Balancing This Podcast on One Wheel

It's election time, and voters in several cities expressed their displeasure with red-light cameras, voting to either stop using them or prevent their installation.

Ryno is one-wheel of weird.

At the same time, the Supreme Court is debating the legality of placing GPS tracking devices on vehicles. Is it Big Brother or just normal observation using new data gathering devices?

Toyota still can't catch a break, and is now having to recall almost 500,000 vehicles.

There is always some pain in being an early adopter. Portland, Oregon, has learned that with it's electric car and charging efforts.

Now electric cars are efficient and so are motorcycles, but they aren't as clean as you might think, MythBusters found out.

Cadillac is rolling out a new infotainment system, and we think it's awesome.

Finally, we like everything with wheels, even if it's only one. The Ryno is like a combination of a motorcycle and a Segway.

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Bob Lutz Would Perfect This Podcast Since It's About Autos

Bob Lutz is the man. Really. He confirms this in a very long and interesting essay in WSJ recently, by saying that an autocratic style is the kind of leadership needed to be successful in the auto industry.

Note the license plate. Healthy car.

We wonder if Mr. Lutz takes care of his car better than he takes care of his health. Most men polled in a recent study take better care of their cars than themselves.

We've been seeing more Nissan Leafs on the road these days, and now a Seattle-area blogger has found that the auto maker's optional Carwings data service has a loophole that could allow someone to track a vehicle through an RSS feed.

Toyota is hard at work on the next version of the Prius. Coming in the next edition, the ability to turn on and off the all-electric operation.

Did you just get in an accident? Bad news. At least you can now use your smartphone to file the insurance claim.

Speaking of accidents, some vistors to David's neck of the woods followed their GPS right into a slough, which is the West-Coast word for swamp. I hope they grabbed their smartphones as they jumped out of the sinking Mercedes SUV.

Perhaps those drivers will buy a Hyundai to replace their waterlogged Mercedes. The Korean auto maker is ramping up production further as it seeks to top 600,000 in annual sales.

Finally, we discuss art cars, which are usually old, ugly quirky vehicles that have been tiled or painted or sequined for use in parades in kooky places like Seattle's Fremont Fair.

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Dealing With Speedy "i"s

Dealers are rebounding after their numbers were slashed by the auto companies. Fewer dealers means more profits for those still around. But Ford continues its roll and now has more dealers than GM's Chevrolet brand for the first time in a long time.

GMC's Granite concept has suicide doors

Do you speed? Well, CNBC has a list of the top 10 cities for speed traps, so don't move to these places, most of which are in Texas. But if you do, and get nabbed, one enterprising tech geek has a story of how he thwarted a ticket using a GPS app that records the details of his travels.

That was smart, and several cities in Spain are hoping to make their parking spaces just as smart so that drivers can be alerted to available spaces.

BMW is planning a smarter, more eco-friendly brand, and rolled out the "i" for the name. Toyota added an "i" to Prius to create Prii, the plural of its popular hybrid brand.

Finally, GMC is planning to make its funky Granite compact city vehicle, complete with rear-hinged doors.

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Podcasting With Automobilistic Undertones

You think traffic is bad on your commute. Try sitting in traffic for 10 days. That's what is happening in China where road construction has created a 60-mile back-up, made-up mostly of trucks. In some cases, the trucks are moving a half-mile per day.

On the road in China, but not moving.

That could drive someone to drink. But hopefully not driving. Sadly, a new study from NHTSA found that 8% of Americans admit to drinking and driving at least once in the past year. That's about 17 million drivers. A quarter of all respondents say they have gotten behind the wheel within two hours of having one or more alcoholic beverages.


Labor Day is coming. Don't drink and drive.


Especially if you paid over a $1 million for your car, which more than two dozen bidders did at the recent auctions during the automotive "holy week" surrounding the Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance. Well-heeled car collectors chose to invest in rare and perfect vehicles rather than the stock market. But that rush of buyers isn't going to trickle down to lowly Mustangs and Camaros from the '60s.


Speaking of more modest wheels, Nissan is rolling out its new Juke tiny CUV in a month, and its polarizing styling make help trick American car buyers into small hatchbacks. That's basically what the Juke and the coming Mini Countryman are, even if they resemble SUVs.


On the assembly line, Ford is using Wi-Fi to customize vehicles and may explore using the same technology to allow owners to customize the options they want, at least in the infotainment area.

Finally, Garmin is on the hot seat with battery problems in several of its GPS devices. They are recalling over a million units, some of which were installed by manufacturers.

GetThisShowOnTheRoad, August 27, 2010.mp3