Recent Gas News/GasBuddy Blog

GasBuddy Blog -- As Memorial Day rolls around, GasBuddy receives dozens of inquiries from the press asking how motorists can save money at the pump. Sure there are things that can make minor differences, but every one wants to know- what's the easiest way to save?

Enter GasBuddy.com. GasBuddy, as you may well know, has been around since 2000, powered by millions of volunteer spotters who report prices and help each other save. ABC Nightline recently approached GasBuddy for several tips they could tell motorists about, and loved the GasBuddy app so much, did an entire story!

Remember to follow local laws and ordinances when using the app, and don't drive distracted! Gas prices matter to us too, but your life is more important!

go to article)

Downstream Today -- A $2 billion pipeline project intended to ship oil from West Texas's booming oil fields to California has failed to pique the interest of several big refiners in the Golden State. The culprit: the growing popularity of railroads.

Kinder Morgan Energy Partners 277,000-bpd Freedom pipeline, proposed in April, would be the first to bring light, sweet oil produced in Texas's Permian Basin to the fuel-hungry Los Angeles market.

That would give refiners in California, which now partly supplement the state's declining oil production with expensive crude imports from Alaska, Ecuador and other far-flung nations, a direct shot at the relatively cheap crude squeezed out of shale formations through hydraulic fracturing. Access to that bountiful crude has already boosted the profi  (go to article)

NBCNews.com -- The 1,112-foot steel truss bridge was built in 1955, and was carrying an average daily traffic of 71,000 vehicles.

The bridge was of a "fracture critical" design, as are 18,000 bridges nationwide, meaning it could collapse if even one part failed.

Even after the bridge collapse that killed 13 people in Minneapolis in 2007, a haphazard system of inspections continued, with federal authorities choosing not to require re-inspection of all the fracture-critical bridges.

In a survey of every state by msnbc.com in 2008, only six states and the District of Columbia said they began to recheck all their fracture-critical bridges.  (go to article)

USA Today -- Toyota has passed BMW in a ranking of the world's most valuable brands.

The list was put together by a keeper of such scores called Brandz.

But it's no time for celebration if you're in the auto industry. Auto brands lag far behind other sectors, especially technology, on the Brandz Top 100 list. For instance, the top three places on the list belong to tech companies -- Apple, Google and IBM. How auto brands fared:  (go to article)

Science Daily -- A new analysis shows that the nation's land and water resources could likely support the growth of enough algae to produce up to 25 billion gallons of algae-based fuel a year in the United States, one-twelfth of the country's yearly needs.

The findings come from an in-depth look at the water resources that would be needed to grow significant amounts of algae in large, specially built shallow ponds. The results were published in the May 7 issue of Environmental Science and Technology, published by the American Chemical Society.
"While there are many details still to be worked out, we don't see water issues as a deal breaker for the development of an algae biofuels industry in many areas of the country," said first author Erik Venteris of the Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest Nationa  (go to article)

Akron Beacon Journal -- A 70-year-old Cuyahoga Falls man was sentenced to eight years in prison following a conviction on his 12th drunken driving offense, authorities said.

Edward A. South, of Highpoint Lane, was sentenced by Summit County Common Pleas Judge Tammy O’Brien.

Last year, on the night after Christmas, South crashed into a pole in the Falls and walked away from the scene. No one was injured, but South was driving on a suspended license at the time and subsequently was tracked by police to a family member’s home.

Prosecutors said he registered 0.087 percent on a blood-alcohol breath test after his apprehension.

 (go to article)

fox -- It's official: Cars really are getting more efficient.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/leisure/2013/05/24/gasoline-diesel-hybrids-and-plug-ins-efficiency-leaders/#ixzz2UE0Ifsaz  (go to article)

marketwatch.com -- As Americans takes to the road this summer, drivers in the Midwest face the biggest shock at the pump. Gasoline prices in their part of the country have shot up well above the national average.

 (go to article)

Cleveland.com -- COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Gas prices have taken a big jump in Ohio and the U.S.

A gallon of regular gas in Ohio was listed at an average of about $3.84 in Monday's survey from auto club AAA, the Oil Price Information Service and Wright Express. That's up 27 cents from last Monday's average.  (go to article)

Detriot Free Press -- The Detroit Three did well on Strategic Vision's 2013 quality study with the Dodge Dart, Ford Fusion and Chevrolet Volt getting the best scores in their respective segments.

