This is The Morning Shift, our one-stop daily roundup of all the auto news that's actually important — all in one place at 9:30 AM. Or, you could spend all day waiting for other sites to parse it out to you one story at a time. Isn't your time more important?
1st Gear: Do All Your Recalls Now
Man, if you're a car company and you need to recall some shit, recall that shit RIGHT NOW while everyone's thinking about/talking about that GM recall. Seriously, Nissan is recalling roughly a million cars because buggy software could disable the passenger seat airbag.
This is a serious issue, obviously, and at least two accidents have been linked to this incident. Most of the cars are Nissan or Infiniti products made in the last two years — including the Altima, Sentra, and Pathfinder. And most of them are in the United States or Canada.
The good news for Nissan is that they apparently caught it early and it's a software fix so there's no waiting for parts to be produced. Oh, yeah, and it's also like farting in a pig pen given everyone else is knee deep in GM.
2nd Gear: Plaintiffs Tell Judge To Tell GM To Tell Customers To Stop Driving
For example… I'm definitely going to report that the plaintiffs in one of the lawsuits against GM are asked a federal judge to make GM tell their customers to not drive their cars until they're fixed.
That would be in lieu of their kind of shitty advice they're giving out now.
Charles and Grace Silvas, who sued GM this month in a proposed class action for as much as $10 billion for the lost value of 1.6 million cars it recalled, filed the request two days ago with U.S. District Judge Nelva Gonzales Ramos in Corpus Christi. Courts can issue such orders if they are needed to prevent people from being harmed, they said in a filing.
3rd Gear: Here Comes Congress
Two Democrats are proposing legislation in light of all this GM hubbub that will, they hope, make it easier to prevent issues like these from surfacing again.
Specifically, as the Freep reports, the legislation would require automakers to submit accident reports and other documentation from fatal accidents and make some of that information available to the public.
I assume the data they'd withhold is individual personal data.
4th Gear: How Much Does Your Car Really Cost?
The AAA put out their annual report on car costs and The WSJ put together a nice graphic and report detailing all the costs that go into it.
If you're an average American driving an average Camry a somewhat above average 15,000 miles a year it'll cost you about $9,150.
The cost includes depreciation, gas, tires, insurance, and other related costs. More intriguingly, if you spend 50 minutes commuting every weekday that's $52,000 a decade you're losing (assuming your time is worth $25 per hour).
5th Gear: This Headline…
I love my Bloomberg peeps, of course, but I had to stare at this headline before it made sense.
"Peugeot Targets China Fashionistas in Quest for 10% Luxury Share"
Here's the gist:
A sponsor of Shanghai Fashion Week for the past four seasons, Peugeot is seeking to carve a niche for its DS line in China, which McKinsey & Co. has projected to overtake the U.S. as the world's largest luxury vehicle market by 2016. Automakers from General Motors Co.'s Cadillac to Nissan Motor Co.'s Infiniti have also announced plans to expand in the world's second-largest economy.
Reverse: It Worked?
On this day in 2008, the Ford Motor Company announces the sale of its Jaguar and Land Rover divisions to the Tata Group, one of India's oldest and largest business conglomerates, for some $2.3 billion—less than half of what Ford originally paid for the brands. The sale came at a time when Ford, along with much of the rest of the auto industry, was experiencing a sales slump as a result of the global economic crisis. For Tata, which earlier that year had unveiled the Nano, the world's cheapest car, the purchase of the venerable British-based luxury brands was referred to by some observers as a "mass to class" acquisition.
[HISTORY]
Neutral: Was Ford Right To Sell Jag/LR?
Was Tata smart to buy it?
Photo Credit: Getty Images, AP, WSJ, IIHS