plus 4, New-car sales plunge in Hawaii - Honolulu Advertiser

New-car sales plunge in Hawaii - Honolulu Advertiser
IndustrialSAVER Expands Its Offerings For Commercial Glass and Safety ... - PR Inside
Patrol officers to begin fingerprinting stolen cars - San Francisco Examiner
Textile company plans to add 50 jobs in SC - The Sun News
Saab stories, pictures - MSNBC

New-car sales plunge in Hawaii - Honolulu Advertiser

Posted: 22 Jan 2010 07:38 AM PST

Hawai'i new-car sales fell to their second-lowest level in 40 years in 2009, but dealers hope that the market slide may have reached bottom.

Figures provided by the Hawaii Automobile Dealers Association show 33,639 vehicles were sold last year in the Islands as sales of new cars and light trucks shrank by one-fifth compared with the year before.

Dave Rolf, association executive director, said he was told by the group's research firm that only one year had a lower total in the past four decades. He said he did not have the exact year and number available yesterday.

"It's still a precipitous drop from the year before," said Rolf, noting that Hawai'i's car market has been in decline for four consecutive years. The 2009 total was less than half the 70,268 sold in 2005.

The auto industry has been hit hard by the national and local economic downturn, with local dealers shedding about 1,000 employees out of the 5,000 they started 2009 with, Rolf said. The year was marked by ups and downs, with General Motors and Chrysler filing for bankruptcy while the Cash for Clunkers program provided a temporary sales boost.

Locally, Island Chevrolet shut down on the Big Island, leaving Hawai'i County without a General Motors dealership. The sales decline here tracked the drop in car and light truck purchases nationally, which were off 22 percent.

Rolf said the industry is still cautious about this year given recent salary cuts, state government worker furloughs and the upcoming jump in unemployment payroll taxes for employers.

"The first quarter will still be brutal," he said. "Then I think we'll start to see a slow climb out of that hole."

Figures from Auto Outlook Inc., a Pennsylvania firm hired to produce research and forecasts for the local dealer group, show there was a slight increase in sales here during the fourth quarter.

Its data show the number sold rose to 7,896 vehicles, or 87 more compared with the same 2008 period.

Auto Outlook is projecting sales will rise by 9.7 percent this year to 36,900. The firm said there is enormous pent-up demand for new cars and trucks and that new-car affordability is strong.

However, the forecast is lower than what Auto Outlook projected three months ago, when it said the 2010 sales were forecast to rise 12.9 percent in Hawai'i.

Rolf said his dealers are more conservative and are only projecting a 3 percent increase in sales this year.

Even if dealers are successful in achieving the latest Auto Outlook forecast, the number of sales will be below 2008's depressed levels.

Reach Greg Wiles at gwiles@honoluluadvertiser.com.

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IndustrialSAVER Expands Its Offerings For Commercial Glass and Safety ... - PR Inside

Posted: 22 Jan 2010 08:28 AM PST

2010-01-22 17:32:11 - More glass blowers and custom manufacturers every month are using IndustrialSAVER to generate new customers, according to the company

Tucson, Arizona – Some of the most beautiful and unique glass on commercial buildings and homes in the country are found in Arizona and IndustrialSAVER wants to offer such products across the globe. The company, which operates a Business-to-Business marketplace recently launched a new directory focusing on all kinds of commercial, industrial and safety glass at www.industrialleaders.com/listings/glass_fabricating.html According to officials

of the organization, the B-to-B focused site will serve as a platform to connect international buyers and sellers of various glass products.

According to Greg Holmes, spokesman for IndustrialSAVER.com, the publication features and promotes glass blowers and customers manufacturers offering a broad range of glass products for windows, doors, commercial glass, storefronts, automotive, trucks, limousines, military, forklift windshields and other applications at www.worldwideindustrialmarketplace.com/directory/glass_fabricati .. Holmes said products include blown glass from world class manufacturers, large commercial windows, bulletproof glass, industrial safety custom-made glass, skylights, doors and a large variety of other glass products for numerous industries.

"IndustrialSAVER, a division of the Industrial Leaders Group, has made it easier than ever before to find standard or custom made glass from manufacturers and glass blowing specialists across the country and abroad," said Holmes. He concluded, "The site and the ILG network includes an extensive range of metallized, solar, safety, soda lime, oil sight glasses, thermal, boiler tube glass, float and gauge glasses, borosilicate, chemical resistant as well as related products and services for industrial, commercial and other markets." Holmes went on to explain companies interested in any kind of glass can get direct quotes from manufacturers serving their area.

About IndustrialSAVER

IndustrialSAVER is an international online B2B marketplace for companies looking to buy and sell industrial supplies, equipment and machinery. Users are able to post and explore offerings for a wide range of industrial products and manufacturing services and other solutions for the industrial marketplace.

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Patrol officers to begin fingerprinting stolen cars - San Francisco Examiner

Posted: 22 Jan 2010 08:14 AM PST

SAN FRANCISCO — Police officers are being trained to use decidedly low-tech crime-fighting technology to help solve crimes like auto theft: fingerprinting.

There are currently 16 San Francisco Police Department crime scene investigators who regularly go to homicides, burglaries, assaults and other crimes. They not only collect fingerprints, but ballistics information and DNA as well. There are not enough resources, however, to dedicate to lower-level crimes, such as auto thefts.

In a shift in policy, police Chief George Gascón is having patrol officers trained to take fingerprint samples from the thousands of cars that are broken into or stolen every year. Frontline officers have been taking classes at the Police Academy and will continue to in the upcoming months.

