company for shaping the new contract, disclosed by the union on Sunday, kicks off an intense negotiating period expected in part to focus on a two-tier wage system that has financially benefited auto makers but rankled workers. The UAW's current contract with Fiat Chrysler, General Motors and Ford Motor expires on Monday, but labor...

MADISON, Wisconsin — A worker-freedom organization is sending a special legal notice to unionized employees of the Big Three automakers in Wisconsin, Indiana and Michigan. The National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation wants United Auto Workers members at General Motors, Ford and Chrysler to know their new workplace rights now that they are residents of right-to-work states. Those new rights kick in Sept. 15, after the old UAW contracts, which included forced union dues, expire. In a statement Thursday, the Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation said that once the UAW’s “monopoly bargaining contracts” with the automakers end, all...

It would appear that the insiders at General Motors do not have as rosy a view on the financial outlook for the company as they would have the rest of the public believe. The well-paid executives at GM sold out of another $2.8 million worth of shares in June according to Yahoo Financial statistics. Of course, the sales of shares are pure profits for the higher-ups at GM, considering that the elite group of executives receive millions of dollars’ worth of GM shares for free through stock options. So, what have the highly-paid executives at GM done to earn...

It was a milestone month for FCA. For the first time ever, Chrysler has outsold Ford in US retail sales, reports Reuters. Retail sales refers to only cars sold directly to consumers, not counting sales of fleet vehicles to corporate customers. Including fleet sales, Ford moved 223,666 cars and Fiat Chrysler group sold 186,864. General Motors, meanwhile, saw sales slip slightly year over year and sold 265,825 cars. For the industry as a whole, it was another good month as car sales continue to go up. 2015 is expected to see even more growth in car sales, as the market...

Charge stems from auto maker’s failure to recall vehicles equipped with defective ignition switchThe U.S. Justice Department is weighing charging General Motors Co. with criminal wire fraud stemming from the auto maker’s failure to recall millions of vehicles equipped with a defective ignition switch, said people familiar with the matter. Federal prosecutors in New York are focusing on the charge after determining GM likely made misleading statements and concealed information about the faulty switch, now linked to more than 100 deaths, the people said. They are hoping to reach a settlement with the company by the end of summer or...

The New York Times reports that the Justice Department has concluded that there was criminal wrongdoing by General Motors as the company covered-up a deadly ignition switch defect for years. That defect has now been blamed for causing the deaths of at least 104 motorists. While many observers may have been able to come to the conclusion that GM was guilty long before the Justice Department’s recent epiphany, the bigger question now is, what’s next? GM still faces litigation risks as ongoing lawsuits seek justice for the victims’ families that suffered as a result of GM’s criminal actions. Full...

Today, we requested that the House Committee on Oversight & Government Reform undertake an "independent" investigation of the General Motors ignition switch recall delay, in light of newly obtained emails by lawyers suing GM. Those emails suggest that the Treasury may have timed its final sale of GM shares to precede public knowledge of the ignition switch fiasco. They also cast doubt on GM CEO Mary Barra's previous account of what she knew and when she knew it. Here is the text of a letter I sent today to Rep. Jason Chaffetz, in photo, the incoming Chairman of the...

General Motors will likely be prosecuted over ignition switches linked to deathsFederal prosecutors are closing in on criminal charges against General Motors Co. over a faulty ignition switch linked to more than 100 deaths, but they are still weighing whether to charge individual employees, according to people familiar with the matter. The Manhattan U.S. attorney’s office has determined GM likely broke the law by making misstatements about the ignition-switch glitch in older Chevrolet Cobalts and other cars for more than a decade and will likely extract a fine exceeding $1 billion from the company, the people said. GM will either...

General Motors Co will not have to face dozens of lawsuits accusing it of concealing an ignition-switch defect that has been blamed for more than 200 deaths and serious injuries, a U.S. bankruptcy judge ruled on Wednesday. Plaintiffs in the lawsuits said the company violated their constitutional rights by failing to disclose the defect, while GM had argued it was protected from claims on vehicles pre-dating its 2009 exit from Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The decision by U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Robert Gerber means GM may avoid potentially billions of dollars in liability, as well as the cost of defending those lawsuits,...