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Two teens arrested after participating in viral 'Kia Boys' auto theft WTVC
LENOX — The light is now turning green. A relocation by the Berkshire BMW and Audi-VW dealership from Merrill Road in Pittsfield to Route 7 and 20 (Pittsfield Road) at New Lenox Road has won unanimous backing from the Zoning Board of Appeals.
A series of 4-0 votes on the site plan and multiple special permits for the $14 million project clears the way, although the Conservation Commission still would need to approve the plan, potentially on Tuesday.
There’s also the standard 20 calendar-day appeal period after ZBA Chairman Robert Fuster Jr. submits his written decision to the town clerk’s office at Lenox Town Hall, expected within several weeks.
The site plan includes town-approved demolition of the long-established Different Drummer’s Kitchen store, two vacant houses and several outbuildings on the four-acre parcel at the busy intersection.
At Thursday night’s hybrid ZBA meeting, attorney Jeffrey Lynch, representing the McGee Automotive Group, Hanover-based owner of the upscale dealership, presented some revisions to the project.
The Massachusetts Department of Transportation has now ordered a reduction of Pittsfield Road entrances and exits from two to one curb cut for a single widened access driveway for customers and staff to and from the two adjacent dealership buildings.
A left-turn lane for southbound Pittsfield Road traffic onto New Lenox Road will be maintained. Motorists can enter the dealerships on the access roadway, from the Pittsfield Road (Route 7 & 20) left-turn lane. They can depart, making either right or left turns onto the state highway.
A new driveway from the dealerships onto New Lenox Road will be reserved for larger truck traffic exiting the facility to turn right, queuing up at the existing traffic light for turns onto Pittsfield Road. The gated entrance will require an access code for the one-ton and up trucks and is not available for dealership customers or staff.
A restricted conservation area adjacent to Yokun Brook will be created, per Conservation Commission guidance.
“We’re hoping we’re getting the commission to a comfort level that what we’re proposing is protective of the environment and the riverfront area,” Lynch commented.
Prior to the ZBA votes, member Kimberly Duval called the auto dealership project “well thought-out and well-developed, and it will truly improve this portion of Lenox.”
She suggested that “there’s always a balance between people who want something and people who don’t.” But Duval emphasized that the area is fully commercially-zoned and that the McGee applicants had gone “above and beyond” to satisfy the requests of neighbors opposing the project as well as prior concerns expressed by the zoning board.
“We have a lot of other dilapidated properties across the town in need of new life, and we’d do well to consider business opportunities and the needs of residents from here on out, as we’ve been doing,” Duval said.
Board member Jedd Hall, acknowledging neighborhood worries, also cited commercial zoning and argued that the McGee group and attorney Lynch have been extremely sensitive and responsive to concerns raised by citizens.
“An investment by McGee, considering the time and expense, is super-beneficial for Lenox residents, for employment and creating a flagship store, erasing some of the blight sitting on that corner,” Hall said.
ZBA member Dr. Clifford Snyder called his upcoming vote “a tough decision” since the scope of the project is “very large and complicated.” He listed multiple concerns and acknowledged that arguments in favor of the project outweighed any negatives.
Fuster, the board chairman, voiced sympathy for the nearby condo residents but pointed out that they should know that they live in a commercial zone, “the only place where dealerships can go. … I would prefer this project to the rotting houses that are there,” a reference to vacant structures adjacent to Different Drummer’s Kitchen.
Noting that the Conservation Commission and MassDOT still need to sign off on the project, Fuster predicted that “this will be a good project, and limiting access to New Lenox Road will be beneficial. I hope and pray it succeeds, it’s ultimately beneficial to the town, it’s good for the neighborhood, good for the tax base.”
Earlier in the 90-minute discussion, Fuster acknowledged receiving more than 200 pages of correspondence about the proposal, including a petition, which has been signed by 152 opponents as of Friday afternoon.
During public comment, Pam Tworig, representing the Meisberger family owners of Different Drummer’s Kitchen, said she had been upset by critics “attempting to create fear by misrepresenting or making up issues in order to try to stop commercial development of the real estate.”
She pushed back against suggestions that the auto dealerships would create traffic safety problems at the Pittsfield and New Lenox road intersection.
Tworig — also the real estate agent for Different Drummer’s Kitchen — asserted that the cookware business has had tractor-trailer truck traffic frequently entering and exiting the location for over 30 years with no problems.
Andrew Meisberger, owner of the cookware store, stressed that the parcels sought by the McGee group are in the one-acre commercial zone. He questioned the right of nearby condo owners to oppose development of his and adjacent properties “for the use called for in the town’s master plan.”