For the first time in more than a decade, cars and trucks made by domestic automakers finished first in a a majority of the segments as they won or tied competitors in 12 of 21 categories.

 (go to article)

The Virginian-Pilot -- Virginia's two U.S. senators on Wednesday joined a renewed effort to lift a federal moratorium on gas and oil drilling in the commonwealth's coastal waters.

They also vowed that they wouldn't support the drilling unless Virginia got a significant share of future government oil and gas revenue that, under current law, would all go to Washington.

 (go to article)

The State -- A deal to spend up to $500 million to repair S.C. roads and bridges was approved Thursday by the state Senate.

The deal was made when the Senate voted to spend $50 million a year to repair state roads and bridges. The money would go to the State Infrastructure Bank, which would use it to borrow up to $500 million.

 (go to article)

Bloomberg -- The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries will keep crude shipments little changed into early next month as abundant inventories cap demand, tanker tracker Oil Movements said.
The group that supplies about 40 percent of the world’s oil will ship 23.8 million barrels a day in the four weeks to June 8, compared with 23.9 million in the previous period to May 11, the researcher said in an e-mailed report. The figures exclude two of OPEC’s 12 members, Angola and Ecuador.
“Stock levels in the west are bound to be having an effect,” Roy Mason, the company’s founder said today by telephone from Halifax, England. “So much of the global stockpile build is showing up in the U.S.”
Middle Eastern shipments will slip by 0.6 percent to 17.47 million barrels a day, compared with 17.58 million  (go to article)

24/7 Wall Street via MarketWatch -- To determine the 10 car brands with the most complaints, 24/7 Wall St. reviewed sales figures and information on complaint submissions to the NHTSA published by Edmunds.com for the year 2012, and calculated the complaints made in 2012 per 100,000 vehicles sold by brand between 2005 and 2012. Makes were excluded from the list if complaints figures were not available or if the car brand was no longer actively manufactured and sold in the U.S.—eliminating makers such as Mercury and Saturn. References to the most complained about model are only in reference to complaints made in February 2013.

10. Hyundai (Complaints per 100,000: 27.96)
9. Ford (33.95)
8. Volkswagen (34.52)
7. BMW (36.78)
6. Nissan (38.89)
5. Dodge (39.21)
4. Chrysler (40.78)
3. Smart (56.59)
2. Jeep (69.48)
1. Mini (123.60)  (go to article)

AP via Yahoo! Finance -- The price of oil was knocked lower Friday by a combination of ample supplies and lukewarm demand.

Benchmark oil for July delivery was down 40 cents to $93.85 per barrel at late afternoon Bangkok time in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

The contract fell 3 cents to close at $94.25 a barrel in New York on Thursday. The price sank as low as $92.21 in the morning after weak manufacturing data from China raised questions about the strength of oil demand in the world's No. 2 economy.

The prices of West Texas Intermediate and Brent continue to shift downward "as economic data continues to point to reduced demand against a backdrop of high inventories," said Michael Hewson of CMC Markets.

The American Petroleum Institute had said in a statement Wednesday that U.S. ...  (go to article)

GasBuddy Blog -- The U.S. Federal Trade Commission has given its approval to Tesoro Corp. to buy the BP Refinery in Carson, CA, and the state Attorney General and the California Energy Commission have given the green light too.

According to the AG, the Energy Commission will monitor gas prices, volume and refinery capacity and "a deal" with the company, Reuters reports is said to "provide for safeguards against price spikes."

Tesoro is spending $2.38 billion to buy the BP refinery and its southern California assets. The BP Carson refinery capacity is 266,000 bpd.

With the acquisition the deal will more than double Tesoro's refining capacity in California.

"We are pleased the FTC has concluded its review and we can...  (go to article)

Reuters -- Magellan said on Thursday that the company was "exploring the feasibility" of building a new pipeline to connect its network to its terminals in Little Rock, Arkansas, to move up to 75,000 barrels per day of refined products into the area.

Magellan's announcement comes five weeks before Enterprise Products Partners plans to shut down its 230,000 bpd TE Products distillate pipeline that runs through Little Rock. The line, which carries ultra-low sulfur diesel and jet fuel from Texas through Indiana, will be converted to move ethane from Pennsylvania to Texas to feed petrochemical demand.

