Author: Gary Gastelu

During the unveiling of Toyota’s new Avalon sedan at the Chicago Auto Show,the company’s Vice President, Bob Carter, addressed the ongoing issues facing the Japanese automaker, saying, “nothing is more important to us than the quality of our vehicles.”

Carter said that Toyota is confident that they have found the problem causing sticking thr accelerators, and that remedies they have put into affect will work. Later, when asked by reporters if electromagnetic interference could be the cause, Carter said that Toyota has extensively tested every imaginable scenerio and neither it, nor any independent laboratories have found any indication that that could be a problem.

Carter says that all Toyota dealers have now received the parts and training necessary to fix vehicles for accelerator recalls, and that 220,000 have already been repaired, with the work now being done at a rate of 50,000 vehicles per day.

Ford introduced its first ever electric car at the 2010 Chicago Auto Show, though ‘car’ may not be the right word.
The Transit Connect mini cargo van is already on sale in the U.S. with a conventional engine, but the new electric powerplant takes it to a new level. With a range of 80 miles per charge and a recharge time of 6 hours or more, it probably won’t be the vehicle that transforms the industry to battery power, but for fleet operators who work within in small, urban areas, Ford thinks it has a winner on its hands. Pricing was not announced, but it will likely cost in the neighborhood of $50,000 when it goes on sale later this year. Tax incentives and a low operating cost will help offset the premium price. Fox Car Report will be one of the first news outlets to drive the Transit Conn-electric later today, and we’ll have a full feature on it next week.

Against the odds set by the meterologists, the Fox Car Report team has arrived safely in Chicago.

We even landed early. By the looks of things, not everyone else is so lucky.

But luck has a funny way about it, because when we found the space that our rental car was parked in we were amused to see a 2010 Toyota Camry sitting in it. And, as best as we can tell, it has not received its recall work yet.

First hand reporting is the only way to get the story.

The Fox Car Report team is on the way to Wednesday’s Chicago Auto Show…almost.

Despite hundreds of flights having been cancelled already, including the 3pm out of New York’s Laguardia airport, our 2pm flight has now boarded.

We’ll have to wait and see if it actually takes off, or doesn’t get diverted to a less snowy destination en route. Since there aren’t many of those between here and there today, we can ojnly hope for the best.

To find out how we fared, check out www.foxcarreport.com on Wednesday for our coverage from the show.