| Hamilton apologizes, McLaren reacts in wake of penalty Lewis Hamilton made an emotional apology Friday for deceiving Formula One stewards after McLaren suspended its long-standing ... rssfeeds.usatoday.com |
Nascar Denies Appeal Although the National Stock Car Racing Commission said it was tempting to give the driver Carl Long and his crew chief penalties they could “more readily bear,” Long’s appeal was denied. nytimes.com |
Cash for Clunkers has been an equal opportunity incentive When the government’s cash for clunkers program kicked off in late July, the early word was that it was helping foreign carmakers more than giving a sales boost to Detroit. That stands to reason. Japanese and Korean carmakers have a better image when it comes to selling efficient cars. So one would think that the foreign makes would get a bigger piece of the 184,304 cars sold through the program using the government’s $775.2 million as of today. But as it turns out, that wasn’t the case. The percentage of consumers buying cars using clunker cash pretty closely matched their market share for the year. About 45% of the buyers chose an American car or truck. Detroit’s market share year-to-date is 44%. General Motors got 18.7 % of the buyers, and its market share is 19.5% this year. Ford, which reportedly got a massive windfall of buyers through the clunker program, got 16% of the buyers, up just half a percentage point over its year-to-date share. Ford did well, but its big victory is a big exaggerated. Chrysler got 10.6% of the buyers, one point more than its share. But the company offered aggressive deals on top of the clunker cash to woo consumers. Toyota has loved the program, getting 17.9% of buyers. That’s up over its 16.3% year-to-date share. Hyundai also had quite a bonanza. But it was quite the foreign-car selling spree that some suggested. Here’s every company’s share of clunker sales to date: General Motors 18.7%Toyota 17.9%Ford 16.0%Honda 11.6%Chrysler 10.6%Nissan 7.0%Hyundai 6.6%Kia 3.8%Mazda 2.3%Subaru 2.2%Volkswagen 1.9%Suzuki 0.4%MINI 0.3%Mitsubishi 0.3%Smart 0.2%Volvo 0.1%All Other 0.1% See. It tracked with the car market pretty closely. rss.businessweek.com |
Keselowski raising eyebrows, ruckus with hard-nosed style Brad Keselowski enters his final Sprint Cup start with Hendrick Motorsports in search of twin goals: a perfect race and a perturbed ... rssfeeds.usatoday.com |
Crew Chief Prepares for His Last Race With Kyle Busch and Gibbs Team Steve Addington will call Sunday’s race at Talladega and then hand the job to Dave Rogers in a firing that admittedly left Addington “pretty confused.” nytimes.com |