Brenda Reed, a part-time resident of the neighboring Rolling Hills condominium development, contended that “these two very large businesses will change the nature of the corner. We’ve been accused of being anti-business, that’s completely false.” She expressed support for other local businesses in the area.
Each repair order cost an average of $132.90 in March 2023, up 5.1% from the previous year and 15.3% from 2021
1 hour ago
Dealership service centers across America are raking in cash for auto dealers and industry-wide, this March was the best in the last five years in terms of revenue. This was achieved despite repair order volumes that were strong, but lower than in previous years.
The service centers at dealerships were busy in March, with an average of 89.4 service orders received last month, a 15 percent increase from the previous month, according to data collected by Cox Automotive.
Despite this increase in service orders, there has been an overall downward trend in repair volumes since 2021. This trend may be a result of the pandemic, which forced owners to repair vehicles when new ones couldn’t be found. As a result, service orders are down 4.3 percent as compared to March 2022, and 8.2 percent as compared to March 2021.
Read: Changing A Bugatti Veyron’s Spark Plugs And Ignition Coils Costs Over $20,000
Although repairs rates are falling, service order revenue continues to rise. Fortunately for dealers, as consumers have needed to visit the dealer less often, each visit has become more expensive, because revenue growth has outpaced service volume shrinkage.
In March 2023, the average revenue for each repair reached $132.90. In March 2022, it was $126 (5.1 percent lower), and in March 2021 it was $112.50 (15.3 percent lower). Meanwhile, in March 2018, the average revenue was just $97.50 (26.6 percent lower).
“The March ticket volume was lower than we have seen in previous years, but higher service costs pushed total service revenue per dealership to a record high for any March in the past five years,” said Jonathan Smoke, Cox Automotive Chief Economist.
That’s good news for dealers, but not so good for drivers. Although it seems that they have to visit the dealership less frequently, it will sting more every time they do.
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With auto scams on the rise, 7News asks a local expert for the tips you need to know WJLA
CLARKSVILLE, TN (CLARKSVILLE NOW) – Arson has been confirmed as the cause of the fire at One Stop Auto Shop early Monday morning, and Clarksville Police are asking for the public’s help identifying the suspect.
On April 24, at approximately 2:20 a.m., the shop at 1345 College St. was set on fire, according to police spokesman Scott Beaubien.
Video cameras captured images of the suspect’s vehicle as it drove through adjacent parking lots.
Anyone with information or additional video footage is asked to contact Detective Wimmer at 931-648-0656, ext. 5227. To remain anonymous and be eligible for a cash reward, submit a tip online at the Clarksville-Montgomery County Crime Stoppers website or call the Tipsline, 931-645-8477.
New proposed EPA emissions targets would require that at least two-thirds of vehicle sales will need to be EVs by just 2032 – less than a decade from now. Powering this massive increase in electrification will require an unprecedented expansion of existing infrastructure and supply chains, and it won’t be cheap.
At the moment, the future of EVs looks bright in the United States thanks to the strict proposed emissions standards, state-level “Advanced Clean Truck” rules, and the major incentives offered by the Biden administration’s Inflation Reduction Act, on top of general global trends toward electrification. But in the present tense, the United States is still far, far away from achieving widespread EV adoption. In 2022, EVs made up just 5.8 percent of the country’s total auto market.
Reaching the kinds of targets set by the EPA will be an immense challenge, but it’s an essential step toward meeting the nation’s emissions goals. At the national level, transportation currently represents the single-biggest source of carbon dioxide emissions. This has a direct bearing on the feasibility of international decarbonization efforts, as the U.S. has the second-biggest carbon footprint in the world, behind China. Related: U.S. Ethanol Producers Seek Sustainable Aviation Fuel Credits
The conversation around decarbonizing the transportation sector is largely focused on trucking. “Although medium- and heavy-duty trucks and other larger vehicles make up less than 5 percent of vehicles on the road in the U.S., they account for nearly 30 percent of the country’s total transportation-sector greenhouse gas emissions,” Canary Media recently reported. “They also spew air pollution that disproportionately harms people living and working near highways, ports, distribution hubs and other heavily trafficked areas.”
Electrifying the United States car and truck fleet won't just be challenging – it’s going to be very, very expensive. Huge investments will have to be made to expand charging infrastructure, prepare the grid for a huge influx of plug-in electricity demand, and shore up supplies of essential primary materials. Much of this onus will fall on utilities, but questions remain about who should actually fund this “make-ready” work. More specifically, the big question is: should the utilities make these massive up-front payments themselves, or should consumers – and particularly heavy vehicles operators – fund the EV transition?
