Nearly half a million Honda cars are being recalled to have their airbags checked, in the latest safety issue for carmakers. The main market concerned is North America, but other regions such as Australia are also affected. European Hondas are not being recalled. The problem is the potential for the bags to over-inflate and explode, spraying metal. Toyota has been hard hit by 10 million recalls worldwide.
Links to other sites: BBC, Bloomberg video
Toyota’s troubles don’t appear to be set to end soon, with the Japanese carmaker now recalling half a million Prius and other hybrid cars for potential brake problems. The company has recently recalled more than 8 million cars worldwide for a series of safety defects. The cost is expected to be higher than $2 billion for initial recalls alone.
Links to other sites: Business Week, Reuters, Toyota recall notice
Outer and inner faces of the 2010 Swiss autoroute sticker
Neuchatel, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Drivers have until the end of January 2010 to put them on their cars, but the 2010 Swiss autoroute sticker, called a vignette in French, goes on sale today. The background is metallic orange and the date reddish-brown. The CHF40 annual road tax has been sold at the same price since it became law in 1985, managed by the Swiss customs office.
The proof of tax paid sticker must be displayed by cars but also trucks and motorbikes on the autoroute.
Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Police in Vaud are using the example of a street artist in Mont-Pelerin to remind motorists that it’s illegal to warn other drivers about radars in the vicinity. A large “radar” and triangle with an exclamation point on the road in Mont-Pelerin is clearly illegal, they say – as is honking your horn or flashing your lights to alert other drivers about radars.
Related, 20 Minutes, Fre
Title: Used cars, sales and exhibition
Location: Geneva
Link out: Click here
Description: The largest used-cars show in Switzerland is also the favorite place for purchasing used vehicles in the Confederation.
Start Date: 05 Jun 2009
End Date: 07 Jun 2009
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Fuel consumption by cars on Swiss roads fell by 3.9 percent in 2008 compared to 2007, to 7.14liters/100km on average, but the it was still short of the consumption target of 6.4l/100km by the end of 2008. A voluntary agreement between the Federal Department of the Environment, Transport, Energy and Communication (Detec), signed with car importers in 2002, set the target. Detec released the figures Thursday 7 May.
Geneva, Switzerland (Genevalunch) - The Geneva Motor Show has come and gone, but it leaves in its wake a sense that environmentally friendly “green” cars finally matter to manufacturers.
An equal amount of spectator buzz surrounded the less glamorous green cars’ stands as the flashy Ferrari and Lamborghini displays. Many of the manufacturers used g/km CO2 emissions ratios (grams of carbon dioxide per kilometre driven) as their key advertising strategy, splashing the information across the hoods, doors, and roofs of their cars.
US carmakers will announce February sales figures today and, according to analysts interviewed by Reuters, the figures will show a 27-year low, possibly down 40-50% year on year.
Title: International motor show, Geneva
Location: Geneva
Link out: Click here
Description: Your expected exhibit of cars although the 79th show promises a “Green Pavilion” for electric and other alternative forms of propulsion.
Start Date: 05 Mar 2009
End Date: 15 Mar 2009
US President Barack Obama Monday pushed to make the US energy-independent (BBC), to rapidly get state emission standards in place and give states greater freedom (IHT) in setting their own emissions standards for cars, part of energy directives that will reassure Europeans, who saw George W Bush’s energy policies as a stumbling block, writes Reuters.
Detroit’s three big automakers went to Washington Tuesday to convince the US Congress to bail out the ailing companies with an injection of $25 billion they say is necessary to avoid bankruptcy. But lawmakers appear not to have been convinced enough to move quickly on the request. CNN
