November 2009 Archives

If too many refineries shut down at the same time, it increases California gasoline prices.

Chevron says restarting El Segundo refinery

HOUSTON, Nov 30 (Reuters) - Chevron Corp (CVX.N) said a 59,500 barrel per day (bpd) hydrocracking complex was restarting on Monday at its 279,000 bpd Los Angeles-area refinery in El Segundo, California, after completing a planned overhaul.

Chevron began the hydrocracking complex overhaul on Oct 14 following a power outage on the unit. The overhaul was scheduled to begin within hours of the outage.

Read more on Chevron's shutdown and restart.

The Prius has a solid foothold in the American market, but you never know if a new product will be a game-changer.

GM to Sell First Volts in California to Take on Prius

(Bloomberg) -- General Motors Co. will start selling its Chevrolet Volt electric car in California late next year as the largest U.S. automaker challenges Toyota Motor Corp.'s Prius.

The plug-in electric Volt will have a top speed of 100 miles per hour, Maria Rohrer, GM director of the Volt program, said today at a school assembly in advance of the Los Angeles Auto Show.

Read more about the GM Volt.

As shoppers across the South Bay lay siege on stores today, what better time for me to share my own Black Friday experience from last year?

Read the Business Casual column by Muhammed El-Hasan.

For the second straight month, the South Bay's median home price rose year over year.

Read more on the local housing market.

In response to a report that Toyota may move some operations out of California (which Toyota kind of denied), David E. Cole, chairman of the Center for Automotive Research
in Ann Arbor, Mich., made the following observation:

I have heard the rumors and there is usually some truth in them. I don't see Toyota abandoning California but some folks moving out would not surprise me. The costs for people in California are extremely high. There have been some rumors that they might move to Michigan. Southeast Michigan is in many ways the intellectual center of the global auto industry. They have a major engineering activity already here and our costs are really quite low. I think this could become a trend.

This week's column by Muhammed El-Hasan looks at the Wii promotion at Sports Authority.

This week's column by Muhammed El-Hasan looks at the Wii promotion at Sports Authority.

This may be the most politicized defense contract in recent history.

Boeing tanker ally eyes $5 mln per plane Airbus duty

WASHINGTON, Nov 18 (Reuters) - A Boeing Co (BA.N) ally in Congress urged the Pentagon on Wednesday to add as much as $5 million per plane to a rival trans-Atlantic team's bid to supply new U.S. mid-air refueling aircraft.

Rep. Norm Dicks, a member of the House of Representatives Defense Appropriations subcommittee, floated the figure as part of a renewed push by Boeing's political backers, aimed at factoring a September interim global trade ruling into the tanker contract battle.

Read more on the Air Force Tanker Contract.

This case, which seemed so explosive just a few months ago, pales in comparison to Toyota's problems with the floor mats and gas pedals.

Toyota Former Inhouse Lawyer Must Arbitrate Claims

(Bloomberg) -- Toyota Motor Corp. won a ruling forcing a former inhouse lawyer to arbitrate racketeering and other claims he brought in a lawsuit accusing the carmaker of hiding information in litigation over rollover crashes.

U.S. District Judge George H. King in Los Angeles, in an order today, granted Toyota's request to compel Dimitrios Biller to arbitrate the dispute as was stipulated in his September 2007 severance agreement. Biller's claims against Toyota will be put on hold pending the completion of arbitration, the judge said.

Read more on Toyota's legal battle.

Four Wheeler Magazine moves to El Segundo from Wilshire Boulevard in LA.

El Segundo is already home to a lot of magazines on such topics as hobbies and vegetarian cooking.

Last month's LCROSS satellite crash into the moon has allowed NASA to find water ice in a dark lunar crater.

LCROSS was built by Northrop Grumman in Redondo Beach.

Here's the wire story:

NASA finds water found on the moon

WASHINGTON (AFP) - A "significant amount" of frozen water has been found on the moon, the US space agency NASA said Friday, boosting hopes of eventually setting up a permanent lunar base.

Preliminary data from a moon probe "indicates the mission successfully uncovered water in a permanently shadowed lunar crater," NASA said.

Read more on NASA's find.

Today's Business Casual column deals with the government's intervention in the housing market. Can it save us?

A couple of weeks ago, Leo Nordine, a local real estate agent who specializes in selling foreclosed homes, told me half-jokingly that if the government stopped interfering in the real estate market, he would become a very rich man.

