2000 Mitsubishi Eclipse Gs Coupe 2-door 2.4l on 2040-cars

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U.S. will extradite father and son charged in Ghosn escape to Japan

BOSTON — An American father and son accused of helping former Nissan Chairman Carlos Ghosn flee Japan are being handed over on Monday to Japanese authorities for extradition from the United States, a person familiar with the matter said. The U.S. Supreme Court last month cleared the way for the extradition of U.S. Army Special Forces veteran Michael Taylor and his son, Peter Taylor, who are accused of helping Ghosn flee Japan while he was awaiting trial on financial charges. The Taylors, who have been in U.S. custody since their arrest in May, left the jail early on Monday to be flown to Japan, according to the person. Defense attorney Paul Kelly did not respond to a request for comment but told the Associated Press that the men had been turned over for extradition. The U.S. Justice Department declined to comment. They were charged last year with helping Ghosn flee Japan on Dec. 29, 2019, hidden in a box and on a private jet before reaching his childhood home, Lebanon, which has no extradition treaty with Japan. Ghosn was awaiting trial on charges that he had engaged in financial wrongdoing, including by understating his compensation in Nissan's financial statements. Ghosn denies wrongdoing. Prosecutors said the elder Taylor, a 60-year-old private security specialist, and Peter Taylor, 27, received $1.3 million for their services. The Taylors waged a months-long campaign to press their case against extradition in the courts, media, State Department and White House with the aid of a collection of high-powered lawyers and lobbyists. The Taylors' lawyers argued unsuccessfully in U.S. courts that their clients could not be prosecuted in Japan for helping someone "bail jump" and that, if extradited, they faced the prospect of relentless interrogations and torture. Related Video: This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings. CES 2020 and Carlos Ghosn | Autoblog Podcast #609

Junkyard Gem: 2015 Mitsubishi Mirage Hatchback

Remember the front-wheel-drive Dodge and Plymouth Colts (not to mention the Plymouth Champ and Eagle Summit) of the late 1970s through the middle 1990s? Those were Mitsubishi Mirages, and you could buy them here with Mitsubishi badging from 1985 through 2002. Then, for the 2014 model year, the Mirage returned to North America, as the cheapest new car you could buy here. Now, barely a half-decade later, I'm seeing significant quantities of these Mirages in the car graveyards I frequent. Here's a pretty clean '15 in a yard located within sight of Pikes Peak in Colorado. I began seeing the current generation of Fiat 500 in the cheap U-Wrench yards when those cars hit about six or seven years of age, and the same goes for the Sebring-based Chrysler 200s. The Mirage beats that dubious distinction by a year or two. Really, the only shorter showroom-to-junkyard average interval I've witnessed in my 38 years of junkyard crawling was achieved by the genuinely miserable early Hyundai Excels, which started to be discarded in quantity when they hit about age four; I recall seeing dozens of them in Southern California yards with 25,000 miles on the clock and hardly any interior wear-and-tear. Even the Yugo did better (and this is why I remain amazed by the generally high quality of Hyundai products starting in the early-to-mid 1990s; Hyundai gets my personal "Most Improved Automaker" award for that achievement). That said, I don't agree with the legions of my car-writer colleagues who love to trash the humble Mirage. I reviewed the 2014 Mirage, and then— just because I feel such affection for cheap commuter-mobiles— went back and wrote up the 2017 Mirage GT. These cars aren't much fun to drive, they have decidedly low-rent interiors, and you don't look like a serious car expert when the masses see you behind the wheel of one. And yet, if you're 22 years old in your first "real" job and you'll get canned if you're late even once, choosing a new car with a strong warranty, with non-ball-busting credit terms and a somewhat lower monthly payment than those other subcompacts that provide more road feel when you're at the limit of the performance envelope, you know, when you're trail-braking for a late pass on your favorite two-lane freeway offrampÂ… well, the Mirage looks like a pretty good deal on a transportation appliance.

Japanese automakers welcome North American trade deal, fear what's next

TOKYO — Toyota, Nissan and Mazda welcomed on Tuesday the revised North America trade deal that left Japanese automakers unscathed, but they may face a bumpy ride when Washington and Tokyo hold new talks on over $40 billion of annual U.S. auto imports from Japan. The United States and Canada reached an agreement on Sunday to update the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement after Washington had forged a separate trade deal with Mexico in August. The updated deal effectively maintains the auto industry's current footprint in North America, and spares Canada and Mexico from the prospect of U.S. national security tariffs on their vehicles. Mazda, which ships cars to the United States from Mexico and Japan, called the deal a "big step forward". Nissan, which makes the cars it sells in the United States locally as well as in Mexico, Japan and other countries, said it was "encouraged" by the agreement. Toyota, Japan's biggest automaker, said it was "pleased" that a basic deal was reached. Other automakers were not immediately available for comment. While the deal has removed the risk that the disintegration of the pact would have posed to automakers, bigger risks loom large for Japanese firms as a chunk of the roughly 7 million cars they sold in the U.S. last year were shipped from Japan, and a trade deal between Washington and Tokyo has yet to be agreed. The United States and Japan last week agreed to begin fresh trade talks, with U.S. President Donald Trump seeking to address Japan's $69 billion trade surplus, of which nearly two-thirds comes from auto exports. Washington is also investigating the possibility of slapping 25 percent tariffs on auto imports on national security grounds, although it has agreed with Japan to put any new tariffs on hold during the talks. Analysts say the United States may take a tougher stance on auto imports from Japan than from its neighbors. "If Japan requests an exemption from the 25 percent tariffs under consideration, Washington could propose a more strict cap on imports than it agreed to with Mexico and Canada," said Koji Endo, senior analyst at SBI Securities. "That would be a risk." This could be a big blow to Japan, as the United States is a key source of revenue for Japanese automakers including Toyota, Nissan and Honda. The U.S. market accounts for a quarter or more of their annual global vehicle sales, and of their total U.S.