1996 Ford F-350 Xlt on 2040-cars

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'Car Wars' says Ford, Honda to pick up share, Fiat-Chrysler ambitions downplayed

Don't look for a tremendous shifts in automotive market share over the next three years because it might not be coming. That's at least according to the annual Car Wars report by John Murphy, from Bank of America Merrill Lynch Global Research.
In the report's analysis of automakers' market share from 2013 to 2017, it predicts only small changes among the major companies. Ford and Honda see the biggest positive effect with an estimated 0.5 percent increase in their shares over the next three years; to 16.2 percent and 10.3 percent respectively. On the flip side, European automakers and Nissan are expected to lose 0.2 percent each to fall to 8.3 percent and 7.8 percent each respectively. The rest of the industry is predicted to hold steady as it is now.
The biggest loser in that prediction might be Fiat-Chrysler Automobiles. The report certainly throws a wet blanket on its plan for significant gains in market share. Murphy told The Detroit News that the company's goal was "almost unattainable."

Hybrid, electric campers take center stage at Germany's motorhome trade show

Car companies from all over the automotive spectrum will make international headlines next week by presenting hybrid and electric cars at the biennial Frankfurt auto show. Camper van and motorhome manufacturers got a head start on the rest of the industry by presenting their green solutions at the Dusseldorf Caravan Salon. The show confirms electrification is present in the leisure segment, too. German camper experts Dethleffs introduced a plug-in hybrid, pop-top camper based on the full-size Ford Transit van. Called Globevan e.Hybrid, it relies on a 126-horsepower drivetrain built around a turbocharged, 1.0-liter EcoBoost three-cylinder engine. The system can power the camper on electricity alone for up to 31 miles. Adventurers who leave with a full tank and a full charge enjoy 310 miles of driving range, which is an impressive figure for the camper van segment. Charging the battery pack takes 5.5 hours when using a regular household outlet, according to the manufacturer, or three hours when hooking it up to a quick-charging station. Globevan production is tentatively scheduled to begin in 2020, and pricing starts at 75,000 euros, a sum that represents approximately $83,000. EFA-S took electrification a step further. Starting with a Fiat Ducato, a van known as the Ram Promaster in the United States, it yanked out the turbodiesel engine and replaced it with a 140-kilowatt electric motor fed by an 86-kilowatt-hour lithium-ion battery pack. The company pegs the camper's driving range at up to 186 miles, a relatively low figure which hardly reflects how most vacationers use their van. The pack takes four hours to charge, Auto Motor und Sport learned. While sustainable, zero-emissions tourism is difficult to argue against, the Ducato-based camper suffers from two serious setbacks. First, the battery pack makes it so heavy that it can't be driven with a regular license. It's considered a heavy commercial vehicle. Second, its 160,000-euro (about $177,000) price tag makes it twice as expensive as a diesel-burning model, and puts it in the same price range as much bigger, more powerful, and more luxurious models. EFA-S will nonetheless move forward with production in 2020, though it plans to build no more than 30 units. The caravan Salon is not only about hybrids and electric cars, however.

Ford blamed in drug mule lawsuit

If a college student is caught smuggling drugs across the border, one might think the kid got what was coming to him. But when a Mexican student at the University of Texas in El Paso was caught by Border Patrol agents with duffel bags filled with marijuana in his trunk, the man used a classic excuse: He claimed they weren't his.
While a claim like that is almost unbelievable, Ricardo Magallanes, the student, is now suing Ford for handling its vehicles' key codes negligently enough to allow drug smugglers to break into his Ford Focus and stash the drugs, The Daily Caller reports. The twist here is that four other people who lived in Juarez and worked in El Paso were involved in the same type of scheme - allegedly unwittingly, just like Magallanes - and all the cars were Fords except one model from General Motors. FBI agents also found an employee at a Dallas Ford dealership that had accessed the key codes to all four of the cannabis-stuffed Fords.
While we all may not own Fords, the case still causes us slight paranoia. We'll definitely be checking our trunks before we cross any more international borders.