Port terminal car storage facilities are something a mid-Michigan-raised kid isn’t used to thinking about; even though we have seagoing traffic serving Bay City and Saginaw via Lake Huron and the St. Laurence Seaway, you don’t see foreign car makers moving cars off of ships at local ports. Given the hostility that UAW folks have to imports, it probably wouldn’t be the coolest move to have a large lot full of imports that could be trashed by a laid-off shop rat letting out his inner bezerker.

However, at the coastal ports, terminal storage is common for imports. In some cases, the ports are free-trade zones, where goods are not yet counted as imported and thus not yet subject to tariffs and duties until they leave the zone. Thus, if given the choice of having the inventory sit at the back of a dealer lot or at the terminal, the terminal will make more financial sense, since the firm can hang onto the tariff money a while longer and pocket some interest on it.

Those lots had been full, as the car carriers were staying away in droves; dealers didn’t need the extra inventory with the bad economy. However, with a modest turnaround in economic fortunes, foreign car firms are starting to sell cars again, depleting the stock in the terminal facilities. That is good news for RORO vehicle transport companies, for they will be called upon to bring over some replacement cars to restock inventory.

The creation of excess inventory is often a sign of a recession and the whittling down of said inventory is often a sign of recovery, so the scene of cars moving off the terminal lots is a good sign for car makers and the economy as a whole

Source: http://www.joc.com/node/416500

GM will be keeping car haulers awake at night in Lansing… picking up SUVs from the Delta Township plant, as they have started a third shift at the Michigan plant. Lansing was where Oldsmobile got started, but that nameplate was scrapped by GM in 2004.

Plants in Fort Wayne, IN and Kansas City are adding third shifts as well. The Lansing plant isn’t requiring the hiring of new workers, as GM is absorbing laid-off workers in the Lansing area and from the closed Spring Hill, TN plant which was built two decades ago to make the soon-to-be defunct Saturn marquee.

The Lansing plant is making the Buick Enclave, GMC Acadia and the final batches of the Saturn Outlook; it will be also making the Chevrolet Traverse which was one of cars being made at Spring Hill. While small cars are more eco-friendly and get better press, it’s the bigger crossovers, SUVs and vans that car companies make the bigger profits on; that makes the need for graveyard shifts at GM a good sign for their future.

A third shift will be good for enterprising car transporters, for a two-person team can be kept busy around the clock moving cars if they can pick up loads at night as well as during the day. With the Fort Wayne plant just a two hour drive away from Lansing, the combination could mean a lot of nighttime car hauling in the I-69 corridor; weigh stations in the area will want to check the logs of car haulers to make sure to keep them honest.

Source:http://www.detnews.com/article/20100209/AU...o-hard-hit-area

November first was the ship-date for the Chevy Volt, the first mass-market plug-in hybrid. The Volt will work solely off of batteries for short distances, with the gas engine kicking in for longer hauls; that is good news for car haulers, for it might prove to be a major winner for GM and give a boost to electric cars in a way that soothes the range anxiety fears of car buyers.

One of the negatives of pure plug-in electric cars is that they can only go as far as their battery’s range before needing to get re-plugged in. That limits the car from going to charging station to charging station; even with many cities putting in charging stations in key locations, such tethering is going to feel too confining for many buyers looking for something more than a in-town fleet vehicle.

The combination of a short-range pollution and carbon-free engine (at least with the car proper; the electricity needed to charge it can have its own issues at its source) combined with a conventional engine to get you on longer trips or to places where there isn’t a charging station available will be appealing to quite a few people. The Volt is expected to have a 300 mile range on its gas engines, which is enough to go four hours on the highway between trips to the gas station.

Retail car transporters might be bummed by the Volt, for pure plug-ins will need long distance movers to get it from region to region. However, the Volt will be able to move itself from state to state, which will help GM sell it to a mass audience. With the Prius tainted by its current braking problems, GM has an opportunity to compete with the Volt.

Sources:http://content.usatoday.com/communities/dr...tion-in-nov-1/1
http://gm-volt.com/2010/02/03/the-chevy-vo...s-of-gas-range/

The European Investment Bank loan to Saab Spyker has gained clearance from the European Commission, the primary day-to-day decision-making body of the EU; the EIB has yet to give formal approval, but the powers that be in the EU have now made it clear that they want the deal to go forward and get Saab to start moving cars out of their Swedish plants.

The EIB loans money to firms and projects that will move the EU’s economic and other goals forward. One of those goals is to be environmentally friendly, and the €400 million loan to Saab Spyker is designed to go into R&D on cleaner and more fuel efficient cars. It also doesn’t hurt that the deal allows Saab to stay competitive and in production, which will mean that Swedish and EU GDP will be higher thanks to the loan.

The deal is good for car haulers stateside, since it both strengthens GM, who took preferred stock in Saab Spyker in their sale, and Saab itself, who will continue to give car transporters an extra place in town to deliver cars to. The R&D loan will mean that Saab will continue to be one of the technology-drivers in the automotive industry, which may even translate to innovations that will make their way to trucks in the future.

The Swedish Debt Office and the EIB both have to give final approval, but the EU approval means the path has been cleared for Saab to keep in the car business for the foreseeable future.

Sources:http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-02-0...automobile.html
http://www.autoblog.com/2010/02/08/breakin...ly-wins-eu-app/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Commission

Sanyo and Mitsubishi are working on new vehicle carriers used to transport cars overseas. The ambitious project seeks to install solar panels and lithium ion batteries to store energy collected from the sun. These vehicle carriers are expected to use electric power while in harbor and use diesel for the remainder of the trip. The engineers will face challenges in finding a way to protect the panels from the facts of life at sea, including seagulls and ocean storms.

Critics complain that the cost of such vehicle carriers makes little sense. The amount of solar energy that can be collected with current technology pales in comparison to the energy savings that would result if ships simply slowed down. According to the online magazine, SincerelySustainable.com, if ships cut speed by 10 percent, carbon emissions would be reduced by 23.3 percent. When ships reduce speed by 20 percent, they cut fuel costs in half. The solar panels on the new vehicle carriers are expected to reduce fuel consumption by only 6.5 percent.

But slowing down may not be a viable option for vehicle carriers. Car companies and buyers want their cars shipped quickly. It is unclear if the market will bear a slowdown in delivery time in exchange for cheaper shipping on vehicle carriers. A slowdown in speed would mean a loss of productivity for the Japanese car manufacturers that would use these vehicle carriers.

Still proponents of the technology believe that any reduction in the use of fuel on cargo ships is a good thing. These ships use low grade “bunker fuel” which is a major contributor to global air pollution.