Oil Economics and the Auto Industry

by Ruggles - from my Auto Finance News column Drill Baby Drill has finally worked, but only because OPEC cooperated, at least temporarily...

Takata and The Quality Dilemma

revised version posted by Smitka at The Truth About Cars The Takata airbag inflator problems illustrate a fine dilemma: quality standards ac...

How the Pre-Owned Market is Driving Economic Growth

An interesting theory inviting comments: http://www.cnbc.com/id/102186242

Waiting for the stars to align: Japan's Consumption Tax increase

Japan, as does much of the world, has long-run fiscal challenges. Its population aged faster than anticipated. No mechanism was put in place...

Michigan's Anti-Tesla Ban: Bloomberg is Off Base

Bloomberg has an op-ed " Detroit Fights Innovation -- Again " which in fact is not about the Detroit Three of GM, Ford and Fiat C...

Espresso and Pizza

photos fixed Jan 3, 2015 The base post lies at Espresso and Pizza on October 7, 2014 on The Truth About Cars . I don’t normally post about ...

Labor Market Update: little bad news, but no acceleration

I post below a series of graphs on the US labor market updated through September 2014. As I read it, the latest CES (Current Employment Surv...

Warren Buffet's Berkshire Hathaway buys auto retailer VT Inc.

From Slate Magazine: " Warren Buffett's Latest Deal Has Officially Made Car Dealerships Cool " I don't think so. I have...

Ford Poised to Realize an Upturn in Margins?

http://seekingalpha.com/article/2538735-is-ford-on-the-cusp-of-an-upturn-in-margins?app=1&uprof=53 A good piece from Seeking Alpha on ...

In For The Long Haul

The original for this post is at TheTruthAboutCars.com, which in turn draws upon a post by Alexander Dawejko done for my Economics 244 cou...

Does Car Racing Make Cents?

Here is a post that draws upon questions posed by students that appears on the Economics 244 Auto Industry blog . However, instead of postin...

Interest rates, inflation and growth

I go through US data periodically for a weekly radio show on W3Z - WREL in Lexington, Virginia. Unfortunately they don't stream their lo...

Who is Number One?

Auto sales are not the only measure to assess an auto OEM's relative health. This piece from the Detroit Bureau lays it out: GM slid ...

Auto Finance Sub Prime Bubble?

I don't think so. For some reason, the New York times jumped on an Equifax report, cherry picked data to suit a sensationalistic agenda...

Mitsubishi Motors Future: Summer Guest Post #1

This post was written May 12, 2014 by Anton Reed '14 for Economics 244. The Prof edited it and appended comments by others in the class....

Google's Autonomous Car: Don't Drink the Kool-aid

Google's senior executives are busily touting the wonders of autonomous vehicles. There's the technological marvel, at least in the ...

Call for Entries: 2014-15 PACE Supplier Innovation Competition

Time for suppliers to apply for the 2014-15 PACE COMPETITION ! (Links to PACE web site)

Autosaurus Rex: Car Death in Japan (revised)

Iwao Corp: After the last auction Thanks to Prof. Shioji of Kyoto University for arranging this tour in conjunction with the 22nd GERPISA Co...

Janet Yellen's Dashboard

Once a quarter, Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen and her colleagues on the Federal Open Market Committee take a thorough look at where the...

Auto Auctions, Japanese Style

Here're just a few notes on a visit to the Kinki branch of Toyota Auto Auction on a day when they were offering 1,700 vehicles (of whi...

The Supplier Auto Parts Fixing Scandal is Just Getting Started

Auto parts price-fixing probe rattles industry Star-Telegram, May 16 By Eric Tucker, Associated Press WASHINGTON — An investigation into pr...