According to a new report from the Environmental Defense Fund, consumers should foot the bill. But they could do so without suffering higher rates, if the transition is properly managed. Utility customers could indeed pay for these “make-ready” costs without suffering from higher electricity rates. “Utilities can invest in charging infrastructure without having a negative impact on ratepayers,” Pamela MacDougall, director of grid modernization at EDF, was recently quoted by Canary Media. ?“It’s beneficial for the fleets, beneficial for the utilities and beneficial for the ratepayers — if it’s done well.”
The EDF’s study of two New York state facilities’ sales to medium- and heavy-duty electric vehicles (MDHVs) found that “socializing the costs of make-ready and distribution system upgrades necessary to meet New York State’s MDHV electrification targets are unlikely to cause ratepayer bills to increase in either of the utility service areas studied, due to being offset by the revenues contributed by MHDVs over the same period.”
In layman’s terms, the study found that if the utilities continue to charge customers under existing utility tariffs, they will have more than enough revenue to fund the “make-ready” costs. It’s a win-win for everyone involved – if everything goes well, that is. Proper planning and careful management will be essential to making sure that consumers and utilities alike benefit from increased charging capacity. This will likely have to include managed charging practices that limit fleet charging during peak periods.
By Haley Zaremba for Oilprice.com
More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:
Haley Zaremba is a writer and journalist based in Mexico City. She has extensive experience writing and editing environmental features, travel pieces, local news in the…
More InfoNew proposed EPA emissions targets would require that at least two-thirds of vehicle sales will need to be EVs by just 2032 – less than a decade from now. Powering this massive increase in electrification will require an unprecedented expansion of existing infrastructure and supply chains, and it won’t be cheap.
At the moment, the future of EVs looks bright in the United States thanks to the strict proposed emissions standards, state-level “Advanced Clean Truck” rules, and the major incentives offered by the Biden administration’s Inflation Reduction Act, on top of general global trends toward electrification. But in the present tense, the United States is still far, far away from achieving widespread EV adoption. In 2022, EVs made up just 5.8 percent of the country’s total auto market.
Reaching the kinds of targets set by the EPA will be an immense challenge, but it’s an essential step toward meeting the nation’s emissions goals. At the national level, transportation currently represents the single-biggest source of carbon dioxide emissions. This has a direct bearing on the feasibility of international decarbonization efforts, as the U.S. has the second-biggest carbon footprint in the world, behind China. Related: U.S. Ethanol Producers Seek Sustainable Aviation Fuel Credits
The conversation around decarbonizing the transportation sector is largely focused on trucking. “Although medium- and heavy-duty trucks and other larger vehicles make up less than 5 percent of vehicles on the road in the U.S., they account for nearly 30 percent of the country’s total transportation-sector greenhouse gas emissions,” Canary Media recently reported. “They also spew air pollution that disproportionately harms people living and working near highways, ports, distribution hubs and other heavily trafficked areas.”
Electrifying the United States car and truck fleet won't just be challenging – it’s going to be very, very expensive. Huge investments will have to be made to expand charging infrastructure, prepare the grid for a huge influx of plug-in electricity demand, and shore up supplies of essential primary materials. Much of this onus will fall on utilities, but questions remain about who should actually fund this “make-ready” work. More specifically, the big question is: should the utilities make these massive up-front payments themselves, or should consumers – and particularly heavy vehicles operators – fund the EV transition?
According to a new report from the Environmental Defense Fund, consumers should foot the bill. But they could do so without suffering higher rates, if the transition is properly managed. Utility customers could indeed pay for these “make-ready” costs without suffering from higher electricity rates. “Utilities can invest in charging infrastructure without having a negative impact on ratepayers,” Pamela MacDougall, director of grid modernization at EDF, was recently quoted by Canary Media. ?“It’s beneficial for the fleets, beneficial for the utilities and beneficial for the ratepayers — if it’s done well.”
The EDF’s study of two New York state facilities’ sales to medium- and heavy-duty electric vehicles (MDHVs) found that “socializing the costs of make-ready and distribution system upgrades necessary to meet New York State’s MDHV electrification targets are unlikely to cause ratepayer bills to increase in either of the utility service areas studied, due to being offset by the revenues contributed by MHDVs over the same period.”
In layman’s terms, the study found that if the utilities continue to charge customers under existing utility tariffs, they will have more than enough revenue to fund the “make-ready” costs. It’s a win-win for everyone involved – if everything goes well, that is. Proper planning and careful management will be essential to making sure that consumers and utilities alike benefit from increased charging capacity. This will likely have to include managed charging practices that limit fleet charging during peak periods.
