Nooooooooooooooooo! Volvo to kill V70 wagon.

I can't believe it.

One of Volvo's iconic products was the turbo wagon. It was a way to drive an honest wagon, and look and feel good doing it.

Now, according to a leaked document at Jalopnik, Volvo is going to drop the V70 wagon in the U.S., to concentrate on the butched up XC70.

The more sedate midsize wagons will still be produced for other markets, so there is always a chance that if fashion swings back to car-based wagons, Volvo will reconsider. Maybe someone will make a business out of lowering XC70's and tearing off their body cladding?

The Most Expensive Cars To Insure

I thought this was interesting. This is a list of the most expensive 2010 models to insure. I suppose if you have the riches to own a Porsche 911 GT2, which is a second or third car, you probably can afford almost $3,000 for insurance! Data courtesy of Insure.com.

The most expensive 2010 vehicles to insure
Rank	Make and Model	Style & Type	Cylinders	Avg. national premium
1	Porsche 911 Carrera GT2	2 Door Coupe	6	$2943.78
2	Mercedes S65 AMG	4 Door Sedan	12	$2863.03
3	Dodge Viper SRT-10	2 Door Coupe	10	$2851.89
4	Porsche Panamera Turbo AWD	4 Door Sedan	8	$2837.39
5	Dodge Viper SRT-10	2 Door Convertible	10	$2815.90
6	Mercedes CL600	2 Door Coupe	12	$2754.80
7	Audi R8	2 Door Coupe AWD	8	$2751.55
8	Porsche Panamera S	4 Door Sedan	8	$2744.78
9	Mercedes SL600	2 Door Convertible	12	$2715.86
10	Porsche 911 Carrera Turbo	2 Door Coupe AWD	6	$2706.04
11	Mercedes CL65 AMG	2 Door Coupe	12	$2699.74
12	BMW M6	2 Door Convertible	10	$2689.13
13	Mercedes S600	4 Door Sedan	12	$2667.48
14	Mercedes SL65 AMG Black Series	2 Door Convertible	12	$2655.15
15	Mercedes SL65 AMG	2 Door Convertible	12	$2653.53
16	Mercedes CL63 AMG	2 Door Coupe	8	$2646.92
17	BMW M6	2 Door Coupe	10	$2627.27
18	BMW 760Li	4 Door Sedan	12	$2565.59
19	Jaguar XKR Portfolio SC	2 Door Coupe	8	$2537.79
20	Jaguar XKR Supercharged	2 Door Coupe	8	$2533.48
Source: Insure.com, from a study commissioned by Insure.com from Quadrant Information Services

How Will Chrysler Survive?

According to many measures, Chrysler is building junky cars. Today's junky cars are still miles ahead of the junky cars of decades ago, but still, Chrysler's products are not competitive. The latest bad news comes from J.D. Power, which shows that Chrysler and its various brands are much worse than industry average for 3 years in service reliability.

Industry Average: 155 problems (per 100 vehicles)

Chrysler: 166

Dodge:190

Jeep: 222

GM and Ford fare much better, most of their brands being above average. Lincoln, Buick, Mercury, Ford and Cadillac score above average.

If Chrysler can't fix it's quality problems, how will it survive? It doesn't have VW's Euro cachet or Mazda's Zoom Zoom (both well below average). Chrysler needs to be a solid choice for the average mid-market family, or they are toast.

A Theory To Explain Sikes

This is purely my speculation.

According to Toyota, Mr. Sikes pressed his brake pedal hundreds of times during his "runaway Prius" event, but did not trigger the engine torque over-ride.

One possible explanation is that perhaps he had a foreign object, such as a soda bottle, wedged under his brake pedal. In a panic and unable to slow his car down, he wasn't able to remove it until the end.

I once had this actually happen to me, when a water bottle from under my seat worked its way forward, and lodged itself under my brake pedal. It was a little hairy, but I was able to kick it out of there before getting in trouble.

Giving Sikes this bit of leeway, we're still stuck with the other problem: how did the Prius run away to begin with? According to NHTSA and Toyota, his floor mat was not clipped to the floor, but was not bunched up under the throttle pedal, either. But they were unable to move the mat into a position that would have pinned the pedal. And his Prius was not subject to the throttle pedal recall.

Did Sikes get a stuck throttle and an obstructed brake pedal? Or did he make the whole thing up for publicity?

Electric Car Consumers Want 90mi for $2,000

According to a survey by Consumer's Union of 1750 car owning adults, the typical (well, median) consumer wants a plug-in car that gets 90 miles of range or more, and wants to pay $2,000 or less over the price of a similar gasoline car for the technology. More tellingly, consumers earning less than $50,000 (close to the median family income in the U.S. of about $52,000) were much less willing to pay a premium for a BEV.

"Among consumers that would consider an electric car, the median extra amount that they would pay was $2,068. But 20 percent would pay nothing additional, while an equal share would pay at least $5,000 extra. Across major demographic segments, only one difference was statistically significant: 46 percent of consumers earning $50,000 or more annually would pay at least $2,000 extra versus just 27 percent of those earning less."

However, the current premium is estimated to be something like $10,000 for enough battery to move you 100 miles. Which means that unless gasoline becomes very expensive, it is going to be a long time before electric cars have any significant volume.

Story here.

Video: Lincoln LS vs Rock Slide

That's one way to trash a Lincoln LS.

http://www.breitbart.tv/caugth-on-video-driver-doesnt-notice-massive-rock-slide-covering-tn-highway/

Huge BMW Poster in WSJ

If you get the Wall Street Journal, you may have gotten an insert in today's paper, which folds out into a huge BMW poster. This is an impressive piece of advertising, about 3' x 4' unfolded.

If you are a BMW fan, you should hunt down a copy of the 3/17 WSJ and check it out.