July 2009 Archives

The federal Cash for Clunkers program that officially launched today will cost taxpayers $20,000 apiece, according to auto website Edmunds.com.

That is in order to drive about 50,000 incremental new car sales.

"How is this possible? Edmunds.com's research shows that typically 200,000 vehicles worth less than $4,500 are traded in for new vehicles every three months. At best the current Cash for Clunkers program will fund 250,000 such transactions in the same time period--a gain of only 50,000 vehicles. Given that this program is budgeted to cost $1,000,000,000, this increase will come at the cost of $20,000 per extra sale."

In this week's Business Casual column.

A few years back, I took a deep breath and bravely walked into an S&M dungeon.

Read the whole column.

No surprise here with all the downsizing in the indstry. But a big loss for California.

Toyota Said to Decide to Shut Factory in California

(Bloomberg) -- Toyota Motor Corp. will shut a California auto-assembly plant that operated as a joint venture with General Motors Corp. for 25 years, the first time Japan's largest carmaker has closed a factory at home or abroad, according to two people familiar with its plan.

The company will negotiate the timing of the closing with Motors Liquidation Co., an entity responsible for the disposal of the assets GM shed in bankruptcy, said the people, who declined to be identified because the information wasn't public.

Read more on Toyota and GM's NUMMI plant.

It's coming to LA eventually.

(engadget.com) Toyota planted five 18-foot tall "solar flowers" in Boston's Prudential Plaza and provided free Wi-Fi and electricity that was "partially powered" by the solar panels attached to the petals and stem.

Read the full story.

Home prices in the Los Angeles-Long Beach-Glendale region fell by 16.34% in May compare to a year earlier.

That's more mild than the 19.18% year-over-year decline seen in April, according to First American CoreLogic, which released its LoanPerformance Home Price Index Tuesday.

Nationwide, home prices fell 9.2% in May, representing the smallest year-over-year decline in 2009 and the lowest since December 2007.

California saw the third worst price decline in May, at 19.8%, compared to the other states. That's a major improvement over California's peak decline of 30.3% in August 2008.

Nevada had the nation's worst price decline in May, at 26.4%, followed by Florida at 25.5%.

Nationwide, the Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario region suffered the greatest price decline in May at 29.72%.

Panavision, which rents out camera equipment to the entertainment industry, plans to is looking for a site in Burbank to house its headquarters.

The companies already has a facility in Woodland Hills and another in Hollywood. But those leases are up soon and the firm hopes to consolidate in one location.

Panavision is looking for a facility to house camera rental and crane rental operations, manufacturing and research and development, as well as corporate headquarters.

Do you want the new 2010 Lexus HS 250h, the first hybrid-only luxury car? It'll cost you $34,200.

Toyota just announced the new price today.

Despite the recession and lousy job market, there still are people who can afford a $34,200 car.

Sadly, I am not one of those people.

What a shame.

After years of screaming bloody murder over low prices, Sit `n Sleep's Irwin the Accountant has finally been killed off.

Read about it in Business Casual.

DirecTV remains on the cutting edge.

DirecTV to Sell 'NFL Sunday Ticket' for Mobile Phones

(Bloomberg) -- DirecTV Group Inc., the largest U.S. satellite television service, will allow its "NFL Sunday Ticket" subscribers to watch next season's games on mobile phones as part of a $100 package.

Fans who pay $280 for National Football League games outside their home TV market can add access on handsets including Apple Inc.'s iPhone, El Segundo, California-based DirecTV said today on its Web site. The offer ends July 31.

The move comes as broadcasters and pay-TV operators look for ways to make money as viewers shift online.

Read more on DirecTV.

I'm sure Northrop would take issue with this opinion.

Boeing is the best company to build the Air Force tanker

(Seattle Times) TENS of thousands of good-paying jobs in the United States, many of them in Washington's aerospace industry, are riding on the outcome of a Pentagon decision.

The issue is which aircraft will be chosen to serve as the military's new refueling tanker. It's a huge contract -- $35 billion for about 180 planes.

Read more on the aerial refueling tanker.

This has gone back and forth so much I'm getty dizzy.

Boeing-Northrop Split of Tanker Contract Now Opposed by Inouye

(Bloomberg) -- U.S. Senator Daniel Inouye, chairman of the Appropriations Committee, said he now opposes directing the Pentagon to split its purchase of aerial refueling tankers between Boeing Co. and Northrop Grumman Corp.

Inouye's panel is one of two that appropriate money for defense, and his decision signals an end to congressional debate over how to proceed with the often-delayed Air Force program, worth as much as $35 billion over at least 10 years, to replace a fleet of tankers that has been in use since 1956.

Read more on the aerial refueling tanker.

This is an interesting and highly politicized issue. I just read about another study claiming over-regulation is sending California businesses elsewhere.

Budget Crisis "Embarrassing," But Businesses Aren't Fleeing California, Economist Says

The budget crisis is "embarrassing" and California faces some "incredible threats," says Stephen Levy, director of the Center for the Continuing Study of the California Economy (CCSCE) in Palo Alto. But the perception that businesses and residents are fleeing the state is not supported by the facts.