By Haley Zaremba for Oilprice.com
More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:
Haley Zaremba is a writer and journalist based in Mexico City. She has extensive experience writing and editing environmental features, travel pieces, local news in the…
More Info
NEGAUNEE TOWNSHIP, MI – A Michigan man has died after a workplace accident at an auto parts store in the Upper Peninsula.
Around 10:45 a.m. on Tuesday, April 25, troopers from the Michigan State Police Negaunee Post were dispatched to a first-aid incident at Superior Auto Parts in Negaunee Township, Marquette County.
A 57-year-old employee and Negaunee resident had sustained serious injuries in a workplace accident, police said.
The man was transported to U.P. Health System – Marquette where he died of his injuries, police said.
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The Lotus Emira has only just launched, but work is already advancing on the all-electric model that ultimately will replace it. Currently known only by the internal design code Type 135, the two-seat sports car will be clearly aimed at the bit of the market the British manufacturer is most associated with. Basically, it's an EV successor to the Elan and Elise.
Whereas Lotus plans to engineer its SUVs and sedan in Germany and produce them in China, the brand is developing the Type 135 in the U.K. and intends to produce the model at its longtime home in Hethel, initially alongside the Emira. The sports car will be the first model to use Lotus's new LEVA platform—that's Lightweight Electric Vehicle Architecture—that combines a bonded-aluminum structure with a so-called "chest battery" mounted behind the passenger compartment rather than under the floor. A cast-aluminum subframe behind it serves as the mounting point for the control-arm rear suspension and the motor.
Lotus insiders say the Type 135 will use a single axial-flux motor producing up to 470 horsepower and driving the rear wheels. Power will come courtesy of a 66.4-kWh battery pack. The LEVA platform will also support a brawnier twin-motor, all-wheel-drive configuration, but that's being reserved for a larger and more expensive model.
The Type 135 version will be the lightest and simplest—two classic Lotus qualities. Although the mass of the battery pack means it will weigh more than its gasoline-powered predecessors, the Type 135 is still anticipated to come in at less than 3300 pounds. It will launch as a coupe in 2025, later followed by a roadster.
Renault subsidiary Alpine is also planning to use the LEVA platform as the basis for its next-generation electric sports car, one that the company hopes to sell in the States. Philippe Krief, Ferrari's recently departed R&D boss, will develop that version, so we can experience the same core package in two different guises.
As for the name, that could be hiding in plain sight, given the British brand's need to start every model with the letter E. Add that to LEVA and you get Eleva, which means "to raise" in several Romance languages.
European Editor
Mike Duff has been writing about the auto industry for two decades and calls the UK home, although he normally lives life on the road. He loves old cars and adventure in unlikely places, with career highlights including driving to Chernobyl in a Lada.
Grab your reading glasses and pull up a chair, it's time to look through some pictures of this 1994 Mazda RX-7 and reminisce about JDM styling from the '90s. Sure, there's a dent on the passenger door. And, yes, the paint looks like it just lost a scrum with a sandblaster. On the bright side, the paint still clinging to the bodywork is finished in Mazda's sought after Montego Blue—and it looks incredible.
The 1.3-liter Wankel rotary engine has only amassed 34,000 miles during its 29 years of life. Kept stock, it would have sent a respectable 255 horsepower to the rear wheels through a five-speed manual transmission. However, a previous owner is said to have modified the RX-7 with a Borla cat-back exhaust and a Pettit Racing intercooler as well as added an aftermarket air intake and exhaust downpipe. Along with adding a few ponies to the spunky rotary, these extras likely brought some higher decibels to the engine's howl.
A set of 17-inch Enkei RS-Evolution multi-piece wheels are finished in silver and mounted with Falken FK452 tires that measure 235/40 up front and 265/40 in the rear. The car reportedly spent a lot of its life in warm climates, before being relocated to Pennsylvania by the current owner in 2009.
Inside, the tan leather seats and matching RX-7—branded floor mats pair well with the blue exterior, and look to be in much better shape. Aftermarket parts like an Alpine stereo linked with amplifiers and a subwoofer live in the trunk, and a Viper radar detector has been added to ward off any unwanted attention.
The leather-wrapped steering wheel frames the 180-mph speedometer and, more importantly, the 8000-rpm tachometer. A previous owner added an aftermarket boost gauge to the A-pillar.
