Thursday, February 3rd, 2011
With our new design comes the return of Morning Shift, our one-stop daily morning roundup of all the auto news that's actually important to you — right here on Jalopnik every weekday before 9:00 AM. It's like the most important automotive news on the internet wrapped up neatly in a bow for you every morning.
1st Gear: An Indiana University panel claims President Obama's Dr. Evil-like State of the Union 1,000,000 electric cars by 2015 goal is undoable. Even if doable, it would still only be one-third of 1% of all U.S. vehicles. But hey, there may be $200 million for communities to install electric chargers parking garage attendants won't know how to use.
2nd Gear: You know who does best when the weather turns completely shitty? Auto repair shops; because people use the ridiculously damaging drive-gas-reverse-gas-drive-gas "strategy" to free cars from iced-in parking spots. Also, because your Audi turns into an icicle and your new Ford Explorer "SUV" gets left on Chicago streets.
3rd Gear: Ford is planning a new budget sedan for developing markets like India and China. Care to guess what platform it'll be built on? If you read yesterday's Morning Shift, and saw the link to Motor Trend's story by Todd Lassa, I think you already know. Come on, Focus on possible choices and I'm sure you'll get it.
4th Gear: Honda may end exporting the CR-V to the United States from Japan to reduce losses from the strong yen. No, that doesn't mean they're killing it — just that they'll look to build all of them here. Yay?
5th Gear: Did you know that a celebrity aura can help sell cars at auction? What, you mean like when a seller says they're selling a Pontiac ambulance that carried the body of the former President of the United States when it really didn't? You don't say.
6th Gear: For 2012, the Cadillac SRX is getting GM's familiar 3.6-liter V6 to replace the anemic 3.0-liter V6 — the only SRX engine option in wake of the Turbo SRX's axing. They're calling it "LFX." Also, a heated steering wheel. My mom will be so happy.
Reverse:
⏎ Paul Murphy, M-Sport Ford engineer who manages Matthew Wilson's all-new Ford Fiesta RS WRC car, talks PistonHeads through why the new WRC's first round — in Sweden — will be such a challenge. [Pistonheads]
⏎ Saddest news of the day? Ford Falcon sales are down 50% to just 1,157 units sold in January. C'mon mates, buy them! [GoAuto]
⏎ Happiest news of the day? BMW M car series sales saw a 14.2% increase to 16,967 units — despite the V10-powered M5 and M6 models getting canned. [CarScoop]
⏎ Will New York City's one taxi to rule them all be built by a Turkish automaker? Hmm. Probably not. [NYT]
⏎ Don't rule out Detroit completely... just mostly. [Economist]