The number of businesses leaving California is "negligible," Levy says, citing a recent study by the Public Policy Institute of California.

Read more on California.

Bernard Madoff is a fascinating, bizarre person. If you're interested, here's also my recent Business Casual column on whether Madoff is a sociopath.

Madoff won't appeal 150-year sentence

NEW YORK (AP) -- Disgraced financier Bernard Madoff will not appeal his 150-year sentence for a fraud that unraveled last December when Madoff confessed to his sons that nearly $65 billion he promised investors was safe was actually only worth a few hundred million dollars.

"We won't be appealing the sentence," Madoff's lawyer, Ira Sorkin, said Thursday. He declined to say why the decision was made. Rebekah Carmichael, a prosecutor's spokeswoman, declined to comment.

The 71-year-old Madoff was sentenced last week for a fraud that spanned at least two decades. He pleaded guilty in March to charges that he bilked thousands of investors out of billions of dollars.

Read more on Bernard Madoff.

But they're still the world's No. 1 carmaker. That ranking may last a long time.

Toyota is the only car company to make the Fortune 500 Global top 10 list

Last year Toyota was ranked number 5 in Fortune Magazine's Global 500 annual ranking of the world's largest companies.

In 2009 Toyota fell to number 10 in a list that is completely dominated by oil companies. In fact only Toyota and the ING group are the only two companies in the top 10 that are not directly in the oil business.

Read more on Toyota's ranking.

This may be safe, but it still gives me the willies.

Chevron reports recent El Segundo ammonia release

NEW YORK, July 8 (Reuters) - Chevron Corp (CVX.N) reported a release of ammonia over a recent 11-day period at its 279,000-barrel-per-day Los Angeles-area refinery in El Segundo, California, according to a notice filed with state regulators.

The filing with the California Emergency Management Agency cited a "release of ammonia from a Cogen Ox Boiler due to unknown causes at this time. Caller states the release occurred on 6/22/09 at an unknown exact time and ended on 7/2/09 also at an unknown time."

The total amount of material involved in the release was about 220 pounds per day, added the Tuesday evening filing.

Read more on Chevron's ammonia release.

I wonder how many other hard drives with sensitive information are floating around the world.

Data included contracts with TSA, NASA and Defense Intelligence Agency

(MIS Asia) SAN FRANCISCO, 24 JUNE 2009 - A team of journalists investigating the global electronic waste business has unearthed a security problem too. In a Ghana market, they bought a computer hard drive containing sensitive documents belonging to U.S. government contractor Northrop Grumman.

Read more on the potential data breach.

All I can say is Yikes!

One is the loneliest number: Boeing's net order for 2009

(Seattlepi.com) Boeing's new airplane order tally for 2009 is now at one. It has logged 85 orders and 84 cancellations so far this year, according to Boeing's order tally Web site.

Read more on Boeing.

I'm surprised it took Toyota this long.

Toyota to mass produce plug-in hybrids from 2012: report

TOKYO (Reuters) --Toyota Motor Corp plans to start mass producing plug-in hybrid vehicles in 2012, with a projected first-year output of about 20,000 to 30,000 units, the Nikkei business daily reported on Saturday.

Toyota has said it would start leasing 500 plug-in cars globally by the end of this year, primarily for government and corporate use, but has not said when it would commercialize them.

Plug-ins can be cleaner than regular hybrids as they can run purely on electricity but the need for more batteries makes them expensive.

Read more on Toyota's plug-ins.

I wonder if South Bay aerospace companies could help build some of these cheaper spacecraft.

Backup plan to get NASA to moon cheaper

(AP) Like a car salesman pushing a luxury vehicle that the customer no longer can afford, NASA has pulled out of its back pocket a deal for a cheaper ride to the moon.

It won't be as powerful, and its design is a little dated. Think of it as a base-model Ford station wagon instead of a tricked-out Cadillac Escalade.

Read more about the moon plan.

... in this week's edition of Business Casual

Toyota has a lot of great technologies and manufacturing techniques that other carmakers could use.

Toyota denies in talks to cooperate with Daimler

TOKYO (Reuters) - Toyota Motor Corp denied on Thursday a report that it was considering building derivatives of Mercedes-Benz's A-Class and B-Class cars on its own platform to better utilise its European plants in the long term.

"We are denying this completely," Toyota spokesman Yuta Kaga said in Tokyo. "There is no truth to anything written in the article."

Citing sources at Toyota, German magazine auto motor und sport reported on Wednesday that the company was thinking about the generation of Mercedes compacts due to follow the upcoming version, which is scheduled to be introduced in 2011.

Read more on Toyota's denial.

Kelley Blue Book released the top 20 most-researched new vehicles for the first half of 2009:

1. Honda Accord
2. Honda Civic
3. Toyota Camry
4. Honda CR-V
5. Toyota Corolla
6. Toyota Highlander
7. Nissan Altima
8. Toyota RAV4
9. Toyota Prius
10. Ford Mustang
11. Honda Pilot
12. MAZDA3
13. Honda Odyssey
14. Ford Fusion
15. Ford Escape
16. Chevrolet Camaro
17. Volkswagen Jetta
18. Toyota Sienna
19. Chevrolet Malibu
20. Lexus RX350