Enterprise says flows on the line are too low to justify spending $50 million to modify a parallel gasoline and natural gas liquids pipeline to also carry distillates.

But the Arkansas Attorney General's  (go to article)

Downstream Today -- Canadian and Asian energy companies have begun looking to move oil to the West Coast by rail as new pipeline projects struggle against broad opposition.

Interested traders have approached Canadian National Railway about using trains to get oil to British Columbia ports such as Prince Rupert, Kitimat or Vancouver--or perhaps even the U.S. Pacific Northwest.

Such a project could not be done overnight. Exports would need to flow through a terminal to move oil from tank cars to tankers, and a terminal could only be built if authorized by federal and provincial authorities. CN has no interest in building an oil-port facility, although other companies, including Cnooc Ltd.-owned Nexen Inc., have pursued such plans.

CN expects its oil shipments to reach 110,000 barrels per day this year, and b  (go to article)

The Star Online -- A commodities trader filed suit against BP Plc, Royal Dutch Shell Plc and Statoil in a U.S. federal court, accusing the companies of colluding to fix prices in North Sea Brent crude oil.

Prime International Trading Ltd, in a proposed class-action lawsuit filed in the courthouse in White Plains, New York on Wednesday, accused the oil companies of misreporting prices of trades in the North Sea benchmark, which sets the price of about 70 percent of the world's oil.

The lawsuit comes on the heels of a European Commission probe into potential market abuse involving the reporting of false prices to price-setting agency Platts, a unit of McGraw-Hill. Authorities last week raided the London bureau of Platts and the offices of the three oil majors named in the lawsuit.  (go to article)

San Jose Mercury News -- This may come as a shocker to many Californians, but fewer motorists appear to be using hand-held cellphones as they drive along state highways and city streets.

In a survey released Wednesday by the Office of Traffic Safety, the percentage of drivers using cellphones -- hand-held or hands free -- has fallen from 10.8 percent in 2012 to 7.4 percent this year. The largest drop, 33 percent, was from those holding a cellphone to their ear in violation of state law.

But at the same time, the number of motorists who take their eyes off the road when texting rose to 2.5 percent from 1.7 percent. While that may not seem like a lot, safety officials warn it is a troubling trend especially since it is harder to detect a texting driver who often will hold their phone in their lap and out of sight.  (go to article)

nbcnews.com -- Shirley Bowman noticed the smell after 8 a.m. on June 14, 2012, her 61st birthday. In Baton Rouge, where the petrochemical industry dominates the landscape, foul odors resembling burnt rubber or propane are perennial. But this odor, caustic and potent, seemed especially foul — “like some sort of chemical,” she recalls.

..She soon suspected the cause: A leak of “steam-cracked” naphtha, a liquid mixture of volatile petrochemicals, occurring at the ExxonMobil Baton Rouge petrochemical complex a half mile away.

The leaky valve dumped 411 barrels into the underground system, company records filed with the state show. The liquid traveled a mile before pouring into a separator pit, vaporizing along the way, and releasing tens of thousands of pounds of benzene and other toxic chemicals into the  (go to article)

bloomberg.com -- British Columbia, the Canadian province whose official slogan to its own beauty is “Super, Natural,” is invoking another saying: “No more supertankers.”

That’s potentially big trouble in a nation where oil exports amount to $73 billion annually and the industry employs more than 550,000 workers. It’s also a bad omen for nations, notably China, that have invested billions in Canadian oil projects with expectations that they will one day be able to buy vast quantities of heavy Canadian crude.

To do that means not just pumping it from the vast tar sands -- thought to hold as many as 170 billion barrels -- lying mainly to the east in the neighboring province of Alberta. It also means building pipelines to carry that heavy oil, known as bitumen, west to the coast. From there, fleets of super  (go to article)

Eu observer -- EU energy policy must shift towards diversifying supply, with natural shale gas likely to be part of the mix, EU leaders said at a summit in Brussels on Wednesday (22 May).

UK Prime Minister David Cameron offered robust support for European exploitation of shale gas, telling journalists: "No regulation must get in the way."

"Europe has 75 percent as much shale gas as the US, yet the Americans are drilling 10,000 wells per year while we in Europe are drilling less than 100," he noted.

He added it is "no surprise that over the last decade Americans have increased their energy from shale from just 1 percent to 30 percent, and here in Europe we are now paying twice what the US pays for wholesale gas."

For his part, European Council President Herman van Rompuy said the summit was the "right  (go to article)

AP -- The Detroit automakers are largely forgoing the traditional two-week summer break at their factories and speeding up production to meet buyers' growing demand for new cars and trucks.

Ford Motor said Wednesday that 21 of its North American factories will shut for only one week this summer. That includes the Chicago plant that makes the Ford Explorer SUV and the Mexican plant that makes the Fusion sedan.

General Motors won't idle its factories at all, while Chrysler plans a two-week break at just four of its ten North American assembly plants. Both GM and Chrysler are rolling out critical new models.

The three Detroit car makers traditionally shut factories for 14 days around July 4 to do maintenance and change the machinery for new models. But they don't have that luxury this year.

U.  (go to article)

goskagit.com -- Three rescue boats and several private vessels are on the Skagit River between Burlington and Mount Vernon, attempting to help people who are sitting on their cars in the water after the north-most section of the Skagit River Bridge collapsed this evening.
A reporter at the scene says that the north section of the bridge is entirely in the water.
Rescue crews are at the scene to redirect traffic around the site and look for people still in the river. Traffic is reportedly backed up at several roadways and authorities are in the area attempting to help people out of the water.
Witnesses said they saw three people pulled from the river, and they were taken by ambulance from the scene on stretchers.
When rescuers pulled one man from the roof of his car to dry land, people watching applauded.
 (go to article)

Bloomberg BusinessWeek -- German brewers called on Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government to block the tapping of shale gas by means of hydraulic fracturing, citing industry concerns that fracking could taint the purity of the country’s beer.

The Association of German Breweries, which represents companies including Anheuser-Busch InBev NV (ABI) (ABI) and Bitburger Braugruppe GmbH, rejected the government’s planned legislation on fracking until groundwater contamination can be safely excluded. They said the current proposals are inadequate to protect drinking water and hence risk infringing the country’s 500-year-old law on beer purity.  (go to article)

By Ros Krasny | Reuters – Wed, 22 May, 2013 -- WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The House of Representatives approved a bill as expected on Wednesday declaring that a presidential permit was not needed to approve the Canada-to-Nebraska leg of the Keystone XL oil pipeline, a move that would take a decision on the project away from the Obama administration  (go to article)

Bloomberg -- Marathon Oil Corp. ended talks to sell part of its stake in the Athabasca Oil Sands Project as Canadian oil sands deals languish in the face of low heavy crude prices and competing U.S. shale investments.

The announcement comes after ConocoPhillips said last month its effort to sell stakes in Canadian oil-sands assets may stretch into 2014.

A lack of pipelines from Alberta’s oil sands is depressing prices for Canadian heavy crude, which today were $20 a barrel less than West Texas Intermediate.

Prospective buyers of oil-sands assets aren’t worried about “short-term” issues such as lower prices for Canadian heavy oil, Andre De Leebeeck, vice president of investor relations for Calgary-based Athabasca, said in a phone interview today. “Long term, oil sands are competitive.  (go to article)

Financial Post -- AB’s bitumen growth prospects could slow on shortages of a much lighter product as companies opt to send crude directly to refineries on the U.S. Gulf Coast and in Asia rather than process the stuff at home.

Demand for diluent, industry slang for super-light oil that is blended with bitumen so it can flow in pipelines, is poised to skyrocket as companies such as Imperial Oil and Suncor balk at building hugely expensive upgrading plants that convert raw production into a refinery-ready oil.

The reluctance to invest in costly processing comes with oil sands output projected to double to 3.8 M bpd by 2022. That could push demand for diluent from about 330,000 bpd last year to roughly 935,000.

Bitumen is too thick to flow by itself. It must be blended with a lighter hydrocarbon in 3 to 1  (go to article)

Reuters -- The Portland-Montreal pipeline - principally owned by top Canadian oil refiners Suncor Energy, Imperial Oil, and Royal Dutch Shell - has already spent about $6.5 million to prepare for a reversal of the line so it can carry heavy oil sands crude from Quebec to Maine's biggest city, according to regulatory filings from 2011. The pipeline now mainly carries imported crude to Canadian refineries.

