2012 Honda Civic Ex on 2040-cars

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Consumer Reports' first motorcycle reliability report finds Japanese brands ahead

Consumer Reports has released its first ever study of motorcycle reliability, and students of its ratings on cars might notice a suspicious similarity - Japanese brands require fewer repairs than the leading American or German brands.
The study analyzed the reliability of 4,680 bikes owned by CR subscribers and found that Yamaha had the best ratings, with just one in ten bikes built between 2009 and 2012 requiring a repair over a four-year period. The makers of the R1 and R6 sport bikes were closely followed by Kawasaki and Honda, while one out of every four of the rumbling bikes from Harley-Davidson experienced an issue. BMW had the worst rating of the brands represented, with one in three bikes having problems.
According to CR, neither Suzuki nor Triumph owners provided enough information for a reliable rating. Based on the responses received, though, Suzuki would have finished with the other Japanese brands and Triumph, being English, would have been one of the less reliable makes.

Honda finance to pay $24M for discriminatory lending practices

Honda has found itself in hot water in the United States over allegations of discriminatory lending practices. However the Japanese automaker's American subsidiaries are taking actions to not only alter its practices, but compensate the victims of such past discrimination. According to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, some Honda dealers were found to have offered less preferential loans to customers of African-American, Hispanic, Asian, and Pacific Islander ethnicities than they have offered to white customers, irrespective of their individual financial situations. The American Honda Finance Corporation has allowed dealers to mark up individual loans by two percent or more, depending on the length of the loan's contract, thereby opening the door for dealers to set interest rates at their discretion. And that discretion, according to the CFPB and the Department of Justice, has been applied in a discriminatory fashion, in violation of the Equal Credit Opportunity Act. Honda, for its part, refutes the allegations and maintains that its practices have not been racially or ethnically discriminatory. The company is nevertheless taking measures to address the charges. For one thing, Honda's US financial arm is reducing the amount of wiggle-room it gives its dealers to only 1.25 percent above the buy rate for short-term loans (5 years or less), and one percent for longer-term loans. It has also set up a $24-million fund to compensate victims of the alleged discrimination, coordinating with the CFPB on the dispersal of said funds. The CFPB reports that "because of Honda's responsible conduct," it is not seeking penalties to be levied against the company for the alleged discrimination. STATEMENT BY AMERICAN HONDA FINANCE CORPORATION RE: Settlement with the Department of Justice and Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Jul 14, 2015 -- American Honda Finance Corporation (AHFC) has reached an agreement with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and the Department of Justice (DOJ) that shows our commitment to work together to be part of the solution and to establish the path forward that best supports our Honda and Acura customers and dealers with clear and convenient financing options. AHFC strongly opposes any form of discrimination, and we expect our dealers to uphold this principle as well. We firmly believe that our lending practices have been fair and transparent.

Bosch builds an infotainment system that just might not suck

As far as we've come with in-car infotainment and interfaces over the past decade or so, we still have a long way to go — as most current systems show. Whether it's high-end brands like Mercedes-Benz with its kludgy COMAND system, which we hope will be replaced with the MBUX platform revealed at CES, or more mainstream vehicles like Hondas (with their frustrating, knobless Display Audio interface), getting the kind of content and ease of use in the car that we're used to having on other connected devices is far too complex and sometimes costly. While Apple and Google have tried to ride to the rescue with CarPlay and Android Auto, respectively, they're limited solutions. No automaker or tech supplier has been able to deliver an easy, economical, flexible and non-distracting infotainment solution. But Bosch could be closing in on this elusive goal, given the digital cockpit concept demo I recently received at CES. Displayed in a Cadillac Escalade, the concept featured five interconnected color screens: one in the instrument cluster, two in the center console, and two more in the front-seat headrest for second-row passengers. The digital cockpit concept demo had cool features such as haptic-feedback touch-screen controls that created an edge-like feeling similar to a physical button, facial recognition to confirm driver credentials, and the intelligence to know the location of a phone in the car to lock it out to keep the driver from texting. The most significant aspect of the Bosch digital cockpit concept wasn't visible — but shows the company's vision for a future of seamless, convenient, cost-effective and safe in-car infotainment. It's powered by a single electronic control unit (ECU) that can simultaneously run multiple operating systems and also separates vehicle and infotainment controls for critical safety and cybersecurity reasons. Most modern cars can have as many as 100 separate ECUs, Philip Ventimiglia, product manager for Bosch Car Multimedia North America, explained at CES, and several just for infotainment functions. "The goal is to reduce that to about 10 so that we can save cost throughout the vehicle and enable new technologies," he added. "OEMs want to put more technology into cars, but it costs money," Ventimiglia said.