| Today's New Auto Industry: A Cheat Sheet TheCarConnection.com submits: By Bengt Halvorson Over the past eighteen months or so, the auto industry has been going through one of the most pronounced periods of change ever. While the Japanese and South Korean auto industries have avoided major upheavals, two major U.S. automakers have gone bankrupt, long-held brands have been sold to overseas companies, and other international companies we'd never heard of have now earned name recognition.Complete Story » seekingalpha.com |
November Railtime Indicators Point to Positive Trend The AAR is out with its latest railtime indicators for the month of November.The Association of American Railroads (AAR) today released the December 2009 “Rail Time Indicators” report and online video summary. The report notes that November freight rail carloadings were down 8.2% compared with the same month last year and down 17.4% compared with November of 2007. However, if Thanksgiving week were excluded, November would have been the highest volume month of the year for U.S. railroads.Complete Story » seekingalpha.com |
BorgWarner Inc. Q4 2009 Earnings Call Transcript BorgWarner Inc. (BWA)Q4 2009 Earnings Call TranscriptFebruary 11, 2010 9:30 am ETComplete Story » seekingalpha.com |
Peak Oil Investments I'm Putting My Money On: Part X, Improving Vehicle Efficiency Tom Konrad (AltEnergyStocks) submits: Dr. Daniel Sperling knows about as much as anyone about what policymakers can do to reduce the use of oil. He is the Director of the Institute of Transport studies as the University of California Davis, and a long time member of the California Air Resources Board [CARB], so he understands transportation from both the academic and policy perspectives. He also recently co-authored a book Two Billion Cars: Driving Towards Sustainability, so he understands the magnitude of the problem as well. I had the pleasure of hearing Dr. Sperling speak at the Yale Climate and Energy Institute's first annual conference: Overcoming Barriers to A New Energy System on April 24th. In his talk (you can download the PowerPoint here[13MB],) he provided an illuminating analogy: Transforming transportation is like a three-legged stool. The first leg is improving vehicle efficiency, which is easiest because we have both the technology and the regulatory tools to do it. The second leg is transitioning to alternative fuels, which is harder because in most cases the technology or the infrastructure are not quite there yet (The first eight parts of this series looked into various alternative fuels, and reached a similar conclusion.) The third leg, labeled "VMT" for Vehicle Miles Traveled is the transformation of the transportation system, reducing car usage by providing alternatives and giving people better incentives to use the most effective alternative. From a policy perspective, VMT is the most difficult leg. Reducing VMT requires the policy maker to persuade people to change their habits. This is difficult in a democracy, were citizens and businesses typically oppose policies that require change. Complete Story » seekingalpha.com |
Spartan Motors, Inc. Q2 2010 Earnings Call Transcript Spartan Motors, Inc. (SPAR)Q2 2010 Earnings Call July 23, 2010; 10:00 am ETComplete Story » seekingalpha.com |