Read Muhammed El-Hasan's Business Casual.

Toyota may lose the crown for a while, but it could bounce back because of its high-quality vehicles with great gas mileage. But if Toyota's sudden-acceleration controversy blows up, that could seriously damage the company.

(USA Today) Toyota's reign as the world's largest automaker didn't last long.

Only a year after the Japanese automaker wrested the title from General Motors for the first time in 80 years, Toyota has been overtaken by the Germans.

Volkswagen-Porsche now is the the world's largest car manufacturer, reports the Guardian of London.

Read more on Toyota's reported drop to No. 2.

This CareerBuilder survey reveals the most unusual requests or suggestions hiring managers received in the suggestion box:

•Request to allow people to change clothes in their cubicles.
•Request to add a tanning bed to the break room.
•Request to put beer in the vending machine.
•Request that jail time be covered under family medical leave.
•Request to institute bikini Fridays.
•Request to only be required to work during daylight hours because employee is scared of the dark.
•Request for a special smoking area for medical marijuana.
•Request that the HR person wear nicer shoes.
•Request for more time off to pursue side business as a clown.
•Request to replace his desk with a futon so employee could lay down and work.
•Request that the lactation room with gliding chair be used for naps, so everyone can use it.
•Request to install a swimming pool for employees to use.
•Request to have the team meeting to be held in Hawaii.

This bad PR could spiral out of control for Toyota.

Probe finds jump in runaway Toyota complaints: report

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Over 1,000 Toyota and Lexus owners have reported sudden, spontaneous acceleration of their vehicles since 2001, including crashes blamed for 19 deaths, far more than earlier disclosed, the Los Angeles Times reported on Sunday.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration previously has said it had received reports of 100 such incidents, including 17 crashes and five fatalities.

Read more on the LA Times probe.

What to do when a coffee shop with bikini-clad baristas closes?

Here's a few ideas from Muhammed El-Hasan's Business Casual column.

Also, read the original story of Bikini Espresso's closing.

If there's some sort of glitch in Toyota's vehicle computer systems, this could devastate the carmaker as it tries to recover from the recession. But it's too early to say what the problem is. Plus Toyota is a powerhouse that may be able to recover quickly, even from the worst possible scenario involving its reent 3.8 million vehicle recall.

Toyota Executive Denies "Cover Up" In Probe of Runaway Cars

A senior Toyota executive denied today allegations the company is trying to cover up the cause of an estimated 2,000 reports of so-called runaway cars that experience sudden surges of acceleration.

"It is not part of the Toyota culture and Toyota way to cover up anything," said Yukitoshi Funo, one of Toyota's five executive vice-presidents at its Tokyo headquarters.

Read more on Toyota's acceleration problem.

No surprise. Toyota is a very resilient company.

Toyota Returns to Profit

TOKYO -- Toyota Motor returned to a profit in the latest quarter and halved its annual loss forecast Thursday as aggressive cost cuts, government incentives and signs of a global economic recovery all buoyed its bottom line.

Its Japanese rivals Honda and Nissan both recently reported rosier earnings after a battering in the global economic crisis, which brought sales to a standstill and set off a wave of factory shutdowns and layoffs.

Read more on Toyota's 2Q profit.

This would be bad for the world but good for some local aerospace companies.

Space arms race inevitable says Chinese commander

(Telegraph) China, which hopes to put a man on the moon by 2020, has long stated that it supported the peaceful uses of outer space and opposed the introduction of weapons there.

Read more on arms race.

Just wow.

Car maker develops its own flower species

(Drive.com.au)Toyota has created two flower species that absorb nitrogen oxides and take heat out of the atmosphere.

The flowers, derivatives of the cherry sage plant and the gardenia, were specially developed for the grounds of Toyota's Prius plant in Toyota City, Japan.

Read more on Toyota's new flower species.

Northrop Grumman in El Segundo does structural design work on the F-35.

F-35 total may be cut by half, report says

Manufacturer disputes findings

(Air Force Times) Rising costs, changing threats and rival aircraft -- manned and unmanned -- could cut nearly in half the number of F-35 Joint Strike Fighters that ultimately are built, a Dutch defense analyst said in a report to the Dutch parliament. And if fewer planes are built, the price for each, already $100 million or more, will undoubtedly increase, analyst Johan Boeder warned.

Read more on the