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Takata air bag recall list

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration confirmed yesterday that 33.8 million vehicles with Takata airbags are going to be recalled. It's the largest recall in automotive history. The already record-breaking rate of automotive recalls this year shows no signs of slowing down, especially since millions of cars with defective airbags made by global supplier Takata are under ongoing scrutiny. The federal government is warning owners that inflator mechanisms in the air bags can rupture, causing metal fragments to fly out when the bags are deployed. The faulty air bags have already been blamed for multiple deaths. How do you know if your vehicle is safe? The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration released an updated list of vehicles under recall. Sometimes however, the government's website will crash and the list may not be complete. Check your VIN at the NHTSA website to make sure. The list of cars affected by the recall has not been released, but seem to span multiple models over the years for many of the automakers.

Fiat Chrysler dumped 40,000 unordered vehicles on dealers

In a move that echoes recent history, Fiat Chrysler has been making more cars and trucks than dealers in the U.S. are willing to accept, with Bloomberg reporting that at one point the automaker had built up a glut of around 40,000 unordered vehicles. That’s led some dealers to accuse FCA of reviving the dreaded “sales bank” accounting practice of obscuring inventory to improve the balance sheet. The company reportedly began building up its inventory of unordered cars this summer despite an industrywide slowdown in sales and an eagerness by some dealers to thin their inventories because rising interest rates are making it more expensive to hold unsold cars. The inventory build-up also coincided with Fiat ChryslerÂ’s efforts to find a merger partner, first with Renault, which fell through, then last monthÂ’s announcement that it will merge with FranceÂ’s PSA Group. FCA denies any such scheme and tells Bloomberg the rising inventory is down to a new predictive analytics system designed to better square supply with demand from dealers that is helping the company save money and narrow the numbers of unsold vehicles. The company recently agreed to pay a $40 million civil penalty to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to settle a complaint that it paid dealers to report fake sales figures over a span of five years. While no one is suggesting that FCA is in dire financial straits — the company saw higher than expected earnings in the third quarter and record profits in North America — the practice has strong historical precedent by Chrysler, which built up bloated inventories in the run-up to its two federal bailouts, in 1980 and 2009. It was also common at GM and Ford during the 2000s, when all three Detroit automakers struggled with excess manufacturing capacity and plummeting sales in the lead-up to the Great Recession. Back in 2012, CFO Magazine wrote about a report that explained automakersÂ’ rationale for the practice and how it works: Say fixed costs for a given factory are $100, and that the factory can make 50 cars. Consumers, however, demand only 10. Under absorption costing, if the company makes all 50 cars, its cost-per-car is $2. If it makes only up to demand, or 10 cars, the cost-per-car is $10. Although each car adds variable costs for steel and other parts, if those costs are low, the company still has an incentive to make more cars to keep the cost-per-car down.

Armormax loads a bulletproof Dodge Hellcat AWD Police Special

Earlier, we wrote about the Armormax armored Tesla Model S P100D, which International Armoring Corporation called the fastest armored car in the world. As the company also outfits cars such as Dodge Chargers, it's only logical that the showcase car is a SRT Hellcat — but the interesting thing is that the company can also upgrade the Hellcat to all-wheel drive, as Armormax told Motor Authority. When ordering an armored Charger SRT Hellcat, the AWD implementation is just a matter of ticking the corresponding box. The Armormax Charger SRT Hellcat seen here is also outfitted with police patrol car gear, complete with a push bar, run-flat tires, ballistic bulletproof glass and a mean matte black wrap. Even if the 6.2-liter, supercharged Hellcat powertrain probably has no problem hauling an armored bodyshell around, it's likely that the company has used the same synthetic fiber laminate on the Charger as on the Tesla. The bulletproof Tesla's weight gain was a negligible 11 percent, and while the Charger is a lighter car to begin with, avoiding using regular-issue ballistic steel seems to be the way to go if you want to keep the curb weight in check. The Hellcat's battery, radiator, fuel tank and ECU also get their share of protective covering, so that the vehicle is harder to disable. Paneling is available in ballistic protection levels ranging from B4 (can withstand a .30-caliber lead-core softpoint bullet) to B7 (can withstand a 9mm full-copper jacket). And while pricing isn't announced, it is likely to depend on how much protection is applied on the Hellcat and whether all four wheels are powered. A stock one is priced at $65,345. Related Video: