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DoJ fines Japanese parts firms $740M in massive automotive price-fixing scandal

Nine Japanese suppliers have pleaded guilty in US court over charges of price fixing in the automotive parts industry, resulting in the Department of Justice doling out a total of $740 million of fines, according to a report from Bloomberg. The scandal, which has resulted in General Motors, Ford, Toyota and Chrysler spending up to $5 billion on inflated parts and driving up prices on 25 million vehicles has sent the DoJ hustling into investigations. "The conduct this investigation uncovered involved more than a dozen separate conspiracies aimed at the U.S. economy," Attorney General Eric Holder (pictured above) said during yesterday's press conference.
As the investigation stands, the DoJ has issued $1.6 billion in fines against 20 companies and 21 individual executives, with 17 of the execs headed to prison. Deputy Assistant Attorney General Scott Hammond said, "The breadth of the conspiracies brought to light today are as egregious as they are pervasive. They involve more than a dozen separate conspiracies operating independently but all sharing in common that they targeted US automotive manufacturers."
Big-name suppliers indicted in the investigation include Mitsubishi Electric, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Hitachi Automotive and Mitsuba Corporation. A list of fines and other corporations named in the investigation is available at Bloomberg.

Ford, Petty's Garage to build limited-edition Mustang GT from SEMA Show

The customized vehicles on display at the annual SEMA Show are often just there to exhibit a company's wares. They are more an illustration of what's possible by picking the right bits out of a catalog, rather than a model available in complete form. Ford and Petty's Garage are doing something a little different, though, by putting a very limited run of the tuner's supercharged Mustang GTs up for order through Blue Oval dealers. The Petty's Garage Mustang GT made its debut with a host of other modded 'Stangs at the 2014 SEMA Show. It featured a blue-and-black two-tone paint job and a supercharged version of the pony car's V8 under the hood. Just 143 of them are now being offered to customers – 100 in Stage 1 trim and 43 in Stage 2 form. At a starting price of $62,210, Stage 1 buyers get the aggressive body kit from the show car, including a center-exit exhaust at the rear, trunk lip spoiler and a set of 20-inch wheels. Although the real meat of the setup is a supercharger, cold air intake and retuned engine calibration also help take the output up to 627 horsepower. Inside, customers get "The King" Richard Petty's signature on the dashboard. Shelling out $92,210 for the Stage 2 version adds bigger brakes from Wilwood, HRE three-piece wheels and the two-tone paint job from the SEMA show car. The boosted Mustangs can be ordered from Ford dealers, but at least one of the Stage 2 versions is already sold. Rocker and car enthusiast Brian Johnson of AC/DC bought the first one. FORD AND PETTY'S GARAGE TEAM UP TO BUILD LIMITED-EDITION MUSTANG GT Ford dealerships to offer 143 limited-edition Petty's Garage-tuned Mustang GTs; a Stage 1 version and an even more exclusive Stage 2 version will be available All Petty's Garage Mustang GTs feature Ford Racing/Roush supercharger boosting output to 627 horsepower*, as well as unique exterior and interior treatments including Richard Petty's signature on the dashboard AC/DC's Brian Johnson ordered the first Petty's Garage Stage 2 Mustang GT – the rock 'n' roll legend's first-ever domestic vehicle purchase DEARBORN, Mich., Feb. 19, 2015 – Ford Motor Company and Petty's Garage are teaming up to build a new 627-horsepower* Mustang GT – a limited-edition fastback inspired by the popular Petty's Garage Mustang GT on display at last year's SEMA show in Las Vegas. "We received a tremendous amount of positive feedback about our Petty's Garage Mustang GT displayed at the SEMA show," said Jeff Whaley, Petty's Garage COO.

Detroit and Silicon Valley: When cultures collide

Culture is a subject that rarely, if never, gets discussed when traditional auto companies buy — or hugely invest — in Silicon Valley-based companies. The conversation surrounding the investments is usually about how the tech looks appealing and how it's an appropriate step to move the automakers toward autonomy. Culture — the way things are done, the expectations, and the approaches — is something that is overlooked only at one's peril. The potential cultural gap is almost always evident in the obligatory photos of the participants in these deals, with is essentially a photo op of auto execs with their Silicon Valley counterparts. The former — rocking jeans and no ties — look like parochial school kids playing hooky. Don't worry: The regimental outfits will be back in place once they get back in the Eastern time zone. Consider what happened back in 1998 when Daimler bought Chrysler. First of all, there was a denial in Detroit that it happened. It was positioned as a "merger of equals." Which it wasn't. In any corporate situation, when one has more than 50 percent of the business, it owns the whole thing. And the German company was in the proverbial driver's seat. People who were around Auburn Hills back then kept their heads down and their German Made Simple books at hand. Things did not go well. Daimler had had enough by 2007, when it offloaded Chrysler to Cerberus Capital Management — which brought ex-Home Depot CEO Bob Nardelli into the picture, which is a story onto itself. But when you think about the Daimler-Chrysler situation, realize that these were two car companies (at least the Mercedes part of the Daimler organization), so they had that in common, and the language of engineers is something of an Esperanto based on math, so there was that, too. Yet it simply didn't work. It doesn't take too many viewings of HBO's Silicon Valley to know that the business people in that part of the world are far more aggressive than people who ordinarily head and control car companies in Detroit. About 20 years ago, a book came out about the founder of Oracle titled The Difference Between God and Larry Ellison* - and the asterisk on the book jacket leads to: God Doesn't Think He's Larry Ellison. It would be hard to imagine a book about a Detroit executive, even a book that had the decided bias that the tome about Ellison evinces, that would be quite so searing. Sure, there are egos. But they are still perceived to be, overall, "nice" people.