Hampton pays homage to BMW saloon racing

The third incarnation of the annual New Zealand Festival of Motor Racing at Hampton Downs this weekend is paying homage to a different sort of racing legend - a manufacturer.

BMW's rich history in saloon car racing is being acknowledged and fans will be pleased to know racing hero Chris Amon has more than just a tenuous link to one of the cars.

He and fellow tin-top legend Hans-Joachim Stuck raced the BMW 3.0CSL on display over the weekend to victory in the 1973 German Touring Car Grand Prix at the Nurburgring.

Amon had spent his racing career until then in single-seater Formula or CanAm cars, so driving a saloon car with a roof on a racetrack was a bit of an adventure for him.

"It was the only real touring car racing I ever did," Amon said. "It took me a race or two to get used to it [but] I really enjoyed it."

Although the car was built as a road-going model, the CSL Amon and Stuck won the six-hour endurance race in - affectionately known as the Batmobile - wasn't stock. "They would have had to weigh about 1000kg and looked a bit chunky but were a seriously quick piece of gear really."

Unplug electric car subsidies

For the first time in a few years, electric cars are mostly an afterthought at the auto show in Detroit.

To be sure, electric cars and hybrid electric models are on the show floor and still being promoted at various intensity levels by Detroit's automakers as well as Japanese companies and upstarts building — but not selling many — high-priced, electric sports cars. But the niche vehicles are not as prominent this year as in past years.

That's a good thing.

Electric vehicles aren't the answer to curbing America's dependence on foreign oil or putting a dent in climate change.

That is evidenced by lackluster sales of the vehicles that came propped up by generous taxpayer subsidies and corporate purchases that distort the actual demand by everyday consumers.

General Motors Co., for example, sold 7,671 Volts, far fewer than its goal of 10,000 and the company didn't break down how many of those sales were to showroom shoppers or to government or corporate fleets. Nissan Motor Co., another big promoter of electric vehicles, sold 9,674 all-electric Leafs, according to Autodata Corp.

By now, you'd think that the government would have stopped forcing American taxpayers to subsidize the electric car. It really never should have picked one automotive technology over another in the first place.

Subsidizing the electric car has been a devil's bargain, making the development of other alternative technologies such as conventional hybrids and advanced gasoline engines all the more difficult.

Though it's certainly the case that electric cars and trucks are part of our automotive future, taxpayer subsidies for EVs should be phased out as an unneeded cost at a time of enormous federal budget deficits. The national debt has surpassed $15 trillion.

There seems little doubt that the Obama administration's prime justification for subsidizing electric cars and plug-in hybrids — the fear that U.S. oil imports would keep rising — was way off base.

Oil imports were down to a 16-year low of 45.4 percent of domestic consumption in 2011, from a high of 60.3 percent in 2005.

And American refineries are so flush with gasoline, diesel oil and other petroleum products that the U.S. became a net exporter of fuel last year for the first time since 1949.

Subsidies for electric cars were also supposed to lower their operating costs so that popularity of the vehicles could reduce global warming. President Barack Obama predicted that 1 million electric cars would be on the road by 2015.

Brussels Launch for Spanish Folding Electric Car

An American-designed electric city car and made in Spain’s Basque country is to be unveiled next week. It should be on Europe’s roads in 2013.

The electric fold-up two-seater “Hiriko”, which means “urban” in Basque, is to be formally launched in Brussels on Tuesday. The first models should be on the streets of Europe’s cities next year.

The idea comes from M.I.T.’s Media Lab. But the concept has been developed by a consortium of small companies based in Spain’s Basque Country.

New car registrations up 1.6% last year to 89,900

NEW CAR registrations for last year totalled 89,900, an increase of 1.6 per cent on 2010.

With the Government due to overhaul the current emissions-based motor tax regime in the next budget, concerns over the significant drop in tax income from the motor sector are highlighted by the fact that more than 90 per cent of new cars registered last year qualified for the two lowest tax brackets.