According to the seller, the clutch throw-out bearing may need replacing in the near future. A September 1996 entry shows a manufacturer safety recall associated with the brake vacuum hose, but the rest of the Carfax reportedly shows no accidents or other damage and lists history in Florida, Texas, and Pennsylvania through the most recent entry in August 2017.
I've been pining after an FD RX-7 since before I learned how to drive, but for now lusting after these photos will have to do. With a current bid of $10,750 as of this writing, the auction on Bring a Trailer—which, like Car and Driver, is part of Hearst Autos—is set to end on Sunday, April 30.
Associate News Editor
Jack Fitzgerald’s love for cars stems from his as yet unshakable addiction to Formula 1.
After a brief stint as a detailer for a local dealership group in college, he knew he needed a more permanent way to drive all the new cars he couldn’t afford and decided to pursue a career in auto writing. By hounding his college professors at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, he was able to travel Wisconsin seeking out stories in the auto world before landing his dream job at Car and Driver. His new goal is to delay the inevitable demise of his 2010 Volkswagen Golf.
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Banks pull back on auto lending, threatening dealerships NewsNation Now
AFP
Conservative firebrand Tucker Carlson, host of Fox News' most popular show, has abruptly left the network, it was announced Monday, days after the outlet paid a huge settlement to end a defamation case.- The $787.5-million defamation settlement last week meant that neither Fox Corporation chairman Rupert Murdoch nor hosts such as Carlson would have to testify in what was expected to be an explosive trial.
The BMW Mini booth at Shanghai’s auto show—the first since China’s reopening in December—had a nice freebie for attendees: a small tub of ice cream from a local brand.
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But the free snack ended up causing a headache for the German carmaker after a video from the show was posted on Bilibili, a YouTube-like platform in China. The recording shows the staff running the booth telling one local visitor that all the ice cream had been given away. When a foreign attendee arrived, staff suddenly had ice cream on hand.
The incident, which state-run media outlet Global Times reported happening on Wednesday evening, went viral on Chinese social media, with one hashtag “BMW Mini booth accused of discrimination” attracting almost 200 million views on China’s Twitter-like Weibo platform, according to the Financial Times.
BMW Mini apologized on Thursday, saying that “sloppy internal management” and “our staff’s failure of duty” caused “unpleasantness,” in a post to the company’s Weibo account, according to the Financial Times. The company later said that Mini “condemns racism and intolerance in any form.”
A company spokesperson told Fortune that the booth had halted the ice cream giveaway owing to low stock, and the foreign attendee who received one of the last remaining tubs was an acquaintance of one of the hostesses. The company again apologized.
The German carmaker’s shares fell 3.6% on Thursday. By 11:30 a.m. Berlin time on Friday, shares were largely flat.
While other automakers like Tesla have had to deal with public outcry, BMW may have been particularly susceptible to a backlash. Chinese consumers associate the brand with materialistic and stuck-up drivers, noted What’s on Weibo, a publication that tracks and analyzes social media trends in China. Hit-and-runs involving BMW’s cars have also gone viral on Chinese social media, according to the outlet.
China is increasingly a tougher market for foreign automakers, thanks to the increasing sophistication of Chinese brands and underinvestment in electric vehicles. Market share held by foreign legacy automakers fell to 41% in the last quarter of 2022, down from 61% in 2020.
The dominance of local brands is even more stark in the electric vehicle market, where they made up 80% of electric cars sold last year. Legacy automakers, particularly Japanese ones, have been slow to release new EV models, leading Chinese brands as well as Tesla to capture market share.
BYD’s affordable electric cars dominate the market among cost-conscious Chinese consumers, helping the company beat Tesla as the world’s largest maker of electric cars (though BYD’s sales include both hybrids and purely electric vehicles).
Chinese automakers are now confident that the country will overtake Japan as the world’s largest car exporter this year, thanks to electric cars.
Yet the Chinese car market is currently in a slump, with car sales falling 13.4% in the first quarter, according to the China Passenger Car Association. While sales of NEVs (neighborhood electric vehicles) increased, Tesla and Chinese carmakers are currently locked in a price war. (Tesla is engaged in a similar price war in the U.S., with CEO Elon Musk suggesting that he will continue to sacrifice margins in exchange for sales.)
In Shanghai, foreign carmakers took the opportunity to advertise their new electric vehicle models, catching up to the rest of the market. That includes BMW Mini, which is debuting the Mini Cooper SE Convertible. The carmaker claims this model is the world’s first “locally emission-free premium convertible in the small car segment.”
This story was originally featured on Fortune.com
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rest.indah.link MEMPHIS, Tenn. — An 18-year-old has been charged in a string of aggravated assaults and auto burglaries across Shelby Coun...