"...we are currently operating under capacity, and looking for every opportunity to maximize use of our assets, including reversal," he said of the pipe, which was designed to move as much as 240,000 barrels per day.

Canadian pipeline company Enbridge... has proposed reversing its 'Line 9' pipeline between Sarnia, Ontario, and Montreal, to get Alberta oil sands crude into Quebec.  (go to article)

Common Dreams -- Internal ExxonMobil documents obtained through an Freedom of Information Act request by Greenpeace shows that the oil giant misled the public about the degree to which the spill of more than 200,000 galllons of tar sands oil in Arkansas had contaminated local waterways.

Following the rupture of the Pegasus pipeline in the town of Mayflower on March 29, area residents were increasingly concerned that Lake Conway had been contaminated. Despite overwhelming evidence that tar sands oil was in the lake, ExxonMobil publicly said this was not the case.  (go to article)

The Fool -- Last week the Energy Department announced that it has conditionally authorized the Freeport LNG project to export natural gas to countries that do not have a free trade agreement with the U.S. This marked the second such authorization, and it also likely paves the way for additional approvals in the future. As we ramp up our export capacity over the next few years I see the following five natural gas stocks as those likely to be the biggest winners.  (go to article)

Fox Business -- General Motors (GM) revealed Thursday that its newest electric vehicle, the Chevrolet Spark, will cost 38% less than the larger Volt hybrid, beating most of its competitors on price.

The Spark will sell for as low as $19,995 after taking into account a federal tax credit of $7,500, the automaker said. Chevrolet’s Volt, which launched in the fall of 2010, sells for about $32,500 including the tax credit.

When the 2014 Spark EV goes on sale next month in California and Oregon, it will become one of the least expensive electric cars on the market. Nissan’s all-electric Leaf has a price tag of $28,800 before federal tax savings, while Toyota’s plug-in version of its Prius starts at $32,200.

California residents who purchase the Spark EV could qualify for an additional $2,500 in state tax cr  (go to article)

Fox Business -- The rapid increase in U.S. shale oil production, which is expected to give the nation energy self-sufficiency by the end of this decade, is having a far-ranging impact that has spread to other industries.

Oil production in the U.S. has soared amid successful shale plays in North Dakota, Texas and elsewhere. Earlier this year, the Energy Information Administration said production would soon exceed oil imports for the first time since February 1995.

A report Tuesday from Standard & Poor’s said the shale energy boom is an increasingly central part of economic growth, coupled with the housing recovery. The report noted that Bentek Energy, another unit of McGraw Hill Financial (MHFI), projects U.S. energy independence — when exports are greater than imports — by 2017.

 (go to article)

GasBuddy Blog -- Forecasters at NOAA released guidance on what they expect for 2013's hurricane season, with seven to 11 hurricanes expected. A normal year averages six named hurricanes.

Hurricane season begins in just over a week, and with the recent forecast release, motorists should be prepared for possible impacts that major storms may have on gasoline prices.

Ever since Katrina hit back in 2005, gasoline prices have become seemingly more sensitive to major storms and hurricanes, likely because of the extensive damage that Katrina inflicted with the direct hit of a major refining and oil production hub.

Last year, Hurricane Sandy again reminded us that gasoline prices and supply is vulnerable to a major storm.

go to article)

Downstream Today -- Valero Energy will invest as much as C$200 million in its Quebec refinery if Enbridge proceeds with its plan to reverse its Line 9 pipeline, a project one Quebec business leader described Wednesday as critical to the province's refining and petrochemical industry.

In a presentation to analysts, Valero CEO Brian Klesse said the company has committed to take "substantial volume" of light crude from Enbridge's Line 9, which, subject to regulatory approval, will be reversed to bring oil from western North America to Montreal. Valero will then deliver the crude from Montreal to its refinery near Quebec City by company-owned ships down the St. Lawrence.

Valero is expanding the 265,000-bpd refinery's ability to receive western crude by rail and will import up to 50,000 bpd from Texas's prolific  (go to article)

Upstream Online -- A Canadian rail line shuttered by a Tuesday spill has been reopened, Canadian Pacific Railway confirmed to Upstream.

Meanwhile, cleanup continues at the site, which saw some 575 barrels of crude oil spilled after five cars derailed near Saskatchewan, the railroad said Wednesday.

