News
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Ford Has Paid Nearly $18 Million Over Harassment at Its Chicago Plants. The Lawsuits Are Back.
Ford settled harassment claims at its Chicago Assembly and Stamping plants with the EEOC in 1999 and 2017. In 2026, workers are back in federal court.
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California Opens Its Highways to Heavy Autonomous Trucks, but the Million-Mile Test Has Only Begun
Before anyone pictures a driverless Peterbilt barreling down I-5 at 3 a.m., a correction: robot delivery trucks aren’t new to California. The state approved rules in December 2019 allowing autonomous delivery trucks under 10,001 pounds to be tested and deployed, according to a DMV workshop document. Those are box vans and small cargo haulers, the…
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Today in Automotive History: September 24, 1948 — Honda Is Founded With 1 Million Yen and a Bicycle Engine
Honda was founded on Sept. 24, 1948, with 1 million yen and a bicycle engine. The company born that day still shapes emissions rules, U.S. factories and what you buy.
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1,043 Radiators, Declared at $5.54 Each. The Parts Weren’t Fake — the Importer Was.
CBP seized 1,043 automotive radiators in Norfolk that were imported on a stolen American identity and declared at $5.54 each. The parts were not the fake part of this shipment.
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Florida County Has No Idea Where Mysterious LPR Cameras Came From
St. Lucie County revoked authorization for 52 license plate readers on county right-of-way, then discovered its own permit file could not account for every device in the field. The eviction is not the story. The missing registry is.
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Staged Car Crash Bill: What H.R. 10269 Would Actually Change
There’s a con that plays out on highways and in parking lots: a car pulls in front of you, the driver taps the brakes for no reason, and weeks later your insurer is paying for a stranger’s neck injury. A new bill in the House wants to make that a federal crime. It’s worth reading…
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The Nitrous Ban Headed for a House Vote Protects Whipped Cream. Racers Get a 1972 Loophole.
H.R. 7945 would make any consumer product containing nitrous oxide a banned hazardous product 180 days after enactment. The bill carves out dentists, commercial kitchens, research labs and aerosol whipped cream. It says nothing about motorsports, which leaves the performance aftermarket relying on a 1972 definition rather than a deliberate exemption.
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He Imported 44 Fake Honda Airbags. The Trademark Is What Made It A Federal Crime.
Twenty counterfeit Honda airbags reached the United States labeled as desktop night lights. The federal case that followed rests on trademark law, and that is exactly where American vehicle safety enforcement runs out of road.
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The Feds Want To Write One Company’s Patented Part Into America’s Next Crash Test Dummy
A new NHTSA notice on the THOR-50M crash test dummy proposes specifying a patented Humanetics spine, while a rival Kistler design sits out after durability problems.
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Toyota’s ELEY Factory Robot: Wheels, Shoulder Blades and Soft Arms
Toyota wants a robot on the assembly line that is soft enough to bump into things. That’s the unusual engineering goal behind ELEY, the in-house robot at the center of Toyota’s latest factory-automation plans. You won’t find a more glamorous story in the company’s own documents, but this one tells you more about where car…
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California Just Made CARB’s Silence Mean Yes on Aftermarket Parts
Governor Gavin Newsom signed three car bills on September 16. Two of them got a stage, a camera crew, and Jay Leno. The third got one sentence near the bottom of the press release. The third one is the one that matters. Senate Bill 1069, authored by Sen. Grayson and coauthored by Sen. Dave Cortese,…
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Used Car Values Just Dipped for the First Time This Year. Used EVs Went the Other Way.
The Manheim index slipped 0.4% from a year ago, but wholesale EV values rose 2.3% as gas hit $4.48 and the Fed raised rates. Here is what that split means for trade-ins, used buyers and dealers.
