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Updated J.D. Power APEAL study shines on VW Group, Chevy

J.D. Power has just revealed the results of its 2013 APEAL Study, which looks at which brands have the most appealing cars based on sales figures, dealer inventory, brand loyalty, transaction and trade-in prices. The study was revamped for 2013, and places a larger focus on the new tech and infotainment options available to customers. All told, study participants gauged their vehicles on 77 different attributes, delivering a score out of a 1,000 points.
The Volkswagen Group had the greatest success of any corporation, topping the APEAL rankings with the Audi Allroad, Porsche Boxster, Porsche Cayenne, VW GTI and Passat. Chevrolet had the highest number of awards for a single brand, though, with the Avalanche, Sonic and Volt all taking home a prize.
The best brand overall was Porsche, which scored 884 out of a possible 1,000 points. The top Japanese brand was Lexus with a score of 847, while the top American brand was Cadillac, at 841. The best mainstream brand was Ram, which received a very respectable 817. The industry average for this year's study was 795, with 16 brands, all of which were mainstream, falling below the average.

Porsche board members facing another ˆ1.8B lawsuit over VW takeover bid

Back in 2008, Porsche got the bright idea that it could take over Volkswagen in the midst of the worst economic slump since the Great Depression. Ignoring that this was a catastrophic move for the Stuttgart sports car manufacturer that that eventually resulted in it nearly going bankrupt and eventually being taken over by the same company it sought to control, the aftermath has left Porsche Chairman Wolfgang Porsche and board member Ferdinand Piëch in the crosshairs of seven hedge funds that lost out during the takeover and are now seeking €1.8 billion - $2.43 billion US - in damages from the two execs, according to the BBC.
See, investors bet on Volkswagen's share price going down, partially because Porsche said it wasn't going to attempt a takeover. But Porsche was attempting to take over VW, having bought up nearly 75-percent of VW's publicly traded shares. When word broke that Porsche owned nearly three-quarters of VW (which indicated an imminent takeover attempt), rather than go down like the hedge funds bet it would, VW's share price skyrocketed to over 1,000 euros per share, according to Reuters.
Naturally, when you bet that a company's share price is going to drop and it in turn (temporarily) becomes the world's most valuable company, you lose a lot of money, unless you're able to buy up shares before prices jump too much. This led to a squeeze on the stock, which the hedge funds accuse Porsche and Piëch (who are both members of the Porsche family and supervisory board) of organizing.

Cars with the most reckless drivers are full of surprises

Insurify is a site for comparing auto insurance quotes. Because insurance shoppers need to submit information like the vehicles they're driving and the infractions they've compiled while driving those vehicles, Insurify has quite the database of correlations tying certain models to a habit of breaking certain laws. When the site's data analysts decided to compile a list of the top ten models for reckless driving citations in the decade from 2010 to 2019, the ranking contained a few wild entries. The Dodge Challenger making the countdown will surprise precisely zero people. But the Saturn L200? First, a definition: USLegal.com defines reckless driving as "driving with a willful or wanton disregard for safety. It is the operation of an automobile under such circumstances and in such a manner as to show a willful or reckless disregard of consequences." So this list is a caution about particular drivers more than the cars. For a baseline, according to Insurify data, for any random model, 15 out of 10,000 people who drive that model have picked up one citation for reckless driving. Back to that Challenger, then. No shocker for being here, but it's actually number 10, with 44 out of 10,000 Challenger drivers nabbed for a willful disregard of consequences on the road. That's better than the first surprise entry, the Saturn L200, a sedan only on sale for six years, with the least horsepower on the list, and out of production since 2005. The data set put drivers of GM's extraterrestrial sedan at 45 reckless pilots per 10,000 drivers. There are two pickups on the list, the only modern one being the Ram 1500 at eighth, with a rate of 46 in 10,000. Somehow, drivers of the third-best-selling pickup in the U.S. outrun the overwhelming numerical superiority of the best-selling vehicle in the States, the Ford F-150. The other pickup is the Chevrolet K1500 at number five, with a rate of 56 in 10,000. This is not only the oldest vehicle on the list, it went out of production in 2002, before any other vehicle on the list. Between the trucks, the Volkswagen CC slotted in at seven with 47 in 10,000 reckless driving chits, the Cadillac ATS slipped into sixth with 48 in 10,000.  The top four is a bag of unexpected. The Nissan 370Z is the first hardcore sports car on the list at number four, with 61 in 10,000 Z drivers flaunting their Fairladys in the face of Johnny Law.