By training the patrol force — officers in squad cars that respond to calls — the amount of fingerprint evidence should increase
exponentially.

With more than 5,000 reported cases of auto thefts in The City last year, prosecutors and victims say the policy could help catch criminals.

But some worry that dusting every scene for fingerprints will interfere with more important police work, such as responding to the scene of a violent crime. Gascón said those concerns are valid, and he wouldn't want to take officers away from priority crimes. But as officers are waiting for a truck to tow away a stolen car, or if they respond to a citizen who just had a window smashed, the fingerprinting process would be quick.

"It only takes a few minutes to go over some key points in a car," Gascón said. "And who knows? Maybe three, four, six months later, results will start coming back."

Using fingerprints as identification has been in practice since the late 19th century. In latent fingerprint examination, an officer sprinkles dust over the affected area, brushes away excess dust and takes sticky material such as clear tape to lift the fingerprint.

Jeff Ross, chief of the criminal division of the District Attorney's Office, called the new policy a "major paradigm shift," with benefits for both prosecutors and police.

For new officers, it gives them the chance to practice more comprehensive police work. Young officers are more engaged early in their careers, he said. Prosecutors may not always be able to use the prints, but a smudged or faulty fingerprint can be explained.

"You may not always get evidence when you take prints, but it's hard to explain to a jury why you didn't try," Ross said.

Laurel Fiske, a 28-year-old Mission district resident, has had her 1998 Honda Accord stolen and recovered twice. She called the idea "fabulous," but had her doubts that it would actually happen.

"Considering it's something I honestly don't expect the police to do, to go that extra mile, I'd be pretty impressed if I saw them fingerprinting my car," Fiske said. "I'd at least think they had a chance of catching whoever stole my car."

Gone in 60 seconds

Although police say not nearly all thefts from vehicles are reported, thousands are recorded in police reports every year.

Car Burglaries Auto thefts
2008 12,180 6,206
2009 11,075 5,081

Source: SFPD

bbegin@sfexaminer.com

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Textile company plans to add 50 jobs in SC - The Sun News

Posted: 22 Jan 2010 06:12 AM PST

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Saab stories, pictures - MSNBC

Posted: 22 Jan 2010 05:44 AM PST

Few products recall the bad old days of American cars like the Ford Escort, a vehicle reviewers would euphemistically refer to as "cheap and cheerful."

A stripped-down econobox, Escort had just two selling points: its relatively high mileage and its low price.

That formula fit virtually all the small cars sold here over the decades and, with rare exception, subcompact and smaller products were seen as something to be tolerated rather than aspired to. So, why is Ford betting big on the all-new Focus, the latest heir to the old Escort?

At this month's North American International Auto Show in Detroit, Ford President Mark Fields described the 2011 Focus as a critical shift in direction for the U.S. maker, which sees its future increasingly dominated by small cars, rather than big trucks. And it isn't alone. Cross-town rival General Motors unleashed an assortment of its own downsized models at the show, from the Korean-made Spark minicar to the long-delayed Cruze sedan. And Chrysler is readying its own offerings, including the U.S. version of parent Fiat's 500 microcar.

"There is an opportunity in small cars," that GM hopes to exploit, says the automaker's Chairman and Acting CEO, Ed Whitacre.

Rising fuel prices certainly feed the interest in small cars. Whitacre's predecessor, Fritz Henderson, revealed that GM's operating assumption is that gasoline will eventually level off at somewhere around $4 a gallon and encourage consumers to downsize.

That's certainly happened in Europe, where motorists now pay as much as $8 a gallon and the Ford Focus is billed as a "family sedan," rather than an entry-level offering. But the version offered to consumers in London, Paris and Berlin is a far more stylish vehicle, and much more lavishly equipped. Or, at least it has been.

The 2011 Ford Focus is part of the automaker's new "One Ford" strategy. Rather than develop separate models for each key market — an econobox for North America and a well-outfitted version for Europe — Ford's product development team turned out a single vehicle for sale around the world.

"There are regional differences," notes Derrick Kuzak, the Detroit maker's global product development czar, "but the U.S. version shares 80 percent of its components with the one we sell in Europe."

That approach can shave perhaps as much as a billion dollars off the price tag for developing a new small car and, notes Jim Hall, an automotive analyst with 2953 Analytics, further reduce the price tag by improving economies of scale.

For shareholders, that has the potential to translate into a profit from a segment that has traditionally been a big money-loser for Detroit. And for consumers, Ford promises a more stylish, sporty and well-equipped model that stands in sharp contrast to Escort's basic transportation.

Ford, meanwhile, is counting on a broader shift in attitude by motorists whom it believes are growing tired of the classic American mantra, "bigger is better."

There are some signs of a paradigm shift that isn't bound to fuel prices and affordability alone. Though its sales dropped 16 percent last year, British-made Mini easily outpaced the overall U.S. market and remains a hopeful sign to those who believe the future will be downsized. Better yet, its products command a premium that breaks the classic paradigm in which American automobiles have been priced, to a large degree, by the inch and pound.

For those who believe SUVs will never go away, Mini is aiming to deliver the best of both worlds, this week unveiling the Countryman crossover that is only a wee bit larger than its original offering, the Mini Cooper.

Yet, for all the hope and aspirations of makers domestic and foreign, not everyone is convinced American motorists really will switch, rather than fight the downsizing trend.

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