General Automotive News
- Thread starter Uwe
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California Wants To Regulate Fun Tires ... <<< Link to motor1.com article
The California Energy Commission (CEC) wants to introduce a law that sets a minimum tire rolling resistance target to help save a claimed $1 billion in extra fuel costs experienced by drivers.Basically, California is trying to set the performance standard for aftermarket tires, which can change almost everything, especially for enthusiasts who use inefficient but grippy high-performance tires.
The CEC wants all tires to meet or exceed the standards of Original Equipment (OE) tires, which are the tires that come with the car when it's brand new.
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Just wait till Orange man says only tires made in freedom land are allowed on the roads...... 
(Link to following article: https://fordauthority.com/2026/07/m...help-prevent-dementia-according-to-new-study/)
Manual Transmission Cars Help Prevent Dementia, According To New Study
By Brett FooteJuly 2, 2026 12:15 pm
The manual transmission is something that used to be quite common in the automotive world, with many folks learning how to drive on that exact type of gearbox. It also used to be pretty rare to find a performance-focused vehicle with an automatic - or, at least, those weren't quite as popular or as quick as their manual counterparts. However, in recent years, manuals have begun dying a slow death, and are quite rare today. That's particularly unfortunate, as a new study has found that row-your-own gearboxes have a big health benefit to provide.
According to Japan's Best Car Web, this new study comes to us from Professor Ryuta Kawashima (who helped develop Nintendo Brain Age games) of the Tohoku University’s Institute of Development, and it found that driving a manual transmission equipped car can actually stimulate the brain's prefrontal cortex in ways that an automatic cannot. Through his research, Kawashima discovered that the physical sequence of rowing through the gears is particularly stimulating for the region of the brain that controls things like attention, decision making, and memory.
Driving a car with that sort of gearbox on a regular basis is even more beneficial, this study found - it provides drivers with a little bit of a "workout" that helps mitigate the effects of aging and also improves cognitive function over a period of time. This is not the case with automatics, the study found, which just aren't as engaging to operate.
Perhaps even more notable is that this sort of activity can even help ward off dementia and other aging brain disorders, which is a major problem across the globe. Trouble is, manuals are becoming increasingly rare in today's world, and currently represent less than one percent of sales among all automobiles - meaning that for those that wish to take advantage of these health benefits, it won't be terribly easy to find a new vehicle that can offer them.
By Brett Foote
Brett's lost track of all the Fords he's owned over the years and how much he's spent modifying them, but his current money pits include an S550 Mustang and 13th gen F-150.
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Great news, VW UK have canned the Golf Diesel, maybe there is hope after all. Next, abandon all high voltage Golf’s and just petrol, keep the EV rubbish for dedicated models.
www.autocar.co.uk
Volkswagen has axed the Golf TDI in the UK. Is this finally the end for diesel? | Autocar
Golf was a diesel frontrunner for decades, but the fuel's market share has all but evaporated
www.autocar.co.uk
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We had photo radar in use around me for years... they made MILLIONS worth of profits... my wife alone got "pinched" several times, and they invoked all kinds of dirty tactics to maximize gains..... the units were usually placed in "school zones" because the posted limits drop down significantly for a very short distance, and they were busting people for speeding in school zones in the evening or middle of the night, because no one slows down to a crawl when there's nothing on the road, school is out, roads are empty and kinds are sleeping, etc....
There was also extensive use of dropping down the speed limit on an open road by ~30% of whatever was posted, just because there would be a church or community center near by.... so you'd be cruising along on a rural road pretty much, and if there was a church in the middle of nowhere, you'd have to slam on your brakes, drive 1/4 mile slow, and then speed up again to the posted limit.....
Thankfully, they've been recently banned..... but there was a lot of public rage due to them... people were smashing the cameras all the time, knocking down the poles they were mounted on, digging up and cutting cables, etc. It was a massive cash cow.
There was also extensive use of dropping down the speed limit on an open road by ~30% of whatever was posted, just because there would be a church or community center near by.... so you'd be cruising along on a rural road pretty much, and if there was a church in the middle of nowhere, you'd have to slam on your brakes, drive 1/4 mile slow, and then speed up again to the posted limit.....
Thankfully, they've been recently banned..... but there was a lot of public rage due to them... people were smashing the cameras all the time, knocking down the poles they were mounted on, digging up and cutting cables, etc. It was a massive cash cow.
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In the UK, pipe cutters are very popular with tax cameras.
Audi Abandons Screen-Heavy Interiors, Brings Back Physical Buttons by 2028
Excerpt from article: The sudden pivot is a corporate admission that the modern trend toward pure touchscreen interfaces has frustrated buyers and cheapened Audi’s previously stellar interior experience, according to company statements released this month.
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As Mrs Crasher says, give me a knob…
When a meteor mashed a Chevrolet in New York << Link to Story <<
I fixed your broken link in your post.
My reaction before I even got to the story is that meteors are worth good money and I bet the owner of that car could sell the space-rock for enough money to get a newer, better car. And indeed if you read the story, that was very much the case.
-Uwe-
392 stolen vehicles worth $28M stopped before overseas export, RCMP says. 
Fraud rings used stolen and fake identities to obtain vehicles before trying to ship them overseas.
Let's do some quick math here: $28,000,000 / 392 = ~$71,500 each on average. They must have been some pretty new, fairly fancy cars.
Then again, this happened in Canada, so perhaps that figure is Canadian Dollars.
-Uwe-
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We are burning about the weight of 1000 bald eagles of GTL a day on the ship I normally work.PSA - Non-disclosed oil changes... why?NOT VW/Audi/Porsche specific.
Thats about 3.9 metric tonnes for the non Americans.
Supplies are becomming a problem because of the damaged pearl plant and Hormuz strait.
Worst case we will start using HVO100.