From the Paris Air Show.
June 2011 Archives
Honda is competing with Toyota to be known as the world's greenest car company.
(USA Today) Honda said today it has set a goal of reducing carbon emissions from the vehicles it makes around the world by 30% by the end of 2020.That's a fairly lofty goal -- and the benefits could go not only to cleaner air but fatter pocketbooks. That's because CO2 reductions and better fuel economy go hand-in-hand. It's hard to accomplish one without the other.
Read more on Honda.
No, this is not an April Fool's Day gag.
Toyota announced Monday that it has developed a deodorizer "specifically for use on composting swine manure."
I didn't know about this before today, but Toyota has a subsidiary called Toyota Roof Garden Co., Ltd. that makes manure composting systems.
Apparently poop is big business in Japan. The island nation's livestock produces about 90 million tons of manure each year, with swine manure accounting for about 20 million tons of it.
From cars to pig poop. That's what I call diversification.
Boeing's sale of the 747 model is always a big deal for the South Bay because the fuselage panels for are made in Hawthorne.
(AP) LE BOURGET, France -- Boeing has announced orders and commitment for 56 planes worth about $11 billion at the Paris Air Show.Boeing says two undisclosed customers signed orders and commitments for 17 747-8 Intercontinentals.
Read more on Boeing sales.
This came as a bit of a surprise. Some Realtors are actually happy about at least one element of the weak housing market.
I explored this surprising revelation in Business Casual.
Housing prices are also dropping again, and banks are still reluctant to give loans to homebuyers.With all this bad news, is there any silver lining?
Actually, there is.
Read Business Casual.
This is actually kind of cool. When never had any of this cool stuff when I was a kid.
(TWICE.COM) The cars also feature a built-in LCD screen embedded on the chassis with real-time playback and delete functionality for immediate playback of footage.
Read more about Mattel and Hot Wheels.
No matter how much a company prepares, mother nature (the earthquake and tsunami) always has a trump card that changes everything.
TOKYO (MarketWatch) -- Honda Motor Co. said Tuesday it expects its net profit to sink by more than half in the current fiscal year, as the strong yen, higher costs and disrupted production after the March 11 earthquake eat into its bottom line.
Read more on Honda.
I'm not sure if Toyota ever admitted caring about being the world's top seller of cars. But after all their recalls and the tsunami, I'm sure they just want to be profitable.
(Automotive News) TOKYO -- Toyota Motor Corp., in danger of losing its title as the world's biggest automaker this year, says it has sworn off the pursuit of being No. 1.Executive Vice President Satoshi Ozawa said last week that quality and customer satisfaction is more imporant than volume. "There is no meaning in us being the global No. 1," he said.
Read more about Toyota.
Who will blink first in this confrontation between Mattel and Greenpeace?
Four months after Barbie and Ken reunited, there's trouble in paradise.Mattel Inc.'s marketing campaign, based on a rekindled romance between Barbie and her ex, is threatened by an international environmental group.
Read more about Mattel and Greenpeace.
Who will blink first in this confrontation between Mattel and Greenpeace?
Four months after Barbie and Ken reunited, there's trouble in paradise.Mattel Inc.'s marketing campaign, based on a rekindled romance between Barbie and her ex, is threatened by an international environmental group.
Read more about Mattel and Greenpeace.
Skechers did it again, with another licensing agreement that will get the shoe company's brand on even more products.
Here's how I started the Business Casual column:
Will the big "S" in the Skechers logo someday become as ubiquitous as Nike's Swoosh?
Loren Thompson, a prominent aerospace industry analyst wrote a second critical piece on the Forbes website about SpaceX, the Hawthorne-based developer of low-cost rockets.
Here's a story on Thompson's earlier blog post and biting SpaceX's response.
And here's Thompson's latest blog post.
More bad news.
Every time there's a Toyota recall, the public will remember the carmaker's millions of recalled vehicles over unintended acceleration.
(Reuters) - Toyota Motor Corp said on Wednesday it will recall 105,784 early model Prius cars in Japan and overseas to fix a fault with the model's steering and gearbox.The recall will affect all its first generation Prius cars, which it launched in 1997. At home the notice covers 47,784 vehicles, with a further 52,000 in the United States. Toyota sold the remainder in the UK and Germany, a company spokeswoman said.
Read more about Prius recall.