"The majority of the product that leaked out of the one tank car has been recovered," spokesman Ed Greenberg told Upstream.

Tuesday's incident was the third spill for Canadian Pacific in the past two months.

One of the company's trains derailed near Parkers Prairie, Minnesota, in late March which resulted in 360 barrels of Canadian crude, while less then a week later 400 barrels of crude were spilled when a train carrying crude tankers and other freight cars derailed in northern Ontario.
 (go to article)

AP -- General Motors Co. is recalling more than 27,000 Cadillac SUVs worldwide because the wheels can fall off.The company says the recall affects the 2013 Cadillac SRX with 18-inch wheels. Canadian safety regulators say the wheel nuts may not have been tightened enough at the factory.GM says the problem hasn't caused any crashes or injuries, and no wheels have fallen from vehicles.Dealers will rotate tires and tighten the nuts at no cost to the owners.The recall affects almost 19,000 SUVs in the U.S. and another 913 in Canada. The rest were exported to other countries.  (go to article)

RNN -- A British woman tweeted about how she hit a cyclist with her car and then drove off without helping him. But then the cops tweeted back.

MOREAdditional Links
Emma Way, who goes by the Twitter handle @emmaway20, tweeted: "Definitely knocked a cyclist off his bike earlier – I have right of way, he doesn't even pay road tax! #bloodycyclists"

The tweet got out to enough people that it eventually made its way to the local police, who politely demanded that she turn herself in.

"@emmaway20 we have had tweets [referencing a Road Traffic Collision]. We suggest you report it at a police station ASAP if not already & then [direct message] us."  (go to article)

Tesla Motors -- By Bill Cawthon
Today, Tesla Motors issued a press release saying saying the company had wired 4451.8 million to the government and had paid off the entire loan it had received from the Department of Energy’s Advanced Technology Vehicle Manufacturing loan program. In the announcement, the company said, “ Tesla will be the only American car company to have fully repaid the government.”

Gualberto Ranieri, Chrysler group’s Senior Vice President of Communications , was quick to put the record straight:

Posting on the Chrysler blog, Ranieri said, “The information is unmistakably incorrect. It’s pretty well-known that almost exactly two years ago – May 24, 2011 – Chrysler Group LLC repaid (in full and with interest) U.S. and Canadian government loans more than six years ahead of schedule.

 (go to article)

CBS -- WASHINGTON — House Republicans pushed through a bill Wednesday to bypass the president to speed approval of the Keystone XL oil pipeline from Canada to Texas. Democrats criticized the legislation as a blatant attempt to allow a foreign company to avoid environmental review.

The bill was approved, 241-175, largely along party lines.

Republicans said the measure was needed to ensure that the long-delayed pipeline, first proposed in 2008, is built.  (go to article)

Reuters -- Nissan Motor Co Ltd will recall about 841,000 vehicles worldwide including the Micra compact car, also known as the March, as a result of a steering wheel glitch, Japan's No.2 automaker said on Thursday.

Nissan is recalling certain models of the Micra compact car produced in Britain and Japan between 2002 and 2006, as well as the Cube, produced in Japan around the same period.
 (go to article)

NPR -- Three years ago President Obama's green energy loan program gave a $455 million federal loan to electric car maker Tesla. Critics bashed the loan as risky. On Wednesday, Tesla announced it had paid that loan back in full – and early.  (go to article)

BBC -- The market there is very small so whose surprised?

US car giant Ford Motor will shut all its Australian manufacturing plants by October 2016, after more than 85 years of making vehicles in the country.

About 1,200 workers are expected to lose their jobs from the Broadmeadows and Geelong plants, in Victoria state.  (go to article)

MarketWatch -- Domestic brands have the most American-made content in the U.S. according to a new index released by American University’s Kogod School of Business. Professor Frank DuBois, a global supply chain management expert, led the analysis, which considered not only where each vehicle’s parts were produced, but also the location of the manufacturer’s headquarters and other details, all in an effort to help consumers buy American. Several vehicles ended up with tied scores, resulting in multiple winners for each position.

1. GMC Acadia (3-way tie)
1. Buick Enclave
1. Chevy Traverse
2. Dodge Avenger (2-way tie)
2. Ford F-series pickup
3. Chrysler 200
4. Jeep Compass, Patriot and Wrangler
5. Chevrolet Corvette (4-way tie)
5. Chevrolet Equinox
5. Ford Mustang
5. GMC Terrain
 (go to article)

MarketWatch -- Weak Chinese manufacturing data and a drop in Asian stocks helped send oil futures lower in electronic trade Thursday.

