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How fracking is causing Chrysler minivans to sit on Detroit's riverfront

It's fascinating the way that one change to a complex system can have all sorts of unintended consequences. For instance, there are hundreds of new Chrysler Town and County and Dodge Grand Caravan minivans built in Windsor, Ontario, sitting in lots on the Detroit waterfront because of the energy boom in the Bakken oil field in the northern US and parts of Canada.
The huge amount of crude oil coming from these sites mostly use freight trains for transport, and that supply boom has resulted in a shortage of railcars to carry other goods. According to The Windsor Star, North American crude oil transport by train has gone from 9,500 carloads in 2008 to 434,032 carloads in 2013. Making matters worse, some North American rail infrastructure is still damaged because of this year's harsh winter, and that's slowing things down even further.
Chrysler admits to The Star that it has had some delivery delays due to the freight train shortage. In the meantime, it's using more trucks to deliver its vehicles. Trucking is a far less economical solution, partially because a train can carry so many more units at one time, but alternatives are slim. The Windsor plant alone has a deal for 33 trucks to distribute the minivans around Canada and the Midwestern US.

Man hits 153 mph on I-75 in Dodge Magnum

A man driving in Michigan took his 2005 Dodge Magnum practically to the limit in the wee hours of the morning on May 19 when the Michigan State Police caught him on radar going 153 miles per hour on Interstate 75 near Detroit. The 21-year-old driver was spotted around 3:00 AM, according to The Detroit News. Michigan State Police First Lieutenant Michael Shaw told Autoblog that officers initially saw the man on radar doing 79 mph in a 70-mph-zone, and they started following him. He eventually clocked 153 mph. However, First Lt. Shaw was clear that there was never a pursuit. "Speeding isn't necessarily a reason to put the public at risk," he said. The situation ended rather abruptly, though. The driver pulled off the interstate and behind a building. He remained in the vehicle, and police arrived and arrested him. According to First Lt. Shaw, the man was driving home from work and alcohol wasn't a factor. The Magnum has been impounded, and the driver was charged with reckless driving. Unfortunately, First Lt. Shaw said that he didn't know what engine was in the wagon, but as enthusiasts, we're curious. After all, the 2005 Magnum RT was governed to 130 mph and the SRT8 wasn't unleashed until 2006, which means either the wagon must've been derestricted to hit such high speeds or that police have the year wrong. We'll let you know if we figure that one out...

Does the future of Fiat-Chrysler include Dodge?

Wards Auto reports the future of Dodge is looking uncertain. Fiat has more or less laid out it's game plan for the next few years, and while the Chrysler, Fiat and Jeep lines are set to receive plenty of love, Dodge isn't so lucky. Fiat has already hobbled Dodge significantly by splitting off the brand's trucks into a separate Ram line.
Wards says that after the Avenger rides off into the sunset early next year, Fiat-Chrysler won't replace the model, leaving a gaping midsize hole in the Dodge lineup. The report also cites unnamed sources as saying that at least two other current Dodge products will move to the Chrysler line.
One of those could very well be the Grand Caravan. Chrysler has already made it clear that it plans to trim redundancy between its minivan offerings, but it has yet to clarify which other vehicle could sail under the Chrysler banner moving forward. Either way, such changes to the product line would theoretically leave Dodge with just four models.