1955 Coupe Deville 2 Door W/ Air Conditioning on 2040-cars

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BMW reclaims US luxury sales crown from Mercedes

The numbers, they are in: BMW has reclaimed the luxury-sales crown from Mercedes by a margin of 9,347 cars. Mercedes donned the king's headgear in 2013 after a strong final quarter of 2013 when the new CLA and S-Class poured out of dealerships. This year, led by the 3 Series/4 Series and X5, BMW sold 339,738 units – a 9.8-percent increase year-on-year. Mercedes, led by the C-Class and M-Class, saw its sales go up by 5.7 percent to 330,391 units. We'll have to wait a bit to see if there's another registrations-vs-sales challenge as in 2012, when BMW was anointed US luxury ruler. Behind them, a dark horse named Lexus nudged closer to the leading Teutons, selling 311,389 cars. The Japanese luxury automaker also had the biggest gain among the top three, its sales rising by 13.7 percent compared to 2013. Audi had the biggest sales of anyone among the top five, though, with a 15.2-percent gain to 182,011, which moved it a spot ahead of Cadillac; the Wreath-and-Crest brand dropped 6.5 percent to 170,750. Acura (167,843), Infiniti (117,300), and Lincoln (94,474) took the final positions. Speaking of Lincoln, sales at the once-mighty luxury marque stand as the mightiest jump of any on this list, up 15.6 percent. That's the power of Matthew McConaughey... and better cars and a new crossover, sure. So now that we're back to Round One of 2015, in case no one else has said it yet: "Ok, fight!"

Cadillac introducing V2V communications on 2017 CTS sedans

While Audi has introduced vehicle-to-infrastructure technology in select cars in select cities, Cadillac is focusing on vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communications, and it all starts with the CTS sedan. Starting this month, the company will be adding V2V equipment to 2017 models. The feature will be standard on cars in the US and Canada. These V2V devices will allow these new Cadillacs to communicate with each other up to 980 feet away. The cars will be able to transmit and receive information on speed, direction, and location. An example of how this data can be used is in detecting a car coming up a side street that could pose a possible collision risk. The cars will also be able to transmit data about brake use, hazard lights, and low traction situations for advance warning of hazards. The warnings can be displayed on the instrument panel and heads-up display. Currently, the system only communicates with other CTS sedans equipped with the technology. According to Chris Bonelli at Cadillac part of the reason is that the CTS will be the only car with the equipment on US roads at the moment, but it also isn't currently set to communicate with other cars if they were to be offered right away. However, he said that the company is absolutely willing to work with other companies to make the system compatible if or when other cars are offered with the technology. This V2V system also doesn't send data to any sort of network, instead only communicating with nearby cars. For the time being, this precludes the possibility of receiving road condition information from cars that are farther away. But as Cadillac points out, it should work under any conditions with no delay since it isn't dependent on information from a network. As far as security is concerned, Bonelli told us that the Cadillac system does have firewalls and other security measures to keep it protected from interference. He also said the cars don't store any data they receive. In addition, none of the data could be used to identify a particular person. The cars use a radio frequency set aside by the government for this use. The introduction of this technology also puts Cadillac well ahead of proposed legislation by the Department of Transportation. The organization wants this type of short-range V2V communications equipment to be a standard feature by 2023, believing the technology could prevent many injuries and deaths due to crashes. Related Video:

40+ cars that barely avoid the gas guzzler tax

The Gas Guzzler schedule, with mpg ratings and charges that haven't changed since 1991, lays out which fuel-swillers owe what to Uncle Sam.
I started thinking about the "Gas Guzzler Tax" - considerably less well known as The Energy Tax Act of 1978 - when I was driving Dodge's new Challenger SRT Hellcat last week. Unsurprisingly for a car that can burn 1.5 gallons of gas per minute at max tilt, theoretically able to empty a full tank of premium in about 13 minutes, the Hellcat will be subject to the Gas Guzzler Tax schedule when it goes on sale.