Crude for July delivery fell over $1 or 1.2% to $93.18 a barrel, after preliminary results from HSBC’s monthly survey of Chinese factory activity showed an unexpected contraction.

London-traded Brent crude oil for July delivery surrendered 91 cents, or close to 1%, to $101.69 a barrel.

HSBC’s “flash” Purchasing Managers’ Index for May fell to a seven-month low of 49.6, down from April’s final reading of 50.4. Asian stocks fell sharply after the data, with the main indexes in Hong Kong, Sydney and Taipei all more than 1% lower.

In Japan, volatility in the government bond market prompted central-bank action and sent the Nikkei Stock Average tumbling 7.3% by the close ...  (go to article)

LA Times -- Ford Motor Co. is expanding its production capacity to take advantage of the shift in buyer sentiment toward smaller cars and SUVs and for F-series truck sales spurred by the housing market recovery.

Ford said it will increase production by about 200,000 vehicles to 3.4 million this year. Part of that expansion will take place at the automaker's Flat Rock, Mich., assembly plant, which will be adding workers and shifts to meet strong demand in California and the West Coast.

Ford said California has become its fastest growing market for sales of its Fusion midsize sedan, which have climbed by 118% in the state through April, up to 7,000 cars.

Ford will be adding about 3,500 entry-level workers as part of the expansion.

 (go to article)

GasBuddy Blog -- 'Milennials' (everyone born between 1980 and 2000) are having a significant impact on transportation these days because researchers are intrigued by their attitudes toward driving and other things too.

If you listen to this group, the “driving boom is over,” or so says a new study of American attitudes towards the automobile.

After decades of adding more cars to their household fleet while moving further and further out into the suburbs, Americans are waiting longer to get licensed, driving less and increasingly turning to alternatives such as mass transit or car-sharing programs, according to a new study by the U.S. Public Research Interest Group, or PIRG.

A recent report from the Detroit Bureau says that...  (go to article)

Detroit Free Press -- It's hard to imagine a more painful mistake than accidentally pumping gasoline into the tank of a diesel car, resulting in costly engine damage. Now Volkswagen is taking steps to make sure it never happens.

The leading maker of diesel cars in the U.S. plans to retrofit 209,500 cars with barriers to make sure motorists can't mistakenly pump gas into their tanks, Automotive News reports. The service action will cover 209,500 cars in the U.S. built between 2009 and 2012. It includes the diesel versions of Jetta, Golf and Jetta SportWagen.

Automotive News obtained a memo from VW to its dealers in which its notes that more misfueling incidents have occurred as diesels have become more popular. And it tired of being in the bad-guy role since such mistakes aren't covered by warranty ...  (go to article)

cleantechnica.com -- A new study from Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) estimates that the US could support the production of up to 25 billion gallons of algae biofuel annually. That accounts for a whopping one-twelfth of the nation’s current needs and it could prove even more significant if electric vehicles replace liquid-fuel vehicles in greater numbers, which seems likely.

As always, though, there’s a catch. Although the PNNL estimate is based on available land and water resources, the booming natural gas industry is already sucking water from critical areas at an increasing rate. If you’ve ever seen the animated short Bambi Meets Godzilla, you’ll have some idea of what the nascent algae biofuel industry is up against.

The new PNNL algae biofuel study focused primarily on the potential for gro  (go to article)

Houston Business Journal -- Houston-based Halliburton Co. (NYSE: HAL) has deployed almost 100 light-duty compressed natural gas trucks at several of its U.S. operations.
The trucks were recently purchased as part of a pilot program, which Jim Brown, Halliburton’s western hemisphere president, said would provide a wealth of information about how to implement a broader adoption of CNG light-duty vehicles across the company.
“There is considerable focus across the industry to identify multiple ways to leverage this abundant, reliable and cleaner-burning source of energy in day-to-day operations,” Brown said in a statement. “The fleet of CNG vehicles is one more example where Halliburton is leading among oil and gas services companies regarding the use of American natural gas.”

YouTube video, “The Right Fuel for Today,  (go to article)