According to figures released by the Society of the Irish Motor Industry, only 375 new cars were registered in December, down from 434 for the same month in 2010. While sales in the initial months of 2011 were quite strong, they fell off significantly in the second half of the year after the Government’s scrappage scheme ended in June.

Toyota remains the best-selling car brand, with 13 per cent market share and sales of 11,812, but Volkswagen has overtaken Ford to take second place. The German brand had a 12.5 per cent market share with sales of 11,247, compared to 11.7 per cent for the US firm on sales of 10,511.

Ford can take some solace in the fact its Focus remains the best-selling model on the Irish market with sales of 4,242, ahead of the VW Golf and Toyota Avensis.

Dublin remains the largest new car market, with 34,373 new registrations in 2011, representing 38 per cent of the new car market, well ahead of all other counties. Dublin registrations rose by 9.8 per cent compared with 2010.

Cork was second with 12.6 per cent of all registrations in 2011 and Galway third with 4.3 per cent.

In a cut-throat battle in the premium segment, Audi, with sales of 3,464, saw off stiff competition from arch-rival BMW, which was just 31 new car registrations behind it. Sales for both brands were up significantly, with BMW recording a 30.5 per cent increase on its 2010 sales, and Audi a 19 per cent rise. Both brands were also significantly ahead of Mercedes, which sold 1,951 new cars last year.

Despite the recession, both Audi and BMW also featured in the top 10 best-selling marques in Ireland last year, in ninth and 10th place respectively.

Diesel remains the favourite fuel for new car buyers, making up 71.2 per cent of sales, followed by 26.6 per cent which are petrol. Just 552 hybrid cars were registered here last year and only 46 electric cars, less than 10 per cent of what was predicted this time last year.

Nissan then had predicted it would sell 500 of its Leaf electric models in 2011. Meanwhile the ESB had set a target of 2,000 electric cars on the road by the end of 2011 and 6,000 electric cars by the end of 2012.

Hatchbacks remain the favoured format for Irish buyers, making up 45,126 of the new cars sold, followed by saloons with 26,463. However SUVs were a growth segment of the market, comprising 4.5 per cent of the market last year, compared with 2.6 per cent of sales in 2010.

This was partly due to the popularity of small crossover models such as the Nissan Qashqai, but also new premium variants such as the Range Rover Evoque, Audi Q3 and BMW X1. Silver remains the favourite colour, followed by black and grey.

While there are no official figures for the first two days of sales this year, reports from dealers and distributors suggest strong orders, ahead of last year. Part of this is due to customers pre-ordering their 2012-registered cars to avoid the January 1st VAT increases, along with a significant dip in sales in the early days of January last year due to the snowstorms.

Despite the expected strong sales in these first few weeks, many in the trade are predicting the new car market for 2012 will drop below 80,000 this year, with some suggesting it might fall to 70,000 new registrations.

Some Homeless Start 2012 With New Thermal Underwear

Austin’s House the Homeless is hoping to keep the homeless warm with its annual Thermal Underwear Drive. On Monday, the non-profit will hand out free thermal underwear to the homeless. Thermals are easier than blankets for homeless people to carry with them.

Richard Troxell, president of House the Homeless, estimates there are about 4,000 homeless people in the Austin metropolitan area.

"At the same time, we only have about 600 emergency shelter beds for every man, woman and child," he said. "Those numbers are not going to work so that means lots and lots of folks are going to get stuck out in the winter."

Last winter, Austin saw temperatures low enough for snow and ice. Schools closed, businesses didn't open and some driver found themselves sliding all over town. A few years ago, jennifer Gale, a prominent figure among Austin's homeless, died during a cold winter night while sleeping o the steps of a church. Troxell said he found there were 20 fewer people that died homeless on the streets of Austin in 201, but he's worried that number will shift with of the number of veterans that returning home this year.

At the end of January, volunteers will conduct a 24-hour survey to count how many homeless people are living in Austin.

If you're interested in donating a thermal or money to for the organization to buy thermals, click here. Troxell said House the Homeless will also be giving away raincoats.