A Tire That Gets Better With Age

Introduced today at the Detroit auto show Michelins new tire that gets better with age.

Michelin's engineers have developed a tire that has treads that change as it wears reducing stopping distance.  A tire's grip worsens as the tread wears down, Michelin's engineers figured out how to retain wet weather road holding with tires that have tens of thousands of miles on them. This new tire technology will be available this spring.

Windshield wipers, in November of 1903 a patent was granted for a window cleaning device to Mary Anderson. The patent was granted before the manufacture of Henry Ford's Model A.

A Bentley SUV?

Yes the ultra-luxury vehicle manufacturer Bentley plans a 2016 launch of its SUV. The expected sales price to be around 180,000 Euros.

1948  was the year Daimler introduced electric windows in cars.

Ballot Proposal Prohibiting Dealership Markup on Interest Rates

The initial steps have been taken by a California consumer advocacy group Consumers for Auto Reliability and Safety to get a proposal on California’s November 2014 ballot prohibiting dealerships from adding on to interest rates on consumer car loans known as “hidden extra charges”.

The group understands and is okay with dealerships being compensated for arranging the auto loans as long as the dealerships don’t add on to the car buyer’s interest rate.

Other provisions would prohibit “bait and Switch financing or yo-yo financing” Where a buyer is able to take possession of a vehicle before loan approval and ends up agreeing to an interest rate that is higher when the loan does not get final approval. Another provision prohibits dealerships from the hiring of people that would have access to buyer’s personal financial information with prior convictions for fraud, forgery or identity theft.

President of the California New Car Dealers Association Brian Mass stated that no one including Consumers for Auto Reliability has any evidence of these allegations and it is “a solution in search of a problem”.

Garmin International rolls out its Dash Cam in February

The Gamin Dash Cam can be mounted to the windshield of a vehicle and in the event o f an accident the device acts like a person eyewitness automatically recording once the engine starts. The integrated gravity sensor will automatically detect braking or collisions and saves the video files. The device is available with or without GPS. 

The camera provides  recorded video proof if there were to be a incident with the  vehicle on the road.  The user will know exactly when and where an event happened as the device time-stamps and geotags footage. The device has features such as GPS  and an internal microphone add context to the video files.

Slated for a February 2014 release the Garmin Dash Cam with GPS will retail for $249.99 and the device  without the GPS will retail for $219.99.

Recall for Jaguar Land Rover’s Range Rover

Jaguar Land Rover is recalling 3,912 of the companies 2013 and 2014 Range Rover SUV’s sold in the United States for front seat side air bags that may not deploy. The air bag systems connector may become disconnected causing the driver side and front passenger side airbags to not deploy. No injuries or accidents related to this issue have been reported.